psyc midterm 2

Carl Jung's psychological types theory of personality, Psychoanalytic, Neo-Freudian, rejects biology as a causing personality

Introversion vs extraversion
Sensing vs intuition
Feeling vs thinking

added judging vs perceiving
Developed the letter coding system

Personality is not genetic
Personality is inborn
Universal collective unconscious chooses

Openness to experience

Conscientiousness: Low chances MH diagnosis, Long lifespan, High gpa, High job performance

Extraversion: softhearted, trusting, helpful

Agreeableness : High gpa, Low income, High relationship quality

Neuroticism: Probably has mental health diagnosis, Low gpa, Low job performance

internal mental symbol that stands for something

a mental representation of an object or concept that people use to categorize thing

Superordinate: broad category of thing (furniture)

Basic level: different categories withing the category (chair)

Subordinate: different things belonging to the basic level (kitchen chair)

mental framework for how to solve a problem based on prior experience with similar problems

an obstacle to problem solving, you get tunnel vision on what you know the object normally does so you do not think about what it might atypically do.

reorganizing our understanding of a problem

rational decision making is constrained by limitations in people’s cognitive abilities, available information, and time.

people use two types of thinking:
one is slow, effortful, and rational;
one is fast, effortless, and usually effective.

mental shortcut that allows people to efficiently solve problems and make judgements and decisions

Representative heuristic: mental shortcut for judging the likelihood of something based on how well it represents some category.

Affect heuristic: relying on affect-the-good-for-me or bad-for-me feelings we associate with various object and events in the world

Tendency for people to resist changing their beliefs, even when faced with disconfirming evidence

Tendency to make choices that minimize losses

Tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one’s knowledge and judgments

Tendency to overestimate the likelihood that one would have predicted the outcome in advance

Phonemes: smallest unit of language, such as the individual sounds that make up speech

Morphemes: the smallest units of language that carry bits of meaning

grammatical rules that govern how words and phrases combine into well-formed sentences

rules that govern the practical aspects of language use, such as taking turns, using intonation and gestures, and talking to different people.

Whorf’s proposal that different languages impose different ways of understanding the world and can shape our thinking

(Language is thought. Means that if one has not learned words about describing sadness, they will not feel it. )

when children apply language rules too broadly, like saying "runned" instead of "ran." Shows children’s understanding of grammar

an innate mechanism that helps children learn language naturally through exposure, requiring minimal explicit teaching from adults. proposed by Chomsky.

Fluid Intelligence: ability to deal with new and unusual problems. Component of general intelligence

Crystallized intelligence: knowledge and skills gained from past experiences and learning. Component of general intelligence

Analytical intelligence: ability to break down problems into component parts for problem solving

Creative intelligence: ability to deal with unfamiliar problems and generate innovative ideas and solutions

Practical intelligence: ability to reason skillfully in day-to-day life.

presence of unusual talents that contrast with low levels of general intelligence. In disabled individuals.

persistent differences in academic performance between groups, often linked to factors like income, race, or gender.

How much of the variation in a characteristic (phenotype) is influenced by genetics (genotype) rather than environmental factors.

cycle by which one’s belief can affect behavior to make the beliefs come true.

Aptitude tests measure ability in specific areas

Achievement tests measure what has already been learned

Intelligence test measure comprehensive capability across all relevant domains

How do we know what relevant domains are?

Process of ensuring tests and procedures are consistent, making results more meaningful, reliable, and comparable across different people and groups

The extent to which a test produces consistent results

The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

A statistical technique developed by Charles Spearman that involves analyzing interrelations among different tests to identify common factors underlying the scores

focuses on measuring psychological traits and abilities, using standardized tests and assessments to quantify attributes like intelligence, personality, and attitudes. (spearman)

two factor theory (has predictive validity)
Factor 1 is g, or general ability
Factor 2, is s, or specific abilities (aptitudes)

Intelligence is expressed in many ways (low predictive validity)
Intelligence is the product of many communicating systems

Gardner’s 7 intelligences
Logical/mathematical***
Verbal(linguistic)*** Spatial Intra-personal
Social
Body/kinesthetic
Musical

