exam 2

Instinct: a complex behavior rigidly patterned throughout a species and 

is unlearned

Drive: an aroused/tense state related to a physical need

(exp: thirst,hunger, warmth)

Incentive: external stimuli that can "pull" us in our actions

Drive-Reduction Theory: Humans are motivated to reduce these drives due

 to the need of homeostasis

Arousal Theory: aims not to eliminate arousal but to seek optimum levels 

of arousal.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization, self-transcendence. Main idea is that basic needs must be met before you can move on to more advanced needs

Effect of Hunger: When we are hungry, thoughts about food dominate 

our consciousness. 

Receptors throughout the body monitor levels of glucose and send signals to: A: The Hypothalamus 

Hypothalamus: Send out appetite- stimulating or appetite-suppressing hormones

Set Point: the point at which one's body tries maintain weight

Basal metabolic rate/ Metabolism: the body's resting rate of energy expenditure

Psychology of foods: We tend to avoid unfamiliar foods, some taste preferences are

 universal or learned in cultures.

Obesity: excessive fatness, contains many physical health risks, can lead to Depression and  bullying. The Obesity rate has tripled worldwide since 1975.

Effect of sleep on weight: Sleep deprivation makes you more likely to gain weight.

Effect of being ostracized or outcasted: Can lead to physical pain 

Evolutionary perspective of why we feel the need to belong? A: Seeking bonds with others 

is linked to survival 

Correlation between Social Media and rates of depression, anxiety, and self-harm: Rates of all symptoms have increased during this time

Achievement Motivation: A desire for significant accomplishment, mastering skills, and 

attain a high standard

What predicts school performance, attendance, and graduation honors?

A:  Self-Discipline + GRIT

Intrinsic Motivation: The desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake

Extrinsic Motivation: The desire to perform a behavior to receive rewards or avoid punishment

What does excessive rewards lead to? A: Decreased intrinsic motivation 

Results of students with more intrinsic motivation: Perform better in school, take 

more challenging classes, and earn more advanced degrees (extrinsic rewards)

“Flow”: Feeling purposefully engaged, deeply immersed, and challenged

Industrial-Organizational Psychology: the application of psychological concepts and 

methods to optimizing human behavior in workplaces. (exp: training programs)

Personnel Psychology: Selecting, Hiring and Placing Employees: Match the strengths of people to the tasks of organizations, prosperity and profit. Focus on accentuating strengths, talents rather than correct deficiencies.

Benefit of having a Personnel Psychologist assess employee performance? A: They’re an objective 3rd party 

The Interviewer Illusion: When interviewers overestimate their ability to “read” people 
How to predict future job performance: Aptitude tests, job knowledge tests, work samples, past job performance, structured interviews

Performance Feedback: can affirm workers' strengths and motivate needed 

improvements

Organizational Psychology: Focuses on improving worker motivation, satisfaction, engagement, and productivity. 

Employee engagement: an individual's involvement, satisfaction, and enthusiasm for work

Effective Leaders: work to define goals, implement plans, and provide feedback on progress

SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely

Human factors Psychologists: psychologists that help design appliances, machines, and work settings that harness natural perception sets.

Is Sexual Orientation biological or social? A: Genetic and prenatal findings provide support for sexual orientation being influenced by biology. Specifically: scientists believe exposure to higher levels of testosterone/estrogen depending on the sex may lead to same-sex behavior. 

Are sexual orientation changes a new development? No, scientists believe that sexual orientation and identity have always varied.

Older brother effect: men with older biological brothers are somewhat more likely to be gay 

What percent of people are exclusively homosexual? A: 3-4% for men and 2% for women 

Common misconceptions for what causes homosexuality:

  • Absent father

  • Domineering mother

  • Molested by an adult homosexual

  • Peer influence

  • Hatred of other sex

  • Raised by homosexual parents 

Effect of External Stimuli on sex. Men and women become aroused when they see, hear, or read erotic material. With repeated exposure to any stimulus, the response lessens (habituates). 

