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Stream of consciousness is the term used by William James to describe the mind.
Information moves more quickly in and out of the consciousness.
Consciousness id divided into two parts:
- Awareness - Occurs in the global brain workspace that involves a variety of brain areas working in parallel
- Arousal - A physiological state determined by reticular activating system (A network of structures including the brain stem, medulla, and the thalamus.)
Consciousness is an individuals awareness of external and internal sensations under a condition of arousal, including awareness of the self and thoughts about one's experience.
Metacognition is thinking about thinking.
The theory of mind is the understanding that other people have private thoughts and knowledge.
Controlled processes are the most alert states of human consciousness, require more effort than automatic processes.
Automatic Processes are the states of consciousness that require little attention and do not interfere with ongoing activities, they require less effort than controlled processes.
Lower levels of consciousness include automatic processes and daydreaming.
Daydreaming keeps our mind active, while helping us cope, create, and fantasize.
Altered states of consciousness can take form from trauma, fear, fever, fatigue, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, meditation, disorders, and drugs.
Subconscious awareness can take place between being awake and asleep.
When awake, processing is going on just below awareness.
Consciousness processing occurs in sequence and is slower than subconscious processing.
Unconcious thought according to Freud, was a reservoir of unacceptable wishes, feelings, and thoughts that are beyond conscious awareness and his interpretation viewed the unconscious as a store hours for vile thoughts.
Sleep is a natural state of rest for the body and mind that involves the reversible off of consciousness.
Biological rhythms are a periodical physiological fluctuation in the body, such as the rise and fall of hormones and accelerated and decelerated cycles of brain activity that can influence behavior.
Circadian rythmes are daily behavioral or physiological cycles. Daily circadian rhythms involve the sleep/wake cycle, body temperature, blood pressure, and blood sugar level.
Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) is a small brain structure that uses input from the retina to synchronize its own rhythm with the daily cycle of light and dark..

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Sensation is the process of receiving stimulus energies from the external environment and transforming those energies into neural energy.
Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information in order for it to obtain meaning.
Bottom-up processing is the operation in sensation and perception in which sensory receptors register information about the external environment and sent it towards the brain for interpretation.
Top-down processing is the operation in sensation and perception, launched by cognitive processes at the brain's higher levels, that allow the organism to sense what is happening and to apply that framework to information from the world.
All senstion begins with sensory receptors called afferent nerves and they have selective and different pathways they take.
Sensory receptors are specialized cells that detect stimulus information and transmit it to the sensory (afferent) nerves and the brain.
The absolute threshold is the minimum amount of stimulus energy that a person can detect.
Noise is any irrelevant and competing stimuli.
The difference threshold is the degree difference that must exist between two stimuli before the difference is detected.
Weber's law is the principle that two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage to be perceived as different.
Subliminal perception is the detection of information below the level of conscious awarenesss.
The signal detection theory is a theory of perception that focuses on decision making about stimuli in the presence of uncertainty.
Attention is the process of focusing awareness on a narrowed aspect of the environment.
Selective attention is choosing to be focused on a specific aspect and ignoring others.
Perceptual set is a predisposition or readiness to perceive something in a particular way.
The purity of light waves determines the saturation or richness.
There are three parts to the eye:
- Iris - The color part of the eye, controls the muscles in the pupil and the amount of light that enters the eye.
- Sclera - The white outer part of the eye which helps to maintain the eyes shape and help injuries
- Pupil - Black part and opening of the iris.
The retina is the multilayered light-sensitive surface in the eye that records electromagnetic energy and converts it to neural impulses for processing in the brain.
There are two structures which help focus an image:
- Cornea - Clear membrane in front of the eye that bends the image
- Lens - The transparent and flexible disked-shaped structure filled with a gelatin-like material that fine-tunes the image.
Located in the back of the eye is the film which is a multilayered retina that is light sensitive and records electromagnetic energy and converts it to neural impulses for processing.
- Rods - Receptor cells that are sensitive to light but very useful for color vision and work well under low illumination
- Cones - Receptor cells in the retina that allow for color perception, work well in high illumination, 6 million in the eye
- Fovea - In the center of the retina where vision works the best and only cones are present.
Rods and cones convert light into electrochemical impulses which are transmitted to the bipolar cels and then to the ganglion cells.
Trichromatic theory was proposed by Thomas Young in 1802 and Herman Von Hemlholtz in 1852 stating that color perception is produced by three cone receptors in the retina that are particularly sensitive too different, but overlapping, ranges of wavelengths.
The opponent process theory was proposed by Ewald Harling in 1878 stating that cells in the visual system respond to complementary pairs of red-green and blue-yellow colors where one color may excite the complementary color.
The figure-ground relationship is the principle by which we organize the perceptual field into stimuli that stand out (figure) and those that are left over (ground).
Gestalt psychology is a school of thought interested in how people naturally organize their perceptions according to certain patterns.

