Psych 202

Chapter 10:

  • Phonemes:

    • Speech sounds

  • Morphemes

    • The smallest component of speech that carries meaning

  • Basic definition of grammar

    • Combining morphemes into phrases and sentences using rules

  • difference between production and comprehension

    • Production:

      • Ability to use language

    • Comprehension:

      • Ability to understand language

  • Important milestones of language development

    • Comprehension develops before production

    • Babbling: 4-6 months

    • First words: 10-12 months

    • Vocabulary of 30-50 words: 18 months

    • Use of basic grammar: 18-24 months

  • Babbling

    • Experimentation with sounds of language

    • Production of phonemes

    • No grammar rules

    • Repetition

  • Do animals babble?

    • Yes, evidence of animals babbling (birds, monkeys, bats)

  • Sensitive period for language and importance

    • 7 months in utero - 6 years

    • Critical exposure to language (easier to learn language)

  • How we know sensitive period starts before birth:

    • Hearing by 30 weeks of gestational age

  • Without being exposed to language during sensitive period

    • Feral children

  • Importance of social interaction:

    • Social interaction helps infants computational learning

  • Three different theories of language development:

    • Behaviorist

      • Language learning through operant conditioning

    • Nativist:

      • Learning language is an innate capacity

    • Interactionist:

      • Interaction of innate ability and social interaction

  • Adult language learning

    • Attentional interference

      • Leads to decrease in performance and more mistakes

    • Inhibition

      • Actively suppressing irrelevant information

  • Reversed dominance effect

    • Better in non-dominant language when using mixed languages due to inhibiting their dominant language (common in bilinguals)

  • Aphasia

    • Wernickes

      • Affects comprehension

      • Speech is fine, but is mostly nonsense

    • Brocas

      • Affects speech

      • Can still understand what is being said

    • Anomic

      • Problem with word finding

  • Stuttering

    • Symptoms:

      • Repetition

      • Prolongation of sounds

      • Blocks

    • Potential causes

      • Genetics

      • Feeling embarrassed or anxious about speaking out in front of peers

  • Dyslexia

    • Learning disorder

    • Difficulty with reading

  • Koeser Et Al (2015)

    • Independent variable

      • Language type

    • Dependent variable

      • Fill-in-the-blank task

      • Used either gender fair or masculine terms

    • Results

      • Gender differences

      • Differences after Ps made aware of gender terms

  • Visual languages like ASL are processed similarly to verbal languages

  • Whorf’s linguistic relativity hypothesis

    • A person with a richer vocabulary will think differently about a topic than someone who doesn’t know much about it (ex: a skier with snow vs someone raised in a tropical climate)

    • Predicts that using gender-free words decreases discrimination and gender stereotyping

  • Statistical learning

    • Infants pay attention to the frequencies of each type of sound that they hear

  • Overlap to process multiple languages

    • Uses same set of brain areas and networks

Chapter 11:

  • Schema:

    • Structured cluster of concepts on how the world works

  • Assimilation vs accommodation:

    • Assimilation:

      • Incorporation of new learning into an existing schema without the need to revise schema

    • Accommodation:

      • Incorporation of new learning into an existing schema that requires the revision of the schema

  • Piaget’s four main stages of cognitive development:

    • Sensorimotor:

      • Birth- 2 years

      • Interaction with environment

      • Object permanence

    • Preoperational:

      • 2-6 years

      • Egocentrism

      • No conservation

    • Concrete operational:

      • 6-12 years

      • Internal mental operations, but concrete (not abstract)

      • Hands-on learning best

      • Conservation (quantity remains the same even when appearance changes)

    • Formal operational:

      • 12+ years

      • Abstract concepts

      • Problem solving that goes beyond trial and error

      • “What if” questions

  • Criticism of Piaget’s theory

    • Reduced focus on individual difference

    • Abrupt stages vs. gradual and continuous

    • Mechanisms for moving to a new stage?

