psych exam 3

Chapter 7- Types of memory 

• Memory is the persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. 

• Memory is important for survival (is this person trustworthy, where are resources)

• Memory is important because it gives us a sense of self 

How do we measure memory

• Recall: retrieving information that is not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time

• Recognition: identifying items previously learned

• Relearning: learning something more quickly when you encounter it a second or later time

Memory stages

• Human memory works like a computer's memory 

• There are three processes

  • We encode information: putting information into memory 

  • We store information: retaining information over time

  • We retrieve information: get the information back out

Memory storage

• Memory storage is the capacity to maintainin information over a time

  • Duration: how long can we store information

  • Capacity: how much information can we store

• Multistore model of memory proposes that human memory has three levels of memory storage

  • Sensory → working/short term → long term 

• There are three forms of memory

  • Sensory memory: very brief impressions of sensory information

  • Working and short term memory: short lived, temporary memories

  • Long term memory storage: long term, unlimited storage 

• Sensory memory is brought into working memory where we rehearse it until it can be encoded into long term memory and later retrieved 

Chapter 7- encoding memory 

Sensory Memory

• To encode a memory, you need to use information from your senses

• sensory memory is a very brief recording of your sensory input

  • Iconic memory: picture image; lasts about ⅓  second

  • Haptic memory: touch; lasts 2 seconds

  • Echoic memory: sound; lasts 2-10 seconds

• It has a large capacity, but a very short duration

Short term memory

• Short term memory is the small amount of information that you can actively hold in your mind for executing cognitive tasks

Short term vs working memory 

• Short term memory is memory capacity that holds information for less than 30 seconds

• Working memory is the manipulation of information within the short term memory 

• You draw upon long term memories to make sense of what you are thinking about in the short term memory 

Short term memory capacity: the magic number 7 plus or minus 2 

• Short term memory has a limited capacity that depends on what you are trying to remember

  • 7 numbers

  • 6 letters

  • 5 words

• If you dont rehearse what you are trying to remember, you will forget it rapidly 

• Young adults and more intellegent peole have a higher capacity 

Effortful processing strategies

• Chunking: organization of items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically 

• Mnemonics: memory aid, especially techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices

• Hierarchies: organization of items into a few broad categories that are divided and subdivuded into narrower concepts and facts 

• Spacing effects: encoding is more effective when it is spread over time

  • Massed practice: produces speedy short term learning and feelings of confidence

  • Disturbed practice: produces better long term recall

• Testing effect: retrieval practice effect or test enhanced effect 

  • Testing improves learning and memory 

  • Testing protects our memory from the harmful effects of stress

Making information meaningful

• If new information is neither meaningful nor related to our experience, we have trouble processing it 

• Most people excel at remembering personally

• Relevant information

  • Members of Individualist Western cultures tend to exhibit the Self reference effect

  • Members of Collectivist Eastern cultures tend to remember self and family relevant information equally well

Dual track memory

• We can remember something because of conscious focus or unconscious processing

  • Explicit memories (declarative memories) of conscious facts and experiences encoded through conscious, effortful processing

  • Implicit memories (nondeclarative memories) memory for skills and abilities that Bypass the conscious encoding track

• Explicit memories

  • Conscious long term memory that you can easily recall. Often called declarative memory

    • Semantic memory: memory of facts, knowledge and language

    • Episodic memory: ememoty of events (time, place and emotions)

• Implicit memory

  • Non conscious memory related to the impact that experiences and actions have on your behavior called nondeclarative memory

    • Procedural memory: how to perform tasks or skills

    • Priming: exposure to a stimulus that increases the quickness of a response. 

    • classical conditioning: simple learned associations

The amygdala and emotional memories

• If you have strong emotional reaction during an event or learning about an event, your amygdala is involved

• Stress hormones can increase activity in the memory forming parts of your brain, making us more likely to remember emotional events. 