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Chapter 3 - Biological Foundations of Behavior 

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Chapter 3 - Biological Foundations of Behavior 

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The nervous system is the body's electrochemical communication circuitry.
Several characteristics of the nervous system include to command our behavior are: Complexity, integration, adaptability (plasticity), and electrochemical transmission.
The brain and the nervous system function essentially as an information processing system powered by electrical impulses and chemical messengers.
The nervous system has specialized pathways that are adapted for different functions. They are made up of afferent nerves, efferent nerves, and neural pathways.
Afferent Nerves - (sensory nerves) Nerves that carry information about the external environment to the brain and spinal cord by sensory receptors. It communicates about the external environment and internal conditions.
Efferent Nerves - (motor nerves) Nerves that carry information out of the brain and spinal cord to other areas of the body.
The human nervous system is divided into the Central Nervous System (CNS) and the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS).
The central Nervous System is the brain and spinal cord.
The Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) is the network of nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to other parts of the body.It brings information to the CNS.
The Somatic Nervous System is the body system consisting of the sensory nerves, whose function is to convey information from the skin and muscles to the CNS about conditions such as pain and temperature, and the motor nerves, whose function is to tell the muscles what to do.
The automatic nervous system is the body system that takes messages to and from the body's internal organs, monitoring such processes as breathing, heart rate, and digestion.
The automatic nervous system is divided into the symphatic nervous system and parasymphatic nervous system.
The symphatic nervous system is part of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body.
The parasymphatic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that calms the body.
Neurons are one of the two types of cells in the nervous system, they are nerve cells that handle the information-processing.
Glial cells (Glia) are the second of two types of cells in the nervous system that provide support, nutritional benefits, another functions which help the neurons to move more smoothly.
Every neuron is specialized for a very specific purpose.
The cel body is the part of the neuron that hold the nucleus.
The nucleus is what directs the manufacturing of substances that the neuron needs for growth and maintenance.
Dendrites are the tree-like fibers that come out of the neuron and these help to receive information and point it towards the neuron's cell body.
The axon is the part of the neuron that carries information from the cell and towards other cells.
The myelin sheath is the layer of fat cells that protects and insulates the axons.
The resting potential is the stable, negative charge of an inactive neuron. Whereas the action potential is the brief wave of positive electrical charge that sweeps down the axon.
The all or nothing principle is the principle that states that once electrical impulses reach a certain level of intensity (Threshold), it then fires and moves all the way down an axon without losing any intensity.
The synapses are the tiny spaces between neurons also known as synaptic gaps.
The neurotransmitters are chemical substances that are stored in very tiny sacs within the terminal buttons and involved in transmitting information across a synaptic gap onto the next neuron.
Some neurochemical messengers are
- Acetylcholine (Ach) - Muscle actions, aids learning and memory, and is found in the PNS
- GABA (Gamma Aminobutyric Acid) - Found in the CNS and is known as the brains brake pedal.
- Glutamate - Excites neurons to fire, involved in learning and memory, can cause anxiety, depression, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's
- Norepinephrine (Noradrenaline) - Fires neurons into the CNS, excites the heart muscles, intestines, and urogenital tract as well as produces alertness.
- Dopamine - Controls voluntary movements and affects sleep, mood, attention, learning, and recognition.
- Serotonin - Affects mood, sleep, attention, and learning.
- Endorphins - natural opiates (painkillers) and can elevate feelings of pleasure.
- Oxytocin - Hormone that plays a role in love and bonding.
Drugs can increase, decrease or stop the affects of neurotransmitters.

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Chapter 2 - Psychology's Scientific Method 

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Chapter 2 - Psychology's Scientific Method 

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Operational Definition - A definition that provides an objective description of how a variable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study
Meta-analysis - A method that allows researchers to combine the results of several different studies on a similar topic in order to establish the strength of an effect.
Case study or case history - An in-depth look at an individual

The scientific method:

Observe

Hypothesis

Experiment

Conclusion

Theory'

An Operational definition that provides an objective description of how a variable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study
Types of Researches

Descriptive Research - determines the basic dimensions of a phenomenon

Correlational Research - examines the relationships between variables

Experimental Research - Establishing casual relationships between variables

The degree relationship between two variables is expressed as a numerical value called a correlation coefficient (represented as r). The value of correlation falls between -1.00 and +1.00.
Correlation does not imply causation.
The third variable problem is the circumstance where a variable has not been measured accounts for the relationship between two other variables. Also known as confounds.
Longitudinal design is a special kind of systematic observation, used by correlation researchers, that involves obtaining measures of the variables of interest in multiple waves over time.
An experiment is a carefully regulated procedure in which the researcher manipulates one or more variables that are believed to influence some other variable.
A random assignment is the researchers' assignment of participants to groups by chance, to reduce the likelihood that an experiment's results will be due to preexisting differences between groups.
An independent variable is a manipulated experimental factor (Cause)
Confederate is a person who is given a role to play in a study so that the social context can be manipulated.
A dependant variable is the outcome or the factor that can change in an experiment response to changes in the independent variable.
In a control group, the participants in an experiment who are as much like the experimental group as possible and who are treated in every way like the experimental group except for a manipulated factor.