  • Theory of Mind (TOM)

    • Extends Piaget’s concept of egocentrism

    • Emerges at 3-4 years

  • False belief (Sally Anne test)

    • Tests cognitive ability to attribute false beliefs to others

  • Temperament

    • Individual differences in patterns of moods, activity, and emotional responsiveness

  • Kagan’s test of reactivity

    • Predictive of temperament later in life, especially shyness

  • Attachment

    • Connect between infant and parent

  • Four different attachment patterns:

    • Secure

    • Avoidant

    • Anxious-ambivalent

    • Disorganized

  • Harlow’s test of attachment on monkeys

    • Would choose the cloth monkey over wire monkey with food

  • Reactive Attachment Disorder

    • Affects child’s ability to form attachments with parents

    • Caused by neglect between critical period for attachment (birth-5 years)

  • Two dimensions of parenting styles

    • Behavioral regulation

    • Parental support

  • Four parenting styles

    • Authoritative

    • Authoritarian

    • Indulgent

    • Uninvolved

  • Marshmallow Test:

    • Test of impulse control

    • Delay of gratification

  • Social factors that influence gender-role development

    • Toy play and gender stereotyping

  • Kohlberg's stages of moral development

    • Preconventional

      • Thoughts of punishment and self-interest

    • Conventional:

      • Conformity and following the rules

    • Postconventional

      • Goes from mutual benefit to things that transcend mutual benefit

  • Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Theory

    • Emphasizes justice to the exclusion of other values

    • Original study only used males

    • Some argue that some people never reach postconventional stage

  • Brain development in adolescents:

    • Growth of white matter, myelination

    • Amygdala fully developed

    • Frontal cortex continues to develop into early 20s

  • Adolescents are more likely to engage in risky behaviors because they believe that they’re immune to the consequences 

  • Erikson’s 8 stages of psychosocial development:

    • Trust vs. mistrust (infant-18 months)

    • Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (18 months-3 years)

    • Initiative vs. guilt (3 years-5 years)

    • Industry vs. inferiority (5-13 years)

    • Identity vs. role confusion (13-21 years)

    • intimacy vs. isolation (21-39 years)

    • Generativity vs. stagnation (40-65 years)

    • Ego integrity vs. despair (65 and older)

  • Cognitive changes in late adulthood:

    • Mild changes in speed of learning and problem solving

    • More changes in fluid intelligence than crystallized intelligence

  • Primary milestones of prenatal development:

    • Zygote

    • Embryo

    • Fetus

  • Genetic and environmental risks due to prenatal development

    • Preemies are more at risk to develop problems later in life

  • Primary reflexes of newborns:

    • Grasping (also called Palmar)

    • Rooting

    • Sucking

    • Stepping (put baby’s foot on something will initiate stepping)

    • Babinski (stroking foot causes toes to spread out)

    • Blinking

    • Moro (if baby’s head falls backwards, they spread out arms in a hug)

  • Nervous system development

    • Have a ton of synapses that work under the “use it or lose it” where we eventually only keep the ones that we need

  • Vygotsky stressing the effect of culture and cultural differences in the development of a child (compared to Piaget)

Chapter 13:

  • Attribution

    • A judgement about the cause of a person’s behavior

      • Situational:

        • Behavior due to external factors

      • Dispositional

        • Behavior due to internal factors

  • Errors and biases situated with attribution

    • Correspondence bias

    • fundamental attribution error

    • Actor-observer bias

    • self-serving bias

    • Group-serving bias

    • Just-world belief

  • Attitudes

    • Favorable or unfavorable evaluations that predispose behavior towards a person, object, or situation

    • Attitude adoption as social inclusion

    • Learning: operant and classical, observational

    • Genetics

  • Cognitive dissonance

    • Uncomfortable cognitive state due to perception of contradictory information

    • Actions do not match beliefs

    • Dissonance reduction to maintain attitude consistency

  • Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

    • Explanation for response to persuasive messages

      • Central route

        • Consider arguments carefully and thoughtfully

        • Quality of argument

      • Peripheral route

        • Evaluation shortcuts

        • Requires less attention

  • Fear appeal

    • Persuasive messages that use fear to encourage a specific action

    • Fear appeals can be effective depending on the message

  • Nyhan et al (2014)

