AP Psychology IDs

Table of Contents• Unit 1a - Psychology's History and Approaches • Unit 1b - Research Methods • Unit 2 - Social Psychology• Unit 3a - Biological Basis for Behavior• Unit 3b - Behavioral Genetics & Evolutionary• Unit 4 - Sensation and Perception • Unit 5 - Consciousness • Unit 6a - Development• Unit 6b - Personality• Unit 7 - Learning• Unit 8a - Psychological Disorders• Unit 8b - Therapy• Unit 9 - Memory, Cognition, and Intelligence• Unit 10 - Health and Motivation (no IDs)

Unit 1a - Psychology's History and Approaches • Empiricism - the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should,

therefore, rely on observation and experimentation• Structuralism - early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection

to reveal the structure of the human mind• Functionalism - early school of thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin;

explored how mental and behavioral processes function - how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish

• Experimental psychology - the study of behavior and thinking using the experimental method• Behaviorism - the view that psychology 1) should be an objective science and that 2) studies

behavior w/o reference to mental processes. Most agree with 1) but not 2)• Humanistic psychology - a historically significant perspective that emphasized the growth

potential of healthy people• Cognitive neuroscience - the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition

(includes perception, thinking, memory, and language)• Psychology - the science of behavior and mental processes• Nature-nurture issues - the longstanding controversy over the relative contribution that genes

and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today’s science sees traits and behaviors arising from the interaction of nature and nurture

• Natural selection - the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on

• Levels of analysis - the differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon

• Biopsychosocial approach - an integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and sociocultural levels of analysis.

• Biological psychology - the scientific study of the links between biological (genetic, neural, hormonal) and psychological processes

• Evolutionary psychology - the study of the evolution of behavior and mind, using principles of natural selection

• Psychodynamic psychology - studies how unconscious drives and conflicts influence behavior, and uses that information to treat people with psychological disorders.

• Behavioral psychology - the scientific study of observable behavior, and its explanation by principles of learning

• Cognitive psychology - the study of all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

• Social-cultural psych - the study of how situations and cultures affect behavior and thinking• Psychometrics - the study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits • Basic research - pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base• Developmental psych - studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the lifespan. • Educational psychology - the study of how psychological processes affect and can enhance

teaching and learning• Personality psychology - study of an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and

acting• Social psychology - the study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another• Applied research - scientific study that aims to solve practical problems• Industrial-organizational psychology - (I/O); the application of psychological concepts and

methods to optimize human behavior in the workplace• Human factors psych - an I/O psychology subfield that explores how people and machines

interact and how machine and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use• Counseling psychology - assists people w/ problems in living (often related to school, work, or

marriage) and in achieving greater well-being• Clinical psychology - studies, assesses, and treats people w/ psychological disorders• Psychiatry - a branch of medicine dealing w/ psychological disorders; practiced by physicians

who sometimes provide medical (e.g. drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy

Unit 1b - Research Methods• Hindsight bias - the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have

foreseen it. (I-knew-it-all-along or I-should-have-gotten-it or I-was-blanking)• Critical thinking - thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it

examines assumptions, assesses the source, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.

• Theory - explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events.

• Hypothesis - a testable prediction, often implied by a theory• Operation definition - carefully worded statement of the exact procedures (operations) used in

a research. e.g. human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures.

• Replication - repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situation, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances.

• Case study - a descriptive technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles.

• Survey - technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group, by questioning a representative, random sample of the group.

• Population - all those in a group being studied, from which samples may be drawn. (Except for national studies, this does not refer to a country's entire population.)

• Random sample - sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusions

• Naturalistic observation - observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation.

• Correlation - a measure of the extent to which two variables change together, and thus of how well either variable predicts the other

• Experiment - a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment or participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant variables.

• Random assignment - assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between the different groups.

• Double-blind procedure - experimenter and subject don't know who is getting what treatment • Placebo effect - experimental results cause by expectations alone; any effect on behavior

cause by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which the recipient assumes is an active agent.

• Experimental group - the group exposed to the independent variable• Control group - independent variable cannot influence the results. • Independent variable - the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is

being studied. • Confounding variable - a factor other than the independent variable that might produce an

effect in an experiment. • Dependent variable - the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to

manipulations of the independent variable. • Mode - the most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution• Mean - the arithmetic average of distribution, obtained by adding the score and then dividing

by the number of scores. • Median - the middle score in a distribution; half are above and half are below. • Range - the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution• Standard deviation - a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score. • Normal curve - normal distribution; a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the

distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (about 68% fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer near the extremes.

• Skewed distribution - a representation of scores that lack symmetry around the average value. • Statistical significance - a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result

occurred by chance. • Culture - the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of

people and transmitted from one generation to the next. • informed consent - an ethical principle that research participants be told enough to enable

them to choose whether they wish to participate. • Debriefing - the post experimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any

deceptions, to its participants.

Unit 2 - Social Psychology• social psychology - the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one

another• attribution theory - the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the

situation and the person's disposition. • fundamental attribution error - the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior,

to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

• attitude - feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events.

• central route persuasion - attitude change path in which interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.

• peripheral route preseason - attitude change path in which people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.

• foot-in-the-door phenomenon - the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

• role - a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.

• cognitive dissonance - the theory that we act to reduce the dissonance we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent. e.g. when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonances by changing our attitudes.

• conformity - adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard. • normative social influence - influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or

avoid disapproval. • informational social influence - influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others'

opinions about reality. • social facilitation - improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of

others• social loafing - the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts

toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable. • deindividuation - the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that

foster arousal and anonymity• group polarization - the enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion

within the group• groupthink - the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-

making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. • culture - the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of

people and transmitted from one generation to the next. • norm - an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper"

behavior.• personal space - the area around an individual that the person considers private and that is

enclosed by an invisible psychological boundary • prejudice - an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members.

Prejudice generally involves stereotypes beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action.