• Flash bulb memories: are highly detailed, vivid memories of an unusually important event or Hearing news of such an event. Depends on proximity

Memory consolidation

• When the memory becomes stable in the brain, we say memory consolidation has occurred

  • Sleep enhances consolidation

• Long term memories are consolidated at a cellular level 

  • During learning, long term potentation (LTP) creates enduring synaptic connections, resulting in enhanced transmission between neurons 

• LTP increases protein CREB which can increase the the neurons response to stimulation

Retrieving memory

How we retrieve memories

• Memories are stored in a vast network of information

  • Memories are linked to kideas similar or associated with the memory 

  • Activating related information can activate the memory 

• Retrieval cues are pieces of information that can aid the retrieval of memories by activating related concepts

  • The best retrieval cues come from associations formed at the time a memory is encoded

Retrieval cue: priming

• Priming: either seeing or hearing a concept which causes activation of related concepts in memory

• Something in the environment may cue the memory (location, person, smell) 

Retrieval cue: context

• Context dependent memory: your memory improves when you retrieve memories in the same place you encoded them 

• Cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping recall (encoding specificity principle)

Retrieval cue: physical and emotional state

• State dependent memory: a condition in which memory for a past event is improved when the person is in the same biological or physiological state as when the memory was initially learned

• If youre anxious when encoding memory, you will retrieve the memory when youre anxious

Serial position effects

• Primary effect

  • Youre more likely to remember the first items in a list 

  • These items have the most time to be encoded into long term memory

• Recency effect

  • Youre most likely to remember the last terms in a list

  • These items are likely in short term or working memory

  • This effect will not occur if there's a delay before attempted retrieval 

Memory availability vs accessibility 

• Memory retrieval depends on the availability of the information in memory and the accessibility of the information

  • Available: i studied the materials

  • Accessible: i can retrieve the remembered information

• Moses illusion demonstrates that information can be available but not accessible

  • When you saw the question your available memory was retrieved by the distorted retrieval cue, but you failed to access Noah. 

Forgetting

• Most of what we forget is useless information

• If we remembered everything it easily overwhelm us 

• Many adults can not retirieve episodic memories from the first few years of life- a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia 

• Children can remember events from before the age of 3-4 years old

• Children can remember biological events from toddlerhood, but thy often misremember or distort the date of the events

• Research suggests that the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex are not fully developed in infants- suggesting that early memories are stored temporarily

• Memories are stored more sensely between adolescence and early adulthood- a phenomenon known as the reminiscence bump

  • You develop self identity and major life events , making years more memorable

Amnesia and the two types of memories

• Patients with severe anterograde amnesia lose their ability to form explicit memories

• These patients can fom implicit memories and develop new skills and abilities

  • But they do not explicitly realize that they learned new skills

• People are far less likely to forget implicit memories

Encoding failure

• People often fail to create long term memory of an event

  • This could be due to age which is associated with memory decline

  • This could also be due to not paying attention, a requiremembt for forming a memory of an event

Storage decay

• Your brain's neural pathways that form memories (memory traces) simply degrade over time

• Ebbinghaus forgetting curve: he initial loss of memories is rapid, but it levels over time

Retrieval problems

• You may have a memory, but something is preventing you from fully retrieving it from long term memroy 

  • Tip of the tongue phenomemon: a failure to retrieve information despite knowing that it is stored in memory 

• Your memories may interfere with each other

  • Proactive: older memories make it more difficult to remember new information

  • Retroactive: new learning disrupts memory for older information

Can we choose to forget things

• We can reduce retrieval of unwanted information through practice (motivated forgetting)

• The evidence doesnt support repressed memories, but it does not support that people can be induced to believe a false memory 

• Due to release of stress hormones, traumatic events are much more likely to be remembered than forgotten

Modifying memories

• Myth: human memory works like a video recorder and accurately records the events we have experienced

• Reality: most of our memories are valid, but memories can be inaccurate, manipulated or completely false

Memories can change 

• Your memories are not perfectly accurate, unchanging recordings of what actually happened

• When you recall a memory, you mau add otr subtract details to what happened

• Reconsolidation: when you recall something, you are constructing a memory that can be changed when its stored again

• Memories can be changed based on the intentional influence of others

• Misinformation effect: post event information can ias memory for an event 

• Imagination effect: repeatedly imaging fake actions and events can create false memories

Misinformation effect (Loftus and Palmer 1974)

• IV: participants were asked what speed they thought two cars in an accudent where going when 

  • They hit each other

  • They smashed into each other

• DV: how fast did they think they were going

• Results: participants thought that the cars were going significantly faster if the question said smashed

Forgetting the source

• Source amnesia (source misattribution): it is easy to forget when where or how we learned information

• Deja Vu: recognizing a situation but not being able to recall where when or how we experienced it

Chapter 15- Social psychology 

Social in social psychology

What motivates us to be social 

• Social psychologists study how individuals think about, interact with, and are influenced by other people

  • Social cognition: thinking about and perceiving others

  • Social influence: how others influence our behavior

• What is social psychology?