    • Independent variable

      • Type of informational intervention

    • Dependent variable

      • Rating of how likely parent would vaccinate a future child for MMR

    • Belief perseverance

      • The tendency to cling to one’s initial belief even after receiving new info that contradicts or disconfirms the basic of that belief

    • Backfire effect

      • Given evidence against their beliefs, people can reject the evidence and believe even more strongly

  • Difference between prejudice and stereotypes

    • Prejudice

      • Attitude or prejudgement about others. Usually negative

    • Stereotype

      • Simplified sets of traits associated with group membership

  • Confirmation bias affecting stereotyping process

    • We search for information that confirms our preexisting beliefs and hypotheses

  • In-group favoritism

    • We tend to favor people in our own group

    • We tend to view people in an out-group more negatively

    • Robbers cave experiment (setting up a camp in two groups)

  • Implicit Association Test (IAT)

    • Tests unconscious attitudes

    • Avoids social desirability effects

  • Stereotype threat

    • Feeling of being at risk of conforming to stereotypes about your social group

    • Priming of stereotype information

  • Social norms

    • Rules for behavior in social settings

  • Difference between conformity, compliance, and obedience

    • Conformity

      • Matching behavior and appearance to perceived social norms

    • Compliance

      • Agreement to requests from others with no perceived authority

    • Obedience

      • Compliance to requests from authority figures

  • Asch study and patterns of conformity

    • Saying which line it is out of 3, people feel more pressured to conform to the group answer even if they know it's wrong since everyone else is saying it, so they try to justify to themselves that they’re wrong instead and answer what everyone else is saying

  • Beneficial functions of conformity

    • Useful in new or ambiguous situations

    • Reduces risk of social rejection

  • Compliance techniques

    • Foot-in-the-door

      • Start out with a small request and gradually build up to bigger requests

    • Door-in-the-face

      • Start out with a big request you know will get rejected, and then ask for a smaller request afterwards (they’ll feel pressured to say yes since they didn’t say yes to the initial request)

  • Milgram's study

    • Majority of people feel pressured to obey even as they’re showing emotional distress at the request

  • Deindividuation

    • Immersion of individual within group, leading to anonymity

  • Dehumanization

    • Depriving a person or group of positive human qualities

  • Social facilitation

    • The presence of others changes individual performance

      • Familiar or simple tasks 

        • Higher performance

      • Unfamiliar or complex tasks

        • Decreased performance

  • Social loafing

    • Lower effort and motivation when working in a group vs. working alone

  • Group polarization

    • During discussion, members tend to take more extreme positions in direction they were already inclined to hold

      • Can lead to conformity

  • Group think

    • Group does not question its decisions critically; often leads to flawed decisions

  • First impressions are often times not accurate but they do persist

  • Cultural differences in terms of attribution

    • Differences between cultures that value individualism and collectivism

    • Individualism

      • self-serving bias

    • Collectivism

      • Group-serving bias

  • Things that can affect persuasion

    • Age and intelligence

    • A positive response to a speaker

    • Emotional appeals

  • Factors to reduce prejudice

    • Increased contact can reduce prejudice, but you need…

      • Equal standing

      • Common goals

      • Cooperation

      • Support from authority or customs

  • Factors that influence attraction and liking

    • Proximity

    • Exposure

    • Physical appearance

    • Similarity

  • Mere exposure effect

    • A situation in which repeated exposure increases liking

  • Attitude alignment

    • Being attracted to a person also increases similarity

  • Sternberg’s Triangular Model of Love

    • Has three points of intimacy, passion, and commitment

    • Creates many types of love

  • Factors for maintenance of relationships

    • May become easier over time with increased similarity

    • No response to bids can cause relationships to end