Psychology Quiz 1

Front 1

scientific skepticism

Back 1

evaluating all claims with an open mind, but insisting on evidence

Front 2

Oberg's Dictum

Back 2

"Keeping an open mind is a virtue, so long as it's not so open our brains fall out."

Front 3

Basic Principles of Critical Thinking

Back 3

1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence 2. Falsifiability 3. Occam's Razor 4. Replicability 5. Ruling out Rival Hypotheses 6. Correlation isn't causation

Front 4

Extraordinary Claims Require extraordinary evidence

Back 4

a handful of researchers believe in alien abduction but what would it take to scientifically prove existence

Front 5

Falsifiability

Back 5

For a theory to be meaningful, it must be able to be tested

Front 6

Barnum Statements (Part of Falsifiability)

Back 6

Statements that tend to be true for everyone

Front 7

Occam's Razor

Back 7

The simplest explanation is the most preferred (parsimony)

Front 8

Replicability

Back 8

A study's findings need to be able to be replicated independently and consistently

Front 9

Ruling out rival hypotheses

Back 9

ex- eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (treatment for Pt stress disorder) is it really lateral movement of eyes or could it be explained by something else

Front 10

Correlation isn't Causation

Back 10

just because two things are associated, doesn't mean they cause one another

Front 11

Egaz Moniz: Prefrontal Lobotomy

Back 11

1940s-50s: surgical procedure that destroyed tissue in small regions of brain in an effort to treat disorders (schizophrenia, depression, OCD etc) theory is that emotional reactions in disturbed are exaggerated because of processes in frontal lobes, lobotomy disrupts these processes

Front 12

heuristics

Back 12

mental shortcuts/rules of thumb that help us streamline our thinking and make sense of our world

Front 13

representative heuristic

Back 13

judging the probability of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype ex- female serial killers

Front 14

base rate

Back 14

how common a characteristic/behavior is in the general population

Front 15

availability heuristic

Back 15

estimating the likelihood of an occurrence based on the ease with which it comes to our minds (ex summer of the shark)

Front 16

cognitive biases

Back 16

systematic errors in thinking

Front 17

confirmation bias

Back 17

tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypotheses and to ignore evidence that doesn't (ex- political debate)

Front 18

hindsight bias

Back 18

tendency to overestimate how well we could have successfully forecasted known outcomes (I knew it all along)

Front 19

Overconfidence

Back 19

tendency to overestimate our ability to make correct predictions

Front 20

Scientific Method

Back 20

1) turn a general theory into a hypothesis 2) specify what we will be studying (determine variables) 3)collect data (measure variables reliably and validly) 4)analyze data 5)draw conclusions

Front 21

6 types of research studies

Back 21

1) naturalistic observation 2) case study 3) correlational design 4) Self-report measures 5) Rating data 6)experiments

Front 22

naturalistic observation

Back 22

watching behavior in real-world settings, good when intrusive methods might alter behavior, high in external validity; limitations: people may change their behavior if being watched, low in internal validity

Front 23

external validity

Back 23

extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings

Front 24

internal validity

Back 24

extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences

Front 25

Case study

Back 25

examines small # of people in depth, over long period mostly, advantages- can provide existence proofs, good for studying new or rare; disadvantages- only contain evidence the researcher deemed important, can't tell cause of phenomenon

Front 26

Correlational design

Back 26

examines the extent to which 2 variables are associated

Front 27

correlation coefficient

Back 27

a statistic, r, that summarizes strength and direction of a relationship between two variables, can be +,0,-, range between +1 and -1, bigger absolute value is stronger the correlation

Front 28

r^2

Back 28

percentage of one variable that is accounted for by another variable

Front 29

illusory correlation

Back 29

perception of a statistical association between two variables where none exists (ex- full moon and crazy events)

Front 30

fallacy of positive instances

Back 30

tendency to attend too closely to events that fall in left-hand cell of Great Fourfold Table of Life

