• the scientific study of biological, social and personality development across the life span

• environmental agents such as drugs and viruses, diseases, and physical conditions that impair prenatal development and lead to birth defects and sometimes death

• a syndromeaffecting infants whose mothers consumed large amounts of alcohol during pregnanc, resulting a range of severe effects including mental retardation and facial abnormalities

• motor reflexes, such as the sucking reflex and the rooting reflex, which leads infants to turn mouth toward something that touches their cheeks and suck, are unlearned responses

• a decrease in the physiological responding to a stimulus once it becomes familiar

• all five of the sense are already somewhat developed at birth, although vision is the least developed
• phonemes = the small distinctive speech sounds in language
  • difference between words bat & pat = ba & pa phonemes

• the different format of speech that adults use when talking with babies that involves use of shorter sentences with a higher, more melodious pitch

• the rhythmic repetition of various syllables including both consonants and vowels
• at around 6-7 months

• a word used by an infant to express a complete idea
  • ex:  child going tot he door and saying "bye-bye"

• the application of a newly learned word to objects that are not included in the meaning of the word
  • baby calling any man "dada"

• the failure to applu a new word more generally to objects that are included within the meaning of the word

• ex. when children do not extend the categories of "dog"and "cat" to dogs and cats beyond the family's pet dog or cat

• using two-word sentences with mainly nouns and verbs
• btwn 18-24 months
• "dada gone"

• 20th century Swiss psychologist
• assumed that cognitive development stems from a child's adaptation to the environment, and that children attempt to promote their survival by trying to learn about their environment

• frameworks four our knowledge about people, objects, events, and actions that allow us to organize and interpret information about our world
• mental molds into which we pour our experiences
• basic units of our knowledge that allow us to organize and interpret inofrmation about our world

• interpretation of new experiences in terms of present schemas
• involves incorporating new experiences into our current understanding
  • ex. infants call all men "dada"

• modification of present schemas to fit with new experiences
• process of adjusting a schema and modifying it

• birth-2 years
• children use senses and motor abilities to learn about the world and devlop object permanence
• siiting unsupported (6 months),crawling (8-9 months), beginning to walk (12 months), walking independently (15 months)
• experience has little effect on this sequence
• w/ increased mobility, infants also increase their cognitive understanding of the world b/c they are better able to experience it

• children younger than 6 months of age do not grasp object permanence, i.e. objects that are out of sight are also out of mind
• however, children younger than 6 months of age also lack han-eye coordination and motor skills necessary to look for something that has been covered up
• might younder infants understand basic idea of object permanence

• infants will look longer at things they are surprised by than things they find familiar or normal (roughly 3 month babies will look longer at impossible event of tall carrot - maybe they do understand basics of objects permanence at younger than 6 months)

• 2-6 years
• development of symbolic thought
• use symbolic thinking to understand the world but remain egocentric and lack the mental operations that allow logical thinking
• language is the hallmark of symbolic thought in humans
• children start learning language from time they are born, but don't typically start producing intelligible words until around 1 year
• btwn 2-5 years, children start to acquire the rule of grammar in their language
  • the "Wug" test

• even though children from 2-6 years can use language to think symbolically, children in this stage do not have the flexibility that is necessary for more advanced thought

• egocentrism: someone else can't be thinking something different than me
• children typically develop the ability to consider someone's unique point of view around age 4 - Theory of Mind

• conservation - things that look different can't actually be the same
• reversibility - they don't understand that actions could be reversed to undo a particular transformation
• centration - they focus on only one dimension of a problem at a time (e.g. the height of containers but not the width)

• 6-12 years
• children gain cognitive operations for logical thinking about concrete events, understand conservation and perform mathematical operations but they cannot reason abstractly
• children in concrete operation stage can reason about concrete events and entities
  • if mice are bigger than horses and horses are bigger than cats, then mice are bigger than cats.  Is this true - no

• 12-adulthood
• further development of cognitive operations enables adolescents to engage in abstract thinking and hypothetical-deductive reasoning
• around age 12, children develop the ability to engagein abstract thinking and reasoning
• children are able to develop and test hypotheses

• children learn from interactions with other people
• zone of proximal development - what a child can do by interacting with another person,but can't do alone
• critical thinking based on dialogue with other challenge ideas
• adults scaffold children's thinking

