Psych Midterm

Psych Midterm

1. Memory

   • The Paradox of Memory
     • Our memories are surprisingly good for some situations (AJ and the real "Rain Man) and surprisingly poor for others (Nadean Cool-- recovered memories)
     • Memory illusion- a false but convincing memory
       • Memory is reconstructive- we extract the gist to make things easier to remember (but this may contribute to memory errors-- sweet in list of sweet words)
   • Observer vs Field Memory
     • Observer Memory is a memory in which we see ourselves as an outside observer would
     • Field Memory is a memory in which you instead picture the scene as you would have seen it through your own eyes
   • The Three Systems of Model Memory: Sensory, Short-Term, and Long-Term Each system differs in terms of SPAN and DURATION
     • Atkinson and Shiffrin's classic 3-step model helps us to think about how memories are processed, but today's researchers recognize other ways long-term memories form. For example, some information slips into long-term memory via a "back door," without our consciously attending to it (automatic processing). And so much active processing occurs in the short-term memory stage that many not prefer to call that stage working memory.
     • Sensory Memory
       • First stage in forming explicit memories
       • Immediate, very brief recording go sensory information in the memory system
       • ICONIC MEMORY: picture-image memory
       • ECHOIC MEMORY: sound memory
       • Photographic Memory
         • No true perfect photographic memory
         • Eidetic memory- vivd memory, but contains errors and fades after a few minutes
         • More nature than nurture
         • More common in kids than adults, fades around age 6
         • Not very adaptive from an evolutionary perspective
     • Short-Term/Working Memory
       • Short-term memory: activated memory that holds items briefly before the info is stored or forgotten
       • Working Memory: Newer understanding of short-term memory that stresses conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spacial info, and of info retrieved from long-term memory
         • Alan Baddeley's (2002) model of working memory, simplified here, includes visual and auditory rehearsal of new information. Part of the brain functions like a manager, a central executive focusing attention and pulling information from long-term memory to help make sense of new information.
       • Capacity of Short-Term and Working Memory
         • Short-term memory: George Miller first thought 7 bits of info can be stored. Baddeley said without distraction, about 7 digits or 6 letters or 5 words
         • Working Memory: capacity varies by age and distractions at time of memory tasks
       • How can we aid our short-term memory?
         • CHUNKING- organizing info into meaningful groups to extend the span of STM beyond 7 +/- 2
         • REHEARSAL- repeating info to extend the duration of STM
           • Maintenance rehearsal: repeating stimuli in the original form
           • Elaborative rehearsal- linking stimuli in meaningful way
         • Levels-of-processing model: the more deeply we transform info, the better we remember it (self-reference > meaning > what does it mean > sounds like > case or font)
         • MNEMONICS- memory aids, especially techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices
           • Peg-word system
           • Keyword method
         • HIERARCHIES- organization of items into a few broad categories that are divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and ideas
       • Effortful Processing Strategies: Spaced Study and Self-Assessment
         • Spacing effect: encoding is more effective when it is spread over time. Distributed practice produces better long-term recall. Massive practice produces speedy short-term learning and feelings of confidence.
         • Testing effect (retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced effect)- encoding is very effective
     • Long-term memory- permanent store of information
       • Capacity is very large, may endure for decades (permastore), errors differ from STM (semantic vs acoustic)
       • Forms of Long-Term Memory
         • Explicit (or declarative) memory- accessible to conscious awareness, can be stated "declaratively"
           • Semantic Memory: knowledge of facts
           • Episodic Memory: knowledge of events in our lives
           • Explicit Memory System: Hippocampus and Frontal Lobes
             • Is dedicated to explicit memory formation
             • Registers and temporarily holds elements of explicit memories before moving them to other brain regions for long-term storage
             • Neural storage of long-term memories is called consolidation
           • Case Study: No explicit memory-- Clive Wearing
           • Amnesia: Loss of Explicit Memory
             • Retrograde Amnesia- loss of past memories before onset of amnesia (generalized amnesia is very rare)
             • Anterograde Amnesia- inability to form new memories since onset of amnesia
             • Recovery is gradual if at all
             • Case Studies of Amnesia- Dissociation of Explicit and Implicit Memory System
               • HM- severe epilepsy, medial part of temporal lobes removed, including hippocampi. Severe anterograde amnesia, but could show new motor skills
               • When the hippocampus is damaged/removed, explicit memory is impaired, but implicit memory is spared
         • Implicit memory- not deliberately remembered (automatic), doesn't require conscious effort, many different forms
           • Procedural memory- motor skills and habits
