Psyc 101 UNC-CH Loeb Exam 3

Personality

either a collection of traits (internal) or habits (behavioral tendencies)

Walter Mishcel

personality is invalid

-environmental factors more important

David Buss

personality is critical

-attracting mates

Freud's psychoanalytic

id, ego, superego

-usually in conflict with one another

-varying levels of awareness

id

the basic reservoir of raw, psychic energy

-mostly sexual in nature

-primary processing

-only thinks to satisfy its desires

ego

decision making component

-reality principle; understands rules

-thinking with logic and reason (secondary sense)

superego

moral component

-internalizes cultural values

Freud believed in the unconscious for 2 reasons

parapraxes (Freudian slips) and dreams

Parapraxes

saying something you didn't mean to say

-the unintentional thing was somewhere back in your mind

dreams

when we sleep we are more aware of the id

-reflective of id desires

Psychosexual stages

Freud - our personalities develop as we resolve psychosexual conflicts, developmental periods with a sexual focus

ex. the anal stage

erotic focus from 2-3 yrs is the anus

-id finds it pleasurable to excrete things, superego may want to excrete properly according to society's rules

anal-expulsive

lack of discipline, messiness, and/or destructive behaviors

anal-retentive

following the rules perhaps too rigidly and extreme tidiness

phallic stage

Oedipal complex - males

Elektra complex - females

-healthy resolution occurs when males identify with their fathers

- (4-5 yrs)

- genitals become focus of energy, largely through self stimulation

Freud believed that personality was pretty much developed by...

4-5 yrs of age

defense mechanisms

mechanism used bu the ego in order to protect the person from feeling distress

ex. repression, regression, projection, displacement, sublimation

repression

when your ego (without your awareness) surprises a memory or thought which causes you distress

regression

when we revert back to more primitive behaviors when we are distressed

projection

Attributing ones own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another

displacement

Diverting the emotional feelings(usually anger) from their original source to a substitute target

sublimation

(only one Freud thought was healthy)

-the id may desire something and the ego finds a way to satisfy the id's desire while making sure to do it in a way that society will condone

Rationalization

creating false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behaviors

Reaction formation

behaving in a way that is opposite to what you really feel

Identification

Bolstering self-esteem by forming imaginary or real alliance with a person or group (i.e. frat boys)

neopsychodynamic views of personality

proposed after Freud

Alfred Adler

the main drive was to attain superiority

-desire to become more capable

inferiority complex

when our sense of inferiority is too much

Erik Erikson

personality develops as we face psychosocial crisis

-believed that personality developed through a lifetime

psychodynamic

Freud's theory and all the one's that came after

psychoanalytic

only Freud's theory

problems of Freud's theory

poor testability

-inadequate evidence

-possibly sexist

behavioral perspective

personality is a set of learned behaviors

-focus is on observable behavior and environmental factors

-classical and operant conditioning and observed learning

humanistic perspective

a reaction against some of the other personality perspectives

-other theories are "just too negative"

-unique human qualities mold our personalities (free will and an innate drive for personal growth)

Carl Rogers

concept called the self

-all humans have their own self-concept of who he/she was meant to be

-when our self-concept is not congruent with who we currently seem to be, we experience distress and anxiety

-incongruence can arise due to conditional love

Maslow

theory of self actualization AKA the hierarchy of needs

"what a man can be, he must be"

Hierarchy of needs

In order from the bottom-most level to the very top level: physiological needs (e.g. hunger, thirst), safety and security needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs, aesthetic needs (e.g. appreciating beauty), and self-actualization (where one has achieved one's potential)

weaknesses of humanism

-too optimistic

-much remains unsupported by research

-testing difficulties

biological perspective

biological factors that are involved with personality development

-does not give a comprehensive explanation of personality development

Hans Eysenck's PEN

3 dimensions of personality development

-psychoticism, extroversion-introversion, and neuroticism

-how grounded someone is

-combination of inherited genes and learning

psychoticism

typified by aggressiveness and interpersonal hostility

extroversion

extent to which someone is sociable

introversion

being comfortable spending time alone

neuroticism

level of volatility and negativity of one's emotions

3 dimensions of personality are...

