Exam 2
Review

PSYC 181 – Intro to Psych

Emma Marshall – Instructor

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

August 14, 2024

Exam 1

• Will cover information from Units 7-11

• Exam will include two-phases:

  • Phase 1 (75% of grade): You will take a 30 question exam using the respondus browser on Canvas. You are welcome to take as much time as you want within the multi-day exam window but once you start the exam you cannot close out of it and reenter it. You will take this part of the exam individually.
  • Phase 2 (25% of grade): You will take the second part of the exam with a group of your peers. Your group will meet on Zoom and complete the exam together through consensus.

Your final grade will be a weighted average of your score on Phase 1 (75%) and Phase 2 (25%) of each exam.

Exam policies

• Material for the exams is not limited to topics discussed in lectures. Students are responsible for assigned readings.
• All exams are closed book. You may not use the textbook, your notes, or the internet.
• No make-up exams will be given without a valid, documented excuse and notification to the instructor before the scheduled exam. For example, if you are ill on a particular exam day, you will need to email the instructor before missing the exam.
• The instructor reserves the right to administer oral make-up examinations.

Unit 7: Thinking & Cognition

COGNITION

Sensations and information are received by our brains, filtered through emotions and memories, and processed to become thoughts.

How does the brain organize information?

Concepts categories of linguistic information, images, ideas or memories

Prototypes the best example or representation of a concept

Concepts

Natural Created through either direct or indirect experience

Artificial defined by a specific set of characteristics

Anchoring bias Tendency to focus on one piece of information and adjust

Confirmation bias Tendency to focus on information that confirms your existing beliefs

Representative bias Tendency to unintentionally stereotype someone or something

Availability heuristic Tendency to make a decision based on readily available example, information, or recent experience

Hindsight biasKnowledge of an outcome makes that outcome appear more inevitable or foreseeable than it would have been beforehand

Language a communication system that involves using words and systematic rules to transmit information from one individual to another

Components of Language:

Phoneme short, sound units (ah, eh)

Morphemes the smallest units that convey meaning

Lexicon the words of a given language

Grammar the set of rules that are used to convey meaning through the use of the lexicon.

How do we construct language?

Semanticsthe meaning we derive from morphemes and words

Syntax the way words are organized into sentences

The Source of Intelligence

Charles Spearman’s g-factor

Robert Sternberg’s trio

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) score earned on a test designed to measure intelligence

Flynn Effect each generation has a significantly higher IQ than the last

Unit 8: Memory

HOW MEMORY FUNCTIONS

Memory is an information processing system like a computer. It is a set of processes used to encode, store and retrieve information over different periods of time.

• Encoding involves the input of information into the memory system.
• Storage is the retention of the encoded information.
• Retrieval, is getting the information out of memory and back into awareness.

PARTS OF THE BRAIN INVOLVED IN MEMORY

AMNESIA

NEUROTRANSMITTERS

Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of Memory

BADDELEY & HITCH MODEL

LONG-TERM MEMORY (LTM)

MEMORY CONSTRUCTION & RECONSTRUCTION

Unit 9: Learning

WHAT IS LEARNING?

Learning relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience

Associative learning when an organism makes connections between stimuli or events that occur together in the environment

Reflexes motor or neural reactions to
a specific stimulus

Instincts behaviors triggered by a broader
range of events (e.g., aging,
change of seasons)

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Higher-order conditioning

CURVE OF ACQUISITION, EXTINCTION & SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY

LITTLE ALBERT

THE SKINNER BOX

OPERANT CONDITIONING

PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT SCALES

PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES

COGNITIVE MAPS

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

BANDURA’S BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT

Unit 10: Social Psychology

Situationism the view that our behavior and actions are determined by our immediate environment and surroundings

Dispositionism the view that our behavior is determined by internal factors (i.e., personality traits and temperament)

Fundamental attribution error tendency to overemphasize internal factors as explanations/attributions for the behavior of other people and underestimate the power of the situation

Quizmaster Study

Actor-observer bias phenomenon of explaining other people’s behaviors as due to internal factors and our own behaviors as due to situational factors

• We often make the fundamental attribution error because we do not have enough information to make a situational explanation about the person’s behavior.
• However, when we explain our own behaviors, we have more information available and are more likely to make situational explanations.

Self-serving bias tendency of an individual to take credit by making dispositional or internal attributions for positive outcomes but situational or external attributions for negative outcomes

Just-world hypothesis belief that people get the outcomes they deserve

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance

ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL

The Milgram Experiment

Groupthink the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus

Group Polarization the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group

.

Social Facilitation occurs when an individual performs better when an audience is watching than when the individual performs the behavior alone

Social Loafing the exertion of less effort by a person working together with a group

IN-GROUPS & OUT-GROUPS

In-groups a group that we identify with or see ourselves as belonging to

In-group bias prejudice and discrimination because the out-group is perceived as different and is less preferred than our in-group

Out-groups a group that we view as fundamentally different from us

FORMING RELATIONSHIPS

What influences who we form platonic and romantic relationships with?

proximity people with whom you have
the most contact

similarity people who are similar to us
in background, attitude, and lifestyle

homophily tendency for people to
form social networks with similar others

STERNBERG’S TRIANGULAR THEORY OF LOVE

Unit 11: Personality

Galen

• Prevalent view for over 1000 years and through the Middle Ages

1Choleric

• passionate, ambitious,
  and bold

2Melancholic

• reserved, anxious,
  and unhappy

3Sanguine

• joyful, eager, and optimistic

4Phlegmatic

• calm, reliable, and thoughtful

Sigmund Freud (20th Century)

DEFENSE MECHANISMS

Neo-Freudians

RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM

JULIAN ROTTER: LOCUS OF CONTROL

Marshmallow Study

Humanistic Approaches

BIOLOGICAL APPROACHES

TRAIT THEORISTS

Gordon Allport

Found 4,500 words to describe personality and sorts by cardinal, central and secondary traits

Raymond Cattell

Narrowed Allport’s list to about 171 traits and identified 16 dimensions of personality

FIVE FACTOR MODEL

INDIVIDUALIST VS COLLECTIVIST CULTURES