The perception of a relationship where none exists. (pg. 28)

Example: Parents conceiving after adopting

Theory - an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events

Hypothesis - a testable prediction, often implied by a theory

In an experiment, the group that is NOT exposed to the treatment

Contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment.

Random assignment - Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting difference between those assigned to the different groups (pg. 31)

Random sample - A sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion (pg. 24)

An experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the reseach participants have received the treatment or a placebo.

Commonly used for drug studies

A statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. 

Example: human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures

Independent variable - variable that is manipulated

Dependent variable - variable that might respond to the independent variable

A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (indepedent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). 

By random assignment of participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant factors.

A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together and thus of how well either factor predicts the other (pg. 25)

Correlation does not mean causation!

Population - All the cases in a group being studied, from which samples may be drawn (pg. 24)

You draw samples from a population.

A branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and behavior (pg. 48)

Everything psychological is also biological.

Dendrite - the bushy, branching extentions of a neuron that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body (pg. 49)

Receive messages

The junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron (pg. 51)

Important in pain medications because they fill receptors in the synapse preventing the sensation of pain

A neural impulse.

A brief electrical charge that travels down an axon.

The cell body uses to decide whether to fire.

The level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse (pg. 50)

Minimum level of intensity of action potential.

Sympathetic Nervous System - The division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations (pg. 55)

Arousing part of autonomic nervous system

Fight or flight

The division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy

Calming

Rest and digest

The "little brain" at the reat of the brainstem

Functions include processing sensory input and coordinating movement output and balance (pg.64)

Coordinates voluntary movements and balance

Split brain - A condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain's two hemispheres by cutting the fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) connecting them (pg. 75)

Left brain: Writing and speaking

Right brain: Artistic and creative

Phineas Gage

Portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head

Includes areas that receive information from the visual fields (pg. 68)

The brain's ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience (pg. 73)

Brain reteaches other parts of the brain to do what damaged part did

Left brain: writing and speaking

Right brain: artisitic and creative

Dream - a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind. Dreams are notable for their hallucinatory imagery, discontinuities, and incongruities, and for the dreamer's delusional acceptance of the content and later difficulties remembering it.

Latent content - According to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream

Manifest content - According to Freud, the remembered storyline of a dream

Manifest content is what was dreamed. Latent content is what it meant.

Failing to notice changes in environment

Blind to change

People not noticing a change in the person they were giving directions to

The biological clock

Regular bodily rhythms (for example, temperature and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cucle (pg. 92)

Awake, but relaxed: alpha waves

Stages 1-2: theta waves with spindlesx

Stages 3-4: delta waves

Stage 5: beta waves (fast) REM

Rapid Eye Movement sleep

A recurring sleep stage during which vivid dreams commonly occur.

Also known as paradoxical sleep, because the muscles are relaxed but other body systems are active.

Can cause:

1. Fatigue and subsequent death

2. Impaired concentration

3. Emotional irritability

4. Depressed immune system

5. Great vulnerability

A sleep disorder characterized by high arousal and an appearance of being terrified.

Unlike nightmares, night terrors occur during stage 4 sleep, within 2 or 3 hours of falling asleep, and are seldom remembered (pg. 103)

 Most common in children

A social interactionin which one person suggests to another that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur (pg. 108)

A hypnotized person will not do something they would normally not do.

Some people cannot be hypnotized.

Can be therapeutic and alliviate pain.

Can't help recall forgotten things.

Power resides if the person is open to suggestion.

Social Influence Theory: imaginative actors (they really believe in its power)

Divided Consciousness Theory: One part of you is in a separate state

There are lots of notible differences between cultures?

Culture changes too quickly to be a result of genes.

The study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection.

Some of behaviors are a result of natural selection.

Easy: cheerful, relaxed, predictable

Difficult: irritable, intense, unpredictable

Slow-to-warm: resist or withdraw from new people and situations

It is both!

Your genes provide options. Your nurture determines what options actually occur.