Psychology Final Exam Study Guide

Final Exam Study Guide Chapter One 1. The empirical approach draws on both observation and experimentation. a. The only way you can know something is through observation. b. All ideas come from sensory experience. c. Attempts to explore and understand without being misled. d. Scientific attitude vs. Scientific method. 2. Three key attitudes of scientific inquiry are curiosity, skepticism, and humility. 3. Critical thinking most clearly involves evaluating evidence, examining assumptions, appraising the source, discerning hidden biases, and assessing conclusions. 4. The birth of psychology is often attributed to Wilhelm Wundt because he pioneered the investigation of mental processes using scientific methods. a. He established the first psychology laboratory. 5. Edward Titchener and others attempted to reveal the basic elements of the mind by asking people to look inward. They were using a method known as introspection. a. Structuralism- goes nowhere. b. Relied on “self-report” data. 6. Functionalism was a school of psychology that focused attention on the adaptive value of thoughts and behaviors. a. William James b. To develop good habits is to develop the characteristics of someone you want to become. 7. Mary Whiton Calkins was a student of William James and the first female president of the American Psychological Association. a. Became a memory researcher. 8. Contemporary psychology is best defined as the science of behavior and mental processes. a. Mental Processes- internal, subjective experience inferred from behavior. b. Behavior- any action that can be observed or recorded. 9. The biopsychosocial approach incorporates different levels of analysis, which complement one another. 10. Poor nutrition, family stress, and memory difficulties have all contributed to Mr. Leonard's depression. Effectively explaining the full complexity of his problems requires a biopsychosocial approach. 11. A “modern culture where people's emotions and personal beliefs often override their acceptance of objective facts” is Oxford English Dictionary's definition of post-truth. 12. The self-correcting process for asking questions and observing nature's answers is known as the scientific method. 13. A theory is an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events. 14. The case study is a research method in which a single individual or group is studied in great depth. 15. The biggest danger of relying on case-study evidence is that it may be unrepresentative of what is generally true. 16. A descriptive technique of monitoring and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to change or control the situation is called naturalistic observation. 17. One research team studied the ups and downs of human moods by counting positive and negative words in 504 million Twitter messages from 84 countries. The researchers' method best illustrates the use of naturalistic observation. 18. A descriptive technique for obtaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a representative sample of a population is known as a survey. 19. When every individual in a large population has a small but equal chance of being included in a survey, researchers are using a procedure known as random sampling. 20. Correlation is a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together. 21. Parallel research findings of “Eighty percent of prisoners in the United States were spanked as children” and “Seventy-five percent of college students in the United States were spanked as children” demonstrate correlation does not prove causation. 22. Researchers use experiments rather than other research methods in order to isolate causes from effects. 23. An experiment enables researchers to isolate the effects of one or more factors by manipulating the factors of interest and also by holding other factors constant across experimental and control groups. 24. Research participants are randomly assigned to different groups in an experiment in order to minimize any differences between groups of participants. 25. An inert substance that may be administered instead of a drug to see if it produces any of the same effects as the drug is called a placebo. Chapter Two 1. The study of the links between biology and behavior is called Biological Psychology. 2. Plasticity refers to the brain's capacity to change by forming new neural pathways based on experience. 3. Neurons are best described as nerve cells that function as the building blocks of the nervous system. 4. The action potential is a brief electrical charge that travels down the axon of a neuron. a. Threshold b. All-or-none response 5. A slap on the back is more painful than a pat on the back because a slap triggers more neurons to fire, and to fire more often. 6. The axon of a sending neuron is separated from the dendrites of a receiving neuron by a synaptic gap. 7. The chemical messengers released into the spatial junctions between neurons are called neurotransmitters. 8. Reuptake refers to the reabsorption of excess neurotransmitter molecules by a sending neuron. 9. The neurotransmitter acetylcholine plays the most direct role in muscle action, learning, and memory. 10. An undersupply of serotonin is most closely linked to depression. 11. The tremors of Parkinson's disease result from the death of nerve cells that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. 12. José has just played along, bruising football game but feels little fatigue or discomfort. His lack of pain is most likely caused by the release of endorphins. 13. A drug molecule that increases a neurotransmitter's action is called an agonist. 14. Sophia has taken an opiate drug that makes her feel “high” by increasing her normal sensation of pleasure. The drug she took was an agonist. 15. James is being treated for depression with a drug that blocks the reuptake of serotonin. This antidepressant drug functions as an agonist. a. Antagonist: a molecule that inhibits or blocks a neurotransmitter's action. 16. The Nervous system is the collection of bundled axons that form neural cables carrying information to body muscles. a. Hippocampus--factual information. 17. Information travels through axons that are bundled into the cables we call nerves. 18. Thomas is playing soccer. Instructions about where and how to move are carried from his CNS to his muscles by motor neurons. 19. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems work together to keep you in a steady internal state called Homeostasis. a. sensory/motor/inter 20. Stacey and her boyfriend had a fight earlier in the day. Although they made up after the fight, Stacey still feels angry hours later. This is because the Endocrine system messages last an extended period. 