Senior Seminar Psychology Exam

rhodopsin (rods)

Functions better in dim light

poor detail vision

does not distinguish color

located mostly in the periphery of retina

receptive field is large

Contributes to light sensitivity

Cones

function best in bright light

poorly or not at all in dim light

Good detail vision

distinguishes among colors

located mostly in the fovea and surrounding area

receptive field is small and contributes to detail vision

accommodation

the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina

cochlea

a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses

Three parts of the ear

outer ear, middle ear, inner ear

basiliar membrane

a structure in the inner ear that undulates when vibrations from the ossicles reach the cochlear fluid

3 bones of ossicles

malleus (hammer), incus (anvil), stapes (stirrup). The smallest bones in the entire body!

sound localization cues

Interaural time difference; Interaural level difference; Doppler effect

Thermoreceptors

nerve fibers that sense cold and warmth

Principles of neural representation

Left half of the body is represented by the right half of the brain and vice versa

More of the visual brain is devoted to the fovea where visual acuty is the greatest

"What" and "Where" pathways

The Dorsal "where/how" Stream: Motion recognition, where something is in relation to yourself

The Ventral "what" Stream: Object recognition, facial recognition

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

An amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface. These waves are measured by electrodes placed on the scalp. An electronic amplifier detects the combined electrical activity of all the neurons between two neurons

Types of brain waves

alpha waves

beta waves

theta waves

delta waves

Amygdala

A limbic system structure located near the lateral ventricle in each temporal lobe that is involved with primarily negative emotions and with sexual behavior, aggression, and learning, especially in emotional situations

Stages of sleep

Drowsy: alpha waves

Stage 1: Theta Waves

Stage 2: Sleep Spindles; k complexes-large sharp waves

Stage 3 and 4: slow-wave sleep(characterized by large, slow delta waves at frequency 1 to 3hz)

Rem sleep: fast and random, highly active amygdala, motor cortex is activated but spinal neurons are inhibited

Sleep deprivation can lead to memory problems , excessive aggression, slow wave deprivation causes more physical effects such as fatigue and hypersensitive bone and muscle pain

5 major characteristics of dream consciousness

Intense Emotion

Dream thought is illogical

Sensation is fully formed and meaningful

Uncritical acceptance

We have difficulty remembering the dream when its over

Galvanic skin response (GSR)

an increase in the electrical conductivity of the skin that occurs when sweat glands increase their activity

James-Lange Theory

the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli

Cannon-Bard Theory

the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion

two-factor theory

Schachter and Singer's theory that emotion is determined by two factors: physiological arousal and cognitive labeling

occipital lobe

A region of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information

parietal lobe

A region of the cerebral cortex whose functions include processing information about touch.

temporal lobe

A region of the cerebral cortex responsible for hearing and language.

frontal lobe

A region of the cerebral cortex that has specialized areas for movement, abstract thinking, planning, memory, and judgement

Psychology Professions

Counseling Psychologist

Social Psychologist

Clinical Psychologist

Guidance Counselors

Social Workers

Clinical Mental Health Workers

Psychology

the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

psychodynamic approach

an approach that regards personality as formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness-motives that can also produce emotional disorders

Behavioral Perspective

effects of environment on the overt behavior of humans and animals; only observable events (stimulus-response relations) can be studied scientifically.

cognitive perspective

A psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving, and other areas of behavior

Humanistic Perspective

the "third force" in psychology that focuses on those aspects of personality that make people uniquely human, such as subjective feelings and freedom of choice

Greek Philosophers

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

Functions of the Unconcious

William James, Sigmund Freud

Followers of Freud

Carl Jung

Karen Horney

Alfred Adler

Erik Erikson

... were followers of Freud who developed their own versions of psychoanalytic theory. Compared with Freud, they all had more optimistic views of humanity and saw personality as being more changeable throughout the lifespan. Also saw people as motivated and influenced by a growth instinct, by a striving for superiority, or by social factors, rather than primarily sensual urges.

Correlation

A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other.

double-blind study

An experimental procedure in which both researchers and participants are uninformed about the nature of the independent variable being administered.

control group

In an experiment, the group that is not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.

independent variable

The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

dependent variable

The measurable effect, outcome, or response in which the research is interested.

