Intro to Psych Exam 2

Sleep-wake Cycle

Also called the “circadian rhythm”

Alertness, metabolism, other processes vary on circadian rhythm

Sleep problems

Google trends suggest sleep problems are increasing

- Especially in the US for sleep apnea

- Everywhere for insomnia

Insomnia

Some people have a sleep cycle that is slightly too long

Why? Why are insomnia rates increasing?

• Because of electric light / exposure to screens? - blue light on phone is keeping you awake

• Life is more stressful?

Non-pharma treatment:

• Use natural spectrum (sun) light to reset circadian rhythm each morning

Sleep Stages

If you do manage to fall asleep, your brain goes through a series of sleep “stages”

NREM1

Stage 1 sleep

Characterized by mild hallucinations

- Usually visual: geometric patterns, light flashes

- Lasts about 20 minutes

Sleep paralysis” can happen in stage NREM-1 sleep

NREM-2 sleep

Sleep Spindle

- Short duration, high frequency brain activity

- Function unclear: Believed to be related to “memory consolidation” because they are more frequent when sleeping after a lot of learning

K-Complex

- Large amplitude brain activity

- One function: processing auditory stimuli

NREM-3 sleep

10-15% of all sleep

- Characterized by large, slow delta waves

- Bedwetting (mostly in children) bc they have more of this

- Sleepwalking (mostly in children)

- “Deepest sleep”; very hard to wake up during NREM-3

Sleep paralysis

Sleep disturbed and halfway wakeup

Why do people sleepwalk?

Usually during NREM-3 sleep

Legs move, eyes open for navigation

Possible sleepwalking activities:

Common

• eating

• urinating

• bathing

• dressing

Less common

• driving

• homicide

REM sleep

REM(rapid eye movement) periods get longer as night progresses

Deeper sleep stages get shorter

AKA “Paradoxical Sleep”, Characterized by:

- Dreaming

- Heart rate rises

- Breathing becomes rapid and irregular

- Eyes move around (randomly, not to “watch” dreams)

- Visual / Auditory cortex is active

- 20-25% of all sleep

what is REM sleep for?

REM Deprivation during development linked to

• Behavioral problems

• Sleep problems later in life

• Neuronal damage

REM may promote memory consolidation

May be important for recovery of some neurotransmitters

Definitely seems to be “non-optional”

• REM rebound: Limit REM on night 1 → More REM on night 2

• Long-term REM deprivation → Significant health issues

What are dreams for?

1) Freudian theory

• “Unacceptable feelings” are expressed

• Relieves internal conflicts

2) Activation-synthesis

• Random activity in the brain triggers stored memories

• Brain does its best to make memories into a coherent story

3) Information Processing

• Byproduct of memory consolidation

• Erasing of unnecessary neural associations

• Rats in an MIT fMRI study dreamt about the mazes they ran

Brain processes during sleep - Can you learn while you sleep?

Yes:

- Sleepers trained on a (mild) shock - sound contingency

- Later had startle response to the sound while awake

No:

- Complex learning processes do not occur

• Calculus

• Foreign language

Memory consolidation

Consolidation of things you learn during the day.

Sleep Deprivation - short term vs long term

Short-term impact:

- Slowed reaction time

- Increased errors in visual judgments

Long-term impact:

- Immune system depression

- Shorter life span (esp. REM)

Why is sleep so important?

- Restoration & repair of brain tissue

- Making memories from daily experiences permanent

Hypnosis

May reflect little more than suggestibility

No evidence that hypnosis aids in recall

• (Or at least “memories” are unreliable)

No evidence that people can be “controlled” by hypnosis

Demand characteristics: Subjects who are told that hypnosis reflects “gullibility” tend to stop responding

Hypnotherapy

No better than non-hypnosis positive suggestions

Drugs - Tolerance; Neuroadaption

Body is designed to maintain homeostasis

Recreational drugs act against homeostasis

• e.g., increased heart rate, body temperature

After repeated exposure to a drug, tolerance may occur

When drug use happens, or is expected, brain and body attempt to counteract the drug’s effects

How does the brain know drug use is going to happen?

