Psychology Midterm Exam Questions PDF

Practice Essays Questions for the Midterm 1. To what extent in contemporary psychology is it logical to talk about the role of ‘the mind’ in psychology? Psychology's major focus is on the mind. Contemporary psychology is strongly concerned with examining the mind, from correcting harmful thought pro...

Practice Essays Questions for the Midterm 1. To what extent in contemporary psychology is it logical to talk about the role of ‘the mind’ in psychology? Psychology's major focus is on the mind. Contemporary psychology is strongly concerned with examining the mind, from correcting harmful thought processes to mental disease and emotions. People have difficulty accepting abstract notions, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions could come directly from the brain's working. However, most people today believe that the brain creates the mind, albeit this is far from universal agreement. II. What are two criticisms of Sigmund Freud where 'the mind' may not be playing a role that he initially envisioned? 1. Unconscious actions such as sensations, memories, traumatic experiences, feeling, and awareness might stop the role of the mind on what it was initially imagined. 2. Feud believed that an individual's role in the mind could be derived by interaction with unconscious psychological forces. Perspective Description Theorists Weakness Psychodynamic explaining psychological forces that controls human behavior Sigmund Freud Data not scientifically proven Behaviouralist How we learn observable responses and how we develop new habits B.F Skinner it does not explain how behavior is isolated from other cognitive factors Human motivation a person is driven by three fundamental motivators, the desire for power, success, and affiliation. McClelland fails to explain how behaviors changes influence these motivators. Social How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures Stanley Milgram, Philip Zimbardo Cognitive understand human behavior by examining mental processes Jean Piaget 2. Ignored social and environmental effects Describe the function of each of the following in a neuron’s structure. Dendrites: send electric signals from the neurons to the cell body. Axon: transmits electrical and chemical signal from the cell body to the other neurons. Action potential: the electric charges and impulses down an axon. Glial cells: Supports and protects neurons. Myelin: Allow the impulses to transmit quickly along the neurons. Synapse: the site of transmission of signals between two neurons. Definition of neuropeptide: small chemical substances produced and released by neurons through regulated routes. Example of neuropeptide: Insulin Acetylcholine: muscles, learning, and memory Under supply: Alzheimer Dopamine: learning, attention, emotion, and memory Under supply: Parkinson’s disease Over supply: schizophrenia Serotonin: mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal Under supply: depression Norepinephrine: alertness and arousal Under supply: depression GABA: major inhibitory neurotransmitter Under supply: seizures and insomnia Glutamate: major excitatory neurotransmitter Over supply: seizures and migraine 3. Describe Abraham Maslow’s (1954) original needs hierarchy. -First let us describe original needs hierarchy. -Second, lets define self-transcendence: It is the concept of personal progress in spiritual/mental fields. It involves crossing personal boundaries and experiencing spiritual ideas, also it is an extension of Maslow's model because he once said that transcendence refers to the highest and most inclusive levels of human conciseness -Revised model: we add self-transcendence to the top and below it is the rest of the discussed above mode (original needs hierarchy) -Criticism of theory: Cultural differences and lack of scientific explanation. 4. location and major function of 10 of the following brain areas. o Medulla: Location: Base of the brainstem Main function: Controls heartbeat and breathing. o Pons: Location: Above the medulla. Main function: Helps coordinate movement and control sleep. o Cerebellum: Location: “Little brain” situated at the rear of the brainstem Main function: Involved in coordinating movement and balance. It can also play a role in cognitive functions like language. o Hypothalamus: Location: Neural structure that is positioned below the thalamus. Main function: Regulates body temperature and hunger, fatigue. It controls the hormone system. o Amygdala: Location: in the temporal lobe, just in front of the hippocampus Main function: processing of emotions and memories associated with fear o Hippocampus: Location: the inner region of the temporal lobe. Main function: Storing long-term memories and making them hard to forget. o Thalamus: Location: In the forebrain near the center of the brain. Main function: Regulates sleep, alertness and wakefulness. o Occipital lobe: Location: Portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head. Main function: Receive information from the visual fields. o Temporal lobe: Location: Portion of the cerebral cortex lying roughly above the ears. Main function: Receive information from the ears. o Frontal lobe: Location: Portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead. Main function: Involved in speaking and muscle movement and in making plans and judgments. Why are association areas important? Because they are involved in higher mental functions like interpreting and acting on information processed in other areas. These areas are responsible for thought, memory, and learning, in combination with the primary parts they surround. Do people only use 10% of their brain? This is not real; the percentage varies and changes from person to person, what is the person doing and thinking now. 5. Define and describe the circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm: related to the natural cycle of physical, mental and behavioral process that the body goes through the 24-hour cycle. that is influenced by light and darkness (sleeping at night and being awake during the day). Suprachiasmatic nucleus and its regulated hormone: A bilateral structure located in the anterior part of the hypothalamus. It is the central pacemaker of the circadian timing system and regulates most CRs in the body. It controls the sleep hormone (melatonin) it receives information from the eye a take it to the brain to process. If there is no light it will produce more of the melatonin hormone. Sleep stages: First stage NREM1: occurs when you decide to sleep, lasts from 1 to 10 minutes, lightly asleep and you can go back to being fully awake. Characterized by irregular brain waves and hallucination might occur Your heartbeat, your eye movements, and your breathing slows with it. Second stage NREM2: lasts about 20 minutes. Characterized by bursts of rapid brain waves when your brain gathers, processes, and filters new memories you acquired the previous day. Third stage NREM3: Deep sleep which lasts for about 30 minutes. Characterized by delta waves (delta sleep). Any noises or activity in the environment may fail to wake the sleeping person. Final stage REM: Lasts around 10 minutes, at least one hour after you sleep. You might dream or sleepwalk. Characterized by increase in heart rate and rapid breathing. Why people require adequate sleep? Sleep feeds creative thinking improve athletic and physical performance helps recover immune system and repair brain tissues, help consolidate memories and supports growth. Sleep deprivation symptoms? Risk of high blood pressure, increased risk of depression, decrease metabolism, increase cortisol, weakens immune system, risk of obesity and reduced strength/ slower reaction time. 6. Identify two key developmental reflexes infants should show after birth. Two key developmental reflexes: Rooting reflex - When the corner of the baby's mouth is stroked or touched. The baby turns their head and open their mouth to follow the stroking. Helps the baby find the breast/bottle to feed. Lasts about 4 months. Suck reflex - When the roof of the baby's mouth is touched, the baby will start to suck. This reflex start on around 32 to 36 weeks of pregnancy. Premature babies may have a weak sucking ability. Because babies also have a hand-to-mouth reflex that goes with rooting and sucking, they may suck on their fingers or hands. Piaget’s stages: 1. Birth to almost 2 years: - Sensorimotor - Experiencing the world through senses/actions (hearing, touching, looking) - Object permanence + Stranger anxiety + Motor learning 2. 2 to 6 or 7 years: - Preoperational - Representing things with words. - Pretend play + Egocentrism + Using symbols to learn + Develop language skills 3. 7 to 11 years: - Concrete operational - Thinking logically about concrete events and preforming arithmetical operations. - Conservation + Mathematical transformations + Overcome Egocentrism 4. 12 years to adulthood: - Formal operational - Reasoning abstractly. - Abstract logic + Potential for mature moral reasoning Define autism spectrum disorder: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurological and developmental disorder that affect how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave. The symptoms are present from early childhood and affect daily functioning. Nausea and vomiting during pregnancy (NVP) are caused by changes in maternal hormones during pregnancy. It can be a trigger for some cases of ASD. However, no study has investigated whether the presence of NVP may be related to risking in offspring with ASD. Two key stages on Piaget’s model that might be missed: o Schemas: the process of building blocks of knowledge. A baby, for example, knows that it must make a sucking motion to eat. o Accommodation: is what happens when you change a schema, or create a new one, to fit new information. The child accommodates when they understand that not all furry, four legged creatures are cats. Weaknesses of Piaget’s: o Case studies on limited children and generalized theory. o Did not study the effect of cultural settings and social interactions on cognitive development. o Interviews not true to life and subject to interpretation. Piaget theory with Lev Vygotsky Piaget: cognitive development depends on children’s interactions. cognitive development of all children is the same. Vygotsky: cognitive development depends on culture of the children’s society. cognitive development of all children varies according to culture. 7. Classical and operant conditioning are said to play significant roles in determining human behavior. Classical Conditioning: Conducted by Ivan Pavlov. It’s a type of learning in which we learn to link two or more stimuli & anticipate events. Operant Conditioning: test conducted by B.F. Skinner. It’s a type of learning in which a behavior becomes more probable if followed by a reinforcer or in diminished if followed by a punishment. Examples on Classical conditioning: 1. Teaching dog to salivate when hearing a tone: Before conditioning: US: food in mouth, UR: salivation, NS: tone, no salivation During conditioning: NS (tone) + US (food) -> UR (salivation) After conditioning: CS: tone & CR (salivation) 2. Sounding a tone before delivering an air puff, after a few trails, as soon as you hear the tone you blink: US: air puff, UR: blink to air puff, NS: tone before conditioning, CS: tone after conditioning, CR: blinking to tone. NS: neutral stimuli UR: unconditional response US: unconditional stimuli CR: conditional response CS: conditional stimuli.