Untitled Flashcards Set

Unit 1:

  • Nature vs. Nurture Debate

    • Nature is things that are genetically predisposed and characteristics that we are born with.

    • Nurture is external factors that influence us like family and education.

    • Some people believed nature was predominant influence on our behaviors whereas other believed nurture was.

    • Middle ground is interactionist perspective.

  • The Evolutionary Perspective

    • natural selection affects human behaviors and mental processes

    • Traits that Ensure survival and reproductive success become dominant traits

    • Some people have used this to discriminate in the past.

  • Eugenics

    • Idea that people can improve the human race by encouraging people with “desirable” traits to have kids.

    • Positive eugenics -> promotes reproduction by individuals that have traits viewed as more desirable

    • Negative eugenics -> seeks to prevent reproduction by individuals who have traits deemed as undesirable.

    • Not used anymore because it is unethical and ignores scientifically complexity.

  • Twin studies

    • Compare sets of identical twins (almost 100% genes shared) and sets of fraternal twins (about 50% genes shared) raised together/separately

  • Family studies

    • Look at how traits run in families by comparing parents, siblings, and relatives

    • If trait appears more often in family members, it suggests genetics play a role.

    • Since families share environments, it can be hard to tell whether genes or surroundings have a bigger influence

  • Adoption studies

    • Compare adopted kids kids to biological and adoptive parents

    • If more similar to biological parents, genetics plays a bigger role. If more similar to adoptive parents, environmental factors

  • Criticism of Evolutionary Psychology

    • Many psychologists take issue with elemnts of evolutionary psychology as it starts with an effect and works backwards to propose and explanation

    • Unethical and immoral individuals have used to discriminate against

    • Overlooks the effect of cultural expectations

  • Nervous system

    • Body’s communication network

    • Responsible for transmitting signals and coordinating actions

    • Divided into the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system

  • Central nervous system

    • Consists of the brain and spinal cord

    • Brain: acts as the command center

      • Controls thoughts, emotions, movement

      • Controls vital functions like breathing and heart rate

    • Spinal cord: relays messages between the brain and the rest of the body

      • Plays a key role in reflexes

      • Composed mostly of interneurons and glial cells

  • Peripheral nervous system

    • Carries messages between the central nervous system and the rest of the body

    • Divided into the autonomic nervous system and somatic nervous system

  • Autonomic nervous system

    • Controls involuntary bodily functions

    • Consists of the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic

  • Sympathetic nervous system

    • Prepares body for action in stressful situations (Excitatory)

    • “Fight or flight” response

    • Increases heartrate, dilating pupils, and releasing adrenaline

  • Parasympathetic nervous system (Inhibitory)

    • Calms the body after stress has passed

    • Slows heartrate, promotes digestion, conserves energy

    • “Rest and digest” system

  • Somatic nervous system

    • Promotes voluntary movement by allowing us to consciously move our muscles

    • Controls gross and fine motor functions

  • Neurons

    • Made up of cell body, dendrites, axons

    • Cell body

      • Has cytoplasm, nucleus, mitochondria, and ribosomes

    • Dendrites

      • Extend outward from soma

      • Receive input

    • Axon

      • Emerges from soma as single conducting fiber

      • Contains vesicles which store neurotransmitters

      • Responsible for carrying electrical and chemical signals

  • Glial cells

    • Provide support by maintaining structure, insulation, facilitating communication, and removing waste

  • Spinal Reflex arc

    • Rapid automatic responses to stimuli that do not require input from the brain

    • Formed by sensory neurons, motor neurons and interneurons

  • Sensory neurons

    • Detect stimuli and send signals to the spinal cord

  • Interneurons

    • Process this information and relay it to motor neurons

  • Motor neurons

    • Send signals to muscles to produce a response

  • Neural transmission

    • At rest, a neuron maintains a resiting potential, meaning it has a stable charge

    • When stimulated, a neuron reaches its threshhold which triggers depolarization

    • An electrical signal travel down the neuron

    • Follows the all or nothing principle

      • Neuron fires completely or not at all

    • After firing, a neuron has a refractory period

      • A brief period where it cannot fire again

    • Once signal reaches end of neuron, neurotransmitters are released into synapse (gap between neurons)

    • Neurotransmitters are either reabsorbed by reuptake or broken down

  • Action potential

    • Impulse travelling down neuron

  • Resting Potential

    • Prior to firing, the electrical charge is known as resting potential

  • Multiple sclerosis

    • A disorder where the myelin sheath (protective covering of neurons which speeds up neural impulses) is damaged by the immune system, slowing or blocking signals between brain and body

    • Can lead to muscle weakness and coordination problems

  • Myasthenia Gravis

    • A chronic autoimmune disease that causes muscle weakness, typically affecting eyes, face and throat

  • Excitatory neurotransmitters

    • Make a neuron more likely to fire

  • Inhibitory neurotransmitters

    • Make a neuron less likely to fire

  • Dopamine

    • Associated with movement, motivation, and the brain’s reward system (primarily excitatory)

    • Death of dopamine producing neurons = parkinsons

    • Underproduction of dopamine can lead to depression, schizophrenia, and psychosis

  • Serotonin

    • Influences mood, appetite, pain regulation, dreaming and sleep (primarily inhibitory)

    • Serotonin Syndrome: excessive levels can lead to diarrhea, restlessness, high BP, fever, and maybe seizures

  • Norepinephrine

    • Play a role in alertness and the bosy’s response to stress (primarily excitatory)

    • Trigger fight or flight

    • Excessive can lead to high BP, rapid heartrate, and anxiety

  • Glutamate

    • The brains main excitatory neurotransmitter, essential for learning and memory

    • Overabundance can lead to migraine headaches

    • Often connected with MSG in foods

  • GABA

    • The main inhibitory neurotransmitter, helping to regulate neural activity and prevent overstimulation

    • Associated with cal,ming effects

    • Lack of GABA = seizures, tremors, insomnia, anxiety, epiepsy, and Huntington’s disease

  • Endorphins

    • Released by pituitary gland and hypothalamus

    • Act as natural painkillers, reducing discomfort and promoting pleasure (inhibitory)

  • Substance P

    • Regulate bone and cartilage metabolism

    • Helps heal bone fractures and reduce stress

    • Helps transmit pain signals (excitatory)

  • Acetylcholine

    • Involved in muscle movement, attention, and memory (primarily excitatory)

    • Arousal in brain

    • Transmit messages

    • Depletion linked with alzheimers and excessive can cause cramping, increased salivation, blurry vision, and maybe even paralysis

  • Neurotransmitters

    • Travel quickly across synapse

  • Hormones

    • Released into the bloodstream

    • Effects that are slower but longer-lasting

  • Adrenaline

    • Secreted by adrenal glands

    • Prepares body for action by increasing heart rate and energy levels in response to stress

  • Leptin and ghrelin

    • Released by adipose/produced in stomach

    • Regulate hunger, with leptin signalling fullness and ghrelin increasing appetite

  • Melatonin

    • Produced by brain

    • Helps regulate sleep cycles

  • Oxytocin

    • Secreted by hypothalamus

    • Plays a role in social bonding, trust, and emotional connection

  • Agonists

    • Mimic neurotansmitters and enhance neural firing

  • Antagonists

    • Block neurotransmitters and reduce neural activity

  • Reputake inhibitors

    • Block reabsorption of neurotransmitters back into the neuron

  • Psychopharmacology

    • The study of psychoactive drugs and their effects on behavior, mental, and biological processes

  • Stimulants

    • Caffeine and cocaine, nicotine, amphetamines

    • Increase neural activity, leading to heightened alertness and energy

  • Depressants

    • Sedatives and alcohol

    • Slow don neural activity, causing relaxation and drowsiness

  • Hallucinogens

    • Marijuana, LSD, MDMA (Ecstasy), PSP

    • Distort perception and cognition, aletering sensory experiences

  • Opiods

    • Opium, Heroin, morphine, narcotic painkillers

    • Act as powerful pain relievers by mimicking the effects of endorphins

  • Tolerance

    • The body requires larger doses to achieve same effect

  • Sensitization

    • Effects become more pronounced with the same dose of the drug

  • Dependency

    • Physiological - combination of tolerance and withdrawal

    • Psychological - continued drug use despite adverse consequences

  • Addiction

    • The brain becomes dependent. If drug use is suddenly stopped, withdrawal symptoms can occur.

