Comprehensive Psychology Study Guide: Key
Concepts, Theories, and Terminology
A pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the
relationships among them.
Schemas
A strategy that seeks to change behavior by modifying its consequences.
Contingency Management
Occurs when reinforcement is delivered after every single target behaviour
Continuous Reinforcement (CRF) Schedule
The ability to perceive and respond to differences among stimuli
Discrimination (Psychology)
When an aversive stimulus is presented, an animal responds by leaving the stimulus situation.
Escape Conditioning
The first of the four stages Piaget uses to define cognitive development. Piaget designated the
first two years of an infants life. During this period, infants are busy discovering relationships
between their bodies and the environment.
Sensorimotor Stage
In Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns
to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic
Preoperational Stage
in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age)
during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about
concrete events
Concrete Operational Stage
Piaget's fourth and final stage of cognitive development (ages 11 or 12 and beyond), which is
characterized by the ability to apply logical thinking to abstract problems and hypothetical
situations
Formal Operations Stage
,The tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli. For example, a dog
conditioned to salivate to a tone of a particular pitch and loudness will also salivate with
considerable regularity in response to tones of higher and lower pitch.
Generalization
Process of conditioning a test subject
Habituation
The tendency of an animal to revert to instinctive behaviors that interfere with a conditioned
response.
Instinctive Drift
Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it. For
example, a child might learn how to complete a math problem in class, but this learning is not
immediately obvious. Only when the child is offered some form of reinforcement for
completing the problem does this learning reveal itself.
Latent Learning
Escape from a painful situation is impossible because the subject has learned from a previous
and similar situation
Learned Helplessness
The ability to become increasingly more effective in solving problems as more problems are
solved.
Learning Set
A therapeutic technique in which the client learns appropriate behavior through imitation of
someone else.
Modeling
Any event whose reduction or termination (taken away) increases the likelihood that ongoing
behavior will recur.
*A child cleans her room to avoid her parents nagging
*Seat belt buzzer stops when the seat belt is fastened
Negative Reinforcer
Behavior that maintains or increases in frequency when reinforced and decreases when
punished or not reinforced.
*Coined by B.F. Skinner
,Operant
One's organized mental representations of the world
Schemas
A stimulus that increases the future probability of a response upon which its presentation is
contingent.
Positive Reinforcer
An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need. (Natural,
unlearned, and rooted in biology)
*Food, thirst, and shelter
Primary Reinforcer
A stimulus change that decreases the future frequency of behavior that immediately precedes
it.
Punisher
A simple, automatic, inborn response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response.
Reflex
Neural Stimuli that increases the rate of a response due to association with other reinforcers.
Has an aquired reward or punishment value.
*"A" on a report card or a pat on the back. Money, praise, attention, approval, affection, and
grades are all examples.
Secondary Reinforcer
A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus ("signal") amid
background stimulation ("noise"). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and
detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and level of
fatigue.
Signal Detection Theory
A neurologically based condition in which a person experiences "crossed" responses to
stimuli. It occurs when stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway (e.g., hearing) leads
to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (e.g., vision).
Synesthesia
, A measure of how rapidly a wave oscillates. The higher this value, the greater the amount of
energy in the wave.
Wave Frequency
Depicts the intensity or force with which air strikes the ear
(loudness)
Wave Amplitude
Also known as pure light and are made up of waves of all one color
Monochromatic Light
Adapting or revising one's current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.
Accommodation
A form of psychological treatment in which the patient is exposed to a stimulus while
simultaneously being subjected to some form of discomfort.
e.g. applying an electric shock to a patient each time they attempt to drink alcohol
Aversion Therapy
The most basic and fundamental type of learning
Conditioning
Training of an organism to withdraw from an unpleasant stimulus before it starts
Avoidance conditioning
A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events
e.g. Ivan Pavlov's dogs that salivate at the sound of a bell
In this example, salivating is a NORMAL (classical) response to food.
Classical Conditioning
*A response not normally associated with a given stimulus.
*In Pavlov's experiment, the dogs started salivating even if there was no food. Dogs do not
normally salivate when a bell rings unless they knew from before that when a bell rings, food
comes.
Conditioned Response
Ordinarily a neutral stimulus paired with a unconditioned stimulus to achieve a desired result
and eventually produces the desired response in an organism when presented alone; in
Pavlov's experiment, the bell
Concepts, Theories, and Terminology
A pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the
relationships among them.