Processing speed
Acquiring new mental processes (or habits)
Inhibiting previously learned mental processes
Knowledge base, or crystalized intelligence

Conclusion: TBD (most evidence supports a “working memory factor”, other evidence points to a 3 factor model:
Updating, shifting, inhibition

be reliable and consistent over time,

be valid, correlating w/ other measures, making good predictions

10 tests in four ability groups:

Verbal comprehension index = g

Perceptual reasoning index = g

--------------------------------------------

Working memory index = information processing mechanisms

Processing speed index = information processing mechanisms

refers to the steady rise in IQ scores over time (today vs. Past/future)

Why this is a challenge to validity: IQ should be consistent over generations

Potential Explanations:
Changing (or bad) tests
Changing people
Changing environments

Flynn effect is more pronounced in developing countries

babies with higher birth weights are more intelligent

IQ goes down with birth order

Parents with high SES are intelligent
Parents with low SES have fewer resources
SES may have a direct effect on intelligence

acute, chronic, direct, and indirect

Primary appraisal: initial assessment of a situation to determine if it is a threat, challenge, or irrelevant
Secondary Appraisal: evaluation of one’s resources and options for coping with a stressor. involves assessing whether you can manage or overcome the threat or challenge.

Alarm: Fear/anger, increased attention, heart rate
Resistance: Apparent homeostasis, but body is still in alarm-mode. adaptive hormones break down cortisol
Exhaustion: Outward damage, depletion of adaptive hormones, Illness, death.

states that acute stress is no proble, but chronic stress is.

explains health as the result of combined biological, psychological, and social factors.

SAM axis: governs the body’s immediate response to a stressful event, enabling the ability to flight or flee

Fight or flight

HPA axis: governs the body’s prolonged response to a stressful event, enabling the conservation of energy

Challenge reactivity: heart pumps out more blood and the vasculature dilate, allowing efficient circulation through the body

Threat reactivity: heart pumps out more blood but the vasculature constricts, preventing efficient circulation through the body

Sustained activation of many physiological systems in response to frequent or chronic stressors

alcohol intoxication leads to a narrowing of attention and mental impairment

molecules released as part of the body’s natural immune response

interaction between environmental factors and a person’s genetic predisposition that determines the unique phenotypes expressed in personality

distinguishes the factors that create a risk of illness from the factors that turn the risk into a problem

study of how life events can change how genes are expressed

some people are more sensitive to both negative and positive environmental influences due to their genetic or biological makeup

Problem focused coping: zeroing in on areas of difficulty and treating them as problems to be solved

Emotion focused coping: reducing the emotional distress caused by a stressful situation, rather than trying to solve the problem itself.

Positive emotions evolved as a signal of safety, allowing for exploration and creativity

Sense-making: make sense of a bad situation

Benefit finding: find some benefit of a bad situation

Parasympathetic nervous system: calms the body down

Sympathetic nervous system: mobilizes the body's response to stress

Somatic nervous system: controls voluntary movements and transmits sensory information to the central nervous system

“speeds” cell aging

Impairs immune function
Acute stress can boost the immune system temporarily
Chronic stress weakens the immune system over time
Cortisol prepares immune response, but immune response is energetically costly. (hormone that cried wolf)

Harms Heart Health
Acute Stressors increase heart rate, blood pressure, blood viscosity, and heart attack
Chronic stressors increase blood pressure, reduce responsiveness of heart rate, and increase risk of heart attack

Stress impairs cognition

Long-term memory:
Increases memory encoding
But impairs memory retrieval

Working memory
Cognitive ability (fluid intelligence)
Narrowing attention (tunnel vision)

Procrastination is an irrational delay of an intended act

2 other necessary components:
Affective response: guilt
Cognitive responses: anticipation of poor performance, irrational cognitions

predicting how you will feel in the future

Identifty and start the smallest task
Label our emotions
Form specific plans
Build a volitional scaffoold
Self-forgiveness or self-compassion

