Biology
Part of the limbic system that helps process explicit (conscious) memories of facts and events for storage
What is the Hippocampus?
The process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina
What is Accommodation?
Increasing behaviors by presenting desirable rewards
What is Positive Reinforcement?
A set of expected behaviors, attitudes, and traits for males and for females
What are Gender Roles?
Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically
What is Chunking?
An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members
What is Prejudice?
A sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks; the sufferer may lapse directly into REM sleep often at inopportune times
What is Narcolepsy?
Retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray, and are sensitive to movement; necessary peripheral and twilight vision
What are Rods?
A sudden realization of a problem's solution
What is Insight?
Prominent in Piaget's preoperational stage, occurs when a child has difficulty understanding and appreciating the perspective of others
What is Egocentrism?
Expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creativity requires this type of thinking
What is Divergent Thinking?
The perception that chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate
What is External Locus of Control
The phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases the liking of them
What is the Mere Exposure Effect?
A recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur; also known as paradoxical sleep because muscles are relaxed but other body systems are active
What is REM Sleep?
A mass of tissue in the brain responsible for our sense of smell
What is the Olfactory Bulb?
A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake
What is Intrinsic Motivation?
Type of parenting style that is coercive; they impose rules, expect obedience, and are generally less nurturing
What is Authoritarian Parenting?
A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often in a way that has been successful in the past
What is a Mental Set?
Last stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome when the body is depleted of resources due to prolonged or chronic stress
What is Exhaustion?
An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them
What is the Reciprocity Norm?
The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy
What is the Sympathetic Nervous System?
The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time; just noticeable difference
What is Difference Threshold?
Giving an undesirable consequence in order to decrease behavior
What is Positive Punishment?
Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age, especially during late adulthood
What is Fluid Intelligence?
What is Episodic Memory?
One of the Big Five personality traits that is characterized by excitability, sociability, talkativeness, and emotional expressiveness
What is Extraversion?
Reason for conformity resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
What is Normative Social Influence?
Our biological clock; regular bodily rhythms that occur on a 24-hour cycle, like body temperature or wakefulness
What is Circadian Rhythm?
The monocular cue that helps us determine determine distance - as objects get further away, they become finer, smoother, and more densely packed
What is Texture Gradient?
A mental representation of the layout of one's environment
What is Cognitive Map?
The system in Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory that refers to groups that have direct contact with the individual (ex: parents, peers, teachers)
What is the Microsystem?
The forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information
What is Proactive Interference?
One of the Big Five personality traits that is characterized by moodiness, anxiety, and emotional instability
What is Neuroticism?
Explaining the behavior of others and ourselves based on stable personality characteristics and traits
What is a Dispositional Attribution?