CHAPTER 1: intro to psycho

Psychology is the systematic, scientific study of behaviors and mental processes.

Behavior: Refers to observable actions or responses in both humans and animals, including: eating, speaking, laughing, running, reading,
speaking
Mental processes: not directly observable; refer to a wide range of complex mental processes such as thinking, imaging, studying, and
dreaming
Four goals of psychology:
Describe what
Explain why
Predict anticipate
Control change or modify

• Cognitive approach: Examines how we process, store, and use information and how this information influences what we attend to, perceive,
learn, remember, believe, and feel

• Cognitive neuroscience involves taking pictures and identifying the structures and functions of the living brain during performance of a
variety of mental or cognitive processes, such as thinking, planning, naming, and recognizing objects

Example of Cognitive approach

• Study your customers’ thought processes: This will help you to understand how your customers come to purchasing decisions, as well as
the role that emotions play.

• Use images and copy that evoke an emotional response: Cognitive marketing considers how human behavior and emotions shape
decisions.

• Behavioral approach

• Studies how organisms learn new behaviors or modify existing ones, depending on whether events in their environments reward or punish
these behaviors

 Some behaviorists, such as Albert Bandura, disagree with strict behaviorism

 Formulated a theory that includes mental or cognitive processes in addition to observable behaviors

• Flex-time Scheduling

 Allowing employees to choose flexible schedules is a way of trying to respect individual needs and improve job satisfaction

• Positive Reinforcement
Rewards if employee have good performance

•Social cognitive approach

Behaviors are influenced not only by environmental events and reinforcers but also by observation, imitation, and thought processes

• Psychoanalytic approach

• Based on the belief that childhood experiences greatly influence the development of later personality traits and psychological problems

• Stresses the influence of unconscious fears, desires, and motivations on thoughts, behaviors, and the development of personality traits and
psychological problems later in life

• Humanistic approach

• Emphasizes that each individual has great freedom in directing his or her future, a large capacity for personal growth, a considerable amount
of intrinsic worth, and enormous potential for self-fulfillment
• Because of its fee-will concept of human nature and lack of experimental methods, many behaviorists regard the humanistic approach as
more of a philosophy of life than a science of human behavior

•Cross-cultural approach

• Studies the influence of cultural/ethnic similarities and differences on psychological and social functioning

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SENSATION

Five senses: Vision, Smell or olfaction, Audition, Taste, Touch

Three definitions:

• Transduction: Process in which a sense organ changes, or transforms, physical energy into electrical signals that become neural impulses,
which may be sent to the brain for processing

Adaptation: The decreasing response of the sense organs as they’re exposed to a continuous level of stimulation

• Sensation

• Relatively meaningless bits of information that result when the brain processes electrical signals that come from the sense organs

Ex: your nose smells the scent of baking cinnamon rolls

•Perceptions

– Meaningful sensory experiences that result after the brain combines hundreds of sensations

Ex: Mmm, this smells like the bread Grandma used to bake when the family gathered for holidays.

EYE: VISION Stimulus: light waves The visible spectrum is one particular segment of electromagnetic energy that we can see because these
waves are the right length to stimulate receptors in the eye.

Color blindness Color blindness is the inability to distinguish two or more shades in the color spectrum. There are several kinds of color
blindness.

Ear: Audition Stimulus: Sound waves Loudness is your subjective experience of a sound’s intensity. The brain calculates loudness from
specific physical energy, in this case the amplitude of sound waves.

Pitch is our subjective experience of a sound being high or low, which the brain calculates from specific physical stimuli, in this case the speed
or frequency of sound waves. The frequency of sound waves is measured in cycles, which refers to how many sound waves occur within 1
second.

Psychoacoustics

The scientific study of sound perception and audiology—how humans perceive

various sounds

Tongue: Taste

Smell - Olfaction Olfaction is called a chemical sense because its stimuli are various chemicals that are carried by the air. The upper part of
the nose has a small area that contains receptor cells for olfaction. The function of the olfactory receptors is transduction, to transform
chemical reactions into nerve impulses.