• stereotype - a generalized belief about a group of people• discrimination - unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members• ingroup - "us" -- people with whom we share a common identity • out-group - "them" -- those perceived as different or apart form our in-group• ingroup bias - the tendency to favor our own group • scapegoat theory - the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to

blame• other-race effect - the tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces

of other races. Also called the cross-race effect of the own-race bias• just world phenomenon - tendency to justify their culture's social systems; see the way things

are as the way they ought to be. • aggression - any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy• frustration-aggression principle - the principle that frustration -- the blocking of an attempt to

achieve some goal -- creates anger, which can generate aggression

• mere-exposure effect - the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increase liking of them

• passionate love - an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship

• companionate love - the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined

• equity - a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it

• self-disclosure - revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others• altruism - unselfish regard for the welfare of others• bystander effect - the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other

bystanders are present• social exchange theory - the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim

of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs• reciprocity norm - an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them. • social-responsibility norm - an expectation that people will help those needing their help• conflict - a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas• social trap - a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-

interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior • mirror-image perception - mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side

sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive• self-fulfilling prophecies - a belief that leads to tits own fulfillment• superordinate goals - shared goals that override differences among people and require their

cooperation• GRIT - Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction -- a strategy designed to

decrease international tensions.

Unit 3a - Biological Basis for Behavior • Neuroanatomy - the study of the anatomy and stereotyped organization of nervous systems• Neuron - a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system• Cell body or soma - Cell body of the neuron; the largest part of a cell, the cell body holds all of

the general parts of a cell as well as the nucleus, which is the control center.• Dendrites - a neuron’s bushy, branching extensions that receive messages and conduct

impulses toward the cell body• Axon - the neuron extension that passes through its branches to other neurons or to muscles

or glands• Myelin sheath -a fatty tissue layer segmentally encasing the axons of some neurons; enables

vastly greater transmission speed as neural impulses hop from on sausage-like node to the next

• Terminal ends, buttons, branches, knobs - the structure at the end of the terminal branch; houses the synaptic vesicles and neurotransmitters.

• Neurotransmitters - chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons. When released by the sending neuron, neurotransmitters travel across the synapse and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron, thereby influencing whether that neuron will generate a neural impulse.

• Synapse - the junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is called the synaptic gap or synaptic cleft.

• Receptor sites - a location on a neuron surface where neurotransmitters attach to interact with cellular components.

• Threshold - the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse• Action potential - • All-or-none principle - a neuron’s reaction of either firing (with full-strength response) or not

firing• Neural firing - the response of a neuron when it is stimulated.• Excitatory neurotransmitters - they are what stimulate the brain.• Inhibitory neurotransmitters - balance mood and are easily depleted when the excitatory

neurotransmitters are overactive. • Acetylcholine (Ach) - enables muscle action, learning, and memory• Dopamine - influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion• Endorphins - “morphine within” - natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control

and to pleasure• Serotonin - affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal• Sensory or afferent neurons - Sensory neurons are nerve cells within the nervous system

responsible for converting external stimuli from the organism's environment into internal electrical impulses.

• Motor or efferent neurons - type of cell in the nervous system that directly or indirectly controls the contraction or relaxation of muscles, which in most cases leads to movement.

• Central nervous system - the brain and spinal cord• Spinal cord - long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from

the medulla oblongata in the brainstem• Peripheral nervous system - the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous

system to the rest of the body• Somatic nervous system - the division of the peripheral nervous system that control the body’s

skeletal muscles. Also called the skeletal nervous system. • Autonomic nervous system - the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands

and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms.

• Sympathetic nervous system - the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations

• Parasympathetic nervous system - the divisions of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy.

• Accidents, e.g. Phineas Gage - • Lesions - tissue destruction. A brain lesion is naturally or experimentally caused destruction of

brain tissue. • Electroencephalogram (EEG) - amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity sweeping

across the brain’s surface. These waves are measured by electrodes placed on the scalp. • Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT or CT Scan) - a series of X-ray photographs taken from

different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice of the brain’s structure

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) - a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated image of soft tissue. MRI scans also show brain anatomy.

• Positron Emission Tomography (PET scan) - • Functional MRI (fMRI) - technique for revealing bloodflow and, therefore, brain activity by

comparing successive MRI scans. fMRI scans show brain function as well as its structure. • Hindbrain - includes the cerebellum, the pons and the medulla oblongata, which function

collectively to support vital bodily processes.

• Medulla - the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing• Pons - help coordinate movement• Reticular Formation - a nerve network that travels through the brainstem and thalamus and

plays an important role in controlling arousal. • Cerebellum - the “little brain” at the rear of the brainstem; functions include processing

sensory input, coordinating movement output and balance, and enabling nonverbal learning and memory.

• Midbrain – limbic and endocrine systems• Thalamus - the brain’s sensory control center, located on top of the brainstem; it directs

messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex and transmits replies to the cerebellum and medulla.

• Hypothalamus - a neural structure lying below (hypo) the thalamus; it directs several maintenance activities (eating, drinking, body temperature), helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion and reward.

• Amygdala - two lima-bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system, linked to emotion• Hippocampus - linked to memory• Forebrain – cerebral cortex• Hemispheres and Brain Lateralization or Specialization• Frontal lobe - portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in

speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgments. • Parietal lobe - portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and toward the rear;

receives sensory input for touch and body position. • Occipital lobe - portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes areas that

receive information from the visual fields. • Corpus Callosum - It connects the left and right sides of the brain allowing for communication

between both hemispheres.• Association Areas - areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or

sensory functions; rather, they are involved in higher mental function such as learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking.

• Broca's area - involved in speech production, facial neural controlling, and language processing. Damage disrupts speaking.

• Wernicke's area - Wernicke's area is the region of the brain that is important in language development. Damage disrupts understanding.

• Plasticity - the brain’s ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience.

