Psych Flashcards II
What is the law of symmetry?
Tend to perceive stimuli as grouped symmetrically around a center point
What is the law of similarity?
objects that are similar tend to be grouped together
What is the law of proximity?
we tend to perceive objects close to each other in groups, rather than as a large collection of individual pieces
How do gestalt principles help illustrate the differences between sensation and perception?
Sensation refers to the process by which auditory, electromagnetic, physical, and other kinds of information from the environment are converted into electrical signals within the human nervous system. Sensation provides the raw signal, communicating information, entering the nervous system through receptors in the peripheral nervous systems. Perception, as exemplified by the Gestalt laws, is the processing of this raw information. Therefore, it is sensation that gives us information from the world around us and perception that allows us to make sense of it.
What is the difference between stereotype and prejudice?
-A stereotype is a prevalent but oversimplified idea or set of ideas about a certain group. This stereotyped group typically consists of people with similar characteristics (gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.). can be nagtive or positive -Unlike stereotypes, prejudices specifically target people, groups, or things that the holder of the prejudice encounters. For example, if I believe that all people who wear red are loud and annoying, this constitutes a stereotype. If I actually see or hear about a person who is wearing red and form a negative opinion about that person, that is a prejudice. -Importantly, prejudices are typically made with little to no experience with the prejudiced person or group, and they may be irrationally positive or negative.
What is attrition bias?
Attrition bias occurs when participants drop out of a long-term experiment or study.
What is the difference between internalization and identification?
Internalization occurs when an individual genuinely agrees with the values/behaviors/attitudes that he or she is conforming with and finds the behavior to be inherently rewarding. Identification refers to the acceptance of other people’s ideas without thinking critically about them. The related behavior of compliance occurs when an individual yields to social pressure (typically in response to a direct request) because he or she wishes to get a positive reaction from another individual or group, or to avoid social disapproval by others.
What are the three components of emotion?
physiological arousal (how your body reacts to emotions, emotional information or stimuli), expressive displays (how you express your emotions), and subjective experiences (how you feel and interpret your emotions, which is extremely personal and subjective).
What are Ekman’s 7 universal emotions?
anger contempt disgust fear happiness sadness surprise
What is the James-Lange theory of emotion?
a stimulus triggers a physiological response, which then leads to the subjective, conscious experience of emotion. For example, if you are watching a scary movie, your heart rate may become elevated, and that leads to the perception of fear. However, this theory is limited, since certain physiological states may be experienced as different emotions depending on context (such as either fear or excitement)
What is the Cannon-Bard theory?
says that cognitive and physiological responses to a stimulus occur simultaneously and independently of one another, with a behavioral response following them. However, this theory still lacks any element of cognitive appraisal, or conscious thought about how one’s situation may impact the emotion(s) felt.
What is the Schachter-Singer theory?
says that a stimulus first leads to physiological arousal, then a cognitive interpretation of the circumstances, and finally a perception of emotion. This resembles the James-Lange theory, but adds the element of cognitive appraisal, which helps explain how (for example) an elevated breathing rate can be interpreted as multiple different emotions based on context.
What is the door-in-the-face technique?
a large request is made at first, and if refused, a smaller request is made
What is the Stroop effect?
the tendency to read the words instead of saying the color of ink
What is construct validity?
the degree to which a test measures what it claims, or purports, to be measuring
What is criterion validity?
Criterion validity refers to whether a variable is able to predict a certain outcome.
What is test-test reliability?
the fact that a good test should give stable results over time
What is Conflict Theory?
a theoretical framework in which society is viewed as composed of groups that are competing for scarce resources
What is symbolic interactionism?
the view that an individual’s experiences influence his or her perception.
What is absolute mobility?
Absolute mobility means that living standards are increasing in absolute terms: you are better off than your parents and your children will be better off than you. Absolute mobility compares your income to your parent’s income. If your parents make $5,000 dollars a year and you make $10,000 dollars a year, you have experienced absolute mobility.
What is the difference between afferent nerves and efferent nerves?
-nerves that take information to the CNS are known as afferent nerves -nerves that relay instructions from the CNS are known as efferent nerves
What is informational influence?
going along with the crowd because you think the crowd knows more than you do an influence to accept information from others as evidence about reality, and can come into play when we are uncertain about information or what might be correct.
What is normative influence?
an influence to conform with the expectations of others to gain social approval
What is integration?
an attempt to get someone to like you in order to get them to comply with your requests.
