Psych/Soc terms
Environment processing, sensory perception
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Depth, motion, form, constancy
o Binocular cues – retinal disparity
o Monocular cues – relative size, interposition, relative height, motion parallax
o MP – closer objects move faster (appear to) than distant objects
o size constancy, shape constancy, color constancy
o Maladaptation – more hurtful than harmful
Weber
o Just noticeable difference, ΔI/I = K
Sensory adaptation
o Touch, hearing, smell, proprioception (sense of self), sight
o Desensitization
Absolute threshold – experiences, alertness, expectations, motivation, 50%
o Subliminal
o Detection correctness
Somatosensation
o Thermoception, mechanoception, nociception, proprioception
o Intensity (frequency)
o Timing
▪ non-adapting neurons, no change in firing rate
▪ Slow adapting neurons
▪ Fast adapting neurons
o Location
Vestibular system, balance, dizziness
o Semicircular canals - position/balance, strength of rotation, spatial orientation
▪ Endolymph
▪ Gravity, buoyancy
▪ Vertigo
o Otolithic organs – utricle, saccule – linear acceleration, head positioning calcium
carbonate
Processing
o Bottom-up, data driven
o Top-down, knowledge driven
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Signal Detection Theory
o Uncertainty
o Radar
o Signal presence - hit, miss
o Signal absence - false alarm, correct rejection
▪ Strength of signal = D’ = noise (false alarm) vs. Signal distribution (hit)
▪ Strategy = C
▪ Conservative strategy (always reject no without signal presence, correct
rejections, misses)
▪ Liberal strategy (get all of hits, false alarms)
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Choice of threshold (importance)
Lowest false alarms and all hits = Ideal observer (C = )
C < 1 = liberal
C > 1 = conservative
Gestalt Principles
o Similarity
o Pragnanz (reduce reality to simplest form)
o Proximity
o Continuity
o Closure (together = seen as whole)
Sight
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Sound
Eye structure
o Sclera – fibrous tissue
o Cornea – epithelia
o Lens, suspensory ligaments, ciliary muscle
o Aqueous humor
o Vitreous humor
o Ciliary body – secretes aqueous humor
o Retina
o Choroid – blood vessels
o Optic nerve
o Fovea centralis (cones), surrounded by macula
o Rods
Visual Sensory
o Light – between EM and gamma rays
o 400 nm (violet) - 700 nm (red)
o Phototransduction – dark current, hyperpolarization, turns on BP cell, then to ganglion
cell, to optic nerve
o Opsin – retinal – bent to straight confirmation, GPCR – phosphodiesterase – increase in
GMP in non-hyperpolarized state – cGMP increase in light excitation, Na+/Ca2+
channels close = dark current
o 60% R, 30% G, 10% B
o Cones – rapid adaptation, rods – long adaptation (light adjustment)
Visual Processing
o Convergence of optic nerves = optic chiasm
▪ All info from right side of brain goes to left visual field
Feature detection, parallel processing
o Feature detection – break down image into parts
▪ Parvo pathway – spatial resolution (still objects), sight of color
▪ Temporal resolution (moving objects)
▪ Magno pathway – encodes motion, high temporal resolution
▪ Feature detection theory – seeing certain things activates different parts of the
brain
o Parallel processing – all features seen at once
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Different frequencies of sound waves travel different lengths along the cochlea
Stapes – oval window – cochlea – round window protracts, hair cells bend
o Membrane in cochlea – organ of Corti – basilar membrane and tectorial membrane
o Hair cells move back and forth when stimulated, hair bundle filaments bend, kinocilium
connected by tip link at tip, gated K+ channel, stretch on spring, Ca2+ influx, APs, spiral
ganglion
Auditory processing
o 20-20,000 Hz
o Cochlear basilar tuning
o High – low frequencies detected further up the cochlea
o Primary auditory cortex
o Tonotypical mapping
Cochlear implants
o Receiver – stimulator – speech processor – sound waves sent as electrical impulse to
transmitter then to receiver, then to stimulator, then to auditory nerve
Somatosensatoin
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Adaptation
o Constant stimulus
o Downregulation
Amplification
o Upregulation
Somatosensory homunculus
o Sensor strip
Proprioception
o Position
o Balance
o cognitive
Kinesthetic sense
o Movement
o Behavioral
Pain
o Nociception
Temperature
o Thermoception
o TrpV1 (also sensitive to pain)
Olfaction and Gustation
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Olfaction
o Pheromones – innate response, chemical signals, mating, fighting
o Olfactory epithelium
o Accessory olfactory epithelium
o Olfactory bulb
o Pheromone pathway - Basal cells – apical cells – olfactory bulb – glomerulus – mitral
cell - olfactory neurons – amygdala
o Olfactory bulb – cribriform plate – olfactory bulb – glomerulus - mitral/tufted cell
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o Atom binding = GPCR – synapse to CP - M/T cell
Gustation
o Umami = glutamate
o Taste buds
▪ Fungiform – anterior
▪ Foliate – sides of tongue
▪ Circumvallate – posterior tongue
o Taste bud – sensory neuron – gustatory cortex
o Labeled Lines Model (particular lines of taste buds)
o All tastes besides sour salty – GPCR
o Sour and salty – ion channels
Sleep and Consciousness
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Consciousness
o Alertness
o Daydreaming (light meditation)
o Drowsiness (deep meditation)
o Sleep
EEG
o Beta – 12-30Hz = waking consciousness, concentration
o Alpha – relaxed awake states, 8-13Hz
o Theta – 4-7Hz, sleep associated
o Delta – 0.5-2Hz
Stages of sleep
o 90 minute cycles
o NREM
▪ N1 – sleep and wakefulness – hypnogogic hallucinations, theta waves, hypnic
jerks
▪ N2 – harder to awaken, more theta waves, sleep spindles (rapid brain activity), K
complexes (suppress arousal, aid memory)
▪ N3 – slow wave sleep – delta waves, deep sleep
o REM
▪ Dreaming, paralysis, paradoxical sleep
▪ Highest prior to waking up
o Cycle stages – N1, N2, N3. N2. REM, start again
Circadian rhythms
o 24 hr. period
o Internal
o Control temperature
o Influence by daylight
Sleep Disorders
o Insomnia
o Narcolepsy
o Sleep apnea (stop breathing)
o Sleepwalking/sleep talking (N3), more frequent in children
Breathing related sleep disorders
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Obstructive sleep apnea
Central sleep apnea (in the brain)
▪ Cheyne-Stokes breathing (heart failure, strokes, renal failure)
o Hypoventilation disorder (due to the lungs)
Hypnosis/Meditation
o Hypnosis – awake, but relaxed, increased alpha waves, can create false memories
o Meditation – self regulate attention and awareness, increased theta waves, increased right
hippocampus, prefrontal cortex activity
Dreaming
o REM sleep
o Lower memory in NREM sleep
o Prefrontal cortex decreased activity (logical thinking)
▪ Conscious and unconscious, maintain flexibility
▪ Consolidation (LTM storage)
▪ Evolutionary theory (threat simulation, problem solving, no purpose)
▪ Freud
• Unconsciousness wishes, urges
• Two components – Manifest Content, Latent Content (hidden meaning)
• Activation synthesis hypothesis (bran stem + frontal cortex) experience
and make sense
Drug Dependence
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Psychoactive drugs
o Depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, opiates
Depressants
o Alcohol, barbiturates, benzodiazepines (enhance response to GAPA), GABA Clchannels, sleep aids
Opiates
o Act at endorphin sites (differ from depressants)
Stimulants
o Cocaine – release dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine
o Amphetamines – increase dopamine
Hallucinogens
o Ecstasy – dopamine, serotonin
o Marijuana is a light hallucinogen, stays in body for 1 week
Dependence/homeostasis
o Lowered heart rate before taking drugs in dependence situations
o Adjust bodily functions, higher tolerance
Routes of drug entry
o Injection – most direct
o Inhalation – quickly
o Oral – slowest
o Transdermal
o Intramuscular
Reward pathway in the brain
o Dopamine – made in ventral tegmental area (mid brain)
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▪ Goes to amygdala, nucleus accumbes, hippocampus, prefrontal campus
▪ Members of Mesolimbic pathway
▪ Serotonin is decreased (satiation)
Tolerance and Withdrawal
o Same amount, different effects
o Withdrawal – reliance, abnormal neurotransmitter activity
Substance use disorders
o Mental intoxication
o Mood (mania, depression)
o Anxiety
o Sleep
o Sexual function
o Psychosis (loss of contact with reality), hear voices, see things, paranoia
o Substance use disorder – effected factors of normal life
▪ Amounts, cravings, recovery, dependence
o Withdrawl
o Tolerance
Treatments and triggers for drug dependence
o Detoxification
o Opiates – methadone, block endorphin receptors
o Reduce cravings, ease withdrawal symptoms
o Tobacco – prevent release/reuptake of dopamine, reduce cravings
o Alcohol – block rewarding effect receptors
o Dysphoria – opposite of euphoria
o Behavioral therapy
▪ In or out patient
▪ Conditioning to shape behaviors
o Cognitive behavioral therapy
▪ Thought patterns, coping behaviors
o Motivational interviewing
▪ Intrinsic motivation
▪ Goal – directed
o Relapse – depends more on addictive potential/environmental factors
Attention
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Divided attention
Selective attention (two things, focus on one at once)
Inattentional blindness (unaware of visual field when attention is centered on one thing)
Change blindness (fail to notice change between states)
Pop out effect
Endogenous cues (has meaning, internal knowledge and attention to follow it)
Cocktail party effect (filter out other stimuli to focus on one)
Selective attention theories
o Shadowing task
o Broadbent’s early selection theory – selective filter – meaning (perceptual processes) response (problem – meanings exist beyond what is heard, ie cocktial party effect)
Broadbent – five factor model of selective attention – inputs into sensory buffer –
selected by filter (physical characteristics), keeps from overload, then to higher level
processing (bottleneck), thenworking memory
o Deutsch and Deutsch Late selection theory – everything has meaning, selective filter to
awareness (time limited)
o Treisman’s attenuation theory – weaken but don’t eliminate information in unattended ea;
attended message – sensory store – attenuating filter – bottleneck – higherlevel
processing – working memory
o Binding problem – how all different aspects of a stimulus piece together to a single object
rather than something in the other visual field
Spotlight model
o Brings attention to desensitized stimulus
Priming (exposure to one stimulus helps respond to another)
Resource model of attention (limited resources)
Task similarity (similar tasks are harder to do at the same time)
Influences on multitasking
o Task difficulty
o Practice (well-practiced tasks require less attention)
o Controlled processes (difficult/demanding tasks)
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Memory
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Information processing model (does not describe where things happen in the brain)
