Download Psychology 2 Test #2 Study Guide

Chapter 9
 cognition: a focus on the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing,
remembering, and communicating information
 concepts:mental groupings of similar objects, events, ideas, and people
o You are using cognition when you form concepts
o One concepts could include many thingsthe concept chair includes
many things, like a high chair, dining chair, reclining chair, etc.
 Analogical representation: use this type of representation when we are
remembering the physical characteristics of an object
o Ex: our yellow and black Giants jersey
 Symbolic representation: an abstract mental representation that doesn’t
correspond to the physical features of an object or idea
o Thing of the wordsymbolic-you should think of how an object may
be symbolic of something else, but they’re similar in terms of just the
physical appearance
 Defining attribute model: the idea that a concept is characterized by a list of
features that are necessary to determine if an object is a member of the
category
o Ex: Dogs have a certain set of features that define them as a “dog”we
use that list when we are looking at another animal to see if we would
characterize it as a dog
 Prototype model: When we think of the best example of a category
o Ex: When you think of colors, you think of the primary rainbow colors
(red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple), not lime green, even though
that’s also a color
o Ex: When you think cute dog, you may think golden retriever puppy
not a Great Dane
 Prototype: a mental image or best example of a category; basically the same
thing as a prototype model
o Ex: More people think that a “robin is a bird” rather than “a penguin is
a bird” even though they are both considered birds
o Ex: Most people think that “an apple is fruit” rather than “a tomato is
a fruit”
 Exemplar Model: When we compare something we see to other “examples” of
it
o Ex: When we see a dog, we compare it to all the other dogs we see
o Ex: When you guys made the brain for your last project, you probably
compared it to other brain projects you had seen
 Prototypes and memory effects: Once we place an item in a category, our
memory of it later is shifted to resemble that category prototype
o Ex: did an experiment in which they showed Belgian faces that were
70% Caucasian and 30% Asianthe subjects classified the face as
Caucausian
Later when they were recalling(remembering the faces), they
were more likely to remember an 80% Caucasian face rather
than a 70% Caucasian face
Inductive Reasoning: using examples or instances to determine if a
conclusion is likely to be true
o Ex: I met 3 different people from the Key Club on campus on different
occasions and they all acted entitledmy conclusion is that all people
in the Key Club act entitled
Deductive reasoning: reasoning based on principles of logic and math; using
a belief or rule to determine if a conclusion is valid
o Ex: There are 3 study rooms at the HPC. 5 of my friends are studying
in one of the study rooms, but I don’t know which one. There is a
meeting in study room #1 and study room #3 only fits 3 people.
Therefore, I think my friends are in study room #2.
Algorithm: a step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution.
o Issue with algorithms: they take a really long time
 You’re basically trying every possible option to find a
solutionEx: to find a word using the 10 letters in
SPLOYOCHYG, we would have to try 907,200 possibilitieswe
could do it, but think of how much time it would take!
Heuristics: simpler thinking strategies; something we can use to quickly
solve a problem
o Issue with heuristics: they don’t take as much time, but they’re not
always right
HEURISTICS ARE QUICKER, BUT THEY’RE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT;
ALGORITHMS JUST TAKE A LOT OF TIME
Insight: an abrupt, true-seeming, and often satisfying solution; strikes
suddenly; “sudden burst of genius”; the answer just pops into your mind
unexpectedly
Confirmation bias: the fact that we are always looking for evidence verifying
our ideas rather than refuting them
o Ex: just think of how you are always trying to prove your ideas are
rightwe don’t normally try to prove we’re wrong
Belief perseverance: maintaining a belief even after the evidence used to
form that belief has been contradicted
o Ex: you argue that a Jetta is an unsafe car based on the safety tests of
20122 weeks later, the test is redone and Jetta receives a much
higher safety ratingbelief perseverance would be if you still argued
that Jetta was an unsafe car even AFTER the new safety ratings
o Wason said “ordinary people evade (ignore) facts, become
inconsistent, or systematically defend themselves against the threat of
new information relevant to the issue.”
