Psyc 102 Review

Chapter 8 Thought and Language

Symbolic Representation
• Most popular code is language
• Think in mental images (mental imagers); based off any of the
senses
• Deny’s this perception are called nonimagers

Whorfian hypothesis
• What we think is limited to the words we know – linguistic
relativity
• Rosch found that the Dani of New Guinea had only two words for
colors but were able to discriminate color chips as well as
American subjects

Phonemes – These are the smallest units of sound from which language
is based
Morphemes – The smallest language units that convey meanings; i.e. er-
Syntax – These are the rules or guides that tell us how to combine
words together
Semantics – the meanings

Chimpanzees lack the vocal apparatus humans have; they cannot learn to
speak using complex utterances. Whether chimps are capable of language
or propositional thought – statements that are true or false is still
controversial. They are however capable of learning, can communicate
and can make fairly complex predictions about the world.

The passing of knowledge from one generation to the next is a second

kind of evolution.

Intelligence

James thought intelligence was the ability to find alternate means to

a goal.

Galton/Spearman
• Interested in “higher” cognitive abilities such as reasoning,
abstract thinking and speed of processing
Galton
• Began the testing movement
• Believed that both general and specific abilities were inherited
• Invented the statistical technique of correlation (Pearson later
expanded into the coefficient of correlation)
Binet
• Developed a test intelligence to predict school placement; did
not make biological assumptions
• Argued for the test as a sample of the child’s current
intellectual behavior rather than a finalized test for all time
of innate intelligence.
• Mental age – idea that development would exceed or lag behind
 normal(X<70 = retarded).
Terman
• Adapted Binet’s test to US and developed his own norms
• Began a longitudinal study of the gifted; results indicated that
intelligence was related to effective social adaptation as well
as intellectual
Wechsler
• Used a global theory of intelligence; segmented test into
subtests rather than age ranges as Binet’s test

Group Test
• Came about during WWI due to the need to classify large numbers
of people for the military
• Also developed for school use
Aptitude test
• Predicts ability
Achievement test
• Measures what is already learned

Spearman’s II Factory Theory

• Different measures tend to be correlated
• The tendency to be correlated is due to general intelligence (g-
factor)
• The lack of perfect correlation was attributed to specific
abilities (s-factor)
Catell-Horn
Hierarchical Model of Intelligence
• Developmental Theory
• Central role of g – g partitioned into fluid abilities
(biological) and crystallized ability (due to cultural learning);
fluid peaks at about 14 the plateaus and declines after 22
• We invest in g. (i.e. crystallized abilities)
Thurstone
Seven Primary Mental Abilities
• Admits to the g-factor in his test, but denies the importance
• Found 7 primary mental abilities: Verbal Comprehension, Word
Fluency, Numerical Ability, Spatial Relations, Memory, Perceptual
Speed, and Inductive Reasoning
• Believed that the primary mental abilities were of equal
importance, but were not completely independent
Guilford
Structure of Intellect
• Intelligence is composed of 120 separate abilities with no
overall general factor
• Separates into content, operations, and products
• Later expanded the number of abilities to 180
** TOO COMPLEX TO TEST

Sternberg
• Expands intelligence toward capacity for goal directed adaptive
behavior
Information Processing Approach
• Skills approach – one can train skills to improve intelligence
 Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
• Componential – separating the problem into sequence of
components, Meta components, performance and knowledge
acquisition components.
• Experiential – combine experiences in insightful ways
• Contextual – street smarts or practical intelligence
Gardner
Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• Linguistic, Logical-mathematic, Spatial, Musical, Bodily
Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal
• Localization of Brain Function serves as his argument

•
Chapter 12 Motivation and Emotion

Motivation
• Force for action + goal (end result)

William James
• Emotions are physiological reactions that have a sensory
component attached to them; i.e. “feelings”
• Emotions are a special kind of perception
Aristotle
• Sees emotions as a intelligent way of conceiving a situation
dominated by a desire
Behaviorist
• Emotions are expressed as behaviors
• Follows the Whorfian Hypothesis

Sensation and Physiological Theories

• Emotion is felt
Hume
• Distinguishes calm emotions such as aesthetic appreciation of a
work of art from violent emotions that have a physiological
component
i.e. anger is a violent emotion that has a physiological
component
James-Lange
• environmental stimuli triggers physiological change which
activates emotional states
• physiological responses are the necessary causes of emotions
**In both the physiological and sensation based theories the person
is a passive recipient of the emotion

Behavioral Theories
• Emotions are not just private experiences but also result in
observable behavior
• One problem is that we often misinterpret behavior; behaviorist
simply argue that emotions are public things

Instincts of McDougall
• Innate patterns of behavior exhibited by all normal functioning
 members of a species under a set of conditions
i.e. salmon swim up river to spawn in the same spot
• The problem is that you have to keep inventing new instincts
every time a human being does something you have not seen before
• Another problem is that not all humans act the same way