  • Withdrawal

    • Negative biological efects when you stop using the drug

  • Brain stem

    • Responsible for basic life sustaining functions

    • Contains midbrain, pons, and medulla

  • Midbrain

    • Transmission of visual and auditory info, as well as motor movement, pain processing, sleep wake cylce

  • Pons

    • Sends sensory information to the cerebellum, regulates breathing, involved in sleep/wake cycle

  • Medulla

    • Regulates involuntary essential processes such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion

    • Acts as relay between spinal cord and brain

  • Reticular Formation (SPAM) 

    • Located between brainstem and hypothalamus’involved in physiological functions like pain sensitization, alertness, sleep, and motivation

    • Includes RAS

  • Reticular activating system

    • Regulate alertness and attention

    • Plays a role in voluntary movement, eye movement, and some types of learning, cognition, and emotion

    • Involved in the sleep-wake cycle, influencing levels of consciousness and focus

  • Reward center

    • Reinforce behaviors that promote survival by releasing pleasurable chemicals

  • Cerebellum

    • responsible for coordinating movement, maintaining balance, and supporting procedural learning

    • Allows for smooth, precise movements

    • Damage can make it difficult to control fine movements and maintain posture and learn motor skills

  • Cerebrum

    • Initiates and coordinates movement and maintains body temperature

  • Cerebral cortex

    • Divided into two hemispheres

    • Contains specialized regions responsible for perception, thought, language, and decision-making

    • Includes limbic system and corpus callosum

  • Limbic system

    • Regulates emotions, memory, and motivation

    • Includes thalamus, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, hippocampus, amygdala

    • Produces natural instincts  

  • Thalamus (postoffice ) 

    • Act as a relay center, directing sensory information to the appropriate areas of the brain.

  • Hypothalamus

    • Helps regulate homeostasis, including hunger, thirst, and body temperature

    • Produce hormone to help you sleep

    • Controls pituitary gland

  • Pituitary gland

    • Controls hormone release, influencing growth and metabolism

    • Regulates endocrine system

  • Hippocampus

    • Essential for forming and retrieving memories

  • Amygdala

    • Plays a key role in processing emotions, particularly fear and aggression

  • Occipital lobe

    • Process visual information

  • Temporal lobe

    • Auditory processing and language comprehension

    • Includes wernicke’s area

  • Parietal lobe

    • Contain association areas that oragnize and interpret sensory information

    • Somatosensory cortex processes touch, temperature, pain, and pressure

  • Frontal lobe

    • Responsible for higher order thinking, decision making, and executive functioning

    • prefrontal cortex: reasoning, impulse control, and personality

    • Motor cortex: directs voluntary movement by sending signals to the muscles

    • Broca’s area is located here

  • Corpus callosum

    • Thick bundle of nerve fibers that allows the hemispheres to communicate and coordinate functions

  • Visual Cortex

    • Processes visual information

    • Located in the occipital lobe

  • Auditory Cortex

    • Temporal lobe, process auditory information

  • Split Brain Research

    • Research involving patients whose hemispheres are “split” (corpus callosum severed) so two hemspheres cannot communicate with eachother.

    • Split brain found in patients wth severe epilepsy, whose corpus callosum is surgically severed to control seizures

  • Left hemisphere

    • Typically processes language

    • Broca’s area: responsible for speech production

    • Wernicke’s area: responsible for speech comprehension

    • Damage can result in aphasia, a condition that affects language ability

      • Types of aphasia

        • Wernicke’s aphasia: characterized by fluent but meaningless speech

        • Expressive aphasia:caused by damage to the Broca’s area.

          • Where someone knows what they want to say but have trouble expressing the proper words

        • Receptive aphasia: caused by damage to the Wernickes area.

          • Where someone has trouble comprehending speech production

  • Brain plasticity

    • The brain’s ability to adapt and reorganize itself

    • Allows the brain to form new connections and compensate for damage

    • If one part of  the brain is injured, another part may take over its function

    • Plays a role in learning and memory as new experiences strengthen or modify neural pathways

  • Neuroplasticity

  • EEG

    • Measure electrical activity in the brain

    • Used to study sleep and neural activity

  • fMRI

    • Tracks blood flow to different brain regions which shows which parts of the brain are active at certain times

  • MRI

    • Uses radio waves and magnetic fields to produce images of the brain

    • Doesnt use radiation

  • CT

    • Uses x-rays to produce images of the brain

  • PET

    • A radioactive tracer is injected into the body to measure the metabolic activity of neurons in the brain

  • Lesioning

    • Intentionally damaging a part of the brain to study it’s effects

  • The sleep-wake cycle

    • Sleep and wakefullness are two states of conciousness

    • Regulated by circadian rhythm

  • Circadian rhythm

    • Controlled by light and temperature, helps body retain a good cycle

    • Disruption to circadian rhythm: Jet lag and night shift

  • Infradian

    • Longer than 24 hours, like the menstrual cycle

  • Ultradian

    • Less than 24 hours, like eating schedules/digestion

  • Circannual

    • Year long cycles, like our body’s response to seasonal changes

  • Diurnal

    • Day vs. night

  • NREM sleep

    • Stage 1: hynogogic sensations - feeling of falling

      • Theta waves

      • 1-7 min

    • Stage 2: transitional stage - body prepares for deep sleep

      • Heart rate and breathing slow, body temp drops

      • Sleep spindles: bursts of brain activity

      • 20-40 min

    • Stage 3: deepest stage of sleep - physical restoration and immune system function

      • 10-80 min

  • REM sleep

    • Paradoxical sleep

    • Brain activity resembles wakefullness

    • Temporary muscle paralysis

    • Dreaming

    • 10-60 min

    • REM rebound - whend deprived of REM rebound, enter REM sleep more quickly and spend more time in this stage when they next sleep

    • Entire sleep schedule lasts 90-120 minutes and then repeats itself

      • Usually restarts at NREM 2

  • Activation synthesis theory

    • Dreams result from random neural activity in the brainstem that the brain then interprets as meaningful experiences

  • Consolidation theory

    • Dreams help process and store memories, strengthening learning and problem-solving skills

  • Why do we sleep?

    • Memory consolidation - organize and strengthen new information

    • Restores energy - replenishes biochemical resources used throughout the day, contributing to overall well-being

  • Insomnia

    • Difficulty falling or staying asleep

  • Narcolepsy

    • Neurological disorder that causes sudden and uncontrollable sleep episodes during the day

  • REM sleep behavior disorder

    • Occurs when the body does not experience normal REM sleep paralysis, allowing individuals to physically act out their dreams

  • Sleep apnea

    • Involves repeated interruptions in breathing during sleep, often leading to poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness

  • Somnambulism

    • Sleepwalking

    • Typically during NREM sleep

  • Sensation

    • Process of detecting information from the environment and converting it into neural signals for processing in the brain

  • Absolute threshold

    • The minimum intensity at which a stimulus can be detected atleast half the time

    • Detecting anything at all

  • Diference threshold/Just-noticeable difference

    • The smallest detectable change in stimulus intensity

    • Detecting change

  • Weber’s law

    • Ability to detect differences depends on proportion of change rather than a fixed amount

    • As intensity of stimulus increases, a larger change is needed for a person to perceive a difference

    • Example: small weight change is noticeable if you are holding a light object. If you are holding a heaving object, small weight change is not noticeable.