o Input – sensory memory/register
▪ Iconic (sight)
▪ Echoic (sound)
▪ Amount of time predicts memory strength
o Long term memory
▪ Explicit - easy to define
• Semantic - has to do with words
• Episodic - have to do with events
▪ Implicit (have to do with complex topics), procedures
• Procedural – how to do things
• Priming – previous experiences aid new one
o Working memory (short term)
▪ Quantity, not time
▪ 7 pieces of information at a time
▪ Visuospatial sketchpad
▪ Phonological loop
▪ Central executive
• **All create connection to episodic buffer, transition to long term
memory
• Baddeley’s model of working memory
o Encoding strategies
▪ Rote rehearsal (repeating words), no actual encoding takes place
▪ Chunking (ties info in with old info), into meaningful units/groups
▪ Mnemonic devices – info already in LTM
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Imagery (crazier = more memorable)
Pegword system (verbal anchors, ie rhyming words)
Method of Loci (location anchors) - imagining a familiar place to
remember topics
Acronym
Self-referencing – how new info relates to you, preparing to teach
Spacing – how memory is structured (ie spacing out study sessions)
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o Retrieval cues
▪ Priming prepares associations with previous knowledge
▪ Context is environment of what is encoded (context dependent memory), can be
same place or many different places
▪ State dependent memory (ie learning drunk = remember it drunk), or mood
▪ Retrieval can be drawing from LTM and bringing to WM
▪ Free recall
• Recency effect (people tend to remember last few items in a sequence)
• Primacy effect (people might also remember first few items)
• Both of these = serial position effect
▪ Cued recall
▪ Recognition
Memory reconstruction
o Modify memories according to conditions
o False information
o Misleading information (intense words can cause memory changes)
o Source monitoring
o Reproductive memory – retrieve information accurately
o Eidetic – recall accurately and vividly from only spare instances
o Flashbulb memories (vivid, invoke emotional state, subject to reconstruction)
Long term potentiation
o Pre synaptic neurons getting a lot of practice to synapsing with another neuron increases
potential strength = long term potentiation
o How memory and learning are accomplished
Decay (Ebbinghaus)
o Most forgetting occurs rapidly, then levels off
Relearning (learn again, if learned once, it comes quicker)
Interference (blocked ability to recall
o Retroactive (new info impairs retrieval of old)
o Proactive (old info impedes ability to learn new)
Aging and cognitive abilities
o Procedural (implicit) tends to stay stable
o Recognition tends to stay stable
o Semantic memory tends to improve until 60 years old
o Crystallized intelligence tends to improve (ability to use knowledge and experience)
o Emotional reasoning tends to improve with age
o Recall tends to decline with age
o Episodic memory tends to decline with age
o Processing speed tends to decline with age
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o Divided attention tends to decline with age (multiple tasks simultaneously)
Alzheimer’s
o Dementia
o Inability to encode/retrieve recent memories
o Semantic memory and abstract thinking declines
o Language declines, emotions, loss of bodily functions
o Amyloid plaque build up
Korsakoff’s syndrome
o Malnutrition
o Eating disorders
o Alcoholism
o Lack of V B1 (thiamine), cannot metabolize carbohydrates
o Precursor is Wernicke’s encephalopathy
o Make up stories, severe memory loss
Semantic networks
o Connected ideas organize the mind
o Nodes connected by links
o Close relation = shorter link between nodes
o Specifics stored at lower level nodes, generalities at higher level nodes (hierarchical)
Spreading activation
o Pulling up one concept brings related concepts along with it
Response threshold
Cognition
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Piaget’s Stages of Development
o 0-2 = sensorimotor, object permanence
o 2-7 = preoperational, pretend play, symbols, egocentric
o 7-11 = concrete operational, conservation
o 12+ = formal operational, abstract reasoning
Schemas
o Mental models
o Assimilation (incorporate into pre-existing schema)
o Accommodation (adjust pre-existing or make new schema)
Problem solving
o Trial and error
o Algorithm (set intervals/pathway to solve a problem)
o Heuristics (using known material to make assumptions of how to solve a problem,
simplify problem and limit attempts) types below:
▪ Means-end analysis (break down problem, look at biggest one to get to end)
▪ Working backwards (go back to beginning)
o Fixation – getting stuck using a wrong approach
o Insight – when solution presents itself
o Functional fixedness – function of objects are unchanging
o Mental set – fixate on solutions that wprked in the past even if they don’t apply in the
future
o Incubation – answer to problem comes at a later time
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Decision making Heuristics
o Availability – examples come to mind (actual memories)
o Representativeness – matching prototypes
o Conjunction fallacy – two instances co-occurring is more likely than a single one
o Biases
▪ Overconfidence (due to fluency, etc)
▪ Belief perseverance – ignoring unwanted information when having strong
feelings, and cling to what one believes in the presence of contradicting evidence
▪ Belief bias – judging arguments based on what one believes rather than on logic
▪ Confirmation bias – seek only confirming facts pertinent to what one believes
o Framing effects
▪ How situations are presented
Intelligence
o Mental quality, solving problems, adapt to new situations
o General intelligence, g factor (underlies general abilities)
▪ 3 intelligences (Sternburg)
• Analytical (book smarts)
• Creative (new situations)
• Practical (how to solve ill-defined problems)
o Emotional intelligence (how to use emotions in interactions with others)
o Fluid intelligence – reason quickly/abstractly (decreases with age)
o Crystallized intelligence – accumulated knowledge/verbal skills (increases with age)
o Alred Binet – first intelligence test
o Nature vs. Nurture
▪ Heritability – twin and adoption studies, different genes and environments
o Fixed mindset has limited growth capacity
Theories of intelligence
o General intelligence – Spearman – g factor, limited in scope/projection
o Primary mental abilities – Thurnstone – 7 factor theory - were verbal comprehension,
word fluency, number facility, spatial visualization, associative memory, perceptual
speed, and reasoning.
o Multiple intelligences – Gardner – 7-9 independent intelligences
▪ musical-rhythmic,
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verbal-linguistic,
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o Triarchic theory of intelligence – Sternberg – conventional (analytical), creative, practical
Cognitive dissonance
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Holding two or more conflicting cognitions that cause discomfort, may alter
beliefs/behaviors (inconsistency)
May cause modify, trivialize (change importance of cognition), add (make cognition less
uncomfortable), or denial (denying the disagreement or contradiction)
▪ People strive for harmony **
Language
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Broca’s area – speech, frontal lobe, can’t speak = Broca’s aphasia
Wernicke’s area – language comprehension, aphasia = words don’t make sense (fluent aphasia),
language comprehension may be impaired
o Global aphasia = both
• Arcuate visiculis is what connects speech areas, damage = conduction aphasia (understand, but
cant answer)
• Agraphia – inability to write
• Anomia – inability to name things
• Neural/synaptic plasticity – undamaged parts of brain take over damaged parts
• Loss of communication between hemispheres = split-brain patient
• Contralateral organization (crossed processing fields in brain)
• Theories of language
o Universalist – thought determines language
o Piaget theory of cognitive development – cognitive throughs influence language
o Vygotsky – language and thought are independent
o Linguistic determinism – language influences through
▪ Weak – language influences thought
▪ Strong – language determines through (Whorfian hypothesis)
• Theories of language development
o Nativist - (innatist) - children are born with language learning ability
▪ Chomsky
▪ Language acquisition device only operates during critical period
▪ Universal grammar
▪ Critical period (0-9) - child is most able to learn a language
o Learning theorists – children only acquire language through reinforcement
▪ Does not support sentence formation
o Interactioninst - children desire to communicate with others
▪ Vygotsky
Limbic system
• Hippocampus (forms new memories), thalamus (relay station), hypothalamus (ANS relay center
for emotion), amygdala (anger center)
• Cerebral hemispheres
o Positive emotions and sociability evoke more activity on left side, negative and solitary
on right
o Prefrontal cortex – high order functions
o Phineas Gage – prefrontal cortex damage, changed personality
• ANS
o SNS, PNS
SNS – pupil dilation, decreased salivation, increased respiratory, increased HR, glucose
metabolism, increased epi/norepi, decreased GI activity
o PNS – pupils constrict, increased salivation, increased GI activity, decreased respiratory
rate, decreased HR, increased glucose storage, decreased adrenal activity
Three components of emotion, universal emotions
o Cognitive, physiological, behavioral
o Emotions are temporary, involuntary, positive or negative, vary in intensity
o Ekman – universal emotions – happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise
o Darwin – ability to express and understand emotion is innate, has an adaptive value
Theories
o James-Lange
▪ Event – response – interpretation – emotion
o Cannon-Bard
▪ Event – physiological response + emotion are two independent events that occur
simultaneously
o Schachter-Singer
▪ Event – physiological response – identity reason – emotion
o Lazarus
▪ Event – appraisal – emotion and physiological response are simultaneous
(positive or negative outcome, depends on personal experience, situation, culture)
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Stress
• Stressor - danger/complication
• Stress reaction - physical/emotional
• Cognitive Appraisal
o Two stages – primary (focus on threat), can be irrelevant, benign, or stressful, and
secondary – ability to cope with situation (harm, threat, or challenge)
• Stressors
o Significant life change – ie family death, leaving home
o Catastrophic events
o Daily hassle – minor aggravating events
o Lazarus, Ruffin, McDonald – hassles are most significant forms of stress **
o Ambiant – global, not individual, integrated into environment
• Stress responses
o Cannon – fight or flight response to threats/dangers
o ANS, SNS/PNS
o SNS – adrenaline, cortisol
o Oxytocin – tend and befriend
o Stages of adaptive fight or flight response
▪ General Adaptation Syndrome
▪ Three phases – Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion
• Physical effects of stress
o Heart strain, increased vessel rigidity, chronically elevated blood pressure
