AP PSYCHOLOGY

1. in a nutshell AP PSYCHOLOGY 516Alisha Morash April 27th, 2012

2. History and Approaches Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. Schools of Psychology • Empiricism- the view that (a) knowledge comes from experience via the senses, and (b) science flourishes through observation and experiment. • Structuralism- An early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind. • Functionalism- a school of psychology that focused on how mental and behavioral processes function – how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish.

3. Current perspectives in psychology

4. Influential people • Wundt- “Father of Psychology” and introspection • Watson- Behaviorism • Titchner- structuralism • James- Functionalism • Freud- psychoanalysis, stages of development, defense mechanisms, and more. • Bandura- observational learning, social-cognitive theory • Skinner- operant conditioning • Pavlov- Classical conditioning • Piaget- stages of cognitive development • Kohlberg- moral development • Asch- conformity • Binet- I.Q • Maslow- Hierarchy of needs • Jung- collective unconscious • Wertheimer- Gestalt psychology • Darwin- natural selection

5. General Approaches • Behaviorism: environmental; learning; nurture • Biological: psychology; genetics; nature • Cognitive: mental processes • Psychoanalytical: unconscious; childhood • Humanistic: freewill; basic goodness • Multicultural: sociocultural; role of structure • Gestalt: emphasizes the organization process in behavior; focuses on problem of perception

6. Psychiatry- a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical treatments, as well as psychological therapy. Nature-nurture issue- the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. • Natural selection- the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations. • Clinical psychology- a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders.

7. Research Methods • Basic Research: pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base. • Applied research: scientific study that aims to solve practical problems.

8. Factors of research:-The question to be answered-independent variable-dependent variable-control group-population & sample-theory-hypothesis-statistical significance Experiments, observation, surveys, tests, and case studies are all methods used to find answers in psychology.

9. Some Key Terms in Basic Research • Hindsight Bias- the tendency to believe (after learning an outcome) that one would have foreseen it. • Critical thinking- thinking which discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions. • Theory- an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations • Hypothesis- any testable prediction. • Replication- repeating the essence of a research study to see whether the basic finding extends to other circumstances. • Case Study- an observation technique in which one person is studied extensively to reveal universal principles. • Survey-a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people. • False consensus effect- the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors.

10. Biological Basis of Behavior Genetics are believed to be our biological blueprints. While genes are not the entire reason for our behavior, they do make up a good portion of the explanation for our behaviors.

11. The Central Nervous System • Composed of the brain and spinal cord. • The CNS is surrounded by bone-skull and vertebrae. • Fluid and tissue also insulate the brain and spinal cord.

12. THE BRAIN • The brain works through it’s use of neurons. • Neurons (nerve cells) have cell bodies and branching fibers (dendrites). Dendrites receive information  axon (extensions of neurons) fibers pass it to more neurons, muscles, & glands • Axons are insulated by myelin sheath which causes message sending to speed up. • Using action potential (electrical charge) axons are told to send the information along. • Axons send info. To the synapse (gap between sending neuron and receiving cell) in the form of neurotransmitters (chemical messengers).

13. Parts and functions

14. The Nervous System The Peripheral Nervous System • The Peripheral Nervous System(PNS)contains only nerves and connects the brain and spinal cord (CNS) to the rest of the body. • Cranial nerves in the PNS take impulses to and from the brain (CNS). • Spinal nerves take impulses to and away from the spinal cord. • There are two major subdivisions of the PNS motor pathways: the somatic and the autonomic. • Two main components of the PNS: sensory (afferent) pathways that provide input from the body into the CNS. motor (efferent) pathways that carry signals to muscles and glands (effectors).

15. Important Neurotransmitters

16. Somatic Division • Consists of peripheral nerve fibers that send sensory information to the central nervous system AND motor nerve fibers that project to skeletal muscle • Controls functions that are under conscious voluntary control such as skeletal muscles and sensory neurons of the skin.

17. Autonomic Division • Motor nerves, controls functions of involuntary smooth muscles, cardiac muscles, and glands. • Provides almost every organ with a double set of nerves - the sympathetic and parasympathetic • Divided into three parts: the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system.