Negative effects of exposure to sexually explicit material. Believing rape is acceptable (be more willing to hurt women). Reducing satisfaction with a partner’s appearance or with a relationship. Desensitization

What types of behaviors are consistent with exposure to sexually explicit content ?Perceive peers as sexually active. Permissive Attitudes. Early Sex. Inconsistent condom use

L.L. Thurston's Theory of Intelligence: identified 7 clusters of primary mental abilities. But those who excelled in 1 of the 7 clusters generally scored well on the others. Opposed Spearman’s Theory. 

Fluid intelligence: Our ability to reasons speedily & abstractly. ex: Being able to navigate using a complex subway system in the city

Crystallized Intelligence: Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills. Ex: Remembering history, recalling a formula to use in a math exam. 

How do we create crystallized intelligence? We use our g-based fluid intelligence to learn & gain crystallized intelligence in return 

Gardner’s 8 Intelligences: a theory that opposes Spearman’s “G” theory of intelligence

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory: 3 Intelligences: Practical(street smarts and common sense), Creative(imaginative problem solving), and Analytical(academic problem solving and computation)

Savant syndrome: a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Success: A gift of nature and a “whole lot of nurture” 

What makes up success? a combination of talent and GRIT: Conscientiousness, Social Support and connections, hard work and energetic persistence

Benefits of Emotional Intelligence: Can avoid being overwhelmed by depression, anxiety, anger. Can read others' emotional cues-Can delay gratification in pursuit of long-range rewards. Contributes to success in relationships, careers, parenting

Achievement test: reflect what you have learned 

Aptitude test: predict your ability to learn

Intelligence test: Assess mental aptitude(problem solving abilities)  using numerical scores; compared to others

Principles of Test Construction: Reliability,Validity, Standardization 

Standardization: your score is based 0n a comparison among your peers.

Validity: the extent to which the test measures what it claims to measure. 

Reliability: Extent to which scores are consistent in different editions, occasions. 

Test-retest reliability: Using the same test on two occasions

to measure consistency. 

Split-half reliability: A measure of reliability in which a test is split into two parts and 

an individual’s scores on both halves are compared

Content validity: Are the questions measuring what they’re supposed to. 

Predictive Validity: Refers to the function of a test in predicting a particular trait or behavior . 

Normal Curve: the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes.

Alfred Binet: tried to objectively identify children in need of special classes. He devised fair tests to measure each child's mental age.

Binet’s Philosophy: Believed hard work along with GRIT and other work strategies could improve your intelligence.

Lewis Terman’s Philosophy: Believed IQ was entirely genetic. Major believer in eugenics. Modified Binet's Intelligence test to be used for Americans.

Stanford-Binet Test: the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test.

What does Wechsler’s Intelligence Scale Measure? Verbal comprehension, Processing speed, Perceptual organization, Working memory

Differences in Girls learning: Better at locating objects, detecting emotions, more verbally fluent

Differences in Boys learning: - Perform better on spatial ability tests. Perform better on complex math problems

Same : Boys and Girls tend to score similarly in mathematics 

Group Differences in Intelligence: 

  • Races all tend to score very similarly across different subjects

  • Race is not a neatly defined biological category 

  • Infants of different races tend to score very similarly 

  • Most differences are explained by environmental differences 

What can boost a child’s chance for success? 

Prenatal & Infant nutrition, Quality preschool, interactive reading program

What can suppress cognitive development?  Poverty, malnutrition, sensory deprivation, and social isolation 

With age, the intelligence test scores of adoptees looks more and more like that of their ____________ parents? : Biological

What does conception create? A zygote

The early stages of development and what they include :

Zygote Stage: (10 days- 2 Weeks) Starts with conception and ends with implantation into the uterine wall

Embryo Stage: (3 weeks-8 weeks): Complete after the creation of organs

Fetal Stage: (9 weeks- birth): development of sensory systems, sex specific characteristics

Teratogens: Anything that can harm the embryo or fetus (Alcohol, Smoking, Illness, Drugs, STDs, Extreme Stress)

Reflexes: Innate actions that are unlearned (like rooting, sucking, startle reflex, grasping reflex, crying)

__ gives us a way to ask infants what they see and remember: habituation

Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory: Children’s development in intelligence undergoes changes as they grow. Believes it to be a discontinuous process that is experienced by everyone. 

