The Ultimate Study Guide of Adam -

Psychological Perspective

Description

1. Humanistic (used for positive psych)

• Emphasizes the study of your potential, the good in you, and your strengths

• Looks at your progress, goals, and purpose

2. Evolutionary

• Examines how human behavior has been shaped by natural selection and adaptation over time

• Focuses on evolution, natural selection, and adaptations/survival instincts

3. Behavioral/Learning

• Focuses on how observable behaviors are learned and influenced by the environment, rather than internal mental processes

• Emphasizes the role of conditioning and reinforcement in shaping behavior

4. Psychodynamic

• Explores how unconscious processes and childhood experiences influence behavior

• Looks at stored/internalized/repressed experiences, defense mechanisms, dreams, and past traumas

5. Biological

• Examines the biological systems and processes which affect behavior

• Looks at hormone levels, neurotransmitter balances, etc.

6. Socio-cultural

• Examines how social and cultural factors influence an individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

• Focuses on relationships, environments, social groups, societal norms, and beliefs

7. Cognitive

• Examines mental processes such as perception, memory, and thinking

8. Biopsychological

• An integrated approach/multi-dimensional perspective that incorporates biological, psychological, and socio-cultural analysis to understand human behavior

• Studies our complexity and integration of disciplines to understand our nature

Ethical Guideline

Description

1. Informed Consent / Informed Assent

• Informed CONSENT: Research participants must be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.

• Informed ASSENT: Research participants who can't legally give full consent (a child or someone with cognitive impairments) must be confirmed to participate in research by a guardian.

2. Protection from Undue Mental Stress and Physical Harm

Research participants must be protected from undue physical or psychological harm.

3. Debriefing

Research participants must receive a post-experimental explanation of the study, including its purpose and any deceptions used.

4. Deception (Misleading or lying to research participants about the true purpose/nature of a study)

If the research participants are deceived in any way, the deception must not be so extreme as to invalidate the informed consent.

5. Confidentiality

Research participants' identities must not be revealed in the publication of the study or any other use of their data thereafter.

6. Right to Withdraw

Allows a research participant to drop out of a study at any time without penalty

7. IRB Approval

IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval must be in place to implement the research protocol.

Ethical Guideline

Description

Strengths

Weaknesses

1. Survey

Involves asking many participants a set list of questions to assess their attitudes or opinions

-Can collect both qualitative and quantitative data

-Efficient data collection (versatile)

-Wording effects (the phrasing of a question might affect people's expressed opinions)

-Untruthful responses due to social desirability bias -Unrepresentative samples (biased results) -Inflexible/lacks depth

2. Correlation Study

Examines the relationship between two or more variables

-Underlines how strong or weak the variables' relationship is and if it's + or - -Can inspire experiments to confirm causation 

-Directionality problem

-Third variable problem → illusory correlation (correlation doesn't mean causation)

3. Experiment

Seeks to understand the relationship between cause and effect

-The ONLY research method to prove causation (isolates variables to determine how a specific variable is affecting an outcome)

-Provides operational definitions

-Confounding variables

-Demand characteristics

-Low ecological validity

-Single-blind procedures might lead to experimenter bias

-Unrepresentative sample (e.g. through convenience sampling)

4. Interview

Involves the researcher asking participants face-to-face questions and recording their answers (includes focus groups or one-on-one interviews)

-Structured: Most standardized, can compare results across all interviews -Unstructured: Participant feels free to talk about whatever they feel comfortable discussing

-Focus group: Saves time and money; participants can build off of each other's answers

-Gets to the WHY people do things

-Structured: Too rigid; participants might not be comfortable with specific questions -Unstructured: Can go off on tangents that have nothing to do with the purpose of the interview -Focus group: People may not feel comfortable discussing personal topics

-Prone to lying

5. Naturalistic Observation

Involves the researcher observing participants in their natural environment (no manipulation) and recording their behavior

-High ecological validity due to natural setting

-Doesn't have demand characteristics -Expands our understanding of natural behaviors -Paves the way for later studies -Illuminates human behavior

-We see what people do, but not WHY

-No variable control/manipulation makes it difficult to establish cause-and-effect relationships

