Psychology Exam 2

Health Psychology

A field within psychology devoted to understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they do get ill

Behavioral Psychology

Psychologists pursue their health-related goal in cooperation with physicians, nurses, public health workers, and other biomedical specialists

Reliability Scale

questions about impulsivity and disruptive behavior during school years, a personality test and are significantly correlated with a broad range of undesirable activities in the work place

Personality

unique pattern of enduring thoughts, feelings, and actions that characterize a person

Psychodynamic Approach (Personality)

Sigmund Freud, assumes that our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are determined by the interaction of various unconscious psychological processes. Our personality develops as we struggle with the task of satisfying our basic urges and that's reflected in the ways we go about satisfying those urges.

Trait Approach (Personality)

focuses on the consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that form individual personalities

Social Cognitive Approach (Personality)

explores the roles of learning and cognition in shaping human behavior

Humanistic Approach (Personality)

emphasis on personality as a reflection of personal growth and the search for meaning in life

Id

Id: unconscious, holds 2 kinds of instincts: Life instincts (Eros)-promote positive, constructive behavior and reflect a source of energy called libido AND Death instincts (Thanatos)-responsible for aggression and destructiveness

-Operates on pleasure principle: seeking immediate satisfaction of both kinds of instincts, regardless of society's rules or the rights or feelings of others

Ego

-Develops from the Id

-Tries to find ways to get what a person wants in the real world, as opposed to the fantasy world of the id.

-Operates on Reality Principle: the ego makes compromises between the id's unreasoning demands for immediate satisfaction and the practical limits imposed by the social world

-Feel anxious or guilty if we became aware of our socially unacceptable id impulses

Superego

Internalizes parental and cultural values and tells us what we should and should not do, becomes our moral guide and is just as relentless and unreasonable as the id in its demand to be obeyed

Intrapsychic/Psychodynamic Conflicts

The inner clashes among id, ego, and superego

-Each person's personality is shaped by the number, nature, and outcome of the conflicts

Defense Mechanisms of Ego

Unconscious tactics that protect against anxiety and guilt by either preventing threatening material from surfacing or disguising it when it does

Stages in Personality Development/Psychosexual Stages

Problems and Conflicts arise when a person becomes fixated (unconsciously preoccupied with the are of pleasure associated with that stage)

-Oral Stage: 2 y.o. ego develops to cope with parental demands for socially appropriate behavior

-Phallic Stage: competes for mother's affection (Oedipus complex/Electra Complex)

-Latency period: education, same-sex play, social skills

-Genital Stage: lasts for the rest of a person's life

Jung's Analytic Psychology

libido is a general life force that includes an innate drive for creativity

-People develop differing degrees of introversion: reflect on one's own experiences or extraversion: tendency to focus on the social world

-Collective Unconscious: contains the memories we have inherited from our human and nonhuman ancestors

Alfred Adler

Striving for Superiority: personality comes from an innate desire to overcome infantile feelings of helplessness and to gain some control over the environment, drive for fulfillment as a person

Karen Horney

Womb envy: males see their lives as having less meaning or substance than women's

-Women feel inferior because of the personal and political restrictions that men have placed upon them

Contemporary Psychodynamic Theories

Object relations: how people's perceptions of themselves and others influence their view of, and reactions to the world

-Attachments: infant to mother/primary caregiver

--Secure Attachment vs. Insecure Attachment

Personality Traits

Personality traits: the inclinations or tendencies that help to direct how a person usually thinks and behaves

-Relatively stable, predictable in many different situations

Quantitative vs. Qualitative traits

quantitative: how much of a certain trait

qualitative: whether someone possesses it or not

Well Adjusted person

flexible, resourceful, and successful with other people

Maladjusted overcontrolling person

too self-controlled to enjoy life and is difficult for others to deal with

Maladjusted Undercontrolling person

excessive impulsiveness can be dangerous both for the person and for others

Allport's Trait Theory

Central traits: those that are usually obvious to others and that organize and control behavior in many different situations

Secondary traits: those that are more specific to certain situations and control far less behavior

Big-Five Model of Personality

-Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism

Biological Trait Theories

Eysenck's Biological Trait Theory: most people's traits could be described using two main dimensions

-Introversion-Extraversion

-Emotionality-Stability

Variations in personality characteristics that we see among individuals can be trace to inherited differences in their nervous systems, especially in their brains

