Unit 1 - Scientific Foundations

history and approaches

Key Individuals

Wilhelm Wundt G. Stanley Hall William James

Charles Darwin Mary Whiton Calkins B. F. Skinner

Sir Francis Galton Margaret Floy Washburn Ivan Pavlov

Sigmund Freud John B. Watson Martin Seligman

Carl Rogers Abraham Maslow Roger Sperry
Rene Descartes John Locke

1. Summarize Wundt’s and Hall’s accomplishments and contributions to psychology.
   1. Wilhelm Wundt created the first lab and he is known as the father of psychology and he trained participants in introspection which eventually led to the theory of structuralism (mind operates by combining subjective emotions and objective sensations). G. Stanley Hall was the first American to get a PhD and the first president of the APA.
2. Differentiate between structuralism and functionalism, the key individuals, methods, and their impact on the development of the history of psychology.
   1. Structuralism looks at the mind's different structures of consciousness through individual parts. Functionalism (William James) is how mental and behavioral processes function and what enables them to adapt to flourish
3. Articulate Freud’s theories of consciousness, personality, and treatment and articulate why Freud inspired controversy.
   1. Freud emphasized the way emotional responses to childhood experiences and our unconscious thought processes affect our behavior. He believed he had discovered the unconscious mind which in part determines how we think and behave and this hidden part of ourselves builds up through repression. He thought to understand human behavior, we must examine the unconscious mind through dream analysis, word association, and other psychoanalytic therapies. He was criticized for being unscientific.
4. Examine the contemporary perspectives in psychology including major contributors, basic premises, and criticisms of each (Psychoanalytic, Behaviorism, Humanism, Cognitive, Socio-cultural, Neurobiological, and Evolutionary)
   1. Psychoanalytic: examine unconscious to understand behavior
      1. Criticized because it cannot be accurately measured
   2. Behaviorism: observable behavior and conditioning
      1. Study and observe responses to different kind of stimuli & rewards/punishments
      2. B.F. Skinner, John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov (classical)
   3. Humanism: choices made based on needs
   4. Cognitive: perceive, process, remember info
      1. Jean Piaget
   5. Socio-cultural: how thoughts/behavior vary through cultures
   6. Neurobiological: relationship between neurological processes and behaviors
   7. Evolutionary: thought and actions in term of natural selection
5. Examine the development of positive psychology.
   1. Positive psychology: study of human functioning with the goal of promoting people to thrive in society
6. Compare and contrast between clinical psychology and psychiatry.
   1. Clinical psychology promotes psychological health in individuals, groups, organizations & psychiatry diagnoses mental conditions
7. Distinguish between basic and applied psychology.
   1. Basic psychology is theory and fundamental understanding while applied psychology is finding practical solutions to real issues
8. List and describe the major research areas and professional specialties in psychology.
   1. Research: cognitive, developmental, educational, psychometric psychologists
   2. Applied research: forensic, health, industrial-organizational, neuro, rehabilitation, school, sport psychologists
   3. Helping: clinical, community, counseling psychologists
   4. Biological: link between brain and the mind
   5. Developmental: abilities changing over life
   6. Cognitive: perceive, think, solving problems
   7. Educational: influences of teaching/learning
   8. Personality: persistent traits
   9. Social: how we view/affect each other
   10. Industrial organization: use psychology to help workplace
   11. counseling/clinical: help people with issues
9. Identify key philosophers and the contributions that each made to the study of psychology
   1. William James: functionalism (how mental and behavioral processes operate)
   2. Charles Darwin: evolutionary approach
   3. Mary Whiton Calkins: memory research and president of APA; basic psychological process of sensation and perception
   4. Margaret Floy Washburn: got PhD in psychology
   5. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow: humanistic (self actualization)
   6. Jean Piaget: child cognitive development
   7. Max Wertheimer: Gestalt psychology
   8. Sigmund Freud: unconscious mind & psychoanalytic theory
   9. Ivan Pavlov : classical conditioning (dog experiment)
   10. B.F. Skinner: reinforcement (operant conditioning)

research methods

1. Explain the significance of a theory and hypotheses in research.
   1. Theory aims to explain some phenomenon and allows researchers to generate testable hypotheses with the ope of collecting data that support the theory
   2. Hypothesis expresses a relationship between two variables
   3. Research aims to gather data that supports/disproves a hypothesis
2. Explain the following components and the significance they have on an experimental design (IV and DV, confounding variables, experimental group, control group) Differentiate between them.
   1. Dependent variable depends on the independent variable
   2. Confounding variables are other factors that can potentially influence results – creates a bias in an experiment
   3. Experiment is group being tested on vs control group is group that doesn’t
3. Explain operational definition and its importance to replication.
   1. Having a specific definition for something (i.e. sleep deprived = x hours less sleep) and helps make it easier to replicate an experiment and get similar results
4. Distinguish between and explain random assignment & random selection.
   1. Random assignment is assigning people randomly in an experiment to experimental or control group
   2. Random selection is choosing random people in population for experiment
5. Distinguish between population and sample.
   1. Sample is group of participants vs. population is who the sample will be chosen from
6. Differentiate between types of research (e.g., experiments, correlational studies, survey research, naturalistic observations, case studies, longitudinal studies, cross-sectional studies) with regard to purpose, strengths, and weaknesses.
   1. Experiments: finding a causal relationship with IV and DV
   2. Correlational studies is finding the relationship between two variables — does not equal causation
   3. Case studies is only one person
   4. Longitudinal: observing same people over long time
   5. Cross-sectional: observing many different people at specific time
7. Identify and apply measures of central tendency in descriptive statistics as well as measures of variance including standard deviation.
   1. Mean, median, mode
8. Demonstrate how different graphing methods can be used to display different types of data.
   1. Just remember how positively/negatively skewed graph looks and symmetrical distribution
9. Identify positive and negative skew and differentiate the effects these values have on measures of central tendency.
10. Distinguish between positive and negative correlations and explain illusory correlations.
    1. Positive (one increases and so does other) & negative (one increases and other decreases)
    2. Illusory correlation: thinking there is a correlation when there isn’t
11. Evaluate the concept of correlation in relation to prediction and causation.
    1. Correlation indicates possibility of cause and effect, but the relation does not prove such; shows how well one variable predicts another
12. Clarify the meaning of statistical significance & p-value.
    1. Statistical significance: statistical statement of how likely it is that na obtained result occurred by chance (does not say anything about importance of result)
    2. P value gives the probability that the difference between the groups is due to chance
13. Interpret the impact of placebo effects in research.
    1. Allows researchers to separate the physiological effects of the drug from the psychological effects of people thinking they took a drug
14. Recognize problems that may arise with experimenter bias & solutions to resolve this concern.
    1. Unconscious tendency for researchers to treat members of experimental and control groups differently
    2. Can decrease this bias with double blind procedure
15. Identify and explain different ethical issues of research practice including animal research
16. Describe how ethical and legal guidelines protect research participants and promote sound ethical practice.
    1. IRB board by APA reviews studies and there are guidelines to be met
    2. No coercion, informed consent, anonymity/confidentiality, risk, debriefing
17. Distinguish between reliability and validity and explain the significance.
    1. Reliability is consistency of measure (reproducing the conditions) while validity is accuracy of a measure