           • Classically conditioned responses- associative conditioning between neutral stimulus and innately meaningful stimuli
           • Implicit Memory System: The Cerebellum and Basal Ganglia
             • Cerebellum plays important role in forming and storing memories created by classical conditioning
             • Memories of physical skills are also implicit memories.
               • Basal ganglia help form memories for these skills
             • Infantile Amnesia- conscious memory of the first three years is blank. Command of language and well-developed hippocampus needed.
         • Amygdala: emotion-related memory formation
           • Retaining Information in the Brain-- excitement or dress trigger hormone production and provoke amygdala to engage memory
             • Emotions often persist with or without conscious awareness
             • Emotional arousal causes an outpouring of stress hormones, which lead to activity in the brain's memory-forming areas
             • Flashbulb memories occur via emotion-triggered hormonal changes and rehearsal
         • Synaptic Changes
           • Long-term potentiation (LTP)- increase in a synapse's firing potential. After LTP, brain will not erase memories. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory. Doubled receptor sites.
           • Kandel and Schwartz- pinpointed changes in sea slugs' neural connection. With learning more serotonin released and cell efficiency increased-- number of synapses increase.
       • How do we get info into and out of LTM?
         • Encoding- getting information into memory
         • Storage- keeping information in memory
         • Retrieval- reactivation or reconstruction of information from memory
           • Memories are reconstructive.
           • Many types of forgetting result from retrieval errors: the memory is present but not accessible. Retrieval cues help.
             • Memory retrieval cues: Memories are held in storage by a web of associations. Retrieval cues serve as anchor points for pathways to memory suspended in this web. Best retrieval cues come from associations formed at the time a memory is encoded.
               • Priming- activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory
               • Serial position effect
                 • Primacy effect- tendency to remember words at the beginning of a list better than those later in the list (likely reflects rehearsal and LTM processes, hippocampal activity
                 • Recency effect- tendency to remember words at the end of a list better than those earlier in the list (likely reflects STM processes, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity)
                 • von Restorff effect- tendency to remember distinct stimuli
               • Encoding Specificity- we're more likely to remember something when the conditions present at encoding are similar to those at retrieval
                 • Context-dependent memory: external context
                 • State-dependent memory: internal state (included mood-dependent learning)
           • Measuring Memory
             • Recall: generating previously remembered information
             • Recognition- selecting previously remember information from an array of options
             • Relearning- how much more quickly we reacquire something learned before (Ebbinghaus' Retention Curve)
           • Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon- the experience of knowing that we know something but are unable to access it. Memory was stored, but not retrieved properly.
   • Forgetting and the Two-Track Mind
     • Forgetting has several causes- encoding failure, storage decay, retrieval failure, interference, motivated forgetting
       • Encoding Failure: AGE- encoding lag is linked to age-related memory decline. ATTENTION- failure to notice or encode contributes to memory failure
       • Storage Decay: Course of forgetting is initially rapid, and then levels off with time. Physical change in the brain occurs as memory forms (memory trace)
       • Retrieval failure
         • Events and memories are not available because these were never acquired
         • Memories have been discarded due to stored memory decay
         • Insufficient information to access memories make these out of reach
       • Interference
         • Proactive- occurs when older memory makes it more difficult to remember new information
         • Retroactive- occurs when new learning disrupts memory for older information
       • Motivated forgetting
         • Freud: repressed memories protect self-concept and minimize anxiety
         • Today: attempts to forget more likely when information is neural, not emotional
     • When do we forget? Forgetting can occur at any memory stage. As we process information, we filter, alter, or lose much of it.
   • Memory Construction Errors
     • Misinformation effect: occurs when a memory has been corrupted by misleading information
     • Imagination effect: occurs when repeatedly imagining fake actions and events can create false memories
     • Implanted memories: easier to implant memory for plausible events and events in the distant past
     • Source Amnesia (source misattribution)- involves faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined
     • deja vu- the sense that "I've experienced this before." Suggests cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience
     • Children's eyewitness recall
       • Ceci and Bruck: suggestive interviewing techniques- many produce false stories about unexperienced events
       • Accurate recall when neutral person, non-leading questions soon after event containing words child can understand