Gray's Approach-Inhibition Theory

Behavioral Approach System (BAS): made up of brain regions that affect people's sensitivity to rewards and their motivation to seek those rewards, responsible for how impulsive or uninhibited someone is

-Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS): involves brain regions that affect sensitivity to potential punishment and the motivation to avoid being punished

Trait Theory Conclusion

Typically focused more on how people behave than on why they act as they do

Social Cognitive Approach to Personality

Look to Conscious thoughts and emotions for clues to how people differ from one another and what guides their behavior

-Did not grow out of clinical cases or other descriptions of people's personalities

Functional Analysis

understand behavior in terms of the function it serves in obtaining rewards or avoiding punishment, summarizes what people find rewarding, what they are capable of doing, and what skills they lack

Rotter's Expectancy Theory

-Learning creates cognitions known as expectancies, that guide behavior

-Behavior is determined not only by the kinds of consequences that Skinner called positive reinforcers but also by the expectation that a particular behavior will result in those consequences

-Expectations shape particular behaviors in particular situations

Bandura and Reciprocal Determinism

Personality shaped by the ways in which thoughts, behavior, and the environment interact and influence one another.

-Reciprocal Determinism: observing changes, affects how they think which then affects their behavior and is mutually influencing

-Self-Efficacy: the learned expectation of success

Mischel's Cognitive/Affective Theory

Cognitive Person Variables: learned beliefs, feelings, and expectancies characterize each individual

1) Encodings-beliefs about people and environment

2) Expectancies-what they think they're capable of

3) Affects-feelings, emotions, and responses

4) Goals and Values: things they believe in and want to achieve

5) Competencies and Self-regulatory Plans: thoughts and actions a person is capable of

Humanistic Approach

Mental Capabilities that set humans apart: self-awareness, creativity, planning, decision making, responsibility

-See human behavior as motivated by an innate drive toward growth that prompts people to fulfill their unique potential

Phenomenology

way of perceiving and interpreting the world, that shapes personality and guides behavior

-Phenomenological Approach: importance of looking at people's perceptions

Roger's Self Theory/Actualizing Tendency

Actualizing Tendency: innate inclination toward growth and fulfillment that motivates all human behavior and is expressed in a unique way by each individual

Self-Actualization and Positive Regard in Roger's Self-Theory

-those who accurately experience the self with all its preferences, abilities, fantasies, shortcomings, and desires

-children learn to need other people's approval

Conditions of Worth: people are evaluated instead of their behavior, people depend on displaying the "right" attitudes, behaviors, and values.

Maslow's Growth Theory

people are controlled by Deficiency Orientation: the preoccupation with perceived needs for material things, especially things they don't have

-Growth Orientation: don't focus on what's missing but draw satisfaction from what they have, what they are, and what they can do which opens the door to peak experiences

Objective Personality Tests

contain clearly stated items that relate to a person't thoughts, feelings, or behavior

Projective Personality Tests

Contain relatively unstructured stimuli, such as inkblots, which can be perceived in many ways

Psychopathology

patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior that result in personal distress or a significant impairment in a person's social or occupational functioning

Comorbidity

Diagnosed as having two or even three disorders

Statistical Infrequency

That which is unusual

--Not always good judging factor because some characteristics appear only rarely.

Norm Violation

When people behave in ways that are bizarre, unusual, or disturbing enough to violate social norms, they may be described as abnormal.

-Norm violations are better characterized as eccentric or illegal than as abnormal

Personal Suffering

people experiencing distress but sometimes people can be stressed about things that aren't mental disorders, so not a good criterion for judging.

Impaired Functioning

Difficulty in fulfilling appropriate and expected family, social, and work related roles

-Depends on culture

Biopsychosocial Model

Mental disorders are seen as caused by the combination and interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors, each which contributes in varying degrees to particular problems in particular people.