18. Sympathetic, Parasympathetic, & Entric • The sympatheticsystem activates and prepares the body for vigorous muscular activity, stress, and emergencies. Also, responsible for what is known as fight or flight”. • the parasympatheticsystem lowers activity, operates during normal situations, permits digestion, and conservation of energy. • The enteric nervous system is a third division of the autonomic nervous system that you do not hear much about. The enteric nervous system is a meshwork of nerve fibers that innervate the viscera (gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, gall bladder).

20. Sensation and Perception • Sensation is the response made both the sensory receptors and the nervous system to an environmental stimulus • Perception involves only sensory information, no stimulus necessary. Perception takes the sensory information, organizes and interprets it. This allows humans to recognize meaningful objects and events

21. The five senses • Taste • Touch • Smell • Sight • hearing

22. VISION*things to know* • Transduction is the process by which our sensory systems convert stimulus energy into neural messages. • Wavelength is the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. • Hue is the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light • Intensity is the amount of energy n a light or sound wave. • Accommodation is the process by which the eye’s lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina. • Acuity is the sharpness of vision.

23. The Eye

24. Pupil- adjustable opening in the center of the eye through which light enters. • Iris- a ring of muscle tissue tat forms the colored portion of the eye around the pupil and controls the size of the pupil opening. • Lens- the transparent structure behind the pupil that changes shape to help focus images on the retina. • Retina- the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin processing visual info. • Cones- receptor cells that are concentrated near the center of the retina and that function in daylight or in well-lit conditions. • Rods- retinal receptors that detect black, white, and gray; needed for twilight and peripheral vision. • Optic Nerve- the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain. • Fovea- the central focal point in the retina, around which the eye’s cones cluster.

25. The Earhow it works Outer ear sends sound through auditory canaleardrumvibratesmiddle ear transmits vibrations through a three bone pistoncochlea vibrates fluid that fills the tubevibration ripples the basilar membraneadjacent nerve fibres send sound to auditory cortex.

26. Hammer, stirrup, and anvil are the three tiny bones which compose the piston.

27. Sense of touch • Our sense of touch is a mix of at least four skin senses: pressure, warmth, cold, and pain. • There is no simple relationship between what we feel at a given spot and the type of specialized nerve ending found there. • Gate-Control Theory: the spinal cord contains a neurological “gate” that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. • The brain is most sensitive to unexpected stimulation • The brain creates pain; pain producing brain activity may be triggered with or without sensory input.

28. Sense of Taste • Taste is a chemical sense. • Each little bump on the top and sides of your tongue has 200+ taste buds. • Taste receptors replace themselves every week or two. • Aging decreases the amount of taste receptors we have. • People with no tongue still taste using buds in the roof and back of their mouths. • Sensory Interaction- the principle that one sense may influence another, s when the smell of food influences its taste.

29. Sense of smell

30. Smell cont’d • Smell is a chemical sense • Olfactory receptor cells respond selectively to various aromas • Opposite to light, which is separated into a spectra of colors, scent cannot be separated into more elemental odors. • Odor molecules come in many shapes and sizes. Kinesthesis-the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts. Vestibular sense- The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance.

31. Key terms in perception • Selective Attention- the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus, as in the cocktail party effect. • Visual capture- the tendency for vision to dominate the other senses. • Gestalt- an organized, meaningful whole. • Figure-ground- the organization of the visual field into objects that stand out from their surroundings. • Grouping- the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups. • Depth perception- the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional. • Visual Cliff- a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals. • Phi Phenomenon- an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in succession. • Parapsychology- the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis.

32. Sates of Consciousness • Consciousness- our awareness of ourselves and our environments. • The regular alpha waves of an awake, relaxed state are quite different from the slower, larger delta waves of deep stage 4 sleep. Although the rapid REM sleep waves resemble the near-waking Stage 1 sleep waves, the bod is more aroused during REM sleep than during stage 1 sleep.

33. Biological Rhythms • Biological rhythms- periodic physiological fluctuations. • Annual cycles, twenty-eight day cycles, twenty-four-hour cycles, and Ninety-minute cycles are what make up our living schedules. • Circadian rhythm- the biological clock; regular bodily functions that occur in a 24-hour period.