  • Fundamental human needs to motivate how we interact with others, and influence the way we understand social context

    • Need to belong (relatedness)

    • Need to feel in control (autonomy)

    • Need to perceive ourselves positively (competence)

Thinking socially 

• What is an attribution 

  • An attribution is an explanation for the cause of a behavior or outcome (either for us or other people)

  • Two basic types of attribution

    • Internal is something inside the person that caused the event (disposition/personality)

    • External is something outside the person that caused the event (situation)

Fundamental attribution error (FAE)

• The tendency to underestimate the effects of a situation on a person's behavior and overestimate the effect of the persons dispositions

• The belief that behavior always reflects a person's personality

• Western, individualistic people are biased toward making internal attributions when explaining others behavior. 

• We arent taking into consideration the power of the situation to influence people's behavior

• It's easy to fall into the trap of blaming the victim for their problems, when that is not always the case. 

• By ignorning the situation, you are ignoring the possibility to improve people's lives by changing that situation

What if you are making attributions about your own behavior

• Self serving attribution: we perceive our own actions and outcomes in the ways that benefit ourselves

• Good events are due to internal factors, while bad events are due to external factors.

• Actor- observer bias: we make attributions about ourselves that protect our self esteem

Attitudes and behavior

• Attitudes are feelings influenced by beliefs, which predispose us to have specific reactions to objects, people and events. 

  • I dont like drinking

  • I value environmentalism 

• When other influences are minimal attitudes that are stable, specific and easily recalled can effect our actions

  • I'm not going to drink

  • I am joining an environmental group

• Cognitive dissonance: discomofrot that people feel when they behave in ways tht are inconsistent with their attitudes of conception of themselves. 

• People are motivged to reduce these unpleasant feelings of dissonance

Attitudes can be changed

• People can be persuaded by others to change their attributes 

• Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) states that there are two ways people can change their attitudes

  • Central route 

  • Peripheral route 

How can you reduce dissonance

• Changing your attitude or behavior, making them consistent again

• Acquiring new information that helps reduce dissonance

• Reducing the importance of the beliefs or attitudes, eliminating the conflict. 

Changing attitudes by changing behavior

• When the behavior deviates from the attitudes, people pay react with 

  • Post decision dissonance: people focus on the positive aspects of the chosen option and on the vegetative aspects of the alternative option they have given up

  • Effort justification: people form very positive attitudes toward objectively bad decisions they have made that involve a lot of effort. 

Application of cognitive dissonance

• Because of cognitive dissonance, people who commit to a position are more willing to comply with requests that are consistent with that position

• Foot in the door techniques: make a small request, and then later ask for something larger. 

  • Hey, can you take me to the airport? 

  • Thanks, my flight leaves at 4am

• Door in the face technique: make an unreasonably large restest that will turn people down but feel guilty about, and then ask for a smaller request. People are more likely to comply if you do this

Conformity 

What is conformity: changes in perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms

• Norms: explicit or implicit rules of conduct in  given context

• Why conform?

  • Informational influence: you dont know what to do 

  • Normative influence: you want a group to like you

The motive behind normative social influence

• The need to be accepted by our peers or other social groups- even unimportant ones

• Making the wrong choice could lead to painful social rejection

• Motive: seeking acceptance

Aschs (1955) study on normative social influence

• Is normative social influence so powerful that people will say something is obviously wrong just to fit in with a group

• Asch created a situation with strong normative influence for participants

• 6 to 8 participants completed a line nuding task in front of each other

• Only one of the participants was an actual participant

Procedure

• The line judging task was completed 18 times

• Participants working for the experimenter uniformly gave the incorrect answer 12 times

• The real participant heard everyones answer before he gave his

Results

• About 75% of the participants gave at least one incorrect answer during the study after hearing other people give incorrect answers

• Normative influence is powerful! People will lie in order to fit in with a group. 

