The Brain
What role do biases play in decision-making?
Biases act as mental shortcuts that simplify complex information processing, allowing for faster decisions but often causing systematic, predictable errors
This theory suggests that people change their attitudes to reduce discomfort caused by holding conflicting beliefs.
What is cognitive dissonance?
This term refers to a relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience.
What is learning?
In this controversial 1971 study, participants were randomly assigned as guards or prisoners in a simulated prison at Stanford University.
This type of memory holds small amounts of information for a brief period, like remembering a phone number just long enough to dial it.
What is short-term memory
This largest part of the brain controls thinking, reasoning, and voluntary movement.
What is the cerebrum?
This bias involves overestimating personality traits and underestimating situational factors when judging others’ behavior.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
This part of the brain is responsible for regulating basic life functions like breathing and heart rate.
What is Brainstem?
In this obedience study, participants believed they were delivering electric shocks under the direction of researcher Stanley Milgram.
What is the Milgram Experiment?
The process by which we interpret and organize sensory information to understand our environment.
What is perception
This lobe, located at the front of the brain, is responsible for decision-making, personality, and impulse control.
What is the frontal lobe?
This term describes the tendency for people to go along with a group’s behavior or opinions to fit in.
What is conformity?
This neurotransmitter is associated with pleasure and reward in the brain.
What is dopamine?
This experiment by Ivan Pavlov showed that dogs could learn to associate a neutral stimulus with food.
What is classical conditioning?
This mental process involves transforming information into a form that can be stored in memory.
What is encoding
Which part of the brain is crucial for voluntary movement?
The motor cortex.
This phenomenon occurs when people put less effort into a task when working in a group than when working alone.
What is social loafing?
This term describes the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience.
What is Neuroplasticity?
In this study, Solomon Asch tested how individuals would conform to a group’s incorrect answer about line lengths.
What is the Asch Conformity Experiment?
This problem-solving strategy involves trying multiple possible solutions until one works.
What is trial and error
This part of the brain regulates basic life functions like breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure.
What is the brainstem?
In this classic study, Stanley Milgram tested how far people would go in obeying authority, even when it meant harming others.
What is the Milgram obedience experiment?
This type of conditioning involves learning through rewards and punishments, a concept strongly associated with B. F. Skinner.
What is operant conditioning?
In this famous attachment study, infant monkeys preferred comfort from a soft surrogate over food from a wire one, conducted by Harry Harlow.
What is the Harlow Monkey Experiment?
This cognitive bias causes people to rely too heavily on the first piece of information they receive.
What is the anchoring bias