• language is important to both Piaget's and Vygotsky's theory
• Piaget's = language is a manifestation of child's ability to think symbolically
• Vygotsky's = language is the foundation that allows social interaction and therefore further development

• a time period during which certain skills are the most easily learned
• most psychologists argue that there is a critical period for language around the time of puberty
• most individuals who learn a 2nd language after puberty will never speak the language without an accent
• Case of "Genie"

• a study in which the performances of groups of participants of different ages are compared to one another
• cohort effects =people of a given age are affected by factors unique to their generation, leading to differences in performance between generations

• a study in which performance of the same group of participants is examined at different ages

• Erikson proposed that social development progresses thru a series of 8 stages, each associated with a different drive and a problem or crisis to resolve
• outcome of each stage varies along a continuum from positive to negative
• Erikson's theory extends development into adulthood (unlike Piaget)

• birth to 1 year
• infants must rely on other for care
• consistent and dependable care giving and meeting infant needs lead to a sense of trust
• infants who are not well cared for will develop mistrust

• during this period of trust vs. mistrust, infants also start to exhibit the first signs of an attachment style
• stranger anxiety- is the fear of strangers that develops at around 8 months
• most infants show some stranger anxiety; however, infants differ in how they respond to their caregiver when the caregiver returns

• secure attachment = infans explore the situation freely in the presence of the mother but displays distress when the mother leaves and responds enthusiastically when the mother returns (60%)
• insecure attachment = infants cling to their mothers or caregivers and are less likely to explore their environment

• relaxed and attentive care giving becomes the backbone of secure attachment
• not just about providing food and nourishment; also about contact comfort
• Harlow's monkey

• infant temperament, a set of innate tendencies of dispositions that lead us to behave certain ways, is also a factor in determining type of attachment

• securely attached individuals tend to have relationships that are characterized by happiness, trust, and friendship
• securely attached individuals also have higher levels of work satisfaction, feel more at ease with co-workers and job-security
• securely attached individuals have higher levels of self esteem 

1. authoritarian = demanding, expect unquestioned obedience, are not responsive to their children's desires, and communicate poorly with their children
2. authoritative = demanding but set rational limits for their children and communicate well with their children
3. permissive = make few demands and are overly responsive to their child's desires, letting their children do pretty much as they please
   
4. univolved = minimize both the time they spend with their children and their emotional involvement with them, doing little more than providing for basic needs

• 1-2 years
• children learn to be self-sufficient in many activities such as toilet training, walking, and exploring
• if restrained too much they learn to doubt their abilities and feel shame

• 3-5 years
• children learn to assume more responsibility by taking intiative
• will feel guilty if they overstep limits set by parents

• 5 years to puberty
• children lean to be competent by mastering new intellectual, social, and physical skills
• feel inferior if they fail to develop these skills

• adolescence
• adolescents develop a sense of identity by experimenting with different roles
• no role experimentation may result in role confusion

• young adulthood
• young adults form intimate relationships with other
• become isolated because of failure to do so

• middle adulthood
• middle-aged adults feel they are helping the next generation through their work and child rearing
• stagnate because they feel that they are not helping

• late adulthood
• older adults asses their lives and develop a sense of integrity if they find their lives have been meaningful
• a sesnse of despair if their lives do not seem meaningful

• a person's internally based characteristic ways of thinking, feeling and acting
• what determines our personality? (4 theoretical approaches)

• personality is shaped by unconscious forces and childhood experiences

• 1856-1939
• in his clinical practive, Freud encountered patients suffering from nervous disorders
• their complaints could not be explained in terms of purely physical causes
• Anna O - couldn't move right hand (no physical prob), father recently died - dream of father grabbing right hand
• his clinical experience led him to develop the first comprehensive theory of personality which included the unconscious mind, psychosexual stages, and defense mechanisms

• the mind is like an iceberg.  It is mostly hidden and below the surface lies the unconscious mind.  The preconscious stores temporary memories (outside awareness but accessible)

• executive mediator - sensibility
• develops out of the id in infancy
• operates on the reality principle
• mediator btwn the id and superego
• partially conscious and partially unconscious

• interalized ideals - sense of morality
• internalization of society's moral standards & own sense of moral standards
• responsible for guilt
• partially conscious and partially unconscious

• unconscious psych energy - pure desires
• instinctual drives present @ birth
• does not distinguish btwn reality & fantasy
• operates according to the pleasure principal
• unconscious motivations

