Milgram obedience study: Participants often followed instructions from an authority figure even when uncomfortable Stanford prison experiment: Study of how assigned roles shape behavior; its methods are widely criticized Asch conformity: People often give wrong answers to match a group Bystander intervention: Helping drops when more witnesses are present Diffusion of responsibility: Individuals feel less personally responsible in groups Social loafing: People put in less effort in a group Groupthink: Group desire for harmony overrides critical thinking Social facilitation: Presence of others improves performance on easy tasks Foot-in-the-door: Agreeing to a small request makes a larger one more likely Door-in-the-face: A refused large request makes a smaller one more likely to be accepted Self-serving bias: Taking credit for successes and blaming outside forces for failures Just-world hypothesis: Belief that people get what they deserve Halo effect: One good trait colors judgment of the whole person Stereotype: A generalized belief about a group Prejudice: An unjustified attitude toward a group Discrimination: Unfair behavior toward a group Implicit bias: Unconscious attitudes that affect judgments Contact hypothesis: Positive contact between groups can reduce prejudice Attribution theory: How people explain causes of behavior Mere exposure effect: Liking something more with repeated exposure Reciprocity norm: Tendency to return favors Self-fulfilling prophecy: An expectation that causes itself to come true Pygmalion effect: Higher expectations lead to better performance Spotlight effect: Overestimating how much others notice us Illusion of control: Believing we influence chance events Sunk cost fallacy: Continuing because of past investment Availability heuristic: Judging likelihood by how easily examples come to mind Anchoring: Over-relying on the first piece of information Framing effect: Choices differ depending on how options are presented Dunning-Kruger effect: People with low skill may overestimate their ability Hindsight bias: Believing an event was predictable after it happened Overconfidence: Being more sure of judgments than accuracy justifies Representativeness heuristic: Judging by how closely something matches a typical example Schema: A mental framework organizing knowledge Assimilation: Fitting new information into existing schemas Accommodation: Changing schemas to fit new information Theory of mind: Understanding that others have different thoughts and beliefs Critical period: Window when experience has the greatest effect on development Imprinting: Rapid attachment to the first moving object seen Strange Situation: Ainsworth's test of infant attachment types Secure attachment: Infant uses a caregiver as a safe base Kohlberg's moral stages: Preconventional, conventional and postconventional reasoning Identity vs. role confusion: Erikson's adolescent task of forming a sense of self Emerging adulthood: Period roughly ages 18-25 of exploring identity Nature vs. nurture: Debate over genes versus environment Heritability: The share of variation in a trait in a group that is due to genetic differences Twin study: Compares identical and fraternal twins to separate genes and environment Epigenetics: Environmental effects on gene activity without changing DNA Temperament: Inborn emotional reactivity Reticular formation: Brain structure controlling alertness Thalamus: Sensory relay station Limbic system: Brain circuits for emotion and memory Prefrontal cortex: Area for planning, judgment and self-control Phineas Gage: Railroad worker whose injury showed frontal lobe roles in personality Split brain: Severing the corpus callosum affects communication between hemispheres Lateralization: Different functions in each hemisphere Mirror neurons: Neurons that fire both when acting and when watching others act Blind spot: Spot on the retina with no receptors Rods and cones: Retinal cells for dim light and for color Trichromatic theory: Color vision from three receptor types Opponent-process theory: Color perception through opposing pairs Place theory: Pitch is determined by where on the cochlea the wave peaks Gate-control theory: Pain signals can be blocked at the spinal cord Signal detection theory: How we detect faint stimuli amid noise Selective attention: Focusing on one stimulus Inattentional blindness: Failing to notice an unexpected object while focused elsewhere Change blindness: Failing to notice changes in a scene Cocktail party effect: Hearing your name in a noisy room Stages of sleep: Light sleep, deep sleep, and REM, cycling through the night Hypnosis: A state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility Habituation: Decreased response to repeated stimulus Latent learning: Learning that is not shown until needed Learned helplessness: Giving up after repeated uncontrollable events Taste aversion: Avoiding a food linked with sickness; learned in one try Shaping: Reinforcing steps toward a target behavior Spontaneous recovery: Return of an extinguished response after rest Generalization: Responding similarly to similar stimuli Discrimination (learning): Responding only to specific stimuli Flashbulb memory: Vivid memory of an emotional event Serial position effect: Remembering first and last items best Chunking: Grouping information into units Levels of processing: Deeper thinking leads to stronger memory Method of loci: Memory technique linking items to places Misinformation effect: Memory distorted by later information Source amnesia: Forgetting where information was learned Tip-of-the-tongue: Feeling that a word is known but not recalled Context-dependent memory: Easier recall in the setting where learning happened Ebbinghaus forgetting curve: Forgetting is fastest soon after learning Linguistic relativity: The idea that language shapes thought Fluid intelligence: Ability to reason and solve new problems Crystallized intelligence: Accumulated knowledge and skills Multiple intelligences: Gardner's proposal of several distinct kinds of intelligence Flynn effect: Rising average test scores over generations Yerkes-Dodson law: Performance is best at moderate arousal Drive-reduction theory: Behavior is motivated to reduce internal tension Set point theory: Body tends to maintain a particular weight Self-determination theory: Motivation depends on autonomy, competence and relatedness Display rules: Cultural norms for showing emotion Stress response: Alarm, resistance and exhaustion stages in Selye's model Eustress: Positive, motivating stress Coping: Efforts to manage stress Locus of control: Belief about whether control lies within or outside oneself Positive psychology: Study of strengths and well-being Flow: Being fully absorbed in an activity Free flashcards from Peabody at peabody.kids/flashcards/tp-college-psychology