o Hypertension, vascular disease
o Coronary artery disease
o Metabolic disorders, ie diabetes, etc
o Damaged reproductive and fetal functioning/development
▪ LH, FSH, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone can be inhibited
▪ Women have more timed and sensitive cycles
▪ Men more likely to have erectile dysfunction
o Lessened immune function
• Behavioral effects of stress
o Hippocampus and frontal cortex have most glucocorticoid receptors
o Depression – anhedonia – inability to feel pleasure
o Learned helplessness – no control, take less and less control, no coping mechanisms
o Anger – Freidman and Rosenane – anger correlated with heart disease
o Anxiety – amygdala activation – fears and phobias
o Addiction
• Stress management (coping mechanisms)
o Perceived control
o Optimism (decreased stress)
o Social support
• Managing stress ▪ Exercise – decrease change of cardiovascular disease
▪ Meditation (lower HR, BP, cholesterol)
▪ Religious beliefs/faiths
▪ Cognitive flexibility (reapproach stress)
Nervous system
• Brain stem
o Mid brain – connects to cerebrum
o Pons
o Medulla oblongata
• Cerebellum
• Cerebrum
• Development
o Forebrain (prosencephalon) - cerebrum
o Midbrain (mesencephalon) - brain step
o Hindbrain (rhombencephalon) - pons, medulla, cerebellum
• Peripheral nerves
o Cranial (12 pairs)
o Spinal (31 pairs)
• Mixed nerves – afferent and efferent neurons, mixed roots
• Functions
o Basic – CNS and PNS
▪ Motor skeletal
▪ Sensory
▪ Automatic (reflexes)
o Higher order
▪ Cognition
▪ Emotions
▪ Consciousness, awareness
• Motor unit
o Lower
▪ Lower motor neuron, skeletal muscle cells
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▪ NMJ
▪ Abnormality = weakness
▪ Atrophy, decreased size
▪ Fasciculations “twitches:
▪ Hypotonia (decreased tone)
▪ Hyporeflexia = lowered muscle stretch reflexes
Peripheral somatosensation
o Position
o Vibration
o Touch
o Pain
o Temperature
▪ Mechanoreceptors – position, vibration, touch
▪ Nociceptors – pain
▪ Temperature – thermoreceptors
▪ Different somatosensations travel to different parts of the brain by different
ganglia
Muscle stretch reflex
o Afferent somatosensory neurons – inter neuron – CNS – efferent (ie lower motor
neurons)– response (inhibitory neurons to muscle on opposite side also excited)
ANS
o Efferent neurons, smooth muscle, cardiac muscle, glands
o SNS, PNS
o SNS – sweat
o PNS – salivate
Gray and white matter
o Gray – somas
o White – myelinated axons
o Outside of brain is gray matter (cortex), outside of spinal chord is white matter
Upper motor neurons
o Corticospinal tract – from cerebrum to spinal nerves to ganglia in PNS to upper limbs
▪ Can cause hyperreflexia if there are abnormalities, muscle spindles are activated
o Corticobulbar tract – for lower motor neurons
o Lack of excitation can cause over excitation upon reflex testing
o Clonus – rhythmic contraction of antagonistic muscles
o Hypertonia
o Extension plantar response
Somatosensory tracts
o Position, vibration, fine touch, pain, temperature, gross touch
o Different somatosensory information inputs are separated and then put together in
cerebral cortex for processing
o Injury = sensory loss
Cerebral cortex
o Parietal lobe
▪ Somatosensory cortex
▪ Spinal manipulation, orientation
o Occipital lobe
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▪ Vision, striati cortex
o Frontal lobe
▪ Motor cortex, prefrontal cortex, Broca’s area
o Temporal lobe
▪ Auditory processing
▪ Wernicke’s area
Hemispheric differences, hemispheric dominance
o Contralateral orientation
o Left = dominant in most people
▪ Language, motor coordiantion, Broca’s and Wernicke’s area
▪ Nondominant hemisphere – emotional tone of language, emotion detection of
others
o Corpus callosum
Old brain
o Mediates survival necessities, simplest structures
o Brain stem
▪ Medulla – heartbeat, breathing, cross over point for nerves
▪ Pons
▪ Reticular formation – sends information to other areas (ie thalamus, relay
station), arousal
▪ Thalamus – relay station
▪ Cerebellum – balance, voluntary movement
Cerebellum
o Movements, motor plan, position sense, feedback
Brainstem
o Cranial nerves
o Midbrain
o Pons
o Reticular formation (autonomic functions)
o Long tracts from cerebrum to spinal chord
▪ Motor and somatosensory
o Cranial nerves, motor/somatosensory and automatic reflexes/functions
Subcortical cerebrum
o Internal capsule – pathways for CNS information, corticospinal tract (upper motor
neurons)
o Corpus callosum
o Thalamus (diencephalon is embryonic structure), sensory, higher order
o Basal ganglia
▪ Motor, cognition, emotion
o Hypothalamus, pituitary
Cerebral cortex
o Gray matter
o Gyri, sulci, fissures
o Lobes
o Basal ganglia and cerebellum help mediate motor funcitons with cerebral cortex
Neurotransmitters
o Inhibitory
▪ GABA
▪ Glycine
o Glutamate
▪ Reticular actuary system
o Acetylcholine
▪ Basal, septal
o Histamine
▪ Hypothalamus origin
o Norepinephrine
▪ Locus cuernlens
o Dopamine
▪ VTA
▪ Substantin nigra
▪ Dopaminergic neurons in hypothalamus
• Methods of brain study
o Appearance, brain injury
o Phrenology
▪ Studies of different tasks
o Paul Broca – Patient Tan
▪ Frontal lobe issue, speech production
• Lesion studies, experimental ablation
o Surgical, aspiration, tissue removal
o Destroy cell bodies of neurons and axons that are passing through
o Neurochemical lesions, excitotoxins (Kenic acid)
o Oxidopamine (6-hydroxydopamine)
▪ Model for Parkinson’s
▪ Substantia nigra neurons (dopaminergic) destroued
o Cortical cooling (cryogenic blockade)
▪ Temporary inhibition
• Modern brain studies
o Brain structure
▪ CAT scan - used to view cross sections of an object
▪ MRI – no x rays or ionization like CT or PET scan, used to visualize anatomy
o Brain function
▪ EEG - record brain electrical activity,
▪ MEG (SQUIDS) - better resolution, rarer
o FMRI – tasks identification, oxygenated parts of brain
o PET – glucose reading, best for measuring local brain activity
• Endocrine influences on behavior
o Gland – hormone – effect
o Autocrine, paracrine, endocrine
o Hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal glands, gonads, pancreas/digestive
o Chemical messengers
▪ Proteins, steroid (derived from cholesterol)
▪ Tyrosine derivatives
• TH, catecholamines
Development
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Sperm – head (with acrosome), mitochondria, tail
Egg – zona pellucida
Fertilization – acrosome reaction, cortical reaction
o Cortical granules in egg eat away at ZP
o Block to polyspermy
Embryogenesis
o Cleavage = zygote
o 16+ cells = morula
o Trophoblasts on outside, embryoblasts leave cavity = inner cell mass, blastocoel
▪ = blastocyst
▪ Blastulation
o Lose ZP, amniotic cavity with epiblasts
o Bilaminar disc formation
o Primitive streak – epiblasts migrate
o Gastrulation – three layers of cells, trilaminar
▪ Germ layers – ectoderm, mesoderm, endoderm
o Neurulation – mesoderm – make notochord (IV discs), induces ectoderm change, neural
plate
▪ Ring structure formation, neural tube
▪ Neural crest cells
o Implantation
▪ Embed in endometrium, trophoblast multiplication and invasion
▪ = adhesion
▪ Syncitiotrophoblasts – trophoblasts embed in tissue, trophoblasts become
cytotrophoblasts
▪ Villi form for nutrient transfer
▪ Fetal blood vessels separated by trophoblasts from maternal blood vessels
o Germ layer derivatives
▪ Endoderm – GI tract
▪ Mesoderm – inner skin, muscles, bones, cardiac tissue
▪ Ectoderm – outer skin, glands, hair, nervous tissue
o Gestation
▪ Pregnancy
▪ Week 0 – count from last menstrual period
▪ Fertilization – embryogenesis (10 weeks) - fetus formation
▪ 24 weeks – 50% survival
▪ Complication rate decreases
▪ Full term – 40 weeks (37-42 weeks) (prior = pre term)
o Motor milestones
▪ 2-5 months – posture, roll over, sit up without support (5-8 months), 5-10 months
= stand
▪ 6-11 months - stand position without support
▪ 7-12 months – crawl
▪ 7-13 – walk with support
▪ 10-14 months = stand up independently
o Motor development
▪ Nature/nurture debate
• Identical twins tend to walk on the same day
• Children around the world tend to develop in the same order
• Space and time factors
• Cultural influences – children should sleep on their backs
o Neonatal reflexes
▪ Breathing reflex
▪ Eye blink reflex
▪ Pupillary reflex
▪ Swallowing reflexes
• All are permanent and involuntary
▪ Neonatal:
• Rooting reflex (turning head)
• Babinski – curling toes when bottom of foot is stroked
• Moro reflex – dissipates 4-6 months, flail arms with loud noise
• Tonic neck – fencing posture, lasts until 6 months
• Galant – skin on one side of back is stroked, baby will move to that side
• Palmar grasp – 3-4 months
• Sucking reflex – 3-4 months
• Stepping reflex – 2 months
• Swimming reflex – put in water, move arms and legs, involuntarily hold
breath, 6 months
• Adolescence
o Sexual maturity, independence
• Puberty
• Males – 13, ejaculation
• Females – 11, menstruation
▪ Primary sex characteristics
▪ Secondary sex characteristics – not required for reproduction
▪ Faster = stronger, more athletic, social influences
▪ Increased tendency for delinquency
• Adolescent brain changes
▪ Cognition changes
▪ Prefrontal cortex – higher order, stops growing in early 20s
▪ Limbic system – continues developing in adolescence (amygdala, hypothalamus)
▪ Corpus callosum – stops soon after puberty
▪ Global changes
• Myelination
• Synapse pruning
• “use it or lose it”
Behavior Genetics
• Temperament, heredity, genes
o Temperament – emotional reactivity, intensity, sociability, established prior to
environmental exposure
o Personality
o Heredity – traits, physical attributes, genetic control
o 30k genes, 20k protein encoding genes -
•
Twin and adoption studies
o Nature vs. Nurture
o Monozygotic = single egg, identical twins, 100 % genetic similarity
o Dizygotic = two eggs, fraternal twins, 50% genetic similarity
o Schizophrenia – children are more likely to develop if a parent has it
▪ Environement could also be a factor
o Problems with twin studies – identical twins may be treated more similarly than fraternal
twins, environment may have larger influence
o Adoption studies – adopted parents similar to adopted child if environment is a factor
o If genetic, biological parents = adopted child
o Genetic = more similarity between identical than fraternal, no differences between
adopted and raised-together twins
• Heritability
o Variation of traits due to genes
o Difference in intelligence is accounted for by 50% by genetic differences
o Heritability is dependent on population of study
• Regulatory genes of behavior
o Responses are due to activation of genes that produce proteins
o Pheromones could induce brain excitation, genetically
o Epigenetics
▪ Methylation (transcription halt)
• Gene environment interaction
o Genes + environment - > behavior
o Fetal attention and environment could trigger genetic activations that lead to certain
behavior
o Phenylketonuria (PKU) - mutations in liver NZ gene (phenylalanine hydroxylase), F not
made to Y, brain development issues
o Genetic predisposition
• Adaptive value of behavior traits
o Overt – observable behavior
▪ Innate behavior (genetically programmed), not modified by experience