Front 31

Self-report measures

Back 31

asking people to rate themselves, wording can make big difference
adv: easy to do, can give insight into internal thoughts/feelings
disadv: assumes people are insightful about themselves and honest

Front 32

response sets

Back 32

tendencies of research participants to distort their responses to questionnaire items

Front 33

positive impression management

Back 33

tendency to make ourselves look better than we actually are

Front 34

malingering

Back 34

tendency to make ourselves appear psychologically disturbed w/ aim of achieving personal goal

Front 35

Rating Data

Back 35

asking people to provide ratings of others that they know well, adv: can avoid some of self-report problems; disadv: halo effect/horns effect, leniency effect, error of central tendency

Front 36

experiments

Back 36

can determine causation; 2 main components are random assignment and manipulation of independent variable

Front 37

confound

Back 37

any difference between the experimental and control groups other than independent variable

Front 38

placebo effect

Back 38

improvement resulting from expectation of improvement

Front 39

blind

Back 39

unaware of whether one is in experimental or control group: ex- John Henry Effect- better than expected performance by control in response to competition

Front 40

Nocebo effect

Back 40

harm resulting from expectation of harm

Front 41

ways to minimize hawthorne effect

Back 41

1) covert observation 2) participant observation

Front 42

general components of good research

Back 42

random selection and reliability

Front 43

inferential statistics

Back 43

allow us to determine whether we can generalize findings from our sample to the full population

Front 44

statistical significance

Back 44

when the outcome of a statistical test shows the probability of results occurring by chance is small (less than 1/20)

Front 45

practical significance

Back 45

real-world importance

Front 46

meta-analysis

Back 46

pools the results of many studies and treats them as if they were one big study

Front 47

Tuskegee

Back 47

researchers studied African american men with syphilis but never informed them they had it or of treatment, men died and wives and children were infected

Front 48

Institutional Review Board

Back 48

reviews all research carefully, with an eye toward protecting participants against abuses

Front 49

informed content

Back 49

researchers must tell participants what they are getting into before asking them

Front 50

Deception/debriefing

Back 50

researchers can mislead about purpose, debriefing can be requested where researchers inform participants what the study was about after

Front 51

forebrain

Back 51

most highly developed part of the brain

Front 52

cerebral cortex

Back 52

largest part of forebrain, 12-20 billion neurons, analyzes sensory info and responsible for high brain functions (think, talk, reason)

Front 53

cerebra hemispheres

Back 53

cerebral cortex divided into two, look alike but serve different, but integrated, cognitive functions

Front 54

corpus callosum

Back 54

large band of fibers connecting two cerebral hemispheres

Front 55

frontal lobe

Back 55

involved in processing, planning, and executing voluntary motor movements and involved in thinking and emotional control, forward part of cerebral cortex

Front 56

parietal lobe

Back 56

processes sensory information about your body (touch and perception) , upper middle part of cerebral cortex

Front 57

occipital lobe

Back 57

back of cortex, specialized for vision

Front 58

temporal lobe

Back 58

site of hearing, understanding language, and storing autobiographical memories- language area is called Wernicke's area

Front 59

Broca's Asphasia

Back 59

difficulties in speaking smoothly and unable to come up with certain words, Broca noticed damage in prefrontal cortex in left cerebral hemisphere in many patients

Front 60

Wernicke's Asphasia

Back 60

damage to part of temperal lobe involved in understanding speech, causes difficulty understanding speech and speaking meaningfully

Front 61

Phineas Gage

Back 61

railroad foreman who had an iron pierce his face and destroyed much of prefrontal cortex, personality changed drastically according to physican

Front 62

acalculia

Back 62

injury to certain parts of left parietal lobe, difficulty in mathematics

Front 63

contralateral neglect

Back 63

damage to right parietal lobe, complete lack of attention to left half of body(may wash or shave only half their faces)

