Overview of Psychology
Nature, Nurture & Evolutionary Psychology
The Nervous System
Neurons & Neural Firing
Neurotransmitters & Psychoactive Drugs
100

He created the first psychology research lab in Leipzig, Germany; and Edward Titchener's mentor who founded the Structuralism school of thought. He is known as the Father of Psychology.

Who is Wilhem Wundt?

100

Proposed the idea of natural selection that argued behavior and bodies were formed through natural selection.

Who is Charles Darwin?

100

A neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands.

What is an axon?

100

A simple automatic response to a sensory stimulus such as knee-jerk, sneezing, and raising of hands in defense when an insect or object is coming toward us.

What is reflex or reflex action?

100

A neuron's reaction of either firing (with a full-strength response) or not firing at all.

What is the All or Nothing principle?

200

He focused on studying the unconscious mind and believed that people's personality is shaped by unconscious motives; introducing his many Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic theories in his 1899 book The Interpretation of Dreams.

Who is Sigmund Freud?

200

Refers to the external factors or environmental factors that one experiences, such as family interactions, peers, education, culture or the surrounding factors that shapes us after we are born.

What is nurture?

200

It carries instructions from the central nervous system outward to the body’s muscles and glands. They are also called efferent neurons.

What are motor neurons?

200

Are the most abundant cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons. They also play a role in learning, thinking, and memory.

What are glial cells?

200

An excitatory neurotransmitter that affects mood, hunger, sleep and arousal. Undersupply of which is linked to depression.  

What is dopamine?

300

Jean Piaget was the first Psychologist to conduct a systematic study on children. He created and developed the theory which involves the Sensorimotor, Preoperational,  Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational Stages.

What is Cognitive Development Theory?

300

Is the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.

What is Natural Selection?

300

Is the part of the Peripheral Nervous System that controls the body’s glands and internal organ muscles. It is self-regulating and controls involuntary movements.

What is the Autonomic Nervous System?

300

Part of the reflex arc that is responsible for detecting a stimulus. It is connected to a sensory organ (example: eyes, ears, skin), which receives the stimulus, and is highly sensitive to responding.

What is a receptor?

300

A common depressant psychoactive drug that reduces neural activity and impairs physical activity. It is 2nd to coffee in the most used psychoactive drug, and prolonged use shrinks the brain.

What is alcohol?

400

Ivan Pavlov focused his experiments on reflexive (involuntary) behavior with dogs and digestion in his lab in Petrograd, Russia. This was known as Reflex Conditioning but was later known for something else.

What is Classical Conditioning?

400

Refers to the amount of trait variation within a group that can be attributed to genetic or environment difference.

What is Heritability?

400

This state is controlled by the Sympathetic Nervous System, where your body perceives itself to be in trouble, it will work to keep you alive. It also arouses and expends energy, accelerating heartbeat, raising blood pressure, slows digestion, raises blood sugar, and cools perspiration.

What is Fight or Flight?

400

The process of moving the neurotransmitters from the synapse back into the axon of the neuron. The sending neuron then reabsorbs the excess neurotransmitter molecules in the synapse.

What is reuptake?

400

Like endorphins (our body's natural pain killers), these drugs depress neural activity, temporarily lessens pain and anxiety and produce feelings of euphoria.

 

What are opiates?

500

B.F. Skinner, the Father of Radical Behaviorism, introduced the Reinforcement and Punishment theory on his experiment with rats, with his famous Skinner Box. His is a different type of conditioning. 

What is Operant Conditioning?

500

Refers to how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work.

What is Epigenetics?

500

This state is controlled by the Parasympathetic Nervous System, where it calms the body, conserving its energy, decelerates heartbeat, lowers blood pressure, speeds up digestion, and lowers blood sugar.

What is Rest or Digest?

500

The state when the axon's surface is selectively permeable. The neuron has an overall charge of –70 MV because mostly negative ions are within the cell and mostly positive ions are surrounding it.

What is resting potential?

500

Neurotransmitter that decreases the likelihood of an action potential being transmitted to another cell. It makes an action potential less likely to happen.

What is an inhibitory neurotransmitter?