psych definitions Flashcards
Absolute poverty
Deprivation of basic human needs including access to food, water, shelter, safety. Was set as $1.25/day in 2005 by the World Bank.
Acquisition
The phase of conditioning in which the conditioned stimulus is paired with the unconditioned stimulus and the animal is learning to give a condi-tioned response.
conditioned stimulus- bell
unconditioned stimulis- food
conditioned response- salivate
Adrenal medulla
Gland just above the kidneys that releases: epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, enkephalin
Aggression
Acts carried out either with an intention to cause harm or to increase rela-tive social dominance.
Altruism
Acting for the good of others at one’s own expense and with no expecta-tion of benefit.
Alzheimer’s disease
Most common form of dementia. No cure, develops with age and worsens as it progresses, eventually fatal. Starts with simple absent-mindedness, then deepening confusion and eventual debilitating cognitive deficits.
Anterior pituitary
Gland that releases: growth hormone, thyroid stimulating hormone, adre-nocoricotropic hormone, beta-endorphin, follicle stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, prolactin
Anxiety disorders
Excessive anxiety or fear. Includes Generalized anxiety disorder, Phobias, Panic, OCD, PTSD
Assimilation
Process of one culture or language beginning to resemble that of another group.
Attachment theory
Study of long-term relationships, especially between infants and their pri-mary caregiver. Includes several attachment patterns: secure, anxious, avoidant, ambivalent, disorganized
Attitudes, components
A positive or negative feeling towards something or someone. Consists of Emotion (I like wine); Behavior (I will drink wine if offered); Cognition (I know red wine is good for my heart)
Attraction
A process between two people which draws them together and leads to friend-ship and romance.
Attribution theory
A process of explaining what happens by attributing causes to the environ-ment, or attributing certain thoughts or feelings to other people.
Auditory pathway
Outer ear, auditory canal, tympanic membrane, middle ear (malleus, incus, stapes), inner ear (cochlea), Organ of Corti, Vestibulocochlear nerve, thalamus, temporal lobe
Avoidance learning
A behavior prevents a negative stimulus (e.g. pressing a lever before the noise starts keeps it silent)
Behaviorist perspective of personality
Personality is a learning process of operant conditioning controlled by the environment. People have response tendencies which create behav-ior patterns. Childhood not the crucial period as the environment-based learning continues through life.
Biases
Cognitive or motivational forces that result in repeated, systematic devia-tions from rational judgment. (e.g. availability heuristic, congruence bias, outcome bias)
Biological perspective of personality
Personality reflects the functioning of physiological processes in the brain. Influenced by hormone levels, neurotransmitter levels, size and development of various brain structures. Associated with Eysenck’s Three Factor Model
Eysenck’s theory of personality is based on three dimensions: introversion vs. extroversion, neuroticism vs. stability, and psychoticism vs. socialization.
Body dysmorphic disorder
Somatoform disorder in which the patient has excessive concern with a perceived defect or deficiency in their body.
Brain study methods
Electrophysiology (EEG), Neuroimaging (PET, fMRI), Effects of brain damage (strokes)
EEG: a test that detects abnormalities in your brain waves, or in the electrical activity of your brain. During the procedure, electrodes consisting of small metal discs with thin wires are pasted onto your scalp. The electrodes detect tiny electrical charges that result from the activity of your brain cells
PET: e scan uses a special dye containing radioactive tracers. These tracers are either swallowed, inhaled, or injected into a vein in your arm depending on what part of the body is being examined- changes in metabolic conditions
fMRI: An fMRI scan uses the same technology as an MRI scan. … By showing the blood flow it will display which parts of the brain are being stimulated.
MRI: RI scans image anatomical structure whereas FMRI image metabolic function. Thus, the images generated by MRI scans are like three dimensional pictures of anatomic structure.
Cat: uses a series of X-rays and a computer to produce a 3D image of soft tissues and bones.
Brainstem
Part of the CNS that connects the spinal cord to the brain. Medulla obl-ongata, pons, and midbrain (mesencephalon). Regulates the CNS, controls sleep cycle, heart rate, breathing, eating, etc.
Bystander effect
The more individuals are present, the less likely someone will offer help.
