Psychology flashcards
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16 decks
- Introduction to Psychology (Psychology)Recall cards on the foundations of psychology. What is psychology: the scientific study of the mind and behavior, the scientific method, hypotheses and theories, and psychology as both a natural and a social science. The history of psychology: Wundt and the first laboratory, voluntarism and introspection, James and functionalism, Titchener and structuralism, Freud and psychoanalysis, Gestalt psychology, behaviorism, humanism, and the cognitive revolution. Contemporary psychology: the subfields from biopsychology and evolutionary psychology through developmental, personality, social, industrial-organizational, health, clinical, counseling, and forensic psychology. And careers in psychology: the PhD and the dissertation, the PsyD, master's-level careers, faculty roles, postdoctoral training, and licensure.
- Psychological Research (Psychology)Recall cards on how psychologists do research. Why research matters: evidence-based knowledge, theories and hypotheses, empirical evidence, facts versus opinions, deductive and inductive reasoning, and falsifiability. Approaches to research: the case study, naturalistic observation, observer bias and inter-rater reliability, surveys, samples and populations, archival research, and longitudinal versus cross-sectional designs. Analyzing findings: the correlation coefficient, positive and negative correlation, why correlation is not causation, confounding and illusory correlations, independent and dependent variables, experimental and control groups, single- and double-blind studies, the placebo effect, random sampling and random assignment, statistical significance, reliability and validity, and peer review and replication. And research ethics: the IRB, informed consent, deception and debriefing, the IACUC and animal welfare, and the Tuskegee syphilis study that led to the National Research Act.
- Biopsychology (Psychology)Recall cards on the biological bases of behavior. Human genetics: genotype and phenotype, chromosomes and DNA, genes and alleles, dominant and recessive traits, homozygous and heterozygous, polygenic traits, mutations, PKU, range of reaction, epigenetics, natural selection, and twin studies. Cells of the nervous system: neurons and glial cells, soma, dendrites, axon, myelin sheath, nodes of Ranvier, the synapse, neurotransmitters and receptors, membrane and resting potential, the action potential and the all-or-none phenomenon, the sodium-potassium pump, reuptake, agonists and antagonists, and the major neurotransmitters. Parts of the nervous system: the central, somatic, autonomic, sympathetic, and parasympathetic divisions, afferent and efferent fibers, and homeostasis. The brain and spinal cord: the cerebral cortex, hemispheres and lateralization, the four lobes, motor and somatosensory cortex, Broca's and Wernicke's areas, the limbic system, subcortical structures, split-brain and neuroplasticity, and brain-imaging methods. And the endocrine system: glands and hormones, the pituitary master gland, thyroid, adrenal glands, pancreas, and gonads.
- States of Consciousness (Psychology)Recall cards on consciousness and sleep. Consciousness and wakefulness; biological and circadian rhythms, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, melatonin and the pineal gland, chronotype, jet lag, shift work, and sleep debt. Why we sleep: circadian and homeostatic control, the thalamus, hypothalamus, and pons, adaptive and evolutionary theories, and memory consolidation. Stages of sleep: the EEG, brain wave frequency and amplitude, beta, alpha, theta, and delta waves, NREM stages N1 to N3, sleep spindles and K-complexes, REM and paradoxical sleep, REM rebound, and dreaming (Freud's manifest and latent content, Jung's collective unconscious, activation-synthesis, and lucid dreams). Sleep problems and disorders: insomnia, parasomnias, sleepwalking, REM sleep behavior disorder, restless leg syndrome, night terrors, sleep apnea, SIDS, narcolepsy, and cataplexy. Substance use and abuse: dependence, tolerance, and withdrawal, and the depressant, stimulant, opioid, and hallucinogen drug classes. And other states of consciousness: hypnosis and meditation.
