Term
| • What is the core premise of psychodynamic theory? |
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Definition
| Psychodynamic theory attempts to explain behavior and personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the individual. |
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Term
| • How does psychodynamic theory differ from Freudian theory? |
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Definition
| Freud talks about the id, ego, and superego. Also penis envy, castration anxiety, and the Oedipus complex. |
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Term
| • What are the 3 major systems of personality development according to Freud? Define and give an example of each. |
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Definition
The id is the part of personality containing inherited psychic energy, particularly sexual and aggressive instincts. A newborn child.
The ego is the part of personality that represented reason, good sense, and rational self-control.
The superego is the part of personality that represents conscience, morality, and social standards. |
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Term
| • What are defense mechanisms? What is their role? List, define, and give an example of the five in the book. |
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Definition
o Repression – when a threatening idea, memory, or emotion is blocked from consciousness. A person who had a frightening childhood experience and cannot remember it.
o Projection – when a person’s own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else. A person who blames someone else for their own failure.
o Displacement – when people direct their emotions towards things that are not the real object of their feelings. A child who cannot take out anger on a parent takes it out on their toys.
o Regression – when a person reverts to a previous phase of psychological development. Adults who throw temper tantrums when they don’t get their way.
o Denial – when people refuse to admit that something unpleasant is happening. A person who ignores the fact that they are drinking too much. |
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Term
| • How does Jungian theory differ from Freudian theory? |
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Definition
| In addition to a person’s own unconscious, all human beings share a collective unconscious containing universal memories, symbols, images, and themes, which Jung called archetypes (the nurturing mother, the shadow archetype – the bestial/evil side of human nature, the hero). |
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Term
| • List and describe the big five |
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Definition
o Extroversion versus introversion – the extent to which people are outgoing or shy.
o Neuroticism versus emotional stability – the extent to which a person suffers from anxiety/poor impulse control/tendency to feel negative emotions.
o Agreeableness versus antagonism – good-natured or irritable, cooperative or abrasive, secure or suspicious and jealous.
o Conscientiousness versus impulsiveness – responsible or undependable, persevering or quick to give up, tidy or careless, steadfast or fickle.
o Openness to experience versus resistance to new experience – curious, imaginative, questioning, creative or conforming, predictable, uncomfortable. |
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Term
| • Are the big 5 stable over time? How does age/development impact the big 5? What about culture? |
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Definition
| The big 5 are quite stable over a lifetime but in later adulthood, people tend to be less extroverted and open to new experiences and many young people become more self-confident and emotionally stable. Culture can affect the prominence of these personality factors and how they are reflected in language but they have emerged as central personality dimensions through the world. |
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Term
| • What is Humanist psychology? How does it differ from the big 5 and/or psychoanalytic theories? |
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Definition
| Humanist psychology emphasizes personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human potential. Instead of the big 5, Maslow found self-actualization to be the most important. |
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Term
| • How is evolutionary psychology different from behavioral genetics? |
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Definition
o Evolutionary psychology emphasizes evolutionary mechanisms that may help explain human commonalities in cognition, development, emotion, social practices, and other areas of behavior.
o Behavioral genetics is concerned with the genetic bases of individual differences in behavior and personality. It also attempts to tease apart the relative contributions of heredity and environment. |
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Term
| • What are the innate human characteristics? Give examples. |
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Definition
o Infant reflexes like how they will suck something put to their lips.
o An interest in novelty like how babies prefer to look at new, unfamiliar things.
o A desire to explore and manipulate objects like the natural impulse to handle interesting objects.
o An impulse to play and fool around like how children enjoy playing pretend.
o Basic cognitive skills like the ability to distinguish living things from nonliving things. |
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Term
| • What is heritability? Describe 3 important facts about heritability listed in your textbook. Provide examples. |
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Definition
o Heritability is a statistical estimate of the proportion of the total variance in some trait that is attributable to genetic differences among individuals within a group.
o An estimate of heritability applies only to a particular group living in a particular environment. For example, children who are affluent, eat plenty of high quality food, have kind and attentive parents, and go to the same top-notch schools have highly heritable mental ability.
o Heritability estimates do not apply to individuals, only to variations within a group. It is impossible to know just how your genes and your personal history have interacted to produce the person you are today.
o Even highly heritable traits can be modified by the environment. Malnourished kids may not grow to be as tall as they would with sufficient food. |
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Term
| • Can gene influence account for differences between groups? Refer to the tomato plant experiment. |
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Definition
| Although intellectual differences within groups are partly genetic in origin, that does not mean that differences between groups are genetic. Blacks and whites do not grow up, on the average, in the same environments – differences in food, encouragement by society, prejudices, intellectual opportunities, and stereotypes can affect performance on IQ tests. |
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Term
| • Describe the structure of a neuron |
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Definition
| A neuron is composed of a cell body called the soma (that decides whether or not it will fire), an axon (the extending fiber that transmits impulses to other neurons), dendrites (branches that receive info from other neurons and transmit it towards the cell body), and the myelin sheath (a fatty insulation that may surround the axon). |
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Term
| • How do neurons communicate? |
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Definition
| When a nerve cell is stimulated, a change in electrical potential occurs between the inside and the outside of the call. The result is a brief exchange in electrical voltage, called an action potential, which produces an electric current, or impulse. When a neural impulse reaches the axon terminal’s bulb, tiny sacs in the tip of the axon terminal open and release a few thousand molecules of a chemical substance called a neurotransmitter. The entire site (the axon terminal, the cleft, and the covering membrane of the receiving dendrite or cell body) is called a synapse. |
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Term
| o What do neurotransmitters do? |
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Definition
| o Neurotransmitters make it possible for one neuron to excite or inhibit another. |
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Term
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Definition
| o is excitatory or inhibitory; involved in mood, sleep, and appetite. |
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Term
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Definition
| o is excitatory or inhibitory; involved in control of movement and sensations of pleasure. |
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Term
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Definition
| o is excitatory or inhibitory; involved in memory and controls muscle contractions. |
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Term
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Definition
| o is mainly excitatory; involved in arousal and mood. |
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Term
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Definition
| o is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter; involved in sleep and inhibits movement. |
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Term
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Definition
| o is the major excitatory neurotransmitter; involved in learning, memory formation, and nervous system development. |
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Term
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Definition
| o the pons (sleeping, waking and dreaming), the medulla (automatic functions such as breathing and heart rate), and the reticular activating system (arouses cortex and screens incoming info). |
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Term
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Definition
| o regulates movement and balance; involved in remembering simple skills and acquired reflexes; plays a part in analyzing sensory info, solving problems, and understanding words. |
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Term
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Definition
| o relays sensory messages to the cerebral cortex, includes all sensory messages except those from the olfactory bulb. |
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Term
| Hypothalamus and pituitary gland |
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Definition
| o involved in emotions and drive that are vital to survival (fear, hunger, thirst, reproduction), regulates autonomic nervous system. The pituitary gland is a small endocrine gland that releases hormones and regulates other endocrine glands. |
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Term
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Definition
| o responsible for arousal, regulation of emotion, and initial emotional response to sensory info; plays an important role in mediating anxiety and depression, emotional memory. |
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Term
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Definition
| o responsible for storage of new info in memory, comparing sensory info with what the brain expects about the world, enabling us to form spatial memories for navigating the environment. |
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