  • Sensory Adaptation

    • Body becomes less sensitive to unchanging stimulus over time

    • Occurs due to changes in the neural receptor cells that receive and process sensory information

  • Sensory interaction

    • Different senses work together to enhance perception and understanding of the environment

  • Synesthesia

    • A condition in which stimulation of one sense leads to experiences in another

  • Transduction

    • The process by which sensory cells covert external stimuli into electrical signals that the CNS can process, resulting in sensations

  • Retina

    • Contains cones and rods that detect light and covert it into neural signals

  • Lens

    • Uses accommodation which is the ability of the lens to change shape; adjusts focus for near or far objects

    • Impaired accommodation = nearsightedness and farsightedness

  • Rods

    • Located in the periphery of the retina

    • Detect shapes and movement

    • Contains pigment called rhodopsin which is sensitive to light

    • Function effectively is low light conditions

    • Do not detect color

    • More than cones

  • Cones

    • Located in the fovea

    • Process color

  • Blind spot

    • Where optic nerve exits eye

    • Brain fills in the missing details to create a complete image 

  • Trichromatic theory

    • Explains how colors are detected in the retina

    • Three types of cones (sensitive to red, green, and blue wavelengths) help produce the perception of color

  • Opponent-Process Theory

    • Explain how colors are processed after they leave the retina

    • Pairs of opposing colors (red-green, blue-yellow, black-white) are processed together

    • When color is activated, the other color is inhibited

  • Afterimage effect

    • When certain ganglion cells in the retina are activated while others are not

  • Color blindness

    • Damage to the cones or opponent-processing system

  • Dichromatism

    • Color blindness in which only two of the three primary colors can be discerned

  • Monochromatism

    • Complete color blindness in which all colors appear as shades of one color

  • Prosopagnosia

    • Caused bydamage to the brain’s visual processing centers

    • Unable to perform facial recognition

  • Blindsight

    • Caused by damage to brain’s visual processing centers

    • Blind region in visual fiels

  • Wavelength = pitch

  • Amplitude = loudness

  • Pitch perception

    • How we interpret wavelengths as sounds

    • Place theory: different frequencies activate different locations along the cochlea

      • Pitch is determined by location of vibrations allong basilar membrane in the cochlea

    • Frequency theory: pitch perception is based on how frequently neurons fire in response to sound waves

    • Volley theory: groups of neurons fire in alternating sequences to encode higher-frequency sounds

  • Outer ear

    • Includes the pinna which funnel sound into the ear canal

  • Middle ear

    • Includes the eardrum, malleus, incus, and stapes which transmit sound virations to the inner ear

  • Inner ear

    • Includes the cochlea, which contains hair cells that convert vibrations into electrical impulses, and semicircular canals, which detect head motion

  • Auditory nerve

    • Carries electrical impulses from the inner ear to the brain

  • Auditory cortex

    • Located in the temporal lobes, and processes the auditory information sent to it from the Auditory nerve

  • Sound localization

    • Detecting differences in how sounds reach each ear

    • Dterine location of sound source based on intensity, timing, and other cues

  • Hearing loss due to aging

    • Presbycusis

    • Typically comes on gradually and seems to run in families

  • Conduction deafness

    • Occurs when sound waves cannot reach the cochlea due to problems in the outer or middle ear

  • Sensorineural deafness

    • Results from damage to the cochlea’s hair cells or damage to the auditory nerve

  • Olfactory regions

    • Olfactory receptors detect airborn molecules which are then interpreted as scents

  • Role of thalamus in Olfactory

    • Only sense not processed first in the thalamus

  • Pheromones

    • Humans release pheromones to attract a mate

    • Mothers can detect the pheromones of their own offspring

  • Gustation

    • Detects sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami (savory), and oleogustus (fatty)

    • People can be super tasters, medium tasters, or nontasters

  • Touch sensory system

    • Processed by specialized receptors in the skin that detect pressure, temperature, and pain

    • The sensation of hot occurs hwen both hot and cold receptors are stimulated at the same time

  • Gate control theory

    • Spinal cord regulates the transmission of pain signals

    • Pain is processed both in the body and the brain

  • Phantom limb

    • Amputees experience sensations in a limb that has been amputated

    • Shows that pain is influenced by neural processing beyond physical stimuli

  • Vestibular system

    • Located in the inner ear

    • Semicircular canals

    • Senses movement by detecting changes in head position

    • Helps with posture, coordination. And spatial awareness

    • Disruption can cause dizziness, balance problems, and motion sickness

  • Kinesthesis

    • Helps the body sense its positions and movement via receptors in muscles, joint, and tendons

    • Allows us to move slowly, coordinate our actions, and control our strength without needing to look at the body.

    • Essential for walking, picking up objects, and maintaining posture



Unit 2:

  • Perception

    • Perception is the way we understand and interpret the world around us

  • Bottom-up processing

    • When we rely on sensory information without using past experiences

  • Top-down processing

    • Happens when we use what we already know or experiences to interpret what we sense

  • Schemas

    • Mental framework to help us organize and understand information

  • Perceptual set

    • Readiness to perceive something in a certain way based on expectations

  • Context, experiences, expectations, and culture

    • Context affects how people see the world by providing background for their experiences

    • Experiences shape how people understand things based on what they have been through

    • Cultural experiences and expectations influence how people interpret behaviors and events based on their traditions and beliefs

  • Gestalt psychology

    • Several principles governing how we tend to make sense of visual information

  • Closure

    • We complete incomplete images in our minds

  • Figure ground

    • Helps us distinguish objects from their backgrounds

  • Proximity

    • We tend to see objects that are close together as a group

  • Similarity

    • People tend to perceive object that share similar characteristics such as color, shape, or size as being related

  • Attention

    • Mental process that allows us to focus on certain onforation while filtering everything else

    • Cannot process everything at once

  • Cocktail party effect

    • Being able to focus on one conversation or hearing your name in a crowded room

    • Our brain still processes some background noise

  • Inattention Blindness

    • Occurs when a personal fails to notice an unexpected object in their field of vision because their attention is focused elsewhere

  • Change blindness

    • When a person does not notice a change in a visual scene

  • Binocular = two eyes

    • Retinal disparity

      • The slight difference in the images perceived by each eye due to their different positions

    • Convergence

      • The inward movement of the eyes when focusing on a nearby object

  • Monocular = one eye

    • Relative clarity

      • Clearer and sharper = closer to me

      • Hazy or blurred = farther away

    • Relative size

      • Smaller = further away

    • Texture gradient

      • Closer = more texture and detail

    • Linear perspective

      • Parallel lines appear to converge as they move away from you

    • Interposition

      • Covered object is in the background

  • Visual perceptual consistency

    • Brains ability to perceive objects as stable as unchanging despite variations in lighting or angle, etc.

  • Apparent movement

    • Still images shown quickly in sequence which seems to suggest movement

    • Phi phenomenon: blinking lights in a row appear to be moving

  • Concepts

    • Mental categories that help us group similar things together

  • Prototype

    • The best or most typical example of that category

  • Assimilation

    • Happens when we take in new information but do not change our existing schema

  • Accommodation

    • New information forces a change in the schema

  • Algorithm

    • Step by step procedue that guarantees the right answer, as long as it is followed correctly

  • Heuristics

    • Mental shortcut simplifying problem-solving

    • Representative heuristic

      • When we judge something based on how well it matches our expectations or stereotypes

    • Availability Heuristic

      • When we make decisions based on the first or most vivid example that comes to mind

  • Mental set

    • Occurs when we rely on strategies that worked in the past ever if they are not the best solution

  • Priming

    • Happens when exposure to certain stimuli influences our decision-making

  • Framing

    • Refers to how a decision is presented; we tend to make different choices based on whether something is framed as a gain or a loss

  • Gamblers fallacy

    • occurs when people believe past events affect future probabilities in situations where the outcomes are actually random

  • Sunk-cost fallacy

    • Happens when people continue investing time, money, or effort into something because they have already invested so much, even when it no longer makes sense

  • Executive functions

    • Mental skills that allow people to set goals, make plans, and stay organized

  • Divergent thinking

    • Involves exploring many unique possibile solutions to a single problem

  • Convergent thinking

    • Focuses on finding a single correct solution

  • Functional fixedness

    • When people struggle to see new uses for familiar objects

  • Explicit memory

    • Memory we can consciously recall and explain

    • Split into episodic and semantic

  • Episodic memory

    • Personal experiences

  • Semantic memory

    • Knowledge about facts and concepts that are not linked to personal

  • Implicit memory

    • Memory that influences our behavior without us consciously thinking about it

    • Includes procedural memory

  • Procedural memory

    • Stores information about how to perform tasks

  • Prospective memory

    • The ability to remember to do something later which allows us to plan ahead

  • Long-term potentiation

    • When neurons in the brain repeatedly activate together which strengthens the connections in between neurons

    • The more often a neural pathway is used, the stronger it becomes

    • Makes it easier to recall information

  • Working Memory Model

    • A temporary system that helps us hold and manipulate information while we use it

    • 20-30 seconds

    • Central executive: the system that directs attention and controls how information is processed

    • Phonological Loop: holds and repeats verbal information

    • Visuospatial sketchpad: processes visual and spatial information, like imagining a map while giving someone directions

