Psychology Study Guide

Methods

  • Applied vs. Basic Research:

    • Basic Research: Explores fundamental principles and theories to advance scientific knowledge. Example: Investigating the neural mechanisms of memory.
    • Applied Research: Seeks to solve specific, practical problems using existing knowledge. Example: Evaluating the effectiveness of a new therapy for depression.

  • Variables:

    • Independent Variable (IV): The variable manipulated by the researcher.
    • Dependent Variable (DV): The variable measured to see if it is affected by the independent variable.

  • Validity: The extent to which a test or experiment measures what it is supposed to measure. High validity means the results accurately reflect the phenomenon being studied.

  • Reliability: The consistency of a measure or experiment. High reliability means that the same results are obtained if the experiment is repeated.

  • Sampling:

    • Sample: A subset of the population selected for study.
    • Target Population: The entire group of individuals to which researchers want to generalize their findings.
    • Stratified Sample: A sampling technique where the population is divided into subgroups (strata), and samples are taken proportionally from each stratum.

  • Confounding Variable: A variable that influences both the independent and dependent variables, creating a spurious association.

  • **Experimental Designs:

    • Repeated Measures: Each participant performs in every condition of the experiment.
    • Order Effect: The order of presenting treatments affects the dependent variable (e.g., practice effect, fatigue effect).
    • Random Assignment: Participants are assigned to different experimental groups randomly to ensure that groups are equivalent at the start of the experiment.
    • Control: Steps taken to minimize the effects of extraneous variables.
    • Group Matching: Participants are grouped based on similar characteristics (e.g., age, gender) to ensure equal representation in each condition.
    • Single-Blind Study: Participants are unaware of which treatment they are receiving.
    • Double-Blind Study: Both participants and researchers are unaware of which treatment is being administered.

  • **Bias:

    • Hawthorne Effect: Participants' behavior changes because they know they are being observed.
    • Placebo Effect: A beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.

  • Correlational Studies:

    • Positive Correlation: Variables increase or decrease together.
    • Negative Correlation: As one variable increases, the other decreases.

  • Research Methods:

    • Correlational Study: Examines the relationship between two or more variables without manipulating them.
    • Survey: Gathers data from a sample through questionnaires or interviews.
    • Naturalistic Observation: Observing and recording behavior in a natural setting.
    • Case Study: In-depth investigation of a single person, group, or event.

  • Ethical Standards in Research:

    • Informed consent, minimizing harm, confidentiality, and debriefing.

Biology

  • Neuron: The basic building block of the nervous system.

    • Dendrite: Receives signals from other neurons.
    • Cell Body (Soma): Contains the nucleus and other cell organelles.
    • Axon: Transmits signals away from the cell body.
    • Myelin Sheath: Fatty insulation around the axon that speeds up signal transmission.
    • Terminal Button: Releases neurotransmitters to communicate with other neurons.
    • Receptor Site: Area on the receiving neuron where neurotransmitters bind.
    • Synapse: The gap between neurons where neurotransmitters are released.
    • Neurotransmitters: Chemical messengers that transmit signals across the synapse (e.g., acetylcholine, dopamine, endorphins, serotonin).

  • All-or-Nothing Principle: A neuron either fires completely or not at all.

  • Key Neurotransmitters:

    • Acetylcholine (ACh): Involved in muscle movement and memory.
    • Dopamine: Associated with pleasure, motivation, and motor control.
    • Endorphins: Natural pain relievers.
    • Serotonin: Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal.

  • Neural Pathways:

    • Afferent Neurons (Sensory): Carry information from sensory receptors to the CNS.
    • Efferent Neurons (Motor): Carry information from the CNS to muscles and glands.

  • Nervous System Organization:

    • Central Nervous System (CNS): Brain and spinal cord.
    • Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): Nerves connecting the CNS to the rest of the body.
      • Autonomic Nervous System: Controls involuntary functions.
        • Sympathetic Nervous System: Activates the "fight or flight" response.
        • Parasympathetic Nervous System: Calms the body down after a stressful event.

  • Brain Research Techniques:

    • Lesions: Damaging or removing brain tissue to study its function.
    • Electroencephalogram (EEG): Measures electrical activity in the brain.
    • Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT Scan): Uses X-rays to create detailed images of the brain.
    • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): Uses magnetic fields and radio waves to create detailed images of the brain.

  • Brain Structures:

    • Hindbrain:
      • Medulla: Controls vital functions like breathing and heart rate.
      • Pons: Involved in sleep and arousal.
      • Cerebellum: Coordinates movement and balance.
    • Midbrain:
    • Forebrain:
      • Thalamus: Relays sensory information to the cerebral cortex.
      • Hypothalamus: Regulates body temperature, hunger, thirst, and the endocrine system.
      • Amygdala: Processes emotions, especially fear and aggression.
      • Hippocampus: Involved in memory formation.
      • Cerebral Cortex: The outer layer of the brain responsible for higher-level cognitive functions.
        • Hemispheres: The brain is divided into two hemispheres (left and right).
        • Corpus Callosum: Connects the two hemispheres.