• the principle of seeking immediate gratification for instinctual drives without concern for the consequences

• the principle of finding gratification for instinctual drives within the constraints of reality (norms of society)

• psychoanalysts still consider much of the mind to be unconscious, in that people show behaviors that they themselves cannot explain
• still consider internal conflic as a shaping force of behavior; while it is rare to talk about the id, ego, and superego, an underlying assumption of psychoanalysis is that we frequently have conflicting views of ourselves

• proposed that personality developed through the id's pleasure seeking energies
• the id focuses on various erogenous zones throughout development
• Fixation = some of the id's pleasure-seeking energies remaining in a psychosexual stage due to excessive gratification or frustration of instictual needs
• oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital

• the process by which children adopt the characteristics of the same-sex parent and learn their gender role and sense of morality

• do still believe that personality is shaped by early childhood experiences
• however there is much less emphasis placed on sexual stages and impulses
• rather, what is important is developing from immature, social dependence to mature independence and how the individual handles theses transitions.
  
  • sexual feelings are only small part of this transition

• a process used by the ego to distort reality and protect a person from anxiety

• unknowingly placing an unpleasant memory or thought in the unconscious
  
  • i.e. not remembering a traumatic incident in which you witnessed a crimes

• reverting back to immature behavior from an earlier stage of development
  • throwing temper tantrums as an adult when you don't get your way

• redirecting unaccpetable feelings from the original source to a safer substitute target
  • taking anger out on something other than the source (teacher yelling @ students instead of boss)

• replacing socially unacceptable impulses with socially acceptable behavior
  
  • channeling aggressive drives into playing footbal or inappropriate sexual desires into art

• acting in exactly the opposite way to one's unacceptable impulses
  • being overprotective of and lavishing on an unwanted child

• attributing one's own unacceptable feelings and thoughts to others and not yourself
  • accusing your boyfriend of cheating on you b/c you have felt like cheating on him

• creating false excuses for one's unacceptable feelings, thoughts, or behavior
  • justifying cheating on an exam by saying that everyone else cheats

• majority of children, death camp survivors, and battl-scarred veterans are unable to repress painful experiences into their unconscious mind
• repression doesn't really work like Freud thought
• many individuals who do recover "repressed memories" of childhood abuse may be victims of suggestion and recreated memories

• Freud asked patients to say whatever came to their minds (free association) in order to tap the unconscious
• Freud analyzed patients' recalled dreams, assuming that dreams were a sign of unconscious wish fulfillment

• Projective Tests - people are shown a series of ambiguous stimuli and asked about their perceptions
• Rorschach Inkblot Test - the most widely used projective test uses a set of 10 inkblots to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretation of the blots
  • for example reference to moving animals is thought to imply impulsiveness,  reference to "blackness" is thought to imply depression
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - the TAT is a projective test with images that slightly ambiguous - describe scene
• Problems with Projective Tests
  • often called "a clinician's delight and a statistician's nightmare"
  • administration is not standardized
  • scoring is not standardized, overly reliant on practioner's intuitions
  • often leads to over diagnosis os psychological disturbance

• personality is shaped by our drive to reach our full potential

• Abraham Maslow - studied very healthy and creative people (Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln)
• proposed that we as individuals are motivated by a hierarchy of needs
• our innate needs that motivate our behavior are hierachically arranged in a pyramid shape.
  
  • from bottom to top, the needs are physiological, saftey, belonging and love, esteem, and self-actualization

1. physiological needs - hunger & thirst
2. safety needs - need to feel safe, secure, and stable
3. belongingness and love needs - need to love and be loved, to belong and be accepted
4. esteem needs - need for self-esteem, achievement, competence, and independence
5. self-actualization need - need to live up to one's fullest unique potential

• only 1% of people are truly self-actualized
• actepting themselves, others, and the nature of world for what they are
• having a need for privacy and only a few close, emotional relationships
• being autonomous and independent, democratic and very creative
• having peak experiences, which are experiences of deep insight in which you experience whatever you are doing as fully as possible

• Carl Rogers - the perceived vs. the ideal self
• when our perceived self is the same as our ideal self we are self-actualized
• this is not to say that we become perfect people; on the contrary, we accept ourselves for who we are
• ideal self is influenced by parental and peer conditions of worth -  the behaviors and attitudes for which other people, starting with our parents, will give us positive regard

