Summary Psychological Science
By: Stijn Huizinga
,Chapter one
Biases you often encounter
● Ignoring evidence (confirmation bias)
● Seeing causal relationships that do not exist
● Accepting after-the-fact explanations
○ Aka hindsight bias
● Taking mental shortcuts
○ Aka heuristics
Dunning-Kruger effect: people lack the ability to evaluate their own performance in areas where
they have little expertise
Mind/body problem: Are mind and body separate and distinct, or is the mind simply the physical
brain’s subjective experience?
Nature/nurture debate: whether psychological characteristics are biologically innate or acquired
through education, experience, and culture
Stream of consciousness: each person’s continuous series of ever-changing thoughts
Behaviorism: A psychological approach that emphasizes environmental influences on
observable behaviors
Good scientific study features
● Replicability
● Data sharing
Biopsychosocial model: An approach to psychological science that integrates biological factors,
psychological processes, and social-contextual influences in shaping human mental life and
behavior
Levels of analysis
● Biological
● Individual
● Social
● Cultural
Distributed learning: learning material in bursts over a period of time
Retrieval based learning: Repeatedly recalling content from memory makes that content stick in
your mind better and longer
Elaborative interrogation: thinking through why a fact is true, or why it is true in some cases but
not others
1
,Chapter three
The somatic nervous system is involved in voluntary behavior
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for the less voluntary actions of your body, such
as controlling your heart rate and other bodily functions
Three types of neurons
1. Sensory neurons
2. Motor neurons
3. Interneurons
The three major events that terminate the neurotransmitter’s influence in the synapse are
reuptake, enzyme deactivation, and autoreception.
2
, Agonists: enhance the actions of neurotransmitters
Antagonists: inhibit the actions of neurotransmitters
● Occipital lobes: vision
● Parietal lobes: touch
● Temporal lobes: hearing
● Frontal lobes: planning and movement
○ Prefrontal lobe: personality and self control
Split brain: A condition that occurs when the corpus callosum is surgically cut and the two
hemispheres of the brain do not receive information directly from each other.
Left side: speech (aka interpreter)
Right side: cannot verbalize but will pick up item seen
● Insula: sense of taste, pain perception of bodily states and empathy
● Thalamus: receives all incoming sensory information
● Hypothalamus: regulation of bodily functions, including body temperature, body rhythms,
blood pressure, and blood glucose levels; it also influences our basic motivated
behaviors.
● Hippocampus: formation of memories
● Amygdala: learning to associate things with emotional responses and in processing
emotional information.
● Basal ganglia: planning and production of movement
● Cerebellum: coordinated movement and balance
Hormones: Chemical substances, released from endocrine glands, that travel through the
bloodstream to targeted tissues; the tissues are subsequently influenced by the hormones.
Pituitary gland: governs release of hormones
Pineal gland: governs release of melatonin (sleep hormone)
3
By: Stijn Huizinga
,Chapter one
Biases you often encounter
● Ignoring evidence (confirmation bias)
● Seeing causal relationships that do not exist
● Accepting after-the-fact explanations
○ Aka hindsight bias
● Taking mental shortcuts
○ Aka heuristics
Dunning-Kruger effect: people lack the ability to evaluate their own performance in areas where
they have little expertise
Mind/body problem: Are mind and body separate and distinct, or is the mind simply the physical
brain’s subjective experience?
Nature/nurture debate: whether psychological characteristics are biologically innate or acquired
through education, experience, and culture
Stream of consciousness: each person’s continuous series of ever-changing thoughts
Behaviorism: A psychological approach that emphasizes environmental influences on
observable behaviors
Good scientific study features
● Replicability
● Data sharing
Biopsychosocial model: An approach to psychological science that integrates biological factors,
psychological processes, and social-contextual influences in shaping human mental life and
behavior
Levels of analysis
● Biological
● Individual
● Social
● Cultural
Distributed learning: learning material in bursts over a period of time
Retrieval based learning: Repeatedly recalling content from memory makes that content stick in
your mind better and longer
Elaborative interrogation: thinking through why a fact is true, or why it is true in some cases but
not others
1
,Chapter three
The somatic nervous system is involved in voluntary behavior
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for the less voluntary actions of your body, such
as controlling your heart rate and other bodily functions
Three types of neurons
1. Sensory neurons
2. Motor neurons
3. Interneurons
The three major events that terminate the neurotransmitter’s influence in the synapse are
reuptake, enzyme deactivation, and autoreception.
2
, Agonists: enhance the actions of neurotransmitters
Antagonists: inhibit the actions of neurotransmitters
● Occipital lobes: vision
● Parietal lobes: touch
● Temporal lobes: hearing
● Frontal lobes: planning and movement
○ Prefrontal lobe: personality and self control
Split brain: A condition that occurs when the corpus callosum is surgically cut and the two
hemispheres of the brain do not receive information directly from each other.
Left side: speech (aka interpreter)
Right side: cannot verbalize but will pick up item seen
● Insula: sense of taste, pain perception of bodily states and empathy
● Thalamus: receives all incoming sensory information
● Hypothalamus: regulation of bodily functions, including body temperature, body rhythms,
blood pressure, and blood glucose levels; it also influences our basic motivated
behaviors.
● Hippocampus: formation of memories
● Amygdala: learning to associate things with emotional responses and in processing
emotional information.
● Basal ganglia: planning and production of movement
● Cerebellum: coordinated movement and balance
Hormones: Chemical substances, released from endocrine glands, that travel through the
bloodstream to targeted tissues; the tissues are subsequently influenced by the hormones.
Pituitary gland: governs release of hormones
Pineal gland: governs release of melatonin (sleep hormone)
3