-Limited generalizability

6. Case Study

Involves a researcher conducting an in-depth and detailed examination of a single subject, or case, usually on an individual or a small group

-Eliminates the need for unethical experiments

-Gives us access to info that we'd normally have no access to

-Replication is NOT possible

-Cannot determine cause-and-effect relationships

Independent Variable: The MANIPULATED factor, separates the control group from the experimental group

Dependent Variable: The MEASURABLE factor, the focus of the research study

To better understand this concept: If an experimenter wanted to find out if plants grow faster in warmer temperatures, the independent variable (manipulated) would be the temperature, while the dependent variable (measured) would be the plant growth.

Thalamus

Directs sensory messages from the body to the correct areas in the brain.

Reticular formation

Nerve network that controls attention and alertness. 

Pons

Conditions movement

Medulla

Controls the heartbeat and breathing

Cerebellum

HOMEOSTASIS

Processes sensory input (sounds, sights, textures). Also coordinates movement with pons.

Hypothalamus

Coordinates communication between NS and endocrine system. (Seeks homeostasis)

Amygdala

Influences aggression and fear

Pituitary Gland

Releases human growth hormones. Controls the endocrine system

Hippocampus

Responsible for creating, storing, and retrieving memories.

Frontal Lobe

Motor Cortex: controls movements. Opposite side of the brain controls opposite side of the body. L→ R

Prefrontal Lobe: decision making, judgment, planning, reason, personality, impulse.

Broca Area: motor cortex for the mouth. Controls center for tongue,lips, and jaw. 

Parietal Lobe

Sensory Cortex: Processes all touch sensations around your body.

Angular Gyrus: Gives you the ability to decod words from a page and read aloud.

Temporal Lobe

Auditory Cortex: Processes info from the ears.

Wenicke’s Area: Allows you to derive the meaning when people are talking to you as well as able to form sentences that others understand.

Occipital Lobe

Visual Cortex: Receives and processes input from your eyes. 

Adrenaline (NATURAL SUPERPOWER!)

released in response to physical/mental stress. Present during fight or flight response to give you extra strength. 

Melatonin (Hormone of Darkness)

responsible for telling us when to sleep. (Light vs Dark)

Oxytocin

hormone that causes the feeling of love and trust allows for bonding and arousal

Ghrelin

Responsible for making us feel hungry.

Leptin

responsible for making us feel full.

testosterone

responsible for the changes during puberty in males, such as body hair, a deeper voice, stronger muscles, etc. 

Central Nervous system

made up of the brain and spinal cord, transmits messages to and from the sensory/motor neurons and glands of the peripheral nervous system

Peripheral Nervous system

Made up of sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body.

Somatic Nervous System

Division of the peripheral nervous system that controls voluntary movement of the musculoskeletal system

Exp:

I want water so I consciously tell my body how to move

Autonomic Nervous system

Division of the peripheral nervous system that controls visceral and unconscious functions of the body.

(Breathing, blinking, heart rate, sweating,etc)

Sympathetic Nervous System:

Division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body for “Fight or flight response”.

Parasympathetic Nervous system

Division of the autonomic nervous system that calms down after fight or flight response is no longer necessary. 

EEG

Reads electrical activity of the brain. Allow us to identify patterned electrical activity of the brain.

Exp:

Medical investigation of seizures, tumors, strokes, and dementia often involve EEG.

PET

Measures the metabolic energy used in diff parts of the brain.

Exp: 

Can find tumors or cancer.

Murders vs people

1- Diminished activity (frontal lobe → impulses)

2- Less activity in the amygdala → loss of fear sensations.

MRI

Very clear 3D image of the structure of the brain.

Exp:

Taxi drivers vs males

Increased grey matter found in brains of taxi drivers.

Evidence:  structural differences between the hippocampi of LTD and control participants →that extensive practice with spatial navigation positively affects the hippocampus.

Lesioning

Destruction of specific part of the brain which helps us see how it impacts an individual.