  • Cerebral Cortex Lobes:

    • Frontal Lobe: Involved in planning, decision-making, and personality.
      • Broca's Area: Speech production.
    • Parietal Lobe: Processes sensory information.
    • Temporal Lobe: Processes auditory information and memory.
      • Wernicke's Area: Language comprehension.
    • Occipital Lobe: Processes visual information.

  • Brain Plasticity: The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life.

  • Endocrine System: A system of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream.

    • Adrenal Glands: Produce hormones that regulate stress response.
    • Pituitary Gland: The "master gland" that controls other endocrine glands.

  • Twin Studies: Used to study the influence of genetics and environment on behavior. Comparing identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins.

Sensation and Perception

  • Transduction: The process of converting sensory stimuli into neural signals.

  • Sensory Adaptation: A reduced sensitivity to a stimulus after prolonged exposure.

  • Cocktail Party Effect: The ability to focus on one voice among many.

  • Sensation: The process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment.

  • Perception: The process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to recognize meaningful objects and events.

  • Vision:

    • Cornea: The transparent outer covering of the eye.
    • Pupil: The adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters.
    • Lens: Focuses light rays onto the retina.
    • Retina: The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information.
      • Feature Detectors: Neurons in the visual cortex that respond to specific features of a stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement.
      • Optic Nerve: Carries visual information from the retina to the brain.
      • Rods: Detect black and white vision and are used for peripheral and night vision.
      • Cones: Detect color and fine detail and are used for daylight vision.
      • Fovea: The central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cones cluster.
      • Blind Spot: The point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there.
    • Color Vision:
      • Trichromatic Theory: The theory that the retina contains three different color receptors—one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue—which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color.
      • Color Blindness: A reduced ability to distinguish between certain colors.
      • Afterimages: Visual sensations that persist after the stimulus is removed.

  • Audition (Hearing):

    • Sound Waves: Changes in air pressure that constitute the stimulus for hearing.
      • Amplitude: Determines loudness.
      • Frequency: Determines pitch.
    • Conduction Deafness: Hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea.

  • Pain:

    • Gate Control Theory: The theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. The "gate" is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain.

  • Taste and Smell:

    • Flavor: A combination of taste and smell.
    • Olfactory Bulb: The brain structure that receives smell signals from the olfactory receptors.

  • Body Senses:

    • Vestibular Sense: The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance.
    • Kinesthetic Sense: The sense of the position and movement of your body parts.

  • Thresholds:

    • Absolute Threshold: The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time.
    • Subliminal Message: Stimuli below the absolute threshold.
    • Difference Threshold (Just Noticeable Difference): The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time.
    • Weber's Law: The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount).
    • Signal Detection Theory: A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness.

  • Perceptual Processing:

    • Top-Down Processing: Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.
    • Bottom-Up Processing: Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.

  • Gestalt Principles: Principles that describe how we organize sensory information into meaningful wholes.

  • Constancy: Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, size, lightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change.

States of Consciousness

  • Levels of Consciousness:

    • Conscious: Awareness of ourselves and our environment.
    • Nonconscious: Body processes controlled without awareness.
    • Preconscious: Information that is not currently in awareness but can be easily retrieved.
    • Subconscious: Information that we are not consciously aware of but that may influence our behavior.

  • Sleep Cycles:

    • Stages 1-4: Non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep stages.
    • REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep: A recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur. Also known as paradoxical sleep, because the muscles are relaxed (except for minor twitches) but other body systems are active.

  • Sleep Disorders:

    • Insomnia: Recurring problems in falling or staying asleep.
    • Narcolepsy: A sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. The sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep, often at inopportune times.
    • Sleep Apnea: A sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings.
    • Night Terrors: A sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified; unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during Stage 4 sleep, within two or three hours of falling asleep, and are seldom remembered.

  • Dream Theories:

    • Manifest Content: According to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream.
    • Latent Content: According to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream.
    • Information Processing: Dreams help us sort out the day's events and consolidate our memories.
    • Activation-Synthesis Theory: Dreams are the brain's attempt to make sense of random neural activity.

  • Hypnosis: A social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.

  • Dissociation Theory: Hypnosis causes a split in awareness.