What are folkways?
relatively unimportant norms governing social interactions, like how one uses silverware. Violations of folkways are not typically accompanied by especially intense disapproval.
What are mores?
Mores (pronounced “more-ays”) are informal norms that carry major importance for society and, if broken, can result in severe social sanctions. For example, imagine a young woman who is unmarried but decides to live with her boyfriend. Her parents are very religious and belong to a community in which only married couples are supposed to live together. In the parents’ eyes, the daughter has broken a more, and the parents will levy sanctions accordingly.
What is strain theory?
the idea that when social pressure is placed on those who do not have the means to follow it and succeed, they may turn to crime and other deviant behavior.
What is social proof?
a phenomenon in which an individual adopts the behaviors of others—typically without a direct request being made—on the assumption that others’ behavior must be correct under the circumstances at hand.
Through what form of social influence are new ideas most likely spread?
minority influence When a new idea arises, it is automatically a minority opinion. This idea can then be spread through the influence of the minority on others accepting this view.
What are different types of conflicts?
-approach-approach conflicts, two options are both appealing. -avoidant-avoidant conflicts, both options are unappealing -approach-avoidance conflict is observed when one option has both positive and negative aspects -Double approach-avoidant conflicts consist of two options with both appealing and negative characteristics
What was Asch’s line experiment?
In 1951, Solomon Asch conducted an experiment investigating the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could influence a person to conform. Asch used confederates who were instructed to give clearly incorrect answers regarding the lengths of various lines. He then measured the number of times each unknowing participant conformed to the majority view. In Asch’s study, the confederates never provided an explanation for their choices to the group
Attachment theory- ages at which infants attach to people and who the attach to
0-3 months- an infant will indiscriminately attach to any person and will respond equally to any caregiver 4-6 months-babies will begin to recognize certain caregivers but will still accept care from anyone 6-9 months-a baby will exhibit a strong attachment preference for a single caregiver after 9 months-children slowly develop increasing independence and will slowly form multiple attachments
What is the differential association theory?
. According to the theory of differential association, criminal techniques, attitudes, and motives are learned through social interactions, such as those experienced in prison
What is labeling theory?
Labelling theory holds that labels impact how individuals see themselves. Its proponents argue that this can perpetuate the behavior. The internalization of a stigma is part of the process whereby the label “sticks” and the individual adopts or continues the stigmatized behavior.
type 1 error
False positive. There is no difference between groups and you report there IS
type 2 error
False negative- An error that occurs when a researcher concludes that the independent variable does not have an effect on the dependent variable when it does.
parallel play
activity in which children play side by side without interacting, they just observe eachother (more common in younger kids)
In Piaget’s stages of development, children from ages 2 to 7 are in the pre-operational stage of development. At that level, children learn to operate
symbolically and engage in a lot of symbolic play (e.g. a stick is a sword, a plastic toy is a cake, a doll is a person, etc.)
Conflict theory of education
Conflict theory asserts that bias and inequality are underlying aspects of education.
What is a kinship of affinity?
A kinship of affinity is one in which individuals are related by choice, such as through marriage, rather than through blood
What is a primary kinship?
primary kinship involves a direct relationship, such as that between a brother and sister or between a father and daughter.
What is a secondary kinship?
Secondary kinship exists between an individual and “the primary kin of that person’s primary kin.” For example, the relationship between a grandson and his paternal grandmother would typically be secondary kinship, since the grandson is primary kin with his own father, who is primary kin with his mother (the grandmother).
What is a tertiary kinship?
tertiary kin is one step further removed, and can refer to primary kin of one’s primary kin’s primary kin (three levels!) or to the secondary kin of one’s primary kin, such as one’s husband’s grandmother.
What happened in harry harlow’s simulated mother experiments?
Harry Harlow examined parent/child attachment, social isolation, and dependency in rhesus monkeys. In Harlow’s experiment, the infant monkeys preferred spending their time clinging to the cloth mother. Even when only the wire mother could provide food, the monkeys visited her just to eat. Harlow concluded that there was much more to the mother/infant relationship than milk and that this “contact comfort” was crucial to the psychological development and health of infants. After monkeys were paired with a Wire Mother, they showed abnormal behavior, which could not be corrected later in life by pairing them with a Cloth Mother. -Monkeys paired with Wire Mothers drank similar amounts of milk and grew at a rate comprable to monkeys paired with Cloth Mothers. -Monkeys paired with a Wire Mother sought soothing from their “mothers,” but at a rate less than monkeys paired with Cloth Mothers. -When given a choice, monkeys spent more time holding Cloth Mothers than Wire Mothers.