Wason Card Problem:
Mental set: our tendency to approach a problem with the mind-set of what
has worked for us previously; can lead you the wrong way sometimes; not
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really thinking “out of the box” because you’re doing the same thing that
worked for you before
Functional fixedness: a bias that limits a person to using an object only in the
way it is traditionally used
o The candle problem: you have to use only a candle, matches, and a box
of tacks to attach the candle to the board so that the candle can be lit
but not drip on the table-we’re so used to using those things for
specific purposes that this problem might confuse or stump us
Intuition: our fast, automatic, unreasoned feelings and thoughts; NOT a
problem-solving approach
Availability heuristic: when we estimate the likelihood of events based on
how mentally available they are.
o Ex: You see a guy making a fool of himself outside and it looks like he
has a can in his hand (you don’t know what kind of can it is-whether it
is an alcoholic can or non-alcoholic can). Alcoholism runs in your
family, so you automatically assume he is an alcoholic.
 That guy may just be drinking a Coke and be a weird person;
but based on what’s most salient, or readily available in your
life, you may be more inclined to think he’s an alcoholic just
based on your experiences
o Ex: You may think that volunteering is a really important and good
thing to do. But if someone asked you to give 20 reasons why
volunteering is good and you could only give them 6 or 7, you may
change your answer and say volunteering isn’t the best.
Representativeness heuristic:
Base rates and probability
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic: according to this heuristic, people start
with a implicity suggested reference point and then later make adjustments
to reach their estimate
o You first approximation is your “anchor” and then as you get
additional information, you may make small, increments adjustments
o Ex: guess the answer to 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8.
 You would probably guess a random number, but then change
it after you find out that 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5=120 and 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x
5 x 6=720
Overconfidence: the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge
and judgments
o Ex: It’s overconfidence that drives stockbrokers and investment
managers to market their ability to outperform stock market
averages, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary
Framing: Based on the way we present an issue, we can sway (change)
decisions and judgments
o Ex: a surgeon is explaining the risks of a surgery to a patient. He can
present it 1 of 2 ways: 10% of people die during this surgery OR 90%
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of patients will surviveWhich would make you want to do the
s5urgery more?
Loss aversion: our tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring
gains; losses emotionally hurt us a lot more; try to avoid fair game bets as
well
o Ex: You would probably pick an game with a high reward and possibly
a big loss over a fair bet game because in a fair bet game, your games
don’t outweigh your losses
Language: transmits knowledge-can be spoken, written, or signed; the
original wireless communication that allows us to transfer information from
mind to mind and with it, the transmission of accumulated knowledge across
generations
Phoneme: the smallest distinctive sound units in a language; not the same as
letters; can just be any intelligible sound
o English uses 40 phonemes-remember it’s not the same as the letters
of the alphabet!
Morpheme: the smallest units that carry meaning in a given language
o Ex:bat, pre- from preview
Difference between morpheme and phoneme with the word “bat”
o The word “bat” has the following phonemes: b, a, and t.
