Term
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Definition
| An in-depth, idiographic study of a single person or other unit, such as a group or a community, with a focus on historical was well as current actors believed to account for the unit's characteristics |
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Term
| Define Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) |
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Definition
| An experimental research strategy that assigns to experimental conditions participants assumed to be homogenous with respect to the variable of interest (like depression). Random assignment itself is a method of assigning people to groups that gives each person an equal chance of being in each group |
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Definition
| Sometimes referred to as external validity, the extent to which research results can be applied to the populations and settings that are of primary interest |
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Term
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Definition
| Regulated motivational-emotional systems based on niche-related mechanisms selected during evolution to facilitate the learning and performance of adaptive behavior under a range of environmental circumstances |
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Term
| What is a defense reaction in terms of a behavior system? |
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Definition
| Relatively fixed and stereotyped reactions to gut cues, contamination cues, panic cues, and suffocation cues. |
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Term
| What is appetitive behavior? |
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Definition
| Any behavior that increases the probability that an animal will be able to satisfy a need. For example, a hungry animal will move around to find food |
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Term
| List 6 reasons how case studies can be helpful |
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Definition
1) It may cast doubt on a general theory
2) It may provide a valuable heuristic to subsequent and better-controlled research
3) It can provide the opportunity to apply principles and notions in entirely new ways
4) It can, under certain circumstances, provide enough experimenter control over a phenomenon to furnish "scientifically acceptable" information
5) It may permit the investigation of rare but important phenomena
6) It can put "meat" on the "theoretical skeleton" |
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Term
| Why is it important that a case study can cast doubt on a general theory? |
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Definition
| If the case study can show that the accepted treatment for a disorder was detrimental to a person with that disorder, clinicians may rethink the theory that originally gave them the treatment, leading to a more accurate theory. |
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Term
| Why is it important that a case study may provide a heuristic that leads to further and better controlled research? |
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Definition
| A case study can attract clinicians to certain phenomena that were otherwise unknown, and the research that attraction generates can provide better understanding of the disorder and help create new or better treatment methods |
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Term
| Why is it important that case studies can provide opportunities to apply principles and notions in new ways? |
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Definition
| Because certain aspects of particular problems may call for a new way of relating old principles and practices to their resolution (like when cognitive behavior therapy borrowed role-playing to teach clients better social skills) |
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Term
| What is the difference between something being an adaptation and it being adaptive? |
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Definition
| An adaptation means it was developed previously, due to evolution. If something is adaptive, it is a new, current change that happened in the organisms lifetime |
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Term
| Why is it important that a case study can furnish scientifically acceptable information? |
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Definition
| They can provide data in research where randomized samples are not practical and when assessing exploratory or pilot treatments |
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Term
| Why is it important that case studies can permit the investigation of rare phenomena? |
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Definition
| Because the phenomena is rare, case studies may be the only option to study it. Case studies can also reveal behaviors that the person would not show to others in a group setting |
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Term
| Why is it important that a case study can put meat on theoretical skeletons? |
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Definition
| Sometimes a general treatment does not apply to individuals, and case studies can show successful methods of treatment on an individual level |
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Term
| Describe the A-B-A experimental design |
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Definition
1- The clinician establishes a reliable baseline for the occurrence of a given behavior
2- The clinician then changes some aspect of the circumstances surrounding the behavior in order to cause a change in the behavior in question
3- The clinician then reverts the circumstances back to their original state to show that the behavior itself then goes back to what it was |
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Term
| Discuss how an increase in number of licensed psychologists interacts with the law of supply and demand. What changes do we see with the increase in market factors? What does this mean for the future of the career of psychologist? |
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Definition
As the supply of a service goes up, the demand goes down because the market gets watered down. The cost of the service must then decrease as well, since the service is not a scarce resource and competition between therapists drives the price lower.
As more people become licensed psychologists, the amount they charge has to go down, which could have serious repercussions when one considers the cost it takes to become a psychologist in the first place. |
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Term
| Explain the development of Panic Disorder from a behavior systems approach. Be sure to identify and describe the type of body defense involved |
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Definition
| First a person experiences fear in an environment with novel features (crowded rooms, places with strong chemical odors, etc). That fear then is associated with the novel features and generalized to any circumstances similar to those features. The next time a person comes across those novel features, he or she is primed to react with fear, having been conditioned from their previous experience to associate those features with fear. That persons defensive system then kicks in, causing a panic attack. The panic attack includes increased breathing and heart rates and a release of adrenaline that can combine together to create full blown panic or suffocation. |
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Term
| Discuss how changing contingencies can reduce panic attacks, thereby treating Panic Disorder. How can you effectively change contingencies for a person with Panic Disorder? |
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Definition
| Should a person be exposed to the scenario in which they feel panicky and are forced to stay in that situation, after a while their body cannot maintain the emergency status (as it eventually runs out of chemicals like adrenaline, which were not meant to last for extended periods of time). The person then calms down, and will eventually learn that the situation is not one to fear. This "context flooding" can be facilitated by a therapist desensitizing the client to certain cues within the scenario or forcing the client to think logically about their surroundings and the client's reaction to them. |
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Term
| Name and explain the three basic tenants that underlie the theory of evolution. |
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Definition
1)Individuals within a population vary: when an organism reproduces, the genes do not always copy exactly and mistakes can be made.
2)Some individual members of a species will demonstrate variations that make them better able to survive or adapt to changing environmental conditions.