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Biological Therapies
- Biological approaches to therapy includes drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychosurgery
1. Psychotherapeutic drugs that treat psychological disorders fallinto three main categories
• Antianxiety drugs: Benzodiazepines
• Antidrepressant drugs: regulates mood
*Tricyclics
*MAO inhibitors
*SSRI drugs
*Lithium: treats Bipolar disorders
• Antipsychotic drugs: treats severe psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia
2. Practitioners use electrocunvulsive to alleviate severe depression when other interventions have failed
3. Psychosurgery is an irreversible procedure in which brain tissue is destroyed

Psychotherapy
- This is the process that  mental health professionals use to help someone recognize, define, and overcome their disorders.
- A therapists interpretation of free association, dreams and transference

Sociocultural Approaches and Issues in Treatment
The Effectiveness of Psychotherapy
Therapies and Health and Wellness

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Psychodynamic Perspective
- personality is characterized by unconscious processes.
- childhood experience play a large role on adults personality

Humanistic Perspective
- personality evolves out of the persons innate organismic motives to grow and actualize the self. (self actualization)
- we naturally want to do good so we must look inside ourselves to find true peace

Trait Perspective
-personality is characterized by 5 general traits that are represented in the natural language that people use to describe themselves and others
-your traits predict your behavior

Personological and Life Story Perspectives
- to understand personality, we must understand the whole person.
-we all have unique life experiences, and the stories we tell about those experiences make up our identities.
- the life story provides a unique opportunity to examine the personality processes associated with behavior, development, and well-being

Social Cognitive Perspective
-personality is the pattern of coherence that characterizes a persons interactions with the situations he or she encounters in life.
-The individual's beliefs and expectations , rather than global traits, are the central variables of interest.
-behavior is best understood as chaining across situations
-to understand a persons personality, e must understand what each situation means for a given person.

Biological perspective
-personality characteristics reflect underlying biological processes such as those carried out by the brain, neurotransmitters, and genes
-differences in behaviors, thoughts, and feelings depend on these processes
-biological experiences among individuals can explain differences in their personalities
• Personality assessment
• Personality and Health and wellness

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Theories of Motivation
- Motivated behavior is energized, directed, and sustained. early Evolutionary theorists considered motivation to be based on instinct
instinct is is the innate biological pattern of behavior
- Drive
- Drive is an aroused state that occurs because of a physiological need or deprivation
- Drive reduction theory is supposed to the the explanation of motivation
- The goal is to reach homeostasis. That is the tendency for the body to maintain equilibrium.

Hunger, Obesity, and Eating disorders
- stomach signals are one factors in hunger.
- Glucose(blood sugar) is needed for the brain function, and low levels of glucose increase hunger
- insulin causes a rise in hunger
- leptin is a protein secreted by fat cells
*decreases food intake and increaces energy expenditure
-the hypothalamus regulates hunger
*lateral: stimulates eating
*Ventromedial: restricts eating
-obesity is sometimes caused by heredity, basal metabolism, set point, and fat cells
- Eating disorders
*Anorexia nervosa: extreme underweight and starvation
*Bulimia: binge eating followed by forcing yourself to throw everything up
*Binge eating disorder: excessive eating
Emotion
- this is a feeling, or affect, that has three components
*physiological arousal
*conscious experience
*behavioral expression
- the biology of emotion focuses on physiological arousal involving the autonomic nervous system

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Memory is the retention of information over time. Three processes involved in memory are
I. Encoding: Getting information into storage
- Requires selective attention
- According to the theory of levels of processing: information is processed on a continuum from shallow, to intermediate, to deep.
*shallow is sensory or physical features
*intermediate is labeling the stimulus
*deep is meaning and association
- Deeper processes along with elaborations, imagery, and context clues produce better memory
II. Storage: Retaining information over time
- Atkinson-Shiffrin theory describes memory as a three stage process
1. Sensory memory
•Holds perception of the world for only an instant
2. Short term memory
• Limited capacity system in which information stays for about 30 seconds
• The limits or amount of things remembered is 7 + or - 2
3. Long term memory
• Permanent type of memory that holds large amounts of information for a long time
•explicit memory is a conscious recollection of information
*episodic & semantic
*retrospective & prospective
•implicit is non consciously recollected behaviors.
*includes systems for procedural memory, priming and classical conditioning
III. Retrieval: Taking information out of storage.
• Forgetting
• Study Tips From the Science of Memory
• Memory and Health and Wellness

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·        Social psychology is the study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people.

·        A stereotype is a generalization about a group's characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to another.

·        Stereotypes can influence individual’s by a phenomenon called the self-fulfilling prophecy, where expectations cause individuals to act in ways to serve to make the expectation come true.

·        The attribution theory is the view that people are motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of the behavior.

·        Three dimensions of attribution are internal and external causes, stable and unstable causes, and controllable an uncontrollable causes.

·        The fundamental attribution error is an observers' overestimation of the importance of internal traits and underestimation of the importance of external situations when they seek explanations of an actor's behavior.

·        Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts that allows us to make decisions rapidly.

·        The false consensus effect is an observers' overestimation of the degree to which everybody else thinks or acts the way they do.

·        Positive illusions are positive views of the self that are not necessarily rooted in reality.

·        Self-serving bias is the tendency to take credit for our successes and to deny responsibility for our failures.

·        Self-objectification is the tendency to see oneself primarily as an object in the eyes of others.

·        A stereotype threats an individual's fast-acting, self-fulfilling fear of being judged based on a negative stereotype about his or her group.

·        Social comparison is the process by which individuals evaluate their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and abilities in relation to those of other people.

·        Attitudes is our feelings, opinions, and beliefs about people, objects, and ideas.

·        Cognitive dissonance is an individual's psychological discomfort (dissonance) caused by two inconsistent thoughts.