Cannon-Bard theory
Emotional expression is hypothalamus, emotional feeling is dorsal thala-mus. Physiological arousale and subjective feeling are independent and simultaneous.
Central route processing
A method of shaping attitudes that asks the audience to think more, to analyze the content of the message. Depends on the cognitive ability and motivation of the audience.
Cerebellum
Coordination, precision, timing of movement (gait, posture, complex tasks like typing or playing the piano)
Cerebrum
Uppermost part of the brain including the cerebral cortex (front lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe) and subcortical structures (hip-pocampus, basal ganglia, olfactory bulb)
Circadian rhythm
A built-in rhythm of an organism that is roughly 24hrs long but can adjust to external stimuli. Present in plants, animals, fungi, bacteria.
Classical conditioning
A form of learning that pairs neutral stimuli with natural stimuli in which the learner is able to pair this neutral stimuli with the response normally given to the natural stimuli (ring a bell and a dog salivates)
Cognitive dissonance
Mental discomfort when someone holds two contradictory beliefs at once.
Cognitive theories
Motivation is based on cognitive process. For example, to reduce cognitive of motivation dissonance, or in goal-setting theory to reach a particular end state.
Concrete operational stage
Piaget Stage 3: 7-11 yrs. Child can solve problems in a logical fashion. Can begin to understand induction, but still have trouble with deduction.
Conditional reinforcement
A stimulus that an organism learns to desire due to its pairing with another reinforcer (e.g. money or a clicker noise in dog training)
Conditioned response
A response to a conditioned stimulus which usually mimics an uncondi-tioned response. (e.g. salivating in response to food is an unconditioned response; salivating in response to a bell is a conditioned response.)
Conditioned stimuli
A neutral stimulus that is paired with an unconditioned stimulus and comes to elicit the response. (e.g. the bell before the food)
Conflict theory
A variety of approaches to sociology that focus on inequality between social groups and the power differentials that exist between them. Most strongly associated with Karl Marx.
Conformity
Matching behavior to social norms as a result of direct or unconscious pressure. Conforming behavior occurs both in groups and while alone.
Consciousness altering drugs
Drugs that cross the blood-brain barrier to have an effect on the central nervous system. Common categories: anxiolytics, euphoriants, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens
Conversion disorder
Somatoform disorder in which a patient suffers numbness, blindness or paralysis with no identifiable medical cause.
Cultural capital
Non-economic assets that provide value to an individual and that can pro-mote social mobility (e.g. education, dress, attractiveness, humor)
Cultural relativism
An attempt to study societies while minimizing ethnocentric bias.
Deindividuation
When an individual loses a sense of self-awareness when in a group.
Demographic shift
The increase in the median age of a country due to rising life expectancy and/ or reduced birth rate. Has happened in nearly every country in the world as it becomes more economically developed.
Depression
A low mood that leaves subject feeling sad, hopeless, worried. Characterized by disruptions to sleep and eating and loss of pleasure.
Deviance
Actions that violate social norms, either explicit rules (e.g. committing a crime) or informal mores (e.g. being atheist in a religious society).
Diencephalon
Region of embryonic neural tube that leads to the thalamus, subthalamus, hypothalamus, epithalamus.
Discrimination
When an animal learns to responsed to one conditioned stimulus but gives either a different response or no response at all to a slightly different stimulus.
Dissociative disorders
Mental disorders involving breakdown in memory, awareness and identity. Includes dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disor-der), dissociative amnesia, and depersonalization disorder
Divided attention
The ability of the brain to perform multiple tasks at once (such as driving a car and talking on the phone). The brain has limited attention resources and as multiple tasks are added, especially in the same modality (listening to the radio and listening to a conversation), performance drops.
Dramaturgical approach
A perspective on sociology that focuses on the context of human behavior rather than the causes, viewing everyday social interactions as a form of per-formance in which people are playing roles.
Drive reduction theory
Motivation results from an organism’s desire to reduce a drive (hunger, thirst, sex)
Elaboration likelihood model
A process of persuasion in which attitudes are influenced both by high elaboration factors (e.g. evaluating and processing information) and low elaboration ones (e.g. the attractiveness of the person making the appeal).