3)Those individuals better equipped to survive will be more likely to breed and thus pass those better variations onto their offspring |
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Term
| Explain how niche construction varies from the sociobiological perspective by describing each and then contrasting them. Which do you think has the most applicability to clinical disorders, and why? |
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Definition
Niche construction refers to an organism changing its environment to better suit its needs, thereby modifying the relationship between the organism's characteristics and the features of their environment (like leaf-cutter ants). This process is thought to have less to do with genes (although it has something to do with them) and more to do with learning
Sociobiology looks at the biological cause for all social behavior and explains the existence of certain behaviors by the behavior's evolutionary use. The difference is that in niche construction, the organism "figured out" how to change something in its environment, whereas a sociobiological approach would say that the behavior is caused by a gene that somehow proves useful to the survival of the organism and came about because of a beneficial mutation (in a sense, it came about due to luck).
In terms of which is more applicable, they arguably both are. For example, in a disorder like OCD there is a genetic predisposition to the disorder but something triggers the compulsive behaviors, so sociobiology looks like the better explanation. But considering certain explanations as to how depression developed as a way for an individual to reduce his or her social burden on the group makes one consider the behavior as more or less "learned," and would fall under the category of niche construction. |
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Term
| Describe the way a classic behavioral genetic twin study works. Be sure to include the two types of twins, their average concordance, the three types of factors twins studies can differentiate, and why it is useful to differentiate them. |
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Definition
-The two types of twins are dizygotic (coming from two different eggs) and monozygotic (coming from one egg that has split into two). The average genetic concordance for purely genetic disorders with dizygotic twins is 50%, whereas identical twins share 100% of their genetic makeup and so would have 100% concordance for a genetic disorder.
-Generally, a twin study looks at the difference in the trait of interest of MZ and DZ twins, attributing differences in the MZ twins to environment and DZ twins to genes or the environment. In cases where the twins were raised separately, one can more easily attribute trait differences to the nonshared environmental influences
-Three factors are heritability, shared environmental influences, and nonshared environmental influences. It is useful to differentiate these because then one can establish how much of a disorder can be attributed to a person's genes and how much is due to the environment. The inclusion of shared and non shared environmental influences can tell us the effect the environment has in regards to two people with exact genetic makeup (identical twins) |
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Term
| The ______ case explains a trait by examining its role in solving an adaptive problem |
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Definition
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Term
| _______ ________ looks at psychopathology as due to cultural transmission of knowledge |
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Definition
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Term
| What is a state versus a trait? |
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Definition
| States are transient emotional experiences often dependent on outside events whereas traits are enduring properties of personality across situations |
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Term
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Definition
| Psychobiological structure yielding functional dispositions |
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Term
| What is a trait construct? |
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Definition
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Term
| What is a trait indicator? |
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Definition
| Observable behavior related to the trait |
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Term
| What is a trait dimension? |
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Definition
| Distribution of trait values (from lots to none) |
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Term
| What is a characteristic adaptation? |
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Definition
| Psychological structures that develop over a life experience |
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Term
| Identify and describe the “Big Five” personality traits. Who can the Big Five personality traits be used to describe? |
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Definition
-Openness/Conventionality (OCPD would be at the far end of conventionality)
-Conscientiousness/Spontaneity (Impulsive behavior is at the far end of spontaneity)
-Extroversion/Introversion (Autism at the far end of introversion)
-Agreeableness/Disagreeableness (Friendly people who want to help others are agreeable)
-Emotional stability/Neuroticism (People with histrionic disorders are at the neurotic end) |
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Term
| Name and describe four specific approaches to psychology. Identify which approach is most strongly linked to Clinical Psychology, and why. |
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Definition
-General laws (like learned helplessness: whenever an organism is consistently thwarted it tends to stop trying)
-Developmental (how do people change over time and what we all have in common)
-Failure Analysis (looks at what went wrong and how we can use that knowledge to help in similar situations)
-Individual differences (looks at everybody and notices the differences between them and how those differences interact with the environment) |
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Term
| Discuss the two main responses directions that the financial reimbursement for the career of psychologist can go, based on the fact that psychotherapy research fails to distinguish significant differences in treatment outcomes between psychologists and master’s level clinicians. What does this mean for the future of the career of psychologist? |
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Definition
The two financial compensations psychologists can receive are through private practice (which is declining) and through third party payers, like insurance companies or the government. Since the therapeutic differences between master's level therapists and those with a doctorate is minimal, the client (be it the client in the office or the insurance company) would have no reason to pay a clinician with a doctorate more than the clinician with a master's degree.
In order to compensate for the extra training and money a doctorate degree costs, those therapists with PhDs must offer services that cannot be performed by those who only have a master's degree. These services need to reflect doctoral level skills not attained by counselors and social workers, such as psychological testing and diagnostics. |
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Term
| What are some reasons a case study may NOT be helpful? |
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Definition
-There is no cause and effect
-It may not have generalizability
-It is more prone to bias |
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Term
| What is the difference between Pavlovian (or classical) and operant conditioning? |
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Definition
| In both cases you're training something to perform an action. With classical conditioning, that behavior is like a reflex, where whatever you're training can't help the behavior. In operant, the thing you're training knows it's supposed to perform a certain action when it is told to do so and makes a CHOICE to perform the action |
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Term
| What is the difference between ultimate and proximate causes of behavior? |
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Definition
Ultimate is the "why," it explains the behavior's role in solving a problem
Proximate is the "how," which looks at the causal mechanisms underneath the purpose of the behavior |
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Term
| Sociobology looks at how _____ are the basis for all behavior |
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Definition
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Term
| Human behavior ecology looks at _______ behaviors and if they are adaptions or adaptive |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
| Units of cultural knowledge |
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Term
| The memetic perspective looks at... |
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Definition
| The cultural teaching that lead to a behavior (think of anorexia: skinny girls are thought to be pretty, so girls start starving themselves) |
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Term
| Evolutionary psychology looks at... |
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Definition
| How behaviors help an organism survive |
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