·        How to reduce cognitive dissonance: change behavior to fit our attitudes, change attitudes to fit our behaviors, and effort justification (rationalizing the amount of behavior of effort you put in.

·         The self-perception theory is Bem’s theory on how behaviors influence attitudes, stating that individuals make inferences about their attitudes by perceiving their behavior.

·        Elements of persuasion: the communicator, the medium, the target, and the message,

·        The elaboration likelihood model is theory identifying two ways to persuade: a central route (thoughtfully, logically) and a peripheral route (credibly, attractiveness, and emotional appeals).

·        Foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique is a compliance tactic that involves getting a person to agree to a large request by first setting them up by having that person agree to a modest request

·       The Door-In-The-Face (DITF) technique is a compliance method commonly studied in social psychology. The persuader attempts to convince the respondent to comply by making a large request that the respondent will most likely turn down, much like a metaphorical slamming of a door in the persuader's face.

·        Altruism is the unselfish interest in helping another person.

·        Egoism is giving to another person to ensure reciprocity; to gain self-esteem; to present oneself as powerful, competent, or caring; or to avoid censure from self and others for failing to live up to society's expectations.

·        The principle of reciprocity is to treat others how you want to be treated.

·        Empathy is a feeling of oneness with the emotional state of another person.

·        The bystander effect is the tendency of an individual who observes an emergency to help less when other people are present than when the observer is alone.

·        Aggressive behavior often results when areas of the limbic system are stimulated by electrical circuits, frontal lobe abnormalities, low level serotonin, and hormones

·        The frustration- aggression hypothesis says that frustration always leads to aggression.

·        Aggression is behaviors that are intended to harm another person.

·        Conformity is a change in a person's behavior to coincide more closely with a group standard.

·        Two main factors of conformity: The informational social influence is the influence other people have on us because we want to be right. The normative social influence is the influence others have on us because we want them to like us.

·        Obedience is a behavior that complies with the explicit demands of the individual in authority.

·        Deindividuation is the reduction in personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility when one is part of a group.

·        Social contagion is imitative behavior involving the spread of actions, emotions, and ideas.

·        Social facilitation is the improvement in an individual's performance because of the presence of others.

·        Social loafing is each person's tendency to exert less effort in a group because of reduced accountability for individual effort.

·        Risky shift is the tendency for a group decision to be riskier than the average decision made by the individual group members.

·        The group polarization effect is the solidification and further strengthening of an individual's position as a consequence of a group discussion or interaction.

·        Groupthink is the impaired group decision making that occurs when making the right decision is less important than maintaining group harmony.

·        Social identity is the way we define ourselves in terms of our group membership.

·        The social identity theory is Taffel’s theory that our social identities are a crucial part of our self-image and a valuable source of positive feelings about ourselves.

·        Ethnocentrism is the tendency to favor one's own ethnic group over other groups.

·        Prejudice is an unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual's membership in a particular group.

·        Discrimination is an unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because the person belongs to that group.

·         The mere exposure effect is the phenomenon that the more we encounter someone or something, the more probable it is that we will start liking the person or thing even if we do not realize we have seen it before.

·        Romantic love, also called passionate love; love with strong components of sexuality and infatuation, often dominant in the early part of a love relationship.

·        Affectionate love, also called companionate love; love that occurs when individuals desire to have another person near and have a deep, caring affection for the person.

·        The social exchange theory is the view of social relationships as involving an exchange of goods, the objective of which is to minimize costs and maximize benefits.

·        The investment model is a model of long-term relationships that examines the ways that commitment, investment, and the availability of attractive alternative partners predict satisfaction and stability in relationships.

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·         Abnormal behavior is behavior that is deviant, maladaptive, or personally distressful over a relatively long period of time.

·         The biological approach attributes psychological disorders to organic, internal causes.

·         Medical model is the view that psychological disorders are medical diseases with a biological origin.

·         The psychological approach emphasizes the contribution of experience, thoughts, emotions, and personality characteristics in explaining psychological disorder.

·         The sociocultural approach emphasizes the social context in which a person lives, including the gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family relationships, and culture.

·         The sociocultural perspective stresses the way that cultures influence the understanding and treatment of psychological disorders.

·         Abnormal behavior can be influenced by biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors.

·         In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) published the first major classification of psychological disorders in the U.S. called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).

·         Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common psychological disorder, of childhood, in which individuals show one or more of the following: inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.

·         Anxiety disorders are psychological disorders involving fears that are uncontrollable, disproportionate to the actual danger the person might be in, and disruptive of ordinary life.

·         Types of anxiety disorders include: panic disorder, phobic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, and PTSD.

·         Generalized anxiety disorder is a psychological disorder marked by persistent anxiety for at least six months and in which the individual is unable to specify the reasons for the anxiety. A person with this disorder may have a sympathetic nervous system.

·         Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder in which the individual experiences recurrent, sudden onsets of intense apprehension or terror, often without warning and with no specific cause. A person may acquire this disorder by genetic disposition, by having an overactive automatic nervous system, and a problem with their neurotransmitters.

·         American women are twice as likely to have panic attacks then men.

·         Phobic disorder or phobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by an irrational, overwhelming, persistent fear of a particular object or situation.

·         Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder in which the individual has anxiety provoking thoughts that will not go away and/ or urges to perform repetitive, ritualistic behaviors to prevent or produce some future situation. OCD can be generic, can be caused by malfunctions in the frontal cortex, basal ganglia, and in the thalamus, and can be caused by low levels of serotonin and dopamine.

