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General Psycholog Midterm Review

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Prologue "A Rampage on Campus"   Virgina Tech  
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What is psychology   scientific study of behavior and mental processes  
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Psychologists try to:   describe, predict, and explain human behavior and mental processes  
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Behavior and mental processes: encompasses not only what people do but their   thoughts, emotions, perceptions, reasoning processes, memories and even biological activities  
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Behavioral Psychology   studies how living organisms develop behaviors in response to current conditions  
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Cross Cultural Psychology   studies similarities/differences in psychological function in cultures and ethnic groups  
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Developmental Psychology   studies how people grow and change from conception through death  
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Cognitive Psychology   studies higher mental processes, including thinking, memory, reasoning, problem solving, judging, decision making and language.  
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Evolutionary Psychology   studies how behavior is influenced by our genetic inheritance  
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Health Psychology   studies relationship between psychological factors and physical ailments or disease  
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Personality Psychology   studies consistency in people's behavior over time and the traits that differentiate one person from another  
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Psychologists: A Portrait (Minorities Preferences Re: Treatment)   Only 6% are racial minorities, lack of perspectives minorities can provide, without minorites in profession, other minorities discouraged from joining, minorities prefer to receive counseling from own race, may not seek counseling  
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Psychodynamic Perspective   behavior is motivated by unconscious inner forces over which the individual has little control  
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Behavioral Perspective   observable, measurable behavior should be focus of study  
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Humanisitic   all individuals naturally strive to grow, develop and be in control of their lives and behavior  
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Nature vs. Nurture   Behavior is relegated by their biology versus their upbringing  
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Four Steps of the Scientific Method   "1. Identifying questions of interests 2.Formulating an explanation 3. Carrying out research designed to support or refute the explanation 4. Communicating the findings "  
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Prologue "The Deepest Cut"   Hemimegalencephaly: defect in which one half of brain grows larger than the other, causes seizures  
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Neuroscientist   Behavioral Neuroscientists: psychologists who specialize in considering the ways in which the biological structures and functions of the body affect behavior  
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Biological Factors   Biological factors are central to our sensory experience, states of consciousness, motivation and emotion, development throughout life and physical and psychological health  
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Neuron   nerve cells, the basic elements of the nervous system  
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Neurotransmitter   chemicals that carry messages across the synapse to the dendrite (and sometimes the cell body) of a receiver neuron  
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Endocrine System   Endocrine system: chemical communication network that sends messages throughout the body via the blood stream  
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Mater Gland   Pituitary Gland: found near and regulated by hypothalamus, "master gland", controls functioning of the rest of the endocrine system, hormones secreted control growth  
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Hemisphere Specialization   symmetrical left and right halves of the brain that control the side of the body opposite to their location  
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Lateralization   dominance of one hemisphere of the brain in specific functions, such as language  
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Left Hemisphere   verbal competence: language, speaking, reading, thinking and reasoning; processes information sequentially (one bit at a time)  
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Right Hemisphere   spatial relations, recognition of patters and drawings, music, emotion expression; processes information as a whole  
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Prologue "Only Blank Faces"   Prosopagnosia: selective development condition know as "face blindness"; lack of processing ability to detect subtle differences that make each face unique  
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Sensation   Activation of the sense organs by a source of physical energy, Process by which our sense organs receive information from the environment, Organisms first encounter with raw sensory stimulus  
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Perception   Process by which organism interprets, analyzes and integrates that stimulus with other sensory information  
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Color Blindness   7% of men and .4% of women, most common visual disturbance  
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Most common form of color blindness   all red and green seen as yellow  
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Less common form of color blindness   cannot differentiate between yellow/blue  
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Least common form of color blindness   total color blindness: see in black and white  
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Trichromatic Theory of color Vision   three kinds of cones in the retina, each of which responds to a specific range of wavelength; One to blue-violet, one to green, third to red-yellow; Perception of color influenced by which cone is activated  
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Opponent-process theory of color vision   receptor cells, linked in pairs, working in opposite direction to each other; Blue yellow pairing, red-green pairing, black-white pairing; Object reflects light that is more blue than yellow, stimulates blue cells, inhibit others  
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Eardrum   vibrates when sound hits it  
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Cochlea   coiled tube in ear filled with fluid that vibrates in response to sound  
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Basilar membrane   "vibrating structure that runs through the center of cochlea, dividing it into upper and lower chamber and containing sense receptors for sound -Covered in hair membranes: when bent by vibrations, send neural messages to brain"  
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Place theory of hearing   theory that different areas of basilar membrane respond to different frequencies  
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Frequency theory of hearing   theory that entire basilar membrane acts like microphone, vibrating as a whole in response to sound.  
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Semicircular canals   inner ear, consists of three tubes containing fluids that sloshes through them when the head moves, signaling rotational or angular movement to brain  
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Otoliths   tiny motion sensitive crystals in the semicircular canals, sense acceleration forward, backwards, or up and down, as well as constant pull of gravity.  
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Gestalt Psychology   Series of principles that describe how we organize bits and pieces of information into meaningful wholes -Perception goes beyond individual elements that we sense, represents an active, constructive process carried out in brain"  
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Subliminal Perception   Perception of messages about which we have no awareness  
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Prologue "Nodding Off"   Sleep apnea: constricted breathing during sleep that forces the sleeper to wake momentarily, sometimes as many as hundreds of times each night  
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Consciousness   Awareness of the sensations, thoughts, and feelings being experienced at any given moment  
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Waking consciousness   we are awake and aware of our thoughts, emotions and perceptions  
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Altered states of consciousness   all other states of consciousness; sleeping, dreaming, drug use, hypnosis  
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Unconscious wish fulfillment theory   Freud's theory that dreams represent unconscious wishes that dreamers desire to see fulfilled  
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Latent content of dreams   Freud: the "disguised" meanings of dreams, hidden by more obvious subjects  
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Manifest content of dreams   Freud: apparent story lines of dreams  
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Dreams-for-survival theory   dreams permit information that is critical for our daily survival to be reconsidered and reprocesses during sleep  
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Activation-synthesis theory   Hobson's theory that the brain produces random electrical energy during REM sleep that stimulates memories lodged in various portions of the brain  
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REM   Rapid eye movement: sleep occupying 20 percent of an adult's sleep time, characterized by increased heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate; erections; eye movements; and the experience of dreaming.  
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Sleeping Better   Exercise during the day (at least 6 hrs before bedtime) and avoid naps, Avoid drinks with caffeine after lunch, Drink a warm glass of milk at bedtime, Avoid sleeping pills, Try not to sleep  
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Insomnia   Some people who think they have sleep problems are mistaken: many fall asleep within 30 min and stay asleep all night  
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Night Terrors   sudden awakening from non-rem sleep that are accompanied by extreme fear, panic and strong physiological arousal, most common ages 3-8  
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Narcolepsy   uncontrolled sleeping periods that occur for short periods while a person is awake, ppl go directly from awake to REM sleep  
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Effectiveness of Hypnosis   5-20% of people cannot be hypnotized, 20% easily hypnotized  
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Meditation   Learned technique for refocusing attention that brings about an altered state of consciousness  
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D.A.R.E.'s Effectiveness   "Repeated evaluations have been unable to demonstrate that program effective in reducing drug use over the long term -One study showed graduates were more likely to use marijuana than was a comparison groups of non-graduates"  
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Signs of Drug Abuse   Always getting high, to high to go to work/class, feeling badly after because of something you did or said, legal problems, unable to stop, need it to get through the day, thinking about it all the time, avoiding family/friends  
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Prologue "Four Legged Coworker"   Learning is a fundamental topic for psychologists  
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Learning   A relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience  
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Classical Conditioning   A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to bring about a response after its paired with a stimulus that naturally brings about that response  
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Example of classical conditioning   Pavlovs dogs: bell rang + food = salivate, conditioned to salivate after just hearing bell  
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Operant Conditioning   Learning in which a voluntary response (behavior) is strengthened or weakened, depending on its favorable or unfavorable consequences.  
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Law of Effect   Responses that lead to satisfying consequences are more likely to be repeated  
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Observational Learning   Learning by observing the behavior of another person, or model; Referred to social cognitive approach to learning  
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Punishment   Frequently ineffective, particularly if it is not delivered shortly after the undesired behavior or if individual is able to leave the setting in which punishment is given; does not convey information about alternative, desired behavior  
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High levels of media violence   makes viewers more susceptible to acting aggressively  
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Exposure to violence in media may:   lower inhibitions about carrying out aggression; Distort understanding of meaning of other behavior, predisposing us to view nonaggressive acts as aggressive violence; leave us desensitized to violence  
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Retrograde amnesia   pt can form sentences but remembers nothing about past and only patchy facts about the world  
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Memory   The process by which we encode, store and retrieve information  
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Memory Encoding   initial process of recording information in a form usable to memory  
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Memory Storage   maintenance of material saved in memory  
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Memory Retrevial   material in storage must be located and brought into awareness  
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Sensory Memory   initial, momentary storage of information that lasts an instance  
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Short Term Memory   holds information for 15 to 25 seconds and stores it according to meaning  
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Long Term Memory   information stored on a relatively permanent basis, though may be difficult to recall  
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Applying Psychology, "Dulling the Edges of Painful Memories"   Reducing the intensity of traumatic memory may reduce their effect on people later in life, use of propranolol in treatment of PTSD/Tramatic events  
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Eyewitness Identification   -eyewitnesses are prone to making mistakes when recalling details of crime -questioning format can influence witnesses -weapons act as visual magnets, drawing attention away from attackers face"  
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Children as witnesses   children are highly vulnerable to influence of others Ex: 5-7 y/o girls post standard physical, 3 girls indicated they had had a vaginal/anal exam (when they did not) and one indicated Dr performed exam with a stick"  
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Korsakoff's Syndrome   Disease that afflicts long-term alcoholics, leaving some abilities intact but including hallucinations and tendency to repeat stories  
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Alzheimer's Disease   Illness characterized in part by severe memory problems, 4th leading cause of death among adults in us, May be genetic: inherited susceptibility to defect in production of protein beta amyloid, necessary in the maintenance of nerve cell connections  
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Rober Ptman's Research/Propranolol Use Study   Ran study on those who recently experienced traumatic experience, half got placebo, other half got propranolol (bp med), those on med had less stressful reaction to memories  
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Goals of propranolol study   use propranolol to interfere with reconsolidation of traumatic memories that have been reawakened; Not blocking memory entirely but reduce its intensity upon reconsolidation so that victim will remember what happened but not be tortured by memory  
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Cognitive Psychology   Branch of psychology that focuses on study of higher mental processes, including thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, reasoning, judging and decision making  
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Creativity   the ability to generate original ideas or solve problems in novel ways  
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Divergent Thinking   the ability to generate unusual, yet appropriate, responses to problems or questions  
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Convergent thinking   the ability to produce responses that are based primarily on knowledge and logic  
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Animal Language Development   Rudimentary in form  
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Chimps (Language Development)   have taught to sign, some have been able to create grammatically sophisticated sentences  
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Critics (Language Development)   Critics say that skill is no different than a dog lying down on command  
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Evidence (Language Development)   Lack of firm evidence that animals can recognize and respond to the mental state of others of their species, an important aspect of human communication  
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Intelligence   The capacity to understand the world, think rationally, and use resources effectively when faced with challenges  
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Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligence   Minimum of eight forms of intelligence, relatively independent of each other: musical, bodily kinesthetics, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist  
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Intelligence Quotient   "A score that takes into account an individuals mental and chronological age IQ score = mental age/ chronological age x 100"  
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Mental Retardation   A condition characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in conceptual, social and practical adaptive skills  
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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome   Most common causes of mental retardation in newborns, occurring when mother uses alcohol during pregnancy  
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Achievement Test   A test designed to determine a person's level of knowledge in a given subject area  
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Aptitude Test   A test designed to predict a persons ability in a particular area or line of work  
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Intellectually Gifted   The 2-4% of the population who have IQs greater than 130; Most often well adjusted and outgoing, healthy and popular people who do most things better than the average person can  
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Culture Fair IQ Test   A test that does not discriminate against the members of any minority group  
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