Term
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Definition
- hunger, weight, and eating are regulated by a set of bodily mechanisms, such as basal metabolism rate and number of fat cells, that keep people close to their genetically influenced set point. genes may also account for certain types of obesity: the ob gene regulates leptin, which enables the hypothalamus to regulate appetite and metabolism.
- environmental reasons: the increased abundance of inexpensive fast food and processed food, because humans have a genetic disposition to gain weight when rich food is plentiful; the increased consumption of high calorie sodas; the rise of sedentary life styles; increased portion sizes; and the availability of highly varied food. |
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Term
| treatments/weight control |
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Definition
| limit variety, eat slowly, make yourself work for food (i.e., fewer instant foods), don't eat when distracted, find ways to walk more |
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Term
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Definition
bulimia nervosa: characterized by episodes of excessive eating followed by forced vomiting or use of laxative (binging and purging)
anorexia nervosa: characterized by fear of being fat, a distorted body image, radically reduced consumption of food, and emaciation - highest mortality rate
occur most often among young white women, but more than forty percent of all cases of eating disorders occur among men, the elderly, ethnic minority groups, young children, and athletes, and do not fit the diagnostic criteria for bulimia or anorexia
genes play role in development of some - anorexia- found across cultures and throughout history
- most disorders generated by psychological factors, including depression and anxiety, ow self esteem, perfectionism, and distorted body image.
cultural fa tors can also generate dissatisfaction with one's body (bulimia is v. rate in non western cultures, but becomes problem in western cultures with the rise of the thin ideal for women....women's exposure to the media ideal of impossibly thin women fosters belief that thin is beautiful and increases risk of disordered eating.) |
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Term
| cultural variation/universality in attraction |
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Definition
- in many cases we see fat as valued and indicative of female fertility (fattening rooms int he Waikiriki in a southern Nigeria island)
- In a study of 37 societies (Buss, 1989), women rank resource acquisition (e.g. ambition-industriousness) as most attractive and men rank reproductive capacity (e.g., youth, attractiveness)
what is attractive? fluctuating asymmetry: may indicate gene quality; occurs across species, very sensitive...also like similar faces (similar to yourself and your kin; similar plus something exotic)
also attractive is men with higher levels of testosterone (visible facial features); men with dissimilar vs. similar MHC's (good genes vs. caring kin; the pill disrupts this) |
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Term
| How do we motivate to succeed |
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Definition
motivation may be intrinsic (for the inherent pleasure of an activity) or extrinsic (for external rewards)
- the study of achievement motivation began with research using the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - it has empirical problems, but it launched the stuyd of the factors that motivate achievement
- people achieve more when they have specific, focused goals; when they set high but achievable goals from themselves; and when they have approach goals (seeking a positive outcome) rather than avoidance goals (avoiding an unpleasant outcome). the motivation to achieve also depends on whether people set mastery (learning) goals, in which the focus is on learning the task well, or performance goal, in which the focus is on performing well for others. (when people are motivated by performance they will often give up if they do poorly, but if they are motivated by learning they will continue to try to succeed and learn). people's expectations can create self-fulfilling prophesies of success or value. these expectation stem from one's level of self-efficacy ( a person's belief that he or she is capable of producing desired results, such as mastering new skills and reaching goals)
- work motivation also depends on conditions of the job
--when jobs are highly gender segregated, people often stereotype the abilities of the women and men working in those fields. (also the gender that is not highly represented may feel isolated...women are less likely to be paid as much as men...may be sexually harassed in male dominated fields)
--working conditions that promote motivation and satisfaction are those that provide workers with a sense of meaningfulness, control, variation in tasks, supportive relationships, feedback, and opportunities for advancement. jobs that lack these conditions or that fail to allow employees to balance the demands of their families with those of work, are more likely to have higher dropout rates. |
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Term
| Stanford Prison Experiment |
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Definition
designed by Philip Zimbardo and Craig Haney: wanted to know what would happen if ordinary college students were randomly assigned to the roles of prisoners and guards; within a short time, most of the prisoners became distressed and helpless...they developed emotional symptoms and physical ailments. the guards began to enjoy their new power: some tried to be nice (helping the prisoners and doing little favors for them); some were tough but fair, holding strictly to the "rules"; the third became punitive and harsh, even when the prisoners were not resisting in any way.
te researchesr who had not expected such a speedy and alarming transformation of ordinary students ended the study after only six days.
the results demonstrated how roles reflect behavior: the guard's aggression, the researchers say, was entirely a result of wearing a guars' uniform and having the power conferred by a guard's authority. some psychology have argued that iut is really another example of obediance to authority and how willingly some people obey instructions.
good example of how the social situation affects behavior, causing some people to behave in ways that seem out of character
what psychological development drove the changes
- obeying authority (both)
- not taking personal responsibility (guards)
- conforming (both)
- de-individuating (both)
-survival mechanisms (both)
what accounts for the individual changes:
- authoritarian personalities are thought to be highly attuned to and respectful of hierarchal relationships; strong wielding of authority when they have it (preferred by highly deferential to others who have more); more likely to be conventional (conform highly to society norms), aggressive, stereotyping, and engage in low levels of introspection; tend to develop negative feelings about the "other"; speculation that harsher guards may have had authoritarian personalities |
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Definition
people acted as teacher...confederate acted as learner. administered shocks when learner got answer wrong.