Touch The sense of touch includes pressure, temperature, and pain

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CHAPTER 2:

PERCEPTUAL THRESHOLDS
Threshold
A point above which a stimulus is perceived and below which it isn’t
Threshold determines when we first become aware of a stimulus
SENSATION VS. PERCEPTION
▪ Basic differences
▪ Sensations
▪ our first awareness of some outside stimulus
▪ activates sensory receptors, which in turn produce electrical signals that are transformed by the brain into meaningless bits of information
▪ Perceptions
▪ the experience we have after our brain assembles and combines thousands of individual sensations into a meaningful pattern or image
Changing sensation into perception ▪ Brain: association areas
▪ Sensation impulses are sent to the appropriate association area in the brain
▪Personalized perceptions
▪ Each of us has a unique set of personal experiences, emotions, and memories that are automatically added to our perceptions by other areas
of the brain

CHANGING SENSATION INTO PERCEPTION

Stimulus▪ change of energy in the environment (light waves,
sound waves, mechanical pressure, or chemicals) ▪ Transduction
▪ changes physical energy into electrical signals▪ electrical signals are changed into impulses that travel
into the brain ▪ Brain
▪ impulses from senses first go to different primary areas of the brain

EXAMPLE OF PERCEPTIONS
Perception of beauty ▪Perception of good and bad ▪Perception of health

SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION
▪Subliminal message▪ Brief auditory or visual message presented below the
absolute threshold
▪ Means a less than 50% chance that the message will be perceived
▪Self-fulfilling prophecies
▪ Involve having strong beliefs about changing some behavior and then acting, unknowingly, to change that behavior

APPLICATIONS IN BUSINESS
▪Customer perception: “A marketing concept that encompasses
a customer's impression, awareness and/or consciousness about a company or its offerings.”

▪Employee perception ▪Investor perception

CHAPTER 2: LEARNING

▪ Learning
▪ A relatively enduring or permanent change in behavior that results

from previous experience with certain stimuli and response ▪ Behavior

▪ Includes both unobservable mental events (thoughts, images) and observable responses (fainting, salivating, vomiting)

THREE KINDS OF LEARNING

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: A kind of learning in which a neutral stimulus acquires the ability to produce a response that was originally
produced by different stimulus

OPERANT CONDITIONING: Refers to a kind of learning in which the consequences that follow some behavior increase or decrease the
likelihood of that behavior’s occurrence in the future

COGNITIVE LEARNING: A kind of learning that involves mental processes, such as attention and memory; may be learned through
observation or imitation, and may not involve any people performing any observable behaviors

Law of effect: Says that if some random actions are followed by pleasurable consequences or reward, such actions are strengthened and will
likely occur in the future

Cognitive learning

▪ A kind of learning that involves mental processes, such as attention and memory; may be learned through observation or imitation, and may
not involve any people performing any observable behaviors

▪ Albert Bandura

▪ Found that children who had watched a film of an adult modeling aggressive behavior played more aggressively than children who had not
seen the film

▪ Bandura’s study demonstrated that we can learn through observation or imitation

Adaptive value

▪Refers to usefulness of certain abilities or traits that have evolved in animals and humans and tend to increase their chances of survival, such
as finding food, acquiring mates, and avoiding pain and injury

▪Taste-aversion learning

▪Refers to associating a particular sensory cue (smell, tastes, sound, or sight) with getting sick and thereafter avoiding that particular sensory
cue in the future

Classical conditioning and emotion ▪Conditional emotional response

▪feeling some positive or negative emotion, such as happiness, fear, or anxiety, when experiencing a stimulus that initially accompanied a
pleasant or painful event

▪sound of a rattlesnake or wail of a siren

Operant & Cognitive Approaches

Nguyen Vo Hien Chau

OPERANT CONDITIONING
Also called instrumental conditioning
Kind of learning in which an animal or human performs some behavior
Following consequences (reward or punishment) increases or decreases the chance that an animal or human will again perform that same
behavior
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
Thorndike’s law of effect
behaviors followed by positive consequences are strengthened
behaviors followed by negative consequences are weakened
Skinner’s operant conditioning
Operant response: can be modified by its consequences and is a meaningful, easily measured unit of ongoing behavior
Focuses on how consequences (rewards or punishments) affect behaviors
1920s and 1930s discovery of two general principles
Pavlov’s classical conditioning
 Skinner’s operant conditioning
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
Principles and procedures
Skinner box
efficient way to study how an animal’s ongoing behaviors may be modified by changing the consequences of what happens after a
bar press
Three factors in operant conditioning of a rat
a hungry rat is more willing to eat the food reward
can thus condition the rat to press the bar
successively reinforced behaviors lead up to or approximate the desired behavior
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
Shaping
Facing the bar
rat is put in box
when rat faces the bar, food pellet is released
rat sniffs the food pellet
Touching the bar
rat faces and moves toward the bar
another pellet is released
Skinner box experiment
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
Shaping
Shaping is a procedure in which an experimenter successively reinforces behaviors that lead up to or approximate the desired behavior

OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)

Shaping: Facing the bar
rat is put in box
when rat faces the bar, food pellet is released
rat sniffs the food pellet
Shaping: Touching the bar
rat faces and moves toward the bar
another pellet is released
rat eats then wanders; returning to sniff for a pellet, another pellet is dropped into the cup; rat places a paw on the bar, and another
pellet is released
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
Immediate reinforcement
Reinforcer should follow immediately after the desired behavior
If reinforcer is delayed, the animal may be reinforced for some undesired or superstitious behavior

Superstitious behavior
Behavior that increases in frequency because its occurrence is accidentally paired with the delivery of a reinforcer
OPERANT CONDITIONING (CONT’D)
Examples of operant conditioning
Toilet training
target behavior
preparation
reinforcers
shaping
Employee rewards system
target behavior
preparation
reinforcers
shaping

REINFORCERS
Consequences
Consequences are contingent on behavior

Reinforcement
Consequence that occurs after a behavior; increases the chance that the behavior will occur again

Punishment
Consequence that occurs after a behavior; decreases the chance that the behavior will occur again
REINFORCERS (CONT’D)

Primary reinforcers
stimulus such as food, water, or sex; innately satisfying and requires no learning on the part of the subject to become pleasurable
Secondary reinforcers
stimulus that has acquired its reinforcing power through experience; secondary reinforcers are learned, such as by being paired with
primary reinforcers or other secondary reinforcers (e.g.money)
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT
Skinner’s contributions
Schedule of reinforcement
refers to a program or rule that determines how and when the occurrence of a response will be followed by a reinforcer
Continuous reinforcement
every occurrence of the operant response results in delivery of the reinforcer
Partial reinforcement
refers to a situation in which responding is reinforced only some of the time
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT (CONT’D)
Partial reinforcement schedules

Fixed-ratio schedule
a reinforcer occurs only after a fixed number of responses are made by the subject

Fixed-interval schedule
a reinforcer occurs after the first response that occurs after a fixed interval of time
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT (CONT’D)
Partial reinforcement schedules

Variable-ratio schedule
a reinforcer is delivered after an average number of correct responses has occurred

Variable-interval schedule
reinforcer occurs after the first correct response after an average amount of time has passed
OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS
Generalization
Animal or person emits the same response to similar stimuli
Tendency for a stimulus similar to the original conditioned stimulus to elicit a response similar to the conditioned response
OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS
Discrimination
Occurs during classical conditioning when an organism learns to make a particular response to some stimuli but not to others
Discrimination stimulus; cue that a behavior will be reinforced
OTHER CONDITIONING CONCEPTS (CONT’D)
Extinction
procedure in which a conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus
the conditioned stimulus tends to no longer elicit the conditioned response
Spontaneous recovery
tendency for the conditioned response to reappear after being extinguished, even though there have been no further conditioning
trials
COGNITIVE LEARNING
Cognitive learning: attention and memory
Says that learning can occur through observation or imitation and may not involve external rewards or require a person to perform any
observable behaviors

A cognitive map is a mental representation in the brain of the layout of an environment and its features
COGNITIVE LEARNING (CONT’D)
Learning-performance distinction
Learning may occur but may not always be measured by, or immediately evident in, performance
Bandura’s social cognitive theory
Emphasizes the importance of observation, imitation, and self-reward in the development and learning of social skills, personal
interactions, and many other behaviors
COGNITIVE LEARNING process

Insight learning
 Insight
a mental process marked by the sudden and unexpected solution to a problem: a phenomenon often called the “a ha!” experience
BIOLOGICAL FACTORS