Evaluative theories
• Emotions are seen as valuations of things
• Positive emotions have a positive value (love, admire, envy,
pride); negative emotions have a negative value (anger, hate,
fear)

Cognitive Theories
• Emotions are wholly or partially dependent on what one believes
• One holds that emotions constrain the kinds of thoughts/language
that can be true
Satre
• Describes emotion as making a “magical transformation” of the
world.
• Pre-reflection is an unconscious process
• Points out an existential fact; emotions are something we believe
in
Schachter-Singer
Two-Factor Theory
• Stimuli causes physiological change both in instrumental
responses as well as physiological change including arousal
• Emotion is caused by the double cognitive appraisal of both the
event and the appraisal of the bodily change

*** Look over Ellis and the ABC model in the notes on page 59-60 ***

The psychoanalytic thinkers held that the real causes of behavior were
deep in the unconscious and were not available to consciousness

Drive Reduction Theory

• Drives are internal states that will motivate the organism to
reduce them
• Assumes that as the goal is achieved then the drive is reduced
and therefore the motivation will no longer be there to sutain
the behavior
Freud
• Argues that emotions are nothing more than affects of
neurological pressures
• Pressures are physical, but cannot measure
• Cathexis means “filling”; a release from pressure
• Affects and emotions are the results of forces in consciousness
• Unconscious emotions were those in which only the idea had
reached consciousness
• The emotion itself could also be suppressed or transformed into
another emotion, i.e. anxiety
 Uses emotion in three ways:
• The instinct itself that rages, pressing on the ego for
expression
• Emotion bound to an idea of the cathexis of the emotion with the
idea
• The epiphenomenal effect in consciousness of the actual forces
** The idea is always that pressures from the unconscious near
consciousness and demand release
Jung
• Archetypes jump into consciousness
• An emotion is a personality that leaps into consciousness
• Libido describes the energy that motivates psyche; begins as
appetite (thirst, hunger and sex) and includes emotions.
• Increases/decreases due to experiences learned

Progression – the person’s daily experiences that help his

psychological adaptation
Regression – subtracts experience; energy discharge
Canalization – energy gets channeled to the object of instinctual
energy; similar to Freud’s cathexis
In psychoanalytic models the active roles of the ego and consciousness
are minimized.

Hull
• Behaviorist
• Accepted that we are determined by forces beyond our control
• Hypothesized primary and secondary drives
• Primary drivers are biologically based and secondary are learned

Homeostasis – tendency of body to maintained a balanced state

Arousal is due to increased sympathetic activity and parasympathetic

activity is believed to calm the person down

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

• Physiological, safety, love and belongingness, esteem, self-
actualization
• Primary drives = biologically based motives, i.e. hunger
Cannon & Washburn
• Hunger hypothesized as caused by contractions of the stomach
• Experiment – balloon in stomach that expands due to contractions
Duel Hypothalamic Control Theory
• Venromedial hypothalamus (VHM) – stimulation results in
inhibition of feeding, ablation results in over eating and
obesity; off center
• Lateral hypothalamus (LH) – stimulation causes eating even in
animals well fed, ablation reduces eating; on center
Russek
• Found glucoreceptors in the liver by injecting glucose into blood
vessel that carries nutrients from the intestines to liver which
resulted into blood vessels.
• Glucostatic theory – perhaps a sensor in the hypothalamus that
 turns centers on or off
Cannon-Bard Theory
• Argued that emotional and visceral changes occur simultaneously
• Physiological changes that accompany may be similar and do not
determine which emotion occurs although perception of
physiological change may enhance the perception of emotion

Tomkin
Facial Feedback Theory
• Similar to James-Lange theory; Physical reactions of the body
indicate emotion

Quick Summary:
In the psychodynamic/drive theories we saw that the system attempts to
keep the energy level constant
Arousal Theory states that there is an optimal level of arousal
The Yerkes Dodson Law states that arousal is related to performance
and the difficult level of that task

Ennui is anxiety and sadness, but the person is unaware; the second
stage is frantic activity to avoid boredom and meaninglessness

Camus drew an analogy btw the ennui and meaninglessness of modern life
to the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus pushes a boulder up a hill every
day, but never reaches the top.

Anomie is when alienation follows boredom. The person believes live

is meaningless and worthlessness. Expressed by revulsion towards one’s
body, i.e. self-mutilation, or obsessions, i.e. eating disorders

Camus said the first existential question is suicide

Selye noticed that the body had a generalized response to many sorts
of stressors
General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)/Biological Stress Syndrome
• The cortex or outer layer of the adrenal glands become enlarged
and hyperactive
• The thymus, spleen, lymph nodes and lymphatic structures shrank
• Bleeding ulcers appeared in the stomach and upper intestines

Syntoxic defenses help us tolerate stressors

Catatoxic defenses help us destroy the stressor; carries a chemical
message to tissue to fight the invader more actively