every person administered some shock to the learner, and about 2/3 of the participants obeyed t the fullest extent...although many protested the the experiment but backed down when told the experiment requred them to continue.
however, people were more likely to disobey orders when: the experimenter left the room; when the victim was right there inthe room; when two experimenters issued conflicting demands; when the person ordering them to continue was an ordinary man; when the participant worked with peers who refused to go further.
obedience, milgram concluded, was more a function of the situation than the personalities of the participants.
many say it was unethical b/c people were kept in the dark and b/c many suffered emotional pain b/c of it. |
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Term
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Definition
- Soloman asch wanted to see what people would do when a group unanimously contradicted an obvious fact (with the length of lines). he found that when people made the line comparisons on their own, they were almost always accurate. but in the group, only 20 percent of the students remained completely independent on every trial, and often they apologized for not agreeing with the others. whether or not they conformed, the students often felt uncertain of their decisions.
demonstrates power of conformity. |
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Term
| Psychological mechanisms underlying people's behaviors in social contexts |
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Definition
many people of implicit (unconscious) or explicit (conscious) attitudes about people, things, and ideas. they may change through experience, conscious decisions, or as an effort to reduce cognitive dissonance. one powerful way to influence attitudes is by taking advangage of the familiarity effect and the validity effect: simply exposing people repeatedly to a name or product makes them like it more, and repeating a statement over and over again makes it seem more believable.
also:
diffusion of responsibility: in a group can lead to inaction on the part of individuals; bystander apathy.
the diffusion of responsibility is likely to occur under conditions that promote deindividuation, the loss of awareness of one's individuality (increases when people feel anonymous, as in a large crowd or when they are wearing masks or uniforms.)
ethnocentrism
stereotypes
prejudice (help reduce: both sides must have equal legal status, economic standing, and power; both sides must have the legal, moral, and economic support of authorities and cultural institutions; both sides must have opportunities to work and socialize together informally and formally - contact hypothesis; both sides must work together for common goal
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Term
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Definition
| close knit groups are vulnerable to groupthink, the tendency of individuals to think alike, censor themselves, actively suppress disagreement, and feel that their decisions are invulnerable. group think often produces faulty decisions because group members fail to seek disonfirming evidence for their ideas. however, groups an be structured to counteract groupthink (if leader rewards the expression of doubt and dissent, protects and encourages minority views, asks group members to generate as many alternative solutions to a problem as they can think of , and has everyone think of the risks and disadvantages of the preferred decision. can also be fostered by creating a group identity that encourages members to think of themselves as open minded problem solvers rather than invulnerable know it alls. |
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Term
| differences observed (on average) between East Asian and Western cognitive processes |
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Definition
japanese participants more likely to make references to make background elements
(looking at pond...americans more likely to point out individual elements in the foreground...but both likely to report the focal fish)
- valuing the group vs. individuals fundamentally shapes thinking and perception
- may be driven by early philosophy, agricultural systems, family systems or simply different strategies
limitations of this approach? over simplifying : lots of variation not captured; ignores individual variation. many cultures don't fit this dichotomy; hunter-gatherers show aspects of both |
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Term
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Definition
- many studies observe that groups of individual thinking people come to better decisions than a single individual
- a group may be smarter than the smartest individual in it
-francis galton's observation that a crowd at a county fair better guessed an ox's weight when averaged, than any individual
-as opposed to other types of group-based thinking, wisdom of crowds relies on independence and diversity
when does it fail: when people are too conscious of the thoughts and opinions of others in the group or when one person has too much sway
when do we see this in action: sport and political predictions tend to be fairly accurate, as do market productions (though these are often confounding) |
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Term
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Definition
situational vs. dispositional attributions
action-observer attributional divergence
self-serving attributional bias
illusory correlation
slippery slope
hindsight bias
halo effect
- according to the attribution theory, people are motivated to search for causes to which they can attribute their own and other people's behaviros. their attributions may be situational or dispositional. the fundamental attribution error occurs when people overestimate personlaity traits as a cause of behavior and underestimate the influence of the situation (for themselves...they say good thinks they do are dispositional and bad things are situational. when looking at other mainly attribute to disposition). a primary reason for the fundamental attribution error is that people rely on introspection to judge their own behavior but only have observations to judge the behavior of others. attributions are further influenced by three self-serving biases: the bias to choose the most flattering and forgiving explanations of our own behavior; the bias that we are better, smarter, and kinder than others; and the bias that the world is fair (the just-world bias) |
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Term
| Strengths and Weaknesses of Piaget's theory |
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Definition
Piaget argued that cognitive development depends on an interaction between maturation and a child's experiences in the world. children's thinking changes and adapts through assimilation and accommodation. Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor (birth to age 2), during which the child learns object permanence; pre-operational (2 to 7), during which language and symbolic thought develop, although the child remains egocentric in reasoning and has some difficulty with mental operations; concrete operations (7-12),during which the child comes to understand conservation, identity, and serial ordering; and formal operations (12 to adulthood), during which abstract reasoning develops.