Neurobiological Model

explains psychological disorders in terms of particular disturbances in the anatomy and chemistry of the brain and in other biological processes, including genetic influences

Psychological Model of Mental Disorders

A view in which mental disorder is seen as arising from psychological processes

Sociocultural Model of Mental Disorders

we can't fully explain all forms of psychopathology without also looking outside the individual, especially at the social and cultural factors that form the background of abnormal behavior

Biopsychosocial Model of Mental Disorders

encompasses so many important causal factors, including biological imbalances, genetically inherited characteristics, brain damage, enduring psychological traits, socioculturally influenced learning experiences, stressful life events and many more

Diathesis-Stress Approach

Viewing psychological disorders as arising when a predisposition for a disorder combines with sufficient amounts of stress to trigger symptoms

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)

official North American diagnostic classification system

DSM-IV Classification System: Axes I-V

Axis I: major mental disorders

Axis II: personality disorders, mental retardation, other lifelong conditions that tend not to change much over time

Axis III: any medical conditions that might be important in understanding the person's cognitive, emotional, or behavioral problems

Axis IV: psychosocial and environmental factors that are important for understanding the person's psychological problems

Axis V: rating of the person's current level of psychological, social, and occupational functioning

Interrater Reliability

the degree to which different mental health professionals give the same person the same diagnostic label

Four Types of Anxiety Disorders

Phobia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

--A condition in which intense feelings of apprehension are long-standing and disruptive

Phobia/Specific Phobia/Social Phobias

an intense, irrational fear of an object or situation that is not likely to be dangerous

-involving fear and avoidance of heights, animals, and other specific stimuli/situations

-anxiety about being criticized by others or acting in a way that is embarrassing or humiliating (Generalized social phobia-fear occurs in all social situations)

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

excessive and long-lasting anxiety that is not focused on any particular object or situation

--also called free floating anxiety

Panic Disorder

recurrent, terrifying panic attacks that seem to come without warning or obvious cause, marked by intense heart palpitations, pressure or pain in the chest, dizziness, unsteadiness, sweating, feeling faint

Obsessive_Compulsive Disorder

persistent, upsetting, and unwanted thoughts, call obsessions, that often center on the possibility of infection, contamination, or doing harm to themselves or others, recognize the irrationality but can't do anything about it

Causes of Anxiety Disorders

Biological Factors: people may inherit a predisposition to develop anxiety disorders

Environmental Factors: environment plays a role in causing disorders, stressful factors

Psychological Factors: cognitive processes and learning

Somatoform Disorders

Conditions that reflect psychological problems, often appear when people are under severe stress, person may show no concern over scary matter, symptoms may be impossible or improbable

Conversion Disorder

Condition in which people appear to be but are not blind, deaf, paralyzed, or insensitive to pain in various parts of the body

Hypochondriasis

strong, unjustified fear that one has cancer, heart disease, AIDS, or other serious physical problems

Somatization Disorder

dramatic but vague, multitude of physical problems rather than any specific illness

Pain Disorder

complaints of sever, often constant pain with no physical cause

Dissociative Disorders

Disruptions in a person's memory, consciousness, or identity that are more intense and long-lasting

Dissociative Fugue/Amnesia

sudden loss of personal memory and the adoption of a new identity in a new locale

-involves sudden memory loss

Dissociative Identity Disorder

formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, appears to have more than one identity, each of which speaks, acts, and writes in a different way

-massive repression of unwanted impulses or memories as the basis for creating a new person who acts out otherwise unacceptable impulses or recalls otherwise unbearable memories

Mood Disorder

moods shift from one extreme to another and especially when their moods are not consistent with the events around them, also known as affective disorder

Depressive Disorders

occasional, normal "dow" periods to episodes sever enough to require hospitalization

Major Depressive Disorder

sad and overwhelming, typically loses interest in activities and relationships and taking pleasure in nothing

Dysthymic Disorder

the person experiences the sad mood, lack of interest, and loss of pleasure associated with major depression, but less intensely and for a longer period, must be at least 2 years to qualify as a disorder

Bipolar I Disorder

alternating appearance of 2 emotional extremes or poles, depression and mania, also called manic depression

Bipolar II Disorder

major depressive episodes alternate with episodes known as hypomania, which are less severe than the manic phases seen in Bipolar I

Cyclothymic Disorder

involves episodes of depression and mania but the intensity of both moods is less severe

--Seasonal Affective Disorder: depressive episodes in a calendar linked pattern

Schizophrenia

a pattern of extremely disturbed thinking, emotion, perception, and behavior that seriously impairs the ability to communicate and relate to others and disrupts most other aspects of daily functioning

--one of the best indicators is premorbid adjustment-level of functioning a person had achieved before schizophrenic symptoms first appeared

Schizophrenic Symptoms

Neologisms: "new words" that have meaning only to the person speaking them

-bewildering assortment of delusions or false beliefs

-Delusions of Influence: belief that one's body, thinking, or behavior are being controlled by external forces