Obedience 

Obedience is when behavior is influenced due to the direct commands of an authority figure

• People obey authority figures:

  • Learning: we are trained to follow authority figures

  • Heuristic: authority figures know what they are doing

  • Normative: you want to fit in

Milgram study on obedience (1963)

• Learning experiment on punishment and memory

• Experimenter supervises 

• Study was correct only 25% of the time

• student kept expressing pain

• If the participant wanted to stop- they couldnt. They had to finish

• They obeyed because

  • The person giving orders was nearby and was perceived as a legitimate authority figure

  • The research was supported by a prestigious institution 

  • The victim was depersonalized or at a distance

  • There were no role models for defiance

Why do conformity and obedience matter

• People are vulnerable to social influence especially if there's strong normative pressure ot thre presence of an authority figure

• This kind of social influence can cause normal, ordinary people to conform to falsehoods or obey orders to commit cruel acts

• Social influence is an important part of the human experience but it can cause serious problems

Helping and hurting others

Aggression is any behavior carried out to impose harm on another individual who is motivated to avoid harm

• Yelling at someone (verbal aggression)

• Hitting someone (physical aggression)

• Stabbing someone (severe aggression- violence)

What predicts aggression

• General aggression model (GAM) argues that aggression is a combined produce of personality and situation factors

• according to GAM, people can become hangry because 

  • Experiencing adverse stimulus

    • Negative thoughts and emotions

    • Negative interpretation of a triggering event

    • Anger

• GAM’s view on angry video gamer stereotype 

  • Some people are born with angry and hostile personality (person level factors)

    • Sensitivity in amygdala, stress hormones

  • Some people learn to react aggressively from playing violent video games (situation level factors)

Stages of helping

• Recognze someone in need (bystander effect: less likely to gelp if there are others around)

• Recognize its an emergency (pluralistic ignorance: assume that it is not an emergency because nobody else is taking action)

• Take personal responsibility to help (diffusion of responsibility: tendency to think that other people can help, or other people are more qualified to help)

• Identify wgar help is needed and take action (diffusion of responsibility: tendency to think that other people can help, or other people are more qualified to help)

Stereotypes and prejudice 

• Stereotype is a mental representation about a group of people 

• Stereotypes are nearned cognitive associations that could be positive, negative or neutral. 

• When do we stereotype?

  • If stereotypes are accurate, we can rely on them to make accurate judgments

  • Stereotypes are quick and efficient way to think when we want to use low cognitive effort

  • Stereotypes are logical explanation and justification for status quo

• Is stereotyping bad

  • Stereotypes are mental shortcuts to facilitate our thinking process but they could lead to biases. 

  • Research shows that female professors are generally rated as worse than male even though they are equally as qualified

  • Students are more likely to challenge and disapprove of a female professor's grading than males. 

What is prejudice

• Prejudice is the negative attitude toward a group or members of a group

• Prejudice can lead to discrimination 

  • Prejudice attitude

  • Discrimination behavior

How do we reduce prejudice 

• Gordal Allport (1954) contact hypothesis suggests that positive, cooperative interactrions between groups can reduce prejudice. 

  • Working together for a common goal as equals

• Jigsaw classroom is an example of contact hypothesis

Interpersonal relationships

What predicts interpersonal relationships

• Proximity: you are more likely to become friends with someone you meet frequently

• Familiarity: we prefer someone we are familiar with

  • Mere exposure effect: repeated exposure increases familiarity which increases liking 

• Chameleon effects: we consciously and unconsciously imitate behavioral tendencies, accents, and speech of people we like 

• Mutual sharing of intimate, inner feelings distinguish an aqcuatance and a friend 

Defining personality

What is personality 

• An individual's characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behavior, together with the psychological mechanism behind those patterns

• What makes something characteristic 

Social psychology vs personality

• Social psychologists

  • Emphasize the power of situation, that people are strongly influenced by the social setting. 