Biological factors
innate tendencies or predispositions that may either facilitate or inhibit certain kinds of learning
Imprinting
inherited tendencies or responses that are displayed by newborn animals when they encounter certain stimuli in their environment
Critical or sensitive period
a relatively brief time during which learning is most likely to occur
APPLICATIONS
Behavior modification
Treatment or therapy that changes or modifies undesirable behaviors by using principles of learning based on operant conditioning,
classical conditioning, and social cognitive learning
Autism
marked by poor development in social relationships
great difficulty developing language and communicating; very few activities and interests
long periods of time spent repeating the same behaviors and following rituals that interfere with more normal functioning

APPLICATIONS
Autism
symptoms range from mild to severe
usually appear when a child is 2 to 3 years old
Biofeedback
training procedure through which a person is made aware of his or her physiological responses, such as muscle activity, heart rate,
blood pressure, or temperature
after awareness of physiological responses, a person tries to control them to decrease psychosomatic problems

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MEMORY

– Memory

INTRODUCTION

• ability to retain information over time through three processes: encoding, storing, and retrieving

• not copies but representations of the world that vary in accuracy and are subject to error and bias

– Encoding

• refers to making mental representations of information so that it can be placed into memory

– Storing

• process of placing encoded information into relatively permanent mental storage for later recall

– Retrieving

• process of getting or recalling information that has been placed into short- or long-term storage

THREE TYPES OF MEMORY

 Sensory memory

– Initial process that receives and holds environmental information in its raw form for a brief period of time, from an instant to
several seconds
  Short-term memory

– Also called working memory; refers to another process that can hold only a limited amount of information an average of seven
items, from 2 to 30 seconds

 Long-term memory

– Process of storing almost unlimited amounts of information over long periods of time

Memory processes – Sensory memory

• don’t pay attention, information is forgotten

• pay attention, information is automatically transferred into short-term memory

– Short-term memory

• don’t pay attention, information isn’t encoded and is forgotten

– Long-term memory

• encoded information will remain on a relatively permanent basis

SENSORY MEMORY: RECORDING

 Iconic memory
 – Form of sensory memory that automatically holds visual information for about a quarter of a second or more; as soon as
you shift your attention, the information disappears
 – Icon means image
 Echoic memory

– Form of sensory memory that holds auditory information for 1 to 2 seconds

– Holds speech sounds long enough to know that sequences of certain sounds form words

Functions of sensory memory

– Prevents being overwhelmed
– Gives decision time
– Provides stability, playback, and recognition

SHORT-TERM MEMORY: WORKING

 Short-term, or working, memory

 – Process of holding a limited amount of information (an average of seven items) for a limited period of time (2 to 30
seconds)

 – Short duration can be lengthened by repeating or rehearsing the information

  Two features
– Limited duration
– Maintenance rehearsal

• practice of intentionally repeating information so that it remains in short-term memory longer

• Interference

– Results when new information enters short-term memory and overwrites or pushes out information that’s already there

• Chunking

– Combining separate items of information into a larger unit, or chunk, and then remembering these chunks rather than individual items

Ex: Reactivity series (Dãy hoạt động hóa học của các kim loại):

K Na Ca Mg Al Zn Fe Ni Sn Pb H Cu Hg Ag Pt Au

Functions of short-tem memory – Attending

• selectively attend to relevant information and disregard everything else

– Rehearsing

• allows you to hold information for a short period of time until you decide what to do with it

– Storing

• helps store or encode information in long-term memory

LONG-TERM MEMORY: STORING

• Putting information into long-term memory – Encoding

• transferring information from short- to long-term memory by paying attention to it, repeating it, or forming new associations

– Long-term memory

• process of storing almost unlimited amounts of information over long periods of time

– Retrieving

• process of selecting information from long-term memory and transferring it to short-term memory

 Separate memory systems

 Primacy versus recency

– Primacy effect

• better recall or retention of information presented at the beginning of a task

– Recency effect

• better recall or retention of information presented at the end of a task

– Primary-recency effect
 • better recall of information presented at the beginning and end of a task

Declarative versus procedural or nondeclarative – Declarative memory (or explicit memory)

• involves memories for facts or events, such as scenes, stories, words, conversations, faces, or daily events

• aware of and can recall or retrieve these kinds of memories

– Semantic memory

• type of declarative memory that involves knowledge of facts, concepts, words, definitions, and language rules

Declarative versus procedural or nondeclarative

– Episodic memory

• type of declarative memory that involves knowledge of specific events, personal experiences (episodes), or activities, such as naming or
describing favorite restaurants, movies, songs, habits, or hobbies