• Reflex, orientation (kinesis), fixed-action pattern
▪ Learned behavior (not inherited), extrinsic, adaptable
▪ Complex behavior (innate and modified)
Motivation
• Positive and negative feedback
o Anterior pituitary
o Posterior pituitary
• Estrogen, GnRH, LH
• Estrogen – menstruation = + FB
o GnRH, LH, progesterone also stimulated
o Estrogen – GnRH – LH
o Progesterone – turns off estrogen
• Instincts, arousal, drives, needs
o Instincts
o Drive Reduction Theory
•
•
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▪ Remove punishment to achieve reward
o Optimal arousal/alertness
o Cognitive approach – rational and decision making
o Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
▪ Most basic – complex (top of pyramid)
o Maslow – base to top
▪ Physiological
▪ Safety
▪ Love
▪ Self-esteem
▪ Self-actualization
Incentive Theory
o Reward is presented after occurrence of action
▪ Associate positive meaning to a behavior, influence to occur again
o Reinforcement, positive stimulation
o Removal of punishment = negative reinforcement
o Skinner – person is more likely to do an action that is positively received
o Opposite of Drive Reduction Theory **
Food, sex, drugs
o Food:
▪ Biological – ventromedial hypothalamus = signals full feeling
• Leptin = appetite suppressing hormone
• Insulin
▪ Sociocultural
• Occasions, time, desire, appeal, availability
o Sex
▪ Sexual cycle
▪ Masters and Johnson
• Sexual drive is related to testosterone in both males and females
• Sexual activity increases testosterone levels, which increases sex drive
▪ Sociocultural
• Age, cultural, stimuli, emotions
o Drugs
▪ Genetic, withdrawal, biochemical, dopamine, limbic system
▪ Sociocultural –poor control, curiosity, rebel, stress, low self esteem
Attitudes
o Learned tendency
o Affective (feel emotion)
o Behavioral (act/behave)
o Cognitive (belief/knowledge)
Attitude influences on behavior
o Theory of planned behavior
▪ Best predictor of behavior is strength of intentions in situations
▪ Implications, intentions
▪ Intentions – based on attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control
o Attitude to behavior process model
▪ Events influence attitude, and with knowledge forms behavior
▪ Knowledges guide appropriate behavior
▪ Attitudes shape behavior in certain situations
o Prototype willingness model
▪ Behavior is function of past behavior, attitudes, subjective norms, intentions,
willingness, and models (from modeling/prototyping)
o Elaboration likelihood model for persuasion
▪ Focuses on why and how of persuasion
▪ Info is processed through central route (degree of attitude change is due to
quality of argument), or peripheral route (superficial/non verbal persuasion)
• Behavior influences attitude
o Foot in the door (small – larger), brainwashing, exploitation, small cost payed initially to
lead to greater outcome
o Role playing – eventually feels normal if new role is introduced, attitude changes with
behavior
• Cognitive dissonance
• Situational approach
o Social psychology
o Attribution (infer cause of events/behaviors), internal or external
o External attributions
▪ Consistency
▪ Distinctiveness
▪ Consensus
▪ Consensus + distinctiveness = situation, consistency may be due to the person,
internal
Theories of personality
• Situational approach
• Psychoanalytic theory
o Childhood experiences and unconscious desires influence behavior
o Libido
o Psychosexual development
o Fixation at stages predict adult personality
o Conscious, unconscious
o Id – most of mind, unconscious – demands instant gratification
o Ego – conscious and unconscious - perceptions, thoughts, and judgements
o Superego – conscience – moral judgement
o Ego is bridge between ego and superego
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
• Humanistic theory
o Freud’s theory is deterministic (driven by unconscious desires) and mental conflicts
o Free will, reach self-actualization
o Focus on conscious, not unconscious
o People are inherently good, self-motivated to improve
o 1st theorist – Maslow (HofN)
o Carl Rogers
▪ Needs are nurtured in growth-promoting climate
▪
•
•
•
Two conditions – individual needs to be genuine, and growth is nurtured through
acceptance
Humanistic theory, grow from experiences
Incongruence – contradiction between experiences and self concept
Self concept
Self actualization – realizing potential
Actualizing tendency – innate drive to maintain and enhance organism
Person centered therapy
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Biologic theory
▪ Brain, behavior, inherited/genetic features
▪ Twin studies, study closeness
▪ Genes relating to personality
▪ Longer Dopa4 receptor gene = thrill seeker
▪ Temperament is innate
▪ Environmental factors
Behavioral therapy
o Personality is result of interactions between individual and environment
o Observable
o Psychoanalytic theory – focuses on mental, not observable theory
o Behavioral theorists - don’t take thoughts and feelings into account
▪ Skinner
• Operant conditioning
• Rewards, punishments
▪ Pavlov
• Classical conditioning
• Dog example
• Neutral stimulus with unconditional stimulus = involuntary response
o Environment determines behavior due to response tendencies
o Personality develops over lifespan
o Cognitive theory
▪ Thinking as a behavior, bridge between behavioral and psychoanalytical
approaches
▪ Bandura
Trait Theory
o Patterns of behavior
o Stable characteristic, consistent
o Different genes = different traits
o Myers-Briggs – personality types with set of traits/behaviors
o All individuals possess the same traits
▪ Allport – all of us have different traits, differ between individuals, 4,500 words to
describe traits, three categories; cardinal (direct activities, dominant), central
(less dominant, ie honesty), secondary (higher, ie love for art, associated with
attitudes)
▪ Cattell – 16 essential personality traits, represent basic dimensions of personality
• Global factors of personality – source trait – extroversion, rexeptivity,
anxiety, and self control
▪
•
•
Eyesenck – three major dimensions, degrees of individual expression differ;
extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism
• Reticular formation – differences here account for differences in
personality, mediated by arousal and ocnsciousness
▪ Big five – all people, all populations
• Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism
(OCEAN)
▪ Eyesenck, Cattell, and Big Five – all use factor analysis, Allport does not use this
Observational learning, Bobo doll experiment, social cognitive theory
o Bandura – Bobo doll experiment
▪ Social influence on behavior in children
▪ Learning-performance distinction – learning and performing behavior are
different
▪ Social Cognitive Theory – AMIMotivatd (attention, memory, imitation,
motivation) - describes how the environemnt as well as cognition influence
behavior and decision making, social factors, observational learning, and
environmental factors influece attitude changes
▪ Observational learning
▪ Modeling – seeing behaviors by another person and them doing them
▪ Imitation
o Defense mechanisms
▪ Pathological
• Denial
▪ Immature (not socially accepted in adults)
• Projection – attributes problems to others
• Projective identification – start feeling projections
• Passive aggression – expressing aggression by failing to do something
▪ Neurotic
• Intellectualization – separating emotion from ideals
• Rationalization – excusing that no fault is present, false logic/reasoning,
avoid blame
• Regression – performing behaviors as if at a younger stage of life
• Repression – conscious thoughts pushed to unconscious
• Displacement – individual feels angry toward wrong person (easier
person)
▪ Mature
• Humor
• Sublimation
• Suppression (more conscious than repression), transfer negative
emotions from conscious thoughts
• Altruism
• Reaction formation
Freud – death drive, reality principle, pleasure principle
o Pleasure principle – satiate pleasure, avoid suffering, id
Pleasure replaces reality as we age – reality principle (ego ruled by RP, logical thinking
and planning to control consciousness and the id), long term gratification
o Drive – benefits lives and reproduction, life drive is Eros (love, cooperation, etc)
o Death – out of fear, anger, hate, self destructive
▪ Thanatos, opposite of Eros
Psychological disorders
• OCD
o Uncontrollable, intrusive thoughts, beliefs, ideas
o Negative emotions, guilt, anxiety
o Repetitive rituals
o Fear of contamination, germs, forgetting something, unwanted thoughts about aggressive
or sexual behaviors, excessive beliefs
o about perfection, morality, religion, superstitions
o Risk factors – genes, physiological, illness in childhood, injuries
• PTSD
o Dilated puples, ACTH, cortisol, norepi/epi, SNS symptoms
o Amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and hypothalamus overstimulated
o Reliving evemt, avoidance, hyperarousal, changes in thoughts, feelings, beliefs
o Contributions from personality, perceived control, social support, mental illness, life
events
• Mental disorders
o Biomedical, biophysical, and other perspectives
o IDC-10 – DSM-5 – APA
▪ Classification of disorders
• Mental disorder categories
o Neurodevelopmental
o Neurocognitive
o Sleep-wake
o Anxiety
o Depressive
o Bipolar
o Schizophrenia spectrum
o Trauma/stressor
o Substance related
o Personality
o Disruptive
o Obsessive-compulsive
o Somatic symptom
o Feeding/eating
o Elimination
o Dissociative
o Sexual dysfunction
o Gender dysphoria
o Paraphilic
o Other
• Schizophrenia
o Has nothing to do with multiple personalities
o
•
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•
•
o Elevated dopamine
o Delusions
o Hallucinations
o Isolated, disorganized
o Flat affect (loss of emotion)
o Neurodevelopmental (genetics and environment)
Schizophrenia biological basis
o Psychosis
o Negative symptoms
o Positive symptoms
o Thinner, less tissue in frontal and temporal lobes
o Dopamine pathways
o VTA
o Mesocorticolimbic – ventral tegmental area in brain step (midbreain)
▪ Communication with cerebral cortex
▪ Dysfunction = cognitive symptoms
o Genes, physical stress, psychosocial
Depression biological basis
o Frontal lobe, limbic system, emotions, responses to stress
o Hypothalamus, hormonal regulation
o Raphe nuclei – where many brain pathways start, in brain stem, project to cerebrum
(including limbic system) - serotonin
o Locus coerulens – norepinephrine
o VTA – dopamine
o Neuroplasticity – brain changes WRT experience
o Biological – genetic predisposition
o Psychosocial
Anxiety disorders, OCD
o General anxiety disorder – increase tense, worry, twitching eyelids, trembling
▪ Mostly female
▪ Unclear source
o Panic disorder
▪ Panic attacks
▪ Sudden intendity
▪ Physical symptoms, panic attacks
o Phobias
▪ Focused anxiety
▪ Patterns, etc
o OCD
▪ Obsessions, compulsions
o PTSD
▪ Nightmares, memories, insomnia
Dissociative identity disorder
o (multiple personality disorder)
o Joint influence on thoughts and behavior, distinct entities
o Mannerisms
o Emotional responses
•
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o Denial
o Physical changes
o Can come from child abuse, extreme stress, disorder is rare
o Hillside strangler = faked case
o Controversy
o Role-playing?