Weaknesses: cognitive abilities develop in continuous, overlapping waves rather than discrete steps or stages; preschoolers are not as egocentric as piaget thought...they start to develop a theory of midn (a system of beliefs about the way one's own mind and the minds of others work, and of how indivuals are affected bytheir beliefs and feelings); children, even infants, reveal cognitive abilities much earlier than Piaget thought; cognitive development is influenced by a child's culture.
despite this, piaget left an enduring legacy: the in that children are not passive vessels into which education and experience are poured; children actively interpret their worlds, using their developing abilities to assimilate new info and figure things out. |
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Term
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Definition
object/physical knowledge; young infants are able to mentally represent and think about the existence of invisible objects and events; the majority of evidence is based on research using the violation-of-expectancy procedure (infants tend to look longer at objects that seem to violate physical laws than those that do not)
understanding intentions: six month olds who see a human arm repeatedly reach for an object iin the same location assume that hte action is directed towards the object, not the place. they look longer when the hand went to the new object in the old place, than when it reached for the old object it had reached to before. precursors to theory of mind at six months. |
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Term
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Definition
Bowlby's Theory:
- children's first relationships shape development; close relationship with mother is important and has a lifelong impact. based on clinical and animal behavior studies; thought to be driven by evolutionary history
during Ainsworth's strange situation:
securely attached kids: some distress when mother leaves; not comforted by stranger; easily comforted on return.
insecure avoidant: do not fuss on mother's departure; do not seek her on return; respond equally well to stranger
insecure resistant: anxious even before mother's departure; v. upset on departure; seek mother on return; resist attempts to comfort.
insecure disorganized: lack clear strategy; unusual behaviors
what kinds of interaction yield secure attachments; fast and appropriate response to cries; caregiver sensitivity to need
do attachment styles affect long term wellbeing:
- some conflicting findings: circumstances change.
alan stoufe's extensive work: secure infants rated as having better self esteem, social skills, peer relationships and empathy through age 11
disorganized attachment > poor outcomes...anxiety and fear; anger and aggression
what's missing:
- other caregivers: secure bonds with non-mothers possible; child can have multiple secure attachments; some argue for cooperative caregiving
- does daycare reduce attachment security? quality of care important (caregiver to child ratio; consistency); more problems with longer hours; problems when combined with insensitive home care
cross cultural: typically secure attachment is most common but there is considerable variation
conclusions: attachment is important; predictive of outcomes in our society; but there may be variation and the importance of other caregivers |
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Term
| strange situation paradigm |
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Definition
| used by ainsworth to conduct study on attachment |
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Term
| Freud's Structure of Personality |
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Definition
Personality consists of three major systems: the id, go and superego. any action we take or problem we have results from the interaction and degree of balance among the systems.
id: the part of personality containing inherited psychic energy, particularly sexual and aggressive instincts. the libido is this psychic energy. the id may discharge tension (that results from built up energy) in the form of reflex actions, physical symptoms, or uncensored mental images and unbidden thoughts.
ego: the part of personality that represents reason, good sense, and rational self control. it is the referee between the needs of instinct (id) and the demands of society...bows to the realities of life. the ego uses defense mechanism to prevent unconscious anxiety or threatening thoughts from entering consciousness.
supergo: the part of personality that represents conscus, morality, and social standards.
a healthy personality must have all three systems in balance: someone who is too controlled by the id is governed by impulse and selfish desires; someone who is too controlled by superego is rigid, moralistic, and bossy; someone with a weak ego is unable to blance personal needs and wishes with social duties and realistic limitations. |
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Term
| Freud's defense mechanisms |
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Definition
repression: occurs when a threatening idea, memory, or emotion is blocked from consciousness
projection: occurs when a person's own unacceptable or threatening feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else (e.g. if have embarrassing feelings about other ethnic group may say that they are dirty or awful)
displacement: when people direct their emotions (especially anger) toward things, animals, or other pople that are not the real object of their feelings.
regression: when a person reverts to a previous phase of psychological development (a boy anxious about parents divorce may revert back to earlier habits of clinking or thumb sucking...)
denial: when people refuse to admit that something unpleasant is happening, such as mistreatment by a partner; that they have a problem, such as drinking too much; or that they are feeling a forbidden emotion, such as anger. |
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Term
| Freud's psychosexual stages |
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Definition
personality develops in a series of psychosexual stages, in whcih sexual energy takes different forms as the child matures. each new stage produces a certain amount of frustration, conflict, and anxiety. if these are not resolved properly, normal development may be interrupted and the child may remain fixated, or stuck, at the current stage.
oral stage: occurs during first year of life, when babies experience the world through their mouths.
anal stages: occurs ages 2 to 3, when toilet training and control of bodily wastes are the key issues
Phallic (oedipal) stage: most crucial stage lasting from 3 to 5 or 6. during this stage, the child unconsciously wishes to possess the parent of the other sex and to get rid of the parent of the same sex...oedipus complex. boys and girls go through this change quickly.