Unit 2 - biological basis of behavior

Key Individuals

Paul Broca Carl Wernicke Roger Sperry Michael Gazzaniga

Charles Darwin

1. Identify the various parts of the neuron and the direction in which a message is transmitted.
   1. Dendrites (receive information and conduct to cell body), cell body, axons (passes message through branches to other neurons, muscles, glands), myelin sheath (layer of fatty tissue that insulate and speeds impulse of axons), terminal buttons, neurotransmitters, synapse
2. Explain the main functions of glial cells
   1. Cells in nervous system that support, nourish, protect neurons
3. Describe the neural impulse from its resting potential until it reaches the chemical synapse (threshold, polarization/depolarization, action potential, all or nothing signal, reuptake, refractory period)
   1. Neurotransmitters fit into receptor sites and if enough are received (threshold), it becomes permeable, making it positive
   2. The change in charge when it becomes positive is known as action potential
   3. Neuron fires → 1st section of axons open gate → sodium ions flow through cell membranes → depolarizes axon section →. . .
   4. Refractory period: period of inactivity after neuron has fired (pumps sodium outside)
4. Explain how neurons communicate at the chemical synapses
   1. The neurotransmitters cross the synaptic gap and bind to receptor sites in receiving neurons
5. Discuss the functions of the different neurons (sensory, motor, interneurons, mirror neurons)
   1. Sensory: message from body’s tissue and sensory receptors inward to brain and spinal cord for processing
   2. Motor: carry instructions from central NSS to muscles and glands
   3. Interneurons: within CNs that communicate internally and intervene between sensory inputs and motor outputs
   4. Mirror neurons when we watch someone do a certain task
6. Articulate the functions & malfunctions of specific neurotransmitters on behavior.

1. Examine the influence of agonists and antagonists on behavior.
   1. Agonists increases response while antagonists binds to receptor site and inhibits/blocks response
2. Identify & describe the central & peripheral nervous system including its subdivisions (Somatic & Autonomic(sympathetic, parasympathetic))
   1. The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord (decision maker)
   2. The peripheral nervous system is responsible for gathering information and for transmitting CNs decisions to other body parts
      1. somatic nervous system: enables voluntary control of skeletal muscles
      2. Autonomic nervous system: controls glands and muscles of internal organs (influences heartbeat, digestion, etc)
         1. Sympathetic: arouses and expends energy, increases heartbeat, increases BP, decreases digestion, start sweating
         2. Parasympathetic: opposite effects
3. Explain advantages & limitations of various brain imaging techniques.
   1. EEG detects brain waves
   2. MRI: magnetic fields to determine function
   3. PET: using glucose to take scans
   4. fMRI combines elements of PET and MRI
   5. CT is sophisticated X-ray
4. Discuss how lesioning & electrical stimulation are used to study brain function
   1. Lesion destroys certain cells without affecting surrounding tissue
   2. By stimulating various parts of brain, scientists can find the effect
5. Identify & explain the function of the structures included in the hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain
   1. Hindbrain: life support system
      1. Medulla (BP, heart rate, breathing), Pons (connects hind/mid/fore brain), cerebellum (mini brain, coordinates habitual muscle movements)
   2. Midbrain: coordinates simple movements with sensory information
      1. Reticular formation: controls general body arousal and ability to focus attention (would fall into coma if it doesn’t function properly)
   3. Forebrain: controls thought and reason
      1. Thalamus: receiving sensory signals from spinal cord and sending to correct areas in forebrain
      2. Hypothalamus: controls metabolic functions
      3. Amygdala and hippocampus: emotion and memory system respectively
6. Identify the key structures of the limbic system and some of their functions
   1. Limbic system is the neural systems located below cerebral hemispheres
   2. Hippocampus: processes conscious memories
   3. Amygdala: linked to emotion (aggression and fear)
   4. Hypothalamus: maintenance activities and helps govern endocrine system through pituitary gland
7. Identify the four lobes in the cerebral cortex and state some of their key functions as well as association areas.
   1. Frontal Lobes: left hemisphere is for language processing
      1. Broca’s Area: producing speech
      2. Motor cortex
   2. Parietal lobes: sensory cortex
   3. Occipital lobes: interpret images from eyes in visual cortex
   4. Temporal lobes: process sound sensed by ears in auditory cortex
8. Summarize evidence on the brain’s plasticity
   1. Dendrites might be able to make new connections in other parts of brain usually performed by damage part of brain
   2. Younger age = increased plasticity
9. Identify specialized tasks of each hemisphere
10. Locate and describe areas of language specialization & malfunctions
    1. Broca’s Area: producing speech
    2. Wernicke’s Area: understanding speech
11. Assess the significance of the endocrine system’s major glands
    1. Pituitary: secretes hormones (oxytocin, growth hormone); regulates body functions
    2. Pineal gland: melatonin (sleep-wake schedule; circadian rhythm)
    3. Thyroid: metabolism, energy levels, body temperature
    4. Parathyroid: raises blood calcium levels
    5. Thymus: impact immune system (white blood cells)
    6. Adrenal: epinephrine + norepinephrine (fight or flight); cortisol-stress/inflammation
    7. Pancreas: insulin - takes in glucose
    8. Hypothalamus: controls hormones, temperature, BP, etc
12. Describe ways in which specific hormones regulate behavior
13. Explain different measures that are used to assess hereditary traits (twin, family studies)
    1. Identical twins: single fertilized egg splitting into two
    2. Fraternal twins: separate fertilized eggs

Unit 3 - sensation and perception

Key Individuals

Gustav Fechner Ernst Weber David Hubel Torsten Wiesel

Hermann Von Helmholtz Max Wertheimer

1. Compare & Contrast sensation (bottom-up processing) & perception (top-down processing)
   1. Bottom-up: sensory receptors to higher levels of processing
   2. Top-down: construct perceptions from sensory input by drawing on experience/expectations
2. Explain how stimulus intensity is related to absolute thresholds and JND’s
   1. Absolute threshold: minimum stimulation necessary to detect a particular light, sound, pressure, taste, or odor 50% of the time
   2. Difference threshold: minimum difference a person can detect between any stimuli half the time
   3. You need right stimulus intensity in order to notice it
3. Analyze how Weber’s Law is related to Just Noticeable Difference
   1. Weber’s Law: to perceive a difference, 2 stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage
4. Identify the four potential outcomes related to signal detection theory