2. Thinking

   • COGNITION involves the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
   • CONCEPTS help to simplify thinking through mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, and people
   • After placing an item in a category, memory gradually shifts it toward a category prototype
   • Categories boundaries begin to blur as movement from prototypes occur
     • Prototype- a mental image or best example of a particular category.
   • Kahneman & Tversky: dual process- fast and slow thinking (problem-solving strategies)
     • System 1: Fast and Automatic-- uses heuristics. A rule of thumb that is usually speedier than an algorithm but is also more error prone.
       • Heuristics and Biases
         • Availability Heuristics-- can distort judgement by estimating event likelihood based on memory availability. Enables us to make snap judgements, but lead us to ignore important information or to underestimate the chance of something happening. If instances come to memory, probably vivid and we think events are common. Ex: sharks are most available in memory of things to kill you. Falling airplane parts are more likely.
         • Representativeness Heuristic-- using subjective similarity between observation and an expected profile or pattern, while ignoring other statistical information
           • Conjunction Fallacy
           • Law of Small Numbers
           • Neglecting Base Rates
         • Confirmation Bias-- predisposes us to verify rather than challenge our hypothesis
         • Overconfidence-- tendency to be more confident than correct. Overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgements
         • Belief Perseverance-- clinging to beliefs and ignoring evidence that prove they are wrong (false belief that vaccines cause autism)
         • Framing- sways decisions and judgements by influencing the way an issue is posed. It can also influence beneficial decisions.
         • Why do we have biases? They simplify our world (overwhelming amount of information, heuristics are simple rules of thumb), useful and good enough most of the time.
     • System 2: Methodical and Slow-- uses algorithms, a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees a solution to a problem
   • Intuition
     • Intuition is an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.
     • Intuition is analysis "frozen into habit"-- implicit knowledge
     • Usually adaptive, enabling quick reactions. Learned associations surface as gut feelings
     • Intuition is huge-- critical thinkers are often guided by intuition
   • Unconscious processing improves decision-making (let brain stew while doing something else)
   • Creativity is the ability to produce new and valuable ideas. Supported by aptitude, intelligence, and working memory
     • Divergent thinking-- expands the number of possible problem solutions (problem if damage to frontal lobes)
       • Convergent thinking-- narrows the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution (problems if damage to left parietal lobe)
     • 5 ingredients of Creativity (Robert Sternberg)-- expertise, imaginative thinking skills, venturesome personality, intrinsic motivation, creative environment
   • Do other species share our cognitive skills? Yes. Use concepts, numbers, and tools. Show insight, self-awareness, altruism, cooperation, and grief
     • Baboons- voice recognition
     • Apes and dolphins- mirror self-recognition
     • Elephants- displays of learning, remembering, cooperation
     • Apes and humans share: form concepts, display insight, shaped by reinforcement in becoming tool users, show remarkable numerical capacity, transmit cultural patterns.