• Time of day

• Typical location where drugs are taken

• Visual cues (presence of needles, etc.)

Withdrawal and Dependence

Withdrawal - symptoms associated with decrease or stoppage of drug use

Physical dependence, “physical” symptoms

• (e.g., nausea)

Psychological dependence, “psychological” symptoms

• (e.g., anxiety)

Dependence - taking the drug to avoid withdrawal

Addiction

Addiction is different from dependence (but they often co-occur)

Dependence is mostly associated with using the drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms

Addiction is mostly associated with a desire to get a reward from the drug (i.e., strong cravings for drug’s effects)

Addictive drugs compromise the brain’s reward system

• Drug use becomes a more important goal than other, rewarding behaviors (eating, socializing, earning money)

Much information about drugs has a bias

• Groups for reducing usage / harsher punishments

• Groups for legalization

Psychoactive Drugs - Alcohol

Depressant (slows down CNS functions)

• Slows reaction time / reduces coordination

• Disrupts consolidation of memories

BUT, also reduces inhibition

Long term abuse:

Many physical problems

Psychological effects include Korsakoff syndrome:

• Amnesia

• Confabulation (confusing imaginations with reality)

Reduces Inhibition Experiment - alcohol

Effects interact with beliefs:

• Group A: Subjects get alcohol

• Group B: Subjects get realistic non-alcohol fake

1/2 in each group believe they had real alcohol

- all shown erotic movie clip -

1/2 who thought they had alcohol tended to report sexual fantasies and feeling no embarrassment

Independent of Group A / B status

Psychoactive Drugs - Cocaine

Can’t smoke powder cocaine

Blocks reuptake of dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine

Blocking reuptake depletes neurotransmitter supplies (part of why people may feel lousy in days following use)

Addiction / tolerance with extended use

Long term use leads to brain damage

• Hallucinations

• Paranoia

Many physical health risks, e.g.:

• Increased blood pressure

• Heart attack

• Stroke

Social Factors and Cocaine

• Typically snorted or smoked (in “base” form, i.e. “freebasing”)

• Occasionally injected (claims to deliver most intense effects)

• Chewed/eaten (unrefined) by indigenous people of S. America

Method of use affects onset, duration of effects:

Crack:

• Cheap form of chemically-altered cocaine

• Easily smokeable

• Cycle is faster (up and down)

The mechanism of cocaine

(a) Neurotransmitters carry a message from a sending neuron across a synapse to receptor sites on a receiving neuron.

(b) The sending neuron normally reabsorbs excess neurotransmitter molecules, a process called reputake.

© By binding the sites that normally reabsorb neurotransmitter molecules, cocaine blocks reuptake of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. The extra neurotransmitters molecules therefore remain in the synapse intensifying their normal mood-altering effects and producing a euphoric rush. When the cocaine level drops, the absence of those neurotransmitters produces a crash.

Psychoactive Drugs - LSD

Powerful hallucinogen

Experience interacts with person-specific characteristics

• Personality

• Current emotional state

Technically not “hallucinations”, because experience is caused by sensory input, but significantly altered

Synesthesia - hear sounds associated to colors

Believed to be non-toxic, non-addictive

Danger is mostly due to behavior with altered sensory input

Infrequent flashbacks in a significant minority of users

Common experiences (e.g., “breathing walls”) across users

Psychoactive Drugs - marijuana

Effects depend on:

- Person-specific characteristics

- Current emotional state

Cognitive Effects (lasting beyond usage period):

- Impaired motor skills

- Impaired perceptual skills

- Disruption of memory formation

Hard to get reliable data on long-term cognitive effects

Psychoactive Drugs - Ecstasy

Introduced as a marital therapy drug in the 70’s

Effect:

- Feelings of openness,

- Euphoria, empathy, love, etc.

Mechanism:

- Release of dopamine / serotonin

- Blocks serotonin reuptake

Dangers:

- Dehydration in short term

- Insomnia, anxiety, depression in semi-short term

- Brain structure damage (long-term use)

- Memory, attention deficits (long-term use)

Social Psych

Scientific study of…

• Beliefs

• Attitudes

• Behaviors

…of people in the presence of others.