1. Summarize the usage subliminal messages and discuss its practical implications
   1. Unnoticed visual subliminal messages can reach visual cortex and prime response
2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of selective attention and how it plays a role in everyday functioning
   1. Focusing of conscious awareness on particular stimulus
   2. Cocktail party effect: ability to attend to only one voice among many
      1. You can hear your name in a big crowd
3. Explain the significance of sensory adaptation
   1. Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation
   2. Gives freedom to focus on informative changes in environment without being distracted
4. Describe how the various parts of the eye contribute to visual processing.
   1. Light enters through cornea (bends light to provide focus)
   2. Light passes through pupil (small adjustable opening)
   3. Iris surrounds pupil and controls the size in response to light intensity/inner emotions
   4. Lens is behind pupil and focuses image on retina
   5. Retina contains the receptor rods/cones that begin the processing of visual info
5. Distinguish b/w the eyes sensory receptors in regards to processing visual information
   1. Rods: detect black, white gray; peripheral and twilight vision
      1. 120 million
   2. Cones: retinal receptor cells concentrated near center of retina that function in well-lit surroundings; detects fine detail and color sensation
      1. Have hot line to brain – one single bipolar cell = one cone
      2. 6 million
6. Trace the routing of signals from the eye to the brain, and explain the brain’s role in visual information processing
   1. Light enters and hits rods/cones → chemical reaction activates bipolar cells → bipolar cells activate ganglion cells → ganglion cell axons converge to form optic nerve → transmits info via thalamus to visual cortex
7. Explain the role of rods and cones in light and dark adaptation.
   1. Cone - daytime & rod - night time
8. Define parallel processing and discuss its role and the role of feature detectors in visual information processing
   1. Parallel processing is ability to do many things at once
   2. Feature detectors are nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of stimulus
      1. Receive information from individual ganglion cells & pass info to other cortical areas where supercell clusters respond to more complex patterns
   3. w/ parallel processing, we can process combined information on motion, form, depth, color, etc. of objects we see
9. Identify the components of color vision
   1. Color can be created by combining light waves of 3 primary colors
10. Distinguish between the two types of color mixing and compare the trichromatic and opponent process theories of color vision
    1. Trichromatic (Young-Helmholtz): we have 3 types of cones that detect blue, red, green & are activated in different combinations to see colors
    2. Opponent-process theory: sensory receptors come in pairs: red/green, blue/yellow, black/white
11. State the basic premise of Gestalt psychology, and describe the Gestalt principles of visual perception
    1. Figure-ground: objects vs surroundings
    2. Grouping: proximity, continuity, closure
12. Distinguish between monocular and binocular cues used in depth perception & explain the different types of each.
    1. Binocular cues: depth cues that depend on the use of both eyes
       1. Ex: retinal disparity
    2. Monocular cues: depth cues which can be perceived by one eye
       1. Interposition, linear perspective,, relative height, relative motion
13. Describe the perceptual constancies and illusions in vision
    1. Color, brightness, shape, size constancies
14. List the three properties of sound & the aspects of auditory perception that they influence
    1. Amplitude (loudness), frequency (pitch), wavelength (tone)
15. Describe and identify the parts of the external, middle, and inner ear.
    1. Outer ear: auditory canal → eardrum
    2. Middle ear: 3 bones - hammer, anvil, stirrup
    3. Inner: cochlea
16. Trace the routing of signals from the ear to the brain, and explain the brain’s role in auditory information processing
    1. Outer ear channels waves through auditory canal to eardrum causing it to vibrate
    2. Middle ear picks up vibrations and transmits to cochlea
    3. Vibrations cause cochlear’s membrane (oval window) to vibrate, moving fluid on the inside
    4. Fluid moving causes ripples in basilar membrane
    5. Bends hair cell lining surface
    6. Hair cell movement triggers impulses in nerve cells
    7. Axons of nerve cells come together to form auditory nerve
    8. Auditory nerve sends neural messages via thalamus to auditory cortex in temporal lobe
    9. Auditory canal → eardrum →ossicles→ cochlea→hair cells→auditory nerve
17. Compare the place and frequency theories of pitch perception
    1. Place theory: sense pitch because of hair cell movement
       1. High pitch
    2. Frequency theory: sense pitch because hair cells fire at different rates
       1. Low pitch
18. Identify the cues used in auditory localization
    1. Placement of ears explains our hearing
       1. If you hear car honk on right, you move left
19. Compare and contrast conduction and nerve deafness
    1. Conduction hearing loss : hearing loss caused by damage to mechanical system that conducts sound waves to cochlea
20. Describe the receptors for taste, & discuss some determinants of taste preferences
    1. Sweet (energy), salty (sodium essential to physiological processes), sour (potentially toxic acid), bitter (poison detection), umami (proteins to grow/repair tissue)
    2. Each bump = 200+ taste buds → each bud = 50-100 receptor cells
    3. As you grow older, taste buds and taste sensitivity decreases
21. Identify receptors for smell
    1. Olfactory bulb gets messages from olfactory receptor cells and send to brain
    2. Smell goes directly to amygdala and then to hippocampus
       1. The direct connection explains why smell is such a powerful trigger for memories
    3. Odorant binds to receptor → olfactory receptor cells activated and send signals → signals relayed via converged axons → signals transmitted to higher regions of brain
22. Explain the gate control theory on pain perception
    1. Spinal cord contains “gate” and being open/closed reveals if we feel pain
    2. Opened by pain signals traveling up and closed by activity in larger fibers/info coming from brain
    3. Natural pain killing endorphins can diminish pain
23. Describe the symptoms of the phantom limb syndrome
24. Explain the role of the semicircular canals in the vestibular system
    1. Semicircular canals contain fluid that moves when your head moves
    2. Movement stimulates receptors which send messages to cerebellum at back of brain → enables you to sense body position and maintain balance
25. Explain the role of the kinesthetic system
    1. Sense of position/movement of body parts
26. Describe transduction and identify where it occurs in different sensory systems.

1. State the significance of the visual cliff study conducted by Gibbs and Walk.
   1. Showed that even infants have depth perception

Unit 4 - learning

Key Individuals

Ivan Pavlov John Watson Edward Thorndike

Wolfgang Kohler B.F Skinner Robert Rescorla

Albert Bandura Edward C.Tolman John Garcia

1. Explain the relationship that exists between learning theories and the Behavioral perspective.
   1. Behaviors are learned from environment and are not influenced by innate or inherited factors (Skinner, Pavlov)
2. Describe Pavlov’s demonstration of classical conditioning and the key elements of this form of learning (UCS, UCR, NS, CS, CR).
   1. People learn to associate neutral stimuli with reflexive responses and will learn to respond similarly to a new stimulus
   2. Learn to expect and prepare for significant event
   3. In Pavlov’s dog conditioning: US - food; UR - dog salivation; NS - bell; CS - bell; US - salivation
   4. Neutral stimulus: elicits no response pre-conditioning
   5. Unconditioned stimulus: natural and automatic response triggering stimulus
   6. Conditioned response: learned response to previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus
   7. Conditioned stimulus: originally irrelevant stimulus which after being associated with US triggers CR
3. Define acquisition, extinction, and spontaneous recovery in classical and operant conditioning.
   1. Acquisition: initial association b/w stimulus-response relationship
   2. Extinction: diminishing of CR (unlearning)
   3. Spontaneous recovery: reappearance of extinguished CR
4. Compare the processes of generalization and discrimination and review the classical study of Little Albert.
   1. Generalization: responding similarly to stimuli similar to CS
      1. Albert got scared of all furry animals
   2. Discrimination: distinguish between CS and other stimuli
      1. He didn’t get scared of toys, people, etc.
5. Explain learning through aversive conditioning (taste aversion).
   1. After eating food that makes you ill, you build aversion to it, but not the people you were with, restaurant, etc
   2. John Garcia
6. Explain the evolutionary perspective in regards to preparedness.
   1. Evolution favors traits that aid survival
   2. Must easily learn/retain behaviors that support our biological predisposition
7. Contrast operant and classical conditioning.
   1. Operant: associate behaviors that act on environment to produce reward/punishing stimuli (Skinner)
   2. Classical: link 2+ stimuli and anticipate events (Pavlov)
8. Evaluate Thorndike’s early contributions to learning theory (the law of effect and puzzle boxes).
   1. Law of Effect: if consequence is pleasant → stimulus-response connection strengthened & behavior will increase (and vice versa)
   2. Puzzle boxes: put food next to cat in cage → had to get out of cage to get food → amount of time gradually decreased
      1. Cat learned w/o mental activity, but just by establishing relationship between stimulus and response
9. Explain the purpose of an operant chamber (skinner’s box).
   1. Animal got food if it pressed lever/button
   2. food=reinforcer & process of giving food is reinforcement
   3. Box acts on concept of reinforcement
10. Identify various types of schedules of reinforcement, and how they influence learning through acquisition and extinction (Continuous & Partial Schedules).
    1. Continuous - reinforcement every time behavior occurs
       1. Learning occurs quicker in continuous, but so does extinction
    2. Partial - reinforcement at different times
    3. Partial reinforcements more resistant to extinction than fixed
    4. Variable schedules more resistant to extinction than fixed
    5. Slower acquisition in partial
    6. Ratio schedules typically result in higher response rates than interval

