PSYC-1000 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Memory, Cerebral Cortex, Psychology
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PSYC-1000
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
PSYCHOLOGY – MODULE 1
The Greek letter - PSI (short cut symbol for psychology)
GOAL : GNOTHI SE ko thyself But there are proles that oe ith it…
PROBLEM #1 -- 95% of mental processes are unconscious and inaccessible to
conscious awareness.. my uniqueness stems from my unique genome, and
even if I knew it I would not learn anything about my conscious identity!
PROBLEM #2 -- WHO AM I, REALLY? - I behave differently in different situations
..
MY IDENTITY ..
Three broad multi-faceted categories, in which I see myself acting quite
differently:
• Personal
• Professional
• Cultural and national
So it is not a simple task for me to define who I really am. Can I actually
remember that I'm all of the above? Or, is it just the first thing that comes to
mind?
" A man who sincerely claims to know himself, way deep down, is shallow" -
Oscar Wilde
Three leels as ifluees o ho you are… (can be found in textbook)
• Biological influence
• Psychological influence
• Social-cultural influence
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS
• Everyday unsystematic observation
• Intuition
• Speculations
• Lots of argument
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Critical thinking is the goal ..
• Special strategies: to analyze info to get at the TRUTH, even if it means
challenging out own personal ideas and assumptions, and threatening
our egos.
The need for psychological science
2-1 HOW DOES OUR EVERYDAY THINKING SOMETIMES LEAD US TO A
WRONG CONCLUSION?
Why is intuition overused and errors made?
• Hindsight bias, overconfidence, and the tendency to perceive patterns in
random events often lead us to overestimate over intuition
OVERCONFIDENCE ERRORS: too much self-certainty
• Holding our liquor
• Driving and talking on phone
• Multitasking
• Eyewitness testimony
• Gut feelings
In everyday life, we ALL rely on these biases MOST of the time because they
are:
A. Fast
B. Effortless
C. Work without thinking, we therefore fool ourselves to believe "I don’t
have to work hard on a big problem; I trust my gut feeling."
IMPORTANT PROBLEMS…
• We are usually RELUCTANT to challenge our intuition
• WHY? Because it takes cognitive EFFORT to evaluate things carefully
• ALSO, if feels like a THREAT to our identity
E.Tichener - Structure of Mind: Attempt to Discover Mental Elements
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
1859 ALFRED WALLACE…
• Successful traits are inherited that promote survival and reproduction
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
