Educ Psych

• Culture


  Patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance
• Intersectionality


  Overlapping, intersecting social identities (gender, sexual orientation, class, ethnicity, religion, age, etc.) that shape each of us in unique ways
• Social class


  A group of people within a society who possess the same socioeconomic status
• Socioeconomic status (SES)


  Relative standing in the society based on income, power, background, and prestige
• The lower achievement of many students who live in low SES environments is that these students are more often placed in lower academic tracks and they are therefore actually taught differently
• Ethnicity


  Usually refers to a group's shared common cultural characteristics such as history, homeland, language, traditions, or religion
• Race


  Socially constructed category of people who share certain physical characteristics (e.g., skin color or hair texture) that members of a society have considered important
• Minority Group


  Group of people that receives unequal or discriminatory treatment
• Prejudice


  Rigid and unfair generalization—a prejudgment—about an entire category of people, made up of beliefs, emotions, and tendencies toward particular actions
• Bias


  A prejudicial preference or action. Prejudice and bias can be positive or negative
• In-group vs. Out-group


  Humans categorize social groups into "us" (in-group) and "them" (out-group), often viewing the out-group as inferior and homogeneous
• Prejudice can be fueled by anger and the need to find someone to blame
• Discrimination


  Unequal treatment of particular categories of people
• Stereotype threat


  Occurs when people are at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. This anxiety about potentially confirming negative stereotypes can hinder their performance and reinforce the stereotypes
• Gender


  Traits and behaviors that a particular culture judges to be appropriate for boys and girls, men and women
• Sex


  Biological differences
• Gender identity


  The sense of self as male or female as well as the beliefs one has about gender roles and attributes
• Sexual orientation


  The gender to whom a person is sexually or emotionally attracted
• Learning


  Occurs when experience (including practice) causes a relatively permanent change in an individual's knowledge, behavior, or potential for behavior
• Behavioral views


  Explanations of learning that focus on external events as the cause of changes in observable behaviors
• Behavior modification


  Evokes images of brain washing, punishment, and even shock therapy
• Contiguity


  Association of two events because of repeated pairing
• Classical Conditioning


  Association of automatic responses with new stimuli
• Respondents


  Responses (generally automatic or involuntary) elicited by specific stimuli
• Neutral stimulus


  Stimulus not connected to a response
• Unconditioned stimulus (US)


  Stimulus that automatically produces an emotional or physiological response
• Unconditioned response (UR)


  Naturally occurring emotional or physiological response
• Conditioned stimulus (CS)


  Stimulus that evokes an emotional or physiological response after conditioning
• Conditioned response (CR)


  Learned response to a previously neutral stimulus
• Operant Conditioning


  Learning in which voluntary behavior is strengthened or weakened by consequences or antecedents
• Operants


  Voluntary (and generally goal-directed) behaviors emitted by a person or an animal
• Environmental influences

  Antecedents and consequences
• Reinforcement


  Use of consequences to strengthen behavior
• Reinforcer


  Any event that follows a behavior and increases the chances that the behavior will occur again
• Types of reinforcement

  • Positive reinforcement
  • Negative reinforcement
• Punishment


  Process that weakens or suppresses behavior
• Types of punishment

  • Presentation punishment (Type 1)
  • Removal punishment (Type 2)
• Extinction


  The disappearance of a learned response
• Stimulus control


  Capacity for the presence or absence of antecedents to cause behaviors
• Effective instruction delivery (EID)


  Instructions that are concise, clear, and specific, and that communicate an expected result. Statements work better than questions