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Exam 1
N/A
57
Psychology
Undergraduate 3
09/22/2013

Additional Psychology Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
What are the five steps of the scientific method?
Definition
  1. State the problem to study
  2. Formulate a testable hypothesis
  3. Design a study and collect data
  4. Confront the hypothesis with data. Statistical methods can test whether it is consisten or inconsistent
  5. Report the results to the community.
Term
Main-Effect vs. Interaction
Definition
  • Main effect is the effect of a single independent variable on the dependent variable, ignorign all other independent variables
  • Interaction is the joint effect of all independent variables on the dependent variable
Term
Give an example of a field and laboratory experiment.
Definition
  • Field experiments are conducted in a real-world setting (e.g. studying the aggression and intrusion of people in a parking lot with a confederate).
  • Labs have more controle over variables (e.g. listening to classical music with eyes open vs closed)
Term
What is mundane vs. experimental realism?
Definition
  • Experimental: when participants get so stuck up in a study they forget they are in an experiment (labs are high in this)
  • Mundane: if the setting resembles the real world or not (labs are low in this)
Term
What is a confederate?
Definition
A participant in the study that is hired by the experimenters and can manipulate certain factors and people without participants knowing.
Term
What is a quasi-experiment?
Definition
One in which a researcher can manipulate an independent variable but cannot use random assignment.
Term
Some landmarks of social psychology...
Definition
  • Norman Triplett (1897) 1st Social Experiment of bikers who competed against the clock
  • Max Ringelmann (1880's) of pulling on the rope
  • 1908: first two textbooks published
  • 1924: another textbook
  • Gordon Allport's 1954 who studied attitudes
  • Kurt Lewis' person + situation = behavior
  • WWII and the study of the Nazis and soldiers
  • 1950's/60's: started becoming its own field (divided between behaviorism and psychoanalysts)
Term
How is social pyschology distinct?
Definition
It studies how people interact with each other on an individual level, where as everything focuses on other aspects (ex.: anthropology on culture; history on past events, etc.)
Term
What is an operational definition?
Definition
They are the obeservable operations, procedures and measurments that are based on the independent and dependent variables (ex: the frustration-aggression experiment).
Term
What are the two aspects of a true experimental design?
Definition
  1. The researcher has control over the procedures
  2. Random assignment
Term
Are humans the only social and cultural animals?
Definition
  • Not the only social! Many animals have to work in groups to survive (like hunt and eat, support a group, raise young). 
  • However culture is specific to humans (only ones that have a psyche that creates and takes part in culture)
Term
Why do humans have bigger brains? What are they linked to?
Definition
The size of the brain is linked to the complexity of social groups and culture. Hence, we have bigger brains
Term
What is the social brain?
Definition
This term refers to the fact that the brain developed in size and complexity for problem-solving and the ability to understand social interactions more than anything else.
Term
What are the main components of culture?
Definition
  • Shared Ideas: being able to meet unknown people but still have things in common due to culture
  • Culture as a System: a network linking people
  • As a Praxis: shared ways of doing things
  • Information and Meaning: based on meaningful information
Term
What are the differences between the automatic and conscious mind?
Definition
  • Automatic: things your mind does that you don't need to think about (like organizing info, ignoring useless noises, etc.). It's fast, unconscious, inflexible and simple.
  • Conscious: this performs complex operations. It does one thing at a time and is good at combining  information and reasoning.
Term
What does it mean that "nature says go and culture says stop?"
Definition
Natural impulses that we have evolved to have that we can't control (such as sexual desires or aggressive tendencies) are often controlled by what culture allows. You can't just be openly sexual when you see someone attractive, and you can just throw a fist at a random person whenever you get angry. We want to please ourselves and do everything for ourselves, but culture says help your fellow men! It just reinforces the duplex mind.
Term
Is the past, present or future most favored by evolution?
Definition
Future. Being able to think and project to the future allows us to make the best and most efficient cost-vs-benefit tradeoffs. Instead of instant gratification, we work towards future goals, allowing us to be healthier and survive longer. The present is the worst. Instant gratification rarely pays off in the long run.
Term
What are some research example of "putting people first?"
Definition
  • Asch and line test: 3 confederates and 1 participants-- judging the length of lines
  • Milgram's shocking experiments
Term
Upward vs. Downward Social Comparisons
Definition
  • Upward: comparing yourself to people better than you to do better (like a professional athelete)
  • Downward: comparing to people lower to boost self-esteem (you get a better grade than someone and you feel good)
Term
What are the three motives for gaining self knowledge? What is the strongest and weakest?
Definition
  1. Appraisal: wanting to learn the truth about oneself and one's abilities
  2. Self-Enhancement: want to learn favorable or flattering things about yourself
  3. Consistency: getting feedback that confirms what you believe about yourself

