Psychology Exam #2

Every nongenetic influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people & things around us

• Sperm cells come from males
• Egg cells come from females
• Nucleus of each of these cells contain the genetic master code for your entire body

• The biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes
• A segment of DNA capable of synthesizing a protein

• The complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all the genetic material in that organisms chromosomes
• 20,000 - 25,000 genes

A person's characteristic emotional reactivity & intensity

• Refers to neurological regulatory processes, which facilitate a change
• in neural structure by reducing the overall number of neurons and
• synapses, leaving more efficient synaptic configurations

• An understood rule for accepted & expected behavior
• Norms prescribe "proper" behavior

A set of expected behaviors for males & females

The acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role

• Principal male hormone
• The male's greater testosterone output starts the development of external male sex organs at about the 7th week of fetal development

Women's approach to sex is more relational & men's more recreational

• The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes
• The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations & environments studied

The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, & traditions shared by a group of people & transmitted from one generation to the next

• 1.  Zygote - conception to 2 weeks
• 2.  Embryo - 2 weeks through 8 weeks
• 3.  Fetus - 9 weeks to birth

Agents, such as chemicals & viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development & cause harm

• Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulations
• As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes & they look away sooner

Brain systems required to encode & retrieve specific events are not adequately developed to support long term memory before age 3

A concept or framework that organizes & interprets information

• Assimilation - interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas
• Accommodation - adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

The principle that properties such as mass, volume, & number remains the same despite changes in the forms of objects

In Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view

People's ideas about their own & other's mental states - about their feeling, perceptions, & thoughts, & the behaviors these might predict

• 1.  Trust vs. Mistrust - infancy to 1 year; if needs are dependably met, infants develop a sense of basic trust
• 2.  Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt - toddlerhood, 1 - 3 years; toddlers learn to exercise their will & do things for themselves, or they doubt their abilities
• 3.  Initiative vs. Guilt - preschool, 3 - 6 years; preschoolers learn to initiate tasks & carry out plans, or they feel guilty about their efforts to be independent
• 4.  Competence vs. Inferiority - elementary school, 6 years - puberty; children learn the pleasure of applying themselves to tasks, or they feel inferior
• 5.  Identity vs. Role Confusion - adolescence, teen years into 20s; teenagers work at refining a sense of self by testing roles & then integrating them to form a single identity, or they become confused about who they are
• 6.  Intimacy vs. Isolation - young adulthood, 20s to early 40s; young adults struggle to form close relationships & to gain the capacity for intimate love, or they feel socially isolated
• 7.  Generativity vs. Stagnation - middle adulthood, 40s to 60s; in middle age, people discover a sense of contributing to the world usually through family & work, or they may feel a lack of purpose
• 8.  Integrity vs. Despair - late adulthood, late 60s & up; reflecting on his or her life, an older adult may feel a sense of satisfaction or failure

• Authoritarian Parents - impose rules & expect obedience; Ex:  don't stay out too late or you'll be grounded
• Permissive Parents - parents submit to their children's desires; they make few demands & use little punishment
• Authoritative Parents - parents are both demanding & responsive; they exert control by setting rules & enforcing them, but they also explain the reasons for the rules & encourage open discussion when making the rules & allow exceptions

• Secure = in their mother's presence infants play comfortably, happily exploring their new environment; when she leaves they become distressed; when she returns, the seek contact with her
• Insecure = infants avoiding attachment marked either by anxiety or avoidance of trusting relationships

• Primary = the body structures (ovaries, testes, & external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible
• Secondary = non-reproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breasts & hips, male voice quality, & body hair

• Most rapid growth from ages 3 to 6
• Enable rational planning

• 1.  Preconventional Morality = before age 9; focus is self-interest; obey rules to avoid punishment or gain concrete awards; Ex:  if you save your wife, you'll be a hero
• 2.  Conventional Morality = early adolescence; focus is to uphold laws & rules to gain social approval or maintain social order; Ex:  if you steal the drug, everyone will think you're a criminal
• 3.  Postconventional Morality = adolescence & beyond; focus is actions reflect belief in basic rights & self-denied ethical principles

• Tips of chromosomes that wear down with age; this wear is accentuated by smoking, obesity, or stress
• As they shorten, aging cells may die without being replaced with perfect genetic replicas

• Longitudinal = research in which the same people are restudied & retested over a long period
• Cross-Sectional = studies in which people of different ages are compared with one another

• Crystallized = our accumulated knowledge & verbal skills; tends to increase with age
• Fluid = our ability to reason speedily & abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood

• Neutral Stimulus = a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning
• Unconditioned Stimulus = a stimulus that unconditionally - naturally & automatically - triggers a response
• Unconditioned Response = an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (such as food in the mouth)
• Conditioned Stimulus = an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after associateion with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response
• Conditioned Response = a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus

• The diminishing of a conditioned response
• Occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditional stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus
• Occurs in operant conditioning when response is no longer reinforced

The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response

The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses

In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus & stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus

A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher

A pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforcded

Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, & that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely

• Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli which is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response
• Not punishment

• A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli & anticipate events
• Ex:  Pavlov's dog

• Intrinsic = a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake
• Extrinsic = a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment

• Process of observing & imitating a specific behavior
• Ex:  learning our native language

An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer & closer approximations of the desired behavior

• Learning by observing others
• Learn without direct experience by watching & imitating others
• Ex:  know not to touch a hot oven by watching someone else burn themselves on it

• Women's approach to sex is usually more relational & men's more recreational
• Nature selects behaviors that increase the likelihood of sending one's genes into the future

• Individualist:
• Self = independent (identity from individual traits)
• Life Task = discover & express one's uniqueness
• What Matters = me - personal achievement & fulfillment, rights & liberties, self-esteem
• Coping Method = change reality
• Morality = defined by individuals (self-based)
• Relationships = many, often temporary or casual; confrontation acceptable
• Attributing Behavior = behavior reflects one's personality & attitudes
• Collectivist:
• Self = interdependent (identity from belonging)
• Life Task = maintain connections, fit in, perform role
• What Matters = us - group goals & solidarity; social responsibilities & relationships; family duty
• Coping Method = accommodate to reality
• Morality = defined by social networks (duty-based)
• Relationships = few, close & enduring; harmony valued
• Attributing Behavior = behavior reflects social norms & roles

• An emotional tie with another person
• Shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver & showing distress on separation
• Secure & Insecure
• Infants become attached to those - typically their parents - who are comfortable & familiar

• Authoritarian Parents
• Permissive Parents
• Authoritative Parents

• Kohlberg:
• Preconventional Morality
• Conventional Morality
• Postconventional Morality

• Erikson:
• Infancy
• Toddlerhood
• preschool
• Elementary School
• Adolescence
• Young Adulthood
• Middle Adulthood
• Late Adulthood

• The process of observing & imitating a specific behavior
• Observational learning
• How we learn our native languages & various other specific behaviors by observing & imitating others
• Mirror Neurons = frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so; the brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation & empathy