psychology Exam:2

1. What was Piaget’s approach to cognitive development? 

• Children make constant mental adaptations to new observation and experiences

2. What is assimilation?  

• Assimilation: Fitting new information into present system of knowledge(schema)

3. What is accommodation?

• Accomodation: As a result of new information, change existing(schema) 

4. What are Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?

   1. Sensorimotor

      1. What is object permanence?

• Understanding that something continues to exist even when it cannot be seen 

2. Preoperational

   1. What is egocentrism?

• Only use own frame of reference 

2. What is animistic thinking?

• Attribute life to objects 

3. What is conservation?

• Understanding that physical properties do not change when appearance changes 

3. Concrete operational

   1. What is reversibility?

• Idea that a stimulus that has been changed can return to its original state 

2. What is transitivity?

• Understanding how components in a series are related(if A>B and B>C, then A>C)

4. Formal operational

• Abstract and systematic reasoning. Thinking about future possibilities

5. What is Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development?

• Cognitive development results from guidance 

1. What is the zone of proximal development?

• Level at which a child can almost perform a task independently 

2. What is scaffolding?

• Teacher adjusts amount of support to child’s level of development 

6. What is theory of mind?  

• Understanding of how other people think 

7. What was the band-aid box study?

• kids were shown a band aid box and were asked what was inside. They were surprised to find pencils in the box 

8. What is Erik Erikson’s stage theory of social development? 

• 8 stages; changes in interpersonal thought, feeling, and behavior (the epigenetic principle) 

9. What are the major challenges in each stage?  (first 4 stages here; last 4 stages later)

   1. Trust vs. mistrust

• If needs are dependably met, infants develop a sense of basic trust 

2. Autonomy vs. shame and doubt

• Toddlers learn to exercise their will and do things for themselves, or they doubt their abilities 

3. Initiative vs. guilt

• Preschoolers learn to initiate tasks and carry out plans, or they feel guilty about their efforts to be independent 

4. Industry vs. inferiority

• Children learn the pleasure of applying themselves to tasks, of they feel inferior 

10. What were the results of Harlow’s studies of infant attachment?

• Soft contact is very important. The infant monkey preferred a soft cloth surrogate mother over a wire mother that provided food 

11. How did Mary Ainsworth study attachment?

• Ainsworth studied attachment using the Strange Situation experiment(1978), where infants were observed in a series of separations and reunions with their caregivers to asses their attachment styles 

1. What were her resulting attachment styles?

   1. Secure

• Infants uses caregiver as a secure base for exploration 

1. What is a secure base?

• A secure base is a caregiver who provides sense of security and support, allowing an infant to explore their environment while knowing they have a safe place to return to

2. Insecure-anxious/ambivalent

• Infants are clingy and distressed when caregiver leaves but is not easily comforted upon return 

3. Insecure-avoidant

• Infants shows little distress when caregiver leaves and avoids them upon return

12. What contributes to attachment styles (e.g., temperament)?

• Temperament, Stressful home life and Parenting 

13. What are the later correlates of infant attachment style (e.g., size of vocabulary)?

• Size of vocabulary, Interpersonal interaction and Emotions 

14. What was Langlois et al.’s (1995) study?

• Studied how infants attractiveness 

15. What are Baumrind’s 2 dimensions of parenting?

• Warmth(Responsiveness)

• Control(Demandingness)  

16. What are the resulting 4 parenting styles? 

    1. Authoritative

• High warmth, high control(child-centered, not overly demanding)

2. Authoritarian

• Low warmth, high control(strict, obedience-focused)

3. Permissive

• High warmth, low control(few rules, indulgent)

4. Uninvolved

• Low warmth, low control(least effective, most detriment)

17. How are parenting styles associated with later outcomes?

• Authoritative: Higher grades, cooperative behavior 

• Authoritarian: Lower grades, lower self esteem

• Permissive: Easily frustrated, low self-control 

• Uninvolved:Low self-esteem, emotionally detached 

18. What is Kohlberg’s theory of moral development?  What are his 3 stages?

    1. Preconventional

• Morality based on rewards and punishments 

2. Conventional

• Morality based on social norms and approval 

3. Postconventional

• Morality based on abstract principles and ethics 

19. What is the Heinz dilemma?

• A moral dilemma used by Kohlberg to assess moral reasoning, where a man must decide whether to steal medicine to save his dying wife

20. What is the delay of gratification?  

• The ability to resist an immediate reward for a larger reward later 

21. What was the marshmallow test?

• A study where children were given marshmallows and told they could have two if they waited before eating the first. It measured self-control and future success.