Appraisal is the weakest, enhancement is the strongest.

Term
What is self-handicapping? Why do it?
Definition

Putting obstacles in front of yourself so an anticipated failure can be blamed on that.

 

Drinking before a test, or pulling an all nighter, so you can blame the failing grade on the lack of sleep.

Term
What are self-deception strategies? What is a self-serving bias?
Definition
Mental tricks that people use to help them believe that things are false. The self-serving bias is one of these. People take credit for success, but avert blame for failure. (Ex: Doing good on a test is person's doing, doing bad is due to bad luck or a hard test).
Term
What is the overjustification theory?
Definition
The theory that if you start to get rewarded for something that you do just for enjoyment, you will lose the enjoyment of doing them just for fun and do them just for money
Term
What are the three components of the self? Which applies to self-regulation and which to the extended self?
Definition
  1. Self-knowledge or self-concept: information about self
  2. Interpersonal self or public self: self-presentation
  3. Agent-self or executive functioning: decision making

Extended self is interpersonal self

Term
Why are people bad at estimating other's opinions of themselves? Looking-Glass Self.
Definition

Research has shown that people really do act according to how others judge them. However their own concept of what others think is bad. 

 

People are not often truthful and will not always be honest with feedback. People are not always receptive, especially to bad.

Term
Self-knowledge vs. self-perception
Definition
Self-knowledge is intrinsically knowing oneself and acting based off of that. Self-perception is observing one's own behavior and inferring from that who you are.
Term
How is our self-concept related to other's perceptions?
Definition
Fuck I don't know and don't care.
Term
What is the phenomenal self?
Definition
This is the concept of self that is active in our thoughts. We have many facts we know about ourself, but only a few our present at one time.
Term
What is Nisbett's and Wilson's research?
Definition

They researched the car ads. Ones with sexy ladies made guys like them better. However, the guys never knew this (proving introspection wrong). They said things like "it's better, blah blah." Not, there was a hot chick.

 

Stockings, always bought last one they saw.

Term
Self-Reference vs. Endowment Effect
Definition
  • Reference: people remember information about themselves better than any other information
  • Endowment: an item is more valuable when you own it
Term
Why do people engage in self-presentation?
Definition
How people convey their "image" and information of self to other people, consciously or unconsciously. Facebook and social networking is a great example of this.
Term
How can self-presentation lead to risky behavior?
Definition
People who want to "make an impression" and try to do something impressive to wow the specific audience. Drinking in college to fit in, driving a motorcyle really fast, suntanning, etc.
Term
Representative Heuristic
Definition
The tendency to judge the likelihood of an event by the extent to which it resembles the typical case (HHHHHHHHHH vs. HTHHTHTTH)
Term
Availability Heuristic
Definition
Judge the likelihood of an event by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind (ex: after Jaws, people stopped swimming in water)
Term
Simulation Heuristic
Definition
Judge the likelihood of an event by how easy you can simulate it in your head (ex: bronze medal winners are happier than silver b/c it's easier for silver to imagine winning the gold).
Term
Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
Definition
Judge the likelihood by using a starting point (anchor) and then making adjustments (ex: during negotiation, one party starts with the an offer and the next makes adjustments)
Term
Are heuristics good to rely on?
Definition
No, they aren't based in logic and information, are based more off of the automatic system. They are not thought out and calculated.
Term
What are five techniques to reduce cognitive errors?
Definition

Debiasing: getting people to use deliberate processing rather than automatic processing.