Somatic symptom disorder, other disorders
o Physical symptoms
o Any symptom
o May or may not be able to explain
Conversion disorder
o Medical conditions manifesting in psychological symptoms
o Neurological
o Speech, swallowing ,seizures, paralysis
o No explanation
Factitious disorder
o Faking illness, falsify physical symptoms
o Munchausen’s/by proxy
o Sick role
Personality disorders
o Personality = inner experience, behavior
o 10 types
o Odd, eccentric, dramatic, emotional, erotic, anxious, fearful
o Odd/eccentric (cluster A)
▪ Paranoid personality disorder – distrust of other
▪ Szhizoid – emotionally detached in relationships
▪ Szhizotypal – avoid close relationships, odd/magical thinking
o Dramatic, emotional, erotic (cluster B)
▪ Antisocial – often to be criminals, no concern for others
▪ Borderline – brink of emotional/relationship issue, unstable relationships
▪ Histrionic – attention seeking
▪ Narcissistic - big ego, grandiose
o Anxious/fearful (cluster C)
▪ Avoidant – inhibited, feel inadequate
▪ Dependent – submissive, clingy
▪ Obsessive compulsive personality (NOT ODC) - focus on order, perfection,
control
Sleep disorders
(see above)
o Apneas
o Airways, obstructive sleep apnea, central sleep apnea, or chest wall (hypoventilation)
Substance use disorders
o Substance use disorders (mood disorders)
o Psychosis
o Paranoia
o Withdrawal
o Tolerance
•
Biological basis of Parkinson’s
o Progressive neurological disorder
o Motor abnormalities, tremor, increased tone, abnormal walking, low balance
o Substantia nigra – less dark than normal
o Basal ganglia
o Loss of motor neurons communicating substantia nigra to striatum
o Lewy bodies – develop in Parkinson’s - have s-alpha synuclein
• Major depressive disorder
o Decreased focus, sleep abnormalities, feeling sadness/grief at inappropriate times
o Biological factors - decreased activation in prefrontal cortex, serotonin, NE
o Psychological factors – learned helplessness, cognitive distortions (MDD – negative
experiences attributed to internal causes)
o Sociocultural factors – co-rumination, empathy, low SES
• Depression and bipolar disorder
o (manic depressive disorder)
o Manic development can lead to making decisions without considering consequences
o Reckless behavior
o Delusions, racing thoughts, high risk taking
o Manic/hypomanic periods
o Hypomania without full mania = bipolar II
o Full mania = bipolar I1
Social psychology
• Conformity (peer pressure) and obedience (following orders)
o Compliance – does not have to entail belief, goes away when rewards and punishments
are removed
o Identification
o Internalization – integrated into own beliefs/values
o Normative social influence – used to avoid social rejection
o Informative social influence – defer to judgements of others because we feel inferior
• Asch line studies (conformity studies)
o Gestalt psychologists
o People are understood as a whole
o Match lines to a target line, ask if conformity changes answer
o Errors increase in groups
o Perception, judgement, action
o Normative social influence (altering behaviors)
o Informative social influence (changing answers once people saw groups answers, but
here individuals actually believed they were wrong)
o Ecological validity lacked, population was limited, participant suspicion
o Demand characteristics
• Milgram obedience studies
o Just following orders
o (Holocaust inspired)
o Confederate under cover, shock experiments
o Conformity under order
o Take aways – replication, ethics, otrocities
o
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Just world phenomenon (good things happen to good people, justify actions, world is
fair)
o Passing responsibilities (experimenter takes responsibility, not participant)
o Self-serving bias – we ourselves could never commit horrible actions, but put into
situations, we would
o Fundamental attribution error – people behave certain ways due to personal flaws (ingroup would behave in such ways in certain situations)
Zimbardo prison experiment
o Conformity under new given roles
o Stanford prison experiment
o Fear, loss of privacy
o Severe emotional breakdowns
o Personality traits/differences - none seen in the study
o Situational attribution (environment we are put in) vs. Dispositional attribution
o Deindividualization (loss of self)
o Cognitive dissonance – overly justifying behaviors (guards)
o Internalization – participants internalized prison roles
Factors that influence obedience and conformity
o Conformity
▪ Group size
▪ Unanimity
▪ Group states (trustworthiness, etc)
▪ Group cohesion (connections)
▪ Observed behavior
▪ Public response (shunning or acceptance)
▪ Prior commitments (stating up front = more likely to adhere)
o Obedience – following orders without question
▪ Closeness
▪ Physical proximity
▪ Legitimacy
▪ Institutional authoriry
▪ Victim distance
▪ Depersonalization
o Moods, status, culture, personality
Bystander effect
o Diffusion of responsibility theory – less personal responsibility felt when in the presence
of others, influenced by amount of people In group
o Kitty Genovese
o Deindividuation
Social facilitation and social loafing
o Social facilitation (effect) – presence of others increases likelihood of dominant response
of particular behavior will occur
o Nervous energy (increased energy in presence of others)
o Social loafing – put forth less effort in a group task
Agents of socialization
o Socialization – social expectations, how to interact with others
o Family, institutions, peers, mass media
•
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Norms
o Folkways (no punishment if not followed, but common practices)
o Taboos
o Mores (value/belief, produce strong feelings)
o Laws
Deviance
o Theory of differential association – accepting new behaviors in a new group
o Labeling theory – people label behavior as deviant
▪ Primary deviance – deviant behaviors are welcomed by group
▪ Secondary deviance – deviant behaviors result in exclusion
▪ Roles come into play
▪ Role engulfment – role takes place of identity, supercedes other roles
o Strain theory
▪ Deviance results from not obtaining a certain goal
Collective behaviors (against norm)
o Fads (fade out quickly)
o Mass hysteria (fear, terror)
o Riots (damage, ruin property, etc)
o Driven by deindividuation, etc
Learning
o Classical conditioning (learned response)
o Unconditioned stimulus invokes unconditioned response (what we do naturally, like
hamster getting excited in presence of a carrot)
o Neutral stimulus – learned, followed by unconditioned stimulus (ie hamster getting
excited when the fridge door opened) - when it invokes same response = conditioned
response to a conditioned stimulus
o Both stimuli present = trial
o Classical conditioning
▪ Extinction
▪ Spontaneous recovery
▪ Generalization
▪ Discrimination
o Operant conditioning
▪ Positive reinforcement (add a desirable response)
▪ Negative reinforcement (remove)
▪ Positive Punishment (limit bad tendency), ie speeding ticket
▪ Negative punishment, ie taking away drivers lisence
▪ Shaping – practicing to perform an activity, reinforce behavior
▪ Schedules of reinforcement (BF Skinner)
• Fixed ratio – reinforcement only occurs after certain number of instances
• Fixed interval – ie receiving paycheck every two weeks
• Variable ratio – varied amount of reinforcement
• Variable interval – varied timing of reinforcement
▪ Innate behaviors (instincts) - performed correctly the first time stimulus is
present
• Reflexes
•
• Taxis
• Kinesis
• Fixed action patterns (ie mating dance)
• Migration
• Circadian rhythms
▪ Learned behaviors
• Habituation (decrease in response to a familiar stimulus)
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
• Insight learning
▪ Escape learning – terminate adverse stimulus
▪ Avoidance learning – prevent confronting stimulus
o Observational learning, bobo doll experiment, social cognitive theory
o Long term potentiation, synaptic plasticity
o Non-associative learning
▪ Habituation
▪ Sensitization – increased response with subsequent stimuli that are the same
(opposite of habituation)
• Associative learning – grouping things together to learn
o Biological constraints of learning
▪ Classical conditioning – Pavlov
▪ Operant conditioning – Skinner
▪ (both behaviorist)
▪ Taste aversion
▪ Biological predisposition (to learn some associations better than others)
▪ Phobias
Theories on attitude and behavioral change
o Attitudes
o Attitudes influence behavior
o Behavior influences attitude
o Persuasion, attitude change, and elaboration likelihood model
• Message characteristics
• Source characteristics
• Target characteristics (mood of audience, etc)
• ELM – attitudes are formed and changed, we process info in two routes (central,
if intrigued, and peripheral, or disinterested)
• Info is passed through three stages, by target characteristics
• Processing stage – message and source characteristics taken in (central =
deep processing, peripheral = focus on superficial characteristics)
• Attitude change stage – lasting change (central), peripheral is temporary
change
o Reciprocal determinism
▪ Social cognitive theory – interactions between individual and situation,
influences behavior and choice of environment (behavior, cognition,
environmental factors rely on and determine each other)
▪ Reliance = reciprocal determinism
▪ Interaction between behaviors, personal factors, and the environment
▪ Bandura – observational learning (determinants of behavior by others)
o SCT – control
▪ Locus of control, internal or external
▪ Learned helplessness – lack of control = generalized helpless behavior
▪ Tyranny of choice – choices may negatively impact cognition and behavior
• Information overload
• Decision paralysis (inability to make decisions by too many choices)
• Increased regret over choices
o Self control
▪ Desires, temptations
▪ Ego depletion – self control is a limited resource
▪ Implemented by changing environment, operant conditioning, classical
conditioning, deprivation
Individuals and society
• Self identity, self concept, social identity
o Self concept – self evaluation, perception, ideas
▪ Existential (separate, distinct, constant), categorical (age, gender)
o Carl Rogers – humanistic
▪ Self image
▪ Self esteem
▪ Ideal self - Rogers – structures on life experiences, societal expectations, and
admirations of role models
o Social identity theory
▪ Personal identity (personal attributes)
▪ Social identity (race, religion, etc)
o Categorizations (groups)
▪ Pre-judgement
▪ Identification (influence on behavior, acting)
▪ Social comparison
• Self esteem, self efficacy, locus of control
o Self esteem – respect for ones self
o Self efficacy – belief in capabilities
▪ Strong (deeper interests in activities, recover quicker from setbacks) or weak
(opposite effects)
▪ Master of experiences
▪ Social modeling
▪ Social persuasion
▪ Psychological responses
o Percieved control of events
▪ Internal
▪ External
• Theories of development
o Freud – psychosexual (most of personality is developed by age of 5), relative to libido
focuses
▪ 5 stages (old age parrots love grapes)
▪ Oral- 0-1, feeding, adult fixation = smoking, over eating
▪
▪
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▪
o
o
o
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o
Anal - 1-3 toilet training, adult fixation = orderliness, messiness
Phallic – 3-6, Oedipus/Electra, adult fixation = sexual dysfunction
Latency- 6-12 – social skills, no adult fixation
Genital – 12+ - sexual maturity, adult fixation is proper if all other stages are
completed successfully
Erikson – psychosocial development theory, development is lifelong
• 1. 1 yr – trust vs mistrust, virtue of hope, lack = suspicion
▪ 2. 2 yr – autonomy vs doubt, virtue of will, lack = shame
▪ 3. 3-5 yr – initiative vs guilt, virtue of purpose, lack = inadequate
▪ 4. 6-12 yr - industry vs inferiority, virtue of competence, lack = inferiority
▪ 5. 12-18 yr – identity vs role confusion, virtue of fidelity, lack = rebellion
▪ 6. 18-40 yr – intimacy vs isolation, virtue of love, lack = isolation, unhappiness
▪ 7. 40-65 yr – generativity vs stagnation, virtue of care, lack = unproductive
▪ 8. 65+ integrity vs despair, virtue of wisdom, lack = dissatisfaction
Vygotsky– sociocultural cognitive development - influence on cognition, hands on
learning
▪ Attention, sensation, perception, memory
▪ More knowledgeable other
▪ Zone of proximal development (where most sensitive guidance should be
given**)
▪ Language transmission for intellectual adaptation and development of thought
Kholberg – moral development theory – right vs. Wrong, moral dilemma
▪ 3 stages, 6 levels of development
▪ Heinz
▪ Pre-conventional/pre-moral stage – 1. obedient vs punishment, 2. individualism
and exchange
▪ Conventional stage – 3. authority is internalized, but not questioned, good boy
and good girl, 4. law and order
▪ Post-conventional stage – 5. social contract, 6. universal, ethical principle (few
people reach this stage)
Social influences
▪ Imitation
▪ Meltzoff (experiments on self imitation with infants), 12-21 days