1. Differentiate between primary & secondary reinforcers.
   1. Primary: natural properties of it are rewarding (ex: food, water, etc)
   2. Secondary: things we have learned to value (praise, compliments)
   3. Money is generalized reinforcer b/c it can be traded for almost anything
2. Distinguish shaping and chaining in the process of behavior modification.
   1. Shaping: reinforces steps used to reach desired behavior (guides behavior)
   2. Chaining: performing a number of responses successively in order to get reward
   3. Shaping molds single behavior (e.g. pressing a bar)
   4. Chaining links together separate behaviors into more complex activity (running obstacle course)
3. Distinguish between positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment.
   1. Positive reinforcement: increases behavior by adding something positive
      1. Ex: you get a reward for cleaning your room
   2. Negative reinforcement: increases behavior by removing something unpleasant
      1. Ex: your parents stop yelling at you when you clean your room
   3. Positive punishment: add aversive stimulus
      1. Ex: traffic ticket for speeding
   4. Negative punishment: taking away rewarding stimulus
      1. Ex: take your cell phone away if you don’t come home in time
4. Describe Tolman’s research on latent learning & cognitive map.
   1. Latent learning: learning that occurs but isn’t visible until a reinforcement is given for demonstrating it
   2. Cognitive map: mental representation of layout of environment
5. Explain Wolfgang Kohler’s study with chimpanzees and insight learning.
   1. Insight learning: when you suddenly realize how to solve a problem
   2. Chimpanzees put in room with several boxed and bananas hanging from ceiling
      1. Boxes not high enough, but they still tried to jump and grab banana
      2. Suddenly realized they can stack boxes & reach banana
6. Explain Albert Bandura’s Bo-Bo Doll study and the importance of models in observational learning.
   1. Modeling & imitating a specific behavior
   2. Child observes adult hitting doll —> aggravated children are put in room with few toys and doll → those who observed adult hitting doll were more likely to hit doll & hit it in a similar way

Unit 5 - cognition

Key Individuals

George Miller Elizabeth Loftus Hermann Ebbinghaus

Wolfgang Kohler

1. Explain the three levels of information process: encoding, storage, retrieval and the impact of each on memory
   1. Encoding: getting information into our brain
   2. Storage: retaining information
   3. Retrieval: get information back out
2. Explain different ways of encoding (effortful versus automatic processing) as well as different kinds of encoding (acoustic, visual, semantic)
   1. Effortful processing requires attention and conscious effort
   2. Automatic processing: unconscious encoding of incidental information (space, time, frequency)
   3. Acoustic encoding is using auditory stimuli/hearing to implant memories
   4. Visual encoding is remembering images (i.e. reading your notes)
   5. Semantic encoding is using sensory input and making it meaningful
3. Explain serial position effect and rehearsal as they relate to encoding
   1. Tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and the first items (primacy effect) in a list
4. Apply the use of mnemonic devices in aiding memory (method of loci, peg mnemonics, visual imagery).
   1. Mnemonics make it easier to remember something because you connect it with something you already know, creating a deeper processing
5. Differentiate between sensory memory (iconic, echoic) short-term memory, working memory & long-term memory and explain the components of each.
   1. Iconic memory: split second photograph of a scene
   2. Echoic memory: momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; can be recalled for 3-4 seconds after sound has occurred
6. Explain how people organize information including: chunking, conceptual hierarchies & schemas
   1. Chunking is organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically
   2. Mnemonics are memory aids
   3. Hierarchies: few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts
7. Identify components of flash-bulb memory
   1. Clear memory of emotionally significant moment/event
   2. Memories serve to predict future by alerting us of dangerous situations
   3. Weaker emotion = weaker memory
8. Explain the importance of retrieval and differentiate between recognition versus recall
   1. Recall: retrieving information that is currently not in our conscious awareness, but learned earlier (ex: fill in the blanks)
   2. Recognition: identifying items previously learned (ex: MCQ)
9. Identify the role that priming (William James) plays in the retrieval process.
   1. The activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory
10. Explain the role of prospective memory on remembering
11. Explain how external context and internal emotions influence memory retrieval (déjà vu, state dependent learning, mood congruent memory, rosy retrospection
    1. State-dependent memory: what we learn in one stage may be more easily recalled when we are in the same state
    2. Mood-congruent memory: the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good/bad mood
    3. Deja vu: cues from current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of earlier experience
       1. Source amnesia explains deja vu
       2. When temporal lobe processing & the hippocampus and frontal lobe processing are out of sync → experience feeling of familiarity without conscious recall → when we try to make sense of it, it feels like something from our past
12. Explain how the nature of memory is reconstructive and summarize the research on the misinformation effect
    1. Misinformation effect is incorporating misleading information into a memory of an event
       1. Influences later attitudes and behaviors
       2. Repeatedly imagining nonexistent actions/events can create false memories
13. Describe Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve
    1. Ebbinghaus showed the more times you repeat something, the relearning time decreases
    2. We remember more than we can recall
14. Assess ineffective encoding and decay as potential causes of forgetting
    1. Storage decay: even if we encode something well, the course of forgetting is initially rapid and then levels off with time
       1. Gradual fading of physical memory trace
15. Explain the role of interference in the retrieval process as potential causes of forgetting (differentiate between proactive & retroactive interference).
    1. Proactive interference: prior learning disrupts recall of new info
       1. Ex: well-rehearsed old password interferes with recalling your newly reset password
    2. Retroactive interference: new learning disrupts recall of old information
       1. After doing US project, the lyrics I made make it hard to remember the original lyrics
16. Distinguish between two types of amnesia (retrograde & anterograde)
    1. Anterograde amnesia: inability to form new memories
    2. Retrograde amnesia: inability to remember the past
17. Discuss repression as a form of forgetting
    1. Sigmund Freuds’ theory of repression (motivated forgetting): basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, memories
    2. Repressed memories linger and can be retrieved by later cues/therapy
    3. Today, researchers think repression hardly occurs
       1. People succeed in forgetting neutral information, but hard to forget emotional events
18. Identify the neurobiological components of memory and the role of a long-term potentiation.
    1. Rapidly stimulating memory-circuit connections increases sensitivity
       1. The sending neuron needs decreased action potential and more connections exist between neurons
    2. LTP: increase in cell’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; neural basis for learning and memory
19. Distinguish between Explicit & Implicit memory as well as episodic, semantic & procedural memory
    1. Explicit memories (declarative): memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and declare
    2. Implicit memories (non-declarative): retention independent of conscious recollection
20. Define cognition & the purpose of concepts and prototypes in creating thought
    1. Cognition: all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
    2. Concept: mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, people
    3. Prototype: mental image or best example of a category
    4. Once we place an item in a category, our memory of it later shifts towards the category prototype
21. Compare algorithms and heuristics as problem solving strategies, and explain how insight differs from both of them.
    1. Algorithms: methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem
    2. Heuristic: simple thinking strategy that allows us to make judgements/solve problems efficiently
       1. Speedier, but more error prone than algorithms
    3. Algorithms and heuristics arrive at conclusions through thinking, but insight is randomly realizing something
22. Distinguish between representativeness, anchoring and availability heuristics, and explain how they can cause us to underestimate or ignore important information.
    1. Representativeness heuristic: judging likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent/match particular prototypes
       1. May lead us to ignore other relevant information
       2. Set stereotypes
       3. Influences our daily decisions
    2. Availability heuristic: estimating likelihood of events based on their availability in memory
       1. If instances come readily to mind (because of vividness), we presume such events are common
       2. Fear the wrong things (i.e. 9/11 has left such a vivid memory of terrorism, some people might be scared to go on flights)
    3. Anchoring heuristic: causes people to favor information they received earlier in the decision-making process
23. Recognize various barriers to effective problem solving including functional fixedness, mental set, confirmation bias, overconfidence & framing effects,
    1. Overconfidence: tendency to be more confident than correct
       1. Overestimate accuracy of beliefs/judgements
    2. Belief perseverance: clinging to initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited
    3. Framing: the way an issue is posed; affects decisions/judgements
       1. Risks presented in numbers scare people more than %
       2. Powerful persuasion tool
24. Compare and contrast convergent and divergent thinking and identify their relationship to creativity.
    1. Convergent thinking: narrows available problem solutions to determine single best solution
    2. Divergent thinking: expands number of possible problem solutions
25. Describe Linguistic determinism
    1. Linguistic determinism: Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think
    2. Person may think differently in different languages
    3. Words influence our thinking & our thinking of colors
    4. Broca’s area: controls language expression that directs muscle movement involved in speech (frontal lobe)
    5. Wernicke’s area: controls language reception (left temporal lobe)
26. Identify Phoneme, morpheme, grammar (Semantics and Syntax)
    1. Phoneme: smallest distinctive sound unit
    2. Morphemes: smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word (prefix)
    3. Grammar: system of rules that helps us communicate
       1. Semantics: deriving meanings from sounds
       2. Syntax: ordering words into sentences