 

Meta-cognition: thinking about thinking

Term
Confirmation Bias
Definition
Tendency to notice information that confirms one's beliefs and ignore information that doesn't
Term
Illusory Correlation
Definition
Tendency to overestimate the link between variables that are slightly related or not at all related
Term
Base Rate Fallacy
Definition
Numbers
Term

Gambler's Fallacy

 

Hot Hand

Definition

Believe that particular chance event is affected by previous events and it will even out.

 

Gamblers can go on a "hot streak"

Term
False Consensus Effect
Definition
Overestimate the number of other people who share opinions or beliefs
Term
Illusion of Control
Definition
Belief that one can control totally chance situations
Term
What is a cognitive miser?
Definition
A person's reluctance to do much extra thinking. It depends. Sometimes this happens because they are using high effort processing on something else.
Term
How do people revise their memories to fit their self-concept?
Definition

People who want to change who they are tend to remember their lives different so they seem consistent and match (book: Robertson running for president, disregarding God then using God).

 

People will shuffle and edit facts in their memory to fit what is relevant. "I thought so all along."

Term
How do we know automatic thinking is relatively effortless?
Definition
  • Stroop test (reading colors that are colored differently): realllll easy to just read the letters
  • You do not need to be aware of automatic thinking, not do you intend to do it. They are not deliberate and efficient.
Term
What are schemas and priming? How do they affect each other?
Definition
  • Schemas: a knowledge structure that represents substantial information about a concept, its attribrutes and relationships (dancing schema: movement, rhythm, repetition, music, romance, fashion, art, etc.)
  • Priming: process by which a given stimulus activates mental pathways, enhancing accessibility (hearing doctor will make you think of nurse, hospital, bed etc.)

Priming is how schemas work. Hearing one word of a schema can activate all those pathways in your memory linking it to the other concepts that are part of the schema.

Term
How can priming affect how you think of people?
Definition

Things you hear or experience before you meet a person can affect what you think of them.

 

Study: people were asked to read either a set of words (reckless, conceited, etc. OR adventurous, self-confident, etc.) and then in a separate experiment rate a picture of a man skydiving, racing, etc. People who read the bad words didn't like him cause they were primed with negative thoughts.

Term
How does thought suppression effect health and behavior?
Definition
They have been linked to eating, panic and PTSD. It's impossible to supress thoughts because they automatic mind is ALWAYS running. And no matter how hard you try, it will keep going, forcing you to think about what you're trying to forget. Ex: smokers trying to quit will find it impossible if they try not to think of cigarettes.
Term
Why is there a difference in the number of sexual partners between men and women?
Definition

Men claim to having more partners because it makes them seem handsome, charming and virile. Men will lie to make up more.

 

Women claim to having less partners because they value being choosy. They also look down on having a high number. Women will conveniently "forget" of some partners.

Term
What are the ABC's?
Definition
  • Affect: feelings about self, others and social issues
  • Behavior: actions
  • Cognition: thought processes
Term
What are correlational studies?
Definition
  • DOES NOT PROVE CAUSATION
  • Values range from -1 to +1
  • 3rd variables can be present
Term

Experimental Studies

 

What are confounds?

 

What is between vs. within?

Definition
  • Contain IV (manipulatable) and DV (not manipulatable)
  • Confound: anything other than the IV that can change the DV
  • Between subjects uses random assignment to put subjects in each condition. Within puts each participant in each assignment.
  • Strengths: can show causation and eliminate confounds
  • NOT REAL YO
Term
What was the Aronsyn and Mills (1959) Study?
Definition
  • Studied if severe intiation made a group more desirable. YES!
  • Cover story was to listen to sexy things
  • IV: no intiation, reciting words, reciting scandalous words
  • Listened to recorded conversation
  • DV: rate value of discussion and other participants
  • Confound: sexual arousal played a role
Term

What is the evolutionary approach?

 

What are modules?

Definition
  • Knowledge and principles from theories of evolution are applied ot the mind
  • Characteristics and not the individual are naturally selected in the form of modules
  • Modules are independent mechanisms in the brain that work to solve problems (ex: attracted to women with higher pitched voices b/c they healtheir and shit)
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