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

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

Intelligence and Testing

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which of the following allows us to compare scores from individuals who differ in age or educational background? (A- Standardization)
2. Carla takes a personality test and obtains very different scores each time she takes it. This test has: (B- Low reliability)
3. The test described above does not have high: (D- Test-retest reliability)
4. The measure of math ability should tell us how well an individual will perform in jobs related to mathematics. This refers to: (E- Predictive validity)
5. When females take examinations with males, their scores are noticeably lower than scores obtained when they take the test by themselves. This finding illustrates: (A- Stereotype threat)
6. Which of the following is considered

Discrimination and Prejudice: Impact on Minorities

Discrimination and prejudice are common features of minority groups. While these words can sometimes be used interchangeably, they can also represent two separate but related conditions. Discrimination is the denial of equal treatment to individuals based on their group membership. It involves behavior. Prejudice is an unsupported generalization about a category of people. It refers to attitudes.

Forms of Discrimination

Discrimination can be found on an individual or societal level. Individual acts range from name-calling to acts of violence, potentially leading to physical harm or even death. Societal discrimination can appear in one of two forms: legal or institutionalized.

• Legal discrimination

Definitions and Concepts

1. Victim Impact Statement: Statements given by victims in court about the incident in which they were offended. These statements are considered in determining the sentence.
2. Identity Theft: Occurs when an individual obtains a false identity to commit identity fraud.
3. UCR (Uniform Crime Report): The annual report published by the FBI.
4. Socialization: The process through which people learn rules, morals, and values.
5. Limited Jurisdiction: When a court hears and decides cases within a specific area.
6. General Deterrence: A punishment given to an individual meant to prevent or deter offenders from criminal activity in the future.
7. Cybercrime: Crimes that are committed by electronic means.
8. Serial Killings: When someone kills single victims