o But the word “bat” is also a morpheme
Grammar: the system of rules that enable us to communicate with one
another
Babbling stage: babbling begins with babies at around 4 months old; may
contain sounds from various languages
o Most of it is jus from consonant-vowel pairs formed by simply
bunching the tongue in the front of the mouth (da-da, na-na, ta-ta) or
by opening and closing the lips (ma-ma)
o NOT an imitation of adult speech
One-word stage: occurs when the baby is 1 year old
o They have already learned that sounds carry meanings
Two-word stage: the stage in speech development during which a child
speaks mostly in 2-word statements
o Beginning at about age 2
Telegraphic speech: an early speech stage in which a child speaks like a
telegram-“go car”-using mostly nouns and verbs
o Your book and your teach disagree on this-teacher says this happens
at 18 months, but the book says both the 2-word stage and telegraphic
speech occur at around 2 years of age
Critical period for language: this idea that it’s easiest to learn language when
you’re very young or else you may never be able to learn language; as you get
older, harder to learn a language
o If you are first exposed to language when you are 2-3 years old, you
will be able to catch up in your lifetime
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o If you are first exposed to a language at age 7, unlikely to ever master
any language
o Equally as important for deaf children: without exposure to signing
starting from infancy, natively deaf children are unlikely to learn
English
Aphasia: an impairment of language
Broca’s aphasia: occurs after damage to Broca’s area, which is in the left
frontal lobe; a person would struggle to speak words, but they can still sing
familiar songs and comprehend speech
o Expressive aphasia because the impairment or issue is in expressing
yourself through speech
Wernicke’s aphasia: occurs after damage to Wernicke’s area, an area of the
left temporal lobe; people can only speak meaningless words
o Their speech loses complete meaning, but still has regular rhythm
when talking
o Cannot read and can only understand songs sometimes
Linguistic determinism: Whorf’s hypothesis that language defines how we
think
o Said we can’t even think about things unless we have words for those
concepts and ideas
o Ex: English has more self-focused words (like happy), while Japanese
has more other-focused emotion words (like
sympathy)consequently, the US is a more independent culture
while Japan is an interdependent culture
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: language determines the way we think and
experience the world; used the concept of linguistic determinism
Language and perception: by expanding language, we are also expanding
thinking
o Ex: If we had more words for different shades of yellow, we would be
able to better perceive and remember different shades of yellow
Bilingualism and the self: based on what language one is using, that person
may have a different sense of self
o Ex: did an experiment in which bilingual Chinese Americans were
asked to describe themselves
 When they described themselves in Chinese, they used more
role-based self attributes and more agreement with Chinese
values, equally positive and negative self statements
 When they described themselves in English, they had more
independent self attributes and mostly positive self-statements
Bilingualism and social perception: One is more likely to make more positive
associations with the language they are speaking
o Tested bilingual Israeli Arabs who spoke both Arabic and Hebrew
 When they were speaking Hebrew, they were more likely to
make positive association with Jewish names and negative
associations with Arabic names
When they were speaking in Arabic, they were more likely to
make positive associations with Arabic names and negative
associations with Jewish names
Bilingualism and cognition: Bilingual people are skilled at inhibiting one
language while using the other (have to learn how to switch from language to
language)
o Bilingual people have better executive control (see below)
Executive control: a term for cognitive processes that regulate, control, and
manage other cognitive processes, such as problem solving, working
memory, multi-tasking, planning, attention control
Stroop effect: a demonstration of the reaction time of a task; when the name
of a color(blue, green, or red) is printed in a color other than that word(ex:
the word red printed in blue ink), naming the color of the word takes longer
and is more error prone (you’re likely to make more mistakes)
Bilingual advantage: as seen by the Stroop Effect, bilingual people are better
at inhibiting attention to irrelevant information
Bilingual education: shown to be positive
o Children educated in a French language immersion program have
maintained English fluency while increasing aptitude test scores,
creativity, and an overall appreciation for the French-Canadian
culture
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Chapter 4:
 Behavior genetics: the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and
environmental influences on behavior
 Environment: the physical and biological factors along with their chemical
interactions that affect an orgasm
 Chromosome: threadlike structures made up of DNA molecules that contain
the genes; each chromosome contains 2 strands of DNA connected in a
double helix (look to the very right of the picture)
 Gene: small segment of the giant DNA molecules, all the genes form the
chromosomes
o You have 20,000-25,000 genes
o Genes can be either active (expressed) or inactive
 The way your professor explains this is that “our genotype may
or may not be fully expressed in our phenotype (observable
characteristics)
 Ex: If you have really tall parents, you would have a tall
genotype. But if you never ate anything nutritious, you
would be tall (phenotype)