3. Development

   • Developmental Psychology- the study of how behavior changes over time
     • Special Considerations
       • Post hoc fallacy- false assumption that because one event occurred before another event, it must have caused that event
       • Children's development influences their experiences, but their experiences also influence their development (bidirectional influences)
   • Research Designs
     • Cross-sectional design- examine people of different ages as a single time point
     • Longitudinal design- track the development of the same group of people over time (able to control for cohort effects)
   • Myths of early experience
     • Infant determinism- assumption that extremely early experiences are more influential in our development than later experiences
     • Childhood fragility- assumption that children are extremely delicate (resilient youth-- case of Liz Murray)
   • Nature vs Nurture
     • Gene-environment interaction- the impact of genes depends on the environment in which the behavior develops
     • Nature via Nurture- genetic predispositions can drive us to select and create particular environments
     • Gene expression- some genes turn on only in response to specific environmental events
   • Prenatal Development: From Zygote to Baby
     • Zygote- fertilized egg
       • Blastocyst- ball of identical cells, each with no specific function
         • Embryo- second week through eighth week after conception, when limbs, facial features, and major organs take shape
           • Fetus- ninth week of development through birth during which physical maturation occurs
     • Obstacles to Normal Fetal Development
       • Teratogen- environmental factor that can harm development (fetal alcohol syndrome)
       • Genetic disruptions of fetal development (down syndrome)
       • Premature and low-birth-weight babies
   • Motor Development
     • Reflexes- automatic motor behaviors, often present at birth (sucking, rooting)
     • Motor behaviors- self-initiated body movements, primarily universal in sequence but not in timing, are guided by genes and influenced by environment
   • Brain Development in Infants
     • Starts 16 days after conception
     • Born with about 23 billion neurons (brain is .25 our size)
     • Networks between neurons continue to grow (neurogenesis, synaptic pruning)
   • Infancy and Childhood: Physical Development
     • Brain cells are sculpted by heredity and experience. 3-6 months: rapid frontal lobe growth and continued growth into adolescence and beyond). Early childhood: critical preside for some skills (language and vision)
     • Infant research methods
       • Habituation-- babies attend to novel things, eventually they get bored by repetition, if they suddenly regain interest they think something novel has occurred
       • Sucking responses-- babies tend to suck more on a pacifier when excited/interested
       • Looking times-- babies look more at things they are interested in
   • Infant memory
     • Infantile amnesia-- the brain forms memories so differently from the episodic memory of adulthood that most people cannot really recall memories from the first three years of life
     • Learning skills-- infants can learn skills (procedural memory)
   • Cognitive Development
     • How do children learn, think, reason, and communicate? Answers-- Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky
     • Jean Piaget
       • Constructivist theory-- children construct an understanding of their world based on observations of the effects of their behavior
         • Assimilation- absorbing new info into current knowledge
           • Accommodation- altering a belief to make it compatible with experience
       • 4 stages of cognitive development
         • Sensorimotor (0-2 yrs)
           • Children only know what they can see, lack object permanence, lack deferred imitation (an inability to perform an action that the child previously observed). Scale errors 18-30mos
         • Preoperational (2-7 yrs)
           • Able to construct mental representation of experiences, but unable to perform mental transformations or operations, object permanence develops, egocentric
         • Concrete Operations (7-11 yrs)
           • Can perform mental operations for actual events, can perform conservation tasks and mathematics operations, no longer egocentric, still poor at performing mental operations in abstract situations (need physical experience)
         • Formal Operations (11 yrs +)
           • Ability to perform hypothetical reasoning, ability to use logic in new situations
       • Piaget's Tests
         • Object permanence- knowing an object exists even when you cannot see it
           • Criticism: infants will look longer at impossible events, indicating surprise. This suggests that object permanence may not develop in stages but rather involve continuous learning about the world.
         • Egocentrism- an inability to see the world from others' perspectives
         • Conservation- despite transformation, the amount remains the same
       • Reflecting on Piaget's Theory: identified significant cognitive milestones and stimulated global interest in cognitive development, sequence was right, development is more continuous than Piaget theorized, children may be more competent than theory revealed
     • Vygotsky: Social and Cultural Influences on Learning
       • Scaffolding- learning mechanisms in which parents provide initial guidance in child's learning then gradually remove structure
       • Zone of proximal development- phase of learning during which children can benefit from instruction
       • No domain-general stages. Focused on social interactions.
     • Contemporary Theories of Cognitive Development
       • Domain-General Cognitive Accounts: Similar to Piaget but gradual, rather than stage-like learning
       • Social-cultural accounts: emphasize social contact, similar to Vygotsky
       • Modular accounts: domain-specific spheres of knowledge, similar to Vygotsky
     • Landmarks of Cognitive Development