Unit 6 - developmental psychology

Terms

Developmental psychology Zygote Embryo

Fetus Teratogens Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Rooting Reflex Babinsky reflex Moro reflex

Habituation Maturation Jean Piaget

Other Reflexes Newborns Schema Assimilation

Accommodation Cognition Sensorimotor

Object Permanence Preoperational Conservation

Egocentrism Theory of the Mind Autism

Concrete Operational Formal Operational Erik Erikson

Secure attachment insecure attachment Mary Ainsworth

Permissive parenting Authoritative parenting

Authoritarian parenting Lawrence Kohlberg Preconventional

Conventional Postconventional terminal decline

Stranger anxiety Attachment Critical period

Imprinting Basic trust Self-concept

Adolescence Puberty Primary sex characteristics

Secondary sex characteristics Menarche Identity

Intimacy Menopause Alzheimer’s disease

Cross-sectional study Longitudinal study Generativity

Crystallized intelligence Fluid intelligence Social clock

1. Define zygote, embryo, and fetus, and explain how teratogens can affect development.
   1. Zygote → embryo → fetus
   2. Zygote: fertilized eggs ~2 weeks, undergoes cell division
   3. Embryo: ~2-9 weeks
   4. Fetus: developing human organism from 9 weeks - birth
   5. Teratogens: substances that can reach baby and cause harm
      1. Placenta connot filter this
   6. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: birth defect, future behavior issues, etc
      1. Leaves chemical effect on DNA
2. Describe some abilities of the newborn, and explain how researchers use habituation to assess infant sensory and cognitive abilities.
   1. Rooting reflex: touch on cheek → turn head to side of touch
   2. Sucking reflex, grasping reflex
   3. Habituation: decreased responsiveness with repeated stimulation
      1. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to visual stimulus, they look away sooner
3. Outline 4 events in the motor development sequence from birth to toddlerhood, and evaluate the effects of maturation and experience on that sequence.
   1. Rolling over, sitting up without help, crawling walking
4. Explain why we have few memories of experiences during our first 3 years of life.
   1. Infantile amnesia because brain areas underlying memory (hippocampus and frontal lobes) are undeveloped
5. State Piaget’s understanding of how the mind develops, and discuss the importance of assimilation and accommodation in this process.
   1. Driving force behind intellectual progression is struggle to make sense of world
   2. Found children reason differently than adults
   3. Assimilation: interpreting new experience in terms of existing schema
   4. Accommodation: adapting schema to incorporate new information
6. Outline Piaget’s 4 main stages of cognitive development, and comment on how children’s thinking changes during these 4 stages.
   1. Sensorimotor (birth - 2 y/o): sensory impressions and motor activities
      1. Lack object permanence
      2. Live in the present: out of sight = out of mind
   2. Preoperational (2 - 6/7 y/o): learn to use language but dont’t comprehend mental operaitons of concrete logical
      1. Lack concept of conservation
      2. Start letting go of egocentrism and develop theory of mind
   3. Concrete operational (6/7 – 11 y/o): cognitive development which children gain mental operaitons that neable them to think logically about concrete events
   4. Formal operations: people begin to think logically about abstract concepts
7. Discuss psychologists’ current views on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.
   1. Leo Vygotsky emphasized child’s mind grows with social interactions
   2. Researchers today see development as more continuous
   3. Piaget undesrstimated children
8. Define stranger anxiety.
   1. Fear of strangers beginning by ~8 months
9. Discuss the effects of nourishment, body contact, and familiarity on infant social attachment.
   1. Harlow monkey experiment showed parent-infant emotional communication occurs via touch
   2. Attachments based on familiarity occurs during critical period
   3. Imprinting (Konrad Lorenz): the process of forming strong attachments during an early-life critical period in certain animals
10. Contrast secure and insecure attachment, and discuss the roles of parents and infants in the development of attachment and an infant’s feelings of basic trust.
    1. Secure attachment: confidently explore novel environment while parents are present, distressed when they leave, seek contact upon return
    2. Insecure attachment: may resist being held by parents and will explore new environment and do not go to parents for comfort when they return from absence
    3. Anxious attachment: may show extreme stress when parent leaves but resist being comforted upon return
    4. Basic trust: sense that world is predictable and trustworthy
11. Describe 3 parenting styles, and offer 3 potential explanations for the link between authoritative parenting and social competence.
    1. Authoritarian: parents impose rules and expect obedience
    2. Permissive: few demands and submit to children’s requests
    3. Authoritarian: parents are demanding and responsive
    4. Authoritative parents = high self esteem, self-reliance, social competence
    5. Authoritarian parents = less social skills and self-esteem
    6. Permissive parents = aggressive and immature
12. Identify the major physical changes during adolescence.
    1. During puberty there is a development of primary and secondary sex characteristics
13. Discuss moral development from the perspectives of moral thinking, moral feeling, and moral action. ( Lawrence Kohlberg)
    1. Preconventional: obey rules to avoid punishment/gain rewards
    2. Conventional: uphold laws to gain social approval/maintain social order
    3. Postconventional: actions reflect belief i basic rights and self-defined ethical principles
    4. Moral actions feed moral attitudes
14. Identify Erikson’s 8 stages of psychosocial development and their accompanying issues.
    1. Infancy (up to 1 year): trust vs. mistrust
    2. Toddlerhood (1 - 3): autonomy vs. shame and doubt
    3. Preschool (3 - 6): initiative vs. guilt
    4. Elementary school (6 - puberty): competence vs. inferiority
    5. Adolescence (teen into 20s): identity vs. role confusion
    6. Young adulthood (20s - early 40s): intimacy vs. isolation
    7. Middle adulthood (40s - 60s): generativity vs. stagnation
    8. Late adulthood (60s up): integrity vs. despair
15. Identify the major physical changes that occur in middle adulthood.
    1. Visual sharpness diminishes and adpatiation to light level changes are less acute
    2. Eye pupil shrinks and lens become more transparent → decreases amount of light reaching retina
16. Assess the impact of aging on recall and recognition in adulthood.
    1. As telomeres shorten, aging cells may die without being replaced
    2. Ability to recall new information declines, but ability to recognize new information does not
    3. Age is less a predictor of memory than proximity to death
17. Summarize the contributions of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies to our understanding of the normal effects of aging on adult intelligence.
    1. Cross-seciotnal studeies show fluid intelligence declines in older adults
    2. Longitudinal studies show intelligence remains stable until around age 65