after the oedipus complex is resolved, the child's personality is fundamentally formed and he/she identifies with the same sex parent..a strong superego is formed. the child then settles into the nonsexual latency stage, in preparation for the genital stage, which begins at puberty and leads to adult sexuality. |
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Term
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Definition
Carl Jung, originally one of Freud's closes friends. Carl Jung believed that people share a collective unconscious that contains universal memories and images, or archetypes, such as the shadow (evil) and the earth mother.
also believed that people are motivated not only by past conflicts (like freud believed) but also by their future goals and their desire to fulfill themselves. |
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Term
| Big Five core personality traits |
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Definition
extroversion vs. introversion, neurotocism (negative emotionality) vs. emotional stability, agreeableness vs. antagonism, conscientiousness vs. impulsiveness, and opennes to experience vs. reistance to new experience. although these dimension are quite stable over time and across circumstances, some of them do change over time, reflecting maturational development or common adult responsibilities.
- gordon allport argued that people have a few cnetral traits that are key to their personalities and a greater number of secondary traits that are less fundamental. raymond cattel used factor analysis to identify clusters of traits that he considered the basic components of personality.
now often use objective tests (inventories) to identity and study personality traits and disorders |
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Term
| Genetic influences on personality/heritability of personality traits |
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Definition
- members of many other species vary in the same characteristic traits that humans do, such as shyness, aggressiveness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. this suggests that certain key personality traits (and the big 5 factors) have an evolutionary, biological basis.
- individual differences in temperaments (reactivity, soothability, and positive or negative emotionality, appear to be inborn, emerging early in life and influencing subsequent personality development. temperamental differences in extremely reactive and nonreactive children may be due to variations int he responsiveness of hte sympathetic nervous system to change and novelty
- behavioral genetic data from twin and adoption studies suggest that the heritability of many adult personality traits is about .5. genetic influences create dispositions and set limits on the expression of specific traits. but even traits that are highly heritable are often modified throughout life by circumstances, chance, and learning. |
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Term
| parental, cultural, and peer influence on personality |
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Definition
- behavioral-genetic studies find that shared family environment has little if any influence on variations inmost personality traits; few parents have a consistent child rearing style over time and with all their children; and even when parents try to be consistent, there may be little relations between what they do and how the children turn out. but parents can modify their children's temperaments, prevent children at risk of delinquency and crime from choosing a path of antisocial behavior, influence many of their children's values and attitudes, and teach them to be kind and helpful. and parents affect the quality of their relationship with their children.
- the most important influence on personality is the nonshared environment, the unique experiences that each child had. A child's peer group can be more powerful on personality than parents. most children and teenagers behave differently with their parents than with their peers.
- social-cognitive learning theory: personality results from the interaction of the environment and aspects of the individual in a pattern of reciprocal determinism.
Culture: people from individualist cultures define themselves in different terms than those from collectivist cultures, and they perceive their "selves" as more stable across situations. cultures vary in their norms for many behaviors, such as cleanliness and notions of time. altruistic children tend to come from cultures in which families assign them many tasks that contribute to the family's well being or economic survival
-male aggression is influenced by the economic requirements of the culture and man grows up in, which shape men's beliefs about when violence is necessary. herding economies foster male aggressiveness mroe than agricultural economies do. men in cultures of honor, including certain regions of the american south and west, are more likely to become angry when they feel insulted and to behave aggressively to restore their sense of honor than are men from other cultures (their levels of cortisol and testosterone rise quickly when they are insulted whereas men from other cultures generally do not show this reaction. |
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Term
| Narrative approaches to personality studies |
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Definition
| some personality psychologists study life narratives, the stories people create to explain themselves and make sense of their lives. these stories may serve to suppress changes or encourage them. it reflects your needs and justifies the actions you take, or fail to take, to solve problems. it affects whether you feel you can solve your problems and transform your life (e.g. emphasize triumph not tragedies) |
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Term
| Ekman's 7 Universal emotions |
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Definition
| seven basic facial expressions of emotions, which correspond to the list of emotions usually identified as primary (emotions that are considered to be universal and biologically based): anger, happiness, fear, surprise, disgust, sadness, and contempt. in every culture studied, a large majority of people recognize the emotional expressions portrayed by those in other cultures. ekman and his associates developed a special coding system to analyze and identify each of the 80 muscles of the face, as well as the combinations of muscles associated with the various emotions. so when people hide thier feelings and put on an emotion, they generally use a different group of muscles. some argue that pride is also a primary emotion, motivating people to succeed. |
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Term
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Definition
| the process by which the facial muscles send messages to the brain about the basic emotion being expressed. facial expression can influence our internal feelings. so if you smile or look pleased, positive feelings increase. |
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Term
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Definition
although humans share ability to experience primary emotions, secondary emotions may be culture specific...this is supported by research on emotion prototypes. others believe that culture affects every aspect of emotional experience, including which emotions are considered basic and what people feel emotional about.
- culture strong influences the display rules, including those governing nonverbal body language, that regulate how and whether people express their emotions. emotion work is the effort a person makes to display an emotion he or she does not feel but feels obliged to convey. |
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Term
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Definition
social and cultural rules that regulate when, how, and where a person may express (or suppress) emotions.