  • Thus, people may act differently in different situations

• Personality psychologists

  • Emphasize the power of traits that people are strongly influenced by their internal personality traits

  • Thus, people may behave the same way in different situations

Both personality and social psychology work together in influencing behavior 

• Powerful situations can overwhelm personality 

• Personality takes over in weak situations

What are personality theories

• Personality theories define and describe personality including: 

  • Classifying and comparing the traits that people possess

  • Explaong how personality develiops and effects behavior

  • Explaining how and if personality changes over time

Psychoanalysis 

Freuds psychodynamic theory

• There are differing levels of how aware you are of things going on inside your mind

  • Conscious: ideas we are aware of and think about 

  • Preconscous: ideas on the verge of awareness

  • Unconscious: odeas not available for recall that are typically threatening to you 

Psyche: the parts of your personality 

• Id: your basic urges (violence) 

  • Unconscious

• Superego: moral values

  • Develops around stage 4

• Ego: the part of you that deals with real world constraints

  • OK with ID’s urges

Ego, superego, ID. most to least conscious 

What are the defense mechanisms

• According to Freud, your unconscous is filled with anxiety provoking or unacceptable thoughts and feelings

  • Sexual urges

  • Violent impulses

  • Issues from childhood

• Define mechanisms help unconsciously protect you from this anxiety 

Repression: 

• Purposefully pushing ideas or emotions into the unconscious 

• These thoughts and feelings can emerge in other ways

  • Dream images: symbols that reflect unconscious thoughts

  • Freudian slips: a verbal error that reveals unconscious thoughts

Repression, the freudian slip: 

• Instead of saying what you intend, you say something you are unconsciously thinkingabout or dwelling on. 

Freudians view on personality development

• If you dont resolve the conflict of a stage, part of your psyche gets stuck

• If you are stuck in a stage (fixation), this influences the kind of personality you have as an adult 

• Hence people who are overly tidy, obsessove and stubborn probably had harsh toilet training 

Why is psychoanalytic theory important in understanding personality

• First to popularize the importance of unconsciousness

• Emphasized the importance of early development and childhood experience in shaping personality 

• BUT lacks the empirical evidence as freuds ideas are not tested by scientific method

  • Most relied on by anecdotal evidence, such as case studies of his own patients 

Trait theories

How does trait theory view personality

• See patterns as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior

• Describe differences rather than trying to explain them

• Use factor analysis to identify clusters of behavior tendencies that occur together

• Suggest that genetic predispositions influence many traits

• Assume traits influence overall behavior but not always in specific situations

What is factor analysis 

• There are over 18,000 english words to describe personality

• Factor analysis: statistical procedure used to identify similar clusters of test itens to tap basic components of personality

Using personality inventories to assess traits 

• Questionnaire on which people respond to itens designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors

• Used to assess selected personality traits

• Test itens empirically derived and verified 

• Tests are objectively scored. 

What are the more important traits

• Psychologists spent years analyzing personality traits trying to determine the number of most important traits

• The big 5 or the 5 factor model: 5 main traits

Extraversion

• An extraversion factor appears in every trait model of personality. It is clearly one of the most important individual differences in psychology

• Extraverted people may be more likely to experience positive emotions and more sensitive to rewards. 

Extraverts tend to 

• Live happier and healthier lives

• More satisfied with their jobs

• Rated as more popular

• Experience more social success

• Drink more

• May need to be in control too much and tend to be argumentative

Neuroticism

• A neuroticism factor appears in every trait model. Also making it one of the most important individual differences in psychology

• Overreact and dont deal well with stress

• Sensitive to rejection

• Neurotic people may be more likely to experience negative emotions and be more sensitive to punishment 

Neurotics tend to 

• Complain more

• Be at higher risk of developing psychopathology

• Be stressed and dissatisfied with their job

• Not handle criticism well

What is agreeableness

• The tendency to be cooperative and get along well with others

• Reflects an important aspect of the survival of our species

Agreeable people tend to 

• Say nice things

• Be more involved in community and religious activity 

• Sense of good humor 

• Be healthy and well adjusted

• Be accepted by peers

What is conscientoiusness 

• The tendency to be organized, disciplined and hardworking

Conscientious people tend to 

• Do better in college. 

• Do better at work. Predicts job performance and less absenteeism

• Live longer. 