Exp:

Rats:

Lesioning amygdala→ took away the rats ability to experience fear therefore indicates that the amygdala houses fear. 

fMRI

shows actual brain activity and indicates which areas of the brain are active when engaged in a behavior or cognitive process

Soma

The cell body of a neuron (Nucleus)

Dendrites

Receive messages

Axon

Passes along messages

Myelin Sheath

Insulates the axons of some neurons and helps speed their impulses.

Nodes of Ranvier 

Gaps in the myelin Shealth that allow for ions to diffuse in and out of the neuron generating the electrical charge down the axon.

Axon Terminal

allows the neuron to conduct electrical impulse down to another neuron or another type of cell by the release of signals into the synapse.

Axon Hillock

processes the incoming signals from other neurons.

Neurotransmitters

Chemical messengers that travel from neuron to neuron

Serotonin (Excitatory) 

Affects mood

Low levels→ depression

Dopamine (Excitatory) 

• Motor movements

• Feelings of pleasure and reward 

Too much = Schizophrenia

Too little = Parkinsons

Acetylcholine (Excitatory) 

• Memory

• Learning 

Low levels= alzheimers

Endorphins (Excitatory)

Natural pain killer 

People can get addicted 

Norepinephrine/epinephrine (Excitatory) 

Boosts energy, attention and focus 

Too much= attention deficit disorder 

GABA (Inhibitory)

Blocks/slows down neurotransmitters

imbalance= throw the system off

Substance P (Excitatory)

Send pain signals to the brain 

Without → congenital insensitivity to pain

Glutamate (Excitatory)

Opp of GABA

Facilitates neurotransmitters

Without: Memory, cognitive, or mood disorders.

Sensory Adaptation: The way our senses adjust to different stimuli

• E.g: Going into someone's house and noticing a certain smell that eventually fades and you get used to it

Parts of the eye:

1. Pupil: The opening through which light enters the eye

2. Iris: Colored part of the eye, expands/contracts based on light

3. Lens: Focuses light onto the back of the retina (fovea)

4. Retina: The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye where the processing of visual information begins. It contains the fovea, and therefore, rods and cones.

5. Fovea: The central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster

6. Rods (Photoreceptor): Dark light (black/white vision), found in the fovea

7. Cones (Photoreceptor): Color vision (red/blue/green), found in the fovea

8. Optic Nerve: The nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain

Transduction:

1. Lightwave enters the eyes through the pupil, the iris expands/contracts based on light.

2. The light hits the lens and focuses it onto the back of the retina (fovea).

3. The fovea contains rods and cones: rods=dark light, cones=color.

4. Transduction occurs in the fovea (lightwave is now electricity).

5. Ganglion cells form the optic nerve and carry the electrical signal to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe.

Sensation / Bottom-up Processing: How our body gathers information about the world (the information gets sent to the brain in the form of electrical signals)

Perception / Top-down Processing: How our brain takes those electrical signals and organizes them into meaningful symbols/objects so that we can interpret our surroundings

Sensation / bottom-up processing is the same for everyone, while perception / top-down processing is different for everyone because our brain influences what we see and how we feel about that experience.

Absolute threshold

Difference Threshold

The point of which you notice a stimulus 50% of the time. 

The ability to identify the difference between 2 stimuli.

Linear Perspective

When parallel lines converge it tells us how far things are

Relative Height

Closer/further by how high an object is. ↑= further

Relative Size

Bigger=closer smaller=further

Interposition

Which object in our field of vision is closer/further by how 1 object conceals another.

Motion Parallax

The closer the object is the faster it will move past you. The farther the slower.

Shadows/light

The shadow of objects help you determine where those objects are in space.

Texture gradient/relative clairty

Objects further away seem to lose their texture in your field of vision. 

Circadian Rhythm: Our body's biological clock (24-hour cycle) that makes us awake during the day and sleepy at night

How It Works: The suprachiasmatic nucleus (a small cluster of cells within the hypothalamus) regulates our sleep cycle. When light is BRIGHT, it alerts the pineal gland to STOP PRODUCING melatonin. When light DIMS, it alerts the pineal gland to START PRODUCING melatonin.