  • Multi-store model

    • Describes how information moves through different memory systems

    • Sensory memory: briefly holds raw sensory information

      • Iconic memory: visual information that lasts less than a second

      • Echoic memory: auditory information that lasts a few seconds

    • Short term memory: holds small amount of info for about 20-30 seconds

      • Disappears if we do not actively rehearse it

    • Long term memory

      • Stores information indefinitely

      • Large capacity

  • Levels of processing model

    • The way we encode information affects how well we remember it 

    • Structural processing: involves remember how something works

    • Phonemic processing: focusing on how something sounds

    • Semantic processing: remembers the meaning

  • Encoding

    • Process of taking in information and preparing it for storage

  • Mnemonic devices

    • Create mental associations that make info easier to recall

    • Method of loci

      • Involves associating pieces of info with specific locations

  • Chunking

    • Involves breaking down lots of information into smaller groups

  • Hierarchies

    • Involve structuring info from general to specific

  • Spacing effect

    • Massed practice: involves studying everything in one long session

    • Distributed practice: involves studying in multiple shorter sessions over time

  • Serial position effect

    • Primacy effect: items at beginning of a list are easier to recall

    • Recency effect: items at the end of a lost are easier to recall

  • Maintenance rehearsal

    • Simple repetition to keep in short-term memory

  • Elaborative rehearsal

    • Rehearsal that onnects new information to things you already know

  • Autobiographical memory

    • Memories connected to our own lives

  • Amnesia

    • Refers to memory loss caused by injury, illness, or trauma

    • Retrograde: loss of past memories but can form new memories

    • Anterograde: inability to form new long-term memories

    • Infantile: common inability to remember events from early childhood

  • Alzheimer’s disease

    • Progressive brain disorder with memory loss, confusion, and difficulty with thinking and reasoning

    • Deterioration of brain cells over time

  • Recall

    • When you remember info without any cues or hints

  • Recognition

    • When you identify something familiar from a set of choices

  • Relearning

    • Learning something for the second time is easier than the first time

  • Context-dependent memory

    • Occurs when being in the same physical environment where a memory was first formed helps recall it more easily

  • Mood-congruent memory

    • Emotions influence what we remember

  • State-dependent memory

    • Occurs when your physical state affects retrieval

  • Testing effect

    • Actively retrieving information strengthens memory rather than reviewing

  • Metacognition

    • Thinking about how you think

  • Forgetting curve

    • Memory loss happens rapidly after learning but slows down over time

  • Encoding failure

    • Occurs when information never fully enters memory in the first place

  • Interference

    • Happens when similar memories get mixed up

    • Proactive: occurs when old information blocks new learning

    • Retroactive: occurs when new information makes it harder to remember old information

  • Inadequete retrieval

    • When you feel like you know something but you can’t quite retrieve it

    • Tip of the tongue phenomenon

  • Memory repression

    • Some forgetting is a psychological defense mechanism

    • Our minds forget traumatic memories to protect us from emotional pain

    • Helps cope with anxiety or negative emotions

  • Misinformation effect

    • Occurs when people’s memories become distorted by misleading information 

  • Source Amnesia

    • When people remember the information but forget where it came from

  • Constructive memory

    • The idea that memories are actively built and not just retrieved

    • Memory consolidation

      • Details may be altered or filled with assumptions

    • Imagination inflation

      • Occurs when someone repeatedly imagines an event so much that they begin to believe it actually happened

    • Confabulation

      •  When gaps in a person’s memory are unconsciously filled with fabricated, misinterpreted, or distorted information

  • General intelligence

    • Intelligence is a broad ability that influences performance across different cognitive tasks

    • A person who excels in one area is likely to perform well in other areas

  • Multiple intelligences

    • Howard Gardener propose that there were 8 intelligences

    • Robert sternberg proposed three types of intelligence

      • Analytical: problem solving and logical reasoning

      • Creative intelligence: innovation and originality

      • Practical intelligence: common sense and adaptability

  • Intelligence quotient

    • Mental age/chronological age times 100

    • Used in educational placement, immigration, and military in the past

  • Standardization

    • Administering a test under the same conditions for all participants

  • Validity

    • Whether a test measures what it is supposed to measure

    • Construct validity: is the test measuring intelligence or something else

    • Predictive validity: whether the test can accurately predict future performance

  • Reliability

    • Will the test deliver the same results consistently

    • Test-retest reliability: Will a person’s test scores remain similar when they take the same test on a different occasion?

    • Split half reliability: Do different sections of the same test yield similar results?

  • Stereotype threat

    • Occurs when people feel anxiety about confirming a negative stereotype about them

  • Stereotype lift

    • Occurs when people perform better because they are reminded of a positive stereotype of their group

  • Flynn effect

    • Average IQ scores have steadily increased across many countries

  • In group variability

    • There is more variation in IQ within groups than between

  • Job discrimination

    • Intelligence testing has sometimes been misused to restrict opportunities

  • Achievement tests

    • Measure what a person has already learned

  • Aptitude tests

    • Predict how well a person might perform in the future

  • Fixed mindset

    • Intelligence is unchangeable and effort does not make a difference

  • Growth mindset

    • Intelligence can improve with effort and learning

  • Grit

    • Passion and perseverance for long term goals



Unit 3:

  • Developmental Psychology

    • Studies physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development throughout the life span

  • Thematic development

    • Stability and change: do traits remain consistent or change over time

    • Nature vs. nurture

    • Continuous vs. discontinuous: whether humans develop gradually over time or in distinct jumps

  • Cross sectional research

    • Study looks at people of different ages at one specific point in time

  • Longitudinal research

    • Follows same group of people over a long period of time

  • Prenatal development

    • Teratogens

      • Substances like drugs, alcohol, or harmful chemicals that can enter the mother’s body and hurt the developing baby

    • Maternal illness

      • If the mother has certain infections or diseases during pregnancy, they can affect the baby

    • Genetic mutations

      • Changes in the baby’s dna that happen before birth and can be harmful

    • Hormonal factors: too high/too low affect baby development

    • Environmental factors

      • Pollution, radiation, stress etc can lead to health problems

  • Infant and childhood development

    • Motor coordination

      • Fine motor skills: the small movements we make with hands and fingers

      • Gross motor skills: the big movement that use large muscles

    • Infant reflexes

      • Automatic movements that help babies survive and grow

      • Rooting reflex: helps baby find mother’s milk

    • Visual cliff experiments 

      • Assessed using visual cliff apparatus

      • Baby hesitates when reaching “cliff” which shows brain and eyes are working together

    • Critical period

      • Specific times in early development when certain experiences MUST happen for normal growth

      • Development milestones MUST be met to avoid lifelong consequences

    • Sensitive periods

      • Development milestones ideally occur (but learning can still happen later)

    • Imprinting

      • When non human animals form a strong attachment to the first moving object they see after birth

  • Adolescent Physical development

    • Puberty

      • Time when child’s body begins to change into adult body

    • Growth spurt

      • Fast increase in height and weight

    • Primary sex characteristics

      • Body parts involved directly in reproduction

      • Menarche: female begins menstruation

      • Spermarche: male begins producing sperm

    • Secondary sex characteristics

      • Physical changes not directly related to reproduction

      • Deeper voices in boys

      • Breast development and body hair

  • Adulthood and Decline

    • 20’s and early 30’s

      • Body reaches its peak in strength, speed, and health

      • After this peak, physical decline occurs gradually

    • Late 40’s and early 50’s

      • Decline in reproductive ability

      • Menopause: marking ending of menstruation and fertility

      • Slower mobility, reaction time, loss of vision and hearing

  • Sex

    • Refers to biological differences between males and females

    • Influences on height, muscle growth, voice depth, and timing of puberty

  • Gender

    • Refers to roles, behaviors, and expectations that a society considers appropriate for males and females

    • More about how a person identifies and expresses themselves

  • Gender schema theory

    • Children learn about gender by forming schemas of what it means to be male or female

  • Gender socialization

    • Learning gender roles through family, peers, and social media

    • Family: toy slection, rewarding certain behaviors, acting as role models

    • Peers: group expectations, teasing, praising

    • Media: stereotypes and role models

  • Cognitive development

    • How thinking, learning, and problem solving skills grow and change as we get older

  • Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

    •  Includes assimilation and accommodation

    • Sensorimotor stage

      • Birth-2 yrs

      •  Infants learn through senses

      • Object permanence

        • Knowing things still exist without being able to see them

    • Preoperational stage

      • 2-7 yrs

      • Childrens begin to use language and symbols aka pretend play

      • Egocentrism

        • Trouble seeing things from other pov

      • Animism

        • Belief that object have feelings or thoughts

      • Reversibility

        • Understanding that objects or numbers can be changed and then returned back to their original condition

      • Theory of mind

        • Understanding that other people have their own thoughts, beliefs, desires, and intentions

    • Concrete operational stage

      • 7-11 yrs

      • Children start thinking more logically and understand rules but still need concrete objects and example to help them think

      • Conservation

        • Idea that things like volume stay the same even when their appearance changes

    • Formal operational stage

      • 12+ yrs

      • Think asbstractly and in hypotheticals

      • Piaget propose that not everyone reaches this stage

  • Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Development

    • Focusing on how social and cultural interactions shape a childs thinking

    • Social learning

      • Cognitive development occurs best when children get guidance from others

    • Scaffolding

      • Refers to support or help given to child when they are learning something

    • Zone of proximal development

      • The gap between what a child can do on their own and what they can do with guidance from someone more skilled

  • Cognitive development and change in adulthood

    • Crystallized intelligence

      • Ability use knowledge, skills, and experience that you have built up over time

    • Fluid intelligence

      • Ability to think quickly, solve new problems, and adapt to new situations without relying on prior knowledge

      • Declines with age

    • Dementia

      • Forget important info

      • Get confused easily

      • Have trouble speaking and making decisions

      • Find it hard to do everyday tasks

  • Language

    • A shared system of arbitrary symbols that are rule-governed and generative.