·         Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that develops through exposure to a traumatic event that has overwhelmed the person's abilities to cope.

·         Mood disorders is a psychological disorder in which there is a primary disturbance of mood: prolonged emotion that colors the individual's entire emotional state.

·         The main types of mood disorders include: depressive disorders and bipolar disorder.

·         Depressive disorders are mood disorders in which the individual suffers from depression—an unrelenting lack of pleasure in life.

·         Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a psychological disorder involving a significant depressive episode and depressed characteristics, such as lethargy and hopelessness, for at least two weeks.

·         MDD is one of the leading cause for disability in the U.S.

·         Dysthymic disorder (DD) is a mood disorder that is generally more chronic and has fewer symptoms than MDD; the individual is in a depressed mood for most days for at least two years as an adult or at least one year as a child or an adolescent.

·         Specific abnormalities in brain structures and neurotransmitters, genetic influences, feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, thoughts, and beliefs can influence depression.

·         Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression then men are.

·         Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder characterized by extreme mood swings that include one or more episodes of mania, an overexcited, unrealistically optimistic state. It can be caused by abnormalities in brain structures and genetic influences.

·         Suicide is the eleventh highest cause of death. It is also the third leading cause in death for adolescences of ages 13-19 and 10-14.

·         Suicides can be genetic, so they can run in the family.

·         Women are three times more likely to attempt suicide than men, however men are four times more likely to actually complete it.

·         Dissociative disorders are psychological disorders that involve a sudden loss of memory or change in identity due to the dissociation (separation) of the individual's conscious awareness from previous memories and thoughts.

·         Dissociative amnesia is a dissociative disorder characterized by extreme memory loss that is caused by extensive psychological stress.

·         Dissociative fugue is a dissociative disorder in which the individual not only develops amnesia but also unexpectedly travels away from home and sometimes assumes a new identity.

·         Dissociative identity disorder (DID), which was formerly called multiple personality disorder, is a dissociative disorder in which the individual has two or more distinct personalities or identities, each with its own memories, behaviors, and relationships. Most with DID are women who have be victimize by abuse.

·         Schizophrenia is a severe psychological disorder characterized by highly disordered thought processes, referred to as psychotic because they are so far removed from reality. some symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, inappropriate emotions, referential thinking, catatonia, flat affect, and peculiar movements.

·         Suicide rates with schizophrenia are eight times higher than a normal people.

·         Hallucinations are sensory experiences that occur in the absence of real stimuli.

·         Delusions are false, unusual, and sometimes magical beliefs that are not part of an individual's culture.

·         Referential thinking is when a person ascribes personal meaning to completely random events.

·         Catatonia is a state of immobility and unresponsiveness lasting for long periods of time.

·         Flat affect is when a person displays little or no emotion—a common negative symptom of schizophrenia.

·         Diathesis-stress model is a view of schizophrenia emphasizing that a combination of biogenetic disposition and stress causes the disorder.

·         Personality disorder is a chronic, maladaptive cognitive-behavioral patterns that are thoroughly integrated into an individual's personality.

·         Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is a psychological disorder characterized by guiltlessness, law-breaking, exploitation of others, irresponsibility, and deceit. It is more common in men than in women. It is usually diagnosed before the age of 15.

·         A subgroup of ASPD are psychopaths, which tend to have low prefrontal activation and have abnormalities in the amygdala and the hippocampus.

·         Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a psychological disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotions, and of marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. It is related to suicidal cuttings. It is more common in women than in men and they tend to be very emotional, have wild mood swings, and set high, impossible, and irrational goals.

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KEY TERMS

Psychology - The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

Behavior - Everything we do that can be directly observed.

Mental processes - The thoughts, feelings, and motives that each of us experiences privately but that cannot be observed directly.

Empirical Method - Gaining knowledge through the observation of events, the collection of data, and logical reasoning.

Positive Psychology - A branch of psychology that emphasizes human strengths.

Main Points

Psychology began in 1879 and was created by the merging of philosophy and physiology with the founders Wilhem Wundt and William James.

The first two major schools of thought were structuralism and function.

Structuralism is Whilem Wundt's approach to discovering the basic elements, or structures, of mental processes because of its focus on identifying the structures of the human mind.

Functionalism is William James' approach to mental processes, emphasizing the functions and purposes of the mind and behavior in the individual's adaptation to the environment.

Natural selection is Darwin's principle of an evolutionary process in which organisms that are best adapted to their environment will survive.

The biological approach is an approach to psychology focusing on the body, focusing mainly on the brain and nervous system.

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the structure, function, development, genetics and biochemistry of the nervous system, emphasizing that the brain and nervous system are central to understanding behavior, thought, and emotion.

The behavior approach is an approach to psychology emphasizing the scientific study of observable behavioral responses and their environmental determinants.

Later on in the early 1900s another school of thought emerged called behaviorism that was created by John B. Watson.

John B. Watson proposed the abandonment of the study of consciousness altogether.

The psychodynamic approach is an approach to psychology emphasizing the unconscious thought, the conflict between biological drives and society's demands, and early childhood family experiences.

The humanistic approach is an approach to psychology emphasizing a person's positive qualities, the capacity for positive growth, and the freedom to choose our own destiny.