Front 64

anosagnosia

Back 64

inability to recognize a neurological or psychiatric impairment

Front 65

sensory cortex

Back 65

regions of cerebral cortex devoted to vision, touch, hearing, balance, taste, and smell; specific to particular sense

Front 66

motor cortex

Back 66

part of frontal lobe responsible for body movement

Front 67

association cortex

Back 67

regions of cerebral cortex that integrate simpler functions to perform more complex functions, play key roles in perception, memory, attention, conscious awareness

Front 68

sensory and motor homunculi

Back 68

classic drawings of the location and size of areas devoted to each body part

Front 69

basal ganglia

Back 69

two sets of structures buried in forebrain that help control movement, damage to this plays a role in Parkinson's

Front 70

basal forebrain

Back 70

lower part of forebrain, interacts with cortex when it comes to mental activities

Front 71

acetylcholine

Back 71

neurotransmitter created by basal forebrain, use in movement, memory, attention, and dreamingn

Front 72

thalamus

Back 72

part of brain that processes sensory information and serves as a gateway to cerebral cortex

Front 73

brainstem

Back 73

connects with forebrain and contains medulla, midbrain, and pons

Front 74

midbrain

Back 74

helps control head and neck reflexes and modulate motor activity

Front 75

reticular activating system

Back 75

connects to basal forebrain and cerebral cortex; plays key role in arousal, damage can result in coma

Front 76

hindbrain

Back 76

extension of spinal cord inside skull

Front 77

cerebellum

Back 77

small cerebrum in hindbrain, responsible for sense of balance

Front 78

pons

Back 78

connects the cerebellum with cortex

Front 79

medulla

Back 79

part of brain stem involved in breathing, heartbeat, and other vital functions

Front 80

cerebral ventricles

Back 80

internal waterways of CNS that carry cerebrospinal fluid, which provides brain with nutrients and cushioning against injury

Front 81

spinal cord

Back 81

relays signals from peripheral senses to the brain and conveys messages from the brain to the rest of the body

Front 82

sensory nerves

Back 82

bring information to the spinal cord about the sense of touch and about stretch and force of muscle fibers, originate from sensory neurons

Front 83

motor nerves

Back 83

motor neurons send messages through these, causes muscles to contract

Front 84

interneurons

Back 84

neurons in spinal cord that send messages to other neurons nearby and stimulate neurons

Front 85

reflex

Back 85

automatic motor response to sensory stimulus like muscle stretch, relies only on spinal cord

Front 86

limbic system

Back 86

set of brain structures that are the emotional center of the brain; also plays a role in smell, motivation, and memory

Front 87

hypothalamus

Back 87

regulates and maintains constant internal body states by overseeing endocrine system and ANS

Front 88

amygdala

Back 88

plays key roles in fear, excitement, and arousal

Front 89

cingulate cortex

Back 89

contributes to social behavior and necessary for learning how to act in social situations

Front 90

hippocampus

Back 90

involved in formation of new memories and spatial memory (mental maps)

Front 91

Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)

Back 91

part of peripheral nervous system controlling involuntary actions of our internal organs and glands, which participates in emotion

Front 92

sympathetic

Back 92

engaged during a crisis; mobilizes body for action in face of stress

Front 93

parasympathetic

Back 93

active during rest and digestion

Front 94

endocrine system

Back 94

system of glands and hormones that controls secretion of blood-borne chemical messengers

Front 95

hormones

Back 95

blood-borne molecules that influence target tissues and glands

Front 96

pituitary gland

Back 96

"master gland", under control of hypothalamus, directs other glands of body (by releasing pituitary hormones into blood stream)

Front 97

adrenal glands

Back 97

tissue on top of the kidneys that releases adrenaline and cortisol during states of emotional arousal

Front 98

adrenaline

Back 98

boosts energy production in muscles while conserving energy everywhere else

Front 99

cortisol

Back 99

regulates BP and cardiovascular function, as well as the body's use of proteins, carbs, and fats