- Sensation and Perception (Psychology)Recall cards on how we sense and perceive the world. Sensation versus perception: sensory receptors and transduction, absolute and difference thresholds, Weber's law, subliminal messages, bottom-up and top-down processing, sensory adaptation, inattentional blindness, and signal detection theory. Waves and wavelengths: amplitude, wavelength, and frequency, the visible spectrum, hue and brightness, pitch, loudness, the decibel, and timbre. Vision: the cornea, pupil, iris, lens, accommodation, retina, rods and cones, the fovea, optic nerve, blind spot, and optic chiasm, the trichromatic and opponent-process theories, afterimages, color blindness, and depth cues (binocular disparity, monocular cues, linear perspective). Hearing: audition, the pinna, eardrum, ossicles, cochlea, basilar membrane, and hair cells, temporal and place theories of pitch, sound localization, and conductive versus sensorineural hearing loss. The other senses: the chemical senses, the five tastes and umami, olfaction, pheromones, touch receptors, thermoception and nociception, and the vestibular sense, proprioception, and kinesthesia. And the Gestalt principles of perception: figure-ground, proximity, similarity, continuity, closure, and perceptual set.
- Learning (Psychology)Recall cards on how organisms learn. What learning is: reflexes, instincts, associative learning, and the difference between classical, operant, and observational learning. Classical conditioning: Pavlov, the unconditioned and conditioned stimulus and response, the neutral stimulus, acquisition, higher-order conditioning, extinction, spontaneous recovery, stimulus discrimination and generalization, taste aversion, the Garcia and Koelling and Little Albert studies, behaviorism, and the Rescorla-Wagner model. Operant conditioning: Thorndike's law of effect, Skinner and the operant chamber, positive and negative reinforcement and punishment, primary and secondary reinforcers, shaping, continuous versus partial reinforcement, the fixed and variable interval and ratio schedules, and Tolman's cognitive maps and latent learning. Observational learning: models, mirror neurons, Bandura's social learning theory, live, verbal, and symbolic models, the attention-retention-reproduction-motivation steps, vicarious reinforcement and punishment, the Bobo doll experiment, and prosocial and antisocial modeling.
- Thinking and Intelligence (Psychology)Recall cards on cognition, language, problem solving, and intelligence. Cognition: concepts and prototypes, natural versus artificial concepts, and schemas, role schemas, and event schemas. Language: the lexicon, grammar, phonemes, morphemes, semantics, and syntax, plus babbling, overgeneralization, linguistic determinism, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the critical period, and the Boroditsky and Dani color studies. Problem solving: trial and error, algorithms, heuristics, working backwards, mental set, and functional fixedness, plus the anchoring, confirmation, hindsight, and representative biases and the availability heuristic. Intelligence: Spearman's g, Cattell's fluid and crystallized intelligence, Sternberg's triarchic theory, Gardner's multiple intelligences, emotional intelligence, creativity, and divergent versus convergent thinking. Measurement: Galton, Binet, the Stanford-Binet, and the Wechsler WAIS and WISC scales, standardization, norming, reliability, validity, the normal distribution, IQ ranges, the Flynn effect, and Buck v. Bell and Atkins v. Virginia. Sources of intelligence: range of reaction, the Minnesota twin study, poverty and the prefrontal cortex, and learning disabilities including dysgraphia, dyslexia, and dyscalculia.
- Memory (Psychology)Recall cards on how memory works, its brain basis, its failures, and how to improve it. How memory functions: encoding (automatic versus effortful; semantic, visual, and acoustic), the self-reference effect, storage, and retrieval, plus the Atkinson-Shiffrin three-stage model, sensory memory, short-term memory and its capacity (Miller's 7 plus or minus 2), long-term memory, consolidation, elaborative rehearsal, explicit versus implicit memory (episodic, semantic, procedural), and recall, recognition, and relearning. Brain and memory: the amygdala, hippocampus, cerebellum, and prefrontal cortex, the engram, Lashley's equipotentiality hypothesis, arousal theory, flashbulb memory, the memory neurotransmitters, and Eric Kandel. Problems with memory: amnesia (anterograde and retrograde, the patient H.M.), Schacter's seven sins of memory, encoding failure, the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, the Loftus misinformation effect, proactive and retroactive interference, and eyewitness misidentification. Enhancing memory: rehearsal, chunking, mnemonic devices (HOMES, PEMDAS), the self-reference study strategy, distributed practice, and sleep.
