Psychology 101 exam 3

• Set of symbols used for communication:
• Facilitates thinking, problem solving and decision making.
• unique to humans.
• Supports creative and progressive social interaction

• 1- language production= formation of languge.
• 2- Language comprehension= ability to understand menaing of language

• 1- Phonemes= smallest unit of sound.
• 2- Morphemes= smallest unit of meaning in a language (eg. word pigs has 2: pig and s)
• 3- Syntax= set of rules in a language describing how words are used(grammar)
• 4- Pragmatics= the functional, practical use of language ( body language)

• 1- Pre vocal (2-4 months)= distinguishes phonees.
• 2- Babbling (6 months). meaningless sounds.
• 3- First words (1 year). single word
• 4- Telegraphic speech (by 2) simple 2 words
• 5- Pragmatics (by 3) basic understanding
• 6- Grammar( by 4) understand grammar without education

• 1- Nature= children are genetically programmed at birth to talk.
• 2- Nurture= language is entirely learned/
• 3- Nature & nurture= both theories are important.

• 1- Critical= stage when an individual is particularly open to specific learning.
• 2- Sensitive= Stage when an individual can best acquire specific skills.

• - Critical for speech production.
• - Associated with grammar.
• - Located in frontal lobe/
• - Damage results in:
• 1 Agrammatism= cant use proper grammar.
• 2 Broca's aphasia= difficulty producing speech (difficulty creating speech)

• - Critical in language comprehension.
• - Located in temporal lobe.
• - Damage results in:  
• 1 Wernickes's aphasia= difficulty producing speech (meaningless)

The more words we have relating to a single concept, the more complex our thoughts are about that concept.

Thought s and actions to achieve a desired goal.

• 1- define the problem= define ultimate goal.
• 2- Find strategies for solving the problem:
• - Algorithm= step-by-step procedure to solving problem that guarantees a solution.
• - Heuristic= shortcut to solving problem.
• - Insight= Sudden realization of answer.
• 3- evaluation.

• 1- Confirmation bias.
• 2- Functional fixedness= failure to use familiar objets.
• 3- mental set= tendency to continue the smae method even another approach is better.

is the process of considering alternatives and choosing among them.

• Thinking about our own thougts. includes:
• - Reviewing
• - Self-reflection= thinking about our own identities to modify our behavior based on past experience. 
• - Theory of mind= thinking about another person's feelings.

Activated when a person performs a task as well as when they witness another perform a task.

• 1-Obsessive-compulsive Disorders (OCD)
• - seratonin imbalance.
• - characterized by the presence of anxiety-producing obsessions
• 2- Schizophrenia
• - lost touch with reality.
• -experiences hallucinations, delusions. etc.
• - linked to genetics, affects 1% of population.
• -possitive symptoms= excesses of thought, emotion, or/and behavior.
• - negative symptoms= deficits of thought, emotion or/and behavior.

is the study of how the actual, implied, or imagined presence of others influences our thoughts, feelings and, actions.

• how people perceive, interpret, and categorize their own and others' behavior.
• 1- Attitudes= Relatively stable and long-lasting evaluations of things and people.
• 2- Attributions= Casual explanations we develop to explain other people's behavior

• - The affective component= how we feel toward the object.
• - The behavioral component= How we behave toward the object.
• - The cognitive component= What we believe about the object.

• - Attitudes develop early through socialization by parents, peers, media and teachers
• - Attitudes change to justify new behaviors ( you recycle, so you change your attitude about global warming to justify why you recycle.

• Emotinal discomfort as a result of  holding contradictory beliefs or behaving in contradictory ways.
• occurs when we have two inconsstent cognitions.
• There are ways to relieve dissonance.
• 1- change attitude.
• 2- change behavior.
• - it was proposed by leon festinger.

It's when people simply infer what their attitudes are by observing their own behavior.

• - Attitudes that are not easily accessible.
• - Implicit association test (IATs)

From the human tendency to identify with a group.

• - stereotypes= Generalized impresions based on social groups. (are, race, beliefs)
• - Prejudice= negative attitudes toward members of a social group.(racism, sexism, homophopbia,ageism)

• - Oldest theory of prejudice.
• - Amount of actual conflict between groups determines the amount of prejudice between groups.