Declarative versus procedural or nondeclarative

– Procedural or nondeclarative memory

• involves memories for motor skills (playing tennis), some cognitive skills (learning to read), and emotional behaviors learned through
classical conditioning

• can’t recall or retrieve procedural memories

ENCODING: TRANSFERING

• Encoding

– Acquiring information or storing it in memory by changing it into neural or memory codes

– Two kinds of encoding • Automatic encoding

– transfer of information from short- to long-term memory without effort or awareness (personal events, interesting facts, skills/habits)

• Effortful encoding

– transfer of information from short- to long-term memory by working hard to rehearse the information or by making associations

ENCODING: TRANSFERING (CONT’D)

• Rehearsing and encoding – Maintenance rehearsal

• simply repeating or rehearsing information rather than forming any new associations

• works better for short-term memory – Elaborative rehearsal

• using effort to actively make meaningful associations between new information that you wish to remember and old or familiar information
already stored in long-term memory

Levels of processing

– Theory says that remembering depends on how information is encoded

– Information encoded at a shallow level results in poor recall

– Deeper and deepest processing: encode by making new association

REPRESSED MEMORIES

 Definition of repressed memory

– Process by which the mind pushes a memory of some threatening or traumatic event deep into the unconscious mind

 Implanting false memories

– Studies show that a false suggestion can grow into a vivid, detailed, and believable personal memory

UNUSUAL MEMORIES

 Photographic memory

– Occurs in adults; ability to form sharp, detailed visual images after examining a picture or page for a short period of time and to
recall the entire image at a later date

 Eidetic imagery

– Form of photographic memory that occurs in children; the ability to examine a picture or page for 10 to 30 seconds and then for
several minutes hold in one’s mind a detailed visual image of the material

Flashbulb memories

 – Vivid recollections, usually in great detail, of dramatic or emotionally charged incidents that are of interest to the person

 – Encoded effortlessly and may last for long periods of time

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INTELLIGENCE

Two-factor theory

Developed by Charles Spearman Says that intelligence has two factors

general mental ability factor “g”; represents what different cognitive tasks have in common

specific factors “s”; include specific mental abilities such as mathematical, mechanical, or verbal skills

Triarchic theory - Developed by Robert Sternberg

 Says that intelligence can be divided into three different kinds

of reasoning processes

uses analytical or logical thinking skills measured by traditional intelligence tests

uses problem-solving skills that require creative thinking and the ability to learn from experience

uses practical thinking skills that help a person adjust to, and cope with, his or her sociocultural environment

MEASURING INTELLIGENCE

Early attempts to measure intelligence Head size and intelligence

Francis Galton
noticed that intelligent people often had intelligent relatives and concluded that intelligence was, to a large extent, biological or inherited

low correlation between head size and intelligence

using head size as a measure of intelligence was abandoned in favor of using skull or brain size

Early attempts to measure intelligence Brain size and intelligence

Paul Broca
claimed there was a relationship between size of

brain and intelligence

larger brains indicating more intelligence

later reanalysis of Broca’s data indicted that measures of brain size proved to be unreliable and poorly correlated with intelligence

Early attempts to measure intelligence Brain size and achievement

enormous variation in brain size and achievement Brain size, sex differences, and intelligence

female brains weigh about 10% less than male brains

little or no difference in intelligence between men and women

larger size of men’s brains doesn’t result in higher IQs

Binet’s breakthrough Alfred Binet

Believed intelligence was a collection of mental abilities; best way to assess it was to measure a person’s ability to perform cognitive tasks

Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale

contained items arranged in order of increasing

difficulty

measured vocabulary, memory, common knowledge, and other cognitive abilities

Binet’s breakthrough
Binet and Simon revised their intelligence scale to

solve several problems in their original scale Mental age

method of estimating a child’s intellectual progress by comparing his or her score on an intelligence test to the scores of average children of
the same age

Formula for IQ Intelligence quotient

computed by dividing a child’s mental age (MA), as measured in an intelligence test, by the child’s chronological age (CA) and multiplying
the result by 100

Wechsler Intelligence Scale: Most widely used IQ tests Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III), ages 16

and older

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) for children ages 3 to 16

Both have items organized into various subtests verbal section
performance section
verbal and performance combined give a single IQ

wo characteristics of tests  Validity

means that the test measures what it’s supposed to measure

 Reliability

refers to consistency: score on a test at one point in time should be similar to the score obtained by the same person on a similar test at a later
point in time