Sleep Disorder

Description

Cure

1. Narcolepsy

Excessive daytime sleepiness and uncontrollable sleep attacks 

Medication to increase orexin (a hormone that regulates sleep by causing the wakeful feeling after sleep)

2. Sleep Apnea

Episodes during which breathing repeatedly stops/restarts during sleep

CPAP machine (increases oxygen to the brain)

3. REM Sleep Behavior Disorder

Physically acting out vivid, unpleasant dreams during REM. Body doesn't go into normal paralysis

Medication called clonazepam that increases GABA (brain is inhibited, muscles are relaxed)

4. Insomnia

Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep

Bedtime routine, dim lights, minimize/manage daily stress, drink milk to boost serotonin, no caffeine in the evening, no night exercise

5. Somnambulism

Sleepwalking

Getting a better night's sleep and finding ways to relax before bed

6. Night Terrors

Kids have nightmares during NREM-3 and can't be woken up. They're sitting up in bed with their eyes open acting out their nightmare.

No scary stories/TV/video games or sugar before bed. Create a calm, peaceful atmosphere before and during bedtime. 

7. Sleep Paralysis

Person doesn't fully wake up from REM (their body remains paralyzed). The brain hallucinates a reason for the paralysis, which is usually that there's something holding the person down in the bed.

Trying to move certain body parts (toes, fingers, mouth, etc.) or falling back asleep

When light is bright, melatonin production is stimulated. When light dims, melatonin production is inhibited. This works to regulate the circadian rhythm and sleep cycle.

Stage of Sleep

Description

EEG (Recording of Brain Activity)

NREM Stage 1 (The Brain Prepares for Sleep)

• Relaxation begins

• Susceptible to hypnagogic sensations

• Experience hallucinations (like a falling sensation) and jerky movements

Shows alpha waves (slow and consistent)

NREM Stage 2 (Light Sleep)

• Sleep talking

• Easily awakened

Shows slow waves and pauses between short, powerful bursts of electrical activity

NREM Stage 3 (Deep Sleep)

• Hard to wake up, but when awoken, we're confused/groggy

• Sleepwalking

• More blood flows through our body to replenish muscles

• This stage is good for our BODY, but doesn't refresh our brain.

Shows delta brain waves (slow, large, matched out slow-patterned breaths)

REM (Rapid Eye Movement)

• Increased heart rate and irregular breathing

• Hippocampus lights up (brain is making neural connections, storing info., forming new memories)

• Dreaming s

• Boof dy goes paralyzed

• Waste products from the brain's neural activity during the day get flushed out to REFRESH US MENTALLY

• MOST VALUABLE

Shows rapid random brain waves

Component of Classical Conditioning

Description

In Pavlov’s Dogs Experiment

1. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers an unconditioned response without any learning needed

Food

2. Unconditioned Response (UCR)

The learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus

Salivation when food is in the mouth

3. Neutral Stimulus (NS)

A stimulus that doesn’t produce an automatic response until we learn to associate it with another stimulus

The bell at the BEGINNING of the experiment

4. Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

An originally irrelevant stimulus that starts out without an associated response, but then is conditioned to have a specific response

The bell at the END of the experiment

5. Conditioned Response (CR)

The learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus

Salivation at the sound of a bell

6. Generalization Principle / Stimulus Generalization

When an individual responds to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus

Anything that sounds like a bell (ringtone or doorbell) also triggers salivation.

7. Discrimination Principle / Stimulus Discrimination

Being able to tell between the conditioned stimulus and other stimuli

Being able to tell between the bell and other stimuli

8. Extinction Principle

The diminishing of a conditioned response

The bell rings but no food is presented → “unlearning the response”.

9. Spontaneous Recovery

The reoccurrence of a conditioned response AFTER EXTINCTION

Every now and then, the CR (salivation at the sound of a bell) will come back to the dogs.