Schemas
A strategy that seeks to change behavior by modifying its consequences.
Contingency Management
Occurs when reinforcement is delivered after every single target behaviour
Continuous Reinforcement (CRF) Schedule
The ability to perceive and respond to differences among stimuli
Discrimination (Psychology)
When an aversive stimulus is presented, an animal responds by leaving the stimulus situation.
Escape Conditioning
The first of the four stages Piaget uses to define cognitive development. Piaget designated the
first two years of an infants life. During this period, infants are busy discovering relationships
between their bodies and the environment.
Sensorimotor Stage
In Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns
to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic
Preoperational Stage
in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age)
during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about
concrete events
Concrete Operational Stage
Piaget's fourth and final stage of cognitive development (ages 11 or 12 and beyond), which is
characterized by the ability to apply logical thinking to abstract problems and hypothetical
situations
Formal Operations Stage
,The tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli. For example, a dog
conditioned to salivate to a tone of a particular pitch and loudness will also salivate with
considerable regularity in response to tones of higher and lower pitch.
Generalization
Process of conditioning a test subject
Habituation
The tendency of an animal to revert to instinctive behaviors that interfere with a conditioned
response.
Instinctive Drift
Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it. For
example, a child might learn how to complete a math problem in class, but this learning is not
immediately obvious. Only when the child is offered some form of reinforcement for
completing the problem does this learning reveal itself.
Latent Learning
Escape from a painful situation is impossible because the subject has learned from a previous
and similar situation
Learned Helplessness
The ability to become increasingly more effective in solving problems as more problems are
solved.
Learning Set
A therapeutic technique in which the client learns appropriate behavior through imitation of
someone else.
Modeling
Any event whose reduction or termination (taken away) increases the likelihood that ongoing
behavior will recur.
*A child cleans her room to avoid her parents nagging
*Seat belt buzzer stops when the seat belt is fastened
Negative Reinforcer
Behavior that maintains or increases in frequency when reinforced and decreases when
punished or not reinforced.
*Coined by B.F. Skinner
,Operant
One's organized mental representations of the world
Schemas
A stimulus that increases the future probability of a response upon which its presentation is
contingent.
Positive Reinforcer
An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need. (Natural,
unlearned, and rooted in biology)
*Food, thirst, and shelter
Primary Reinforcer
A stimulus change that decreases the future frequency of behavior that immediately precedes
it.
Punisher
A simple, automatic, inborn response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response.
Reflex
Neural Stimuli that increases the rate of a response due to association with other reinforcers.
Has an aquired reward or punishment value.
*"A" on a report card or a pat on the back. Money, praise, attention, approval, affection, and
grades are all examples.
Secondary Reinforcer
A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus ("signal") amid
background stimulation ("noise"). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and
detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and level of
fatigue.
Signal Detection Theory
A neurologically based condition in which a person experiences "crossed" responses to
stimuli. It occurs when stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway (e.g., hearing) leads
to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (e.g., vision).
Synesthesia
, A measure of how rapidly a wave oscillates. The higher this value, the greater the amount of
energy in the wave.
Wave Frequency
Depicts the intensity or force with which air strikes the ear
(loudness)
Wave Amplitude
Also known as pure light and are made up of waves of all one color
Monochromatic Light
Adapting or revising one's current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.
Accommodation
A form of psychological treatment in which the patient is exposed to a stimulus while
simultaneously being subjected to some form of discomfort.
e.g. applying an electric shock to a patient each time they attempt to drink alcohol
Aversion Therapy
The most basic and fundamental type of learning
Conditioning
Training of an organism to withdraw from an unpleasant stimulus before it starts
Avoidance conditioning
A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events
e.g. Ivan Pavlov's dogs that salivate at the sound of a bell
In this example, salivating is a NORMAL (classical) response to food.
Classical Conditioning
*A response not normally associated with a given stimulus.
*In Pavlov's experiment, the dogs started salivating even if there was no food. Dogs do not
normally salivate when a bell rings unless they knew from before that when a bell rings, food
comes.
Conditioned Response
Ordinarily a neutral stimulus paired with a unconditioned stimulus to achieve a desired result
and eventually produces the desired response in an organism when presented alone; in
Pavlov's experiment, the bell