Asked children to explain their incorrect answers on IQ Tests

Qualitative: no directly testable hypotheses

Generative: spawned many new ideas

Sponge: dependent, one-way transmission, passive

Little scientist: independent, two-way interaction, active

Constructivism theory: follows little scientist model, knowledge is constructed by the learner

Equilibrium: previously learned schema explain infant’s observations
Disequilibrium: existing schema cannot explain infant’s observations
Assimilation: apply learned schema to new situations
Accommodation: revising schema to account for errors in prediction

1. Sensorimotor: schema are simple, object permanence is limited
2. preoperational: schema more complex, conservation of matter is difficult
3. Concrete operational: conservation schema is solidified, most schema about *concrete* world are fully developed
4. Fornal operational: schema accommodate abstract as well as concrete relations

Stages overlap and blend together
Critical events are gradual rather than threshold
Progression through stages shifting earlier in development (people are different)

Child and mother study (picking out gifts- mom first vs me firs.) World is centered on you)

Supressing our desires is cognitively demanding
ToM is cognitively demanding
Suppression and ToM compete for cognitive resources

Secure: Adult is Responsive, consistent. Child Feels worthy, loved, confident

Avoidant: Adult is Distant, consistently unresponsive. Child Desires intimacy, but fears expressing this desire

Anxious/Ambivalent: adullt is Abusive unpredictable, volatile. Child is Anxious, disorganized desires

Disorganized: adult is Abusive, unpredictable, volatile. Child is Unstable, fluctuating self-concept

Proximity-and-contact-seeking behaviou:r Baby purposefully approaches caregiver

Contact-maintaining: Clinging

resistant behaviour: Hitting caregiver, avoids being held

Avoidant behaviour: Baby does not greet or gaze at mother

1 or 2 short alleles = mother attachment, hypersensitive amygdala

2 long alleles = secure attachment no matter what! (resistant to depression)

effect or difference due to the members of an age group sharing a common set of life experiences

Cross-sectional design: compares participants of different age groups to one another

Longitudinal design: tracks particpants across time and compares each participant at different time points

Sequential design: tracks multiple age groups across multiple time points

Germinal stage: first two weeks of zygote- cells multiply rapidly, grow to about 100 cells.

Blastocyst: outcome of germinal stage, implants itself in the uterus

Embryyonic stage: inner cells of blastocyst form the embryo.

environmental agents that can interfere with typical development

leads learning disorders, behaviour difficulties, and may have physical differences

produce immune molecules within the central nervous system and play a crucial role in brain development

decreased response to repeated stimulation

increase in responsiveness to something novel following a period of habituation

changes in the ability to coordinate and perform bodily movements

1. Motor skills tend to emerge in sequence from the head to the feet.
2. Motor skills emerge from the center of the body outward

units of knowledge that represent our experiences are used to guide how we interpret new information.

babies are surprised by things they don’t expect. When their expectations are violated, infants tend to stare at the unexpected object or event as they attempt to make sense of it.

Neural proliferation: the creation of new synaptic connections

Synaptic pruning: the trimming back of unnecessary synapses according to a “use it or lose it” principle

Myelination of axons: the process of insulating axons in myelin, which speeds their conductivity and allows information to move more rapidly through the brain and body.

mechanism for establishing attachment early in life that operates according to a relatively simple rule of attaching to the first moving object an organism sees.

use of words, sounds, gestures, visual images, or objects to stand for other things.

in childhood, manipulation of schemas.

a child’s mind grows through social interaction with knowledgeable others.

process of promoting cognitive development by actively challenging and supporting children as they attempt things that are beyond their current capabilities.

Process by which people internalize social expectations and attitudes associated with their perceived gender

mental representation for the concept of gender that includes assumptions about how people with different genders are supposed to think, feel, and act

Preconventional stage: people make moral judgments based on self-interest.

Conventional stage: people make moral judgements based on caring for others and upholding social roles and rules

Postconventional stage: people make moral judgements based on ideals and broad moral principles

refers to a logical thinking ability that allows a person to determine that a certain quantity will remain the same despite adjustment of the container, shape, or apparent size,