21. Basic automatic survival functions, such as heartbeat and breathing, are controlled by the brainstem. 22. The cerebellum at the back of the brain enables nonverbal learning and skill memory. 23. The amygdala is responsible for the regulation of emotions. 24. The cerebral cortex is the brain's thin surface layer, which serves as your body's ultimate information-processing center. 25. In a clinical trial of brain-implanted microelectrodes, a paralyzed 25-year-old man constructed shapes on a computer screen by activating neurons in his motor cortex. 26. Association areas are the most extensive regions of the brain are involved in higher mental functions such as memory and reasoning. a. Damage: Results in different losses. 27. The classic case of railroad worker Phineas Gage best illustrated that frontal lobe damage can alter one's personality. 28. Areas of the visual cortex that normally help people to see may aid blind people to read Braille by processing tactile sensations from the fingers. This best illustrates the value of plasticity. a. No evidence of left-brain or right-brain dominance. 29. Behavior genetics is the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior. 30. Identical twins are likely to show the greatest similarity in personality. Chapter Three 1. Most psychologists define consciousness as our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment. 2. The interdisciplinary study of the linkages between brain activity and mental processes is known as cognitive neuroscience. a. Conscious experiences arise from synchronized activity across the brain. 3. Focusing conscious awareness on a particular stimulus is called selective attention. 4. Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere is called inattentional blindness. a. It is a by-product of focusing attention on some part of the environment. 5. While a man provided directions to a construction worker, two experimenters rudely interrupted by passing between them carrying a door. The man's failure to notice that during this interruption the construction worker was replaced by another person wearing different-colored clothes illustrates change blindness. 6. The simultaneous processing of information at both conscious and unconscious levels is called dual processing. a. A conscious, deliberate “high road”. b. Unconscious, automatic “low road”. 7. A condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it is known as blindsight. 8. A capacity to monitor simultaneously the color, shape, and motion of a flying kite best illustrates parallel processing. 9. Sequential processing refers to consciously focusing on one aspect of a problem at a time. a. Biological Rhythms 10. Circadian rhythm refers to a pattern of biological functioning that occurs on a roughly 24hour cycle. a. Mental Sharpness (thinking and memory) b. Arousal/energy level c. As morning approaches, body temperature rises, peaks during the day, dips in the early afternoon and begins to drop in the evening. 11. A periodic, natural loss of consciousness that involves distinct stages is known as sleep. a. REM Sleep b. NREM-1 (N1) sleep: Slow breathing and irregular brain waves; hallucinations; hypnagogic sensations. c. NREM-2 (N2) sleep: Relaxed more deeply; 20 minutes; sleep spindles that aid memory processing. d. NREM-3 (N3) sleep: Deep sleep; 30 minutes; slow delta waves. 12. The relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state are called alpha waves. 13. Sensory experiences that occur without an external sensory stimulus are called hallucinations. 14. Delta waves are most clearly associated with N3 sleep. 15. REM (R) sleep is sometimes called paradoxical sleep because our nervous system is highly active, while our voluntary muscles hardly move. 16. When light strikes the retina, it signals the suprachiasmatic nucleus to suppress the production of melatonin by the pineal gland. 17. People who regularly sleep less than normal experience are at risk of depression and at risk of gaining weight. 18. Sleepwalking typically occurs during N3 sleep. 19. Michael, who is a musician and plays the drums are more likely to dream about music. 20. Brian has greater difficulty remembering what he learns during a foreign language vocabulary tutorial if he experiences less than his normal amount of REM sleep the night after the tutorial session. Information-processing theory best accounts for Brian's experience. 21. Activation-Synthesis theory suggests that dreams are mental responses to random bursts of neural stimulation. 22. REM rebound involves the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation. 23. Persistent substance craving and use despite significant life disruption and risk of physical harm are most characteristic of substance use disorder. 24. Ryan's excessive beer consumption is marked by tolerance. Abruptly stopping his beerdrinking results in symptoms of withdrawal and an overwhelming urge to drink again. Ryan most clearly suffers from alcohol use disorder. a. Depressants--Disinhibitors; impairs growth of synaptic connections; reduces selfawareness and self-control. Chapter Four 1. Developmental psychology is defined as the branch of psychology that systematically focuses on the physical, cognitive, and social changes that occur throughout the human lifespan. a. Nature vs. Nurture: Genetic inheritance//our experiences. b. Continuity and stages: Gradual//continuous and what parts change abruptly in separate stages? c. Stability and change: Which traits persist and which traits change through life? 2. A zygote is a fertilized egg. a. Embryo; developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month. b. Fetus by 9 weeks. 3. A Teratogens is a substance that can cross the placental barrier and harm an unborn child. a. Though the placenta screens out many harmful substances, pregnancy is not riskfree. b. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) i. Physical and Cognitive (mental) abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include a small, out-of-proportion head and abnormal facial features. ii. Moderate drinkers during pregnancy had babies who were less attentive and alert even at 4 years of age. iii. Newborn arrives with automatic reflex responses that support survival: sucking, tonguing, swallowing, and breathing. iv. Cries to elicit help and comfort. v. Prefers sights and smells that facilitate social responsiveness. 