    • Phonemes

      • Smallest sounds in a language

    • Morphemes

      • The smallest parts of word that have meaning

      • Ex. base words, root words, prefixes, suffixes

    • Semantics

      • The meaning of words

    • Grammar

      • Specific rules for how words and sentences are put together

    • Syntax

      • Tells us correct order to put words in a sentence

  • Language development

    • Starts with nonverbal gestures to verbal stages

  • Nonverbal manual gestures

    • Body movement that help babies communicate before they can speak

  • Verbal stages

    • Cooing

      • Starts 6-8 weeks old

      • “Ooh” “aah”

    • Babbling

      • 4-6 months

      • “Baba” “dada”, consonants

    • One-word stage

      • 12 months

      • Using single words to represent whole ideas

    • Telegraphic

      • 18-30 months

      • Putting 2+ words together to form simple sentences

  • Overgeneralization of language

    • Applying rule too broadly

    • Ex. “I runned”

  • Social emotional development

    • Process of learning to understand and manage emotions, build relationships, and interact with others

  •  Ecological Systems theory

    • How a child’s development is influenced by different layers of their environment

    • Microsystem

      • Groups with direct contact like family, school, and friends

    • Mesosystem

      • Connections between microsystems

    • Exosystem

      • Indirect factors in a childs life

      • Ex. parents work, local government, siblings school

    • Macrosystem

      • Cultural events that affect the individuals and others around them

    • Chronosystem

      • The individuals current stage in life

  • Parenting styles

    • Authoritarian

      • Very strict but not emotionally responsive or open to child input

    • Permissive

      • Don’t set many rules or limits but are warm and accepting

    • Neglectful

      • Low in demandingness or responsiveness, children raise themselves

    • Authoritative

      • Set clear expectations but also show warmth and listen to their children

  • Attachment style

    • Secure

      • When caregiver is consistently respinnsive, comforting, and dependable

      • Children feel safe, trust others

    • Insecure

      • When caregiver is inconsistent, unresponsive, or frightening

      • Children struggle with trust and emotion

      • Avoidant: happens when caregiver ignore or reject child needs

        • Hide feelings and avoid seeking comfort

      • Anxious: forms when caregivers are inconsistent

        • Child become unsure whether they can be dependent on caregiver so become clingy, worried, or overly dependent

      • Disorganized

        • Caregiver is both comfort and fear

        • Child shows unpredictable behaviors

    • Temperament

      • A childs natural style of reacting to the world around them

    • Separation anxiety

      • Happens when young children get upset or scared when caregiver leaves or around strangers

      • 8-12 months

    • Comfort vs. food

      • Attachment is based more on comfort than just meeting physical need

      • Monkey experiment: spent more time w comfort mother

  • Peer relationships

    • Children’s play

      • Parallel: kids play next to eachother but not with each other

      • Pretend: making up stories and acting them out together

    • Adolescent egocentrism

      • Preoccupied with themselves and what others might think of them

      • Imaginary audience

        • Feel like everyone is watching or judging when no one is actually paying that much attention

      • Personal fable

        • Believing thoughts, feelings, or experiences are totally unique and that no one else can understand

  • Social clock

    • The idea that each culture has its own timeline for when major life events should happen

  • Emerging adulthood

    • A time between adolescence and full adulthood

    • Gives young people extra time

  • Adult relationships

    • Healthy: mutual support and care

  • Attatchment styles in adulthood

    • Childhood attachments shape adult attatchments.

  • Stage theory of psychosocial development

    • As people move through different stages of life, they face crises that help shape their identity

    • Trust and mistrust

      • 0-1 yrs old

      • If needs met, learn to trust other and feel safe

      • If needs ignored, grow up to be mistrusting, unsafe, and fearful

    • Autonomy and shame and doubt

      • 1-3 yrs olf

      • Learning to do things for themselves

      • If encouraged, child feels autonomy

      • If harsh or controlling, child feel shamed and doubtful of their abilities

    • Initiative and guilt

      • 3-6 yrs

      • Asking questions, making plans, and trying new things

      • If supported, take initiative with confidence

      • If shut down, feel guilty for trying to take charge

    • Industry and inferiority

      • 6-12 yrs

      • school work, hobbies, and teamwork

      • If successful, develop sense of confidence

      • If they cant keep up, self doubt and feel “less than” others

    • Identity and role confusion

      • 12-18 yrs

      • Build a strong sense of identity

      • If they feel lost, may struggle with confusion about who they are

    • Intimacy and idolation

      • 18-40 yrs

      • Seeking close relationships with others

      • Strong trusting connections or loneliness and fear of getting close

    • Generativity and stagnation

      • 40-65 yrs

      • Helping others, raising kids, contributing to society

      • Generativity: feeling like they make a difference and satisfied

      • Stagnation: sense that they are not useful

    • Integrity and despair

      • 65+

      • Reflect on lives and think about what they’ve done

      • Proud and fulfilled = integrity

      • Many regrets = despair

  • Adverse Childhood Experiences

    • Stressful or harmful effects during childhood

    • Can affect how a person builds relationships later in life

  • Identity Status Theory

    • Identity developed through a process of exploration

    • Achievement

      • Settling on one identity after trying out a few others; well though out

    • Diffusion

      • Has not explored identity or choices; confused on who they are

    • Foreclosure

      • Making decisions about who they are without exploring other options

    • Moratorium

      • Person is actively exploring but has not made a decision yet

  • Racial/ethnic identity

    • Relating to cultural background

  • Gender identity

    • Understand and express gender

  • Sexual orientation

    • Who they are attracted to

  • Religious identity

    • What one believes spiritually

  • Occupational identity

    • Hich is what kind of work they want to do

  • Familial identity

    • What role they want to play in family and what kind of family they want to have

  • Consideration of possible selves

    • Help people plan, set goals, and imagine a possible future

  • Behavioral perspective

    • Focuses on how people learn through observable experiences

    • Does not consider cognitive or social emotional factors in learning

    • Includes classical and operant conditioning, and also social learning

  • Classical conditioning

    • Learning happens when two things are linked over time

    • Acquisition

      • When a person or animal starts to connect two things together

    • Unconditioned stimulus

      • Something that causes a natural reaction without the person or animal needing to learn it

    • Unconditioned response

      • The natural reaction that happens when you experience an unconditional stimulus

    • Conditioned stimulus

      • Something that starts of netral but after being paired with something important, it begins to cause a reaction

    • Conditioned Response

      • The learned reaction to something that used to mean nothing

    • Extinction

      • Refers to a situation where an association starts to fade away

    • Spontaneous recovery

      • When a learned response suddenly comes back after it faded away

    • Stimulus discrimination

      • When a person or animal learns to tell the difference between similar things and only reacts to the one that matters

    • Stimulus generalization

      • Happens when someone reacts to things that are simila to the original thing they learned

    • Higher-order conditioning

      • When something new gets added to chain of learning

    • counter conditioning

      • When you replace bad or unwanted reaction with a better one by teaching a new connection

    • Taste aversion

      • When you avoid a doof because it once made you feel sick, even if the food wasnt the cause

    • One-trial learning

      • A reaction to a stimulus was so strong that you developed a learned response after being exposed to the stimulus just once