• unconditional positive regard is an attitude of acceptance of others despite their failings
• according to Rogers, receiving unconditional positive regard is critical for individuals to reach self-actualization

• personality is shaped by modeling by others and our own thought processes

• believes that personality is the result of interaction that takes place between a person and their social context
• Individuals & Environment:
  • specific ways in which individuals and environments interact
  • different people choose different environments
    • the school you attend and the music you listen to are partly based on your dispositions
  • our personalities shape how we react to events
    • anxious people react to situation differently than calm people
  • our personalities shape sitatuations
    • how we view and treat people influences how they treat us

• different people have different systematic patterns of thinking about their interation with the world
• these systematic patterns can increase or decrease people's ability to take control of their life and accomplish goals

• the set of cognitive processes by which a person observes, evaluates, and regualtes her behavior

• a judgement of one's effectiveness in dealing iwth particular situations

• whether we believe that we control our environment or whether we believe that our environment controls us

• the perception that chance or external forces beyond your personal control determine your fate
• learned helplessness - when unable to avoid repeated adverse events an animal or human learns helplessness
  1. uncontrollable bad events
  2. perceived lack of control
  3. generalized helpless behavior

• the perception that you control your own fate
• perceive their success as dependent upon their actions but they may or may not feel that they have competence (efficacy) to bring about successful outcomes in various situations

• the process by which we explain our own behavior and that of others

• the tendency to make attributions so that once can perceive oneself favorably
• if the outcome of our behavior is positive we take credit for it (make an internal attribution)
• if the outcome is negative, we place the blame elsewhere (make an external attribution)

• personality is shaped by the amount of basic personality traits or dimensions that we have
• an individuals unique constellation of durable dispositions and consistent ways of behaving (traits) constittues his or her personality
  • Allport& Odbert (1936) identified 18,000 words representing traits
• different theorists propose different numbers
  • Cattell (1950) inditified 16 traits
  • Eysenck (1982) proposed 3 traits
  • McCrae & Costa (1999) proposed 5, "The Big Five"

• everyone has a combination of these 5 traits - there's a high end and a low end

• high end: independent, imaginative, broad interests, receptive to new ideas
• low end: conforming, practical, narrow interests, closed to new ideas

• high end: well-organized, dependable, careful, disciplined
• low end: disorganized, undependable, careles, impulsive

• high end: sociable, talkative, friendly, adventurous
• low end: reclusive, quiet, aloof, cautious

• high end: sympathetic, polite, good-natured, soft-hearted
• low end: tough-minded, rude, irritable, ruthless

• high end: emotional, insecure, nervous, self-pitying
• low end: calm, secure, relaxed, self-satisfied

• an objective personality test that uses a series of questions or statements for which the test taker must indicate whether they apply to her or not
• each trait is considered as a dimension with  a low and a high end
• individuals are asked to rate themselves with respect to different statements (i.e. "I see myself as someone who does a thorough job")
• assumes that individuals are able and willing to give accurate self reports

• how stable are these traits?
  • quite stable in adulthood. however, they change over development
• how heritable are they?
  • 50% or so for each trait
• How about other cultures?
  • these traits are common across cultures
• can they predict other personality attributes?
  • yes. conscietious people are morning type and extraverted are evening type

• the scientific study of how we influence one another's behavior and thinking

• conformity - a change in behavior, belief or both to conform to a group norm as a result of real or imagined group pressure 
• Normative Social Influence - influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid rejection

• Informative Social Influence - other people provide valuable information about the correct course of action
  • influence stemming from the needfor information in situations in which the corret action or judgment is uncertain

• would we rather be right or would we rather be accepted
• 75% of participants gave wrong answer (that is conformed to the group's answer) on at least one occasion
• why did they conform to clearly wrong choices?
  • participants reported doubting their own perceptual abilities suggesting that they were succumbing to an informational influence (need to be right)
  • however, when participants were allowed to write down their own judgment after hearing everyone's else's, conformity decreased dramatically
  • suggests participants in original study were actually more concerned about being accepted  (normative social influence) by others in the group than about being right

• variations of Asch's study over the years have revealed a # of conditions that strengthen conformity
  • being right isn't actually of very high importance
  • the group has at least 3 people
  • the group is unanimous
  • one admires the group's status and attractiveness
  • the group observes one's behavior
  • one's culture strongly encourages respect for a social standard