4. Habituation refers to the decreasing responsiveness to a stimulus to which one is repeatedly exposed. a. Used to learn what newborns and infants can see, hear, smell, and think. b. Maturation: Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior. i. Relatively influenced by experience. ii. Severe deprivation or abuse can slow development, yet genetic growth patterns are inborn. iii. Maturation (nature) sets the course for development; experience (nurture) adjusts it. 1. Nature and nurture interact. 5. A critical period is an optimal period during which exposure to certain experiences is needed for normal development. a. Language and vision and episodic memory. b. Lacking exposure/experience results in abnormal development. c. The brain’s plasticity reorganizes brain tissues in response to new experiences and new neural connections develop. d. Brain cells are sculpted by heredity and experience. e. Birth: Growth spurt of neural network. 6. Interpreting new experiences in terms of existing schemas is called assimilation. a. Accommodation: adapting current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information. i. Schemas: concepts or frameworks that organize and interpret information. 7. The following is the correct order of Piaget's stages of cognitive development; sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational. 8. According to Piaget, we come to know the world primarily by looking, touching, mouthing, and grasping during the sensorimotor stage. a. Infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities. 9. Object permanence is the understanding that things continue to exist even when they are not perceived. 10. According to Piaget, a child can represent things with words and images but cannot reason with logic during the preoperational stage. a. Conservation (concrete operational stage) b. Egocentrism: children have difficulty perceiving things from another’s point of view. 11. If children cannot grasp the principle of conservation, they are unable to recognize that the quantity of a substance remains the same despite changes in its shape. 12. A disorder that appears in childhood involving deficiencies in communication, rigidly fixated interests, and repetitive behaviors is known as an autism spectrum disorder. 13. After about 8 months, children become increasingly likely to react to newcomers with tears and distress. This best illustrates stranger anxiety. 14. Studies of monkeys raised with artificial mothers suggest that mother-infant emotional bonds result primarily from mothers providing infants with body contact. 15. Carol is distressed because post-childbirth complications prevented her from being in close physical contact with her child during its first few hours of life. Carol should be told that human infants do not have well-defined critical/optimal periods for the formation of a mother-infant attachment. a. Imprinting b. Infant attachment is dependent on: i. Familiar people ii. Familiar environments iii. Familiar activities 16. One-year-old Eunice is not overly fearful of strangers but she clearly prefers being held by her mother than by anyone else. Her behavior best illustrates secure attachment. 17. Infants in a pleasant but strange situation who respond to their mother's departure with extreme anxiety or to their mother's return with avoidance are showing signs of insecure attachment. a. Temperament: a person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity. i. Difficult//Easy ii. Difficult infants, raised with attachment dynamics like sensitive and consistent responding results insecurely attached infants. b. Basic trust develops insecurely attached, children. c. Basic trust: a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy. i. Said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers. d. Insecure-anxious attachment: people constantly crave acceptable but remain alert to signs of rejection. e. Insecure-avoidant attachment: people experience discomfort getting close to others, and use avoidant strategies to maintain distance from others. 18. Authoritative parents are likely to have children who have high self-esteem and are selfreliant. a. Parenting styles reflect varying degrees of control. i. Authoritarian; tend to have children with less social skills and self-esteem. ii. Permissive; tend to have children who are more aggressive and immature. iii. Negligent; tend to have children with poor academic and social outcomes. iv. Authoritative 19. Young adolescents often find it difficult to curb overwhelming emotions of anger, anxiety, or pleasurable excitement because frontal lobe maturation lags behind the development of the limbic system. a. Puberty i. Early maturing boys ii. Early maturing girls b. The teenage brain: frontal lobe development and synaptic pruning occur. 20. Adolescents begin to use abstract reasoning skills when they achieve the intellectual summit that Piaget called formal operations. 21. Regis thinks it's wrong to drive over the speed limit simply because a person might get punished for doing so. He is demonstrating Kohlberg's pre-conventional stage of morality. 22. Juanita suffers from a painful back condition. Smoking marijuana would reduce her pain, but she thinks it would be wrong because it is prohibited by the laws of her state. Juanita is demonstrating Kohlberg's conventional level of morality. 23. The sense of who we are makes up our Identity. 24. According to Erikson, teens who suffer confusion have not yet solidified a sense of identity. 25. Erikson suggested that the adolescent search for identity is followed by developing capacity for intimate love. Chapter 5 1. In contrast to sex, which is solely defined by biologically influenced characteristics, the definition of gender involves socially influenced characteristics. 2. In considering gender differences, you should remember those gender similarities are much greater than gender differences. 3. Physical or verbal behavior intended to harm a person's social standing or relationship constitutes relational aggression. 4. A power-hungry female politician is more likely to be perceived as aggressive than a power-hungry male politician. Among male and female politicians who seem powerhungry, women are less successful than men. ● Boys and men are often independent; girls and women are often interdependent. 5. The concept of tends and befriend refers to the fact that women are more likely than men to turn to others for support. 6. The period of sexual maturation during which a person becomes capable of reproducing is called puberty. 7. Today's experts typically recommend that surgery for intersex newborns be postponed until their naturally developing physical appearance and gender identity become clear. 