22. What are Erik Erikson’s last 4 stages of social development?  What is the challenge in each?

    1. Identity vs. confusion (5th stage)

• Developing a stable sense of self 

2. Intimacy vs. isolation

• Forming close relationships 

3. Generativity vs. stagnation

• Contributing to society or feeling purposeless

4. Integrity vs. despair

• Reflecting on life with satisfaction or regret 

23. What is the socioemotional selectivity theory?

• The theory suggest that when people age, they prioritize emotionally meaningful relationships and experiences over seeking new knowledge and social connection

Sensation and Perception

24. What are sensation?

• Process by which sensory organs obtain information about the environment and transmit it to the brain 

25. What are perception?

• The organization of sensations into interpretation

26. What is transduction?

• Translation of physical energy into electrical signals 

27. What are bottom-up 

• Starts with raw sensory data that gets communicated to the brain 

28. Top-down processing?

• Starts with observer's expectations and knowledge 

29. What are absolute thresholds?

• Minimal amount of stimulation that can be detected half of the time 

30. What are the different thresholds (the jnd)?

• the smallest difference between 2 stimuli that a person can detect 

1. What is Weber’s law (fraction)?

• States that for 2 stimuli to be perceived as different in intensity, the second must differ from the first by a constant proportion

31. What is sensory adaptation?

• Decreasing response of sensory receptors to unchanging stimuli. It is an evolutionary mechanism because constant sensory input provides no new information 

32. What is signal detection theory?

• suggests that perception results from both sensory information and making a judgment.

1. What is response bias?  

• A persons readiness to report detecting a stimulus

2. What are hits

• Correctly detecting a present stimulus 

3. What are misses

• Failing to detect a present stimulus

4. What are false alarms

• Incorrectly detecting a stimulus that isn’t present 

5. What are correct rejections?

• Correctly identifying that no stimulus is present 

6. What factors affect response bias?

• Expectations, motivation and history of signal detection errors may affect future response bias 

1. Expectations

• if you expect a stimulus you are more likely to detect it 

2. Motivation

• if you are highly motivated you are likely to report detecting a stimulus 

33. What is the Gestalt approach?

• States that we perceive objects as whole structures rather than the sum of individual parts

1. What is figure-ground perception?

• The ability ability to distinguish between objects and its background 

2.  What are grouping principles?

• Proximity, Similarity, Continuity and Closure 

1. Proximity

• We tend to group together objects objects that are close to one another

2. Similarity

• We tend to group together objects that are similar to one another 

3. Continuity

• Brain organizes stimuli into continuous lines or patterns 

4. Closure

• We tend to perceive incomplete figures as complete 

34. What are binocular cues for depth?

• Use both eye for depth perception

35. What are monocular cues for depth 

• Use one eye to perceive depth, especially for far away objects

1. What is retinal (binocular) disparity?

• Images produce different image on each retina

2. What is convergence?

• Turning inward of yes toward nearby object

3. What are relative size

• Smaller objects appear farther away than larger ones 

4. What are relative clarity

• Objects that appear clearer are perceived as closer, while hazy objects seem farther away

5. What is a linear perspective?

• Parallel lines appear to converge as they recede into the distance

36. What is perceptual constancy?

• Color constancy, lightness constancy, shape constancy, and size constancy 

1. Color constancy

• Consistent perception of color of objects although the amount of light changes 

2. Lightness constancy

• Consistent perception of shade of objects although the amount of light changes 

3. Shape constancy

• Perception that object’s shape remains constant despite changing shape of retinal image 

4. Size constancy

• Perception that the size of objects remains constant despite different sizes of images on retina 

Classical Conditioning

37. What is classical conditioning?

• Learning to respond to a new stimulus that has been associated with another stimulus that normally produces the response 

38. How did Pavlov study classical conditioning?

• He studied digestion and observed that dogs salivated at the sight of a food dish, indicating they had learned to associate it with food. He then conducted experiments where he paired a neutral stimulus (a bell) with food measured the dog’s salivation response when the bell was presented alone.

39. What are the unconditioned response

• Innate response to unconditioned stimulus

40. What are the unconditioned stimulus

• Stimulus that automatically elicits response without prior conditioning 

41. What are the conditioned response

• Learned response to a stimulus that did not originally elicit the desired responses 

42. What are the conditioned stimulus?

• Previously neutral stimulus that now elicits a conditioned response due to its association with an unconditioned stimulus 

43. What is acquisition?

• Stage of conditioning in which the association between the 2 stimuli ( US and CS) is being learned

44. What is generalization?

• Conditioned response to stimuli that are not the conditioned stimulus (but are similar to the CS)

45. What is discrimination?

• Conditioned response occurs only to a specific stimulus 

46. What is extinction?

• Failure to exhibit the CR to the CS ( because the CS no longer predicts the US)

47. What is spontaneous recovery?

• Reappearance of the CR to the original CS after extinction

48. What is second-order (higher-order) conditioning?

• New neutral stimulus becomes associated with previously conditioned stimulus-becomes new CS