Unit 3b - Behavioral Genetics & Evolutionary Psychology• Aggression - any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy• Behavioral genetics - the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental

influences and behavior• Chromosomes - threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain genes• Collectivism - emphasize the needs and goals of the group as a whole over the needs and

wishes of each individual• Culture - the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of

people and transmitted from one generation to the next. • DNA - deoxyribonucleic acid, a self-replicating material present in nearly all living organisms

as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is the carrier of genetic information.• Environment - every external influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people and things around

us

• Evolutionary psychology - the study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection

• Fraternal twins - twins who develop from separate fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer than brothers and sisters, but they share a fetal environment.

• Gender - refers to the personal sexual identity of an individual, regardless of the person's biological and outward sex

• Gender identity - refers to “one’s sense of oneself as male, female, or transgender”.” When one’s gender identity and biological sex are not congruent, the individual may identify as transsexual or as another transgender category

• Gender role - the pattern of behavior, personality traits and attitudes defining masculinity or femininity in a certain culture.

• Gender typing - the process by which a child becomes aware of their gender and thus behaves accordingly by adopting values and attributes of members of the sex that they identify as their own

• Genes - the biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; segments of DNA capable of synthesizing protein.

• Genome - the complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all the genetic material in that organism’s chromosomes.

• Heritability - the proportion of variation among individual that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.

• Identical twins - twins who develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms.

• Individualism - stress the needs of the individual over the needs of the group as a whole. In this type of culture, people are seen as independent and autonomous.

• Interaction - the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity)

• Molecular genetics - the subfield of biology that studies the molecular structure and function of genes.

• Mutation - a random error in gene replication that leads to a change• Natural selection - the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those

contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.

• Norm - an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior.

• Role - a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.

• Social learning theory - posits that learning is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context and can occur purely through observation or direct instruction, even in the absence of motor reproduction or direct reinforcement

• Temperament - refers to those aspects of an individual's personality, such as introversion or extroversion, that are often regarded as innate rather than learned.

• Testosterone - The sex hormone, C 19 H 28 O 2, secreted by the testes,that stimulates the development of male sex organs, secondary sexualtraits, and sperm.

• X chromosome - a sex chromosome, two of which are normally present in female cells (designated XX) and only one in male cells (designated XY).

• Y chromosome - sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or absence of Y that determines male or female sex.

Unit 4 - Sensation and Perception• Sensation - the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and

represent stimulus energies from our environment• Perception - the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information, enabling us to

recognize meaningful objects and events • Bottom-up processing - analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the

brain's integration of sensory information• Top-down processing - information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as

when we construct perceptions drawing on our experiences and expectations• Psychophysics - the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus• Selective attention - the focusing of conscious awareness of a particular stimulus. • Cocktail-party phenomenon - being able to focus one's auditory attention on a particular

stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli• Inattention blindness - failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere• Absolute threshold - the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50

percent of the time• Signal detection theory - a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint

stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes that there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness

• Subliminal - below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness• Priming - the activation, often unconsciously, of a certain associations, thus predisposing

one's perception, memory, or response• Difference threshold (JND) - the minimum difference between two stimuli required for

detection 50 percent of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference (JND).

• Weber’s law - the principle that, to be perceived ass different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum precipitant (rather than a constant amount).

• Sensory adaptation (habituation)• Transduction - a conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming

of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret.

• Wavelength - the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. Electromagnetic wavelengths vary from short blips of cosmic rays to the long pulses of radio transmission.

• Hue - the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth.

• Intensity - the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness as determined by the wave's amplitude.

• Pupil - the adjustable opening in the center of that eye through which light enters• Iris - a ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and

controls the size of the pupil opening• Lens - the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on

the retina• Accommodation - the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far

objects on the retina• Retina - the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones

plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information• Acuity - clearness/sharpness of vision

• Nearsightedness - vision condition in which close objects are seen clearly, but objects farther away appear blurred

• Farsightedness - vision condition in which distant objects are usually seen clearly, but close ones do not come into proper focus

• Rods - retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; necessary for peripheral and twilight vision, when cones don't respond

• Cones - retinal receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. The cones detect fine detail and give rise to color sensations.

• Fovea - the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye's cone cluster• Optic nerve - the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain• Blind spot - the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because

no receptor cells are located there• Feature detectors - nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus,

such as shape, angle, or movement• Parallel processing - the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's

natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving.

• Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory - the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors - one most sensitive to one, onto green, and one to blue - which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color.

• Opponent-process theory - the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. For example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red; others are stimulated by red and inhibited green.

• Audition - the sense or act of hearing • Frequency - the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for

example, per second)• Pitch - a tone's experienced highness or lowness, depends on frequency • Middle ear - the chamber between the eardrum and cochlea containing three tiny bones

(hammer, anvil, and stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations of the eardrum on the cochlea's oval window.

• Cochlea - a coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear; sound waves traveling through the cochlear fluid trigger nerve impulses.

• Inner Ear - the innermost part of the ear, containing the cochlea, semicircular canals and vestibular sacs.

• Place theory - in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated

• Frequency theory - in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch

• Conduction hearing loss - hearing loss caused by damage to the mechanical system that conducts sound waves to the cochlea

• Sensorineural hearing loss - hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves; also called nerve deafness

• Cochlear implant - a device for converting sounds into electrical signals and stimulated the auditory nerve through electrodes threaded into the cochlea

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

• Sensory interaction - the principle that one sense my influence another, as when the smell of food influences its taste

• Kinesthesis - the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts• Vestibular sense - the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance• Perceptual set - tendency to perceive or notice some aspects of the available sensory data

and ignore others• Perceptual adaptation - unique function of the brain that accounts for the differences viewed in

the world, most specifically in vision.• Visual capture - tendency to allow visual images to dominate our perception• Gestalt - an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate

pieces of information into meaningful wholes. • Figure-ground - the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from

their surroundings (the ground)• Constancy - tendency of animals and humans to see familiar objects as having standard

shape, size, color, or location regardless of changes in the angle of perspective, distance, or lighting