Emotion components
Cognition: evaluation of events, Physiology: bodily responses, Motivation: motor responses an emotion generates, Expression: facial and vocal signals of the feeling, Feelings: subjective experience of the emotion.
Endocrine organs
Hypothalamus, Pineal Gland, Pituitary, Thyroid, Adrenal Medulla, Testes, Ovaries
Environmental justice
The effort to fairly distribute environmental benefits (clean water, park-land) and environmental burdens (industrial facilities, pollution) across all of society.
Erikson stages of psychosocial identity development
0-2 yrs, Hopes, Trust vs. Mistrust; 2-4 yrs, Will, Autonomy vs. Shame; 4-5 yrs, Purpose, Initiative vs. Guilt; 5-12 yrs; Competence, Industry vs. Inferiority; 13-19 yrs, Fidelity, Identity vs. Role Confusion; 20-39, Love, Intimacy vs. Isolation; 40-64 yrs, Care, Generativity vs. Stagnation; 65-death, Wisdom, Ego Integrity vs. Despair
Escape learning
A behavior stops a negative stimulus (e.g. silencing an obnoxious noise to encourage a lever press)
Ethnocentrism
The process of judging another culture by the values and standards of your own culture.
Extinction
When the conditioned stimulus stops generating a conditioned response.
Eysenck’s three factor model
Model of personality based on activity of reticular formation and lim-bic system. Personality made up of 1. Extraversion 2. Neuroticism 3. Psychoticism.
Feature detection
Specialized nerve cells in the brain respond to particular features such as edges, angles, or movement. These feature detection neurons fire in response to images that have specific characteristics.
Fertility
The average number of expected children born to a woman assuming that the woman will survive from birth to the end of her reproductive life.
Fixed interval
Reinforcement after the first response, after a fixed time has elapsed (e.g. after a food pellet is given, no food pellets will be dispensed for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, the first lever press will get a food pellet)
Fixed ratio
Reinforcement after a fixed number of responses (e.g. a food pellet after every 5 lever presses)
Foot in the door phenomenon
Getting someone to agree to a small request increases the likelihood they will then agree to a much larger one.
Formal operational stage
Piaget Stage 4: Age 11 onwards. Can do hypothetical and ede rea-soning and think about abstract concepts.
Freud stages of psychosexual identity development
Oral: 0-1yr, oral fixation is a passive immature personality > Anal: 1-3yr, anal fixation is obsessively neat/organized personality > Phallic: 3-6yr, fixation can be oedipus complex > Latency: 6-12yr, fixation leads to sexual unfulfillment > Genital: puberty-death, fixation leads to frigidity, impotence
Front stage vs. back stage
Front stage: how a person behaves when an audience is present, adhering to certain conventions for the audience; Back stage: how a person behaves when no audience is present
Functionalism
A large-scale sociological approach that analyzes particular social struc-tures and functions that influence society as a whole.
Fundamental attribution error
Overvaluing a personality-based explanation rather than environmental explanations. For example, explaining that members of an ethnic group must be poor because they are all lazy, rather than environmental impedi-ments to their ability to get out of poverty.
Generalization
When a new stimulus that is similar to a conditioned stimulus comes to generate the same or similar response.
Gestalt principles
Laws of perceptual organization that guide the brain in making a whole out of sensory parts.
Globalization
Interconnection and interdependence across national boundaries, involv-ing the exchange of culture, ideas, goods, etc.
Group polarization
Groups tend to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial atti-tudes of the individual members.
Groupthink
A breakdown in decision making in which groups value coherence and loy-alty to the in group over critical analysis of the decisions.
Hair cells
Sensory receptors in the organ of Corti on the basilar membrane. Located in the cochlea of the inner ear. The hairs detect sound as vibrations in the tectorial membrane.
Heuristics in problem solving
A quick way to solve a problem using experience when a full exhaustive search would be impossible. Generates results that may not be the best. (e.g. rule of thumb, educated guess, intuition, common sense, stereotypes)
Humanistic perspective on personality
Personality develops as a person grows psychologically. Emphasizes free will and self-actualization. Associated with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Hypnosis
A mental state in which the subject is focused intensely on particular thought or memory while being more open to suggestion.