8. A gender role refers to a set of expected behaviors, attitudes, and traits for males or for females. ● Gender identity is our personal sense of being male, female, or some combination of the two. 9. Mr. Eskenazi frowns when his son cries but hugs his daughter when she cries. Mr. Eskenazi's contribution to the gender typing of his children would most likely be highlighted by the social learning theory. 10. Migdalia insists on wearing very feminine-looking outfits because she wants to be treated like a woman. This best illustrates the impact of gender schemas. 11. Those who prefer to live as members of the sex other than their birth-designated sex are described as transgender. 12. People with paraphilias experience sexual desire that is directed in unusual ways. For example, in necrophilia, the person has a sexual attraction to corpses. 13. Some research has found that extensive online pornography exposure does all of the following; contribute to erectile problems, diminish brain activation to sexual images, desensitize young men to normal sexuality. 14. In the process of portraying women as “hypersexualized,” video games are most likely to promote the early sexualization of girls. 15. Teens are more likely to delay sex if they have high levels of intelligence and higher levels of religious engagement. 16. One's sexual orientation refers to an enduring sexual attraction toward members of one's own sex, the other sex, or both sexes. 17. Compared with women, men are likely to initiate more sex, think more about sex, and view more pornography. 18. Evolutionary psychologists would be most likely to attribute male-female differences in attitudes toward casual sex to the fact that men have greater reproductive potential than women do. 19. Heterosexual women are most likely to be sexually attracted to men who appear to be mature and affluent. 20. Critics of evolutionary psychology are most likely to suggest that it underestimates the impact of cultural expectations on human sexual behavior. ● It starts with an effective and works backward to explain what happened. ● More immediate explanations better understood through social learning theory (in the social script) than decisions made by our distant ancestors. ● For both men and women, but for women, orgasm occurs more often when sex happens in a committed relationship rather than a sexual hookup. Chapter Six 1. Perception is the process by which sensory input is organized and interpreted by the brain. ● Sensation and perception are actually apart of one continuous process. 2. Bottom-up processing involves analysis that begins with the sensory receptors. 3. Transduction refers to the process of transforming stimulus energies into neural impulses. ● All of our senses: ● Receive sensory stimulation, often using specialized receptor cells. ● Transform that stimulation into neural impulses. ● Deliver the neural information to our brain. 4. The minimum amount of stimulation a person needs to detect a stimulus 50 percent of the time is called the absolute threshold. 5. Signal detection theory emphasizes that personal expectations and motivations influence the level of absolute thresholds. ● Subliminal: input below the absolute threshold for conscious awareness. ● Priming: activating, often unconsciously, associations in our mind. 6. A subliminal message is one that is presented below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness. 7. The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time is called the difference threshold. ● Experienced as a just noticeable difference (or jnd) ● Weber’s Law ● For an average person to perceive a difference, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (not a constant amount); the exact proportion varies, depending on the stimulus. 8. Sensory adaptation refers to diminished sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus. ● It influences how we perceive emotions; which means that we are sensitive to novelty. 9. A perceptual set refers to a mental predisposition that influences what we perceive (what we hear, taste, feel, and see). 10. Visible light is a section of the spectrum of electromagnetic energy. 11. The correct order in which the retina's neural layers process visual stimulation is rods and cones, bipolar cells, ganglion cells. 12. Rods and cones for visual processing are located closest to the back of the retina. 13. According to the opponent-process theory, cells that are turned “on” by green light are turned “off” by red light. 14. A gestalt is best described as an organized whole; Figure-Ground: figures stick out from its surroundings. 15. When hearing the words “eel is on the wagon,” you would likely perceive the first word as “wheel.” Given “eel is on the orange,” you would likely perceive the first word as “peel.” This context effect best illustrates the organizational principle of . ● 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. ● Is present, at least in part, at birth in humans and other animals. 16. The visual cliff is a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants. 17. Indicators of distance such as interposition and linear perspective are monocular cues. 18. The cochlea consists of a fluid-filled tube in the inner ear. 19. Damage to the cochlea's hair cell receptors is most likely to cause a loss of hearing. 20. Sensory receptors in our skin that detect hurtful temperatures, pressure, or chemicals are called nociceptors. 21. The gate-control theory suggests that pain is experienced when large nerve fibers activate and open a neural gate in the spinal cord. 22. Our sense of taste was once thought to involve only the four sensations of bitter, sweet, sour, and salty. 23. Information from the taste buds travels between the temporal and frontal lobe. 24. The sense of smell is known as olfaction. 25. During the months when there is a large amount of pollen in the air, your hay fever severely affects your sense of smell. At the same time, your food all seems to taste the same. This illustrates the importance of sensory adaptation. Chapter Seven 1. Psychologists define learning as the process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviors. a. Associative Learning—learning that certain events occur together. i. These events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or response and consequences (as in operant conditioning). b. A stimulus is an event or situation that evokes a response. c. Conditioning: the process of learning associations, which takes two main forms: i. Classical conditioning: we associate stimuli that we do not control, and we automatically respond (exhibiting respondent behaviors). ii. Operant conditioning: we associate a response (our behavior) with its consequence (producing operant behaviors). 2. Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which we link one or more stimuli. 3. A type of learning in which behavior becomes more likely to recur if followed by a reinforcer or less likely to recur if followed by a punisher is called operant conditioning. 4. Behaviorism was the view that psychology should scientifically study behavior without reference to cognitive processes. a. Ivan Pavlov: classical conditioning 5. Before Pavlov conditioned a dog to salivate in response to a tone, the tone was an unconditioned stimulus. 6. In Pavlov's experiments, the sound of the tone triggered the dog's salivation. Salivation to the sound of a tone was a conditioned response. 7. At one time Jimmy was scared of dogs because he was bitten by one. With subsequent repeated exposure to tame dogs in safe settings, however, his fear of dogs has gradually faded. Jimmy's diminishing fear of dogs best illustrates extinction. 8. After a scary biking accident, Alex extinguished his conditioned fear of bikes by cycling on a safe biking trail every day for a week. The reappearance of his previously extinguished fear when he rode a bike on the same trail two weeks later best illustrates spontaneous recovery. 9. Monica's psychotherapist reminds her so much of her own father that she has many of the same mixed emotional reactions to him that she has to her own dad. Her reactions to her therapist best illustrate generalization. 10. Jacqueline has a special ring tone on her phone for her boyfriend and a different special ring tone on her phone for her brother. When her boyfriend calls, Jacqueline gets excited but she doesn't get excited when her brother calls. This best illustrates the value of discrimination. 11. Watson and Rayner's study of Little Albert demonstrated how specific fears may be produced through classical conditioning. 12. A Skinner box is a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer. a. Skinners experiment—Thorndike's law of effect. 13. Five-year-old Trevor is emotionally disturbed and refuses to communicate with anyone. To get him to speak, his teacher initially gives him candy for any utterance, then only for a clearly spoken word, and finally only for a complete sentence. The teacher is using the method of shaping. a. Operant Conditioning is a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. 14. Any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response is called a positive reinforcer. 15. A stimulus that acquires reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer is called a negative reinforcer. a. A primary reinforcer is unlearned; innately reinforcing stimuli; such as those that satisfy biological (eating) or social (affirmation) needs. b. Conditioned (secondary) reinforcer: a stimulus that acquired reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer is called a conditioned reinforcer. c. Immediate reinforcer. d. Delayed reinforcer: involves time delay between the desired response and delivery of action. 16. Paul and Michael sell magazine subscriptions by telephone. Paul is paid $1.00 for every five calls he makes, while Michael is paid $1.00 for every subscription he sells, regardless of the number of calls he makes. Paul's telephoning is reinforced on a fixedratio schedule, whereas Michael's is reinforced on a variable-ratio schedule. a. Fixed interval: slow, un-sustained responding b. Reinforcer: paid once a week. c. Variable interval: Intermittent Reinforcement Schedules 17. Positive punishment is the introduction of a negative stimulus following behavior and negative punishment is the withdrawal of the desired stimulus following a behavior. 18. Most psychologists would advise parents who want to change a child's bad behavior to make greater use of reinforcement than punishment. 19. Alex learned how to make three-point basketball shots by successfully making very short shots before shooting from increasingly longer distances from the hoop. This learning strategy best illustrates the process of shaping. 20. Evidence that organisms most readily learn behaviors favored by natural selection best illustrates the importance of biological constraints. a. Instinctive drift occurs as animals revert to biologically predisposed patterns. 21. Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it is called latent learning. 22. In a well-known experiment, preschool children pounded and kicked a large inflated Bobo doll that an adult had just beaten on. This experiment served to illustrate the importance of observational learning. a. Modeling is the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior. b. Vicarious reinforcement and vicarious punishment are experienced by watching models. 23. Mirror neurons are believed by some scientists to provide a biological basis for observational learning. 24. Models are most effective when their actions and words are consistent. 25. Desensitization and imitation are two factors that contribute to the violence effect. Chapter Eight 1. Memory is best defined as the persistence of learning through the storage and retrieval of information. Three measures of memory retention: 2. You are taking an online psychology class and have weekly online quizzes. The quizzes all contain only multiple-choice questions, which are used to assess your recall of course material. 3. Ebbinghaus’s use of nonsense syllables to study memory led to the discovery that the amount remembered depends on the recognition spent learning. (and relearning) ● Relearning: a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again the second, third, ….... 4. An information-processing model that views memories as emerging from the simultaneous activation of interconnected neural networks is known as Parallel Processing. Memory Models: ● Information-processing model ○ Compares human memory to computer operations. ○ Involves three processes: ■ Encoding: refers to getting information into memory. ■ Storage: retention of encoded information over time. ■ Retrieval: getting information out of memory. 5. Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin introduced a classic three-stage information-processing model that distinguishes among sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Working memory includes a visual and auditory rehearsal of new information. 6. Implicit memory is too explicit memory as effortful processing is to automatic processing. 7. A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli is called iconic memory. 8. The spacing effect is defined as the tendency for distributed study to yield better long-term retention than massed study. 