- display rules govern body language. many aspects of body language are specific to particular languages and culture.
- display rules also tell us how and when to show an emotion we do not feel (emotion work) |
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Term
| Gender Differences in emotions |
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Definition
women and men are equally likely to feel all emotions, though gender rules shape differences in emotional expression. north american women on average are more expressive than men, except for anger at strangers. but both sexes are less expressive to a person of higher status than they, both sexes will do the emotion work their job requires, and some situations foster expressiveness in everybody. gender differences also vary across cultures.
- women are moe liely than men to suffer from clinical depression
- western culture associates "angry" with male and "hapy: with female. this may explain the stereotyped link with men who express anger in a professional context is considered high status, but a women who does exactly the same thing loses status.
- the influence of a particular situation often overrides gender rules (won't find many gender differences in emotional expressions at a football game. |
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Term
| General adaptation syndrome/body's response to stressors |
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Definition
three phases: GOAL IS TO MINIMIZE WEAR AND TEAR ON SYSTEM
alarm: adrenal hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine boosts energy, tenses muscles, reduces sensitivity, and creates more efficIent blood flow to the brain, muscles and skin.
Resistance: body attempts to resist or cope with stressors that cannot be avoided. physiological responses of the alarm phase continue. but now are associated with vulnerability. usually one adapts to the stressor and returns to normal.
Exhaustion: persistent stress/high cortisol levels drains the body of energy making it more vulnerable to physical problems and illness. tense muscles = headache, increased blood pressure = hypertension, generally lower immune functioning. |
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Term
| Physical effects of chronic stress |
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Definition
- increase chances of illness
- chronic stress can shorten telomeres - a protein that determines cell life
- weight gain (evolutionary..) |
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Term
| effects of optimism and pessimism |
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Definition
-feeling optimistic rather than pessimistic and having an internal locus of control improve immune function and also increase a person's ability to tolerate pain, live with ongoing problems, and recover from illness.
cultures differ in the kind of control they emphasize and value: primary control, trying to change the stressful situation, or secondary control, learning to accept and accommodate to the stressful situation. |
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Term
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Definition
locus of control: a general expectation about whether the results of your actions are under you own control (internal locus) or beyond your control (external locus)
people with internal loci of control are more likely to cope better with health problems, avoid risky behaviors, engage in political activism, have reduced susceptibility to conformism, etc.
counselors can promote changes for those with external loci: cognitive behavioral therapy to try to change thinking patterns...what is in your control? how can you impact things beyond your control? |
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Term
| Hostile vs. positive emotions |
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Definition
chronic anger, especially in the form of cynical or antagonistic hostility, is a strong risk factor in heart disease. major depression also increases the risk of later heart disease. positive emotions appear related to well-being, better health, and longevity.
-people who consciously suppress their emotions are at greater risk of illness than people who acknowledge and cope with negative emotions. the effort to suppress worries, secrets, and memories of upsetting experiences can become stressful to the body. two ways of letting go of negative emotions include confession and forgiveness. the goal is to achieve insight and understanding, and let go of grudges. |
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Term
| effects of social relationships on stress |
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Definition
| social support is essential in maintaining physical health and emotional well-being; it even prolongs life and speed recovery from illness. a touch or a hug from a supportive partner calms the alarm circuits of the brain and raises levels of oxytocin, which may result in reduced heart rate and blood pressure. however, friends and family can also be sources of stress. in close relationships. couples who fight in a hostile and negative way show impaired immune function. giving support to others is also associated with health and hastens recovery from traumatic experiences. |
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Term
| effects of hormones on stress |
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Definition
| during the experience of any emotion, epinephrine and norepinephrine produce a state of physiological arousal to prepare the body for an output of energy. |
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Term
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Definition
| mirror neurons are activated when people observe others. these neurons are involved in empathy, imitation, synchrony, understanding another person's intentions, and mood contagion |
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Term
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Definition
Metabolic imprinting refers to the epigenetic programming of metabolism during the pre-natal and neo-natal periods.
Studies in both humans and animals have shown that the events during gestation and early post-natal stages may have long term consequences for health. Fetal under-nutrition is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, type II diabetes and hypertension, amongst other diseases
after dutch hunger winter...babies were born with slower metabolism....passed on through generations. |
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Term
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Definition
dutch hunger winter – end of WWII, Nazis punishing Netherlands for aiding the allies, part of punishment was blocking off food supply v. little access to food and many people starving.
• Impact on developing fetus’s
o People who were starving had different pregnancies than those with access to food
• Both hungry and have high rates of stress
• Women who were pregnant had fetal environments where the fetus was exposed to higher levels of stress hormones such as cortisol. Fetus’s reading this as environment as they will grow up in. the fetus learns that they are going to live in high stress environment, and the fetus should prepare itself for high stress environment
• Kids born after Dutch hunger winter have slower metabolisms than normally developing children; remained set throughout the life course.
Higher levels of overweight and hypertensive adults in next generation; continues for generations, but effect reduced between generations. |
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Term
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Definition
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorder.