• Three processes:
• 1- social categorization: affiliation with one's group.
• 2- Social identity: Forming an identity in the group.
• 3- Social comparison: compare the group favorably to the other groups.(we like to feel good about the group that we belong to.

to try to influence the attitudes of other peoples

• Central route to persuasion= focus on content of the meassage, factual information and logic to change attitudes (factual information)
• - Peripheral route= Focus on superficial information to change attitudes. (attractive spokesperson, catchy jingle)

• 1- foot in the door- Get the target to agree to something small so they can agree o something bigger later.
• 2- Door in the face= Ask for something big knowing you will be turned down, but the  request the smaller item that you really wanted.
• 3- Appeals to fear= Ads make it seem like something bad will happen if you don't comply.

• 1- Dispositional= The behavior was due to the person's disposition or personality.
• 2- situational= The behavior was due to some aspect of the situation.

Reliance of dispositional factor to explain others' behavior

People make situational attributions as actors and dispositional attributions as observers

- Tendency to attribute successes to dispositional attributions and failures to situational.

• - Social norms: social conventions that provide order and predictibality * example. how you ride an elevator.
• - Social roles: Expectations based on social position (set of norms).

tendency to yield to real or imagined group pressure.

act of following direct commands, usually given by an authority figure.

• -Changing to fit groups expectations.
• - In this experiment, Asch found that 75% of participants yielded to implicit group pressure to conform to an incorrect judgement.
• - grooup size and unanimity are a key factor in conformity

Found that 65% of subjects continued to follow orders to administer what they believed to be dangerous electric shock.

• - Legitimacy/closeness of authority figure.
• - Remoteness of victim.
• - Assignment of responsibility.
• - Modeling.

• - Group productivity= optimal group size depends on task.
• - Social facilitation= Improvement in performance because others are present.
• - Social loafing= Exerts less effort in a group task than one would in an individual task.
• - Group polarization= Current attitudes become more intense with group interaction.
• - Groupthink= Faulty group decision making as a result of trying too hard to agree.

• 1- Altruism= motivated by concern of others.
• 2- Egoistic= motivated by a desire to reduce one's own distress to receive awards.

The more people are present, the less likely any one person will attempt to help

• A= Obedience.
• B= Conformity.
• C= Social roles.
• D= Bystander effect.

A broad range of behaviors intended to harm others.

Aggression arises  in response to frustration.

• - Similarity.
• - Proximity.
• - Self-disclosure.
• - Situational factors.
• - Physical attractiveness.

Love involves Intimacy, Passion and commitment.

• - Secure attachment.
• - Avoidant attachment.
• - Anxious-ambivalent attachment.

• - Social phobias= Extreme and persistent fear of social situations.
• - Avoidant personality disorder= Social withdrawal and hypersensitivity to rejection.
• - Dependent personality disorder= Excessively obedient.
• - Antisocial personality disorder= Chronic disregard for and violation of other rights

• - Orbitofrontal cortex= social reasoning, reward evaluation,reading other people.
• - ventromedial prefrontal cortex= reward and punishment processing, interpreting non verbal info.making social and moral assessments and decisions, feeling empathy.
• - Insula= Empathy, reading others.
• - Amygdala= identify emotional facial expresions, pay attention to stimuli

An internal process that activates, guides, and maintains behavior over time.

• behavior is motivated by instincts that are inborn and that are activated by environmental stimuli.
• eg. newborn's reflexes, maternal protection.

Motivation originates from biological needs to maintain the body in a state of equilibrium (homeostasis).

Behavior is motivated by the need to achieve optimum levels of arousal.

Behavior is motivated by internal (intrinsic= wanting to learn) or external (extrinsic= grades,money recognition) incentives of rewards.

When different motives compete, basic survival needs must be satisfied first before we are motivated to satisfy higher level needs such as belonging or self steem

• 1st- physiological= needs(food, water, sex)
• 2nd- safety= feel safe.
• 3rd- love and belonging= need to have relationships.
• 4th- esteem= feel good about one self.
• 5th- self actualization=need to become all that one is capable of becoming.

States that performance on task is best when arousal level is optimal for that specific task.

