Psyc 100 Midterm 1 Study Guide PDF

Midterm 1 Study Guide Psyc 100 **[Chapter 1]** Be able to define and recognize examples of the following terms: - **Introspection:** A process by which someone examines their own conscious experience as objectively as possible. - **Constructs:** - **Counseling psychology:** Focuses o...

Midterm 1 Study Guide Psyc 100 **[Chapter 1]** Be able to define and recognize examples of the following terms: - **Introspection:** A process by which someone examines their own conscious experience as objectively as possible. - **Constructs:** - **Counseling psychology:** Focuses on emotional, social, vocational, and health-related outcomes in individuals who are considered psychologically healthy. - **Clinical psychology**: Focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and other problematic patters of behavior. - **Psychiatry:** Diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental health conditions. They're able to prescribe medication Be familiar with each of the perspectives we covered in class: - **The learning perspective:** Behaviorism- focuses on how individuals learn behaviors through interactions with their environment - **The cognitive perspective:** Sees the individual human as a whole, and as a conscious and self-aware being. - **The biological perspective**: Understanding how the structure and function of the nervous system are related to behavior. - **The social perspective:** Suggests that a person learns of the rules along with the accepted norms of society interacting with others. Takes place through imitation of others and biological survival processes. What are the primary aims of the following branches of psychology: - **Structuralism:** It focuses on the contents of mental processes rather than their functioning. In other words, understanding the conscious experience through introspection. - **Functionalism:** Focused on how mental activities help an organism fit into his environment. Functionalist were more interested in the operation of the whole mind rather of its individual parts (which were the focus of structuralism). - **Evolutionary psychology:** Seeks to study the ultimate biological causes of a behavior to the extent that a behavior is impacted by genetics. - **Social-cognitive learning theory:** Someone's behavior/ knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences. - **Humanism:** Emphasizes the potential for good that innate all humans. - **Behaviorism:** Focuses directly on observable behavior and tries to bring that behavior under control - **Biopsychology (Biological psychology):** Explores how our biology influences our behavior - **Developmental psychology**: The scientific study of development across a lifespan. Interested in processes related to physical maturation, but their not limited, they also focuses on changes in cognitive skills , moral reasoning and social behaviors. - **Cognitive psychology:** Focuses on the study of cognitions, or thoughts, and their relationship to our experiences and our actions. - **Social psychology**: Focuses on how we interact with and relate to others. Research on a wide variety of topics that include differences in how we explain our own behavior vs. how we explain the behaviors of others, prejudice, and attraction, and we resolve interpersonal conflicts. Be familiar with the work of: - **Wilhelm Wundt:** German scientist who was the first person to be referred as a psychologist. He believed that the goal of psychology was to identify components of consciousness and how those components combined to result in our conscious experience. He used introspection. - **William James:** First American psychologist. He was a proponent of functionalism. - **Jean Piaget:** Another stage theorist who studied childhood development. He demonstrated that very young children don't show object permanence. Responsible for the cognitive development theory. - **Maslow:** American psychologist best known for proposing a hierarchy of human needs in motivating behavior. **[Chapter 2]** Be familiar with the following terms. Know what they are and be able to recognize examples of them. - **Falsifiability:** The capacity for some proposition, statement, theory, or hypothesis to be proven wrong. In other words, something that can be checked - **Parsimony:** Go with the simpler option - **Reliability:** Consistency and reproducibility of a given result - **External validity:** Concerned with whether or not the results of a study can be generalized to real-world situations - **Internal validity:** Concerned with how well confounds have been controlled for, and is crucial for establishing casual relationship. - **Attrition:** Reduction in number of research participants as some drop out of the study over time. - **Sample:** Subset of individuals selected from the larger population - **Population:** Overall group of individuals that the researchers are interested in. - **Inter-rater reliability:** Measure of agreement among observers on how they record and classify a particular event - **Independent variable**: Variable that is influenced or controlled by the experimenter in a sound experiment study. I.V. is the only important difference between the experimental and control group. - **Dependent variable:** Variable that the researcher measures to see how much effect the independent variable had - **Confounding variables:** Unanticipated outside factors that affect both variables of interest - **Placebo effect:** People's expectation or beliefs influencing their experience in given situation. - **Double-blind study:** Experiment