How do other people affect your thoughts and behaviors?

How do you affect other people’s thoughts and behaviors?

Attribution/Motivation, Personality, Situation

Attribution - Beliefs about the causes of people’s behaviors

• What caused him / her to do that?

Possible interpretations:

• Personality - A person’s behavior is caused by their moral character and disposition

• Situation - A person’s behavior is caused by the incidental conditions of their environment

Attribution is important because it affects how you RESPOND to other people’s actions

Fundamental Attribution Error

Overemphasize Personality

Underemphasize Situation

Tendency to believe other people’s behaviors are caused by their PERSONALITY rather than their

Defense against making the fundamental attribution error:

1) Think about how you and most other people behave under the circumstances

2) Actively try to generate potential, unseen causes for a

person’s behavior

How important are situations in determining behavior?

Zimbardo “prison” study

Set up in the basement of the psych. building at Stanford

• Prisoners: undergraduates

• Guards: undergraduates

Prisoners, guards knew they were randomly assigned to their group

After only a few days, some “guards” began to act like “guards”

Despite the arbitrary assignment to “guard” or “prisoner”, some guards were abusive:

Types of guard:

• Type 1: “Tough but fair” guards followed prison rules.

• Type 2: “Good guys” did favors for prisoners, never punished them.

• Type 3: Hostile / inventive in punishments / humiliation.

Problems with Zimbardo’s Experimental Design

Demand characteristics” - Prisoners were forced (as part of the experiment) to do arbitrary humiliating activities to simulate prison life

“Hawthorne effect” - Zimbardo participated as prison superintendent. How did this affect people’s behavior?

“Selection effects” - What type of people would volunteer for this study? Are they different from other people?

Other concerns: Is this experiment ethical?

Attitudes

feelings based on beliefs

Conventional Thinking:

Attitudes determine our behaviors in response to situations

But do Behaviors also affect Attitudes?

• My town has mandatory recycling

• Behavior: I recycle

• Attitude: I should be concerned about the environment

The “Foot-in-the-Door”

Behaviors affecting attitudes:

2 signs read “drive safely”

• Sign A: big and ugly

• Sign B: tiny and nice

Will you put sign A in your yard? Yes: 17%

Will you put sign B in your yard? Yes: ~100%

New situation:

• Show up with Sign B first

• Then later on ask to put sign A in the yard? Yes: 76%

Why does this happen?

Behavior - Put tiny “drive safely” sign in yard

New Attitude - I support safe driving

Behavior - Put big “drive safely” sign in yard

Cognitive Dissonance

Feeling uncomfortable or “guilty” when our behaviors do not align with our beliefs:

An example:

You eat meat, even though you believe that the way animals are treated on large-scale factory farms is morally wrong

To resolve conflict:

- Change behavior (stop eating meat; less likely)

- Change belief (deny evidence; believe situation is less bad than it actually is, etc.; more likely

Conformity

One way animals learn: Mimic the behavior of older animals

Humans are inclined to mimic behavior as well

Tendency to behave in a manner similar to others in your group

• Overt: Peer Pressure

• Covert: Unconscious responses to group dynamics

Sometimes good, sometimes bad:

• Positive: Following social norms at a movie / restaurant

• Negative: Not standing up for an individual against a group / not voicing your opinions at appropriate times

Factors that strengthen conformity

One reason to conform: Others may be right

Conformity greatest for difficult, important judgments

Non conformity leads to feeling insecure or incompetent

Group has 3+ people

Group is unanimous

Group has high status

No prior commitments that contradict the group

Behavior is observable by others

Culture stresses social standards

Obedience

People conform:

To avoid group conflicts / maintain social harmony

Because other people may have good information to help make better decisions

People obey to please authority figures

Obedience – Attempting to meet someone’s expectations

Motivation to please people (especially powerful people)

Why is some level of obedience important for society?