- Lifespan Development (Psychology)Recall cards on how humans develop from conception through death. What lifespan development studies: the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial domains, the normative approach and developmental milestones, continuous versus discontinuous development, stage theories, and the nature versus nurture debate. Major theories: Freud's five psychosexual stages and fixation, Erikson's eight psychosocial stages, Piaget's cognitive stages with assimilation, accommodation, object permanence, egocentrism, and conservation, and Kohlberg's preconventional, conventional, and postconventional moral reasoning. Stages of development: the germinal, embryonic, and fetal prenatal stages, the placenta, teratogens and FASD, newborn reflexes (rooting, sucking, grasping, Moro), infant growth and brain blooming and pruning, temperament, Harlow and Bowlby on attachment, Ainsworth's Strange Situation and the attachment styles, Baumrind's parenting styles, puberty and primary and secondary sexual characteristics, menarche and spermarche, adolescence and emerging adulthood, menopause, and crystallized versus fluid intelligence. Death and dying: Kubler-Ross's five stages, hospice care, living wills, DNR orders, and health care proxies.
- Emotion and Motivation (Psychology)Recall cards on what drives and moves us. Motivation: intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, instinct theory, drive theory and homeostasis, arousal theory and the Yerkes-Dodson law, self-efficacy, Maslow's hierarchy of needs and self-actualization, and the social motives for achievement, affiliation, and intimacy. Hunger and eating: hunger pangs and glucose signaling, satiation and leptin, the hypothalamus, metabolic rate, set-point theory, the BMI thresholds for overweight, obese, and severely obese, obesity health risks, and the eating disorders anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Sexual behavior: Kinsey and the Kinsey scale, Masters and Johnson's sexual response cycle and the refractory period, sexual orientation, and gender identity, transgender, cisgender, and gender dysphoria. Emotion: emotion versus mood, the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, Schachter-Singer two-factor, and Lazarus cognitive-mediational theories, Ekman's seven universal emotions, the amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus, the two fear paths, display rules, the facial feedback hypothesis, and the polygraph.
- Personality (Psychology)Recall cards on personality: the long-standing traits and patterns that shape how we think, feel, and behave. History: the Latin persona, Hippocrates's four humors and temperaments, Galen, and Gall's phrenology. Freud's psychodynamic perspective: the unconscious, the id, ego, and superego, the pleasure and reality principles, the defense mechanisms (repression, denial, regression, projection, reaction formation, displacement, rationalization, and sublimation), the five psychosexual stages, fixation, and the Oedipus complex. The neo-Freudians: Adler's inferiority complex and birth order, Erikson's psychosocial stages, Jung's collective unconscious, archetypes, and introversion-extroversion, and Horney's coping styles and womb envy. Learning approaches: Skinner, Bandura's social-cognitive theory and reciprocal determinism, Rotter's locus of control, and Mischel. Humanistic approaches: Maslow's deficit and growth needs and Rogers's self-concept, ideal and real self, congruence, and unconditional positive regard. Biological approaches: heritability, the Minnesota twin study, and temperament. Trait theorists: Allport, Cattell's 16PF, the Eysencks, and the Big Five (OCEAN). Cultural understandings: individualist and collectivist cultures and the three cross-cultural approaches. Personality assessment: self-report inventories, Likert scales, the MMPI, and the projective tests (Rorschach, TAT, RISB, C-TCB, and TEMAS).
- Social Psychology (Psychology)Recall cards on social psychology: how people affect one another and how situations and groups shape individual behavior. Situationism versus dispositionism and the attribution biases (the fundamental attribution error, the actor-observer bias, the self-serving bias, and the just-world hypothesis). Self-presentation: social roles, social norms, scripts, and Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. Attitudes and persuasion: the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components, Festinger's cognitive dissonance, the Yale attitude change approach, the elaboration likelihood model with its central and peripheral routes, and the foot-in-the-door technique. Conformity, compliance, and obedience: Asch's line studies and the Asch effect, normative versus informational social influence, Milgram's obedience experiment, groupthink, group polarization, social loafing, and deindividuation. Prejudice and discrimination: stereotypes, racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, in-groups and out-groups, in-group bias, scapegoating, self-fulfilling prophecy, and confirmation bias. Aggression: hostile versus instrumental aggression, the frustration-aggression theory, bullying and cyberbullying, the bystander effect, and diffusion of responsibility. Prosocial behavior: altruism, empathy, proximity, homophily, self-disclosure, reciprocity, the matching hypothesis, Sternberg's triangular theory of love, and social exchange theory.