▪ Mirror neurons
▪ Roles
▪ Social norms, conformity, seek approval
▪ Reference groups – who we aspire to be like, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors
▪ Culture and socialization
Mead and Cooley – The I and the me
▪ Cooley – everyone in someone’s life influences actions
▪ Mead – only certain people influence perceptions, mode of influence changes
throughout lifespan
• Preparatory stage – imitation
• Play stage – pretend play
• Game stage – generalized other, multiple roles, significant others
• I = response to social self
• Me = social self
▪
•
•
Cooley – looking glass self
• How we appear to others
• We are influenced by what we imagine others think of us
• Correct and incorrect perceptions
Attribution behaviors
o Basic covariation
▪ Internal (dispositional)
▪ External (situational)
▪ Consistency (time)
▪ Distinctiveness (situation)
o Attribution theory – error and culture
▪ Dispositional attribution or situational attribution (internal or external causes)
▪ Constringency, distinctiveness, consensus
▪ Fundamental attribution error – individualistic societies
• Under-recognize situational problems of others, blame someone’s faults
on them as a person
• Actor-observer bias – we are victims of circumstance, we blame out own
faults on situation/reason and others on their personality
• Self serving bias – attribute success to ourselves, and failures on
others/environment
• Optimism bias – bad things happen to others
• Just world phenomenon – the world is fair, people get what they deserve
o Individualistic – attribute success to internal factors, failures are external/situational
▪ Self-serving bias – enhance own self esteem
o Collectivist – failure is internal, success is due to group efforts
o Stereotype threats, self-fulfilling prophecies
▪ Effects on cognition, overgeneralizing, grouping people, profiling
▪ Stereotype threat effect on performance
▪ Prejudice is affective, discrimination is behavioral, stereotyping is cognitive
▪ Self-fulfilling prophecy – initial cognition about a group becomes more true over
time due to our own behavior (positive feedback)
o Emotion and cognition prejudice
▪ Cognition (stereotype)
▪ Affective
▪ Tendency to lead to behavior (discrimination
▪ Authoritarian – militant, inflexible, use prejudice to cope
▪ Scapegoating (minority racial groups)
• Frustration aggression hypothesis
▪ Hypothesis of relative deprivation – people become frustrated when deprived of
something they feel entitled to
▪ Relative deprivation = expected – actual
▪ Extent of RD can lead to collective unrest and upsurge in prejudice and
discrimination
Prejudice and discrimination with respect to race, ethnicity, power, class, prestige
▪ Power – political, economic, personal
▪ Social class – just world phenomenon
o
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Stigma
▪
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Prestige
Social stigma
Self stigma
Overlap between stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination
Internalization of social stigma = rejection, avoidance, condition struggles,
mental illness
▪ Self, family, society, media
▪ Anti-discrimination laws
o Social perception – primacy recency
▪ Primacy bias – first impression counts
▪ Recency bias – most recent events count the most
▪ Memory – primacy and recency have equal effects
o Halo effect
▪ overall positive perception of someone as being good allows us to believe all
their characteristics follow suit
o Devil effect
▪ Progressive reduction in perception due to initial bad impression
o Just world hypothesis
▪ Bad people get what they deserve
▪ Rationalize fortune
▪ Influence world in a predictable way
▪ Threats – people are not always rewarded or punished
▪ Accept reality, correct injustice through petition or legal systems
▪ Irrational – denial, reinterpret events, character of the victim
▪ Attribution theory
o Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, in group and out group
▪ Ethnocentrism - cultural perspective, right vs wrong with respect to custom, our
culture is superior
▪ Cultural relativism – different cultures are valued and equal
▪ In group – us
▪ Out group – them
▪ In group favoritism
▪ Out group derogation
▪ Group polarization – can influence these phenomena further, make view points
more intense
Attribution behavoirs to persons or people
o Self efficacy, esteem, locus of control
o Self concept, identity, social identity
o Social influences
o Learned helplessness, tyranny of choice
Social behavior
o Proximity
▪ Mating starts with meeting
▪ Mere exposure effect – increased liking with exposure
o Physical attraction
▪ Effects with respect to background, environment, etc
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▪ Unrelated physiological arousal
o Similarity
▪ Shared features enhance attraction between people
o Harlow monkey experiments
▪ Attachment
▪ Food vs comfort
▪ Secure base
o Secure and insecure attachment
▪ Ainsworth – strange situation experiment
▪ Secure – child is comfortable to explore, move around, distress dissipated after
mother came back into room
▪ Insecure – unconditional attachment to mother, hysterical after mother left
o Aggression – intended to harm or destroy
▪ Biological, psychological, and socio-cultural influences
▪ Testosterone
▪ Frustration aggression principle – frustration = anger = aggression
▪ Influence due to temperature
▪ Reinforcement modeling – successful aggression = recurrence
▪ Sociocultural – deindividualization, social scripts
o Altruism
▪ Kin selection
▪ Reciprocal altruism
▪ Cost signaling (people are more likely to help those who have helped in the past)
▪ Empathy altruism hypothesis (early in development, empathy influences
altruistic behavior), around age 2
o Social support
▪ Social networks
Social interactions
o Status
▪ Ascribed
▪ Achieved
o Role strain and role conflict
▪ Strain – pulls individual between responsibilities in one role
▪ Conflict – between two/more social statuses
o Primary and secondary groups
▪ Primary – long term relationships
▪ Secondary – loosely affiliated, means to an end
o Ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, in and out group
o Dramaturgical perspective
▪ Goffman
▪ Dramaturgy – front stage = social setting
▪ Back stage = act is over, be yourself
o Impression management
▪ Acts to impress due to front and back stage acting
o Aggression
o Harlow Money experiments
o Altruism
Discrimination – individual vs institutional
▪ Brown vs Board of Education
▪ Side effect discrimination
▪ Unintentional discrimination
▪ Past-in-present discrimination (past events having discriminatory effects in the
present)
▪ Prejudice vs discrimination
• Attitudes, prejudgement, vs actions
o Organizations and bureaucratization
▪ Utilitarian – members payed for efforts
▪ Normative – shared goals
▪ Coercive – controlled (ie military)
▪ Bureaucracy
▪ Iron rule of oligarchy – all societies tend toward bureaucracy
• Conflict theory – power = less likely to give up power
▪ McDonaldization
▪ Ideal bureaucracy
• Weber
• 5 characteristics – division of labor, hierarchy of organization, written
rules, impersonality (equal treatment), employment based on
qualifications
o Social support
Self-presentation, interacting with others
o Cooley – looking glass self
o Mead – I and Me
o Three components of emotion and universial emotions
▪ Cognitive, physiological, behavioral
▪ Temporary, negative or positive, involuntary, vary in intensity
▪ Happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise
▪ Not universal because of feeling the same way, but because of expression
Biological explanations of social behavior in animals
o Foraging
▪ Solitary
▪ Group
▪ Genetics/learning
o Communication
▪ Humans – language, nonverbal and verbal cues
▪ Animals – simpler, same species, different species, auto communication
• Mating, defense, info about food, warning, dominance
o Types of animal communication
▪ Mating, alarm, warning
▪ Chemical – smells, olfactory signals
▪ Pheromones
▪ Scents
▪ Somatosensory, group/pair bonding, electrocommunication, body langyage,
▪ Visual cues, color, mimicry
o Mating behavior, inclusive fitness
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Random mating
Non random mating
• Assortative (problem = inbreeding)
• Disassortative
• Inclusive fitness
o Evolutionary game theory
▪ Reproduction must involve others, environment influences survival
▪ Evolutionary stable strategies – altruism increases success
• Discrimination
o Individual discrimination – from one person toward a group
o More on discrimination above **
Societies and culture
• Social structures
o Microsociology, macrosociology
• Social institutions
o Created by individuals, continue after they are gone
o Form fulfilling a need to mediate societal function
o Education
▪ Inequalities, property taxes, funding disparities, SES issues
o Family
▪ Urbanization, strain on resources, diversity in family forms
▪ Divorce = tension
o Religion
▪ Churches (established religious bodies)
▪ Sects – revivals, protests
▪ Cults
▪ Modernization – less influence on religion, leads to secularization
▪ Reaction = fundamentalism, people return to strict teachings and beliefs
• Social institutions
o Government, economy, health, medicine
▪ Democracy
▪ Communism
▪ Monarchy
▪ Dictatorship
▪ Capitalism
▪ Socialism
▪ Division of labor is functionalist
o Medicalization – depression, ADD, sick role (deviance)
o Delivery of health care
• Functionalism
o Durkheim
o Society from large scale perspective
o Examines stability
o Society heads toward equilibrium
o Society is a bunch of connected structures
o Social facts and institutions
o Structures work together to maintain equilibrium
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o Manifest functions – recognized and intended consequences of institutions
o Latent functions – unintended consequences of institutions
o Interdependence in communities
o Focus on institution, not individual
o Does not explain conflict
Conflict theory
o Focuses on inequalities in a society (feudalism – capitalism – socialism), how society
changes through conflict
o Marx
▪ Society where one group exploits another has seeds of its own destruction
o Thesis (rich run society, working class provides labor), antithesis (reaction, opposes
accepted state)
o Capitalism
▪ Bourgeoisie = rich
▪ Proletariat = low class, only labor to make a living
▪ Synthesis – resolves tension, with middle class
o WEB Du Bois
o Womens suffrage
o Tension against status quo
o Drastic changes in society, but discards stability and unity/status quo
Social constructionism
o What makes something real
o Knowledge and aspects are not intrinsically real, but through social agreement they exist
in human society
o Nations, countries, money
o Concept of self
o Weak – constructs are dependent on brute facts
▪ Institutional facts – depend on social conventions (ie money = paper)
o Strong – no brute facts, society is a product of language and social habits
▪ We create ideas and what we use to explain it
▪ Only explains reality through thoughts of humans, not through brute facts
o Does not consider effect of national phenomenon on society
Symbolic interactionism
o Small scale perspective
o Explanation of individual to explain social order and change
o George Herbert Mead
▪ Development of individual is a social process and meanings we assign to things
o Herbert Bloomer – coined term, 3 tenants
▪ We act based on meaning we give something
▪ We give meaning to things based on social interactions (different between
people)
▪ The meaning we give something is subject to change, is not permanent
o Small scale, gives individuals same importance to society as a whole
Rational choice theory, exchange theory
o RCT – assumes everything people do is rational, weighs costs and benefits to maximize
gain, part of a pattern of choices
▪ Social resources – time, money, etc
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Three assumptions – completeness (all actions are ranked), actions have
transitive property (A>B, B>C, so A>C), and relevant alternatives (if X is better
than C, B is still less than A)
o Exchange theory
▪ Society as a series of interactions between individuals
▪ Weighs rewards and punishments of every interaction
▪ Behavior can be predicted by weighing rewards and punishments of actions
▪ Assumptions – people try to maximize profit (seek reward, avoid punishment),
behavior that results in a reward will be repeated, interactions operate within
social norms, people have access to information to make rational choices, human
fulfillment comes from other people, standards people use to examine
interactions changes over time and is different between people
▪ Interactions – social dependence, interactions with others (survival), subjective
interpretation of rewards and punishment and interpretation of what is socially
acceptable
▪ Limits – gender, ethnicity, class, to decisions
▪ Criticism – how is altruism practiced here, why do people act for others, is every
single social structure justifiable with this theory?