• Your parents

• The police

• Your professor

• The CDC during COVID?

Why is too much bad - people can take advantage

Obedience experiment

Most subjects will give “learner” highest shock

Many subjects will “obey” even though it causes cognitive

dissonance.

Instructor is perceived as authority figure

Instructor is nearby when shocks are delivered

Authority figure is supported by a legitimate institution

Victim is not visible

No role models for defiance

Social Loafing

Typically, people working together work less per person than people working alone.

Tug of War example:

• Group A: Fooled to think they were pulling with other people

• Group B: Pulled alone

• Subs. in Group A used 82% of the force of subs. in Group B

People clap less hard in larger groups:

Group Polarization

Members of like-minded groups tend to become MORE extreme in their viewpoints:

Groupthink

Working groups feel pressure to keep “good group dynamic”

Dissenting opinions get suppressed

Bay of Pigs ex: Recordings of debate leading up to invasion showed signs of censoring of cabinet members with dissenting opinions

Prejudice

How prejudiced are people? Less than they used to be (in some places)

Who is affected? Ethnic minorities, gay people, women, religious groups… everyone?

Are people really less racially prejudiced… … or do they just answer questions that way?

How does prejudice originate? - cognitive strategies

Cognitive Strategies?

People use categories to efficiently represent the world:

Category: Fruits

- Sweet

- Grow on trees

- Have seeds

- Has a skin

- Healthy

Now if you are given a new fruit, you can assume it probably has these properties

How does prejudice originate? - exposure bias

Unlike fruits, we don’t get to directly interact with large number of people of all types

Instead we learn about them through TV, movies, etc.

Exposure bias against Muslims:

• Nearly 100% of Muslims are not terrorists

• But the ones who are get a lot of attention

• Category “Muslim” takes on characteristic terrorist

Stereotypes

Overgeneralization of a group

- Not entirely made up

- Can be positive, negative, or neutral

- Often a negative exaggeration

Regardless, stereotypes negatively impact group relations

Who placed a personal ad for:

• “a special lady to love and cherish forever”

• Slightly feminized face (b) is picked by 66% to be

more likely to have placed the personal ad

Implicit bias

stereotypes can influence our behavior even without awareness

Even people who believe they have no biases against black

people may still behave differently toward blacks vs. whites

Task: “Shoot” quickly if person has a gun

• Police and civilians more likely to shoot black man carrying harmless object than white man

Aggression

Animals can be bred / evolve to be aggressive:

What is the nature vs. nurture debate here?

Twin studies indicate aggression is in part hereditary:

Aggression - environmental factors

Conditions that make people uncomfortable make them aggressive, violent:

Does role-playing violence cause violent real-life behavior?

• little evidence of a causal link

• Small association between violent video game use and minor aggression, like as yelling and pushing

• No evidence of increase in serious violence

Social Traps

Occur in any situation where:

- Everyone benefits if everyone follows a rule

(if everyone sets their thermostat at 68 degrees in the

winter it will help the environment)

- But if you cheat (secretly set your thermostat to 75), you

benefit, as long as everyone else doesn’t cheat

(environment is still helped, and you get a cozy house, too!)

End result: Everyone cheats

• Prisoners Dilemma

What makes us like each other?

Familiarity - we like things we see often

Called the “mere exposure” effect.

An experiment on physical attractiveness:

• HS Students took personality and aptitude tests

• Were randomly assigned to be “couples” at a dance

• Appearance was Only reliable predictor of how much the couples liked one another

• No difference between men and women

Mood and attraction

Men are more happy around attractive women

Women are more happy around attractive men

Men are less happy around attractive men

Women are less happy around attractive women

What is attractive?

Many individual differences, but people seem to prefer “average” features:

One reason?

Composite faces are more symmetric

Symmetry may be an evolutionary sign of good health

Altruism - when do you get involved?

When will people help out a stranger?

Being altruistic is a decision process:

You’ve got to worry about becoming a victim yourself

In some places, helping is a virtue. Other places, not so much

Altruism - the bystander effect

When you have more people around, fewer will hep. As the number of people around increase, the percentage of people who help decreases.