       • Physical Reasoning: object permanence actually emerges by 5 months, infants possess naive physics (unsupported objects fall)
       • Categorizing Objects
       • Concept of the self and others-- rudimentary sense of self as early as 3 months, theory of mind-- the ability to reason about what other people know or believe
     • Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)- children with ASD have impaired theory of mind, social deficiencies, and repetitive behaviors (challenging for them to read faces, underlying causes are attributed to poor communication among brain regions that facilitate theory of mind skills and genetic influences
   • Social and Moral Development
     • Stranger Anxiety-- a fear of strangers developing around 8 months, same in all cultures
     • Attachment- strong emotional connection we share with those to whom we feel closest
       • Attachment Styles: Strange Situation Task-- to evaluate infant attachment
         • Secure attachment- child calms down when mother returns, and returns to playing. Child tends to feel safe to explore the room while using mother as a secure base.
         • Insecure attachment-- avoidant: child ignores mother or shows no emotion when mother returns, child tends not to explore
         • Insecure attachment-- ambivalent: child approaches mother but seems angry; may push her away. Child tends not to explore
     • Imprinting-- process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life
     • Critical period-- optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development
     • Infant Bonding: Harlow's Monkeys-- monkeys spent more time with cloth mother than wire mother. Contact comfort-- positive emotions afforded by touch
   • Temperament- basic emotional style that appears early in development and is largely genetic in origin
     • Thomas and Chess infant classifications: easy, difficult, slow-to-warm-up
     • Kagan: behavioral inhibition (inhibited=scaredy cats, uninhibited=risk for impulsive behavior, middling)
     • May elicit certain attachment behaviors from parents
   • Parenting Styles
     • Permissive (lenient, affectionate, very little punishment)
     • Authoritarian (strict, show little affection, strong discipline)
     • Authoritative (support children but set firm limits) *best
     • Uninvolved (neglectful, ignore children) *worst
     • Average expectable environment: one that provides children with basic needs for affection and discipline is likely good enough
   • Moral Development (Kohlberg)
     • Reasoning process, not just answers
     • Pre-conventional Morality
     • Conventional Morality
     • Post-conventional Morality
     • Criticisms of Kohlberg's work: Cultural bias, sex bias, low correlation with moral behavior, confounded with verbal intelligence, assumes moral reasoning precedes emotional reaction to moral issues
   • Adolescent: Cognitive Development
     • Moral Intuition
       • Haidt: much of morality rooted in moral intuitions that are made quickly and automatically
       • Greene: moral cognition is often automatic but can be overridden
     • Moral Action (feeds moral attitudes)
       • Mischel: Ability to delay gratification is linked to more positive outcomes in adulthood
   • Gender Concepts
     • Gender Identity- individual's sense of being male or female (gender identity disorder = transsexualism)
     • Gender Roles- behaviors that tend to be associated with being male or female
     • Biological and Social influences
   • Changes in Adolescence and Adulthood
     • Adolescence- the transition between childhood and adulthood commonly associated with the teenage years
     • Physical maturation-- puberty
       • Primary sex characteristics: the reproductive organs and genitals that distinguish sexes
       • Secondary sex characteristics: sex differentiating characteristics that don't relate directly to reproduction, such as breasts in women and deep voices in men
       • Menarche- the start of menstruation
       • Spermarche- boy's first ejaculation
     • Brain: frontal lobes don't mature until late adolescence or early adulthood
   • Adolescence: Parent and Peer Relationships
     • Parents: are more important when it comes to education, discipline, responsibility, orderliness, and way of interacting with authority figures
     • Peers: Are more important for learning cooperation, for finding the road to popularity, for inventing styles of interaction among people of the same age
   • Adulthood
     • Aging
       • Biological age- how well the organs are functioning
       • Psychological age- mental attitudes and agility
       • Functional age- ability to function in given roles in society
       • Social age- appropriate behavior for one's age
       • Some cognitive functions decrease with old age, some stay the same or improve
     • Physical Development
       • Late adulthood: life expectancy worldwide increased from 46.5 to 70 years; telomeres tips shorten
       • Visual sharpness, distance perception, and stamina diminish. Pupils shrink and become less transparent
       • Immune system weakens and susceptibility to life-threatening disease increases
       • Neural processing lag occurs; brain regions related to memory begin to atrophy; speech slows
       • Exercise slows aging and stimulates brain cell development and neural connections
     • Neurocognitive disorders (NCD) and Alzheimer's Disease
       • NCDs: Acquired disorders marked by cognitive deficits, often related to Alzheimer's disease, brain injury or disease, or substance abuse. Results in the erosion of mental abilities that is not topical of normal aging
       • Alzheimer's Disease: marked by neural plaques, often with an onset after age 80. Entails a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities
     • Well-Being Across the Life Span: positive feelings grow after midlife and negative feelings decline, older adults report less anger, stress, and worry and have fewer social relationship problems; brain-wave reactions to negative images diminish with age; at all ages, people are happiest when they are not alone.