-Self-Significant Delusions: involve exaggerated beliefs about oneself

-Hallucinations: false perceptions, often taking the form of voices

Types of Schizophrenia

5 types:

1) Paranoid Schizophrenic: delusions of grandeur/persecution/anger/anxiety/ onset often sudden (40%)

2) Disorganized: hallucinations, incoherent speech, inappropriate giggling (5%-often homeless)

3) Catatonic: disordered movement, waxy flexibility(body can be positioned in any way)-(8%)

4) Undifferentiated: disordered behavior, thought and emotion, don't fall into any other subtype (40%)

5) Residual: not currently displaying symptoms but have in the past

Positive/Negative Symptoms for Schizophrenia

often disorganized thoughts, delusions, and hallucinations, they appear as undesirable additions to a person's mental life

-the absence of pleasure and motivation, lack of emotional reactivity, social withdrawal, reduced speech, and other deficits seen in schizo, they appear to subtract elements from normal mental life

Schizophrenia Spectrum

each cluster may develop differently and require different treatments

Vulnerability Theory

1) vulnerability to schizo is mainly biological

2) different people have differing degrees of vulnerability

3) vulnerability is influenced partly by genetic influences on development and partly by neurodevelopmental abnormalities associated with environmental risk

4) psychological components such as exposure to poor parenting or high stress families, having inadequate coping skills

Personality Disorders

long-standing, inflexible ways of behaving that aren't so much sever mental disorders as dysfunctional styles of living

3 Clusters of Personality Disorders

A: Odd-eccentric cluster: includes paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personalities, illusions, odd superstitions/beliefs

B: Dramatic-Erratic: histrionic, narcissistic, borderline, and antisocial

C: Anxious-Fearful: dependent, obsessive compulsive, and avoidant personalities

Antisocial Personality Disorder

long term pattern of irresponsible, impulsive, unscrupulous, even criminal behavior beginning in childhood or early adolescence

Psychological Disorders of Childhood

Externalizing/Undercontrolled: shows up as conduct disorders, patter of aggression, disobedience, destructiveness, ADD/ADHD

Internalizing/Overcontrolled: experience distress, depression, anxiety, socially withdrawn, autism

Substance Related Disorders

use of psychoactive drugs for months or years in a way that is harmful to self or others, addiction: physical need for durg

Psychotherapy

the treatment of psychological disorders through psychological methods such as talking about problems and exploring new ways of thinking and acting, other methods generally used as well

Psychiatrists

medical doctors who have completed specialty training in the treatment of psychological disorders

Psychologists

offer psychotherapy, usually completed a doctoral degree in clinical or counseling psychology, often followed by additional specialized training

Psychoanalysis

aimed at understanding the unconscious conflicts and how they affect the client

1) one to one treatment approach

2) searching for relationships between an individual's life history and current problems

3) emphasizing the role of thoughts, emotions, and motivations

4) focusing on the client-therapist relationship

Free Association

lie on a couch and report whatever thoughts, memories, or images came to mind

Object Relations Therapy

work to develop a nurturing relationship with their clients, providing a "second chance" for them to receive the support that might have been lacking in infancy and to counteract some of the consequences of maladaptive early attachment patterns

Interpersonal Therapy

focuses on helping clients explore and overcome the problematic effects of interpersonal events that occur after early childhood, events such as the loss of a loved one, conflicts with a parent or spouse, job loss, or even social isolation

Humanistic Psychologists

see people as capable of consciously controlling their own actions and taking responsibility for their own decisions

Client-Centered Therapy

a therapy that allows the client to decide what to talk about, without direction, judgment, or interpretation from the therapist

Unconditional Positive Regard (Acceptance)

a therapist attitude that conveys a caring for, and acceptance of, the client as a valued person

Empathy

the therapist's attempt to appreciate and understand how the world looks from the client's point of view

Reflection

an active listening method in which a therapist conveys empathy by paraphrasing clients' statements and noting accompanying feelings

Congruence (Genuineness)

acting in ways that are consisten with their feelings during therapy

Gestalt Psychology

people actively organize their perceptions of the world

1) people create their own versions of reality

2) people's natural psychological growth continues only as long as they perceive, remain aware of, and act on their true feelings,

--growth stops and symptoms appear when people are not aware of all aspects of themselves

Gestalt Therapy

seeks to create conditions in which clients can become more unified, self-aware, and self-accepting and thus ready to grow again

Psychology Exam 2

Psychology 1103 with Dixon at University of Connecticut

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