Emotions

Happy, fearful, angry, sad, disgust

Bored, interested, etc

Fewer than 100 distinct emotions

Basics of emotions

Physiological response - heart beat, respiration, adrenaline

Expressive behavior - facial, vocal

Have a short duration - mood lasts longer

Either positive or negative, pleasant or unpleasant

Functions of Emotions

1. Communication (through facial expressions)

   1. Communicate our feelings to others

   2. Tell us what others are feeling

2. Motivate appropriate actions

   1. Anger - being prevented from doing something - remove the barrier

   2. Fear - threat or danger - free, hide, run

Autonomic Nervous System

Sympathetic - response to arousal, threat, stress

Parasympathetic - opposite, calming response

Theories of Emotion

The Cannon-Bard Theory (conventional thinking)

• No causal connection between emotion, physiological response.

• Emotion and physiological response happen simultaneously.

The James-Lange theory (newer)

• Physiological response causes emotion.

• Physiological response first, emotion second.

• Think meditation

James-Lange Theory Supporting Evidence

If it’s correct:

• Acting happy/sad can make you happy/sad - this doesn’t hold up

• Your body needs to communicate to your brain to create emotions. - this doesn’t hold up

  • Higher injury (near neck) associated with decrease in emotional intensity compared to lower injury (near waist).

Schachter-Singer Theory

Stimulus → Arousal and Cognitive Label → Emotion

Famous Experiment:

1. Injected subjects with epinephrine

2. Sent them to a waiting room

IV 1 - Confederate in waiting room acts either

• Angry

• Happy

IV 2 - Participants either

• Know they have been injected with epinephrine and what physio effects to expect.

• Are naive(injected with epinephrine, but not told about the drugs effects).

When knowing - “i’m not angry/happy, I just feel like this because I got injected”

When naive - “why am i so amped up? I must be super angry/super happy like this guy.

Misattribution of Arousal

Capilano Bridge vs control nonscary bridge

Attractive woman/man would stop single men/women halfway across the bridge

Asked participants to tell a story about a picture

Gave participants their phone number, if they had questions about the experiment later.

Only worked for men

• Scary bridge 9/18

• Control 2/16

Misattributing those feelings of fear up feelings as arousal

The amygdala

Strong emotional experiences(especially fear and anger) can process emotions quickly(no cortex) or more slowly(with cortical processing)

Processing emotions very quickly may save your life. But bypassing cortex means that you may not have conscious awareness of what happened.

Complex emotions(guilt/jealousy) require the interpretative processes that happen in cortex.

Animals and amydgala

Stimulating amygdala triggers predatory behavior.

Cat just reacts; doesn’t have to think

Humans and amygdala

Functions - detecting and eliciting strong, basic, emotions

Subliminally presented fearful eyes generate different amygdala activity(fMRI) from happy eyes

Tumors in amygdala

Charles Whitman - gunman

No prior history of violence

But had a tumor near his amygdala

Non-verbal communication

People are good at detecting the emotional state of a person through facial expression

What is the major confound in his earlier research that Ekman overcomes with these studies?

Cultural learning

Many studies on this had been shows to people from industrialized societies - people were exposed to media.

Studied non-Western cultures that were exposed to no media

Participants were asked to match facial expressions to emotional stories. They consistently identified the same basic emotions.

This shows that facial expressions are universal and innate rather than learned.

Born with Emotions

Basic emotions / facial expressions seem to be innate

Are people good at detecting lies?

Generally no

• 60% of people lie during typical 10 min conversation

• Regular people, relying on non-verbal are not good at it.

• 88% of police officers believe they can detect deception.

• Police lie detection actually below average.

Most signs of deception son’t actually predict lying.

• Gaze avoidance

• Fidgeting

• Restless foot and leg movements

• Frequent body posture changes

Can a machine detect lying?

Polygraphs use physiological response to detect stress.

50 suspects who late confessed, 50 whose innocence was later established

Instead of asking questions, measure physiological response to pictures of crime scenes vs. similar pictures

Use brain imaging?