• people comply to social presssures.  How do they respond to outright commands
• Stanley Milgram designed a study investigating obedience
  • Yale - men of all class distinctions, electroshock for wrong answer, teacher must continue
  • controversial now b/c could cause mental harm to participant

• My Lai Massacre - March 16, 1968
  • Lt. Calley - Obedience to Authority "I was ordered by SGT Medina to kill everyone"
• Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse - can social role explain inhumane behavior
• Solzehenitsyn - "the line btwn Good and Evil lies in the center of every human heart ... not in some abstract moral, celestial space, but right here in each our individual and collective beings"

• acting in accordance with a direct request from another person or group
• foot-in-the-door technique = compliance to a large request is gained by preceding it with a very small request
• door-in-the-face technique = compliance is gained by starting with a large unreasonable request that is turned down and following it with a more reasonable, smaller request
• low-ball technique = compliance to a costly request is gained by first getting compliance to an attractive, less costly request but then reneging on it
• that's-not-all technique = compliance to a planned second request with additional benefits is gained by presenting this request before a response can be made to the first request

• facilitation of a dominant response on a task due to social arousal, leading to improvement on simple or well-learned tasks and worse performance on complex or unlearned tasks when people are present

• the tendency to exert less effort when working in a group toward a common goal than when individually working toward the goal

• the lessening of individual responsibility for a task when responsibility for the task is spread across the members of a group

• the probability of a person's helping in an emergency is greater when there are no other bystanders than when there are other bystanders.
• Kitty Genovese case

• the loss of self-awareness and self restraint in a group situation that fosters arousal and anonymity

• the strengthening of a group's prevailing opinion about a topic following group discussion about the topic
• the initially held view becomes even more polarized following group discussion

• a mode of group thinkingthat impairs decision making because the desirefor group harmony overrides a realistic appraisal of the possible decision alternatives

• the tendency as an observer to overestimate dispositional influences and underestimate situational influences on others' behavior
• observers are biased in that they tend to attribute others' behavior to them and not the situation they are in

• the assumption that the world is justand that people get what they deserve

• Information gathered early is weighter more heavily than information gathered later in forming an impression of another person

• our behavior leads a person to act in accordance with our expectations for that person
• our behavior encourages the person to act in accordance with our expectations

• the tendency to overestimate situational influences on our own behavior, but to overestimate dispositional influences on the behavior of others
  • meaning you are clumsy (and spilled coffee) but i had a slippery cup (and spilled coffee)

• the tendency to make attributions so that one can perceive oneself favorably

• the tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinion and unsuccessful behaviors

• the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and successful behaviors

• evaluative reactions (positive or negative) toward objects, events, and other people

• we are more likely to form close relationships with those who live close to us
• Proximity & the Mere Exposure Effect (Moreland & Beach, 1992)
  • results showed that the more times paticipants saw a person - the more attractive they found them to be

• more likely to form close relationships with people who we find physically attractive
• Attraction & the Halo Effect
  • beautiful = good
  • attractive defendants given lighter sentences than less attractive defendants
  • attractive people earn more money
  • attractive children rated as more intelligent by teachers
  • attractive people tend to date more
• what determines attractiveness?
  • symmetrical faces are more attractive
  • "average" is more attractive
• Gender Differences:
  • women = large eyes, prominent cheekbones, small bones, & a wide smile
  • men = broad jaws and chiseled features

• more likely to form close relationships with people who seem more similar to ourselves
• Similarity & the Matching Hypothesis:
  • we like those who are more similar to ourselves
  • married couples report significant agreement about politics and religion
  • friends are more similar in attitudes, belief, values, and interests than people of the same age who aren't friends
• correlation does not imply causation

• Newcomb, 1956 - students with high similarity found each other more attractive
• matching hypothesis - we like thsoe who are like ourselves
• romantic pairs are similar in physical attractiveness
• even college roommates, prefer to be similar attractiveness
• sense of humor particularly important

1. Eros - passionate love,
   
   • love @ 1st sight, 34% of subj rate 'high' on scale, men typically have higher rating
2. Ludus - Game-Playing Love
   • flirtatious and not committed, 2% of subj rate high, men
3. Storge - friendship love
   • very close friendship becomes love, 66% rate high, women
4. Pragma - logical love
   • cognitive appreciation for other's quality, 17% rate high,women
5. Mania -  possessive love
   • feeling of ownership over lover, 2% rate high, women
6. Agape - selfless love
   • putting one's love above one's self, 2% rate high, highly correlated with religiosity

