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

Understanding Race and Ethnicity in Society

Defining Race: A Social Construct

• A socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.
• Scientists invented the concept of “race” in the nineteenth century and identified three racial types: Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid.

Racial Categories and Genetic Variation

• The three racial categories differ in only 6% of their genes, which is less than the genetic variation within each category.
• The Canadian census asks people to identify themselves as Aboriginal, Black, and Visible Minority.
• Many people have multiracial ancestry.

The Trend Toward Mixture and Multi-Ethnic Identities

• Over many generations and throughout the Americas, genetic

Understanding Workflow Definitions

Workflow analysis is the process of describing and registering a job's goals, its principal accountabilities and activities, the conditions under which it is performed, and the required knowledge, skills, and aptitudes.

It is used when establishing:

• The organization's structure
• Job structure
• Levels of authority
• Control levels
• Performance criteria
• Redundant employees
• Counseling

There are strong relations between job analysis and:

• Organization's goals
• Technology
• HR planning
• Employee recruitment and selection
• Performance evaluation
• Training
• Compensation
• Career planning and management
• Health and life quality at the workplace

The influence that job design has on employee satisfaction, motivation, and performance has been known since... Continue reading "Job Analysis and Recruitment: Best Practices" »

Chapter 1

1.1 How Psychologists Acquire Knowledge

Studies of behaviors

- Animals

- People

Research methods

- Research question dependent

What Do you want to know?

- Wide variety of methods

Which One to use depends on the research question you want to answer

Quiz Questions

1. How do psychologists know things?

- Systematic study using scientific method

2. What drives the development of a research design?

- The research question you’re trying to answer

3. How do you know what research method to use?

- Pick the method that will best answer your question

1.2 The Research Process

(1 Of 11) • Finding a Problem

- Beginning of a project (e.G., Not all students enjoy classroom success)

What Variables lead to higher levels of achievement?

 (2 of 11) • Reviewing the... Continue reading "Purpose and content of" »

Describe various approaches to job design

Job design focuses on determining what tasks will be grouped together to form employee jobs. There are four general approaches to grouping work tasks: mechanistic, motivational, perceptual, and biological.

1. Mechanistic Approach:
   • Job design is viewed from the perspective of creating an efficient machine that transforms labor inputs into goods and services.
   • Industrial engineers often use analyses designed to find the work methods that take the least time, such as Time and Motion studies.
2. Motivational Approach:
   • The motivational approach is aimed at increasing employees' enjoyment of their work and thus increasing their effort.
   • Jobs are designed not simply to get work done as quickly as possible, but also to provide

Review Questions & Answers

Unit 2

1. What information should be in a well-written job description?

• Job Title
• Brief summary
• Work activities
• Tools and equipment used
• Work context
• Work performance
• Compensation information
• Job Competencies (KSAOs)

2. What groups/people are most likely to conduct a job analysis?

• Internal Department
• Human resources
• Compensation
• Training
• Engineering
• Internal task force
• Supervisors
• Employees
• Consultants
• Interns/class projects

3. Briefly describe job analysis.

Job analysis is the systematic study of a job's tasks, duties, and responsibilities, and the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform the job. Job analysis is the starting point for many important personnel functions. A job analysis yields several products.

4. List and

In the late nineteenth-century Britain, girls were taught domesticity, while boys learned mathematics for work. Women's entry into higher education was very slow. The situation began to change in the 1960s and 1970s. Today the secondary school curriculum no longer distinguishes between boys and girls. However, there are various other points of entry for the development of gender differences in education.

Some History

Until recently, it was common for storybooks in primary schools to portray boys as showing initiative and independence, while girls, if they appeared at all, were more passive. Stories written for girls take the form in a domestic or school setting. Boys' adventure stories are more wide-ranging, having heroes who travel off to distant... Continue reading "Gender Inequality in Education: Past, Present, and Future" »

Ch 1

Structuralism(Wundt,Titchener): Identify the basic structures of the conscious mind

Functionalism(James,Darwin): Describe how conscious minds adapt to an environment

Psychoanalytic theory(Freud): Understand how unconscious thoughts cause psychological disorders

Gestalt psychology(Wertheimer,Kohler): Study subjective perceptions as a unified whole

Behaviorism(Watson,Skinner): Describe behavior response to environmental stimuli

Humanistic psychology(Maslow,Rogers): Investigate how people become happier, focus on basic goodness of people

Cognitive psychology(Miller, Neisser): Explore internal mental processes that influence behavior

Correlational vs Experiment: Experimental studies allow the researcher to control the variables in the study, while... Continue reading "Overview of Psychology Theories and Neurotransmitters" »

Areas of study:

Hard science, Financial, Health, Humanities

Megatrends:

is a large, social, economic, political, environmental or technological change that is slow to form. Once in place, megatrends influence a wide range of activities, processes and perceptions, both in government and in society, possibly for decades. They are the underlying forces that drive trends.

Factors to choose a career:

The factors influencing adolescent career choice have been well documented in the literature. These factors can be divided into two categories:

• Factors in the external environment in which the adolescent exists. External factors are those over which the adolescent has no power or control and which cannot be changed.
• Factors internal to each individual decision-

Discuss potential effects of deprivation or trauma in childhood on later development

Healthy development is influenced by factors such as access to loving caregivers, adequate nutrition, sensory and cognitive stimulation, and linguistic input.

A child reared in a severely deprived setting will not experience such factors and this can affect the child’s development negatively.

Deprivation in childhood can be seen as living in a state of various forms of neglect to provide basic needs – physical, emotional, or social. Deprivation is often related to institutionalization, growing up in poverty, and parental problems (e.g. alcoholism or mental illness.

Trauma in childhood can be seen as experiencing a powerful shock (e.g. divorce, death of a parent,... Continue reading "Effects of Deprivation and Trauma on Child Development" »

Personality

Personality refers to the unique set of characteristics and features that define an individual and are evident in their interactions with others.

Temperament

A: Inherited genetic traits that influence the functioning of the nervous and endocrine systems.

B: Basic emotions and feelings that are consistently present in behavior.

C: Difficult to modify, but not impossible.

D: Examples: nervousness, activity level.

Character

A: Acquired traits developed throughout life.

B: Can be modified with effort and training.

C: Dependent on the individual and can be judged as right or wrong (morally).

D: Considered learned habits.

E: Examples: hard work, patience, understanding.

Personal Identity

The concept of oneself that evolves over time.

• Individual aspects
• Exterior