Unit 7 - motivation, emotion, and personality

motivation, emotion, and stress

Key Individuals

Walter Cannon Stanley Schachter William James Abraham Maslow

1. Define motivation as psychologists use the term today
   1. need/drive that energizes and diverts behavior
   2. Interplay between nature (“push”) and nurture (“pull”)
2. Compare and contrast drive-reduction, arousal, incentive, and instinct as theories of motivation
   1. Drive reduction: a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy that need
      1. Primary drive (biological needs) vs. secondary drives (learned drives)
   2. Arousal theory: we seek optimal level of arousal
      1. Lacking stimulation = bored & overstimulation = stress
      2. Yerkes-Dodson Law: performance level increases with arousal to a certain point beyond which performance decreases
   3. Incentive: do things for external benefits – pulled by a desire
   4. Instinct: genetically predisposed behavior
3. Explain biological motivation including needs, drives, and homeostasis
   1. Things that drive motivation
   2. Homeostasis is like our equilibrium of the body and our needs/drives guide us toward it
4. Explain the psychological (stress) and cultural factors (preferences, habits) implicated in the regulation of hunger
   1. Situations tend to control our eating
   2. Eat more with others because presence of others amplifies natural behavior tendencies
   3. Portion sizes affect how much you eat
   4. food variet stimulates eating
5. Differentiate between the various brain parts and hormones that are related to hunger regulation. (ventromedial and lateral hypothalamus, glucose, insulin, leptin)
   1. Lateral hypothalamus (hunger center): causes animal to eat when stimulated
      1. Destruction destroys hunger
   2. Ventromedial hypothalamus (satiety center): causes animal to stop eating when stimulation
      1. Destruction causes animal to keep eating
   3. Insulin: controls blood glucose; secreted by pancreas
   4. Ghrelin: hormone secreted by empty stomach; I’m hungry signal
   5. Orexin: hunger triggering hormed secreted by hypothalamus
   6. Leptin: causes brain to increase metabolism and decrease hunger; secreted by fat cells
   7. PYY: digestive tract hormone; I’m not hungry signal
6. Explain biological and cultural factors associated with diet and weight loss (metabolism, set point, settling point, dietary restraint)
   1. Metabolism: rate of energy expenditure
   2. Set point: “weight thermostat” is set
      1. Influenced partly by heredity
      2. Critique: slow body weight changes can affect set point
7. Distinguish between characteristics of various eating disorders
   1. Bulimia nervosa: binge eat and then purge
   2. Anorexia nervosa: keep purging
   3. Binge eating disorder
8. Explain different components of gender and sexual identity & identify the stages of sexual arousal.
   1. Excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution
   2. Sexual dysfunction: erectile disorder (men) & orgasmic disorder (women)
9. Describe how the need for achievement and affiliation develops and is exhibited.
   1. Achievement motivation: desire to master complex tasks and knowledge to reach personal goals
   2. Feels of love activate brain reward and safety systems
10. Distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
    1. Intrinsic = inner motivation & extrinsic = pulled by rewards
11. Evaluate how psychologists help organizations with employee selection, work placement, and performance appraisal, including social & task leadership as well as Theory X and Theory Y
    1. Theory X: managers believe employees will only work if rewarded with benefits or threatened with punishment
    2. Theory Y: managers believe employees are internally motivated to do good work and policies should encourage internal motive
12. Describe the cognitive, physiological and behavioral components of emotion
    1. James-Lange: stimulus → physiological response → emotion
    2. Cannon-Bard: stimulus → physiological response + emotion at same time
    3. Schacter-Singer (2 factor theory): physiological response + cognitive label = emotion
    4. Zajonc: emotional runs sometimes quicker than interpretations
    5. LeDoux: low road (thalamus → amygdala) & high road (thalamus → cortex → limbic system)
    6. Lazarus: cognitive appraisal defines emotion
    7. Opponent-process: emotions come in pairs with one emotion followed by the other
13. Explain how emotions are reflected in facial expressions (universal expressions), and describe the facial feedback hypothesis
    1. Paul Ekman universal expressions: disgust, sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise
    2. Face acts as a sensory feedback to your emotions
14. Review cross-cultural similarities and differences and variations in emotional experience and nonverbal communication
    1. Likely to use similar facial expressions
    2. Musical expressions across cultures
    3. Females more likely to express empathy & experience emotional events deeply
15. Identify some common triggers and consequences of anger, and assess the catharsis hypothesis.
16. Identify different areas of the brain that regulate all emotion including fear and anger
    1. Amygdala – review from biological bases
17. Explain predictors of happiness and differentiate between certain aspects that might help or hinder one’s level of happiness (feel-good, do-good phenomenon, subjective well-being , adaptation level hypothesis, relative deprivation, tend and befriend
    1. Feel-good, do-good: tendency to be helpful when in a good mood
    2. Adaptation-level hypothesis: judge various stimuli/situations relative to those we have previously experienced
    3. Relative-deprivation; preson will feel depreived/entitled to something based on comparison to others
    4. Tend-and-befriend: people under stress often support others & bond with and seek support from others
18. Cells in immune system (extra)
    1. B lymphocytes fight bacterial infection (formed in bone marrow)
    2. T lymphocytes attack cancer cells, virus (formed in thymus)
    3. Marcophage: ingots harmful invaders and worn out cells
    4. Natural killer cells: pursue diseased cells
19. Misc
    1. GAS syndrome (Hans Seyle): alarm, resistance, exhaustion
    2. 3 types of stress: catastrophe, life changes, daily hassles
    3. Type A vs. Type B
    4. Ostracism

