midterm psych

Unit 0

• APA ethical guidelines

  • Informed consent

  • Freedom to withdraw

  • Protection from harm

  • Confidentiality

  • Debriefing (after experiment explain why you had to give placebos and the reason behind the study)

• Operational definition

  • A statement of procedures used to define research variables 

• Types of research methods

  • Case study: in depth study on a singular person

  • Longitudinal study: studies that go over an extended period of time with check ins every certain time 

  • Cross sectional research: collects data at one specific point in time from different subgroups 

• Experiments are always cause and effect

• negative/positive correlation

  • Positive correlation = increase and decrease together

  • Negative correlation = one increases and the other decreases

• IV/DV

  • Independent variable is the one that impacts the dependent variable 

• Placebo effect

  • When someone has an actual response to an expectation of what will happen if they take the placebo vs drug 

• Random assignment

  • Randomly assigning treatments to subjects to reduce confounding variables 

• Nonmaleficence 

  • Obligation of a scientist to not harm the patient during experiments/studies 

• illusory correlation

  • When people think there is a relationship between two things when there really is no relationship 

• Reliability/validity

  • Reliability is how consistent and stable the results are, validity is how accurate the results are 

• Standardization 

  • Making a test uniform or setting it to a specific standard 

• Statistical significance

  • When sample averages are reliable and the difference between them is large, how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance 

Unit 1

• Monocular & binocular depth cues

  • Monocular: relative size, shading, cast shadows, distance to horizon, linear perspective, occlusion 

  • Binocular depth cues: convergence, retinal disparity

• Sympathetic vs parasympathetic

  • Sympathetic arouses and uses energy in stressful situations, parasympathetic conserves energy and calms body 

• lobes of the brain

  • Frontal lobe: controls thinking, planning, problem solving, short term memory 

  • Parietal lobes: interpret sensory information and feeling

  • Occipital lobes: process images from eyes 

  • Temporal lobes: hearing, balance, memory

• reticular activating system

  • Nerves that sit in the brain stem that regulate behavioural arousal, consciousness, and motivation 

• Thalamus

  • Primary relay station for the sense 

• Wernicke / Broca’s area

  • Wernicke’s area - language reception 

  • Broca’s area - speaking language 

• Hippocampus

  • Memory 

• Cerebellum

  • Coordination of movement and posture

• Hypothalamus 

  • controls pituitary gland, 4Fs (fight, flight, fuck, feed)

• Corpus callosum

  • Nerve cells connecting the hemispheres of the brain 

• limbic system

  • Controls emotions and memory 

• Blindspot

  • Part of your eye where there are no light sensitive cells so this part of your retina can’t see 

• REM/Non-REM

  • REM sleep is vivid dreams, paralyzed body

  • NREM sleep is less essential, sleepwalking and talking

Unit 2

• Thinking errors/bias/heuristics 

  • availability heuristic: making a conclusion based on how easily we can picture it

  • Representative heuristic 

    • Making a conclusion based on how well they fall into stereotypes 

  • Gambler’s fallacy

    • Random events are more likely to happen based on whether they have or havent happened in the past 

    • “You’re bound to win this time”

• Recognition vs recall

  • Recognition is the ability to recognize something you have seen before while recall is the ability to remember something without being prompted 

  • Recognition is less cognitive effort 

• Misinformation effect

  • Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event 

• Primacy effect

  • Remembering the first part of the list 

  • Recency is remembering the last part of the list 

• Insight learning

  • Sudden realization of a solution for a problem 

• Working memory

  • Current processing of briefly stored recalled thoughts/experiences, combine with long term memory 

• Sensory memory

  • Immediate initial recording of sensory info in memory systems 

• Functional fixedness

  • Rigidity in problem solving, not able to think outside the box 

• Context effects & memory

• Memory enhancement techniques

Unit 3

• Crystallized vs fluid intelligence

  • Crystalized intelligence increases with age because it is about accumulated knowledge (vocab and applied skills)

  • Fluid intelligence - reason speedily and abstractly when solving logical problems (decreases with age)