• Color blindness - vision defect wherein the eye perceives some colors differently than others• Color constancy - perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing

illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object• Phi Phenomenon - an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on

and off in quick succession. • Grouping the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups• proximity - a rule for grouping; tendency to group nearby objects figures together• Similarity - rule for grouping; tendency to group figures together that are similar• Continuity - rule for grouping; tendency to perceive smooth, continuous patterns• Connectedness - rule for grouping; tendency to perceive connected• Closure - rule for grouping; tendency to fill in gaps to create complete whole objects• Depth perception - the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that

strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance• Visual cliff - a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals• Binocular cues - depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eyes• Retinal disparity - a binocular cue for perceiving depth. By comparing two images from the

retinas of two eyes, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object

• Convergence - • Monocular cues - depth cues, such as interpretation of linear perspective, available to either

eye alone. • Relative size - a monocular cue; if we assume two objects are similar in size we perceive the

one that casts the smaller retinal image as farther away• Interposition - a monocular cue; if one object partially blocks the view of another, we

perceive it as closer• Relative clarity - a monocular cue; light from distant objects passes through more

atmosphere therefore they are perceived as hazy and farther away than sharp, clear objects• Texture gradient - a monocular cue; a gradual change from course, distinct texture to fine,

indistinct textures signals increasing distance• Relative height - a monocular cue; objects higher in our field of vision are perceived as

farther away; causes the illusion that taller objects are longer than shorter objects• Relative motion (parallax) - a monocular cue; as we move, objects that are stationary appear

to move; the closer the object, the faster it appears to move

• Linear perspective - a monocular cue; parallel lines such as RR tracks, seem to converge with distance; the greater the convergence, the greater the distance perceived

• Light and shadow - a monocular cue; nearby objects reflect more light to our eyes, dimmer objects seem farther away (assuming light comes from above)

Unit 5 - Consciousness • Addiction - compulsive drug craving and use, despite adverse consequences• Alpha waves - the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state• Amphetamines - drugs that stimulate neural activity, causing speeded-up body functions and

associated energy and mood changes• Barbiturates - drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety

but impairing memory and judgment• Change blindness - failing to notice changes in the environment• Circadian rhythm - the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (for example, of temperature

and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle• Cognitive Neuroscience - the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition

(including perception, thinking, memory, and language)• Consciousness - our awareness of ourselves and our environment• Delta wave - the large, slow brain waves, associated with deep sleep• Depressants - drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity

and slow body functions. • Dissociation - a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur

simultaneously with others. • Dream - a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's

mind. Dreams are notable for their hallucinatory imagery, discontinuities, and incongruities, and for the dreamer's delusional acceptance of the content and later difficulties remembering it.

• Dual processing - the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks

• Hallucinations - false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus

• Hallucinogens - psychedelic ("mind-manifesting") drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input

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

• Inattentional blindness - failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere• Information-Processing Dream Theory• Insomnia - recurring problem in falling or staying asleep• Latent content - according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream (as distinct from its

manifest content). • Manifest content - according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream (as distinct from

its latent, or hidden, content). • Narcolepsy - a sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks. the sufferer may

lapse directly into REM, often at inopportune times. • Near-death experience - an altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with

death (such as through cardiac arrest); often similar to drug-induced hallucinations. • Night terrors - a sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being

terrified; unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during Stage 4 sleep, within two or three hours of falling asleep, and are seldom remembered.

• Opiates - opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; they depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety

• Physical dependence - a physiological need for a drug, marked by unpleasant withdrawals symptoms when the drugs is discontinued

• Posthypnotic suggestion - a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.

• Psychoactive drug - a chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods. • Psychological dependence - a psychological need to use a drug, such as to relieve negative

emotions• REM rebound - the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation

(created by repeated awakenings during REM sleep)• REM sleep - rapid eye movement sleep, a recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams

commonly occur. Also known as paradoxical sleep, because the muscles are relaxed (except for minor twitches) but other body systems are active.

• Selective attention - the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus• Sleep - periodic, natural, reversible loss of consciousness - as distinct from unconscious

resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation • Sleep apnea - a sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during

sleep and repeated momentary awakenings. • Stimulants - drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful amphetamines, cocaine,

and Ecstasy) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.• Tolerance - the diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the

user to take larger and larger doses before experiencing the drug's effects. • Withdrawal - the discomfort and distress that follows discontinuing the use of an addictive

drug

Unit 6a - Developmental• Accommodation - adapting our current understanding in (schemas) to incorporate new

information. • Adolescence - the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to

independence. • Alzheimer’s disease - memory deteriorates, then reasoning. Loss of brain cells, deterioration,

and loss of acetylcholine. • Assimilation - interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas. • Attachment (John Bowlby & Mary Ainsworth) - an emotional tie with another person; showing

in young children b their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.

• Autism - a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of other's states of mind.

• Basic trust - according to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers.

• Cognitive Development (Jean Piaget)• Concrete operational stage - in Piaget's theory, the state of cognitive development (from about

6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically a out concrete events.

• Conservation - the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operation reasoning) that properties such as mass, volumes, and number remain the same despite changes in the form of objects.

• Contact comfort (Harry Harlow)• Critical period - an optimal period shortly after birth when an organisms exposure to certain

stimuli or experiences produce proper development. • Cross-sectional study - a study in which people of different ages are compared with one

another. • Crystallized intelligence - our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with

age. • Developmental psychology• Egocentrism - in Piaget's theory, the child's difficulty taking another's point of view. • Embryo - the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the

second month. • Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) - physical and cognitive abnormalities in children cause by a

pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial disproportions.