personality

Key Individuals

Raymond Cattell McCrae and Costa Sigmund Freud Carl Jung

Alfred Adler Karen Horney B.F. Skinner Albert Bandura

Walter Mischel Julian Rotter Carl Rogers Abraham Maslow

Hans Eysenck Martin Seligman

1. Clarify what is meant by a personality trait and describe the five-factor model of personality (O.C.E.A.N.)
   1. Openness: practical vs. imaginative
   2. Conscientiousness: disorganized vs. organized
   3. Extraversion: reserved vs. sociable
   4. Agreeableness: uncooperative vs. helpful
   5. Neuroticism: calm vs. anxious
2. Explain how Raymond Cattell came to 16 personality traits (factor analysis)
   1. Statistical procedure used to identify clusters of test items that tap basic components of intelligence
3. Distinguish between Gordon Allport’s Cardinal, Central & Secondary traits
   1. Cardinal: leading factors that determine someone’s personality
   2. Central: traits that maek up our personalities
   3. Secondary: strongly dependent on immediate context
4. Distinguish among three components of personality (id, ego, superego) and three levels of awareness in Freud’s theory (unconscious, preconscious, conscious)
   1. Id: reservoir of unconscious energy that strives to satisfy basic secual and aggressive drives operation on pleasure principle (demanding immediate gratification)
   2. Ego: largely conscious, “executive” part of personality taht mediates amount demands of id, supergo, reality
      1. Operates on reality principle: satisfying id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure over pain
   3. Superego: represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations
      1. Focuses on how we should behave
      2. Strives for perfection, judging actions, providing positive/negative feelings
   4. Unconscious: information processing of which we are unaware
   5. Preconscious is outside of awareness, but accessible
5. Explain why an individual uses defense mechanisms and be able to apply different defense mechanisms to situations.
   1. Ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety
   2. Repression, denial, dpslacement, projection, reaction formation, regression, rationalizaiton, sublimation
6. Summarize the revisions of Freud's theory proposed the Neo-Freudians (Jung, Adler, Horney)
   1. Adler: behavior is driven by efforts to conquer childhood inferiority feelings that trigger striving for superiority and power – inferiority complex
   2. Horney: childhood anxiety triggers desire for love and security – basic anxiety
   3. Jung: collective unconscious
7. Explain Skinner’s view of behaviorism on personality
   1. Personality is developed by environment because of reinforcement contingencies
8. Describe Bandura's social cognitive theory including social learning theory, self-efficacy & reciprocal determinism
   1. Interaction between environment and behavior creates personality
   2. Reciprocal determinism: interaction influences of behavior, internal cognition, environemnt
   3. Self-efficacy: one’s sense of competence and effectiveness
9. Differentiate between internal and external locus of control according to Julian Rotter.
   1. Internal = what you do & external = luck, fate
10. Discuss Walter Mischel’s argument regarding personality traits & social situations.
    1. We don’t act with predictable consistency
    2. Makes personality tests scores weak predictors of behavior
11. Explain the significance of Martin Seligman’s learned helplessness
    1. When an individual continuously faces a negative, uncontrollable situation and stops trying to change their circumstances, even when they have ability to do so
12. Articulate Rogers's views on self-concept: unconditional/conditional positive regard, congruence & incongruence
    1. People are actually good and endowed with self-actualizing tendencies
       1. Genuineness, acceptance, empathy
    2. Unconditional positive regard to self-actualize
    3. Positive vs. negative self-concept
13. Explain Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and summarize his findings on self-actualizing persons.
    1. physiological, safety, belongingness + love, esteem, self-actualization, self-transcendence
14. Outline Eysenck's views of personality structure and development.
    1. Reduce many of normal individual variations to 2 dimensions: extraversion/intraversion & emotional stability/instability
15. Distinguish between personality inventories and projective tests.
    1. Inventory: questionnaire to gauge wide range of feelings; used to assess selected personality traits
    2. Projective test: provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics
16. Describe several prominent personality inventories and evaluate strengths and weaknesses of self-report inventories.
    1. MMPI: originally developed to identify emotional disorders
    2. Big 5 Test
17. Explain the different types of projective tests
    1. TAT: making up stories over ambiguous pictures
    2. Rorschach Inkblot Test;

Unit 8 - clinical psychology

disorders

1. Explain the medical model & distinguish between diagnosis, etiology, prognosis, epidemiology, & prevalence.
   1. Medical model: phsyical aspects like genetics, anatomy, biochemistry
   2. Etiology - causes
2. Identify the most commonly used criteria of abnormality (Deviance, Maladaptive Behavior, Personal distress).
   1. Distress: causing extreme anxiety, sorrow, pain
   2. Deviance: being different from most people in one’s culture
      1. Standards vary by time context, culture
   3. Maladaptive: diosrder interfere with leading productive life
3. Explain the purpose of the DSM and identify the components.
   1. System for classifying disorders and used to standardize mental health diagnosis
4. Explain the major anxiety disorders & identify which psychological disorders fall into this category.
   1. Distressing, persistent anxiety OR maladaptive behaviors to decreasing anxiety
   2. Generalized Anxiety Disorder: continually tense, apprehensive
   3. Panic Disorder: episodes of dreaed with chest pain, choking, frightening sensations
   4. Phobia: intense fear of fear of object or situation
      1. Agoraphobia (fear of public places) & claustrophobia
   5. OCD: unwanted/repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and actions (compulsions)
   6. PTSD: nightmares, anxiety, insomnia lasting 4+ weeks after traumatic experience
      1. Post-traumatic growth
5. Distinguish between obsessions and compulsions.
   1. Obsessions are thoughts
   2. Compulsions are actions to stop the thought
6. Explain the somatoform disorders & identify which psychological disorders fall into that category.
   1. Somatic symptom: symptoms take bodily form without apparent cause
      1. Symptoms are of physiological origin, but are actually felt
      2. Vomiting, dizziness, blurred vision, pain
   2. Conversion disorder: experience veyr speicific symptoms for which no physiological basis is found
      1. Losing sensation, aparlysis, blindness
   3. Illness anxiety disorder: person interprets normal physical symptoms as symptoms of disease
      1. Keep seeking medical advice
7. Explain dissociative disorders & identify which psychological disorders fall into that category.
   1. Dissociative identity disorders: person exhibits 2+ distinct personalities
   2. Dissociative amnesia: person cannot remember things and no physiological basis for memory loss
      1. Fugue state
8. Explain the mood disorders & identify which psychological disorders fall into that category.
   1. Disorders characterized by emotional extremes
   2. Major Depressive Disorder: must have depressed mood or loss of interest
   3. Dysthymia / Persistent Depressive Disorder: mildly depressed mood more often than not for 2+ years
   4. Bipolar Disorder: alternate between mania and depression
9. Identify symptoms of schizophrenia and distinguish which symptoms are positive & negative.
   1. Schizophrenia characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech
   2. Lose contact with reality, experiencing irrational ideas, distorted perceptions
   3. Catatonia: may remain motionless for hours & then become agitated
   4. Positive symptom = presence of inappropriate bheavior & negative symptom = absence of appropriate behaviors
10. Distinguish between hallucinations and delusions.
    1. Hallucination is false sensory experience
    2. Delusions is false beliefs
11. Explain personality disorders & identify which psychological disorders fall into that category.
    1. Behavior patterns impair social functioning
    2. Antisocial personality disorder: exhibit lack of consceicne for wrongdoing and may be aggressive, ruthless, manipulative
    3. Borderline personality disorder: unstable moods, behavior, relationships
    4. Dependent personality disorder: rely too much on attention of others
    5. Narcissistic personality disorder: seeing everythings as revolving around you
    6. Histrionic personality disorder: overly dramatic behaviors to gain attention
12. Explain how genetic vulnerability, neurochemical factors, structural abnormalities, family dynamics, and stress can contribute to various disorders including the diathesis stress model.
    1. Anxiety
       1. Conflict between id, ego, super – psychoanalytic
       2. It can be a learned behavior
       3. Dysfunctional ways of thinking
    2. Somatic symptom
       1. Manifestations of unconscious conflicts
       2. Being rewarded for behavior
    3. DID
       1. Psychoanalytic – extremely traumatic event has been so thoroughly repressed that a split in consciousness occurs
    4. Depression
       1. Aaron Beck (cognitive): result from unreasonably negative ideas that people have
       2. Learned helplessness
       3. Low levels of serotonin
       4. Rumination
    5. Shciozphrenia
       1. High levels of dopamine
       2. Enlarged brain ventricles
       3. Low birth weight, maternal diabetes, older paternal age, oxygen deprivation during delivery
    6. Diathesis-stress model: environmental stressors can provide circumstances under which biological predisposition can express itself
13. Identify the positive and negative consequences of diagnostic labels (e.g., Rosenhan study).
    1. Showed how labels create stigma and showed unreliability of psychological disorder diagnosis