34. Learning-a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experience. • Associative learning- learning that certain events occur together. • Classical conditioning- a type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli. • Behaviorism- the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. • Acquisition- the initial stage in classical conditioning. • Extinction- The diminishing of a conditioned response. • Spontaneous recovery- the reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response. • Generalization- the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.

35. Pavlov’s Dog Experiment

36. How to change behavior

37. Cognition- the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. • Enables us to make decisions, solve problems, and understand concepts • Prototypes are a mental image or best example of a category. • Heuristics are simple thinking strategies that often allow us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently. • Insight is a sudden, novel realization of the solution to a problem. • Artificial Intelligence is the science of designing and programming computer systems to do intelligent things.

38. Just for laughs

39. Language • Phoneme- in a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit. • Morpheme- in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning. • Linguistic Determinism- Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think. • Thinking is merely talking to yourself. • Words shape our thoughts

40. Animals have their own language

41. Motivation *Instinct is a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned.

42. Drives and incentives

43. The drive-reduction theory states that a physiological need creates an aroused tension state that motivates an organism to satisfy a need. • An incentive is a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior. • As our hunger diminishes, our eating behavior changes. • Basal Metabolic Rate- the body’s resting rate of energy expenditure. • Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder in which a normal-weight person diets and becomes significantly underweight • Bulimia Nervosa- an eating disorder characterized by episodes of overeating.

44. Sex is a motivation • The pleasure of sex is our genes’ way of preserving and spreading themselves. • Sexual response cycle identified four stages- initial excitement phase, the plateau phase, the orgasm, the resolution. • Men reach point (sometimes minute long, other times days long) in which another orgasm is unachievable, this is known as the refractory period. • Biology is a necessary, but not sufficient explanation of human sexual behavior. • Sexual orientation- an enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one’s own sex or the opposite sex. • Adult women’s sexual drive and interests are more flexible and varying than adult men’s- a phenomenon Baumeister calls the gender difference in “eroticplasticity”. • “Homosexuality is something you are born with…” is an increasing American public opinion.

45. Emotionsare a mix of physiological activation, expressive behaviors and conscious experience. Schachter proposed a two-factor theory, in which emotions have two ingredients: physical arousal and cognitive label.

47. Our emotional reactions can be quicker than our interpretations of a situation; we therefore feel some emotions before we think. • Likes, dislikes, and fears involve no conscious thinking. • Moods such as depression and complex feelings such as hatred and love are greatly affected by our interpretations, memories, and expectations. • We read anger and fear from the eyes, happiness from the mouth. • Women generally surpass men at reading people’s emotional cues. • Females are more likely to express empathy. • Hard-to-control facial muscles may reveal signs of emotions you are trying to conceal. • Fear of injury can protect us from harm. • Catharsis is emotional release. • Feel-good, do-good phenomenon is people’s tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood. • Subjective well-being is self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life.

48. Developmental Psychology • Prenatal development begins when the mother releases a matured egg. Next, male’s sperm releases digestive enzymes that decay the outer layer of the egg, enabling the sperm to penetrate it. Once the sperm fully enters the egg, the nucleus of both cells fuse together, becoming one. From conception to the end of the second week, the developing human is known as the zygote. At two weeks the baby becomes known as the embryo, this is when both the arms and legs begin to grow, also, the spine is visible. Finally, from about two months to birth, the child is referred to as the fetus. During the fetal stage, facial features, hands, and feet are formed. Teratogens are chemicals and viruses that may be found within the nursing mother during pregnancy. If these agents reach the embryo or fetus at any time, they can and will cause developmental harm. Teratogens have the ability to damage the child permanently. For example, if the mother is a heroin addict during her pregnancy, the child will be born a heroin addict.

50. Piaget believed that the mind was developed in stages. These stages are accumulated through schemas (mental molds we pour our experiences into), assimilation (form new interpretations based on personal knowledge), and accommodating our previous interpretations with newly provided information. Piaget believed in cognition, which is all of the activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. He believed in the four stages