4. Emotion and Motivation

   • Emotion: Arousal, Behavior, and Cognition
     • Emotions are adaptive responses that support survival
     • Emotional components: bodily arousal, expressive behaviors, conscious experiences
     • Two Dimensions of Emotions: arousal (low versus high) and valence (pleasant versus unpleasant feeling)
     • Discrete emotions theory: humans experience a small number of distinct emotions that can combine in complex ways. Evolutionarily adaptive. Emotional expressions may be the by-products of innate motor programs
     • Primary emotions: cross-culturally universal emotion-- happiness, disgust, sadness, fear, surprise, anger
     • Expression follows emotion
       • Genuine smile= Duchenne smile
       • Fake smile= Pan Am smile
     • Theories of emotion generally address two major questions: Does physiological arousal come before or after emotional feelings? How do feeling and cognition interact?
       • Cognitive Theories of Emotion
         • Emotions are products of thinking, not innate motor programs. There are as many different kinds of emotions as thoughts; there are no discrete emotions
         • James-Lange Theory of Emotion: emotions result fro our interpretations of out bodily reactions to stimuli (patients with higher spinal cord injuries report less emotion than those with lower spinal cord injuries)
         • Cannon-Bard theory: An emotion-provoking event leads simultaneously to an emotional and bodily reactions
       • Two-Factor Theory: Arousal+Label=Emotion--- emotions are produced by an undifferentiated arousal, with an attribution of that arousal (S&S spillover effect- happier when happy and angrier when angry)
     • Emotion: Gender and Cultural Differences
       • Women vs Men: tend to read emotional cues more easily and to be more empathetic. Express more emotion with their faces
       • Cultural Differences: Individualistic cultures like US display emotions more visibly than collectivistic cultures such as China. Gestures are often culturally determined, but basic emotions and their expressions are universal
     • Unconscious Influences on Emotion
       • Subliminal- stimuli that is below the threshold of awareness
       • Mere exposure effect- repeated exposure to a stimulus makes us more likely to feel favorably toward it
       • Facial feedback hypothesis- you're likely to feel emotions that correspond to your facial expressions
       • Behavior feedback hypothesis- tendency of behavior to influence our own and others' thoughts, feelings, and actions
     • Nonverbal Communication: anything but the words themselves (appearance, facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, posture) Nonverbal leakage-- an unconscious spillover of emotions into nonverbal behavior
     • Lying and Lie Detection
       • Humans- usually not accurate in detecting lies
       • Polygraph tests- 98% accurate
         • Pinocchio response- a perfect physiological or behavioral indicator of lying
         • Controlled question test (CQT)-- relevant questions (bearing on the crime in question), irrelevant questions (not bearing), control questions (elicit probable lies)
         • False positives-- the test incorrectly label innocent individuals as guilty at a high rate. Test is biased against the innocent
     • Positive Psychology: Emphasizes human strengths. Broaden and build theory-- happiness predisposes us to think more openly, allowing us to see the big picture we might have overlooked otherwise
     • Forecasting Happiness
       • Durability Bias- we believe that both our good and bad moods will last longer than they do
       • Hedonic treadmill- the tendency for our moods to adapt to external circumstances
       • Happiness is relative to our own experiences (adaptation-level phenomenon) and to others' success (the relative deprivation principle)
   • Motivation: Our Wants and Needs
     • Motivation- defined as need or desire that energizes and directs behavior
     • 4 Perspective for understanding motivated behaviors
       • Instinct Theory (evolutionary perspective): genetically predisposed behaviors
         • Darwin: classification of many behaviors as instincts; named but did not explain behaviors
         • Instinct: fixed, unlearned pattern throughout species. Genes predispose some species-typical behavior
       • Drive-reduction theory: responses to inner pushes
         • Certain drives, like hunger, thirst, and sexual frustration, motivate us to minimize aversive states
         • We're motivated to maintain a given level of psychological homeostasis
         • Incentive involves a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior
       • Arousal theory: right levels of stimulation
         • Humans are motivated to engage in behaviors that either increase or decrease arousal levels.
         • High arousal levels motivate engagement in behaviors that will lower these levels
         • Low arousal levels motivate activities that can increase arousal-- often through curiosity
         • Yerkes-Dodson Law: inverted U shaped relationship between arousal and performance
       • Maslow's hierarchy of needs: priority of some needs over others
         • Viewed human motives as pyramid; at the base are physiological needs and at the peak are the highest human needs
         • Self-Actualization: fulfilling one's potential; maximizing awareness, skill, personal characteristics; being more tomorrow than you are today
           • Characteristics: sincere acceptance of self and others, fully experience life in the present, make growth choices not fear choices (approach vs avoidance motivation), strive toward honesty, meaningful life activities

5. Stress, Appraisal, and Coping

   • What is stress? *event/stimulus *reaction/appraisal
     • The stress response: sympathetic nervous system-- accelerates heart rate, dilates pupils, inhibits digestion, simulates glucose release, secretion of epi and norepi
     • Evolutionary stressors are not the same as contemporary stressors, but response is same
     • Selye's General Adaptation syndrome: stressor--> alarm--> resistance-->exhaustion
     • Not all stress is equally consequential
     • Characteristics of stressors: duration, controllability, predictability, desirability
   • Coping
     • Function-- problem vs emotion focused
     • Motivation-- approach vs avoidance

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