- Industrial-Organizational Psychology (Psychology)Recall cards on industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology: how work affects human behavior and how human behavior affects work. The three subfields (industrial, organizational, and human factors psychology) and the field's history: Munsterberg, Cattell's Psychological Corporation, the Army Alpha and Beta tests, the Hawthorne studies and the Hawthorne effect, Lewin's group dynamics, Taylor's scientific management, and Lillian Gilbreth. Industrial psychology: job analysis (task-oriented versus worker-oriented), KSAs, O*NET, structured versus unstructured interviews, training and mentoring, 360-degree feedback, and the employment law that governs selection (the EEOC, Title VII, the Equal Pay Act, the ADA, Griggs v. Duke Power Co., and bona fide occupational qualifications). Organizational psychology: job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviors, Theory X and Theory Y, transactional versus transformational leadership, organizational culture, virtual teams, strengths-based management, sexual harassment, and workplace violence. Human factors psychology (ergonomics): designing the human-machine interface for productivity, safety, and health, and checklists that reduce human error.
- Stress, Lifestyle, and Health (Psychology)Recall cards on stress, health, and well-being. What stress is (a process of appraising events as overwhelming or threatening), health psychology, stimulus- versus response-based definitions, Selye's work, primary and secondary appraisal, eustress versus distress, Cannon's fight-or-flight response, the general adaptation syndrome (alarm, resistance, exhaustion), and the HPA axis and cortisol. Stressors: chronic versus acute, job strain, job burnout and its dimensions, and the Holmes-Rahe Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Stress and illness: psychophysiological disorders, psychoneuroimmunology, lymphocytes and immune suppression, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, Type A and Type B personality, asthma, and tension headaches. Regulation of stress: problem-focused versus emotion-focused coping, perceived control, social support, learned helplessness, exercise, and biofeedback. The pursuit of happiness: positive psychology, subjective well-being, Seligman's three components of a happy life, the income-happiness relationship, hedonic adaptation, flow, and positive affect.
- Psychological Disorders (Psychology)Recall cards on psychological disorders. Defining and classifying disorders: what a psychological disorder is, psychopathology, etiology, Wakefield's harmful dysfunction model, cultural relativism, Szasz's critique, diagnosis, the DSM-5 and ICD, and comorbidity. Perspectives: supernatural, biological, and psychological views, the diathesis-stress model, and the biopsychosocial model. Anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks and panic disorder, the locus coeruleus, agoraphobia, specific and social phobias, prepared learning, behavioral inhibition, and safety behaviors. Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders: obsessions, compulsions, OCD, body dysmorphic disorder, and hoarding. Posttraumatic stress disorder: its criteria, intrusion, avoidance, and arousal symptoms. Mood disorders: major depressive disorder, persistent depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and manic episodes, the monoamine hypothesis, Beck's cognitive theory, hopelessness theory, rumination, and suicide. Schizophrenia: hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, negative symptoms, the dopamine hypothesis, and brain abnormalities. Dissociative disorders, disorders in childhood (ADHD and autism spectrum disorder), and personality disorders (Clusters A, B, and C).
- Therapy and Treatment (Psychology)Recall cards on the therapy and treatment of psychological disorders. History of treatment: supernatural attributions, exorcism, trephining, the witch trials, asylums, Pinel and Dorothea Dix, the arrival of antipsychotics, deinstitutionalization and its failures, voluntary versus involuntary treatment, and mental health parity. Types of treatment: psychotherapy versus biomedical therapy; psychoanalysis (free association, resistance, transference, dream analysis); play therapy; behavior therapy (counterconditioning, aversive conditioning, exposure therapy, systematic desensitization, token economies); cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapy (Beck, Ellis, cognitive distortions); humanistic and client-centered therapy (Rogers, unconditional positive regard, active listening); and biomedical options (psychotropic medications, ECT, TMS). Treatment modalities: intake, individual, group, couples, and family therapy (systems, structural, and strategic approaches). Substance-related and addictive disorders: addiction as a chronic disease, relapse, comorbidity, detoxification, and treatment duration. The sociocultural model: cultural competence, multicultural counseling, and barriers to therapy utilization such as stigma and language.