• Feminist theory
o Patriarchal, capitalism society inspired
o Macro-level
o Suppression of women, not always apparent
o Socially acceptable gender-based roles
o Gender inequalities – inherent feature of society through institutions
o Gender oppression – women are oppressed/abused
o Structural oppression – result of capitalism, patriarchy, racism
• Social groups
o Primary group
o Secondary group
o In group
o In group favoritism (preferential treatment to in-group members)
o Social networks
▪ Node – components of social networks (individuals)
o Homophily – birds of a feather flock together
Demographic structure of society
• Age
o Cohorts
o Generations
o Baby boomers
o Silent generation – before WWII
o GI generation – oldest generation alive today
o Dependency ratio – solely age based, 14- and 65+ compared to 15-64 year olds, higher =
more dependent part of population
o Discrimination based on age (access to healthcare)
o Life course theory – aging is social, biological
o Age stratification theory – age regulates behavior
o Activity theory – how age generations view themselves
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o Disengagement theory – people become more self absorbed as they age, reflection
o Continuity theory – people try to maintain a basic life structure over time
Race and ethnicity
o Race – physical differences
o Race formation theory – racial identity
o Ethnicity – shared nationality, religion, language, less defined than racial groups
▪ Minority can dissolve into majority (assimilation)
o Genocide
o Population transfer
o Internal colonialism
o Pluralism – encourages racial variation
Immigration
o Labor shortages
o Reduction in population
o Strain on economy
o Dysfunctional – exploitation of immigrants
o Transnational corporations
o Biased policies based on ethnicity and race
o Glonalization
Sex, gender, sexual orientation
o Male, female
o Biological (sex), identity, expression, attraction
o Intersex
o Gender – expression, social construct
o Transsexual
o Cisgender
o Homosexual, pansexual, heterosexual
o Gay gene
o Gender queer
o Gender roles
o Gender, sex, and sexual orientation are all independent of each other
Urbanization
o Rural = less than 1,000 people per sq mile, less than 2,500 residents
o Urban
▪ Cities = 50,000 or more
▪ Metropolis = 500,000+
▪ Megalopolis
o Functionalist – cities have functions and dysfunctions
o Conflict – inequality, entertainment for wealthy, elite run city
o Diversity of culture
o Symbolic interactionism – different way of looking at life, cultural values
o Industrial Revolution
o Anonymity
o Crowding
o Suburbanization
▪ American Dream
o Urban renewal (revamp parts of the city)
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Gentrification (redone areas target wealthy), push out original tenants
▪ Inequalities in inner city
o Rural rebound
Urban growth
o Neolithic Revolution
o Human capital (knowledge, creativity)
o Gentrification
o Suburbs
o National growth – urban expansion, immigration, succession
o Concentric zone model – cities grow from the center, zones dedicated to each factor of a
city
o Sector model – concentric zones with transportation developments
o Multiple nuclei model – small business districts can develop within large cities
o Growth machine theory – city is not an outcome of natural processes, city isn’t just
organized by spatial geography, but social, political, and largely planned
Population dynamics
o Factors that increase and decrease population, total growth rate
o Fertility, migration, mortality
o Emigration (leaving country)
o Birth rate = per 1,000 people
o Total fertility rate - # children a woman gives birth to in birth giving years
▪ In US = 2.1
o Immigration rate – per 1,000 people
o Population increase = # births + # immigrants
o Mortality rates – per 1,000 people
o Internal migration – large factor in urbanization
Demographic transition
o Population will eventually stop growing when birth and death rates decline, stabilizing
population
o In industrialized countries
o Demographic transition model:
▪ Religion influences on families, cultural influences
▪ High birth rate, large young population, small older population = stage 1
▪ Pyramid shape as middle aged population stabilizes = stage 2
▪ More industrialization, fewer child deaths, upside-down U shaped = stage 3
▪ Focus on careers, fewer births, low birth and death rate, higher life expectancy =
stage 4
▪ Malthusian theory = run out of resources, food shortages
▪ Diamond shape = stage 5
Globalization
o World-systems theory – importance of world as a unit, fluid model, economically
centered
▪ Core, periphery, semi-periphery countries
o Modernization theory – all countries follow path of development from simple to modern,
internal social dynamics
o Dependency theory – reaction to MT, examines inequalities, poor countries export
resources to wealthy core countries to integrate into world system
Hyper globalist – globalization is a justified process
Skeptical – critical, international practices are regional and not global, third world
countries are marginalized
o Transformationalist – no cause or outcome, national governments change as the world
changes
Trade and transitional corporations
o Trade regulatory groups
o Reduced tariffs
o Customs procedures
o Multi/transnational corporations
o Globalization – impacts economy and culture
o Cheap labor in cheap countries
o Outsourcing
o Allocation of resources
Social movements
o Relative deprivation theory – focuses on actions of deprived groups, ie Civil Rights
Movement; relative deprivation, feeling need to do better, current methods don’t work
o Resource mobilization – examines practical constraints, ie access to resources, that sparks
social movement
o Rational choice theory – compare pros and cons
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Culture
• Cultural objects
• Material culture
• Non material culture
• Cultural relativism (without judgement of other cultures)
• Ethnocentrism
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
o Linguistic relativism
o The way language is used affects how people perceive the world
• Culture and society
o Rules, structure
o Institutions (family, education, politics)
o Language, instructions, traditions, ceremonies
o Culture is adaptable, people share culture in a society, culture builds on itself, culture is
transmitted
• Subculture, counterculture
o Subculture – distinguished from meso-level culture of a larger society, supports people
throughout lifespan
o Microculture – ie college sorority, boarding school, transient
o Polygamy
o Polygyny
o Counterculture – values and beliefs differ strongly from the majority culture of a society
o Jim goes to college
o Culture lag – culture takes time to catch up with technological advancements (non
material culture resists change)
o Cultural shock – encountering unfamiliar cultural practices
Diffusion – spread of ideas/inventions from one place to another
Mass media
▪ Functionalist – provides entertainment, agent of socialization, enforcer of norms,
standardized view of society, collective experience
▪ Consumer culture
▪ Conflict – divisions of society (gender, race, class), gatekeeping (control of
media by the elite), dominant ideologies, tokenism instead of diversity
▪ Feminist – underrepresentation, stereotypes, dominant ideologies
▪ Interactionist – how mass media shapes daily behavior, solitary vs group
activities
o Evolution and human culture
▪ Learned, socially transmitted
▪ Charles Dawrin – theory of evolution, interactions between organisms and
environments = survival
▪ Cultural universals – medicine, illness, healing, partnership, language, death
rituals
▪ Evolution and culture shape each other mutually
Social inequality
• Uneven resources
o Wealth distribution
o Class system with respect to education, healthcare, services
o Minorities, poor, impoverished
o Pay gap
o Glass ceiling effect – more poorly represented groups in higher positions in institutions
(gender, race)
o Social exclusion
o Civil unrest
• Social mobility, meritocracy
o Horizontal – within the same class
o Vertical – between classes
▪ Upward – between classes, ie promotions
▪ Downward – demotion
o Caste system - little social mobility, role is determined entirely by background
o Class system – allows for mobility, combination of background and ability
o Meritocracy – people achieve social position solely based on ability and achievements
o Intergenerational mobility (effects multiple generations, ie a child and their parents,
change in social group between classes)
o Intragenerational mobility (effects one individual)
• Poverty
o Absolute (beneath certain level = threatened survival, world value)
o Relative (based on median income in a particular society, societal exclusion, does not
threaten survival)
• Social reproduction
o Transmission of capital and resources between generations
o Social networks, culture, education
• Social exclusion
o Segregation – poor services and resources, voluntary social isolation, predicted by laws
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o Social isolation (fringes from core, discrimination, poverty)
Environmental justice
o Benefits decline and burden increases for the impoverished
o Environmental risk factors based on resources
Residential segregation
o Groups of people separate into neighborhoods (by race, income, etc)
o Concentration “clustering”
o Centralization (cluster in a central area)
o Index of dissimilarity – difference between total segregation (0) and perfect distribution
of groups (100)
o Political isolation – politically vulnerable communities lose power over resources
o Isolated communities may develop a new form of language (linguistic isolation)
o Quality of health/education
o Spatial mismatch – difference between where people live and opportunities
Global inequality
o Differences in life expectancy, access to resources, wealth
o 1/5 = 83% of income
o Poorest 1/5 = 1.4 of income
o Middle 3/5 = <16% of income
o Champagne glass analogy
o Maternal mortality rate – marker for healthcare systems
▪ Lowest in Europe, North America, higher in other regions
Prejudice, discrimination (race, ethnicity, power, social class, prestige)
Health and Healthcare disparities in the USA
o Based on SES, lower access and housing, diet, and food deserts all contribute to lower
health
o Higher risk for pollution exposure in low SES communities
o Higher morbidity and mortality rates for racial and ethnic minorities
o Gender – men use fewer preventative services
▪ Women use fewer reproductive services
o Discrimination of transgender individuals
Intersectionality
o Discrimination in several regards
▪ Overlap of race, gender, faith, ethnicity
Class consciousness, false consciousness
o Means of production
o Owners and workers = class divide
o Working class
o Marxists – workers in working class don’t realize their exploitation or oppression by
capitalist controllers of production
o Class consciousness – workers realize their abuse, realize solidarity, struggle to overcome
oppression and exploitation, ie seizing and obtaining/redistributing means of production
o False consciousness – workers are unable to see their oppression/exploitation, can be
promoted/instilled by the elite
PRACTICE EXAM NOTES
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Vestibular sense – sense of balance and spatial awareness
Generalizability – external validity, being able to practice what is found in other
populations/settings (ie outside laboratory)
SES – not associated with social capital, but with education, financial security, and occupation
Dichotic listening – putting one stimulus in each ear
Shaping – approximating stimulus gives same reward as an exact hit of the stimulus (OC –
Skinner – behaviorist)
Life course perspective – behaviors effect an individual over life stages (ie comsuming alcohol)
Self verification – tendency to seek information that verifies a self concept (not the same as self
serving bias)
Serotonin – regulates mood and appetite
GABA – inhibitory in adults, decreases excitability
MDMA receptors – glutamate, high in hippocampus, can lead to global ischemia
Psychodynamic models – 5 factor, Myers Briggs (personality; introspective; intra/extraversion,
sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, judging/percieving)
Symbolic interactionism – use of language/gesture to define behaviors and meaning of actions
Solidarity – functionalist perspective – social control, inequality, and passive acceptance of
material conditions – conflict analysis perspective
REM rebound
Linguistic relativity – words for objects = better understanding
Dissociative disorder – forgetting events that conjure bad memories
Attitudes – behavioral, affective, cognitive, and subconscious component
Implicit attitudes – observe with observational studies
Explanations of behavior – dispositional, cognitive, situational, affective
Brainstorming
Preventing groupthink – via norm of critical evaluation
Brain hemispheres – verbal = left, music, visuospatial, emotion = right
Conditioned stimulus – discrimination = differentiating between conditioned stimulus and other
stimuli not paired with the unconditioned stimulus; acquisition – neutral (CS) and UCS are paired
for CR
Hawthorne Effect – changes in participation behavior occurs if participants are aware of being
observed
Thomas Theorem – if something is real, it is real in its consequences (interpretation of a situation
causes the action)
Hair cells – mechanical force receptors,
Actor observer bias – attributing actors behavior to internal causes while our own behaviors are
attributed to external causes
Fundamental attribution error – only investigates behavior of another, assumes the other person is
a certain type of person based on their behavior
Habituation = lessened response to a stimulus
Optimal arousal theory
Increasing anxiety in studies = ethical
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Selye – general adaptation syndrome – responses to stressors are similar, no avoidance-avoidance
or avoidance-approach behavior
o Approach-approach = choosing between two desirable things
o Approach-avoidance = something has good and bad outcomes
o Avoidance-avoidance = choosing between two undesired things
Cerebellum – motor functions
Experimental methods – can't be used to study segregation
Primary reinforcers – innately satisfying or desirable, not learned, integral to survival
Secondary reinforcers – learned to be reinforcers
Vicarious emotions – ie empathy, use of mirror neurons to learn emotions learned through
imitation, can be used to diagnose autism
Thorndike – associated with Cattell and Gardner with intelligence theories – first proponent of
social intelligence, the abilty to manage and understand people, renewed by theory of multiple
intelligences by Gardner
Types of movement
o Reflexive
o Rudimentary (first voluntary movement by a child)
o Fundamental (2-7), manipulate body through actions like jumping, running, etc
o Specialized – combine fundamental movements to perform tasks
o Transitional substage – combinations of movements
o Application substage – conscious decisions to apply skills to types of activity
o Lifelong application stage – adolescence
Infantile amnesia – 3.5 years = conscious memory, prior to this memory isn’t consciously stored
for retrieval
Maturation – biological growth in human development
Neural networks – coded routes for information processing
Types of parenting
o Authoritarian
o Permissive
o Authoritative
Dual coding hypothesis – easier to remmebr words associated with images
LTM – explicit (memory with conscious recall), episodic, semantic (knowledge/facts), implicit
(nondeclarative, without conscious recall), semantic branches to procedural (motor
skills/actions)
Response threshold – node does not become activated until it recieves input singals from
neighbors to reach threshold through summation
Mood dependent memory – memory is most accurate when in similar state to which that
memory was formed