Hypothalamus
Portion of the brain connected to the endocrine system. Produces: Dopamine, Growth Hormone Releasing Hormone, Thyrotropin-releasing hormone, Somatostatin, Gonadotropin-releasing hormone, Corticotropin-releasing hormone, Oxytocin, Vasopressin
Identity
A person’s sense of and expression of their group affiliations and individuality.
Incentive theory
Motivation is based on external incentives rather than internal drives. People’s varying behaviors result from the different incentives in their envi-ronment and the differing values they place on those incentives.
Incidence rate
Total number of newly appearing cases of a disease per unit time, usually given as a proportion (e.g. 5 per 1,000, or 0.045%, or 1 in 100,000)
Inclusive fitness
The ability of an organism to increase its fitness by behaving altruistically to support group members that share its genes. (e.g. a worker honey bee surrenders any possibility of reproducing itself but supporting the hive increases inclusive fitness and the reproduction of its genes through the queen)
Individual discrimination
Treatment of one individual by another in a way that is worse than a nor-mal social interaction owing to some group affiliation. (e.g. charging a higher rate for a cleaning service for a customer in an ethnic minority because “they’re messier people”)
Ingroup
Any group that a person psychologically identifies as their own.
Innate behaviors
Instinctive behavior that occurs in the absence of any learning or experi-ence. Can be simple or fairly complex behaviors.
Institutional discrimination
Unjust discriminatory treatment of a group by formal organizations such as governments, public institutions, and corporations. Typically codified into set rules. (e.g. racial segregation laws)
Intelligence
Many different definitions (one general ability vs. many different “types” of intelligence) that generally relate to problem-solving ability, abstract thinking, and ability to learn from experience.
Interactionist theory of language development
Language is acquired through social interaction with adults. Emphasizes the role of feedback and reinforcement. Requires modeling of adults.
Intuition in problem solving
The ability to have knowledge or solve a problem without rational infer-ence or reasoning. Subjects typically don’t know the process by which they have the intuitive judgment. Associated with the right brain.
James-Lange theory
Emotions start as physiological states in the body and emotions are reac-tions to those bodily responses.
Kinesthetic sense
Sense of the position of body parts relative to one another.
Kohlberg stages
Stages that represent an individual’s ability to reason through ethical and moral questions. Relate not to the outcome (decision made), but the process by which an individual thinks about ethical questions. Pre-conventional: obedience and punishment, self-interest > Conventional: conformity, authority obedience > Post-conventional: universal ethical principles
Korsakoff’s syndrome
Neurological disorder due to lack of thiamine (vitamin B1) associated with chronic alcoholism. Involves memory loss, invented memories, lack of insight, and apathy.
Language, brain areas
Wernicke’s area: temporal lobe, ability to comprehend speech; Broca’s area: frontal lobe, speech production
Learning theory of language development
Language is learned from the environment (not based on inherent biological systems) in some manner similar to operant conditioning. Various theo-ries about what that manner is.
Limbic system
Collection of brain structures involved with emotion, behavior, motivation, long-term memory, smell. Includes hippocampus, amygdala, fornix, mam-millary body, etc.
Locus of control
The extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them.
Marginalization
The social exclusion in which individuals or groups are systematically barred from normal opportunities in a society (work, housing, health care, legal services)
Meditation
One of a number of practices meant to induce a mode of consciousness in which the person focuses on an aspect of awareness, emotion, or sense of well-being
Memory encoding
Process of turning sense information into information in the brain (memory) that can later be recalled (e.g. remember what something looks like)
Memory types
Topographic memory, flashbulb memory, declarative memory (explicit memory), procedural memory (implicit memory)
Meritocracy
Political philosophy that holds that power should accrue to individuals demonstrating merit as measured by achievement or intellectual talent.
Mirror neurons
Neurons that fire when an animal exhibits a behavior and when it observes another carrying out that same behavior, as if the observer were the one act-ing. Present in both motor and sensory cortical areas.
Modelling
A process of learning through imitation of others. “Modelling” can refer to the actions of the person demonstrating the behavior, or the behavior of the learner.