9. Episodic memory is best described as an explicit memory of personally experienced events. 10. Damage to the hippocampus would most likely interfere with a person's ability to learn the names of newly introduced people. 11. The basal ganglia most clearly facilitate the processing of procedural memories. 12. Stress provokes the amygdala to initiate a memory trace that boosts activity in the brain's memory-forming areas. 13. Hearing the word rabbit may lead people to spell the spoken word hair as h-a-r-e. This best illustrates the outcome of a process known as Priming-Awakening Associations. 14. Scuba divers who heard a word list while underwater later recalled more of the words if their recall was tested while they were underwater rather than on the beach. This best illustrates the encoding specificity principle. 15. The recall of sad experiences is often primed by feelings of sadness. This most clearly illustrates mood-congruent memory. 16. Our inability to remember information presented in the seconds just before we fall asleep is most likely due to encoding failure. 17. An inability to access information in long-term memory is known as retrieval failure. 18. The memory of your familiar old email password may block the recall of your new password. This illustrates proactive interference. 19. Every time Vladimir tells the story of how he met his wife, the story changes slightly. This is an example of reconsolidation. 20. The incorporation of misleading information into one's memory of an event is referred to as the misinformation effect. 21. In the study led by Elizabeth Loftus, two groups of observers were asked how fast two cars had been going to a filmed traffic accident. Observers who heard the vividly descriptive word “smashed” in relation to the accident later recalled broken glass at the scene of the accident. 22. As a child, Andre dreamed that he was chased and attacked by a ferocious dog. Many years later, he mistakenly recalled that this had actually happened to him. Andre's false recollection best illustrates source amnesia. 23. Psychologists who have studied memory construction have discovered that false memories often feel as real as true memories. Memory construction 24. Research on young children's false eyewitness recollections has indicated that it is surprisingly difficult for both children and professional interviewers to reliably separate the children's false memories from true memories. 25. To help resolve the controversy over reports of repressed memories of sexual abuse, major psychological and psychiatric associations suggest that adult memories of experiences happening before age four are unreliable. Chapter Eleven 1. Psychologists define stress as the process by which we appraise and respond to threatening or challenging events. Stress arises less from events themselves than from how we appraise them. Stressors appraised as threats can lead to strong negative reactions. 2. One person regards a new job as a challenge, whereas another regards the same new job as a potential threat. These different perceptions best illustrate the differences in stress appraisal. 3. Jane, whose cell phone is currently out of battery; John, who has too many things on his to-do list today, and Sammy, who has to give a speech in her class today are all experiencing daily hassles. 4. Walter Cannon observed that a variety of stressors trigger a fight-or-flight reaction. 5. The three successive phases of the general adaptation syndrome are alarm, reaction, resistance, and exhaustion. Alarm reaction—stressor occurs. 6. Cameron, a 50-year-old electrician, opens his pay envelope and, to his surprise, finds a pink slip inside, indicating that he has been fired from his job. The phase of the general adaptation syndrome Cameron is most likely experiencing is alarm reaction. 7. Psychoneuroimmunology is most broadly concerned with how the psychological, neural, and endocrine systems together affect the immune system. Stressors --> appraisal --> thoughts --> feelings --> brain signals --> hormonal actions --> immune suppressions --> risk of illness. The tradeoff between stress response and immune response may help our bodies focus energy on managing stress. 8. Stress is most likely to speed the progression from HIV to AIDS by reducing lymphocyte levels. 9. Friedman and Rosenman referred to competitive, hard-driving, impatient, and easily angered individuals as Type A personalities. 10. Bernard is an ambitious, highly competitive corporate lawyer who recently had a heart attack. He tends to be impatient and a perfectionist, and he gets angry over little things. Research suggests that Bernard's susceptibility to heart attacks may be most closely linked to his anger. 11. Reducing one's anger through aggressive action or fantasy is called catharsis. 12. Attempting to alleviate stress directly by changing the stressor is known as problem-focused coping. Emotion-focused coping—avoiding the situation. 13. Stacey just took her first-course exam and did not perform as well as she would have liked. So, she decides to increase the amount of time she spends each week reviewing the course material and studying for the class. She believes that if she makes these changes, she can easily get a higher score on the next exam. Stacey is demonstrating a high level of personal control. 14. Dogs strapped in a harness and given repeated shocks that they could not avoid developed learned helplessness. 15. The perception that our fate is determined by chance reflects an external locus of control. Internal locus of control we feel that we are in charge of ourselves and our circumstances. -->Free Will External locus of control: we picture that a force outside of ourselves controls our fate. 16. The ability to delay immediate gratification of our impulses best illustrates self-control. Exercising will power temporarily depletes the mental energy needed for self-control on other tasks. The long term effect of exercising self-control is strengthened self-control, much as hard physical workouts leave you temporarily tired but stronger in the long term. Pessimists expect things to go badly; blame themselves, others or situations beyond their control. Optimists expect to have control, work well under stress, and enjoy good health. -->Runs in families; one genetic marker is a gene that enhances the social-bonding hormone oxytocin. Social isolation leads to higher loneliness an risk of death equivalent to smoking. 17. Mildly depressed female college students assigned to a program of aerobic exercise reported a greater decrease in depression than those assigned to a program of relaxation exercises. Chapter Twelve 1. Social Psychology is most directly concerned with the study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. 