o When a gene is active or “on”, they provide the code for creating
protein molecules-our body’s building blocks
 Genome: the complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all
the genetic material in that organism’s chromosomes
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Twin studies: provide information about the influence of genetics vs. the
environment
o To find the effect of the environment: compare identical twins raised
together vs. identical twins raised apart
 If identical twins raised together are more similar and identical
twins raised apart are less similar, we can infer that the
similarity would be due to the common home environment
(with the identical twins raised together)
o To find the effect of genes: keep the environment constant; compared
identical twins raised together vs. fraternal twins raised together
 If identical twins are more similar to each other, we can infer
this greater similarity is due to greater genetic overlap
Identical twins: develops from a single (monozygotic) fertilized egg that
splits in 2; they are genetically identical
o Identical twins are always the same sex
Fraternal twins: develop form separate (dizygotic) fertilized eggs; share a
fetal environment, but they are genetically no more similar than ordinary
brothers and sisters
o Only share 50% of the genes
o Don’t have to be of the same sex; can have one guy and one girl
Influence of genetic vs. adoptive relatives: the question we want to ask if
whether adoptive children will be more like their biological parents or their
adoptive parents
o They are more like their biological parents in terms of extraversion
and agreeableness
o However, their values, attitudes, manners, faith, and politics resemble
their adoptive parents
o Adopted children often end up happier, more stable, and more
intelligent than their biological parents
Temperament: the basic, genetic component of personality
o Become observable in the first few weeks of life
 If a baby has a difficult temperament, they are characterized as
irritable, intense, unpredictable, fidgety, and emotionally upset
easily
 If a baby has an easy temperament, they are cheerful, quiet,
easy going, relaxed, predicable
 Studies have shown that this temperament that is shown when
one is a baby persists when they are older
 Ex: if one had a difficult temperament as a child, they
are more physiologically aroused in new situations in
adolescence, etc.
Molecular genetics: seeks to identify the specific genes that are influencing
our behavior
Heritability: the extent to which variation among people concerning a given
trait can be attributed to their differing genes
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o The way your professor describes it is that you are just one data
point; heritability looks at the whole spread of variance (change) in
phenotype and compares it to the variance in genotype
o If everyone in a group had exactly the same environment, but still had
a range of intelligence, we could not contribute it to the
environmentit must be genes
o If everyone in a group had exactly the same genes, but still had a range
of heights, we couldn’t attribute it to heredityit would have to be
the environment
Interaction: the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor (such as
environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity)
Gene-environment interaction: our genetics are NOT our destiny; our genes
and our experiences could interact in a number of ways, which could change
us
Epigenetics: the study of the molecular mechanisms by which environments
trigger genetic expression
o Basically even though genes have the potential to influence
development, environmental triggers can switch those genes on or off
o Whether a gene is on or off is affected by environmental factors, such
as diet, drugs, and stress
o Ex: methyl molecules can attach to part of a DNA strand, interfering
with the replication of genes in that stretch of DNA
Epigenetics and stress
o More stress leads to more flee-floating stress hormones and the result
is that you are more stressed out
 It’s an example of genes reacting to the environment
Impoverished vs. enriched early environments
o A study was done in which rats were raised in either an impoverished
environment (solitary confinement) or an enriched, social
environment (other rats, playthings)
o Later the researchers looked at the brain cortex size-the rats that
were raised in an enriched environment had a thicker and heavier
cortex-also had more synapses
o In human babies: premature babies who were given massage therapy
developed faster neurologically, gained weight faster, and went home
sooner
Influence of parents vs. peers
o Parenting- outside of really, really good parenting or really, really bad
parenting-doesn’t do much to change a child’s personality
o Peers are super influential in a child’s development
Difference in cultures
o Individualism: priority to own goals, defining identity as unique and
internally derived, about your individual attributes
o Collectivism: priority to goals of group over the individual, defining
identity as being part of the social fabric/network, about your roles
and relationships
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Evolutionary psychology: uses the principles of natural selection to study the
evolutionary roots of behavior and the mind; focuses on what makes us so
much alike as humans
Natural selection: comprised of the following thing:
o We compete for survival
o Some people have certain biological or behavioral qualities that make
them more likely to survive and reproduce
 Some of these traits give us an advantage in certain
environments and help us with survival
 Some of these traits come from random genetic mutation
Paternity uncertainty
Parental investment
Mate preferences
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Mutation
Gender
Gender differences
Culture
Norm
Aggression
X chromosome
Y chromosome