• - Empty stomach and low blood glucose stimulate lateral hypothalamus.
• - inhibiting  satiety signals from the ventromedial region of hypothalamus.

- Once stretch receptors are activated and blood glucose reaches certain level, the ventromedial hypothalamus will once again become active and inhibit LH

• - Genetics= low metabolism, abnormal leptin gene.
• - Environmental/social= common in people with overweight friends.
• - Psychological= restriction based on beliefs rather than hunger.
• - Interactions among factors

• - Preoccupied with being or becoming fat.
• - Dangerous and results in:
• *blood chemistry imbalance.
• *death (20%).
• - treatmern=
• * cognitive-behavioral therapy.
• * Hospitalization.
• * family therapy.

• - binging and purging= induce vomiting, laxatives.
• - excessive exercise.
• - is tricky to isolate.
• - treatment=
• * behavior modification.
• * cognitive therapy.
• * antidepressants.

• 1- Desire= desire to have sex.
• 2- Excitment= heart rate rises, blood is pump to genitals.
• 3- Plateau= blood pressure, muscle tension, breathing heavy and rapid.
• 4- Orgasm= sudden release of sexual tension and involuntary muscle contraction.
• 5- Resolution= body returns to normal state.

States that gender differences in sexuality have evolved to maximize the odds of survival

• -Genetic influence.
• - Prenatal exposure to hormones.
• - differences in the size of the hypothalamus.

• - Dysfunctions.
• - Paraphilias= exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, pedophilia, masochism, sadism.
• - Gender identity disroder.
• - Medical probles

our need to interact with others, not just survival but for self-worth

that we need competence, relatedness and autonomy to realize our potential

Process of receiving raw sensory information and sending it to the brain.

Process of selecting, organizing and making sense of sensory information

• - Vision= Light waves.
• - Hearing= Sound waves.
• - Smell= Airborne chemicals.
• - Taste= food chemicals.
• - Touch= Pressure.

- smallest amount of stimulus that one can detect.

when constant stimulation decreases number of sensory messages sent to the brain, which causes decreased sensation.

chemical odorants are carried through the air and reach the 5 millions receptors in the nasal cavity then olfactory receptors neurons generate a neural impulse and send it to the olfactory bulb

• - Sweet.
• - Sour.
• - Bitter.
• - Salty.
• - Umami: savoriness

the result of taste and smell working together

• The combination of four skin senses:
• - pressure
• - warmth.
• - cold.
• - pain

• 1- Free nerve endings= near surface of skin(detect, touch, pressure, pain, and temperature).
• 2- Meissner's corpuscles= fingertips lips and palms (transduce sensitive touch information).
• 3- Merkel's discs= near surface of skin
• 4- Pacinian corpuscles= deep in the skin (respond to vibration and pressure)

• 1- Sensory neurons register pressure.
• 2- information sent to thalamus.
• 3- information sent to somatosensory cortex and registers sensations.

• - fast= myelinated pathway.
• -slow= unmyelinated (nagging, burning pain)

• Frequency= determines pitch.
• Amplitude= determines loudness.

• 1- sound waves enter the auditory canal.
• 2- hit the tympanic membrane.
• 3- pass into middle ear containing the ossicle bones( hammer,anvil,stirrup)
• 4- stirrup hits the oval window and creates vibrations that move fluid in cochlea.
• 5- vibrations move the basilar membrane.
• 6- as hair cells move they create electrical impulse that is carried to the auditory nerve.
• 7- signal travels from cochlea to brain stem, thalamus then auditory cortex.
• 8- Auditory information is forwarded to association areas.

• 1- light waves enter cornea.
• 2- pass though pupil.
• 3- pass through lens.
• 4- projects into retina (rods and cones)
• 5- Rods and Cones transduce into neural impulse.
• 6- neural impulse is sent to optic nerve.
• 7- optic nerve carries message from each eye to visual cortex

• Rods= used in peripheral and night vision.
• Cones= used in central color vision, the fovea in the center of retina is all cones

There are three different sensor for color and each type responds to a different range of wavelenghts of light

• -the activation of one cone inhibits another cone, this theory explains color vision at the level of ganglion cells.
• - afterimages, opponent-process theory may explain color afterimages.