Mood disorders
Depression and bipolar disorder. Disturbance in a person’s underlying mood is the main feature of the disorder.
Morbidity
Number of people in ill health per unit time, usually given per 1000 peo-ple per year.
Mortality
Number of deaths per unit time, usually given per 1000 people per year.
Multiculturalism
Communities with multiple distinct cultures. Also the ideology that pro-motes diversity as opposed to assimilation (e.g. publishing official gov’t communications in multiple languages)
Nativist theory of language development
Language acquisition must be biologically dependent on the native capacity of the human brain (theories linked most commonly to Chomsky)
Need based theories of motivation
Most common: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: physiology, safety and security, love and friendship, self-esteem and achievement, self actualization.
Negative reinforcement
A stimulus withdrawn to increase a behavior (e.g. silencing an obnoxious noise to encourage pressing a lever)
Neural plasticity
Changes in neural pathways and synapses that occur in response to experi-ence. Can be a change on the level of a single cell or remapping entire chunks of the cortex.
Neurotransmitters
Chemicals used to send signals across a synapse between a neuron and the target cell. Include amino acids, monoamines, peptides, and others (ade-nosine, acetylcholine, nitric oxide, etc)
Neutral stimuli
A stimulus which initially produces no specific response other than focus-ing attention (e.g. a noise made by a clicker in dog training)
Nociception
Sensation of pain triggered by mechanical, thermal, or chemical stimuli above a threshold.
Norms
Socially held beliefs about appropriate behavior.
Olfactory pathway
Nose, Olfactory Epithelium, Olfactory Receptor, Olfactory nerve (part of the CNS), Olfactory Bulb, Brain (Piriform Cortex, Amygdala)
Operant conditioning
Conditioning in which behaviors are shaped by their consequences (rather than their antecedents as in classical conditioning). It uses reinforcement and punishment to change behavior, whereas classical conditioning shapes reflexive behavior.
Ovaries
Sex organ of the female that releases: progesterone, estrogens (mainly estradiol), inhibin
Parallel processing
The ability of the brain to process multiple things at once, such as in vision where color, motion, shape, and depth are all processed simultaneously to help the brain identify visual stimulus.
Parkinson’s disease
Degenerative disease. Motor difficulties due to death of dopamine-gener-ating cells in the substantia nigra of the midbrain.
Peer pressure
A pressure to change attitudes, values, or behaviors to conform to group norms.
Peripheral route processing
A process of shaping attitudes that depend on the environmental charac-teristics of the message (attractiveness of the speaker, catchy slogan, seem-ing expertise). Useful when the idea is essentially weak or the audience unable or unwilling to work to evaluate the merits of the idea.
Personality disorders
Mental disorder involving an enduring set of behaviors or cognitions that cause distress or disability. Includes paranoid, antisocial, borderline, narcis-sistic, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive.
Pheromones
Chemical secreted or excreted by an animal to trigger a social response from others. Includes alarm, food, and sex pheromones.
Piaget’s stages
Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational
Pineal gland
Portion of the brain that secretes melatonin
Peripheral nervous system
Nerves and ganglia outside the brain/spinal cord. Divided into somatic and autonomic systems.
Positive Reinforcement
A stimulus delivered to increase a behavior (e.g. a food pellet to encourage pressing a lever)
Prejudice
Having a positive or negative view of a person or thing prior to experience with that person or thing. Typically towards people based on some group affiliation. Often unreasonable and difficult to change.
Preoperational stage
Piaget Stage 2: 2 – 7 yrs. Child can speak, imagine symbolically, but not carry out mental operations.
Prestige
A positive esteem of a person or group
Prevalence rate
Total number of people with a given disease at a given point in time, usu-ally given as a proportion (5 per 1,000, or 0.045%, or 1 in 100,000)
Primary reinforcement
A stimulus that an organism desires with no learning (e.g. food, water)
Privilege
A set of unearned advantages accruing to someone owing to membership in a group. (e.g. male privilege in China under the one-child policy resulted in infanticide of female offspring)
Psychological disorders, categories
Anxiety, Somatoform, Mood, Schizophrenia, Dissociative, Personality
Psychoanalytic perspective on personality
Personality is developed by early childhood experiences and influenced by the unconscious part of the mind. Freud said personality develops through psychosexual stages.