Contains 400 diagnoses currently
updated...releasing fifth one soon.
reflects culture and can support oppression (e.g. homosexuality)
mental illness defined as behavior or emotional state that causes a person to suffer, is self destructive; seriously impairs the person's ability to work or get along with others; or endangers others in the community. (negative impact on life is important)
most diagnosis is done with inventories: standardized questionnaires about behavior and feelings (rating statements like "i sometimes consider taking my own life")
- the DSM fosters over diagnosis; overlooks the power of being given a diagnostic label; confuses serious mental disorders with everyday problems in living (e.g. caffeine induced sleep disorder); and creates an illusion of objectivity. |
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Term
| Projective Tests and their problems |
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Definition
projective tests are intended to evaluate someone's unconscious thoughts.
e.g. inkblot test
subjective: based on interviewer's interpretations, interviewers may project themselves
unreliable: changes greatly based on context (e.g., hunger, interviewer's personality, etc.)
therefore, more reliable methods are used by actual practitioners |
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Term
| Cross Cultural Variation in mental illness |
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Definition
- certain disorders occur everywhere (e.g. schizophrenic delusions,, severe depression)
- but culture shapes the particular symptoms a sufferer of these disorders will have, and how the disorder expresses itself
- culture bound syndromes: symptoms or mental disorders that are specific to particular cultural contexts and practices
the DSM acknowledges that these syndromes rarely overlap with DSM diagnoitc categories, yet they can cause great suffering and qualify as true mental disorders in their own context.
e.g. bulimia nervosa is a culture bound syndrome that occurs primarily in the US and is unknown in most other parts of the world...anorexia occurs all over the world |
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Term
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Definition
stress symptoms (e.g. insomnia and agitation) are normal after any crisis or drama. but if the symptoms persist for one month or longer and begin to impair a person's functioning, the sufferer might have PTSD
symptoms: reliving the trauma in recurrent intrusive thoughts; a sense of detachment from others and a loss of interest in familiar activities; and increased physiological arousal, reflected in insomnia, irritability, and impaired concentration.
- there may be genetic predisposition. people who develop PTSD after a traumatic experience often have a prior history of psychological problems, such as anxiety and impulsive aggression, and they seem to lack social, psychological, and neurological recourses to avoid having preventable traumatic experiences in the first place or to cope with unavoidable ones.
in many PTSD sufferers, the hippocampus is smaller than average (hippocampus crucially involved in autobiographical memory) |
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Term
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Definition
a person has recurring attacks of intense fear or panic, often with feelings of impending doom or death. panic attacks may last from a few minutes to several hours. symptoms include trembling and shaking, dizziness, chest pain or discomfort, rapid heart rate, feelings of unreality, hot and cold flashes, sweating, and a fear of dying, going crazy, or losing control (as result of the reactions).
they are usually in the aftermath of stress, prolonged prolonged emotion, specific worries, or frightening experiences. p=healthy people who have occasional panic attacks seem them correctly as a result of passing crisis or a period of stress, but people who develop panic disorders regard the attack as a sign of illness or impending death,and they begin to live their lives in restrictive ways, trying to avoid future attacks. |
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Term
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Definition
characterized by recurrent, persistent, unwished for thoughts or images (obsessions) and by repetitive, ritualized behaviors that the person feels must be carried out to avoid disaster (compulsions). obsessions and compulsions become a disorder when they become uncontrollable and interfere with a person's life.
in many cases, people with OCD have abnormalities in an area of the prefrontal cortex create a kind of cognitive rigidity, and inability to let go of intrusive thoughts, and behavioral rigidity, an inability to alter compulsive behavior after getting negative feedback. the sufferer feels in a constant state of danger and tries repeatedly to reduce anxiety. not a single unified disorder (e.g. hoarders...) |
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Term
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Definition
symptoms of major depression include distorted thinking patterns, feelings of worthlessness and despair, physical ailments such as fatigue and loss of appetite, and loss of interest in once pleasurable activities. in severe cases, feelings of worthlessness or being a burden to others can lead to suicide attempts, most of which are not repeated once the acute phase passes. women are twice as likely as men to suffer from major depression , but depression in men may be under diagnosed. in bipolar disorder, a person experiences episodes of both depression and mania (excessive euphoria. it is equally common in both sexes.