The cognitive approach is an approach to psychology emphasizing the mental processes involved in knowing how we direct our attention, perceive, remember, think, and solve problems.

The evolutionary approach is an approach to psychology centered on evolutionary ideas such as adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection as the basis for explaining specific human behaviors.

The sociocultural approach is an approach to psychology that examines the ways in which social and cultural environments influence our behavior.

Psychopathology is the scientific study of psychological disorders and the development of diagnostic categories and treatments for those disorders.

The mind and body are intimately connected.

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·         Development refers to the pattern of continuity and change in human capabilities that occurs throughout life, involving both growth and decline.

·         Phenylketonuria (PKU) is caused by two recessive genes; it results in an inability to metabolize the amino acid phenylanine. It can cause brain damage, developmental disabilities, and seizures.

·         Nature is an individual's biological inheritance, especially his or her genes.

·         Nurture is an individual's environmental and social experiences.

·         Resilience is a person's ability to recover from or adapt to difficult times.

·         Conception occurs when a single sperm cell merges with the ovum (egg) and produces a zygote.

·         The development from a zygote to fetus (or the prenatal period) has three periods:

1.       The germinal period (week 1-2)- conception begins: zygote attaches on to the uterine wall.

2.       Embryonic period (week 3-8)- organs begin to appear; the spinal cord takes its shape.

3.       Fetal period (month 2-9)- begins moving, at three months the organs functions increases and the fetus gains weight.

·         A teratogen is any agent that can cause a birth defect.

·         The first few months and year of life allows the developing human to put the finishing touches on the development of the brain.

·         Newborns come to the world with serval genetically wired reflexes that are crucial for life, like blinking and suckling.

·         During the second year of life, growth decreases, but there are rapid gains in participating in active activities.

·         Motor and perceptual skills develop mutually together.

·         Preferential looking is a type of research technique that involves giving an infant a choice of what object to look at.

·         Schemas are expressed as various behaviors and skills that a child can exercise in relation to objects or situation. An example would be suckling.

·         Piaget described two processes that are responsible for how people use and adapt their schemas in different situation:

1.       Assimilation is an individual's incorporation of new information into existing knowledge.

2.       Accommodation is an individual's adjustment of his or her schemas to new information.

·         The sensorimotor stage is Piaget's first stage of cognitive development, lasting from birth to about 2 years of age, during which infants construct an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with motor (physical) actions.

·         The preoperational stage is Piaget's second stage of cognitive development, lasting from about 2 to 7 years of age, during which thought is more symbolic than sensorimotor thought.

·         The concrete operational stage is Piaget's third stage of cognitive development, lasting from about 7 to 11 years of age, during which the individual uses operations and replaces intuitive reasoning with logical reasoning in concrete situations.

·         The formal operational stage is Piaget's fourth stage of cognitive development, which begins at 11 to 15 years of age and continues through the adult years; it features thinking about things that are not concrete, making predictions, and using logic to come up with hypotheses about the future.

·         Temperament is an individual's behavioral style and characteristic way of responding.

·         Type of temperaments in children:

1.       Easy child

2.       Difficult child

3.       Slow-to-warm-up child

·         Infant attachment is the close emotional bond between an infant and its caregiver.

·         Secure attachment are the ways that infants use their caregiver, usually their mother, as a secure base from which to explore the environment.

·         Erik Erikson (1902-1994) proposed eight psychosocial stages of development from infancy to old age.

1.       Trust vs. mistrust (oral-sensory, infancy, 0–2 years)

2.       Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (early childhood, 2–4 years)

3.       Initiative vs. guilt (locomotor-genital, preschool, 4–5 years)

4.       Industry vs. inferiority (latency, school age, 5–12 years)

5.       Identity vs. role confusion (adolescence, 13–19 years)

6.       Intimacy vs. isolation (early adulthood, 20-39 years)

7.       Generativity vs. stagnation (adulthood, 40–64 years)

8.       Ego integrity vs. despair (maturity, 65 – death)

·         Diana Baumrind described four basic types of parenting:

1.       Authoritarian parenting- a restrictive, punitive style in which the parent exhorts the child to follow the parent's directions and to value hard work and effort.

2.       Authoritative parenting- a parenting style that encourages the child to be independent but that still places limits and controls on behavior.

3.       Neglectful parenting- a parenting style characterized by a lack of parental involvement in the child's life.

4.       Permissive parenting- a parenting style characterized by the placement of few limits on the child's behavior.

·         Moral development involves changes with age in thoughts, feelings, and behavior regarding principles and values of others.

·         Kohlberg’s stages six stages of moral development are grouped into three levels:

1.       Pre-conventional morality

2.       Conventional morality

3.       Post-conventional morality.

·         Moral reasoning does not equal moral behavior.

·         Prosocial behavior is behavior that is intended to benefit other people.

·         Adolescence is the developmental period of transition from childhood to adulthood, which begins at 10-12 years of age and ends at 18-21 years of age.

·         Puberty is a period of rapid skeletal and sexual maturation that occurs mainly in early adolescence.

·         Androgens is the main class of male sex hormones.

·         Estrogens is the main class of female sex hormones.

·         Males who mature earlier tend to become more popular and successful, but tend to do drugs.

·         Females who blooms early tend to be less outgoing, less popular, are less likely to do drugs and to be sexuality active. Also they tend to engage less in academics.