Punishment
A consequence that causes a behavior to occur less frequently.
Reference group y contrast.
A group against which an individual (or other group) is compared. It pro-vides benchmarks against which the traits of an individual can compare herself, either by comparison or b
Reflex arc
Neural pathway in which afferent nerve synapses with efferent nerve in the spinal cord, generating a response while the signal is still being sent up to the brain.
Relative poverty
Income below some proportion of the median income. Thus poverty is rel-ative to the society one is in.
Residential segregation
The physical separation of different groups into neighborhoods, typically along race, ethnic, or income criteria.
Role taking
3-6 yrs: Egocentric role taking, can’t distinguish own perspective from others > 6-8 yrs: Subjective role taking, child can tell that others will have different views based on different information >8-10 yrs: Self-reflective role taking, child understands that others have dif-ferent values > 10-12 yrs: Mutual role taking, child simultaneously considers his own view and differing views of others > 12+ yrs: Societal role taking, child now considers social and cultural effects on views
Schachter-Singer theory
Emotions depend on physiological arousal and cognitive label. People use their environment or experience to label why they feel the physiological stimulation they do.
Schizophrenia
Mental disorder involving delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, lack of emotion and lack of motivation.
Selective attention
The ability of the brain to focus on a single input and “tune out” other stimuli. “Cocktail Party Effect”.
Self-concept
The set of beliefs one has about who one is (gender roles, sexuality, racial identity, personal characteristics, etc.)
Self-efficacy
A belief in one’s own ability to achieve goals.
Self-esteem
The cognitive and emotional evaluation a person has of their own worth.
Self-fulfilling prophecy in stereotypes
A person’s behavior can change to fit a stereotype if the person believes it themselves. For example, a stereotype that Asians are good at math can lead an Asian student to work exceptionally hard to excel in a math class.
Sensitivity index
A measure of how easily a signal can be detected. Estimated as d’ = Hit Rate – False Alarm Rate
Sensorimotor stage
Piaget’s Stage 1: infants, toddlers. Knowledge through senses and manipu-lating objects.
Sensory adaptation
A form of neural adaptation in which the sensory system stops responding to a constant stimulus.
Shaping
Rewarding a series of small behaviors that are a part of the overall behav-ior desired in order to create larger behavior which would likely never occur on its own.
Signal detection theory
A mathematical theory for measuring how sensitive people are in spotting stimuli correctly and rejecting false signals correctly.
Sleep disorders
Medical disorder of sleep patterns. (e.g. insomnia, narcolepsy, night terrors, sleep apnea, sleepwalking, enuresis)
Social capital
The value of a social network. Collective or economic benefits that result from cooperation between people and groups.
Social cognitive perspective on personality
Personality is developed through observational learning, situational influences, cognitive processes. Focuses on self-efficacy.
Social cognitive theory
Some portion of people’s learning occurs not through direct behavior, but by observing the consequences of the behavior of others.
Social constructionism
A theory that people construct their sense of reality and meaning through interaction with others, most powerfully through language.
Social facilitation
The presence of other people will increase performance on familiar tasks but reduce performance on unfamiliar ones.
Social identity
The part of a person’s identity that comes from their sense of membership in some social group.
Social loafing
Phenomenon of individuals putting in less effort when working in groups.
Social reproduction
The process of transmitting social inequality to the next generation. Based on differences in financial capital, cultural capital, human capital, and social capital.
Social stratification
A hierarchy of classes of people based on differences in power or privi-lege. It carries from generation to generation, is present in all societies, and includes beliefs.
Socialization
The process of acquiring and transmitting cultural norms and customs, developing the social skills for a person to participate in society.
Somatoform disorders
Mental disorder that creates physical symptoms that cannot be explained by an actual medical condition. Includes Conversion, Somatization, Hypochondriasis, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Pain Disorder
Somatosensation
Sensory system throughout the skin, muscles, bones, joints, etc. Processes proprioception, touch, thermoception, nociception.