  • Drugs:

    • Agonists: Drugs that increase the action of a neurotransmitter.
    • Antagonists: Drugs that block the function of a neurotransmitter.
    • Tolerance: The diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the user to take larger and larger doses before experiencing the drug's effect.
    • Withdrawal: The discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing the use of an additive drug.

  • Types of Drugs:

    • Stimulants: Drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.
    • Depressants: Drugs that reduce neural activity and slow body functions.

Learning

  • Classical Conditioning: A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events.

    • Extinction: The diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.
    • Spontaneous Recovery: The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response.
    • Generalization: The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.
    • Discrimination: The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.
    • NS (Neutral Stimulus): A stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning.
    • CS (Conditioned Stimulus): An originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR).
    • CR (Conditioned Response): A learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS).
    • UCS (Unconditioned Stimulus): A stimulus that unconditionally—naturally and automatically—triggers a response.
    • UCR (Unconditioned Response): An unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus (UCS).
    • Aversive Conditioning: A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol).
    • Higher-Order Conditioning: A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus.
    • Garcia Effect: Conditioned taste aversion.

  • Operant Conditioning: A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.

    • Law of Effect: Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.
    • Instrumental Learning: Learning through trial and error.
    • Positive Reinforcement: Adding a desirable stimulus to increase a behavior.
    • Negative Reinforcement: Removing an aversive stimulus to increase a behavior.
    • Omission (Negative Punishment): Removing a desirable stimulus to decrease a behavior.
    • Punishment: An event that decreases the behavior that it follows.
    • Shaping: An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.
    • Chaining: Linking together a series of behaviors to form a more complex behavior.
    • Primary Reinforcers: Innately reinforcing stimuli, such as those that satisfy a biological need.
    • Secondary Reinforcers: Stimuli that gain their reinforcing power through their association with a primary reinforcer.
    • Generalized Reinforcers: A type of secondary reinforcer that is associated with many other reinforcers.
    • Token Economy: An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats.
    • Schedules of Reinforcement:
      • Partial (Intermittent) Reinforcement: Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement.
      • Continuous Reinforcement: Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.
      • Fixed Ratio: Reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.
      • Variable Ratio: Reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.
      • Fixed Interval: Reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.
      • Variable Interval: Reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.
    • Instinctive Drift: The tendency of learned behavior to gradually revert to biologically predisposed patterns.

  • Cognitive Learning:

    • Observational Learning: Learning by observing others.
    • Latent Learning: Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
    • Insight Learning: A sudden realization of a problem's solution.

Cognition

  • Memory:

    • 3-Box Model (Atkinson-Shiffrin Model):
      • Sensory Memory: Immediate, initial recording of sensory information.
      • Short-Term Memory: Activated memory that holds a few items briefly.
      • Long-Term Memory: Relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.
    • Chunking: Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.
    • Mnemonic Device: Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.
    • Rehearsal: Conscious repetition of information, either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage.
    • **Types of Long-Term Memory:
      • Episodic Memory: Memory of autobiographical events (times, dates, places, associated emotions).
      • Semantic Memory: General knowledge about the world.
      • Procedural Memory: Memory of how to do things.
      • Explicit (Declarative) Memory: Facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare".
      • Eidetic Memory (Photographic Memory): The ability to recall an image from memory with high precision for a brief period after seeing it only once.
    • Retrieval : The process of getting information out of memory storage.
    • Recognition: A measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned.
    • **Serial Position Effect:
      • Primacy Effect: The tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list especially well.
      • Recency Effect: The tendency to remember words at the end of a list especially well.
    • Flashbulb Memory: A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.
    • Context-Dependent Memory: Recall is improved when the context present at encoding and retrieval are similar.
    • State-Dependent Memory: What is learned in one state (while one is high, drunk, or depressed) can more easily be remembered when in same state.

  • Forgetting:

    • Proactive Interference: The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information.
    • Retroactive Interference: The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information.

  • Language:

    • Phonemes: The smallest distinctive sound units in a language.
    • Morphemes: The smallest units that carry meaning in a given language.
    • Syntax: The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.
    • Overregulation: The application of rules of grammar even when exceptions occur, making the language seem more "regular" than it actually is.
    • Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis): The theory that thought processes and concepts are controlled by language.
    • Critical Period: An optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development.

  • Thinking:

    • Prototype: A mental image or best example of a category.
    • Algorithm: A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem.
    • Heuristic: A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm.
    • Functional Fixedness: The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving.
    • Confirmation Bias: A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.
    • Divergent Thinking: Expanding the range of possible problem solutions-- creative thinking that diverges in different directions.
    • Convergent Thinking: Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution

Motivation and Emotion

  • Motivation Theories:

    • Drive-Reduction Theory: The idea that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need.
    • Arousal Theory: A theory of motivation stating that people are motivated to maintain an optimal level of alertness and physical and mental activation.
      • Yerkes-Dodson Law: The principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases.
    • Incentives: A positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior.
    • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Maslow's pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs become active.
      • Self-Actualization: According to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential.