Misinformation effect – a tendency to misremmeber, after exposed to subtle misinformation
Positive transfer – old information mediates learning new information
Proactive interference – old info makes it hard for new info to be learned
Retroactive interference – new info interferes with old info retrieval
Neurogenesis – birth of new nerurons
Echoic memory – memory of sound
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Death instinct – Freud – drives aggressive behaviors fueled by unconsious wishes to die or hurt
oneself or others
Surface trait – evident from behavior
Source trait – factors underlying human personality and behavior
Jeffrey Alan Gray – personality is governed by interactions among three brain systems, respond
to rewarding and punishment stimuli
Cloninger – agreed with Gray, linked personality also to reward, motivation, and punishment
Person-situation controversy (trait vs state controversy) - degree to which a persons rections in
a situation are due to personality (trait) or situation (state)
Incentives – external stimuli that encourage or discourage certain behaviors
Principle of aggregation – an attitude affects a persons aggregate or average behavior, but
necessarily each isolated act
Justification of effort – people modify attitudes to match their behaviors
Public declaration – can become believable in absence of coercion or bribery
Catatonic schizophrenia – only negative symptoms present (rigidity, flattened affect, monotone
voice)
Self reference effect – better remember information relevant to ourselves- Rogers
Merton – structural strain theory – deviance is result of experienced strain, can be individual or
structural
Sutherland – differential association – deviance is a learned behavior resulting from interactions
between individuals and their communities
Blumer – collective behavior
o Herd behavior (non permanent loss of rational thought)
o Panic
o Mob
o Mass (formation prompted through efforts in mass media)
o Social movement
o Fad/craze
o Outbreak, epidemic, pandemic
o Moral panic
o Riot
o Mass hysteria
Agents of socialization – family, school, peers, work, religion, government, mass
media/technology
False consensus – assume everyone agrees with what we do
Projection – we assume others have the same belief
Halo effect – presume others have good or bad characteristics rather than investigate their
personality
Physical attractiveness stereotype – type of halo effect, assume someone is more favored in
personality if they are more attractive
Illusory correlation – created between a group of people and a characteristic based on unique
cases (ie good athletes due to being black)
Instrumental function – associated with groups, secondary groups serve these (pragmatic needs)
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Expressive functions – meet emotional needs, primary groups serve these
Bureaucracy – describes administrative body and the process it accomplishes work tasks
Aggregate – share same space but don’t interact or share common sense of identity
Category – share simialr characteristic but otherwise not associated with each other
Mere presence – people are simply in eahc otehrs presence, either completing similar activities
or apparently minding their own business
Normative influence – based on social desirability, wanting to be accepted or admired by others
Informational influence – in group discussion, most common ideas are the ones that favor
dominant viewpoint
Social comparison – evaluating opinions by comparing them ot those of others
Mindguarding – preventing discussion of unpopular opinions in a group
Normative social influence – Milgram – motivation for compliance is desire for the approval of
others and avoid rejection
Informative social influence – complying because we want to do the right hting and we feel like
others know something we don’t
Organizations – utilitarian – members paid for efforts
o Normative – based on morally relevant goals
o Coercive – no choice in joining
Self handicapping – people create obstacles ad excuses to avoid self blame when the do poorly
Self handicapping – create excuse for doing poorly
Social behavior – determined by attraction, proximity (mere exposure effect = prefer repeated,
similar stimuli), appearance, similarity
Frustration aggregation principle – when someone is blocked from achieving a goal, theri
frustration can trigger anger and aggression
Inclusive fitness, altruistic behaviors, game theory (predict large, complex systems such as the
overall behavior of a population)
Opponent process theory – color perception – certain combinations of color we never see,
white/black, blue/orange, and red/green are opposing pairs
Regression to the mean – statistical phenomenon, not a social one
Mead – I and Me is last stage of development to evaluate oneself, I is the part that allows the
Me to be evaluated
Social exchange theory – concerned with decisions regarding multiple opportunities or an
interaction
Rational choice theory – concerned with decisions made between multiple courses of action for
a decision
Methodological individualism – rational choice model argues that all social realities are result of
individual actions and interactions
Functionalism – Durkheim
Conflict – Marx, Gumplowicz, Weber
Symbolic – Mead
Egaltarian family – spouses are treated as equals
Ecclasia – includes most members of society, dominant religious organization
Educational stratification – different edu quality in different geographical areas in a society
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Direct democracy – direct public involvement
Representative dmeovracies – election of representatives
Autocraticies – one single leader
Totalitarianism – unelected leader governs public and private life
Republican – considers public concerns and democratic in nature this way, people
Democracy – elected leaders
Oligarchy – less clear, leaders are elected or unelected
Federalist – governing representative head that shares power with constituent groups
Parliamentary – executive and legislative branches
Presidential governments
Anarchy – spcoeties without a public government
Command economy – planned economy – plans made based on a plan of production
Market economy – economic decisions based on the parket
Mixed economy
Traditional economy – consider social customs in economic decisions
Socialism – resources and production are collectively owned
Communism – socialism, common ownership of production
Welfare capitalism – most of economy is private besides welfare productions
State capitalism – companies are privately run but work closely with government
Mechanical solidarity – allows society to remain integrated because individuals have common
beliefs that lead to each person having the same fundamental experience
Collective conscience – presumes existence of greater social order that guides individual actions
through shared beliefs, morals, and values
Organic solidarity – allows society to integrate through a division of labor, which leads to each
person having a different personal experience
Illness experience – takes the patient’s subjective experience of illness as main concern
High culture – limited to the elite
Cultural diffusion – transfer of ideas from one group to another
Cultural transmission – transfer between generations
Transition shock – period of adjustment
Cultural shock – when disorientation is due to being in new environment
Malthus – population is the result of available resources
Malthusianiam – possible rate of population increase exceeds possible rate of resource increase
o Positive checks – raise death rate
o Preventative checks – lower the birth rate
o Malthusian catastrophe – means of sustenanc are not met to support population
o Neo-Malthusianism – new movement with these principles
Omi and Winat – racial formation perspective – race is not genetic but a social construct that
poses social control to create categories of different people
Raciaization (ethnicization) - social process in which the dominant group ascribes racial or ethnic
identities, perceived or real, to groups that do not otherwise relate to the labels
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Relative deprivation – conscious experience of individuals or groups that do not have the
resources needed for the social experiences and services that are seen as appropriate to their
social position
False consciousness – proletariat – do not recognize the state of class relations under capitalism
Collectivism - economic/social outlook that emphasizes interdependence between people,
would not be part of a profit driven economy
Second order conditioning – classical conditioning – previously neutral stimulus becomes part of
CR when paired with CS, also called higher order conditioning
10% exclusion from sample = weakened research
Cultural continuity – spread of cultural heritage form one generation to another
Categorical perception – perception of distinct categories when there is a gradual change in a
variable along a continuum
Control research conditions – limiting confounds that may affect results
Ethnocentrism – associated with cultural bias
Social constructionism – development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that
form the basis for shared assumptions of reality; meanings are developed in coordination with
others rather than separately within each individual
Serial position effect – tendency to recall first and last parts of a series, middle items become
worse
STM and LTLM = separate systems of memory
Political mobiliation/legal change = changes in laws/legislation about an issue
Institutional change = changing procedural/protocol regulations (ie in a hospital)
Anomie – lack of social norms in a person, person abandons norms and distances themselves
from the community
Intelligense – Spearman = general, Garnder = 8 intelligences, Galton = hereditary intelligence,
Binet = mental age
Latent learning = learning without a chane in behavior
Genetic makeup = causal role limited by environment, also a factor in family studies
Extrinsic motivator – introduced as an outcome of a response
Kholberg – preoperational stage = pre adolescent, punishment vs reward (learn about
consequence)
James – Lange theory = physiological arousal, then emotion (Cannon-Bard = simultaneity, two
factor theory = cognitive appraisal)
Media = agent of socialization for norms and values
Piaget – 5-6 = preoperational = developing conservation; 8-9 = concrete operational
Nations – world systems theory – core nation = industrialized capitalist; semi periphery =
indistrializing, mostly capitalist – periphery = weak, dependent on stronger nations, less
developed than semi periphery countries
Hormones – leptin (released from fat cells to hypothalamus, starvation hormone; melatonin,
serotonin, cortisol
Schedules – FR, VR, FI, VI
Family studies – interactions between parents and children – genes and observational learning
may be causes of behavior
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If more than two conditions are present in a study, changes between results are only relative to
each other and not the overall findings
Gestalt principle of common fate – humans perceive elements that move at the same speed or
direction as part of a single stimulus (birds of a feather block together)
Meritocracy – achieved > ascribed status
Social segregation – caries across ethnic minority groups; social integration – how long group
has been in a particular area (does not mean forced assimilation)
o Less integrated groups might experience less segregation and discrimination than well
integrated groups
Changes in color are due to change in hue
Nativity status – whether a person is foreign born or native to a country
Mead – unified autonomous self = I, that which is formed by social interactions with others = me
Continuity effect – two different stimuli given over a length of time in succession with each
other (even if producing different temporal patterns) cause stimulus A to be heard as
continuous
Continuity theory of normal aging – older adults maintain continuity of lifestyle by adapting
strategies that are connected to their past experiences by using the same behaviors,
relationships, and activities as when they were younger
Socialization – process by which someone adapts the values and norms of a group
Cognitive dissonance – can be associated with affording risky behavior
Escape learning – used to get out of a situation
Avoidance learning – used to prevent stimulus from being encountered
Cultural capital – ownership of cultural items representing status (ie fancy clothes for a job
interview)
Symbolic capital – ownership of non-tangible cultural symbols (ie power, prestige)
Structural functionalism – Durkheim, society is a mixture of structures that work toward
equilibrium
Weber – conflict theorist
Cooley and Mead – symbolic interactionists (everything has an assigned meaning, forms our
interactions)
Inter-rater reliability – degree of similarity between reviewers of a study based on assessment
Construct validity – degree by which the study maintains and measures what it is designed to
Split half reliability – a multiple-item instrument used, measurement of how well its parts assess
what is measured with respect to the whole
Social facilitation – easy tasks are performed better in the presence of peers, while difficult tasks
are not
Token economy – associated with operant conditioning, reward system for desired behaviors
Conflict theory – also associated with conflict/discrepancies between social structures, not just
classes
Baddeley – model of working memory
Structural discrimination – unintended by overseers of a discrimination, occurs through policies
Institutional discrimination - can be associated with a corporation (not just schools, etc), any
social institution
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Conduction aphasia – loss of connection between Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area, person can
still hear and speak, but the connection is lost (ie person can’t repeat words back to a person)
Normative organization – membership is not compulsory and is through shared values and
beliefs
Dysthymia – lesser form of depression, loss of pleasure, need at least two years to diagnose
Cyclothymia – lesser form of bipolar disorder, depressive to manic cycles
Anhedonia – loss of pleasure
ACTH – associated with memory; serotonin – associated with mood, but not reward (mildly
associated with depression, but not as much as dopamine)
Psychological dependence – substance used in response to emotional triggers
Top down processing – experience and expect visual perception patterns
Parallel processing – brain processes two dissimilar stimuli simultaneously
Brain processes things like color and shape automatically, not using any higher order processing
(ie top down, etc)
Cross sectional study – surveys a population in one instance in time, not over a length of time
like a longitudinal study
Bipolar personality disorder – pervasive instability in self image, mood, and relationships, can be
a comorbidity with dissociative identity disorder
Social learning – change in behavior by being shown models of correct behavior
Aversive conditioning – averse stimuli hen behavior is produced
Conceptual salience – prominence of a word/object in ones own mental representation
Priming – type of implicit memory, onw stimulul affects response to another
Identifying with the aggressor – ie in bullying while trying to be friends with the bully, people are
subjected to abuse associated with the source to fit in
Corpus callosum – made entirely of white matter
Vygotsky – zone of proximal development – gap between what a student is strong in and what
they would achieve in with educational help
Dissociation – split in consciousness - contradictory thoughts/behaviors occur simultaneously
Splitting – all or nothing, positive and negative aspects of a situation are seen but not brought
together as a collective whole
Psychosis – loss of touch with reality