Spontaneous recovery
After a behavior has extinguished, a conditioned stimulus may once again elicit a conditioned response after a rest period.
Stages of sleep
Stage 1: Drowsy sleep, transition from alpha to theta waves > Stage 2: Conscious awareness gone, theta waves > Stage 3: Slow-wave sleep / Deep sleep, delta waves > REM: dreaming, muscle paralysis
Stereotype threat
Anxiety that one will fulfill a negative stereotype causing decreased performance.
Stereotypes
An idea about a particular group of people which may or may not accu-rately reflect reality. Cognitive in nature. (as opposed to prejudice which is emotional and discrimination which is behavioral)
Stigma
Social disapproval. Usually based on overt external deformities, personal-ity deviations, or membership in an unfavored group (e.g. antisemitism).
Stress
The body’s response to an environmental stressor or challenge. Triggers the sympathetic nervous system.
Subcultures
A group of people within a culture that differentiate themselves from the larger culture.
Symbolic interactionism
A microsociological approach that analyzes behavior – people behave towards the environment based on the meaning they ascribe to things, and that sense of meaning is based on social interaction and individual interpretation.
Testes
Sex organ of the male that releases: androgens (mainly testosterone) from Leydig cells, estradiol and inhibin from Sertoli cells
Thyroid
Gland in the neck which releases: calcitonin, thyroxine, triiodothyronine
Trait perspective of personality
Personality is made up of a number of traits that are heavily influenced by biology. Various theories. “Big Five” theory: 1. extraversion 2. neuroticism 3. openness to experience 4. conscientiousness 5. agreeableness.
Unconditioned response
A natural response that happens with no learning at all. (e.g. salivation in response to food)
Unconditioned stimuli
A natural stimulus that provokes a response with no learning at all. (e.g. food is an unconditioned stimulus for salivation)
Universal emotions
Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Sadness, Surprise
Urbanization
The process of shifting a population from rural to urban settings, most common in developing countries. By 2010, more than half of the world’s population had shifted to urban environments.
Variable interval
Reinforcement after the first response, after a variable time has elapsed (e.g. after a food pellet is dispensed, there is some changing period of time during which no food pellets will be dispensed. After that time is up, the first lever press will get a food pellet.)
Variable ratio
Reinforcement after some changing number of responses (e.g. a food pellet after a changing number of lever presses)
Vestibular sense
The labyrinth of the inner ear provides a sense of spatial orientation, sense of balance, and sense of movement.
Vicarious emotions
When an observer feels the same emotion that someone being observed would feel (e.g. feeling embarrassment when someone else commits a social faux pas)
Visual pathway
Eye, Optic Nerve, Optic Chiasm, Optic Tract, Thalamus, Visual Cortex (occipital lobe)
Voluntary movement control
Posterior part of the front lobe of the cerebral cortex.
Vygotsky and development
Theorized that play is essential in a child’s development. Children learn symbolic play (using a stick to pretend it’s a horse) and learn social rules through play (e.g. playing house to simulate acceptable social interactions)
Weber’s law
States that the ability to distinguish between two physical stimuli depends on a proportional increase in that stimulus (heavier of two masses, louder of two sounds, etc.). For example, a person can tell one mass is heavier than another if there is a 10% difference between them.
sensitivity aka
topographic memory
The ability to recall the contours, design, shape, or structure of a previously experienced environment. 2. The ability to hold in the mind a map of a person, place, or thing.
flashbulb memory
highly vivid and detailed ‘snapshot’ of a moment in which a consequential, surprising and emotionally arousing piece of news was learned. … They ‘feel’ accurate (we are confident in recall) but are just as prone to forgetting & change as other episodic memories
James Lange
A before E
Arousal before emotion
J for jog away the danger, L for later feel your fear
Cannon Bard
Say the two N’s in Cannon simultaneously just like how you would experience arousal and emotion the same time
Schachter-Singer 2 factor theory
2-Factor = The emotion comes twice
Once when you actually experience the arousal and then again when you label the emotion of that arousal.
hindbrain
contains the cerebellum, medulla, reticular
midbrain
contains the inferior and superior vcolliculi
forebrain
contains the thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia , limbic and cerebral cortex