Placebo

an inert substance that participants believe is a treatment

placebo group

A control group of participants who believe they are receiving treatment, but who are only receiving a placebo.

experimental design

A design in which researchers manipulate an independent variable and measure a dependent variable to determine a cause-and-effect relationship

Social Schemas

a general knowledge structure, stored in long-term memory, that relates to social experiences or people

Social Attribution (causal attribution)

linking an event to a cause, such as inferring that a personality trait is responsible for a behavior

atttribution theory

an umbrella term used to describe the set of theoretical accounts of how people assign causes to events around them and the effects that people's causal assessments have

Solomon Asch

1951 line experiment involving lying confederates and a subject who 35 % of the time conformed to the group even though they knew it was the wrong answer

Milgram Study

experimenter told teacher to ask learner a question, if wrong electrical charge was administered; many teachers conformed to authority of experimenter

obedience studies

Participants in these studies are caught in a conflict between normative social influence and moral imperatives.

cognitive dissonance theory

maintains that inconsistencies among a person's thoughts, sentiments and actions create an aversive emotional state(dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency

Yale Attitude Change Approach

The study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages, focusing on the source of the communication, the nature of the communication, and the nature of the audience

bystander effect

the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

Group

a collection of any number of people 'as few as two' who have some form a relations to each other that have made them interdependent in some way

social facilitation

improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others

social loafing

the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

Groupthink

the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives

social cognition

how people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgments and decisions

classical conditioning

a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone.(Pavlov)

operant conditioning

a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher

Bandura's Social Learning Theory

Emphasizing learning through observation, vicarious learning and modeling

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

In this experiment children watched a model attack a doll and then the children were put in a room with toys including the same doll and children it was found that the kids who watched the model were much more likely to imitate the actions.

self-efficacy

An individual's belief that he or she is capable of performing a task.

semantic encoding

the process of relating new information in a meaningful way to knowledge that is already stored in memory

visual imagery encoding

the process of storing new information by converting it into mental pictures

Organizational Encoding

the process of categorizing information according to the relationships among a series of items

Retention of information improves when

the person repeats and manipulates it

transience

forgetting what occurs with the passage of time

absentmindedness

a lapse in attention that results in memory failure

Blocking

a failure to retrieve information that is available in memory even though you are trying to produce it

memory misattribution

assigning a recollection or an idea to the wrong source

suggestibility

the tendency to incorporate misleading information from external sources into personal recollections

Bias

prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

persistence

the intrusive recollection of events that we wish we could forget

Freud's structure of personality

id, ego, superego

Id

contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification

ego

the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

super ego

Freud; "moral watchdog"; governs behavior by reality and morality, often taught by parents, church and/or community; standards develop through interaction; conscience; ego ideal

Big Five Personality Traits

neuroticism

extroversion

openness to experience

agreeableness

conscientiousness

Social Needs (Maslow)

The needs for love, companionship, and friendship-the desire for acceptance by others

Ericsons stages of develpment are classified as:

Psychosocial Development in 8 separate stages.in which a crisis or task must be addressed.

Erickson's stages

trust vs mistrust

autonomy vs shame and doubt

initiative vs guilt

industry vs inferiority

identity vs role confusion

intimacy vs isolation

generativity vs stagnation

integrity vs despair

Stages of prenatal development in order

Germinal

embryo

fetus

Zygote

the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo

germinal stage

the 2-week period of prenatal development that begins at conception

embryonic stage

The second stage of prenatal development, lasting from two weeks until the end of the second month.

fetal stage

The third stage of prenatal development, lasting from two months through birth.

Piaget's stages of cognitive development

sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

sensorimotor stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

preoperational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic

concrete operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events

formal operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts

attachment styles

secure, avoidant, anxious/ambivalent

anxious attachment

attachments marked by anxiety or ambivalence. an insecure attachment style

secure attachment

attachments rooted in trust and marked by intimacy

avoidant attachment

characterized by child's unresponsiveness to parent, does not use the parent as a secure base, and does not care if parent leaves

Piaget theory of moral development

*Piaget believed children's moral judgments develop in two overlapping stages

*Moral realism and Autonomous morality

heteronomous morality (Piaget)

The first stage of moral development in Piaget's theory, occurring at 4 to 7 years of age. Justice and rules are conceived of as unchangeable properties of the world, removed from the control of people.

autonomous morality

In Piaget's theory of moral development, the stage at which a person understands that people make rules and that punishments are not automatic.

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

Developing children progress through a predictable sequence of stages of moral reasoning (preconventional, conventional, postconventional).

preconventional morality

first level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development in which the child's behavior is governed by the consequences of the behavior

conventional morality

second level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development in which the child's behavior is governed by conforming to the society's norms of behavior

postconventional morality

third level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development in which the person's behavior is governed by moral principles that have been decided on by the individual and that may be in disagreement with accepted social norms