• 3 aspects of love that can develop and change over time (sternberg, 1986)
  1. intimacy = closeness 2 people feel psychologically, how well partners understand each other
  2. passion = the amount of physical/sexual attraction and romance
  3. commitment = the cognitive facts such as decision to maintain the relationship
• triarchic model of love
  • intimacy = liking
  • i + c = compnaionate love
  • commitment = empty love
  • p + c = fatuous love (bad)
  • passion = infatuation
  • i + p = romantic love
  • ideal = all 3 - consummate love

• over the long haul, things that happier marriages tend to have:
  • the woman maintains passionate love
  • more joint activities + projects
  • laugh together
  • satisfaction with children

• over the long haul, things that lead to divorce:
  • infidelity/jealousy
  • failure to compromise
  • failure to express emotions/communicate
  • dissimilarity emerging over time (or being discovered over time)
  • sexual dissatisfaction

• the scientific study of mental disorders and their treatments

• "to study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal" ~William James (1842-1910)
• there are 450 million people suffering from psychological disorders (WHO, 2004)
• depression and schizophrenia exist in all cultures of the world

• we all experience bad moods, irrational thoughts and ideas, and odd quirks from time to time
• clinical psychologists label behaviors as disordered, deviant, distressful, dysfunctional

• deviant - behavior (going naked) in one culture may be considered normal, while in others it may lead to arrest
• deviant behavior must accompany distress, either by the person engaging in the behavior or b those around him/her
• if a behavior is dysfunctional, meaning that it interferes with the person's ability to live their lif, then it is clearly a disorder
• in the Wodaabe trive men wear costumes to attract women.  In western culture this would be considered abnormal

• the American Psychiatric Association rendered Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) to describe psychological disorders
• the most recent edition, DSM IV describes 400 psych disorders compared to 60 in the 1950s
• disorders outlined by DSM-IV are reliable.  Therefore, diagnoses by different professionals are similar

• Pros -
  • a diagnosis is the first step towards successful treatment
• Cons -
  • labels stigmatize individuals; once clinicians have given someone a label, they frequently interpret future behavior in light of that label (Rosenhan, 1973 study - psychs went to mental hospitals saying they were schytzoprenic...)
  • "Insanity" labels raise moral and ethical questions about how society treats people who have disorders and have committed crimes

• a disorder is characterized by inflexible, long-standing personality traits that lead to behavior that impairs social functioning and deviates from cultural norms

• Axis I - is a Clinical Syndrome (cognitive, anxiety, mood disorders, etc.) present?
• Axis II - is a Personality Disorder or Mental Retardation present
• Axis III - is a General Medical Condition (diabetes, hypertension, or arthritis,etc.) also present?
• Axis IV - are Psychosocial or Environmental Problems (school or housing issues) also present?
• Axis V -what is the Global Assessment of the person's functioning?

• Anxiety - diffuse, vague feelings of fear or apprehension
  • everyone experiences it; can cause physical symptoms
  • becomes a problem when it is irrational, uncontrollable, and disruptive
• sometimes anxiety is triggered by particular events or stimuli (phobia)
• sometimes anxiety is more general and longer lasting (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)
• sometimes anxiety leads to repetitive behaviors in an attempt to reduce the anxiety (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

• anxiety is tied to a specific thing
• it is not phobic to simply be anxious about something
• rather a phobia occurs when a person's fear interferes with their ability to live their life in a normal way

• persistence of unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and urges to engage in senseless rituals (compulsions) that cause distress
• Obsessions - repetitive thoughts = concern w/ dirt, germs, or toxins, something terrible happening, symmetry, order, or exactness
• Compulsions - repetitive behaviors = excessive hand washing, bathing tooth brushing or grooming, repeating rituals, checking doors, locks, appliances, car breaks, homework
• causes
  • OCD tendencies run in families
  • the specific form of OCD often takes a new form in subsequent generations

• disorders that involve dramatic changes in a person's emotional mood that are excessive and unwarranted

• depression is the "common cold" of psychological disorders.  In a year, 5.8% of men and 9.5% of women report depression worldwide (WHO, 2002)
• occurs when signs of depression last 2 weeks or more and are not caused by drugs or medical conditions
• Signs include:
  • lethargy and fatigue
  • feelings of worthlessness
  • loss of interest in family & friends
  • lost of interest in activities
• some people have descrive it as feelings of extreme grief and mourning combined with feelings of jet lag - extremely difficult to funtion
• genetic influences:
  • mood disorders run in families
  • the rate of depression is higher in identical (50%) than fraternal twins (20%)