What is openness to experience

• Difficult to define

• The least accepted of the big 5 

Open to experience people tend to 

• Be liberal 

• Use drugs

• Play an instrument

• Believe in the paranormal 

**5 factors: OCEAN

Changes in personality

Personality traits are stable 

• With age, personality traits become more stable. 

• There is evidence of mean change over time

  • People become less neurotic, more agreeable, and more conscientious

• May be based on changing social roles and life events that encourage these traits. 

• Boyce and others (2015) found that long term unemployment was associated with changes in personality 

• Studied germans who have been unemployed for up to 4 years

• Found decreases in agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness. 

Are personality traits inheritable

• Most heritabiloty estimates of trait suggests that about 50% of the personality trait variability is due to genetic factors

• Gene x environment interaction assumes that while the genetic factors are important, the environment can influence which genes get expressed, and how genes are expressed 

Study on islanders and new immigrants

• Lived for 20 generations in isolation, they were less open to new people and experiences. However had similar personality traits as mainlanders

Social cognitive approach 

• Views behavior as influenced by interaction between people's traits and their social context 

• Emphasezes interaction of our traits with our situations

• Applies principles of learning, cognition and social behavior to personality 

Reciprocal determinism

• Describes the interaction and mutual influence of behavior, internal personal factors and environmental factors. 

• The environment influences how you think, but your behavior can also influence your environment

Person factors: Percieved personal control

• Locus of control. A person's perceived control over their outcomes, influences the behaviors

• Internal locus of control. Believe that they are in control, and they are responsible for the outcomes

  • If i study hard I will get a good grade

• External locus of control: believe that outcomes are determined by outside forces beyond control. 

Humanistic approach 

Where did it come from: in the 1950s some psychologists began to rejects freuds view that people are motivated by sex and psychological dysfunction. They rejected behaviorists' views that we only respond to rewards and punishments. 

Humanistic psychology wanted to take a more positive approach to people

Humanistic psychology: focuses on the healthy development of human potential (self actualization)

• People have a need to grow and be better people

• People need to be genuine and true to themselves. 

• Associated with abraham maslow and carl rogers 

What does humanistic psychology focus on

• There are higher level needs, more than just survival. People strive to grow when their basic needs have been met

• People are active. People dont just respond to the environment like a rat in a cage. They do things 

• People are good. We are sensible and understand ourselves. We want to improve and grow

• Focus on self actualization

Self actualization

• The need to maintain and enhance life, and according to humanists, this is the goal of existence. 

• Self actualization involves: 

  • Realizing one's potential 

  • Improving one's experience

  • Deeply appreciating life

Abraham Maslow and self actualization

• Maslow focused on the potential for healthy personal growth and peoples striving for self determination and self realization 

• People are motivated by a hierarchy of needs and strive for self actualization and self transcendence

Carl Rogers and self actualization

• To self actualize, you need the following

  • Listen to the inner guide

  • Unconditional positive regard, loving yourself without expectations or demands

  • Living in ways that are consistent with your innermost beliefs

• If a person doesnt have this, a therapist can provide an environment where these qualities can be developed 

The benefits and criticisms of the humanistic approach

• Benefits

  • Influenced counselig, education, child raising and management

  • Laid the foundation for positive psychology 

  • Renewed interest in the concept of the self 

• Criticisms

  • Use vague, subjective, difficult to measure concepts

  • Advance individualism and self centered values 

  • Offer naively optimistic assumptions about human nature

What does humanistic psychology have to do with personality 

• Personality is not only determined by biological basis, early childhood experiences or social learning

• There is the concept of self in an individual's personality 

The self

• Self knowledge 

• Self esteem

• Self control

• Self efficacy 

Self esteem 

• Self esteem is our evaluation of our self worth- part of the me aspect of the self 

• Psychologists have extensively studied motives related to self esteem 

• In the US, there has been a focus on rhe benefits of having a high self esteem

Sociomater of self esteem 

• Self esteem is likely related to evolution, and it is a warning sign that you have relationship problems

• Low self esteem is a symptom of social rejection that causes people to reestablish relationships

• Self esteem is a consequence and not a cause 

What does a positive self do 

• Positive selves generate motivation to moce the present self toward a future self

• Provides strong incentive either to approach (hoped for possible self) or avoid (fear possible self)