in which both the researchers and the participants are blind to group assignments. - **Replication:** Repeating an experiment using different samples to determine the researchers reliability. Be familiar with the types of studies we covered. Know their primary benefits as well as drawbacks. - **Case studies**: Observational research study focusing on one or a few people - Cons - Issues with generalizability - Pros - Very deep understanding of the individual and the particular phenomenon being studied - **Naturalistic observation:** Observation of behavior in natural setting - Cons - Difficult to set up and control - Observer bias (That's why inter-rater reliability is used) - Pros - Excellent generalizability - High external validity - **Surveys:** List of questions to be answered by research participants - Cons - People don't always give accurate responses - Not a lot of depth - Potential Bias - Pros - Collect information from a larger sample of people - Better generalization - **Archival research:** Method of research using past records or dater or data sets to answer various questions, or to search for interesting patterns or relationships - Cons - Zero interaction with participants - No control over the information - No guarantees of consistency between records - Pros - Access to a lot of data - **Longitudinal research:** Studies in which the same group of individuals is surveyed or measured repeatedly over an extended period of time. - Cons - Takes a lot of time - People tend to drop out (Attrition) - Pros - Very informative - **Cross-sectional research**: Compares multiple segments of a population at a single time - Cons - Limited by differences that exist between the different generations (cohorts) - Pros - Shorter term investment **What is the scientific method and what are the steps it entails?** Measures something through recollected data Steps: Theory -\> Hypothesis -\> Research -\> Observation **What differentiates scientific theories from conspiracy theories?** Scientific theories are supported by data. If the data doesn't fit the theory, the theory changes Conspiracy theories are the other way. If the data doesn't fit the theory, the data changes for data that fits the theory **What is a correlation coefficient?** Number from -1 to 1, indicating the strength and direction of the relationship between variable, and usually represented by r - **What values correspond to strong vs weak correlations?** The closer the number is to 1 (be it negative or positive), the more strongly related the variables are, and the more predictable changes in one variable will be as the other variables changes. The closer the number is to 0 the weaker the relationship, and the less predictable the variables become. - **What values correspond to positive vs negative correlations?** A positive correlation means that the variables move in the same direction A negative correlation means that the variables move in opposite directions **What is a true experiment?** When a researcher that has a specific hypothesis to be tested conducts an experiment - The most basic experimental design includes two groups: the experimental group that gets the experimental manipulation, and the control group does not. - Random assignment: Increases internal validity (Most important when you're trying to prove causation) - Random selection: Increases external validity **What is the role of an IRB? What is the role of an IACUC?** IRB: Committee of administrators, scientists, and community members that reviews proposals for research involving humans participants IACUC: Committee of administrators, scientists, vets, and community members that reviews proposals for research involving non-humans participants **[Chapter 3]** Be familiar with the following terms: - **Soma**: Nucleus of the neuron - **Dendrite**: Branching extension of the neuron. They receive signals from other neurons - **Axon**: Major extension from the soma that ends at multiple terminal buttons - **Myelin sheath:** Glial cells that coats the axon and act as an insulator, increasing the speed at which the signal travels. It's not continuous, gaps that occur down the length of the axon. - **Terminal button:** Contains synaptic vesicles that house neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers of the nervous system - **Somatosensory cortex:** Processes touch and sensation (touch, temperature, pain). Each different area of the cortex processes different sensations from a different part of the body. Its location is in the parietal lobe. - **Wernicke's area:** Processes language. It's in the temporal lobe - **Auditory cortex:** Processes sound (auditory information). It's within the temporal lobe - **Broca's area:** Production of language. Located in frontal lobe - **Receptors:** Proteins on the cell surface where neurotransmitters attach - **Motor cortex:** Sends out information. It's what controls our entire body. Planning and coordinating movements **What is the synapse? How does communication occur between neurons at the synapse?** Synapse is a very small space between two neurons. It's where the communication occurs. The terminal buttons release the neurotransmitters into the synapse, then they travel across it and bind with the corresponding receptors on the dendrite of an adjacent neuron. **How are neurotransmitters removed from the synapse?** **Reuptake**: Involves the neurotransmitter being pumped back into the neuron that released it. **Degradation**: Neurotransmitters are broken down into inactive fragments. **How do drugs like antidepressants use reuptake inhibition to affect brain functioning?