treatment

1. Identify the central characteristics of psychotherapeutic interventions therapy (psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, biomedical)
   1. Ecletic approach: approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various forms of therapy depending on client’s problems
2. Distinguish between the various types of mental health professionals involved in the provision of therapy.
   1. Psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical/psychiatric social workers
3. Explain the goals and techniques of the psychodynamic approach (psychoanalysis, transference, free association, dream analysis, resistance)
   1. People need to release energy associated with unconscious conflicts
   2. Bring repressed feelings into consciousness
   3. Use free association and find pattern in what you start filtering
   4. Resistance: blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material
   5. Transference: patients transfer to analyst of emotions linked with other relationships
   6. Dream analysis
4. Explain the goals and techniques of the humanistic approach (client-centered therapy, active listening)
   1. Boost self-fulfillment by helping them grown in self-awareness/acceptance
   2. Client-centered therapy: acceptance, genuineness, empathy
   3. Actively listening and unconditional positive regard
5. Explain the central ideas of gestalt therapy and existentialism
   1. Gestalt therapy: encourage cleints to get in touch with their whole self
   2. Existential therapy: help clients achieve subjectively meaningful perception of their lives
6. Explain the goals and techniques of the behavioral approach (aversive conditioning, token economy, flooding, systematic desensitization, behavior modification, reconditioning)
   1. Counterconditioning (Mary Cover Jones): unpleasant conditioned response replaced with pleasant one
   2. Systematic desensitization (Joseph Wolpe): replace feelings of anxiety with relaxation through maxing anxiety hierarchy
   3. Exposure therapy and behavior modification
   4. Aversive conditioning: associate unpleasant CR with unwanted behavior
   5. Token economy
   6. Flooding: extreme exposure to stimulus
7. Explain the goals and techniques of the cognitive-behavioral approach (cognitive restructuring, irrational ideas)
   1. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) by Albert Ellis: exposre and confront dysfunctional thoughts of clients
      1. Confrontational cognitive therapy to reveal “absurdity” of thking
8. Explain the goals and techniques of the neurobiological approach (various neurotransmitters & medication-antianxiety, antipsychotic, antidepressant, mood stabilizing drugs)
   1. Antianxiety drugs depress nervous system activity
      1. Xanax, Ativan, D-cyclosenine
   2. Antidepressants are antagonist drugs that increase serotinin and norepinephrine levels
      1. SSRIs: Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil
   3. Antipsychotics: treat positive symptoms of schizophrenia
   4. Lithium for bipolar disorder
9. Explain the purpose of group and family therapy
   1. Group therapy saves time, money, develop social skills, realize other people face similar problems
   2. Family therapy treats family as a system
10. Explain the significance of lesioning and ECT treatment
    1. ECt is very helpful for those who are not responding to drug therapy and is mostly harmless
    2. Lobotomy is a major step in treating disorders and is helpful but creates extreme permanent side effects
11. Identify major figures in psychological treatment.
12. Explain the significance of historical thoughts on abnormal behavior.

Unit 9 - social psychology

Key Individuals

Solomon Asch Stanley Milgram Philip Zimbardo Leon Festinger

1. Identify key factors of attraction and how they influence impressions of others.
2. Recognize the three components of Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love.
3. Explain attribution and identify situations in which we are likely to make internal and external attributions.
4. Identify several types of bias in patterns of attribution (fundamental attribution error, actor-observer, self-serving bias)
5. Recognize how the Just World Phenomenon helps individuals explain events that happen to others.
6. Articulate how having the point of view of an individualistic or collectivist culture might influence attribution or the way in which individuals perceive social situations.
7. Be able to explain the key components of cognitive dissonance and ways to reduce it
8. Discuss the implementation, organization, ethical concerns, and results of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo’s experiments.
9. Explain norms and differentiate between descriptive and injunctive norms and how they impact behavior.
10. Describe Solomon Asch’s work with conformity and the impact of group size on one’s behavior.
11. Explain how deindividuation, diffusion of responsibility, and the bystander effect may occur in large groups of people.
12. Describe how the presence of others could aid or hinder one’s performance on a given task.
13. Explain the difference between group polarization and groupthink and identify the circumstances under which they are likely to occur.
14. Illustrate how in-group and out-group preferences can lead to scapegoating.
15. Examine how affect, behavior, and cognition relate to prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping.
16. Describe how psychologists would explain aggression (frustration, hostile, instrumental) and factors that would contribute to an individual’s willingness to help others (altruism)
17. Explain how stereotype threat, contact theory, and superordinate goals might strengthen or weaken preconceived notions about people or situations.
18. Compare and contrast the central and peripheral route to persuasion of the elaboration likelihood model
19. Explain compliance and explain different methods of persuasion and compliance tactics.
20. Distinguish between various types of social dilemmas and the factors which might make us likely to cooperate or compete with regard to the Prisoner’s and Commoner’s Dilemmas.
21. Explain how confirmation bias, hindsight bias, self-handicapping, self-fulfilling prophecy, the false consensus effect and the Pygmalion in the Classroom influences attitudes.
22. Explain how schemas and social schemas can lead to stereotyping and generalizations.
23. Be able to explain the impact of strength, accessibility and ambivalence on attitudes.