• Fetus - the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth. • Fluid intelligence - our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late

adulthood. • Formal operational stage - in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally

beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts. • Habituation - decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity

with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner. • Identity - our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of

self by testing and integrating various roles. • Imprinting - the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period

very early in life. • Intimacy - in Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary

developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood. • Longitudinal study - research in which the same people are re studied and tested over a long

period. • Maturation - biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively

uninfluenced by experience. • Menarche - the first menstrual period• Menopause - the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological

changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines. • Moral Development (Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan)• Nature & Nurture - the discussion of whether our heredity (nature) or our history/experiences

(nurture) shapes the kind of person we are. • Newborn reflexes - rooting reflex (turn head towards touch and put object to mouth), sucking

reflex, grasping reflex, Moro reflex (fling limbs then retract), babinski reflex (spread toes)• Object permanence - the wariness that things continue to exist even when not perceived. • Parenting styles (Nancy Baumrind)• Preoperational stage - in Piaget's theory, the stage (from 2 to about 7 years of age) during

which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mentor operations of concrete logic.

• Primary sex characteristics - the body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible.

• Psychosocial Development (Erik Erikson)• Puberty - the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of

reproducing.

• Rooting reflex - when touched, a baby will turn his head toward the touch and seek to out the object into his mouth.

• Schema - a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information. • Secondary sex characteristics - non-reproductive sexual characteristics such as female

breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair. • Self-concept - our understanding and evaluation of who we are. • Sensorimotor - in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which

infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities. • Social clock - the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood,

and retirement. • Stranger anxiety - the fear of stranger that infants commonly display, beginning a by about 8

months of age. • Teratogens - agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus

during prenatal development and cause harm. • Theory of mind - people's ideas about their own and others mental states - about their

feelings, perceptions, and their thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict. • Zygote - the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an

embryo.

Unit 6b - Personality• Big Five personality traits - conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness,

extraversion (CANOE) • Collective unconscious (Carl Jung) - Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited, reservoir or

memory traces from our species' history. • Defense mechanisms - in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing

anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. • Displacement - shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less

threatening object or person. • Ego - the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates

among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the reality principle satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain.

• Empirically derived test - a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups.

• External locus of control - the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your control determine your fate

• Factor analysis - a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score.

• Fixation - according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved.

• Free association - in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing

• Heritability - the proportion of variation among individuals that can be attributed to genes. • Humanistic theories - view personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal

growth. • Id - reservoir of unconscious psychics energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic

sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification.

• Identification - the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos.

• Internal locus of control - the perception that you control your own fate • Learned helplessness - the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns

when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) - the most widely researched and

clinically used of all person agility tests. Originally developed to identify emotion disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.

• Oedipus complex - according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father.

• Personal construct theory (George Kelly)• Personal control - a sense of controlling your environment rather than feeling helpless. • Personality - an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. • Personality inventory - a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on

which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to asses selected personality traits.

• Positive psychology - study of optimal human functioning - promote and discover strengths and. I rues that enable individuals to thrive.

• Projection - disguising one's own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. • Projective test - a personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous stimuli

designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics. • Psychoanalysis - Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to

unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychology disorders u seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

• Psychosexual stages (Sigmund Freud) - the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.

• Rationalization - offering self-justifying explanation in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one's actions.

• Reaction formation - switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites. • Reciprocal determinism - the interacting influences new of behavior, internal cognition, and

environment. • Regression - retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy

remains fixated. • Reliability - the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency

of scores on two halves of the test, or retesting. • Repression - in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from

consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories. • Rorschach inkblot test - the most widely used projective test, a set of 10inkblots, designed by

Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blogs.

• Self-actualization - according to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieve; motivation to fulfill one's potential.

• Self-concept - all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I"

• Self-efficacy - Bandura's concept; a person's beliefs about his or her own abilities in a given situation: based on previous experiences.

• Self-esteem - one's feelings of high or low self worth • Self-serving bias - a readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

• Social-cognitive perspective - views behavior behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

• Somatotypes (Sheldon) - theory that said our body type influenced our personality; Endomorphs (fat): friendly and outgoing, Mesomorphs (muscular): confidence and assertive, Ectomorphs (thin): shy and secretive.

• Spotlight effect - overestimating others noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us).

• Sublimation - transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives. • Superego - the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and

provides standards for judgment (the conscious) and for future aspirations. • Temperament - a person s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity. • Terror-management theory - a theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional

and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death. • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - a projective test in which people express their inner

feelings and interest through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. • Trait - a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-

report inventories and peer reports. • Unconditional positive regard - according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward

another person. • Unconscious - according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, and

feelings, and memories. According to contemporary Psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

• Validity - the extent to which a test measure or predicts what it is supposed to do.

Unit 7 - Learning• Acquisition - in classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links and neutral stimulus

and unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response

• Associative learning - Learning that certain events occur together. The events maybe two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning.)

• Aversive Conditioning - a type of behavior conditioning in which noxious stimuli are associated with undesirable or unwanted behavior that is to be modified or abolished, as the use of nausea-inducing drugs in the treatment of alcoholism.

• Behaviorism - The view that psychology 1 should be an objective science that 2 studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologist today agree with 1 but not 2.

• Classical conditioning - A type of learning in which one learns to link to a more stimuli anticipate events.

• Cognitive map - I meant to representation of the layout of one's environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it.

• Conditioned reinforcer - a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as a secondary reinforcer.

• Conditioned response (CR) - in classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously natural – but now conditioned – stimulus (CS).

• Conditioned stimulus (CS) - in classical conditioning, and originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR).

• Continuous reinforcement - reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs

• Discrimination - in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.

• Extinction - The diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when unconditioned stimulus does not follow conditioned stimulus; occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.

• Extrinsic motivation - refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. This type of motivation arises from outside the individual, as opposed to intrinsic

• Fixed-interval schedule - in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.

• Fixed-ratio schedule - in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

• Generalization - the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.

• Higher-order or second-order conditioning - A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with the new neutral stimulus, creating a second often weaker condition stimulus. For example, an animal that has learned that a tone predicts food might then learned that a light predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone. (Also called second order conditioning)

• Insight learning - A sudden realization of a problem's solution• Instinctive Drift - the tendency of an animal to revert to instinctive behaviors that interfere with

a conditioned response• Intrinsic motivation- A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake• Latent learning - Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to

demonstrate it • Law of effect - Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences

become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.