higher order traits which give rise to lower order traits which then gives rise to habitual responses which give rise to an number of a set of specific responses

Big Five

openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism

-supported by monozygotic twin research

Status of personality research

these days, Psychology does not focus on global personality theories, instead research focuses on one personality trait and then tries to identify the biological and environmental factors

Psychological Disorders

3D's: deviance, dysfunction, distress

deviance

how unusual the behavior appears to be

-if helpful it is not deviant

dysfunction

a consideration of whether the behavior is hurtful to the individual

distress

always appropriate to treat

all 3D's involve...

subjective assessment

DSM

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

-lists the necessary symptoms

-published by APA

-Axis I whether a person has an acute psychological disorder

-Axis II whether a person has a persistent psychological issue

-Axis III physical problems the individual may have

-Axis IV environmental factors

-Axis V Global Assessment Scale, how high functioning the individual is on a scale of 0-100 (normal to abnormal)

medical model

abnormal behaviors as a sign of illness

-consider diagnosis

etiology

consideration of the factors that cause and maintain abnormal behaviors

Axis 1 disorders are...

acute, meaning they can go away

anxiety disorders

Axis 1

-generalized anxiety, phobias, panic, obsessive-compulsive, PTSD

generalized anxiety

anxiety about everything

phobic disorder

worried about a specific thing or situation

-irrational or rational

-activate fight-or-flight response

panic disorder

repeated panic attacks

-heart palpitations, sweating, shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea, seeing things as "unreal"

-sometimes connected with agoraphobia-fear of leaving the home

OCD

obsessions-intrusive thoughts

compulsions-uncontrollable urges to engage in certain behaviors

-know it is irrational but can't help it

PTSD

-may arise when exposed to a traumatic event, that is, an event which threatens someone's life

-includes a very high level of anxiety with symptoms like difficulty sleeping, persistent increased arousal, and nightmares.

associative features

characteristics which are correlated with this type of disorder

Prevalence

the number of people affected with this disorder at any given time

Onset

Time of appearance of disorder (i.e. adolescence or adulthood, 40+ etc...)

etiology

set of causes, or manner of causation of a disease or condition

-biological, behavioral, cognitive perspectives

somatoform disorders

Axis 1

-disorders relayed to the body but arise mainly from psychological factors

psychosomatic disorders

physical disorders that may be exasperated by psychological factors

malingering

when a person purposefully lies in order to gain or avoid something

-faking symptoms

Somatization disorder

equires that there be a diverse set of physical complaints, for example, pain issues in several physical locations as well as a least one symptom which seems neurological

conversion disorder

For example, a person may report that his/her arm is paralyzed, and yet, a medical examination would be unable to find any physical support for this assertion. Additionally, the reported symptom(s) may be inconsistent with what we currently know of how the body works.

cognitive perspective on somatoform disorders

xcessive attention to body, misinterpretation of bodily symptoms, catastrophic conclusions about symptom(s) (e.g. maybe a stomach ache is interpreted as a sign of stomach cancer), and unreasonable assumptions of health (e.g. thinking that any unusual symptom is a sign of disease) may be examples of maladaptive thoughts which could rise to somatoform disorders.

biological perspective on somatoform disorders...

finds a correlation between those who score high on neuroticism (i.e. the Big Five) and likelihood of developing a somatoform disorder.

behavioral perspective on somatoform disorders...

learning may be at the crux of developing a somatoform disorder. For example, a person may behave in a sick manner (i.e. plays the sick role) because, unconsciously, s/he has come to understand that being sick gets one out of responsibilities and obligations

Dissociative disorders

disorders characterized by a splitting of consciousness in some way.

- dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue and dissociative identity disorder (formally known as multiple personality disorder).

dissociative fugue

characterized by sudden travel as well as partial or total loss of identity, which includes extensive loss of personal information

-The person behaves normally, aside from the fact that s/he does not remember who s/he is or what has happened in her/his life

Dissociative identity disorder (DID)

when there is the coexistence of two or more personalities, in other words, identities. These personalities are referred to as "alters" and common ones include: child alter, persecutor alter and helper altar

-may experience amnesia as well as extensive loss of personal information

etiology of dissociative disorders

most popular theory is a combination of biological and psychological factors. Specifically, it is thought that those who have a high ability to disassociate (in other words, split their consciousness) may (inadvertantly) use this ability to cope with extreme stress.

