AP Psychology - Vocabulary Semester 1 Final

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, technology, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

emphasizes that biological, psychological (cognitive), and sociocultural factors combine and interact to produce behavior - including psychological disorders

comparison of at least two views or explanations of the same thing

thinking about thinking, assumptions, methods, goals

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

the way an issue or a question is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments; 90% chance of living vs 10% chance of dying

a response of the whole organism, involving 1) physiological arousal, 2) expressive behaviors, and 3) conscious experience

the mutual or cooperative interchange of favors

the perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself

self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life, used along with measures of objective well-being (ex. physical/economic indicators) to evaluate people's quality of life

our tendency to form judgments (of sounds/lights/income) relative to a neutral level defined by prior experience

a desire to perform behavior effectively for its own sake

the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state (drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need

A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level

overall evaluation on appearance or friendliness; one trait

occurs when we face 2 attractive alternatives and selecting one means losing the other

occurs when we must choose between two undesirable alternatives

involves being attracted to and repelled by the same goal

defense mechanism that redirects anger towards a safer outlet

defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others

the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones

a characteristic of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as obsessed by self-report inventories and peer reports

overestimating others noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunder (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us)

a defense mechanism where the individual indirectly and unassertively expresses aggression towards another

researched by Albert Bandura; the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors

researched by Julian Rotter; the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine's one's fate

researched by Marlin Seligman; the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism (emotional stability)

a defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated

consciousness, preconscious, unconscious/superego, ego, ID

consistency between self-perceptions and experience

researched by Albert Bandura; beliefs concerning one's ability to perform the behaviors needed to achieve desired outcomes; your personal control

a newer understanding of short-term memory that adds conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory

unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as time, space, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings

the tendency for distributed study/practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice

our tendency to recall best the last (recency effect) and first (primary effect) items in a list

1. thoughts you can hear, see, smell, taste, or feel; includes memories, dreams, daydreams, plans, visions, fantasies

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulations; a neural basis for learning and memory

retention of facts/experiences that one can consciously know and 'declare' (aka declarative memory

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response

the forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information

the backward-acting disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information

occurs when misleading information has corrupted one's memory of an event

recollections of personally experienced events that make up the stories of our lives

refers to continued rehearsal past the point of initial learning, and it significantly improves performance on memory tests

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people

a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to this provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin)

a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier—but also more error-prone—use of heuristics

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradicting evidence

cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used

the tendency to be influenced by a suggested reference point, pulling our response towards that point

researched by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky; losing $100 produces a feeling of negativity that is more intense than the feelings of elation produced by a gain of $100

conventional thinking; thinking directed toward a single correct solution

thinking that produces many alternatives or ideas; creativity

a schema that unfolds in a regular or standardized order

identify differences between the present situation and the desired goal, then make changes that will reduce the differences

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think

language allows us to communicate about events and objects that are not physically present

consists of the symbols that are used and their order

the underlying meaning of the combined symbols

an innate biological mechanism that contains the general grammatical rules common to all languages

the tendency for words' meaning to morph gradually over time to the point that the distance between the original meaning and the current one can be quite striking; silly used to mean blessed

the development over time of a words' meaning into one more general; bird once referred to small birds but now refers to all birds

the development over time of a words' meaning into one more specific; hound used to refer to all dogs but now only refers to a subset of them

the range that words share in common in contrast to how they are specifically different; intelligence, skill, and wisdom share a common core and have their own exact definition

the most successful of the many artificial languages; created by Ludwig Zamenhof

the ability to acquire language flawlessly decreases sharply after puberty; referred to extensively by the Chomskyan school as evidence that the ability to learn language is innately specified

-a makeshift, reduced version of a language used by people with little need or inclination to master the language itself, usually for purposes of trade

the result of the expansion of a reduced version of a language (a pidgin) into a full language

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience

interpreting one's new experience in terms of one's existing schemas

adapting one's current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived

the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects; Piaget believed this to be a part of concrete operational reasoning

people's ideas about their own and others' mental states—about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict

an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation

an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development

Konrad Lorenz; the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life

a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period

assertion of parental power without warmth; rejecting relationship

demanding, but caring; good child-parent communication

warm towards child, but lax in setting limits

indifferent and uninvolved with child

the difference between what a child can do independently and what the child can do with assistance from adults or more advanced peers

Renee Bajilargeon; used to research infants; we look at the unusual because we are surprised and curious

a person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity

The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.

the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity)

the most important of the male sex hormones. Both males and females have it, but the additional testosterone in males stimulates the growth of the male sex organs during the fetal period, and the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty

a set of expected behaviors, attitudes, and traits for males or for females

our sense of being male, female, or some combination of the two

the acquistion of a traditional masculine or feminine role