• Zone of proximal development

  • When you are an infant or toddler, it is easier for you to learn things 

• Attachment

  • Avoidant attachment: children think of themselves as unworthy, because of a rejecting carer

  • Resistant attachment: children crave attention, carer who is inconsistent 

  • Secure attachment: child is given a positive working model, carer who is emotionally available 

• Conservation

  • The amount of something remains the same even if the form of the objects changes (ex. Mass, volume, number) 

  • Develops from 7 - 11 years 

• Theory of mind

  • Capacity to understanding other individuals by ascribing mental states to them 

• Scaffolding

  • Breaking down information or parts of a new skill into pieces digestible for the learner 

• Object permanence

  • Understanding that when an object moves from your view it is still there it is just hidden (develops from birth - 2 years)

• Egocentrism

  • Inability to understand that another person’s view may be different than their own 

  • Develops in 2 to 6 years

• Reversibility 

  • Actions, thoughts, or things can be reversed

  • Developed around age 7 

• Cross sectional vs longitudinal studies

• Latent learning

  • Unintentional learning that happens by being around something 

• stimulus generalization

  • Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

    • Stimulus that automatically triggers a response 

  • Unconditioned response (UCR)

    • Unlearned, naturally occurring response to the stimulus 

  • Conditioned stimulus (CS)

    • Stimulus that starts to trigger a conditioned response

  • Conditioned Response (CR)

    • Learned response to the previously neutral conditioned stimulus 

• Shaping

  • Process of training a learned behavior that would not normally occur 

  • Used in operant conditioning 

• Primary vs secondary reinforcement

  • Primary reinforcement: unlearned and usually for survival 

  • Secondary reinforcement aka conditioned reinforcer: anything that represents a primary reinforcer 

• Parenting styles

  • Authoritarian  

    • parents impose rules and expect obedience

    • “Don’t interrupt.” “Why?  Because I said so.”

  • Permissive

    • submit to children’s desires, make few demands, use little punishment

  • Authoritative

    • both demanding and responsive

    • set rules, but explain reasons and encourage open discussion

Unit 4 (Mostly social psych with very little personality & does not include emotion or motivation)

• Hawthorne effect 

  • When subjects of an experiment change their behaviour because it is being evaluated/ studied 

  • Ex. you act better because you know someone is watching 

• Fundamental attribution error

  • We attribute other ppl’s behaviour to their personality/internal state and don’t consider their environment or the context around them

• bystander effect

  • When we see something wrong in a crowd, we are more likely to pass the responsibility to help onto someone else 

  • We only help if we see others also helping 

• Mere exposure effect

  • Repeated exposure to a stimulus even if its fleeting or subconscious, leads to an increased liking or preference for that stimulus

  • Ex. listening to the same song again makes you like it more 

• Central vs peripheral route of persuasion

  • Central route relies on thoughtful consideration of message content

  • Peripheral route uses superficial cues and heuristics 

• Foot in the door

  • Once you get someone to agree to something small, you then start asking for more and they are more likely to say yes because they’ve already agreed to the other things

• Door in the face

  • Initially ask for something unreasonable so that when you ask for your real thing they are more likely to say yes 

• Social facilitation

  • People tend to perform better on simple tasks when they are around others vs alone 

• Social loafing

  • People work less hard when they are in a group because they assume their group mates will pick up their slack 

• Conformity

  • Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to be a part of a group standard 

• Obedience

  • Compliance due to perceived authority of asker, perceived as a command 

• Cognitive dissonance

  • We want to reduce discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent 

• Group polarization

  • Enhancement of a group’s attitudes towards discussion within the group 

• Group think

  • Conformity and desire for consensus over critical analysis where everyone supports what everyone else is saying 

• Normative social influence

  • Type of social influence where individuals conform to a group’s norms and behaviours to gain social approval or avoid disapproval 

• Just world hypothesis

  • Theory that people need to believe their environment is fair and orderly that assumes people get what they deserve 

• Defense mechanisms

  • Repression, displacement, sublimation, rationalization, projection, reaction formation, denial, undoing, regression 

• 5 factor model of personality

  • Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism