Condensed Psych 111 Final Exam Study Guide PDF

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Study Guide for Final Exam MIDTERM 1 Chapter 1: Psychology and Scientific Thinking ● Human behavior is difficult to predict because most actions are multiply determined- caused by multiple factors ○ Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other, making it difficult to pin down which cause or causes are operating ● Individual differences, variations among people in their thinking, emotion, personality, and behavior, help to explain why each person responds in different ways to the same objective situation ● Naive realism- belief that we see the world precisely as it is ● Scientific Theory- explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world ○ Hypothesis- testable prediction derived from a scientific theory ○ Confirmation bias- tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypotheses and deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that contradicts them (Princeton vs Yale Football Game) ○ Belief Perseverance- tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them (Suicide notes) ● Metaphysical claim- assertion about the world that is not testable ● Pseudoscience- set of claims that seems scientific but isn’t ○ Lacks the safeguards against confirmation bias and belief perseverance ○ Overuse of ad hoc immunizing hypothesis- escape hatch or loophole that defenders of a theory use to protect their theory from falsification ○ Patternicity- the tendency to detect meaningful patterns in random stimuli ○ Terror management theory- theory proposing that our awareness of our death leaves us with an underlying sense of terror with which we cope by adopting reassuring cultural worldviews ○ Logical fallacies- traps in thinking that can lead to mistaken conclusions ■ Emotional Reasoning fallacies- error of using our emotions as guides for evaluating the validity of a claim ■ Bandwagon fallacy- error of assuming that a claim is correct just because many people believe it ■ Not me fallacy- error of believing that we are immune from errors in thinking that afflict other people ● Scientific skepticism- approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them ● Critical Thinking- set of skills for evaluating all claims in an open-minded and careful fashion ● Scientific Thinking

○ Principle 1: Ruling out rival hypotheses ○ Principle 2: Correlation isn’t causation ■ Correlation-causation fallacy- error of assuming that because one thing is associated with another, it must cause the other ■ Variable- anything that can vary ○ Principle 3: Falsifiability ■ For a claim to be meaningful it must be falsifiable- capable of being disproven ○ Principle 4: Replicability ■ A study’s findings can be duplicated consistently ■ Decline effect- the fact that the size of certain psychological findings appear to be shrinking over time ○ Principle 5: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence ○ Principle 6: Occam’s Razor ■ If 2 explanations account equally well for a phenomenon, we should generally select the simpler one ● Introspection- method by which trained observers carefully reflect and report on their mental experiences ● 5 Major Theoretical Perspectives ○ Structuralism- school of psychology that aimed to identify the basic elements of psychological experience, the theoretical perspective that questions the structure of our thinking ■ Identify the basic elements of experience, interested in WHAT makes up experience ■ Break consciousness into basic elements: sensations, images, and feelings ■ 2 problems: 1) even highly trained introspectionism often disagreed on their subjective reports, 2) participants asked to solve certain mental problems engage in imageless thought ○ Functionalism- school of psychology that aimed to understand the adaptive purposes of psychological characteristics ■ Understand the functions of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; interested in WHY we experience things the way we do ■ Why do humans do, feel, and think the way they do? ■ Influenced by natural selection- principle that organisms possess adaptations survive and reproduce at a higher rate than do other organisms ○ Behaviorism- school of psychology that focuses on uncovering the general laws of learning by looking at observable behavior

■ Learning can explain all behaviors, mainly through rewards and punishments ○ Cognitive Psychology- school of psychology that proposes that thinking is central to understanding behavior ■ Response to behaviorism, learning and thinking affect behavior, behavior stems from unconscious drives (aggression, sexuality) ■ Cognitive neuroscience- relatively new field of psychology that examines the relation between brain functioning and thinking ○ Psychoanalysis- school of psychology, founded by Sigmund Freud, that focuses on internal psychological processes of which we’re unaware ■ Behavior is a result of unconscious conflicts ● Evolutionary psychology- discipline that applies Darwin’s theory of natural selection to human and animal behavior ● The Free Will-Determinism debate ○ Advocates of determinism believe that free will is an illusion ○ Determinism- doctrine that all events are ultimately determined by causes external to the will ● Basic research- research examining how the mind works ● Applied research- research examining how we can use basic research to solve real-world problems Chapter 2 ● Heuristic- mental shortcut or rule of thumb that helps us to streamline our thinking and make sense of our world ● Natural observation- watching behavior in real-world settings without trying to manipulate the situation ○ High in external validity, low in internal validity ● External validity- extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings ● Internal validity- extent to which we can draw cause and effect inferences from a study ● Case study- research design that examines one person or a small number of people in depth, often over an extended period of time ○ Advantages- existence proofs, useful for rare phenomenon, can lead to systematic investigations ○ Disadvantages- misleading conclusions, often cannot test why phenomenon occurred, low in internal validity ● Existence proof- demonstration that a given psychological phenomenon can occur

● Random selection- procedure that ensures every person in a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate ● Reliability- consistency of measurement ● Validity- extent to which a measure assesses what it purports to measure ○ The quality of being logically or factually sound ○ Convergent validity- the degree to which different tests measuring the same constructs yield similar results ● Self-Report Measures ○ Advantages- easy to administer, measures of personality traits and behaviors often work reasonably well ○ Disadvantages- they typically assume that respondents possess enough insight into their personality characteristics to report on them accurately, self-report questionnaires typically assume that participants are honest in their responses, response set- tendency of research participants to distort their responses to questionnaire items, low in internal validity ● Correlational Designs ○ Correlational design- research design that examines the extent to which 2 variables are associated ○ Correlations can be positive, zero, or negative. Correlation coefficients range in value from -1 to 1 ○ Scatterplot- grouping of points on a 2D graph in which each dot represents a single person’s data ○ Illusory correlation- perception of a statistical association between 2 variables where none exists ○ Correlation does not necessarily mean causation ○ Advantage- help predict behavior ○ Disadvantage- low in internal validity ● Experimental Designs ○ Experiment- research design characterized by random assignment of participants to conditions and manipulation of an independent variable ○ Random assignment- randomly sorting participants into 2 groups ■ Experimental group- the group that receives the manipulation ■ Control group- the group that doesn’t receive the manipulation ○ Independent variable- variable that an experimenter manipulates ○ Dependent variable- variable that an experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation has an effect ○ Confounding variable- any variable that differs between the experimental and control groups other than the independent variable

○ Random assignment and manipulation of an independent variable allow us to infer cause and effect relations ○ Pitfalls ■ The Placebo effect- improvement resulting from the mere expectation of improvement ● Blind- unaware of whether one is the experimental or control group ■ Experimenter expectancy effect- phenomenon in which researchers’ hypotheses lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome of the study ● Double blind- neither researchers nor participants are aware of who’s in the experimental or control group ■ Demand characteristics- cues that participants pick up from a study that allow them to generate guesses regarding the researcher’s hypotheses ■ Low in external validity ○ Advantages- high in internal validity (able to infer causation) ● Informed consent- informing research participants of what is involved in a study before asking them to participate ● Statistics- application of mathematics to describing and analyzing ○ Descriptive statistics- numerical characterizations that describe data ■ Central tendency- measure of the “central” scores in a data set, or where the group tends to cluster (mean, median, mode) ■ Variability- measures of how loosely or tightly bunched scores are ● Range- difference between the highest and lowest scores ● Standard deviation- measure of variability that takes into account how far each data point is from the mean ○ Inferential statistics- mathematical methods that allow us to determine whether we can generalize findings from our sample to the full population Chapter 3 ● Behavioral genetics- look at the roles of both genes and environment in behavior ● Heritability- percentage of the variability in a trait across individuals that is due to genes ● Behavioral Genetic Designs ○ Family studies- analysis of how characteristics run in intact families ■ Don’t allow us to disentangle the effects of nature from nurture because families share both genes and environment ■ Siblings have similar IQs, more so than cousins

○ Twin studies- analysis of how traits differ in identical vs fraternal twins ■ If identical twins are more similar in a characteristic than fraternal twins, then the characteristic is genetic ■ Since identical twins IQs are not perfect, we know that IQ is influenced by environmental factors ○ Adoption studies- analysis of how traits vary in individuals raised apart from their biological relatives ■ Adopted children share genes but not environment with biological parents ● If characteristic is shared with biological parents, you know it is due to genes ■ Adopted children and their biological parents have similar IQ Chapter 9 Intelligence ● Sensory capacity- knowledge comes from the senses ● Abstract thinking- capacity to understand hypothetical concepts ● General vs Specific abilities ○ General intelligence: hypothetical factor that accounts for overall differences in intellect among people ○ Specific abilities: ability levels in a particular area ● Fluid and crystallized intelligence ○ Fluid intelligence: capacity to learn new ways of solving problems ○ Crystallized intelligence: accumulated knowledge of the world accumulated over time ○ Fluid → crystallized ○ Fluid decreases and crystallized increases with age IQ ● Heritability- percent of the variability of a trait due to genes ● Family studies (families share both genes and environment, can’t distinguish between nature and nurture effects) ○ Relationship decreases with increased biological distance ● Twin studies (how traits differ in identical and fraternal twins) ○ Provide convincing evidence for environmental influences on IQ because the identical twin correlations for IQ are far less than perfect. However, there is also evidence for genetic factors ● Adoption studies (how traits vary in individuals raised apart from the biological relatives, they share genes but not environment) ○ Environmental influence- IQ increases in a more rich environment ○ Genetic influence- IQ tends to be more similar to biological parents than adopted parents ● Environmental effects

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○ STUDY- expectancy effects ■ IQ tests were administered to students ■ Gave teachers the results (IQ scores were randomly assigned to students) ■ Students labeled as “bloomers” scored higher ● Teachers gave more attention to these students ○ Poverty ○ Flynn effect- finding that average IQ scores have been increasing at a rate of approximately 3 points per decade ■ Reasons: schooling, increased accessibility to information, nutrition, etc. Sex differences in IQ Racial differences in IQ ○ Stereotype threat- fear that we may confirm a negative group stereotype Triarchic Model- model of intelligence with three distinct types of intelligence ○ Analytical- ability to reason logically “book smarts” ○ Practical- ability to solve real world problems “street smarts” ○ Creative- our ability to come up with novel and effective answers to questions Multiple intelligence- idea that people vary in their ability levels across different domains of intellectual skill

Chapter 10 Developmental psychology: study of how behavior changes over the lifespan Challenges investigating psychological development ● post hoc fallacy: the assumption that things that occur early in development cause things that come later - cannot infer this causation because factors could influence both ● bidirectional influences: children’s development influences their experiences, but their experiences also influence their development Developmental Research designs ● Cross-sectional design: researchers examine people of different ages at a single point in time ○ Cohort effects: effects due to the fact that sets of people who lived during a certain time period can differ in a systematic way from other sets of people from different time periods (people over 60 did not grow up around computers, so they are less likely to know how to use them) ● Longitudinal design: tracking the development of the same group of participants over time ○ Costly, time-consuming

○ Result in attrition: people dropping out of the study before completion participants who drop out may share something important compared to those who stay (no longer random) Prenatal development ● Zygote: fertilized egg cell ● Germinal stage (0-2nd week): ○ Start: conception ○ End: attachment to the uterine wall ○ Cell division- zygote begins to divide and double ● Embryonic stage (week 2-8): ○ Start: attachment to the uterine wall ○ End: formation of bone cells ○ Organs forming ○ Embryo begins to move ○ Critical period: particularly sensitive to outside agents ■ Teratogens- outside agents that cause harm during prenatal development ● Most susceptible during this stage ● Fetal stage (8th week-38th week) ○ Start: formation of bone cells ○ End: birth ○ Fetus grows rapidly Motor Development ● Infant reflexes: like the sucking reflex, helps them survive ● Motor behaviors: bodily motions that occur as a result of self-initiated force that moves the bones and muscles ○ Sitting, crawling, standing unsupported, walking ● Piaget’s Theory ○ Stage theorist: proposed that children’s development progresses at specific stages marked by radical reorganization of thinking ○ Domain-general: changes in cognitive skills affect all areas of cognitive function at the same time, not at different rates ○ Assimilation: process of absorbing new experience into our current understanding - a child who thinks the earth is flat is told that the earth is round, so she pictures a flat, round disk (doesn’t change initial belief that earth is flat, combines both pieces of information) ○ Accommodation: altering beliefs about the world to fit them with experience - child is confronted with a globe, and cannot assimilate that experience into existing knowledge structure

○ 4 Stages ■ Sensorimotor (birth - 2 yrs) ● Lack object permanence: the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view ● Lack deferred imitation: ability to perform previously observed action ■ Preoperational stage (2 - 7 yrs) ● Ability to use symbols and language (drawings, pretend play, speaking) ● Limitations ○ Egocentrism: inability to see the world from others’ points of view ○ Cannot perform mental operations - conservation: tasks that ask children to determine whether a certain amount will be “conserved” following a physical transformation ■ Concrete operational stage (7 - 11 yrs) ● Ability to perform mental operations, but ONLY for physical events ● Cannot think abstractly or hypothetically ■ Formal operations stage (11+ yrs) ● Hypothetical, abstract reasoning beyond the here and now ● Can think about abstract questions ○ Criticisms ■ More continuous than stage-like ■ Favors western culture ■ Demanding tasks ● Vygotsky’s Theory ○ Scaffolding: parents provide initial assistance in children’s learning but gradually remove structure as children become more competent ○ Zone of proximal development: phase of learning during which children can benefit from instruction Social development ● Stranger anxiety: fear of strangers, begins at around 8 months and increases up to 15 months, then declines ● Temperament: individual differences in children’s social and emotional styles ○ Easy (40%)- happy babies, adaptable to environmental changes ○ Difficult (10%)- negative in mood, crying, fussy, doesn’t like routine changes, active, tantrums

○ Slow-to-warm-up (15%)- shy, slowness to adapt, low activity level, low/moderate emotional reactions ○ Average (35%)- not consistent patterns ○ Behavioral inhibition (10%) - scared of new stimuli ○ Goodness of fit model: when there is an effective match between child and caring practices it will yield the best results ■ Emphasizes that an effective match between environment and child temperament leads to favorable child development ● Attachment: emotional connection we share with those to whom we feel closest - most infants form attachment to their caregivers ○ Imprinting: STUDY Konrad Lorenz - geese bond immediately to the first large moving object they see ■ Human infants don’t imprint onto attachment figures ○ Contact comfort: positive emotions from touch ■ STUDY Harlow monkey experiment - monkeys separated from their mothers chose new cloth mother over new wire mother (only went to wire mother for milk), and when exposed to scary stimulus, monkeys chose cloth mother ○ Attachment styles - STUDY Strange Situation experiment: separating and reuniting infants with their mothers 1. Secure attachment (60%): Infant explores room, but checks for mother; returns to mom when stranger enters; upset when mom departs; becomes joyful when mother returns 2. Insecure-avoidant attachment (15-20%): explores without concern for mom; not upset at mom’s departure; no reaction upon return 3. Insecure-anxious attachment (5-10%): infant does not explore without mom’s assistance; distress when stranger enters and panic at mom’s departure; mixed emotional reaction upon her return 4. Disorganized attachment (5-10%): inconsistent and confused set of responses MID-TERM 2 Motivation and Emotion ● Emotions- mental state of feeling associated with our evaluation of experiences ● Discrete Emotions Theory - we experience a small number of distinct emotions that are rooted in our biology, suggests our emotional reactions occur before our thoughts ○ Emotions serve evolutionary functions ■ We have all evolved to have this distinct set of emotions ○ Evidence for evolutionary basis ■ Emerge early without direct reinforcement

● Ex. babies smile when they learn something new How these emotions are expressed may be adaptive ● Ex. different faces made when you are disgusted, clenching fists when angry ■ Similarities with non-human animals ● Ex. chimpanzees tend to laugh ○ All humans share these emotions and we should be able to recognize them ○ Are emotions universal? ■ STUDY in New Guinea ● Asked people to match emotions to a story he told ● Able to match primary emotions: happiness, disgust, sadness, fear...