-vulnerability stres models of depression look at interactions between individual vulnerabilities and stressful experiences. the theory that depleted serotonin, perhaps caused by a genetic variant, causes depression has not been supported, but because depression is moderately heritable, the search for specific genes continues. for some vulnerable individuals, the repeated loss of important relationships can set off episodes of major depression. experiences with violence and parental neglect, especially in childhood, increase the risk of developing major depression in adulthood. cognitive habits also play an important role: believing that the origin of one's unhappiness is permanent and uncontrollable; feeling hopeless and pessimist, and brooding or ruminating about one's problems. |
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Definition
| episodes of depression alternating with mania. now widely diagnosed among young children and adults (previously thought to emerge only in adulthood), although symptoms and mood swings often look different from those in adults and the diagnosis in children remains controversial. |
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Definition
| psychopathy: a personality disorder characterized by a lack of remorse, empathy, anxiety, and other social emotions; the use of deceit and manipulation; and impulsive thrill seeking. the DSM IV now replaced this with antisocial personality disorder: a personality disorder characterized by a lifelong pattern of irresponsible behavior such as lawbreaking, violence, and other impulsive, reckless acts. abnormalities in the central nervous system and prefrontal cortex are associated with lack of emotional responsiveness and with impulsivity. a genetic predisposition also plays a role in these disorders, but it usually must interact with stressful or violent environments must be expressed. |
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Definition
involves delusion, hallucinations, disorganized speech, inappropriate behavior, and severe cognitive impairments. other symptoms such as loss of motivation to take care of oneself and emotional flatness, may appear before a psychotic episode and persist even when the more dramatic symptoms are in remission. some peopel with it fall into a catatonic stupor. however, man recover.
it involves enlarged ventricles and neurotransmitter abnormalities. genetic predispositions interact with prenatal problems (such as mother's malnutrition or prenatal viral infection) or birth complications, and excessive pruning of synapses during adolescence.
higher recovery rates in close knit traditional communities because not isolated...they are welcomed. |
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Term
| origins of depression, psychopathology, and schizophrenia |
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Definition
| vulnerability stress model: genetic predisposition; violence, childhood physical abuse, and parental neglect; losses of important relationships; and cognitive habits. |
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Term
| characteristics of addiction/the addict |
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Definition
signs of substance abuse include impaired ability to work or get along with others, the use of the drug in hazardous situations, recurrent arrests for drug use, and conflicts with others caused by drug use.
according to the biological model of addiction, some people have genetic vulnerability to the kind of alcoholism that begins in early adolescence and is linked to impulsivity, antisocial behavior, and criminality...but not kind that begins in adulthood and isn't linked to anything else.. genes also effect sensitivity to alcohol, which varies across ethnic groups as well as among individuals (more likely to get addicted if less sensitivity). but heavy drug abuse also changes the brain in ways that make addiction more likely.
advocates of the learning model of addiction point out that addiction patterns vary according to cultural practices and values (alcoholism is more likely to occur in societies that forbid children to drink but condone drunkenness in adults rather than societies that teach children to drink responsibly); that policies of total abstinance tend to increase addiction rates and abuse b/c people who want to drink fail to learn how to drink in moderation ; that many people can stop taking drugs without experiencing withdrawal symptoms (people in vietnam war taking tons of heroin but stopped after situation changed); and that drug abuse depends on the reason for taking the drug (people will be able to abuse any drug if they are trying to feel euphoric, etc).
biological and learning models polarized on many issues (abstinence vs. moderation).
people who are most likely to abuse alcohol and other drugs have a genetic vulnerability or prolonged drug use has damaged their brains; believe that they have no control over the drug; their culture or peer group promotes drug abuse; and they rely on the drug to cope with problems. |
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Term
| biological influences on addiction. |
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Definition
biological model holds that addiction is due primarily to a person's neurology and genetic predisposition (e.g. some people are esp. vulnerable to becoming addicted to cigarettes and have tremendous withdrawal symptoms when others can quit cold turkey)
for alcoholism, genes are involved in the type of alcoholism that begins in early adolescence and is
to impulsivity, antisocial behavior, and criminality.
heavy drug use can also change chemicals in brain (e.g. have less dopamine receptors with heavy use of cocaine) and make you addicted. |
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| who tends to be at risk for developing certain disorders |
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Definition
for depression: women more susceptable
??????????????????? |
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| How to cope with addiction |
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Definition
mindfulness meditation
for treatment: biological method: avoidance
learning model: can use the substance if change the way you use it...moderation. |
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Term
| which disorders are treated with medication |
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Definition
biological treatments becoming more popular because of research finding the biological causes of some disorders and because of economic and social factors. the medications most commonly prescribed for mental disorders include antipsychotic drugs, used to treat schizophrenia and other psychotic disorder, and often inappropriately used in treating dementia and aggression; tranquilizers often prescribed for emotional problems; and lithium carbonate, a salt used to treat bipolar disorders.