Who was Freud?
Sigmund Freud, the “father of psychoanalysis,” developed well-known theories focused on unconscious desires. Freud’s work centered around his ideas of the id (one’s largely unconscious set of primal urges), superego (one’s sense of moral purpose), and ego (the logic-based, more conscious balance between the two). Freud put his theories into practice in psychoanalytic therapy, a process in which a psychologist or other therapist converses with a patient one-on-one to address certain mental or emotional issues.
Who was skinner?
American psychologist B. F. Skinner was an early behaviorist, meaning that he systematically studied behavior in conjunction with other factors (environmental, motivational, etc.). Skinner is best known for his work in operant conditioning, where he used a device called a “Skinner box” to study the effects of rewards and punishments on behavior.
Who was Gordon Allport?
Psychologist Gordon Allport is known for his studies of personality, where he outlined a form of trait theory that included three basic types of traits: cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits. Cardinal traits are those around which people organize their entire lives. In contrast, central traits are defining characteristics of a person that can be easily inferred from that person’s behavior. Finally, secondary traits are those that only occur sometimes, particularly when a person is in a certain social situation.
Who was watson and what experiment did he do?
John B. Watson’s Little Albert experiment involved the use of classical conditioning and stimulus generalization to cause a healthy young boy to fear furry animals and objects.
Who was Solomon Asch?
Solomon Asch’s conformity experiment demonstrated that individuals often conform to a group view, even when the group view differs from a clearly correct answer. Asch used a task in which a participant, along with several of Asch’s confederates, were told to judge the relative lengths of drawn lines. The confederates would give a clearly-incorrect opinion regarding which line was shorter or longer, causing the participant (who did not know that the others in the room were “in on it”) to conform to this incorrect view in some cases.
WHo was Bandura?
Albert Bandura, a social cognitive psychologist, famously conducted his “Bobo doll” experiments, which showed that children can display observational learning for aggressive behavior when they watch adults exhibit such behavior.
Who was Zimbaro?
Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment focused on the effects of power and authority on individuals. Participants designated as “guards” were given power over participants designated as “prisoners,” and over time, the guards began to exhibit progressively more abusive and problematic behavior
Who was Milgram?
Milgram’s electric shock experiment also relates to authority. This experiment indicated that participants were willing to administer painful stimuli to others if instructed to do so by an authority figure. In reality, the “others” in the study were actors who were simply pretending to be shocked.
Who was Maslow?
Abraham Maslow famously developed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a schematic of human needs in order from the most basic (food, water, etc.) to the most high-level (self-actualization).
Who was Hans Eysenck?
Hans Eysenck studied personality with a strong focus on the biological perspective, which considers personality differences to be the result of biological factors.
Who was Muzafer Sherif?
Muzafer Sherif’s Robber’s Cave experiment examined the intergroup conflicts that arise in response to competition over limited resources.
What is anomie and what characteristics of society are associated with high levels of anomie?
Anomie refers to the breakdown of social bonds, such as social norms, between individuals and communities. Sociologists use strain theory to study how the social breakdown characteristic of anomie can lead to social deviance and crime, which can in turn reinforce social stratification and dysfunction. associated with high levels of anomie I. Rapid changes in society II. Low levels of income III. High heterogeneity
What is the difference between relative and absolute poverty?
Social dysfunction may also involve poverty, which refers to the state of having low socioeconomic status and few resources, financial or otherwise. Poverty exists in either absolute or relative terms. Absolute poverty refers to deprivation of basic needs like food, potable water, shelter, and healthcare. Relative poverty (or relative deprivation) refers to the condition in which a person lacks the minimum income or resources needed to maintain the average standard of living for a community or society. So, the poorest people in America, for the most part, suffer from relative poverty: they are still better off than the poorest people in the poorest countries of the world, who suffer from absolute poverty.
What is negativity bias?
Negativity bias is when the negative aspects of a situation are focused upon, not the good aspects.
they hypothalamus is a major link between…
the nervous and endocrine systems via the pituitary gland
What relays sense and motor signals and regulates sleep and awareness?
thalamus
Face validity v content validity
Face validity describes the extent to which a study appears to assess what it is intended to assess—that is, more or less, the degree to which it “seems right” to participants and researchers. Content validity refers to whether a study comprehensively accounts for all the relevant facets of the phenomenon it is intended to investigate.
In operant conditioning, thinning refers to
reducing the frequency of rewards for a given action.