• Learned taste aversions (Garcia effect) - can occur when eating a substance is followed by illness. For example, if you ate a taco for lunch and then became ill, you might avoid eating tacos in the future, even if the food you ate had no relationship to your illness.

• Learning - the process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors • Mirror neurons - frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain

actions or when observing another doing so. The brains mirroring of another's action may enable imitation and empathy

• Modeling - The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior • Negative reinforcement - increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. A

negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after the response, strengthens the response. (Note: negative reinforcement is not punishment.)

• Observational learning - Learning by observing others. Also called social learning • Omission Training or Negative Punishment - involves taking something good or desirable

away in order to reduce the occurrence of a particular behavior.• Operant behavior - haver that operates on the environment, producing consequences. • Operant chamber - in operant conditioning research, a chamber (also known as a Skinner

box), containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal's' rate of bar pressing or key pecking.

• Operant conditioning - a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punishment.

• Partial or intermittent reinforcement - reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement.

• Positive reinforcement - increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens that response.

• Primary reinforcer - an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

• Prosocial behavior - positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior.

• Punishment - an event that tends to decrease the behavior that a phone• Reinforcer - in operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows• Respondent behavior - behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus. • Shaping - an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer

and closer approximations of desired behavior. • Spontaneous recovery - the reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned

response. • Token Economy - system of behavior modification based on the systematic reinforcement of

target behavior• Unconditioned response (UCR) - in classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring

response (such as salvation), to an unconditioned stimulus (US) (such as food in the mouth). • Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) - in classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally –

naturally and automatically – triggers a response (UR). • Variable-interval schedule - in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a

response at unpredictable time intervals. • Variable-ratio schedule - in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a

response after an unpredictable number of responses

Unit 8 - Psychological Disorders• psychological disorder - deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, feelings,

or behaviors• DSM-IV-TR - APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders 4th Ed. Widely used

system for classifying psychological disorders. • anxiety disorder - psychological disorder characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety, or

maladaptive behaviors that induce anxiety• specific phobia - intense anxiety when exposed to a particular object/situation. The person

often avoids the feared object b/c of desire to escape anxiety with it• agoraphobia - fears of being in places where it is hard to escape or help may not be

available. (losing control in public places where there will be no help if panic attack)• social phobia - anxiety when exposed to certain kinds of social or performance situations• general anxiety disorder - a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of

autonomic nervous system arousal• panic disorder - unpredictable minute-long episodes of intense dread and chest pain, terror,

choking, frightening situations• OCD - unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions)• PTSD - haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia

that lasts for 4+ weeks after traumatic experience• Somatoform Disorder - psychological disorder in which symptoms take somatic (bodily) form

w/o apparent physical cause• hypochondriasis - person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease

• conversion disorder - individuals experience serious somatic symptoms such as functional blindness, deafness, and paralysis

• dissociative disorder - conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings• psychogenic amnesia - loss of memory resulting from repression of psychological or

emotional trauma or damage• fugue - when a person forgets his or her current life and starts a new one somewhere else• dissociative identity disorder (DID) - a rare dissociative disorder when a person exhibits two

or more distinct alternating personalities. formerly known as multiple personality disorder• mood or affective disorders - psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes

• major depression - when person experiences, without drugs or medical condition, two or more weeks of significant depressed mood, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished pleasure in activities

• seasonal affective disorder (SAD) - marked by episodes of depression that most often occur during fall and winter and remit in spring. Thought to be caused by lack of sunlight.

• bipolar disorder - person alternates between helplessness/lethargy/depression and mania.• learned helplessness - person believes that their actions have no effect on the environment.

• schizophrenia disorders - a group of severe disorders characterized by disorganized/delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions and behavior• delusions of persecution - false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may

accompany psychotic disorders• delusions of grandeur - belief that you are greater than you are . exaggerated false belief

of importance, wealth, power, etc.• disorganized schizophrenia - severe disintegration of personality including erratic speech

and childish mannerisms and bizarre behavior• paranoid - characterized by delusions of grandeur or jealousy• catatonic - tendency to remain in a fixed stuporous state for long period of time• waxy flexibility - when motionless, allowing body to be moved and hold new pose• undifferentiated schizophrenia - fixed general symptoms of delusions, hallucinations,

disorganized speech, but don't fit a subtype• dopamine hypothesis - theory that schizophrenia is cause by a an excess amount of

dopamine in brain. Research has shown that meds to lower dopamine can reduce symptoms of schizophrenia.

• Tardiv Dyskinesia - incurable disorder of motor control, especially involving muscles of the face/head, resulting from long term use of antipsychotic drugs

• Diathesis Stress Model - suggests a person may be predisposed for a mental disorder that remains unexpressed until triggered by stress

• personality disorders - psychological disorder characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior that impair social functioning• antisocial - person (usually men) exhibits lack of conscious for wrongdoing, even towards

friends and family. May be aggressive and ruthless or a lever con artist• dependent - helplessness, excessive need to be taken care of; submissive and clinging

behavior• paranoid - extreme suspiciousness or mistrust of others• narcissistic - exaggerated ideas of self-importance and achievements; preoccupation w/

fantasies of success; arrogance• histrionic - excessive emotionality and pre-occupation w/ being the center of attention;

emotional shallowness; overly dramatic behavior

• OCD Personality Disorder (not OCD anxiety disorder) - pervasive pattern of orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control. Workaholics, intolerant of emotional behavior of other people.

• Rosenhan study - checked themselves into a mental hospital w/ symptoms of hearing voices. Immediately diagnosed with schizophrenia. After entering, they acted normally. Roles and labels in treating people differently.