·         During adolescence, the amygdala (involved in emotion) and the prefrontal cortex (involved in reasoning) changes.

·         Biological changes in the brain are linked with experiences.

·         Identity versus identity confusion is Erikson's fifth psychological stage, in which adolescents face the challenges of finding out who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life.

·         Developing an identity in adolescence can be especially challenging for individuals from ethnic minority groups.

·         Adult development is categorized into three groups:

1.       Early adulthood (20s-30s)

2.       Middle adulthood (40s-50s)

3.       Late adulthood (60s until death)

·         Emerging adulthood is the transitional period from adolescence to adulthood, spanning approximately 18 to 25 years of age.

·         Experimentation and exploration are characterized in emerging adulthood.

·         Jeffery Arnett identified five main features of emerging adulthood:

1.       Identity exploration

2.       Instability

3.       Self-focus

4.       A feeling of being “in between” of being a child and an adulthood.

5.       Access to various life possibilities and opportunity to transform one’s life

·         Most adults reach their peak of physical development during their 20’s.

·         Physical skills decrease after the age of 30.

·         Hearing slowly declines at the age of 18.

·         By the age of 40-50s, the skin has begun to wrinkle and sag due to the loss of fat and collagen, age spot appear, hair becomes gray and thinner, there is a loss in height, there is a gain in weight, and taste would d also be affected.

·         Many biological theories of aging have been proposed, but two that look within the body's cells for causes of aging merit special attention: Cellular clock theory. Leonard Hayflick (1977) suggests that cells can divide a maximum number of about 100 times and that, as we age, our cells become less capable of dividing.

·         The free radical theory of aging (FRTA) states that organisms age because cells accumulate free radical damage over time.  According to the free radical theory of aging, cells continuously produce free radicals, and constant radical damage eventually kills the cell. When radicals kill or damage enough cells in an organism, the organism ages.

·         The hormonal stress theory is the theory that aging in the body's hormonal system can lower resistance to stress and increase the likelihood of disease.

·         The lateralization of brain function refers to how some neural functions, or cognitive processes tend to be more dominant in one hemisphere than the other.

·         Wisdom is expert knowledge about the practical aspects of life.

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·        Learning is a systematic, relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs through experience.\

·        Behaviorism is a theory of learning that focuses solely on observable behaviors, discounting the importance of such mental activity as thinking,
wishing, and hoping.

·        Behaviorism maintains that the principles of learning are the same for humans and animals

·        There are two types of learning:

1) Associative learning- is the learning that occurs when we make a connection, or an association, between two events.

2) Observational learning- is the learning that occurs when a person observes and imitates another's behavior.

·        Conditioning is the process of learning

·        There are two types of conditioning:

1)    Classical conditioning- is the learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus and acquires the capacity to elicit a similar response. Organisms learn the association between two stimuli, resulting in the organism to learn how to anticipate events.

2)    Operant conditioning- Also called instrumental conditioning, is a form of associative learning in which the consequences of a behavior change the probability of the behavior's occurrence. It is when an organism learns the association between a behavior and a consequence. As a result, the organism learns how to increase behaviors that are followed by rewards.

·        Pavlov said the dogs were demonstrating classical conditioning. He summed it up like this: there's a neutral stimulus (the bell), which by itself will
not produce a response, like salivation. There's also a non-neutral or unconditioned stimulus (the food), which will produce an unconditioned
response (salivation). But if you present the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus together, eventually the dog will learn to associate
the two. After a while, the neutral stimulus by itself will produce the same response as the unconditioned stimulus, like the dogs drooling when
they heard the bell. This is called a conditioned response. Think of an unconditioned response as completely natural and a conditioned response
as something that we learn.

·        Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)- is a stimulus that produces a response without prior learning.

·        Unconditioned response (UCR)- is an unlearned reaction that is automatically elicited by the unconditioned stimulus.

·        Conditioned stimulus (CS)- is a previously neutral stimulus that eventually elicits a conditioned response after being paired with the unconditioned
stimulus.

·        Conditioned response (CR)- is the learned response to the conditioned stimulus that occurs after conditioned stimulus–unconditioned stimulus
pairing.

·        Sometimes CR can be similar to the UCR, but are usually not as strong.

·        Acquisition- is the initial learning of the connection between the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus when these two stimuli are
paired.

·        Generalization (in classical conditioning)- is the tendency of a new stimulus that is similar to the original conditioned stimulus to elicit a response
that is similar to the conditioned response.

·        Discrimination (in classical conditioning)- is the process of learning to respond to certain stimuli and not others.

·        Extinction (in classical conditioning)- is the weakening of the conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is absent.

·        Spontaneous recovery- is the process in classical conditioning by which a conditioned response can recur after a time delay, without further
conditioning.

·        Renewal is the recovery of the conditioned response when the organism is placed in a novel context.

·        Counterconditioning- is a classical conditioning procedure for changing the relationship between a conditioned stimulus and its conditioned
response.

·        Aversive conditioning is a form of treatment that consists of repeated pairings of a stimulus with a very unpleasant stimulus.

·        Taste aversion is a special kind of classical conditioning involving the learn association between the particular taste and nausea.

·        Classical conditioning helps explain habituation, which refers to the decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations.

·        Classical conditioning is a form of respondent behavior.