I vs Me (Mead)
George Mead theorized that one’s identity is developed through social interaction. In order to develop a self, an individual has to be able to view his- or herself through the eyes of others, which is a skill that must be learned. Mead proposed two versions of the self: the “me” and the “I.” The “me” is the attitudes, roles, meanings, pressures, and values of society and others around the individual that are organized into one’s social self through role-taking. The “I” is the part of the self that can be identified with desires, freedom, and creativity. Essentially, the “me” is the social self and the “I” is one’s response to the “me.” Through socialization, individuals learn to look at the world through others’ perspectives.
role strain/role overload
Role strain involves a problem fitting into an existing role, such as the student’s problem with getting good grades. Role conflict involves two roles coming into conflict, such as when the student experiences conflict as a student and worker.
What are the of stages that most people experience when facing the end of their life from the Kubler-Ross model?
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance For these stages, you can remember the acronym Death Always Brings Definite Acceptance. The stages are sequenced in the following order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Primary v secondary aging
Primary aging describes the aging of biological factors and the physical body. Aging that relates to behavioral factors like diet and exercise is defined as secondary aging.
General adaptation syndrome
General adaptation syndrome is a term created by Hans Selye to describe the body’s short-term and long-term reactions to stress. Selye thought that the general adaptation syndrome involved two major systems of the body, the nervous system and the endocrine system. He then went on to outline what he considered as three distinctive stages in the syndrome’s evolution. He called these stages the alarm reaction (AR), the stage of resistance (SR), and the stage of exhaustion (SE).
What does theory of cognitive appraisal describe?
The “theory of cognitive appraisal” explains the mental processes which influence the stressors. According to the theory, stress is a two-way process; it involves the production of stressors by the environment as well as the response of an individual subjected to these stressors. Cognitive appraisal occurs when a person considers the threat posed by and the resources needed to minimize the stressors affecting them. According to this theory, two distinct forms of cognitive appraisal must occur in order for an individual to feel stress in response to an event; Lazarus called these stages “primary appraisal” and “secondary appraisal”.[1] During primary appraisal, an event is interpreted as dangerous to the individual or threatening to their personal goals. During secondary appraisal, the individual evaluates their ability or resources to be able to cope with a specific situation
What is the house money effect?
Thaler and Johnson have found that individual risk-taking behavior is affected by prior gains and losses. They found that after a prior gain, people become more open to assuming risk since the new money is not treated as one’s own. This is known as the house money effect.
What is the prisoner’s dilemma?
a situation in which two players each have two options whose outcome depends crucially on the simultaneous choice made by the other, often formulated in terms of two prisoners separately deciding whether to confess to a crime.
nominal measurement
a level of measurement in which numbers serve only to label categories of a variable
What is the ratio level of measurement?
A ratio level of measurement is one in which there are a range of quantitative responses, ordered at equally-spaced intervals, and with it being possible to score 0 (complete absence of the quantity).
Anomie Theory
The view that anomie results when socially defined goals (such as wealth and power) are universally mandated but access to legitimate means (such as education and job opportunities) is stratified by class and status. Anomie theory states that individuals who experience weakened social values are less likely to behave in ways that are helpful to that society.
Relative Deprivation Theory
a theory of social movements that focuses on the actions of oppressed groups who seek rights or opportunities already enjoyed by others in the society Relative deprivation theory posits that individuals who perceive themselves as having less resources than others will often act in ways to obtain these resources.
which of these elements are in the unconscious (Id, EGO, SUPEREGO)?
all of them to an extent
What is the neuromuscular junction?
connection between the motor neuron and the muscle fiber The neuromuscular junction, or NMJ, is the synapse that separates a motor neuron and a muscle fiber. This synapse is pictured below. Inside the motor neuron are vesicles that contain neurotransmitter (specifically, acetylcholine) molecules. These vesicles can fuse with the axonal membrane in a calcium-dependent manner to release acetylcholine into the synapse. Binding of acetylcholine to receptors on the muscle fiber membrane initiates the contraction process.
What is reciprocal determinism?
the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors Reciprocal determinism is the theory set forth by Albert Bandura that a person’s behavior both influences and is influenced by personal factors and the environment. In this scenario, the skeptic does not believe in the supernatural power of a medium, but attends multiple séances where they may see evidence that could soften their views. It appears this behavior of attending séances, in conjunction with the social environment of others who attend the séances, caused the skeptic’s views on supernatural phenomena to shift.
Social cognitive theory asserts that people learn by
watching others