Unit 8b - Therapy• psychotherapy - treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions

between trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulty or achieve personal growth

• psychoanalysis - Freud's therapeutic technique. Freud believed the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams and transferences—and therapist's interpretations—released perviously repressed feelings, allowing patient to gain self-insight. • free association - method of exploring unconscious in which person relaxes and says

whatever comes to mind; no matter how embarrassing or trivial • dream analysis - analysis of dreams as a means of gaining access to the unconscious • manifest content - narrative story of a dream that sometimes provides allusions to the latent

content. Freud believed that your unconscious uses distortions in the manifest dream to reveal clues to one's inter-most thoughts• latent content - hidden psychological meaning of a dream

• resistance - in psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety laden material• transference - patient's transfer to the analyst emotions linked w/ other relationships.

• somatic treatments - include drug treatments, psycho surgery, and electroconvulsive therapy• psychodynamic therapy - therapy deriving from the psychodynamic tradition that views

individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and that seeks to enhance self-insight

• Humanistic Therapies - based on assumption that people have a tendency for positive growth and self-actualizations, which may be block by an unhealthy environment that can include negative self-evaluation and criticism• Carl Rogers - treatment of psychological disorders and personality; humanistic psychologist

who believed in client centered therapy and unconditional positive regard; self theory of personality

• client or person centered therapy - a humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathetic, environment to facilitate client's growth

• unconditional positive regard - a caring, accepting, and nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients to develop self-awareness ad self-acceptance

• active or reflective learning - empathetic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies; a feature of Roger's client-centered therapy

• Gestalt Therapy - emphasized the wholeness of personality and attempts to reawaken people to their emotions and sensations; here and know; whole person

• existential (humanistic therapy) - based on assumption that people have a tendency for positive growth and self-actualization, which may be blocked by an unhealthy environment and can include negative self-evaluation and criticism from others

• behavioral therapies• counterconditioning - behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke a

new response to a stimuli that are triggering unwanted behavior

• systematic desensitization - type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety triggering stimuli—commonly used for phobias

• anxiety hierarchy - a rank-ordered list of what the client fears, starting with least frightening and ending with the most

• aversive conditioning - a type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (nausea) with the unwanted behavior (drinking)

• token economy - operant conditioning procedure in which people can earn a token for exhibiting desired behaviors and can later exchange tokens for various privileges and traits

• cognitive therapies - therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting; assumes thoughts intervene between events and emotional reactions• attributional style - attributing failures to internal, global, and permanent aspects of self. "I

failed a test --> I'm a an idiot. • cognitive therapy for depression - trying to get client to engage in pursuits that bring

success. Alleviates depression while also identifying and challenging the irrational ideas that cause unhappiness.

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) - popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating therapy) with behavioral therapy (changing action)

• rational emotive therapy - therapist looks to expose and confront dysfunctional thoughts of their clients (aka REBT and RET)

• group therapy - therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals; permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction and knowing they are not the only person with a problem

• psychopharmacology - uses drugs to treat psychological disorders• antipsychotic drugs - drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thoughts

disorders• antidepressant drugs - used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD. widely used

are SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors). • electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in

which brief electric current is sent through brain of a patient.• psychotherapy - emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and

someone who suffers from psychological difficulties• psychiatrists - a medical doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental

disorders• clinical psychologist - psychologist who treats people with serious psychological problems or

conducts research into the causes of behavior• counseling psychologist - psychologist who treats people with adjustment problems

Unit 9 - Memory, Cognition, and Intelligence

Memory• flashbulb memory - distinctly vivid, precise, concrete, long-lasting memories of a personal

circumstance surrounding shocking events• three aspects of memory

• encoding - the processing of information into the memory system, e.g. extracting meaning• storage - the retention of encoded info over time• retrieval - the process of getting info out of memory storage

• sensory memory - immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system

• short-term memory - activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as a phone number, before the info is stored or forgotten

• long-term memory - the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

• working memory - new understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial info and of info retrieved form longer term

• automatic processing - unconscious encoding of incidental info such as space, time, and and frequency and well-learned info such as word meanings

• effortful processing - encoding that requires attention and conscious effort• selective v. focused attention - focused is concentrating on one stimulus to the exclusion of all

others. selective is focusing a particular object while ignoring irrelevant informations• rehearsal - conscious repetition of info either to maintain it in consciousness or to encode for

storage• spacing effect - the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention

than mass study or practice• Hermann Ebbinghaus - memorized nonsense syllables in early study on human memory• Serial position effect (primacy recency) - our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect)

and first (primacy) terms in a list• visual encoding - use of imagery to process info into memory• acoustic encoding - encoding sound, especially the sound of words• semantic encoding - processing info into memory according to its meaning• imagery - refers to mental pictures that can be an important aid to effortful processing• mnemonics - memory aids, especially those techniques that use vidid imagery and organized

devices• chunking - organizing items into familiar, manageable nits; often occurs automatically • iconic memory - a momentary sensory memory of visual stimulus; a photographic or picture-

image memory lasting no mare than a few seconds• echoic memory - a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere,

sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 to 4 seconds. • Eric Kandel - neurotransmitter serotonin is released when learning occurs, makes synapses

more efficient at transmitting signals • Karl Lashley - found that memory is not stored in just 1 place in brain• Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) - an increase in cell's firing potential after brief, rapid

stimulation. Believed to be a a natural basis for leaning and memory• amnesia - a significant memory loss that is too extensive to be due to normal forgetting

• retrograde - inability to retrieve info from one's past• anterograde - inability to form new memories

• Korsakoff's syndrome - a disorder that usually occurs in chronic alcoholics, subject is unable to form new episodic memories; but some implicit memories

• consolidation - brought together into a single whole• implicit memory - retention independent of conscious recollection (aka non declarative

memory)• explicit memory - memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and

"declare" (aka declarative memory)• procedural memory - memory of how to do things, such as riding a bike or tying a shoelace• declarative memory - see "explicit memory"• hippocampus - a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories

for storage• cerebellum - coordinates voluntary movement and balance • measure of memory

• recall - a measure of memory in which the hypersonic must retrieve info learned earlier, as on a fill in the blank test.