** It blocks the transporter, so that the reuptake of a hormone slows down, accumulating more hormones of the same type in the synapse **What do agonists do? What do antagonists do?** Agonists are chemicals that mimic a neurotransmitter at the receptor site. Antagonist blocks or impedes the normal activity of a neurotransmitter at the receptor **Know that various parts of the nervous system we covered:** - **CNS vs. PNS** - **Central Nervous System (CNS):** Spinal cord, brain - **Peripheral Nervous System (PNS**): Made up of thick bundles of axons, called nerves, carrying messages back and forth between the CNS and the muscles, organs , and senses in the periphery of the body - Somatic Nervous System - Autonomic - Sympathetic - Parasympathetic - **Somatic** - Associated with activities traditionally thought of as conscious or voluntary - Afferent (Sensory neurons) - Efferent (Motor neurons) - **Autonomic** - Controls our internal organs, and glands (Not voluntary) - Sympathetic & Parasympathetic: Work in conjunction to maintain homeostasis - **Sympathetic** - Arousal - Fight/flight - Mobilize resources - **Parasympathetic** - Relaxation - Conserve resources - **Cerebral cortex:** The surface of the brain - Characterized by a distinctive pattern of folds (gyri), and grooves (sulci). They allow us to separate the brain into functional centers - Most prominent sulcus "Longitudinal fissure" separates the brain in two. - **Frontal lobe:** Forward part of the brain, extending back to the central sulcus. - Reasoning/motor control/emotion/language - Contains: Motor cortex, prefrontal cortex, Broca's area - **Parietal lobe:** Top of the brain - Processes information from the body senses - Somatosensory cortex: disproportionate areas devoted - **Temporal lobe:** Sides/Temples - Hearing/ memory / emotion / some aspects of language - **Occipital lobe:** Back of the brain - Primary visual cortex (responsible for interpreting incoming visual information) - Organize retinotopically - **Prefrontal cortex:** Responsible for higher-level cognitive functioning - **Hippocampus:** Structure in the temporal lobe associated with learning and memory Specifically, what do the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems do? What parts of our physiology do they change (see slide 14)? Be familiar with the cases of Henry Molaison and Clive Wearing. **[Chapter 4]** Be familiar with the following terms: - **Circadian rhythm:** Biological rhythm that takes place over a period of about 24 hrs. Our sleep -wake cycle is an example of a circadian rhythm. - **Homeostasis:** A state of equilibrium, in which biological conditions are maintained at optimal levels (such as body temperature). - **Physical dependence:** Changes in normal bodily functions. The user will experience withdrawal from the drug upon cessation. - **Psychological dependence:** Emotional, rather than physical, need for the drug and may use the drug to relieve psychological distress. - **Tolerance:** Linked to physiological dependence. It occurs when a person requires more and more of a drug to achieve its effects previously experience at a lower doses. It can cause the user to increase the amount of drug use to dangerous levels (overdose or death). - **Withdrawal:** Variety of negative symptoms experienced when a drug is discontinued. Usually the opposite effects of the drug. **What role do the suprachiasmatic nucleus and pineal gland play in maintaining body rhythms?** **Suprachiasmatic nucleus**: Serves as the brain's clock mechanism. The clock sets itself with light information received through projections from the retina. **Pineal gland:** An endocrine structure inside of the brain that releases melatonin (important regulator of sleep-wake cycle) What determines whether someone is a "night owl" or an "early bird"? What are the differences between REM and NREM sleep? **Be familiar with the following theories of dreaming:** - **Freud's perspective:** Dreams are a form of wish-fulfillment o repressed wishes. These repressed wishes are wants that have been denied and have become part of the unconscious mind - **Threat-simulation theory:** Dream consciousness in an ancient biological defense mechanism. Realistic stimulation of threatening events during sleep - **Continuous-activation theory:** Brain needs constant stimulation. - Result of brain activation and synthesis - Process of the brain to maintain and organize memory - Electrical brain impulses pull random thoughts/imagery from our memories **Which categories of animals are most likely to dream?** Cats **What is the default mode network?** Wakefulness, internal thought, function **Be familiar with each category of drug we covered. Be able to identify examples of each category (e.g., heroin is an opiate, alcohol is a depressant, etc.).** - Depressants: Tends to suppress central nervous system activity - Alcohol - Barbituates - Benzodiazepines - Stimulants: Tends to increase overall levels of neural activity - Caffeine - Nicotine - Amphetamines - Cocaine - Opiates: Strong analgesic properties. Produced from resin of the opium poppy - Heroin - Morphine - Methadone - Codeine - Psychedelics: Hallucigonen, results in profound alterations in sensory and perceptual experiences - LSD - PCP - Psilocybin - Salvia - Mescaline **What do amphetamines help treat ADHD?** Increase neurotransmitter activity within certain areas of the brain associated with impulse control **What type of drug can marijuana be classified as?** Depressant & Psychedelics **What is the theory behind psychedelic therapy? How does it work?**