AAMC PS Flashcards
(43 cards)
foot in the door
The foot-in-the-door technique refers to convincing individuals to make a small commitment toward a cause, because this small commitment increases the likelihood of a larger commitment toward the same cause in the future.
cognitive dissonance theory
when an individual’s attitudes are incongruent with his or her behavior, this leads to cognitive dissonance.
To eliminate cognitive dissonance, the individual can either change his or her attitudes or his or her behavior. The theory posits that individuals are more likely to adjust their attitudes to align with their behavior than the other way around.
hypothesized factors must be ____ to their assumed effects
TEMPORALLY PRIOR
eg. independent variable experienced (uniquely!) before dependent variable is measured
malthusian theory of demographic change
population grows exponentially and will eventually outgrow its resources.
War, famine, disease bring the population back down to a sustainable level (positive checks).
Population control (preventive checks) such as later marriage also keeps the population from outgrowing its resources.
population pyramids
bottom heavy = population growth
Top heavy = population decline
Side skew = gender imbalance.
total vs crude fertility rate
Total fertility rate = total number of babies the average woman has in her lifetime in a population
Crude fertility rate = babies per population per time
push/pull factors in migration
Push = why you want to leave this place = lack of jobs, natural disasters, descrimination, etc
Pull = why you want to go to the other place = better paying jobs, promise of a better life, etc
social movements
Proactive = promote change
Reactive = resist change
Organizations = facilitate social movements
suburbanization and urban decline
with better transportation and the ability to work at home, many people prefer to live in the suburbs (city outskirts), where there is less crime, noise and pollution.
This depopulation leads many areas of the city abandoned, contributing to urban decline.
schemas vs scripts
Schemas are mental frameworks used to categorize novel information and help us to categorize it.
Scripts are a series of behaviors that we learn in order to respond to a given stimuli.
reticular activating system
short, pencil-sized piece of the brain located just above where the spinal cord is attached to the brain
gatekeeper of information between most sensory systems and the conscious mind; responsible for arousal, wakefulness, and the sleep/wake cycle
involved in controlling alertness and is most likely to be stimulated to bring someone out of a coma
james lange theory of emotion
a before e
ACTION BEFORE EMOTION: physiological arousal precedes the identification of emotion.
schacter singer theory of emotion
s + s
SENSATION + SOLVE: physiological response and interpretation of it (cognition) lead to an emotional response
cannon bard theory of emotion
“kill two bards w one stone (cannon)”
stone = event bards = physiological response and emotion
physiological response and emotion are processed simultaneously as a result of the one event
lazarus theory of emotion
rhymes w tables
LAZARUS LABELS FIRST: labelling cognition leads to physiological response and emotional response
token economy
regulated system that relies on secondary reinforcers
secondary reinforcers are literally anything that we aren’t biologically programmed to want
meritocracy
when societal rewards, status, and positions are awarded to individuals based on their own ability and work (that is, merit).
requires that everyone has the same opportunity (to prove their merit / worth!)
agent of socialization (4)
social entities that impart values, beliefs, and social norms
family, school, peers, and mass media.
Family is usually considered to be the most important agent of socialization.
define the following:
- cultural transmission
- cultural diffusion
- cultural lag
Cultural transmission has to do with passing down culture from one generation to the next.
Cultural diffusion - Transfer of elements of a culture to another. For instance, anime originated in Japan but is now popular around the world.
Cultural lag is when culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, resulting in social problems.
proximal vs distal stimulus
Proximal=what you actually perceive
Distal=What is causing the stimulus
For example, for vision the distal stimulus is a tree and a proximal stimulus is the photon from the tree onto your retina
Define the following:
- flashbulb memory
- false memory
Brown and Kulik (1977) coined the term “flashbulb memory” when they found that people claimed to remember detail of what they were doing when they received news about an emotionally arousing event.
so-called false memories can be observed both in real-world and laboratory settings, and they are generally given with high confidence.
in operant conditioning studies, how do we define the subject’s most typical motivational state
by depriving the subject of some desirable stimulus item for a period of time
mono vs dizygotic twins
Twins can be either monozygotic (‘identical’), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic (‘fraternal’), meaning that each twin develops from a separate egg and each egg is fertilized by its own sperm cell.
statistical adjustment
Statistical adjustment refers to controlling for variables that could affect the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable.
eg. race / ethnicity / education