    • Biological preparedness

      • Idea that some things are easier for us to learn because brains and bodies are wired for it

    • Habituation

      • When you stop reacting to something because it keep shappening over and over without anything important following it

  • Operant conditioning

    • Learning from consequences

    • Law of effect

      • Actions are more likely to happen again if they lead to something good and less likely to happen if they lead to something bad

    • Reinforcement and punishment

      • Positive reinforcement: adding something good to make behavior happen more often

      • Negative reinforcement: taking away something bad to make behavior happen more

      • Positive punishment: adding something unpleasant to make behavior happen less

      • Negative punishment: taking away something you like to make behavior happen less

    • Reinforcers

      • Anything that makes a behavior more likely to happen again

      • Primary: something you naturally like/need

      • Secondary: something you learn to like because it is linked to primary reinforcer, ex. Money

    • Discrimination

      • When a person or animal learns that a certain behavior only get rewarded in specific situations, not all the time

    • Generalization

      • A behavior that gets rewarded in one situation starts to show up in other similar situations- even if there’s no reward yet

    • Shaping

      • A way of teaching someone a new behavior by rewarding small steps tjath lead to the final goal

      • Successive approxiamations

    • Instinctive draft

      • When an animal starts doing its natural behaviors instead of the one it was trained to do

    • Superstitious behavior

      • A learned behavior that occurs when someone thinks their action caused a result, even when it didn’t

    • Learned helplessness

      • When someone gives up because they feel like nothing they do will change the outcome

    • Reinforcement schedules

      • Various different ways of giving rewards to encourage behavior

      • continuous reinforcement

        • Given ever single time the behavior happens

        • Tends to lead to quick results but behavior can disappear quickly too

      • Partial reinforcement

        • When the reward only comes some of the time

        • Tend to lead to longer-lasting behaviors but takes a while to emerge

        • Fixed-interval vs Variable interval

          • Fixed: behavior reinforced after set period of time

          • Variable: behavior reinforced after unknown period of time

        • Fixed ratio vs. Variable ratio

          • Fixed: behavior is reinforced after a set number of desired reponses

          • Variable: behavior is reinforced after a random number of instances of desired response

    • Social learning theory

      • Idea that people learn by watching others

      • Vicarious conditioning

        • When someone leans by watching what happens to someone else

        • Vicarious reinforcement: learning from seeing other people get rewarded

        • Vicarious punishment: learning from seeing others get punished

      • Modeling

        • When someone copied the behavior of another person

        • The more similar the model is to the observer, the more likely for the behavior to be copied

      • Insight learning

        • When someone suddenly figures out a solution to a problem without being taught

      • Latent learning

        • When someone learns something but doesnt show it until ther’s a reason to use it

      • Cognitive maps

        • Demonstrates latent learning

        • Mental picture of places of environment that we build in the back of our minds

Unit 4:

  • Attribution theory

    • The process of explaining why someone acts a certain way

    • Dispositional

      • When we explain someone’s behavior by pointing to who they are as a person

    • Situational

      • When we explain behavior by explaining what’s happening around the person

    • Optimistic explanatory style

      • Tend to see good events as your own doing

      • See bad events as either temporary or external

    • Pessimistic explanatory style

      • Tend to blame yourself for bad events and believe those problems will last a long time

    • Attribution bias

      • Predictable errors people make when explaining behavior

      • Actor/observer bias

        • Actor: You explain your own actions by pointing to the situation

        • Observer: You explain other people’s action by pointing to their personality

      • Fundamental attribution error

        • Humans tend to use dispositional attribution when explaining other’s behaviors

      • Self-serving bias

        • Take credit for their successes

        • Blame outside forces for their failures

  • Locus of control

    • Persons belief of what causes the events in their lives

    • Internal:

      • When someone believes that their actions and decisions shape what happens to them

      • Greater motivation and responsibility

    • External:

      • When someone believes that outside forces determine what happens

  • Mere Exposure Effect

    • The idea that people tend to like things more the more they are exposed to them

  • Self-fulfilling prophecy

    • When a person’s belief or expectation leads them to act in ways that make the belief come true

  • Social Comparison

    • The process of judging yourself by comparing yourself to others

    • Upward:

      • Happens when someone compares themselves to someone who seems better off

    • Downward

      • Happens when someone compares themselves to someone who seems worse off

    • Relative deprivation

      • When someone feels like theu’re missing out, not because they truly have too little, but because they think others have more

  • Stereotypes

    • Generalized beliefs or concepts about group of people

  • Implicit attitudes

    • Beliefs or evaluations that people hold without being fully aware of them

    • Just-world phenomenon

      • The belief that people get what they deserve

    • Out-group Homogeneity Bias

      • The tendency to see members of other groups as all the same, while seeing members of your own group as unique individuals

    • Ingroup bias

      • The tendency to prefer and favor people from your own group

    • Ethnocentricism

      • The belief that your culture, group, or ethnicity is superior to others

  • Belief perseverance

    • When people continue to believe something even after they’ve been shown evidence that it’s false

    • Confirmation bias

      • To search for info that supports what we already believe and avoid info that doesnt support

  • Cognitive dissonance

    • The uncomfortable feeling you get when you believe one thing but do something that doesn’t match that belief

  • Social Norms

    • The unwritten rules that guide how people behave

  • Social influence theory

    • Explains how people’s thoughts or actions are influenced by the presence and behaviors of others

    • Normative

      • Happens when people conform because theyy want to be liked or accepted

    • Informational

      • Happens when people conform because they believe others know more than they do

  • Elaboration likelihood model

    • Explains how people are persuaded by messages

    • Central route of persuasion

      • Relies on logic and evidence to make an argument

    • Peripheral route of persuasion

      • When people are influenced by emotion rather than content

      • Halo effect:

        • The tendency to assume that someone who is good-looking or charming must be intelligent or trust worthy

  • Foot in the door technique

    • Involves starting with a small request that most people will agree to

    • After they say yes, a larger request is made

  • Door in the face technique

    • Starts with a large request likely to be rejected and then a smaller request is asked

  • Conformatiy

    • When people change their behavior to match group norms

    • Group is unanimous

    • Group has high status

    • Inferiority

  • Obedience

    • When someone follows direct instructions from an authority figure

    • The milgrim experiment

      • Ordinary people can follow orders from authority even when they cause harm

  • Cultural phenomena

    • Culture can influence your behavior

    • Individualism

      • Emphasizes personal goals, independence, and self-expression

    • Collectivism

      • Group goals, loyalty, social harmony

      • Part of a group

    • Multiculturalism

      • Different cultural backgrounds should be valued

  • Group membership

    • Being in a group changes how people behave

    • Group polarization

      • Happens when people in a group discussion move toward more extreme positions than they held at the start

    • Groupthink

      • Group agreement is more important than critical thinking or the truth

    • Diffusion of responsibility

      • Occurs when people feel less responsible for taking action because they’re in a larger group

    • Social loafing

      • When people put in less effort on group tasks than when they are doing the tasks alone

    • Deindividuation

      • When people in groups lose their sense of personal identity or self control

  • Social facilitation

    • The affect of an audience on task performance

    • The presence of other increases arousal which helps on easy tasks but hurts on hard tasks

  • False consensus effect

    • Tendency to overestimate how much people agree with us

  • Superordinate goals

    • Shared goals that require cooperation between groups

    • Social trap

      • When superordinate goals fail due to short term self interest

  • I/O psychology

    • How can we make jobs better for workers and the company

    • Happy workers are more productive

    • Good bosses make a big difference

  • Altruism

    • Helping others without expecting anything in return

    • Social reciprocity norm

      • The expectation that favors or kindness should be returned

    • Social responsibility norm

      • The belief that people should help others who depend on them or cannot help themselves

  • Bystander effect

    • When people are less likely to help someone in need if there are other people around

  • Psychodynamic perspective

    • Personality shaped by unconscious thoughts, memories, and desires

    • Id: holds desire an wants

    • Superego: rule following part of the mind to do what is right

    • Ego: the decision making part of mind that decides what actions we take

    • Ego defense mechanisms

      • Automatic mental responses that protect us from feelings of stress, conflict, or emotional pain

      • Denial

        • Refusing to accept a painful or threatening reality

      • Displacement

        • Redirecting strong emotions from the original source to a safer target

      • Projection

        • When a person attributes their own unacceptable thoughts or feelings to someone else