• recognition - a measure of memory in which the person need only to identify items previously learned, such as a multiple choice test

• relearning - a measure memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again

• priming - activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory• deja vu - eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." cues from the current situation may

unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience• mood-congruent memory - the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's

current good or bad mood.• state-dependent memory - tendency for information to be better recalled in the same

psychological or physical state as when the info was first encoded or learned• seven sins of memory

1. absent mindedness - attention to detail which leads to encoding failure2. transience - storage decay over time3. blocking - unable to access stored info4. misattribution - confusing source of information5. suggestibility - linger effects of misinformation6. bias - belief colored recollections7. persistence - unwanted memories

• pro-active interference - the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information• retroactive interference - the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information • relearning effect - it will take less time to learn material that has already been learned, as

compared to original learning• repression - in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from

consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories• misinformation effect - incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event• source amnesia - attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about,

read about, or imaged. Along with misinformation effect, it's at the heart of many false memories (aka source misattribution)

• constructed or reconstructed memories - use of knowledge to organize new information and fill in gaps in info that was encoded and retrieved

• Elizabeth Loftus - studies repressed and false memories; showed how easily memories could be changed and falsely created by techniques such as leading questions; eye witness testimonies

Thinking and Language• cognition - all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and

communicating• concept - a mental grouping similar objects, events, ideas, or people• prototype - a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to the

prototype provides a quick and easy method for including items in a category• algorithm - a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular

problem. Contrasts with speedier—but also more prone to error—use of heuristics• heuristic - a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and sole

problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms• insight - a sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy-based solution

• confirmation bias - a tendency to search for info that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

• fixation - inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an impediment to problem solving• mental sight - a tendency to approach a problem in one particular way; often a way that has

been successful in the past• functional fixedness - a tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions;

impediment to problem solving• representativeness heuristic - judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem

to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevant information

• availability heuristic - estimating likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instance come readily to mind; we presume they're common

• overconfidence - tendency to be more confident that correct - to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs and judgments

• framing -the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments

• belief bias - tendency for one's pre-existing beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes making invalid conclusions seem valid or vice versa

• belief perseverance - clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed have been discredited

• language - our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicated meaning• phoneme - in spoken language; the smallest distinctive sound unit• morpheme - in language, smallest unit that carries meaning, may be part of a word or a

word (e.g. prefix or suffix)• grammar - a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others• semantics - a set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and

sentences in a given language, also; study of meaning• syntax - rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given

language • language acquisition - process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and

comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate• overgeneralization - error that involves coming to a conclusions based on info that is too

general• babbling stage - beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the

infant spontaneously utters various sound at first unrelated to the household language• one-word stage - stage in speech development (1-2 years) during which a child speaks

mostly in single words• two word speech (telegraphic speech) - beginning about 2 y/o, the stage in speech

development during which a child speaks with mostly 2 word statements• telegraphic speech - early speech in which a child speaks like a telegram - "go car" - using

mostly nouns and verbs• linguistic determinism or relativity - postulates that human language limits and determines

human thought patterns and knowledge (language determines and influences the way we think - Whorf)

• Noam Chomsky - specialized in language development; disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition. State there is infinite number of sentences in language and humans have inborn native ability to develop language

• Eric Lenenberg - coined the term "critical period"

• BF Skinner - behavioral; "children learn language based on associated words with and meanings and subsequent reinforcement."

• Benjamin Whorf - his hypothesis is "Language determines how we think."• Wolfgang Kohler - gestalt psychologist that first demonstrated insight through the chimpanzee

experiments; solution process wasn't slow, but sudden and reflective

Intelligence and Testing• intelligence - mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems,

and use knowledge to adapt to new solutions• factor analysis - statistical procedures that identifies clusters of related items (called factors)

on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score

• Spearman's general intelligence (g) - a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test

• Thurstone's primary mental abilities - out intelligence may be broken down into 7 factors; word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory

• Gardner's multiple intelligences - theory that our abilities are best classified into 8 independent intelligences, which include a broad range of skills beyond traditional school smarts

• Sternberg's triarchic theory - our intelligence is best classified into 3 areas that predict our real world success - analytical, creative, and practical

• savant syndrome - a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as computation or drawing

• emotional intelligence - the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions• creativity - reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas.• intelligence test - a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them

with those of others using numerical scores• mental age - a measure of intelligence devised by Binet; the chronological age that most

typically corresponds to a given level of performance. The 8 y/o average on test is the performance for a mental age of 8

• Stanford-Binet - the widely used American revision (by Termah at Stanford) of Binet's original intelligence test

• intelligence quotient (IQ) - defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to the chronological age (ca) x 100. An average score of 100 (ma/ca x 100 = 100) indicates one scored average relative to their age

• aptitude test - a test designed to predict a persons' future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn

• achievement test - designed to asses what a person has learned. • Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) - is the most widely used intelligence test; contains

some verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests• standardization - defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison

with the performance of a pretested group• normal curve - symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many

physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average and few new the extremes.

• skewed curves - non-symmetrical curves similar to normal curves but pushed to one side• reliability - the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency

of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or retesting

• test-retest reliability - repeatability; variation in measurements taken by a single person on same item in same conditions

• validity - extent to which a test measures or predicts what it's supposed to do• content validity - extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest (such as a

driving test that samples driving tasks).• criterion - behavior (e.g. future college grades) that a test (e.g. SAT) is designed to predict;

thus the measure used in defining whether that test has predictive validity• predictive validity - success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it

is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and criterion behavior• mental retardation - limited mental ability; indicated by a score <70 and difficulty in adapting to

the demands of life; varies from mild to profound• down syndrome - a condition of retardation and associated physical disorders caused by an

extra chromosome in one's genetic makeup• stereotype threat - a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative

stereotype

Unit 10 - Health and Motivation (no IDs)