• explantory style plays a major role in becoming depressed
• you don't have a choice about what happens to you, but you do have a choice about how you react to it

• some evidence suggest that depressed people actually see themselves and the world in a more realistic way than non-depressed people
• ex. nondepressives consistently overestimate the way they are perceived by others while depressives rate themselves in a way that is highly consistent with the way others rate them
• being realistic is not the same thing as being adaptive

• formerly called manic-depressive disorder
• an alteration btwn depression and mania signal bipolar disorder
• depressive symptoms - gloomy, withdrawn, inability to make decisions, tired, slowness of thought
• manic symptoms - elation, euphoria, desire for action, hyperactive, multiple ideas
• PET scans show that brain energy consumption rises and falls with manic and depressive episodes

• a disorder characterized by a loss of contact with reality

• if depression is the common cold of psych disorders, schizophrenia is the cancer
• a psychotic disorder in which at least 2 of the following symptoms are present most of the time during a 1 month period - hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, or negative symptoms such as loss of emotion
• nearly 1 in 100 suffer from schizo.
• strikes young people as they mature into adults. it affects men and women equall, men suffer it more severly than women
• means "Split Mind"

• a false belief
• fragmented, bizarre thinking with distorted beliefs
• delusions of persecution and grandeur (either someone is following me or I am king thinking)

• schizophrenics have inappropriate symptoms (hallucinations, disorganized thinking, deluded ways) that are not present in normal individuals

• schizophrenics also have an absence of appropriate symptoms (apathy, expressionless faces, rigid bodies) that are present in normal individuals

• Paranoid - preoccupation with delusions or hallucinations, often with themes of persecution or grandiosity
• Disorganized - disorganized speech or behavior, or flat or inappropriate emotion
• Catatonic - immobility (or excessive, purposeless movement), extreme negativism, and/or parrot-like repeating of another's speech or movements
• Undifferentiated - many and varied symptoms
• Residual - withdrawal, after hallucinations and delusions have disappeared

• is undoubtedly caused by biological abnormalities
• whether due to genetics or environmental influences is unclear

• people who feel they have a sense of entitlement and who frequently fail to recognize the needs of others

• people have an unstable identity, unstable relationships, and unstable and impulsive emotions

• people who have a complete lack of social conscience
  • a disorder in which (usually men) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members.  Often commit some of the most brutal crimes.
  • PET scans of 41 murders revealed reduced activity in the frontal lobes.  In a follow-up study repeat offenders had 11% less frontal lobe activity compared to normal people
• problems with treating -
  • personality disorders are persistent throughout someone's life; not brought about by a sudden change in life experience or biology
  • makes personality disorders particularly hard to treat because they are so ingrained in that part of the person

• biomedical therapy uses drugs or other procedures that act on the patient's nervous system, reducing the symptoms of his or her psychological disorders
  • Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil are selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors that improve the mood by elevating levels of serotoin by inhibiting reuptake
  • Anti-anxiety drugs (Xanax and Ativan) depress the central nervous system and reduce anxiety and tension by elevating the levels of the Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) neurotransmitter
  • Prozac was labeled the wonder drug of the 90's
    • prescrived for and works in treating depression, anxiety, OCD, and PTSD
• psychotherapy involves emotionally charged, confiding interaction btwn trained therapist and a mental patient

• Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) used for severly depressed patients who do not respond to drugs.
• the patient is anesthetized and given a muscle relaxant
• patients usually get a 100 volt shock that relieves them of depression

• are rooted in specific theories about personality and human nature
• psychoanalysis - Freud's psychoanalytic theory; we are shaped by early trauma and conflict
• client centered therapy - Carl Roger's humanistic theory; we are shaped by our need to be fulfilled and accepted
• behavioral therapy - Watson and Skinner tradition of learning and conditioningl we are shaped by experiences in the world
• cognitive therapy - social cognitive theories; we are shaped by our thought processes and reactions to experiences

• aims to alter the way people act (behavior) and alter the way they think (cognitive)
• can be particularly helpful in the treatment of OCD
• Behavior therapy - counter conditioning and systematic desensitization to help the person tolerate their fear
• Cognitive therapy - helping the person replace their fear