      • Rationalization

        • Creating logical sounding excuses to avoid facing uncomfortable truths

      • Reaction Formation

        • Behaving in a way that is the opposite of what you actually feel

      • Regression

        • Reverting to behaviors from an earlier stage of development

      • Repression

        • The unconscious blocking of painful memories and thoughts

      • Sublimation

        • Redirecting unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable or productive actions

    • Projective tests

      • Tests used by psychodynamic psychologists to explore hidden thoughts, emotions, and conflicts

      • Vague images and prompts

      • Rorschach inkblot test

        • People describe what they see in abstract inkblots

      • Thematic Apperception Test

        • People create stories about pictures with social scenes

  • Humanistic perspective

    • Focuses on conscious experiences, self-growth, freewill

    • People naturally good and can reach full potential if given support

    • Unconditional positive regard

      • Means being fully accepted and loved with any conditions

    • Self-actualizing tendecy

      • The inner drive people have to become the best version of themselves

  • Social-cognitive theory

    • Personality is the result of interaction between personal factors, behavior, and environment

    • Reciprocal detrminism

      • Interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment

    • Self concept

      • How you view yourself

    • Self-efficacy

      • Your belief in your ability to handle a specific task or challenge

    • Self-esteem

      • Your overall sense of self worth

  • Trait theories

    • Focus on identifying core characteristics

    • Personality made uo of trait from birth

    • Big 5 personality traits

      • Personality is made up of 5 broad categories that exist in all people

      • Agreeableness

        • How kind, cooperative, and empathetic someone is

      • Oppenness

        • Have Imagination, curiosity, and a willingness to try new things

      • Extraversion

        • How outgoing and energetic someone is in social situations

      • Conscientiousness

        • How organized, dependable, and disciplines someone is

      • Neuroticism

        • How well someone handles stress and emotional ups and downs

    • Personality inventories

      • Surveys with rating as question

    • Factor analysis

      • Statistical method used to reduce large number of variables into smaller factors

  • Drive-Reduction theory

    • Motivation is the body’s attempt to reduce an uncomfortable physiological sensationmotivation strongest when trying to convert a physical imbalance

  • Arousal theory

    • Seek out stimulation if arousal is too low

    • Seek out calm if arousal is too high

    • Yerkes-dodson law

      • Performance improves with arousal but only to a certain point

      • Easy tasks performed best under high arousal

  • Self-determination Theory

    • Autonomy

      • The feeling that you are in control of your own choices

    • Competence

      • The feeling of being good at something

    • Relatedness

      • The need to feel connected to others

    • intrinsic motivation

      • Motivation comes from within due to personal

    • Extrinsic motivation

      • Motivation comes from outside due to getting a reward

  • Incentive theory

    • External rewards influence motivation

    • People are motivated to act in way sthat lead to rewards

  • Instincts

    • Natural behaviors or reactions that animals and people are born with

    • Do not have to learn

  • Motivational conflicts theory

    • Approach approach

      • Choosing between two appealing options

    • Approach avoidance

      • When a single choice has both positive and negative aspects

    • Avoidance avoidance

      • Choosing between two negative options

  • Sensation seeking theory

    • Explains motivation in terms of a person’s need for new and stimulating experiences

    • Experience seeking

      • Desire for new ideas and unfamiliar situations

    • Thrill seeking

      • Physical excitement

    • Disinhibition

      • Seek out experiences that break social rules and letting go control

    • Boredom susceptibility

      • Dislike for routine and repetition

  • Food as motivator

    • Physical process

      • Ghrelin signals hunger when stomach empty

      • Leptin signals fullness and is released when body has had enough food

      • Hormones regulated by hypothalamus

    • External factors

      • Presence of food

      • Meal timing

      • Social settings

      • Cultural habits

  • Emotion

    • Psychological response to internal or external events that involves a combination of physiological and cognitive factors

    • Cognitive

      • How we interpret or think about whats happening

    • Physiological

      • The bodys automatic responses

  • Facial feedback hypothesis

    • Facial expressions can influence how we feel

    • Smiling might make you feel happier even if smile is forced

  • Broaden and Build

    • Positive emotions

      • Expand awareness and encourage creative thinking, problem solving, and new behaviors

    • Negatiive emotions

      • Narrows our focus and limit range of thoughts and actions

  • Cultural experience of emotions

    • Universality of emotions

      • Some emotions universal across all cultures

    • Display rules

      • Rules for how and when emotions can be shown

      • Vary across cultures and genders

    • Elicitors

      • Event that trigger emotions



Unit 5

  • Health psychology

    • Field of study that explores hor behaviors, emotions, and thought influence our overall health

  • Stress

    • Can increase likelihood of developing disorders and disease

    • Linked to hypertension, digestive issues, headaches, immune suppression

  • Stressors

    • Any stimulus that causes a state of strain or tension

    • Traumatic events

      • Intense life threatening experiences

      • May cause long lasting stress

      • Lead to ptsd?

    • Daily hassles

      • Small routine challenges that happen frequently

    • ACEs

      • Deeply stressful events that happen during childhood

      • Hinder brain development

  • Eustress

    • Positive form of stress that motivates you

  • Distress

    • Negative form of stress that feels overwhelming or unmanageable

  • General adaptation syndrome

    • Explains how body responds to stress over time

    • Alarm stage

      • The body’s immediate reaction

      • Fight flight or freeze

      • Stress hormones

    • Resistance stage

      • Occurs if stress continues beyond initial shock

      • Adapt and maintain balance while staying alert

    • Exhaustion stage 

      • When stress lasts too long or body’s resources are used up

      • Physical mental breakdown

  • Tend and befriend theory

    • Caring and seeking social support reduces stress

    • More commonly seen in women

  • Coping mechanisms

    • Problem focused

      • Means viewing stress as challenge to besolves

      • Person takes steps to cope with stress

      • Used when you have control over situation

    • Emotion-focused

      • Trying to manage how you feel in response to stress

      • Use relaxation techniques

      • Used when situation cannot be changed

  • Positive psychology

    • Scientific study of what helps individuals and communities thrive

    • Focuses on well being, resilience, and fulfillment

    • Expressing gratitude

      • Recognizing and appreciating good in ones life

      • Better mood

    • Signature strengths

      • Personal qualities that reflect a persons best traits

    • Virtues

      • Wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, transcendence

    • Post traumatic growth

      • Positive change that can occur after a traumatic event

      • Deeper appreciation for life, stronger relationships, renewed purpose of self

  • Identifying Psychological disorders

    • Level of dysfunction

      • How much a person’s behavior or thoughts interfere with daily life

    • Perception of stress

      • How much suffering the person reports

    • Deviation from social norms

      • Behavior that is very different than what is typical or accepted

  • Consequences of diagnosis

    • Give people access to treatment support and understand but can have stigma and discrimination.

  • Classification of disorders

    • DSM-5-TR

      • Produced by American Psychiatric Association

      • Commonly used in US

    • ICD

      • Produced by WHO

      • Used internationally

    • Regularly updated to reflect new research and clinical changes

    • Only professionals are allowed to make diagnoses

  • Eclectic approach

    • Use more than one perspective to treat

  • Behavioral Perspective

    • Uses concepts of classical and operant conditioning

    • “Person has learned unhelpful associations”

  • Psychodynamic perspective

    • Focuses on unconscious thoughts and early life experience as causes of mental disroders

    • Unresolved conflict in childhood lead to symptoms later in life

  • Humanistic perspective

    • Focuses on lack of social support and being unable to fulfill one’s potential

  • Cognitive perspective

    • Focuses on thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes

    • Negative thinking patterns

  • Evolutionary perspective

    • Disorders may be result of traits or behaviors that once helped humans survive

    • Ex. extreme phobias

  • Sociocultural perspective

    • Focuses on how social and cultural dynamics influence mental health

    • poverty , discrimination, cultural factors

  • Biological perspective

    • Genetic or physiological factors

    • Ex. brain structure, neurotransmitter imbalances, and inherited traits

    • Treatments: medicine or medical procedures

  • Biopsychosocial model

    • Mental health problems stem from biological, psychological, and social factors

  • Diathesis stress model

    • When someone with a genetic or biological vulnerability (diathesis) experiences a stressful life event

  • Neurodevelopmental disorders

    • Conditions that begin during developmental period

    • Diagnosed by assessing behavior, communication, and learning ability in comparison to what is considered normal

    • Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

      • Difficulty paying attention, staying still, controlling impulses

    • Autism spectrum disorder

      • Difficulty with communication, social interaction, and repetitive behavior

    • Possibly caused by environment, physiological, or genetic

      • Prenatal exposures

      • Differences in brain development

      • Inherited traits

  • Schizophrenic spectrum disorders

    • Either have symptoms that are

      • Acute: appear suddenly and intensely

      • Chronic: develop gradually over time

      • Positive: additional behaviors not normally present

      • Negative: absence of behaviors that are normally present

        • Flat affect: little or no emotional expression

        • Catatonic stupor: remaining motionless for strong periods

    • Delusions

      • False beliefs that a person holds despite strong evidence against them

      • Delusions of persecution: someone out to harm you

      • Delusions of grandeur: you have exceptional abilities/fame

      • “Positive” symptoms

    • Hallucinations

      • False perceptions that seem real but are not based in the external world

      • “Positive” symptoms

    • Disorganized thinking or speech

      • Breakdown in logical thought

      • Speaking in a confusing way

        • Word salad: jumble of unrelated words

      • “Positive symptom”

    • Disorganized motor behavior

      • Unusual or erratic physical movement

      • Positive or negative

    • Causes

      • Biological or genetic factors

      • Neurotransmitter imabalnces, structural brain differents, prenatal viral exposure

  • Depressive disorders

    • Symptoms

      • Long lasting periods of low mood

      • Changes in thinking and physical functioning

      • Trouble sleeping, eating, focusing

    • Major depressive disorder

      • Intense depressive episodes

    • Persistent depressive disorder

      • Chronic from with less sever but longer-lasting symptoms

    • Causes

      • Biological, genetic, social, cultural, behavioral, cognitive

      • Inherit low mood, ongoing social stress, negative self beliefs

  • Bipolar disorders

    • Shifts between periods of depression and mania

    • Mania: unusally high energy and impuslsive behavior

      • Talking quickly and risky behaviors

    • Depression: low mood

      • sad , empty, or irritable

      • Trouble sleeping, eating, focusing

    • Bipolar 1

      • Involves atleast one manic episode

    • Bipolar 2

      • Involves atleast one hypomanic episode + depressive episode

      • Milder form of mania

    • Causes

      • Brain chem, life experiences, inherited traits

  • Anxiety disorders

    • Excessive fear/anxiety + behavioural changes + interfere with daily life intense

    • Specific phobia

      • An intense fear of a particular object or situation tha tposes little or no actual danger

    • Agoraphobia

      • Fear of being in situations where escape difficult or where help might not be available

    • Panic disorder

      • Sudden episodes of intense fear along with physical and emotional symptoms

    • Social anxiety disorder

      • Fear of being judged, embarassed, or rejected in social situations

    • Generalized anxiety disorder

      • Persistent and excessive worry about many areas in life

    • Causes

      • Learned associations

      • Maladaptive thinking patterns

      • Biological or genetic factors

  • Obsessive compulsive and related disorders

    • Repetitive thoughts or behaviors that interfer with a person’s daily functioning

    • OCD

      • Intrusive unwanted thoughts

      • Repetitive behaviors to reduce anxiety caused by obsessions

    • Hoarding disorder

      • Difficulty discarding posessions regardless of their value

    • Causes

      • Learned associations

      • Distorted thinking factors

      • Biological or genetic factors

  • Dissociative disorders

    • A disruption or disconnection in a person’s memory, identity, consciousness, or sense of self

    • Dissociative amnesia

      • Loss of memory of important personal information

      • Fugue: unexpected travel/wandering

    • Dissociative identity disorder

      • Experiencing two or more distinct identities or personalities

    • Causes

      • Traumatic experiences

      • Psychological stress

  • Trauma and stressor-related disorders

    • PTSD

      • Symptoms

        • hypervigilance

        • Flashbacks

        • Sever anxiety

        • Emotional detachment

        • Insomnia

        • Irritability or hostility

  • Feeding and eating disorders

    • Harmful changes in eating behavior that damage a person’s health or psychological well being

    • Anorexia Nervosa

      • Restricts food intake and fear of gaining weight

      • Leads to dangerously low body weight

    • Bulimia Nervosa

      • Binge eating followed by vomiting/excessive exercise to avoid weight gain

    • Cause

      • Media pressure

      • Body image expectations

      • Family dynamics

  • Personality disorders

    • Long lasting patterns of behavior and inner experience that:

      • Deviate from cultural expectations

      • Are rigid and inflexible

      • Begin by adolescence or early adulthood

    • Cluster A

      • The odd/eccentric cluster

      • Paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal

      • Distant, suspicious, disconnected

    • Cluster B

      • The dramatic, emotional, or erratic cluster

      • Antisocial, Histrionic, Narcissistic, Borderline personality disorder

      • Emotions, impulsive, unstable relationships

    • Cluster C

      • Anxious or fearful cluster

      • Avoidant, Dependent, Obsessive-compulsive

      • Chronic worry, fear of rejection, need for control

  • Psychotherapy

    • Use of psychological techniques to help individuals improve mental health and well-being

  • Effectiveness of psychotherapy

    • Research basis

      • Meta analysis: large scale review of data, confirm that psychotherapies are effective

    • Evidence-based interventions

      • Treatment plans are based on research showing what works best for specific disorders

    • Therapeutic alliance

      • A trusting, respectful, and collaborative relationship with the client

      • Practice cultural humility

  • Treatment setting

    • Deinstitutionalization

      • Large numbers of people released from psychiatric hospitals and asylums in twentieth century

    • Decentralization

      • Medication combined with therapy

      • Outpatient setting used

  • Ethical principles

    • Nonmaleficence

      • Avoid actions that could harm the client

    • Fidelity

      • Maintaining trust between therapist and client

    • Integrity

      • Being honest, accurate, and truthful in communication and behavior

    • Respect for people’s rights and dignity

      • Recognizing each person’s autonomy, privacy, and cultural background

  • Types of treatment

    • Psychodynamic therapies

      • Help clients gain insight into unresolved conflicts and inner motivations

      • Free association

        • Involves encouraging client to speak freely without censorship

        • Helps bring unconscious thoughts to surface

      • Dream interpretation

        • Uncover symbolic meaning in clients dreams

    • Cognitive therapies

      • To change unhelpful thought patterns

      • Cognitive restructuring

        • Teaching clients to recognize distorted/irrational thoughts and replace them with realistic ones

      • Fear hierarchies

        • Gradually exposes clients to feared situations step by step

      • Cognitive triad

        • Triangle with self, world, future

        • Become aware of the patterns of negative thoughts

    • Applied behavior analysis

      • Based on principles of conditioning

      • Exposure therapies

        • Help face fears in controlled and safe way

        • Systematic desensitization: slowly exposed to a feared situation while practicing relaxation strategies

      • Aversion therapies

        • Pairing unwanted behavior with unpleasant experience to reduce behavior

      • Token economies

        • Use rewards to encourage desired behaviors

      • Biofeedback

        • Teaches clients to control physical processes that are usually automatic

        • Uses feedback from sensors to improve regulation

    • Cognitive behavioral therapy

      • Help clients change thoughts and actions

      • Dialectical behavior therapy

        • Helps clients manage emotions by mindfulness, distress tolerance, and emotional regulation

      • Rational-Emotive Behavior therapy

        • Identifying and challenging irrational beliefs that lead to negative emotions

        • Replace those with more logical ways of thinking

        • Clients encourage to practive new behaviors based on new beliefs

    • Humanistic therapy

      • Emphasizes clients subjective experience and focuses on helping them reach their full potential

      • Active listening

        • Therapist fully concentrated and gives no judgement

      • Unconditional positive regard

        • Therapist accepts clients without conditions/judgement

    • Group therapy

      • Treating multiple clients together

    • Individual therapy

      • One-on-one format

    • Hypnosis

      • Can be effective in reducing pain/anxiety

      • Cannot recover accurate memories and cannot revisit early stages of development

    • Psychoactive medication

      • Alter brain function by interacting with neurotransmitters

      • Antidepressants

      • Antianxiety

      • Lithium

        • Treat bipolar disorder

      • Antipsychotic meds

        • Treat schizophrenia

      • Side effect

        • Tardive dyskinesia: a movement disorder caused by disruptions in dopamine regulation

    • Surgical and invasive methods

      • Psychosurgery

        • Lobotomy

      • Transcranial magnetic stimulation

        • Uses magnetic fields to stimulate areas of the brain involved in mood regulation

      • Electraconvulsive therapy

        • Uses controlled electrical current to treat severe depressions