The Basics
What is the difference between psychological subfields and psychological perspectives?
Subfields: specific research area (like social, cognitive, developmental, etc.)
Perspectives: philosophical ways of thinking about the goals of psychology/nature of human behavior (like psychodynamic, humanism, biopsychosocialcultural)
What is the difference between emotion-coaching parents and emotion-dismissing parents?
Coaching: view negative emotions as teaching moments, assist the child in labeling and regulating their emotions
Dismissing: ignore, distract, or stop a child's negative emotions
What is qualia?
The way the world looks and feels inside the conscious mind
Describe the OCEAN model of personality.
Openness (open-minded, imaginative, tolerant)
Conscientiousness (detail-oriented, responsible)
Extraversion (social, outgoing)
Agreeableness (friendly, trustworthy)
Neuroticism (worrisome, negative emotions)
These exist on a spectrum!
How is anxiety (emotion) different from Generalized Anxiety Disorder?
Anxiety: brief, direct trigger, manageable
GAD: worried about everything/nothing constantly, difficult to control the worry, distress impairs daily life
What is the difference between psychological scientists and psychological practitioners?
Scientists: conduct research
Practitioners: work with clients
What is adolescent egocentrism?
The belief that a teenager's experiences are unique (personal fable) and that others are always directing their attention toward them (imaginary audience) so they feel self-conscious
What is synesthesia?
An intertwining of the senses
Seeing specific colors when you hear music notes
What is cognitive dissonance?
The tension we feel when our morals/beliefs do not match our behaviors
Often it is easier to rationalize than change the behavior
What is a common misconception about OCD, and what is it really?
Misconception: neat/tidy, particular, germophobe
OCD: obsessions are intrusive thoughts that cause anxiety; compulsions are repetitive behaviors aimed to neutralize the anxiety (& can be time consuming)
What is the IRB?
Institutional Review Board
Ethics committee to protect the rights of participants
What is the difference between dementia and Alzheimer Disease?
Dementia: broad term for symptoms of a degenerating brain
Alzheimer's: a genetic type of dementia (APOe4 contributes to plaques and tangles in the brain)
What is the difference between crystallized and fluid intelligence?
Crystallized: the facts, details, information you know; increases with age
Fluid: how you process information and solve problems; declines in late adulthood
What is the fundamental attribution error?
Our tendency to (when wronged) overemphasize the other person's personal attributes and ignore the situational attributes
What is a common misconception about Bipolar Disorder, and what is it really?
Misconception: hot/cold, mean/nice, "crazy"
Bipolar I: mania + depression (mood disorder)
Why can you suggest causality in an experiment, but not a correlation?
Correlation does not imply causation
Experiments have a control group and experimental group
Which part of the nervous system is made up of the brain and spinal cord?
Central nervous system
What is the difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning?
Classical: triggers involuntary responses
Operant: influences behavior by rewards/punishers
Why does high positive affect and high negative affect feel the same?
Affect is closely tied to physiological arousal
(Think: rollercoaster, scary movies)
What are some positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
Positive symptoms: disorganized speech, delusions, hallucinations
Negative symptoms: lack of speech, motivation, emotional response/expression
What is Professor Kyser's favorite perspective of psychology?
Humanism: we should understand human strengths, aspirations, conscious experience, free will, and potential
What is the difference between an action potential and resting potential?
Action: electrical impulse that moves from the soma through the axon
Resting: voltage maintained by a neuron when it's not sending any electrical messages
How is retroactive interference and the misinformation effect related?
Retroactive interference: the tendency for newer learning to interfere with older memories (Ps read "smashed into")
Misinformation effect: a memory phenomenon where people falsely recall information presented after an event as having been part of the event (Ps reported higher speeds, broken glass)
How is the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility related?
Bystander effect: the tendency for the likelihood of receiving help to decrease as the number of people witnessing the emergency increases
Diffusion of responsibility: the more people in the group, the less any one person feels responsible for the outcome of the situation
What is DID, and what causes it?
Dissociative Identity Disorder: two or more distinct identities alternately control a person's behavior
Alters may present different voices, languages, mannerisms, genders, ethnicities, medical needs
Cause: severe trauma in childhood; child is imaginative and escapes into fantasy; alters can protect the original person