drawbacks of drug treatment include the placebo effect; high dropout and relapse rates among people who take medications without also learning how to cope with their problems; the difficulty of finding the correct dose for each individual, compounded by the fact that a person's ethnicity, sex, and age can influence a drug's effectiveness; and the long term risks of medication and of possible drug interactions when several are being taken. medication should not be prescribed uncrticially and routinely, especially when psychological therapies can work as well as drgus for many mood and behavioral problems. |
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Term
| direct brain interventions (lobotomy and ECT) |
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Definition
when drugs and psychotherapy have failed to help seriously disturbed people, some psychiatrists have intervened directly in the brain. prefrontal lobotomy never had any scientific validation, yet was performed on many thousands of people. it was supposed to reduce the patient's emotional symptoms without imparing intellectual ability. lobotomies left many patients apathetic, withdrawn, and unable to care for themselves.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT9, in which a brief current is sent through the brain, has been used successfully to treat suicidal depression, although its benefits rarely last. a newer method, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in which a magnetic coil is applied over the left prefrontal cortex, is being studied as a way of treating severe depression. deep brain stimulation requires the surgical implantation of electrodes and a stimulation device, and has not been empirically validated for the treatment of depression or other emotional disorders |
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Term
| Freud's approach to psychoanalysis |
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Definition
| psychoanalysis; a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy developed by Freud, that emphasizes the exploration of unconscious motives and conflicts; modern psychodynamic therapies share this emphasis but differ from freudian analysis in various ways (e.g. approaches based on object -relations theory: emphasizes the unconscious influence of people's earliest mental representation of their parents and how these affect reactions to separations and losses throughout life.). these therapies explore unconscious dynamic by focusing on the process of transference (a critical process in which the client transfers unconscious emotions or reactions, such as emotional feelings about his or her parents, onto the therapist). now, most psychodynamic therapies borrow methods from other forms. more concerned with helping clients solve their problems and ease their emotional symptoms than traditional analysts were. |
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Term
| cognitive behavior therapy |
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Definition
| cognitive therapists aim to change the irrational thoughts involved in negative emotions and self-defeating actions. AARON BECKS'S cognitive therapy and ALBERT ELLIS'S rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) are two leading approaches. cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is now the most common approach. some cognitive behaviroal therapists now teach clients to pay mindful attention to their negative emotions and "irrational" thoughts to learn to accept them, acting in spite of these feelings rather than constantly fighting to eradicate them. v. focused on the present |
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| Exposure and systematic desensitization |
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Definition
behavioral therapists draw on classical and operant principles of learning. they use such methods as graduate exposure, and sometimes immediate exposure called flooding; systematic desensitization, based on counter conditioning; behavioral self monitoring; and skills truing.
exposure: - graduated exposure: a person suffering from a phobia or panic attacks is gradually taken into the feared situation or exposed to a traumatic memory until the anxiety subsides. flooding: client is taken directly into a feared situation until his or her panic subsides.
exposure treatments are aimed at reversing tendency of avoiding confronting or thinking about fear.
systematic desensitization: a stept by step process of desensitizing a client to a feared object or expeirence; it is based on classical-conditioning process of counterconditioning. ...in most cases, clients learns to deeply relax while imagining or looking at a sequence of feared stimuli, arranged in a hierarchy from the least frightening to the most frightening. at each step the person must become relaxed before going on. eventually the fear responses are extinguished. some use virtual reality programs to do this. |
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Term
| rational emotive behavior therapy |
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Definition
| - albert Ellis..a form of cognitive therapy designed to challenge the client's unrealistic thoughts. the therapist uses rational arguments to directly challenge a client's unrealistic beliefs or expectations. ...people who are emotionally upset often overgeneralize (e.g. decide that one annoying act by someone means that person is bad in any way) and also catastrophes, transforming a small problem into a disaster. the therapist challenges these thoughts directly, showing the client why they are irrational and misguided. |
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Term
| Beck's negative triad of depressive cognitive triad |
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Definition
Aaron beck pioneered in the application of cognitive therapy for depression. depression often arrises from specific pessimistic thoughts. for beck, these beliefs are not "irrational"; rather, they are unproductive or based on misinformation.
beck's negative cognitive triad: negative view of the self, the future and the world...fed by cognitive thinking (all or nothing thinking..things are all good/all bad...emotional reasoning...i feel stupid=i am stupid...personalization/self blame; see negative trends as permanent...see problems as global...i failed= my life is ruined.
identity the themes in the negative thought process:
recognize negative thoughts and assumptions; rationally challenge them (teach client to do it themselves); change environment in positive way. |
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Term
| humanist and existential therapies |
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Definition
humanist therapy holds that human nature is essentially good and attempts to help people feel better about themselves by focusing on here-and-now issues and on their capacity for change. carl roger's client-centered (nondirective) therapy emphasizes the importance of the therapist's empathy and ability to provide unconditional positive regard. existential therapy helps people cope with the dilemmas of existence, such as the meaning of life and the fear of death.
power and free will to change our destinies |
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Term
| family system's perspective |
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Definition
- an approach to doing therapy with individuals or families by identifying how each family member forms part of a larger interacting system
-family therapies hold the view that individual problems develop in the context of the whole family network. they share a family-systems perspective, the understanding that any one person's behavior in the family affects everyone else. |
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Definition
| ***IN PRACTICE many therapists are integrative, drawing on many methods and ideas. whatever their approach, successful therapies help people form more adaptive life stories |
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| effectiveness of various treatments for depression |
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Definition
one study followed patients receiving medication, therapy, or a placebo. by four months the two experiment groups were even (responded equally to therapy and medication; both resulted in about 60% of people no longer being depressed); at 12 months, half of medication group taken off and half left on. 8-0% of those who went of drugs relapsed into depression within a year; 50% of those who stayed on meds relapsed; 35% of those who received cognitive behavioral therapy relapsed.
for long term success, therapy is needed - helps people change their habits
but does not mean people should avoid medication
drugs and therapy can work well together to get out of really deep depression
insurance companies push for medication b/c cheaper |
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