2. She insists that her boyfriend's car accident resulted from his carelessness. Her explanation for the accident provides an example of a dispositional attribution. Attribution Theory: The theory that we explain someone else's behavior by crediting either the situation (a situational attribution) or the person's disposition (a dispositional attribution). 3. The fundamental attribution error refers to our tendency to underestimate the impact of situational influences and to overestimate the impact of personal dispositions in explaining the behavior of others. Factors Affecting Attributions? -Cultural Factors: Individualist cultures (personal traits) vs. Collectivist cultures (situational factors) 4. Poverty and unemployment are likely to be explained in terms of personal dispositions by political conservatives and in terms of situational influences by political liberals. 5. The foot-in-the-door phenomenon refers to the tendency to comply with a large request if one has previously complied with a small request. Affections Affect Attitudes-->doing becomes believing. Principles work for negative and positive behaviors. 6. In the Stanford prison experiment, male college volunteers were assigned to act either as guards or as prisoners. In only six days, the guards became cruel and degrading and the prisoners became passive, broke down, or rebelled. The psychologist who devised the study was Philip Zimbardo. 7. The discomfort we feel when our thoughts and behaviors are inconsistent is called cognitive dissonance. The Cognitive Dissonance Theory: the discomfort we feel when our thoughts and behaviors are inconsistent. When we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes. Through cognitive dissonance, we often bring attitudes into line with our actions. 8. Unconsciously mimicking those around us is known as the chameleon effect. Automatic mimicry helps people to empathize and feel what others feel (mood linkage). The more we mimic, the greater our empathy and the more people tend to like us. Behavior is contagious; what we see we often do Suggestibility and mimicry are subtle forms of conformity. 9. The social psychologist who is best known for his pioneering studies of conformity is Solomon Asch. Conformity: complying with social pressures. ● They are made to feel incompetent or insecure. ● Their group has at least three people. ● Everyone else agrees. ● They admire the group's status and attractiveness. ● They have not already committed to another response. ● They know they are being observed. 10. Luella publicly agrees with her seventh-grade classmates that parents should allow 12-yearolds to date. Later that day, she writes in her diary that she actually believes parents should prohibit kids from dating until they are at least 15 years old. Luella's public conformity to her classmates' opinion best illustrates the power of normative social influence. Normative Social Influence: influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval. Conforming to avoid rejection or to gain social approval. Informational Social Influence: influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions as new information. Conforming because we want to be accurate. 11. The social psychologist who is best known for his controversial studies investigating destructive obedience to authority is Stanley Milgram. 12. The basic results of psychologist Stanley Milgram's original obedience study indicated that despite hearing protests from the “learner” in another room, more than 60 percent of the participants continued to administer shocks all the way to the full 450-volt level. Social Facilitation: the presence of other arouses people, improving performance on easy or welllearned tasks but decreasing it on difficult ones. Our arousal heightens our reactions, strengthening our most likely response—the correct one on an easy task but an incorrect one on a difficult task. Crowding effect Group polarization: the enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group. 13. Groups of citizens from liberal Boulder, Colorado, and groups of citizens from conservative Colorado Springs, Colorado, were asked to discuss socially relevant issues such as affirmative action and same-sex unions. After group discussion, the groups from Boulder expressed increasingly positive positions and the groups from Colorado Springs expressed increasingly negative positions. 14. Prejudice is best defined as an unjustifiable, usually negative, attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice is a negative mindset; Discrimination is negative behavior. 15. Priming people with a flashed Blackface rather than a flashed Whiteface makes them more likely to misperceive a flashed tool as a gun. This best illustrates the subtle character of implicit racial associations. Implicit Bias 16. The just-world phenomenon is the tendency to believe that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Stereotypes rationalize inequalities. Blame-the-victim dynamic. 17. The scapegoat theory most clearly suggests that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame when things go wrong. 18. The tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of other races is called the other -race effect. 19. Marcus, who has a history of heavy drinking and high levels of aggression is more likely to respond aggressively to a situation. 20. Parent training programs are most likely to advise parents to avoid modeling violence. 21. One analysis of 27,667 hit-by-pitch Major League Baseball incidents between 1960 and 2004 revealed the link between frustration and aggression. The following are all likely to cause the pitcher to hit a batter. The pitcher had been frustrated by the previous batter hitting a home run. The current batter had hit a home run the last time at bat and a teammate had been hit by a pitch in the previous half-inning. 22. Compared with their nonplaying counterparts, young adolescents who play a lot of violent video games have been found to get into more arguments and fights. 23. Behaving with unselfish concern for the welfare of others is called altruism. 24. The bystander effect refers to the tendency for an observer of an emergency to withhold aid if the emergency is being observed by a number of other people. 25. When 68-year-old Mrs. Blake had a flat tire on a fairly isolated highway, she received help from a passerby in less than 10 minutes. One year later, when she had a flat tire on a busy freeway, an hour elapsed before someone finally stopped to offer assistance. Mrs. Blake's experience best illustrates the bystander effect. Chapter Thirteen 1. An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting is his or her personality. 