  • Hunger:

    • Lateral Hypothalamus: Brings on hunger.
    • Ventromedial Hypothalamus: Suppresses hunger.
    • Set Point Theory: The point at which an individual's "weight thermostat" is supposedly set. When the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight.

  • Eating Disorders:

    • Bulimia Nervosa: An eating disorder characterized by episodes of overeating, usually of high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise.
    • Anorexia Nervosa: An eating disorder in which a person (usually an adolescent female) maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly underweight; sometimes accompanied by excessive exercise.

  • Types of Motivation:

    • Extrinsic Motivation: A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.
    • Intrinsic Motivation: A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake.

  • Conflict Types:

    • Approach-Approach Conflict: Conflict that results from having to choose between two attractive alternatives.
    • Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict: Conflict that results from having to choose between two distasteful alternatives.
    • Approach-Avoidance Conflict: Conflict that results from having to choose an alternative that has both attractive and unappealing aspects.
    • Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflict: Choosing between two or more things, each of which has both desirable and undesirable qualities.

  • Theories X vs. Theory Y:

    • Theory X: assumes that workers are lazy and require supervision.
    • Theory Y: assumes that workers are motivated and capable.

  • Emotion Theories:

    • James-Lange Theory: The theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli.
    • Cannon-Bard Theory: The theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion.
    • Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory: The theory that to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal.
    • Spill-Over Effect: Arousal response to one event spills over into our response to the next event.

  • Stress:

    • General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three phases—alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

Developmental Psychology

  • Fundamental Issues:

    • Nature vs. Nurture: The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today's science sees traits and behaviors arising from the interaction of nature and nurture.
    • Cross-Sectional Study: A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.
    • Longitudinal Study: Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

  • Prenatal Development:

    • Teratogens: Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

  • Infancy:

    • Baby Reflexes: Specific patterns of motor response that are triggered by specific patterns of sensory stimulation.
    • Attachment: An emotional tie with another person (
      • Harlow's Monkeys: Showed that contact comfort is more important than nourishment in attachment.
      • Strange Situation: A procedure for studying child-caregiver attachment; a child is placed in an unfamiliar environment while their caregiver leaves and then returns, and the child's reactions are observed.
      • Attachment Styles: Patterns of infant attachment that can be secure, anxious-ambivalent, or avoidant.
        • Secure Attachment: Infants use the mother as a home base from which to explore when all is well, but seek physical comfort and consolation from her if frightened or threatened.
        • Avoidant Attachment: Characterized by child's unresponsiveness to parent, does not use the parent as a secure base, and does not care if parent leaves
        • Anxious Attachment: Have difficulty separating from their caregiver and exhibit distress when separated. Upon reunion, they may exhibit contradictory behaviors, such as seeking comfort but then resisting it.

  • Parenting Styles:

    • Authoritative: Parents are demanding but responsive. They set rules and enforce them, but explain the reasons for rules.
    • Authoritarian: Parents are coercive. They impose rules and expect obedience.
    • Permissive: Parents are unrestraining making few demands and using little punishment.

  • Psychosexual Stages:

    • Oral Stage: (0-18 months) pleasure centers on the mouth- sucking, biting, chewing
    • Anal Stage: (18-36 months) pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control
    • Phallic Stage: (3-6 years) pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings.
      • Oedipus Complex: according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.
    • Latency Stage: (6 to puberty) a phase of dormant sexual feelings.
    • Genital Stage: (puberty on) maturation of sexual interests.
    • Fixation: according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.

  • Psychosocial Development (Erikson): The theory that individuals pass through eight developmental stages, each involving a crisis that must be resolved.

  • Cognitive Development (Piaget): The theory that children develop through distinct stages of cognitive ability.

    • Schema: A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
    • Assimilation: Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.
    • Accommodation: Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.

  • Stages of Cognitive Development:

    • Sensorimotor Stage: (0-2 years) infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.
      • Object Permanence: The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.
    • Preoperational Stage: (2-7 years) a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic
      • Egocentric: in Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view.
    • Concrete Operational Stage: (7-11 years) children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.
    • Formal Operational Stage: (12 through adulthood) people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.
      • Metacognition: Awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes.

  • Moral Development (Kohlberg):

    • Preconventional Morality: self-interest; obey rules to avoid punishment or gain concrete rewards.
    • Conventional Morality: uphold laws and rules to gain social approval or maintain social order.
    • Postconventional Morality: actions reflect belief in basic rights and self-defined ethical principles.