Sensitive and responsive caregiving: Sensitive= You know what your baby needs. Responsive=You respond every time 

Authoritarian parenting: Very demanding, not responsive

Authoritative parenting: Demanding and Responsive

Permissive parenting: Responsive, not demanding 

Neglectful parenting: Not responsive, not demanding

Puberty/Adolescence:

  • Myelin grows into puberty, meaning that action potential occurs faster

  • Selective pruning: loss of unused neurons and connections occurs during puberty so our brains can become more efficient

  • brains stops automatically adding new connections during puberty

  • frontal lobe last part of brain to mature

  • Typically, a time of diminishing parental influence and growing peer influence

  • Understand risks but give more weight to potential thrills 

  • Parents and adolescents tend to argue more over mundane things

What are the 3 Behaviors that show memory functioning? Recall, recognition, relearning

Exceptions to the Information-Processing Model? Our memory is more fragile than it accounts for. Because of parallel processing we process a lot of things subconsciously


The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model: Made up of sensory, short-term and long-term memory

Sensory memory: Immediate information we receive from senses.

Short term memory: involved in storing information for a small period of time.

Long term memory: retains long lasting information 

Working memory: active processing of info in short-term storage. (a temporary sticky-note)

Exp: Asking for directions and remembering it until you reach the destination. 

Automatic Processing:  Some information goes straight from sensory experience into long-term memory. Ex: carrying out familiar tasks like driving, folding, playing a game

Explicit memories: are facts and experiences that we can consciously know and recall. Use effortful processing

Emplicit Memories: some information skips the conscious encoding track and goes directly into storage. Formed through automatic processing. Relate to space, time, and frequency. 

Effortful Processing: mental activity that requires deliberate conscious thought 

Automatic processing: a type of thinking that does not require a lot of effort or deliberation

Why do we need automatic processing? A: Without it, we wouldn't be able to remember short-term memories

Strategies to Improve memory: Chunking(grouping), Mnemonics(memory aides), and Hierarchies(categories). 

The Spacing Effect: You retain information better when your encoding is distributed over time. 

Learn fast = forget fast 

Best way to practice? Testing effect

Testing effect: Repeated self-testing improves retention 

Deep/Semantic Processing: The deeper (more meaningful) the processing, the better the retention. Connects to making material personally meaningful (We can memorize a set of instructions more easily if we figure out what they mean rather than seeing them as set of words.)

How does memory storage work?: Memories are organized as an overlapping layer of neural networks distributed throughout the brain 

Which parts of the brain are involved for explicit memories: Events and facts are held in the hippocampus for a couple of days before moving to the cortex for long-term storage = memory consolidation. Hippocampus-->Cortex

When does most of consolidation take place? A: SLEEP 

Which parts of the brain are involved for implicit memories: the cerebellum and ganglia together store these memories. The Basal Ganglia is made up of structures in the forebrain which help to control movement. 

How do emotions affect our memory:

  1.  Emotions can trigger a rise in stress hormones

  2. Stress triggers the amygdala

  3.  The amygdala increases memory-forming activity so the brain will "tag" these memories as important

  4. Result: These memories are stored with more sensory and emotional detail 

Priming: exposure to one stimulus may influence a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention. (Ex: if a child sees a bag of candy next to a red bench, they might begin looking for or thinking about candy the next time they see a bench)

Context Dependent Memory:  theory that you have stronger recall in the same environment in which the original memory was formed

Mood congruent memory: the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood

4 Reasons Why we Forget

  1. Brain Damage

  2. Retrieval Failure(like having something “on the tip of your tongue”) 

  3. Encoding Failure(didn’t pay good enough attention for it to be stored)

  4. Storage Decay(memories become “fuzzy”)

Why is our memory full of errors? When we replay, we often imagine a modified version, and they're constantly being revised

Reconsolidation: a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again.

Source Amnesia: attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined

Are memories derived from hypnosis real?: No 

Can you trust the memory of someone before the age of 4? No