·        The law of effect is Thorndike's law stating that behaviors followed by positive outcomes are strengthened and that behaviors followed by negative
outcomes are weakened.

·        Shaping refers to rewarding approximations of a desired behavior.

·        Reinforcement- is the process by which a rewarding stimulus or event (a reinforcer) following a particular behavior increases the probability that
the behavior will happen again.

·        Positive reinforcement- is an increase in the frequency of a behavior in response to the subsequent presentation of something that is good.

·        Negative reinforcement- is an increase in the frequency of a behavior in response to the subsequent removal of something that is unpleasant.

·        Avoidance learning- is an organism's learning that it can altogether avoid a negative stimulus by making a particular response.

·        Learned helplessness- is an organism's learning through experience with unavoidable negative stimuli that it has no control over negative
outcomes.

·        Primary reinforcer- is a reinforcer that is innately satisfying; one that does not take any learning on the organism's part to make it pleasurable. Example: food, water, and pleasure.

·        Secondary reinforcer- is a reinforcer that acquires its positive value through an organism's experience; a secondary reinforcer is a learned or
conditioned reinforcer.

·        Generalization (in operant conditioning)- is when one performs a reinforced behavior in a different situation.

·        Discrimination (in operant conditioning)- is when one responds appropriately to stimuli that signal that a behavior will or will not be reinforced.

·        Extinction (in operant conditioning)- occurs when there is a decrease in the frequency of a behavior when the behavior is no longer reinforced.

·        Schedules of reinforcement- are specific patterns that determine when a behavior will be reinforced.

·        Punishment- is a consequence that decreases the likelihood that a behavior will occur.

·        Positive punishment- is the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus following a given behavior in order to decrease the frequency of that behavior.

·        Negative punishment- is the removal of a positive stimulus following a given behavior in order to decrease the frequency of that behavior.

·        Applied behavior analysis- Also called behavior modification, is the use of operant conditioning principles to change human behavior. Punishments
and rewards are given to manipulate a change in behavior.

·        Complex behaviors are the result of exposure to competent models.

·        The ability to learn by observation eliminates trail-and-error learning.

·        Albert Badura’s observational learning, called imitation or modeling, is learning that involves copying behavior.

·        In 1986, Bandura described four main processes in observational learning: attention, retention, motor reproduction, and reinforcement.

·        Vicarious reinforcement is when one is given a reward, the likelihood of repeating the same behavior is more likely to happen.

·        In 1932, Edward C. Tolman emphasized the purposiveness of behavior- the idea that most of behavior is goal-directed. He also emphasized that
the CS provides the key to understanding classical conditioning.

·        Latent learning- Also called implicit learning, is unreinforced learning that is not immediately reflected in behavior.

·        According to Kohler (1925), solving problems does not involve trail-and-error or simple connections between stimulus and responses.

·        Insight learning- is a form of problem solving in which the organism develops a sudden insight into or understanding of a problem's solution. One
way to enhance learning is through multicultural experiences.

·        Instinctive drift-  is the tendency of animals to revert to instinctive behavior that interferes with learning.

·        Preparedness- is the species-specific biological predisposition to learn in certain ways but not others.

·        The principle of classical and operant conditioning and observational learning are universal and are also a powerful learning process in culture.

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CHAPTER 8: Thinking, Intelligence, and Language 

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CHAPTER 8: Thinking, Intelligence, and Language 

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Cognition is how information is processed in your brain when remembering, thinking, and knowing
The brain works sort of like a computer. Just like a computer, the brain takes in information to store. This information is saved to be retrieved later.
HUMAN
1.Input.
2. Memory, problem solving, reasoning, consciousness.
3. Output.
COMPUTER
1. Input.
2. Hardware, software memory operations.
3. Output.
Computers contributed to an entire scientific field called artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence focuses on creating machines capable of performing activities that require intelligence when they are done by people.

Thinking involves manipulating information mentally. This is done by forming concepts, solving problems, making decisions, and reflecting IN clear and critical manner.
FORMING CONCEPTS
- Concepts are mental categories that are used to group objects, events, and characteristics. in other words this is how humans make sense of information in our world. It is what we think. For example apples ans oranges are fruits.
- Concepts are important for four reasons
1. Generalization
Ex: Cats, monkeys, and birds are animals
2. Association
Ex: Milk and cows; Cows make milk
3. Memory efficiency
Ex: Knowing how to sit down without having to think about it
4. Clues of reaction
Ex: Seeing something unusual and being told its food will make you eat it
- The prototype model emphasizes that when people evaluate something they look for familiar resemblance. For example birds robins are birds because birds generally sing, fly, and make nests. But, we make the exception that a penguin is also a bird even though it doesn't do any of those things.
SOLVING PROBLEMS
- Problem solving is why we think, or finding another way to do something.
- There are four steps to problem solving
1. Find and frame problems
• recognizing the problem
2. Develop good problem-solving strategies
•Subgoals: a lesser goal that form part of a greater goal
•Algorithms: a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations and guarantee a solution to a problem
•Heuristics: short cuts that hint to a solution
3.Evaluate solutions
•find out the effectiveness of the solution
4. Rethink and redefine problems and solutions over time
•improve on past situations
•MAKING DECISIONS
•REFLECTING IN A CLEAR AND CRITICAL MANNER
•In intelligence
•In language