Mental retardation: IQ scores (Thiểu năng trí tuệ)

Mental retardation: substantial limitation in functioning characterized by significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, along with related
limitations in 2 of 10 areas, including communication, self-care, home living, social skills, and safety

borderline mentally retarded: IQs from 50 to 75 mildly/moderately mentally retarded: IQs from 35 to 50 severely/profound mentally
retarded: IQs from 20 to 40

Mental retardation: IQ scores  Causes

Organic retardation
results from genetic problems or brain damage

Cultural-familial retardation
results from a greatly impoverished environment

 Vast majority: IQ scores

 about 95%, have scores that fall between 70 and 130

 Gifted: IQ scores moderately gifted

usually defined by an IQ score between 130 and 150 profoundly gifted

usually defined by an IQ score around 180 or above

Binet’s warnings
Intelligence tests don’t measure innate

abilities or natural intelligence

Intelligence tests, by themselves, shouldn’t be used to label people

Cultural bias
The wording of the questions and the

experiences on which the questions are used Nonintellectual factors

Refer to noncognitive factors, such as attitude, experience, and emotional functioning, that may help or hinder performance on tests

NATURE-NURTURE QUESTION

Definition: Asks how nature (hereditary or genetic factors) interacts with nurture (environmental factors) in the development of a person’s
intellectual, emotional, personal, and social abilities
Twin studies Fraternal twins

siblings (brothers and sisters) who develop from separate eggs and have 50% of their genes in common

Twin studies Identical twins

develop from a single egg and thus have identical genes (have 100% of their genes in common)

Interaction of nature and nurture

when researchers report that genetic factors influence intelligence (IQ scores), it means that genetic factors influence cognitive abilities to
varying degrees, depending on the environment

Adoption studies

Children with limited social-educational opportunities and low IQs were adopted by parents who could provide increased social-educational
opportunities

Studies show that children with poor educational opportunities and low IQ scores can show an increase in IQ scores when adopted into
families that provide increased educational opportunities

Interaction: nature and nurture  Heritability

number that indicates the amount or proportion of some ability, characteristic, or trait that can be attributed to genetic factors (nature)

Reaction range

indicates the extent to which traits, abilities, or IQ scores may increase or decrease as a result of interaction with environmental factors

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THOUGHTS AND LANGUAGE

Definitions▪Cognitive approach
▪method of studying how we process, store, and use information and how this information, in turn, influences what we notice, perceive, learn,
remember, believe, and feel
▪ Thinking
▪sometimes referred to as reasoning; involves mental processes that are used to form concepts, solve problems, and engage in creative
activities

Language
▪special form of communication in which we learn and use complex rules to form and manipulate symbols (words and gestures) that are used
to generate an endless number of meaningful sentences
Concept
▪A way to group or classify objects, events, animals, or people based on some features, traits, or characteristics that they all share in common
▪Exemplar model
▪Form a concept of an object, event, animal, or person by defining or making a mental list of the essential characteristics of a particular thing
▪Prototype theory▪Form a concept by creating a mental image based on the
average characteristics of an object (prototype)
▪To identify a new object, match to an already formed prototype of objects, people, or animals
▪Functions of concepts
▪Organize information
▪Group things into categories and thus better organize and store information in memory
▪Avoid relearning
▪Problem solving
▪Involves searching for some rule, plan, or strategy that results in reaching a certain goal that’s currently out of reach
▪Different ways of thinking ▪ Algorithms
▪fixed set of rules that, if followed correctly, will eventually lead to a solution
▪Different ways of thinking ▪ Heuristics
▪rules of thumb, or clever and creative mental shortcuts, that reduce the number of operations to solve problems more easily and quickly
▪Availability heuristic
▪says that we rely on information that’s more prominent or easily recalled and overlook other information that’s available but less prominent
or notable
▪Different ways of thinking ▪Artificial intelligence
▪means of programming machines (computers, robots) to imitate human thinking and problem-solving abilities
▪Three strategies for solving problems ▪Changing one’s mental set
▪ functional fixedness; characterized by the inability to see an object as having a function different from its usual one
▪Using analogies▪ strategy for finding a similarity between the new situation and
an old, familiar one ▪Forming subgoals
▪ strategy that involves breaking down the overall problem into separate parts that, when completed in order, will result in a solution