Behaviorist

Description

1. Ivan Pavlov

A Russian scientist who founded the principles of CLASSICAL CONDITIONING with his dogs/food/bell experiment

2. JB Watson

A scientist who brought Pavlov's principles of classical conditioning to human psychology by conducting the BABY ALBERT experiment

3. BF Skinner

A scientist who founded the principles of OPERANT CONDITIONING based on Thorndike’s Law of Effect

4. Albert Bandura

A scientist who conducted the BOBO DOLL experiment, which serves as the foundation for SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY (Observational Learning)

5. Thorndike

A scientist who introduced the LAW OF EFFECT in operant conditioning

6. Martin Seligman

A scientist who experimented on dogs to understand LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

7. Wolfgang Kohler

A scientist who experimented on monkeys to see how INSIGHT LEARNING works

Reinforcement

Punishment

Positive

Adding something good to encourage a certain behavior

E.g.: Giving student a sticker for turning in homework on time

Adding something bad to reduce a certain behavior

E.g.: Child abuse, adding chores because they got a bad grade, assigning a pop quiz for talking in class

Negative

Removing something bad to encourage a certain behavior

E.g.: Cancelling a test because students focused in class

Removing something good to reduce a certain behavior

E.g.: Taking away phone from son after sneaking out

Classical (Ivan Pavlov and JB Watson)

Operant (BF Skinner)

Process of learning to anticipate two stimuli to anticipate an outcome.

Lightening → thunder

Process of human/animal learning to associate his/her behavior with reward/ punishment

Intelligence: The ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations

Reification: The process of taking an abstract concept and making it measurable / treating something immaterial — like happiness, fear, or evil — as a material thing

• E.g.: An IQ test is the reification of intelligence, a wedding ring is the reification of a couple’s love

G-factor: Charles Spearman's idea that an individual's overall intelligence is a compilation of different specific abilities

• E.g.: If you have high general athletic ability, you will be good at many different sports.

Multiple Intelligence Theory: Suggests there are several types of intelligence; proposed by Howard Gardner.

• Spatial intelligence: visualizing the world in 3d

• intra-personal intelligence: understanding yourself, what you feel, and what you want

• linguistic intelligence: finding the right words to express what you mean

• bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: coordinating your mind with your body

• interpersonal intelligence: sensing peoples feelings and motives

• existential intelligence: tackling the questions of why we live, and why we die

• logical-mathemtical intelligence: quantifying things, making hypotheses and proving them

• musical intelligence: discerning sounds, their pitch, tone, rhythm, and timbre

• naturalist intelligence: understanding living things and reading nature

Savant Syndrome: When a person has diminished cognitive abilities but is a genius in one specific area

Mental Age: An individual's level of mental development relative to others; developed by Alfred Binet

Chronological Age: The number of years a person has lived

Mental age is based on a person's intellectual development whereas chronological age is based on when that person was born.

Achievement Tests: A test designed to assess what a person has learned in a certain subject

• E.g.: Unit test or final exam

Aptitude Tests: A test designed to assess an individual's potential to succeed in a certain area, even if they haven't received training or education in that field

Achievement tests focus on what has already been learned, while aptitude tests focus on the potential someone has to learn new things.

Flynn Effect: The observed phenomenon that intelligence scores on IQ tests have been increasing over time

Reliability: Refers to how consistent and stable the results of a test are

Validity: Refers to how well a test measures what it has been designed to measure

Reliability measures the precision of a test, while validity looks at accuracy.

Fluid Intelligence: Allows us to think quickly on the spot and come up with new and creative answers in a short amount of time

Crystalized Intelligence: Knowledge that we have accumulated throughout our lives

• E.g.: All the stuff you know!

Fluid abilities decline throughout adulthood, while crystallized abilities grow with old age.

Construct Validity: Indicates that the test is constructed in a way that yields accurate results

• E.g.: If an exam only has two MCQs, it is not an accurate indicator of what a student has learned.

Predictive Validity: Indicates that the results on the test accurately predict how the test taker will do on future tests

• E.g.: If you get all A's on Mr. Strand's unit tests, but then you end up getting a 2 on the AP test, then Mr. Strand's unit tests are obviously lacking in predictive validity.

Construct validity evaluates how well an instrument can measure something, while predictive validity assesses its ability to predict a future outcome.

Growth Mindset: Belief that abilities can improve through effort even if it takes longer or requires more effort than others

Fixed Mindset: Belief that we have a set amount of an ability that cannot grow