-Others, however, suggests that this is iatrogenic disorder. An iatrogenic disorder is one that is inadvertently created by the clinician.

mood disorders

-axis I

-disturbance of emotions

Major Depressive

having either persistent, intense sadness and/or loss of interest in things that one took pleasure in before (aka anhedonia)

-level of symptoms matter

-Associated features include onset before the age of 40, a median duration of symptoms for five months, a lifetime prevalence between 7 to 18% (lifetime prevalence is the percentage risk of developing this disorder within any given lifetime), with females being twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression as compared with males

-anxiety and major depressive 2 of the most common disorders in the US

Bipolar I disorder

characterized by having at least one manic episode

-A manic episode may be characterized by inflated self-esteem (i.e. grandiosity), decreased need for sleep, increased talkativeness, racing thoughts, increased distractibility, psychomotor agitation and increased goal-oriented behaviors, as well as excessive involvement in pleasurable activities.

etiology of major depressive

-Bio perspective: inheritance or combination of certain genes

-there is increased concordance of depression in monozygotic twins, meaning, that when one identical twin has major depressive disorder, it is highly likely that the other identical twin also has this disorder

-environment also plays a role

other possible causes of depression

neurochemical or brain issues

-low levels of monoamine neurotransmitter

Seligman, learned helplessness model

symptoms of depression arise from learning to be helpless

-"giving up" is what may underlie depression

-dogs in electric cage

reformulated learned helplessness theory

suggests that a combination of unavoidable stress and a pessimistic explanatory style is what gives rise to depression.

pessimistic explanatory style

characterized by perceiving internal personal flaws, the belief that things are unlikely to be changed in the future (e.g. the internal flaws are likely to persist) and the belief that these flaws will affect many areas of one's life (in other words, these flaws are "global")

Nolen

suggested that rumination, where one has repetitive and negative thoughts about something, gives rise to depression. This may explain why women are more likely to develop depression as compared with men, since they are more likely to ruminate as compared with men (so says research)

social perspective on depression

suggests that deficient interpersonal skills may give rise to depression, even creating a vicious cycle.

Depression explanation

there are likely several different routes to depression, none of which are mutually exclusive

psychosis

a break from reality

schizophrenia

here must be at least 2 of the following symptoms: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech/thought, grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, negative symptoms (that is, the absence of behaviors which we would normally expect), and/or impaired functioning.

-bizarre illusion are enough to diagnose

-auditory hallucinations most common hallucinations (voice commenting negatively)

catatonic

unresponsive to environmental stimuli

negative symptoms (absence of Schizophrenia)

affective flattening (meaning, lack of emotions), alogia (absence of speaking), and avolition (absence of drive/motivation)

popular etiological theories of schizophrenia

the biological perspective

-inherited genes give rise to schizophrenia

-environment also plays a role

dopamine hypothesis

too much dopamine activity in the nucleus accumbens gave rise to the positive symptom of schizophrenia, whereas too low a level of DA activity in the prefrontal cortex resulted in the negative symptoms of schizophrenia

serotonin hypothesis

suggests that schizophrenia is a result of too much serotonergic activity in the nucleus accumbens, giving rise to positive symptom, while too low a level of serotonin activity in the prefrontal cortex gives rise to negative symptoms of schizophrenia

glutamate hypothesis

suggests that too low a level of glutamatergic activity in the prefrontal cortex (again, giving rise to the negative symptoms) results in too high a level of glutamate activity in the nucleus accumbens (giving rise to positive symptoms)

neurodevelopmental hypothesis.

suggests that something goes wrong during prenatal development, such that the brain does not develop normally, thus giving rise to schizophrenia

before maturation of the prefrontal cortex (which involves loss of neurons as part of the normal maturational process), deficits may be compensated for by these additional neurons. But once maturation takes place, such non-critical neurons are discarded, resulting in the lack of extra neurons to compensate abnormalities of development.

Neurological Development II

Who has disorders

28% in the US diagnosable, only 8% are receiving treatment