▪How is creativity defined? ▪Creative thinking

▪combination of flexibility in thinking and reorganization of understanding to produce innovative ideas and new or novel solutions
▪Creative individual
▪someone who regularly solves problems, fashions products, or defines new questions that make an impact on his or her society
▪How is creativity defined? ▪Psychometric approach
▪uses objective problem-solving tasks to measure creativity, focuses on the distinction between two kinds of thinking (convergent and
divergent)
▪Convergent thinking▪begins with a problem and ends with a single correct
solution (MCQ) ▪Divergent thinking
▪begins with a problem and ends with many different solutions (connecting dots)
▪How is creativity defined? ▪Case study approach
▪analyzes creative people in great depth and thus provides insight into their development, personality, motivation, and problems
▪Cognitive approach
▪tries to build a bridge between the objective measures of the psychometric approach and the subjective descriptions provided by case studies
▪identifies and measures cognitive mechanisms used during creative thinking
How Do Employers Use Tests at Work?
▪Major Types of Tests ▪ Basic skills tests▪ Job skills tests▪ Psychological tests
▪Why Use Testing?▪ Increased work demands = more testing ▪ Screen out bad or dishonest employees ▪ Reduce turnover by personality
profiling
LANGUAGE: BASIC RULES
▪ Language
▪Special form of communication that involves learning complex rules to make and combine symbols (words/gestures) into meaningful
sentences
▪Word▪Arbitrary pairing between a sound/symbol and a
meaning ▪ Grammar
▪Set of rules for combining words into phrases and sentences to express an infinite number of thoughts that can be understood by others
▪Understanding language ▪Mental grammar
▪allows us to combine nouns, verbs, and objects in an endless variety of meaningful sentences
▪innate brain program
▪makes learning the general rules of grammar relatively easy
▪Different structure, same meaning ▪Surface structure
▪ refers to the actual wording of a sentence, as it is spoken ▪Deep structure
▪ refers to an underlying meaning that isn’t spoken but is present in the mind of the listener
▪Transformational rules
▪ procedures by which we convert our ideas from surface structures into deep structures and from deep structures back into surface ones
ACQUIRING LANGUAGE
▪Language stages▪ Refers to all infants going through four different periods or stages:
babbling, single words, two-word combinations, and sentences 1.Babbling
▪ begins at about six months; the first stage in acquiring language
2. Single word▪ occurs at about one year of age▪ parentese (emphasizes tone of voice and words)
▪Language stages
3. Two-word combinations
▪occurs at about two years of age
▪strings of two words that express various actions (“me play”)
4. Sentences▪occurs at about four years of age
▪Telegraphic speech
▪Distinctive pattern of speaking in which the child omits articles (the), prepositions (in, out), and parts of verbs
▪Basic rules of grammar
▪Rules for combining nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech to form meaningful sentences
▪ Overgeneralization
▪Applying a grammatical rule to cases where it shouldn’t be used
▪ What are innate factors?▪ Innate language factors
▪ genetically programmed physiological and neurological features that facilitate our making speech sounds and acquiring language skills
▪ Innate physiological factors▪ special adapted vocal apparatus (larynx and pharynx) that let
us make sounds and form words ▪ Innate neurological features
▪ left hemisphere of the brain is prewired to acquire and use language, whether spoken or signed
▪ What are innate factors?▪ Innate developmental factors
▪ critical language period▪ time from infancy to adolescence when language is
easiest to learn▪ more difficult to learn anytime after adolescence
▪ What are environmental factors?
▪ Interactions children have with parents, peers, teachers, and others who provide feedback that rewards and encourages language
development, as well as provides opportunities for children to observe, imitate, and practice language skills
▪ Social cognitive learning
▪ Emphasizes the acquisition of language skills through social interactions, which give children a chance to observe, imitate, and practice the
sounds, words, and sentences they hear from their parents or caregivers
DECISIONS, THOUGHT, & LANGUAGE
▪ Words and thoughts▪ Theory of linguistic relativity
▪ states that the differences among languages result in similar differences in how people think and perceive the world
CRITICAL THINKING
▪Music improves language skills in kids ▪Suggested Reading Assignment: Page 326