Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Psychology and Sociology

Ethical Principles in Research

The Belmont Report

The Belmont Report summarizes ethical principles and guidelines for research involving human subjects. Three core principles are identified: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Three primary areas of application are also stated: informed consent, assessment of risks and benefits, and selection of subjects.

Animal Welfare Act

The Animal Welfare Act requires that minimum standards of care and treatment be provided for certain animals bred for commercial sale, used in research, transported commercially, or exhibited to the public.

Respect for Persons

Respect for persons involves protecting the autonomy of all people, treating them with courtesy and respect, and allowing for informed consent.... Continue reading "Ethical Research: Principles, Practices, and Measurement" »

Chapter 20: Evaluation

Critical Thinking and Evaluation

Critical thinking is how a nurse gathers patient data from nursing diagnoses to develop a plan of care and implement interventions. Evaluation, the final step of the nursing process, determines whether the patient's condition or well-being improves after applying the nursing process. Nurses apply their knowledge and previous experiences to evaluate the effectiveness of nursing care.

Evaluative Measures vs. Assessment

Assessment identifies existing problems, while evaluation determines if those problems have remained the same, worsened, or changed.

Importance of Evaluative Measures

Using the right evaluative measures increases the likelihood of accurately identifying changes in the patient's... Continue reading "Effective Nursing Evaluation: Critical Thinking & Patient Outcomes" »

What Defines Us as Human Beings?

What are the essential characteristics that define us as human beings? We can approach this question by comparing ourselves with other creatures, examining their senses, abilities, and manifestations of animal intelligence.

Comparison with Other Creatures

We must look backward at our distant ancestral past and forward at the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

Key Human Characteristics

• The capacity to communicate, interact, and exchange thoughts or different points of view.
• The ability to subsist by working and creating new social links with people.

We are different from animals, yet fundamentally similar in the drive to subsist and stay alive. However, while animals behave in a wild way, humans are expected... Continue reading "Human Definition, Evolution, and the Nature of Intelligence" »

What is Communication?

Communication involves exchanging messages to generate meanings.

Key Communication Concepts

Nonverbal Communication

• Body Orientation: How your body is positioned during nonverbal communication.
• Proxemics: The study of how space and distance impact communication (studied in 1969).
• Paralanguage: The way a message is spoken, including tone, pitch, and volume.
• Haptics: The study of touch as a form of communication.
• Emojis: Graphic icons that can illustrate emotions in digital communication.

Listening Skills

• Advising: Offering guidance or solutions, often considered the opposite of active listening.
• Paraphrasing: Restating a message in your own words to ensure understanding.
• Silent Listening: Paying attention and demonstrating engagement

Understanding Intelligence: Abstract vs. Contextual

Is intelligence an abstract mental processing ability, independent of context and knowledge? Or are all mental processes dependent upon context and knowledge?

Theories of Intelligence

• Intelligence Quotient (IQ): Unitary, Abstract
• Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence: Modular + Abstract Process
• Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory: Modular / Includes Content + Knowledge
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

• Compares cognitive ability against the rest of the population.
• Measures spatial, mathematical, language, and memory abilities.
• Measures reasoning and problem-solving abilities, but not knowledge.
• Useful as a predictor of academic success, but not much more.

Spatial Intelligence

Social Skills

A social skill is any skill facilitating interaction and communication with others. Social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning such skills is called socialization. The rationale for this type of treatment is that people meet a variety of social problems and can reduce stress and punishment from encounters, as well as increase reinforcement by having the correct skills.^[1]

Contents

• 1 In Behavior Therapy
• 2 Business Social Skills
• 3 Controversies
  • 3.1 Organizations
• 4 See Also
• 5 References
• 6 External Links

In Behavior Therapy

To behaviorists, social skills are learned behaviors that allow people to achieve social reinforcement. According to Schneider & Bryne (1985)... Continue reading "Mastering Social Skills: Behavior and Business" »

This study investigated whether a parrot could use vocal labels to demonstrate a symbolic understanding of the concepts "same" and "different."

Method

Participants

The subject was an African Grey parrot named Alex.

Procedure

Researchers used the model-rival technique to train Alex. This involved:

• Teaching Alex to vocally label objects based on color, shape, and material.
• Presenting Alex with pairs of objects and asking "What's same?" or "What's different?"
• Rewarding Alex for correct vocalizations.

Training and Testing

• Training sessions occurred 2-4 times per week, lasting 5 minutes to 1 hour.
• Objects varied in color (red, green, blue), shape (triangular, square), and material (rawhide, wood).
• Secondary trainers, unfamiliar to Alex, conducted trials to

What is Personality?

Personality refers to an individual's characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Personality psychology seeks to understand how personality develops and influences behavior.

Major Approaches in Personality Psychology

• The psychoanalytic approach emphasizes the unconscious and early childhood experiences.
• The trait approach examines stable personality characteristics and traits.
• The biological approach studies how genetics, nerves, and neurotransmitters relate to personality.
• The phenomenological approach focuses on individuals' subjective experiences.
• Learning theories examine how experience and reinforcement shape personality.
• Cognitive theories look at how thoughts, beliefs, and expectations influence personality

The Process of Sensation

1. The sense remains in potency while not excited.
2. The object acts according to its nature.
3. This action is not purely material.
4. The sense receives the action of the object according to its nature.
5. Once the sense has been excited, it reacts according to its nature; that is to say, it knows.

Conclusion on Sensation

It's the common act of the sensed thing and of the sensing agent.

Internal Senses: An Overview

• Common Sense
• Imagination
• Estimative Faculty
• Memory

Common Sense: Functions and Nature

• It's a sense.
• It's an internal sense.

Functions of Common Sense

1. Allows experiencing diverse sensations and comparing them.
2. Allows knowing the direct acts of sensible knowledge.

Nature of Common Sense

1. It is not a reflective capability.
2. It is not an intellectual