2. According to Freud, the unconscious is the thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories of which we are largely unaware. 3. As a result of his impulsiveness, David has had several run-ins with teachers and law enforcement. According to Freud, David's mind (Id) is being overwhelmed by the desires of the unconscious (Ego). 4. The oedipus complex is the term used by Freud to describe boys' feelings of guilt and fear of punishment over their sexual desire for their mother. 5. Freud suggested that defense mechanisms protect an individual from anxiety. 6. Four-year-old Timmy had not wet his bed for over a year. However, he started bed-wetting again soon after his sister was born. Timmy's behavior best illustrates regression. 7. Children who release unexpressed anger toward their parents by kicking the family pet illustrate the defense mechanism of displacement. 8. Alfred Adler was a neo-Freudian who proposed the concept of an inferiority complex. 9. Rorschach inkblot test results diagnose many healthy adults as disordered. This indicates that the test has little validity. 10. Freud emphasized that stressful and painful experiences are repressed into the unconscious. But modern research has demonstrated that high stress and associated stress hormones enhance memory. 11. Abraham Maslow suggested that those who fulfill their potential have satisfied the need for self-actualization. 12. Carl Rogers referred to an attitude of total acceptance toward another person as unconditional positive regard. 13. According to Rogers, a person's self-concept is positive if the ideal self and actual self are nearly alike. 14. Humanistic theorists have been criticized for underestimating the inherent human capacity for destructive and evil behaviors. Chapter Fourteen 1. A psychological disorder is a syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in a person's cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior. 2. The interaction of genetic predispositions, mental processes, and cultural circumstances is most clearly emphasized by the biopsychosocial approach. 3. Gina and Tina are identical twins. Gina has had a series of traumas and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Tina is demonstrating no symptoms of schizophrenia. Because schizophrenia tends to run in families, the difference between the twins can be explained through epigenetics. 4. The DSM-5's diagnostic classification of psychological disorders aims to provide to psychologists and psychiatrists with all of the following; a guide to predict a disorder's future course, suggestions for appropriate treatment, and the promotion of research into a disorder's causes. 6. Gaining relief from negative thoughts through the distraction of pain is one of the motives for nonsuicidal self-injury. 7. Depressive disorders were the psychological disorders reported by most people in the United States in 2015. 8. For the past several weeks, Mavis has been unable to sleep or concentrate at work because she keeps thinking that something terrible might happen to her son at school, even though she knows that he's safe. Mavis reflects a symptom of an anxiety disorder rather than normal anxiety. 9. A generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by a continuous state of tension, apprehension, and autonomic nervous system arousal. 10. The most common symptoms of a panic attack are irregular heartbeat, breathlessness, and a choking sensation. The person may also feel dizzy, tremble, and feel terrified. 11. Alan always has been terrified of spiders. He refuses to enter his bedroom at night until it has been thoroughly checked for spiders. Even a picture of a spider makes him extremely uncomfortable. Most likely, Alan is suffering from a psychological disorder called specific phobias. 12. Repetitive, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts and repetitive actions that the individual feels driven to perform are characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder. 13. The long-lasting disorder that develops in response to being exposed to a severe and often life-threatening trauma obsessive comply disorder. 14. Jayne was in a fast-food restaurant when a man walked in and committed an armed robbery of the restaurant. Although Jayne was not injured in the armed robbery, she has since been unable to return to work. She can't seem to stop thinking about the event. She has recurrent nightmares, is unable to sleep, and does not want to leave her home. It is most likely that Jayne is most likely suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. 15. A disorder in which a person experiences two or more weeks with either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure, in addition to five additional symptoms, is called major depressive disorder. 16. After Brian loses his third job in a year, his wife tells him that she wants a divorce. Brian becomes deeply discouraged, demonstrates a loss of self-esteem, and has no energy to find a job or leave his house. He sleeps several hours a day and eats very little. Brian is suffering from major depressive disorder. 17. In bipolar disorder people alternate between states of lethargic hopelessness and wild overexcitement. 18. A state in which an individual is overexcited, hyperactive, and wildly optimistic is known as mania. 19. Willa is stressed by the death of a friend, she constantly ruminates about the fact that she is overweight, and she much more easily recalls her academic failures than her many academic successes. These factors are most likely to place Willa at a high level of risk for major depressive disorder. 20. Research regarding depression indicates that with each new generation, depression is increasing in its prevalence. 21. The heritability of bipolar disorder has been estimated to be greater than the heritability of major depressive disorder and greater than the heritability of generalized anxiety disorder. 22. The severe disorder of schizophrenia is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished emotional expression. 23. Laughing when seeing a car accident is to positive symptoms of schizophrenia as an expressionless face is to negative symptoms of schizophrenia. 24. Jeremy has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He is uncommunicative and shows no physical signs of emotion. His behavior is most clearly an indication of flat affect. 25. Schizophrenia that develops rapidly, seemingly as a reaction to stress, is called acute schizophrenia.