- Lying requires generating new content

- Answering truthfully requires memory

- These processes happen in distinct brain regions

Does money make us happy?

While American buying power has increased steadily (until recently), happiness has remained constant

“Money can’t buy happiness”

What makes us happy?

Happy people tend to:

- Have high self-esteem (in individualistic cultures)

- Be optimistic, outgoing, and agreeable

- Have close friends or a satisfying marriage (or both!)

- Enjoy their job

- Have an active religious faith

- Sleep well

- Exercise

Happiness is not related to:

- Age

- Gender

- Parenthood (choice to have children)

- Attractiveness

How does our brain gauge how happy we should feel?

The Adaptation-Level Phenomenon

• Happiness is judged relative to recent experience

• So positive changes are only enjoyed in the short term

• When do people appreciate good health?

Relative Deprivation

• We are unhappy if we judge ourselves to be worse off than our peers

• When a professional baseball player gets a million-dollar contract, we don’t feel bad…

• …but if your co-worker gets a big promotion and you don’t, you might have a negative reaction

What is stress?

“The process by which we appraise and cope with environmental threats and challenges”

Key points:

• Stress is a process

• Individual differences, despite the same stressor

• May be beneficially motivating in the short term

• Probably always bad in the long run

Appraisal determines response to stress

Stress response short term

System 1 - stress event happens

Physical stressor (e.g., pain) triggers

Adrenal glands release of epinephrine, norepinephrine

ANS increases heart rate, inhibits digestion, etc.

Happens fast

Stress response longer term

System 2: Stress Event is Over

Release of hormones like cortisol

Restores homeostasis after stress

Much slower

Stress will kill you

Stress system evolved for short-term stressors

Unfortunately, many modern-stressors are VERY long term

- Will I be able to afford a house?

- Will I have enough money to retire?

- Is the country headed in the wrong direction?

Long term stress has been linked to accelerated aging

Immune response to stress

Why does stress make you sick?

Stress hormones interfere with white blood cells

Stress causes:

Wounds to heal more slowly

Top 10 most stressful events

Death of Spouse

Divorce

Marital Separation

Jail Time / Death of friend or family member

Personal Injury / Illness

Marriage

Getting Fired

Marital Reconciliation

Retirement

Pregnancy

Change in Financial State

Why are we stressed out?

Many stressors are related to “lack of control”

People, animals get stressed when they cannot actively control events in their lives

Rat with no control develops exhibits “learned helplessness”

Symptoms look a lot like clinical depression

Personality and Stress

Type A: Reactive, competitive

Type B: Relaxed, easy-going

3000 high risk subjects, 35-59 yrs. Old

257 heart attacks

69% of heart attacks were type A’s

Explanatory Style

Something goes wrong. Is it:

Internal (your fault)…..or….. external (somebody else’s)

Permanent (long lasting)…or…temporary

Universal (affecting many parts of your life)…or… specific to this incident

Stress Management

Exercise - “Treatment” = aerobic exercise, relaxation, or nothing

Alternative medicine - Herbal Medicine Magnets, Folk Remedies Mind-Body Control, Therapeutic Touch Etc.

• Most have not been experimentally tested

• Some experimentally shown to NOT work

• Some are actually harmful (esp. herbal medicines)

Lifestyle changes - reduce stress!

• Control Group: Standard advice on medication, exercise, and diet

• Lifestyle Group: Same + advice to “slow down”, relax, smile, laugh, etc.

Spirtuality/Faith - Some studies suggest that belonging to a religious group

correlates with prolonged life

• Hard to interpret because these people usually engage in less alcohol and drug use.

Obesity

Smoking is on the decline and obesity is on the rise

Correlates with: Heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, gallstones, arthritis, some types of cancer

“Relative risk” of death by BMI:

People discriminate against overweight people

Employers discriminate against overweight people

Affect is greater for women:

Lifestyle choices

many health problems are linked to behavioral choices - smoking as a big one

We don’t have a cure for cancer, heart disease, etc.

But many diseases can be prevented by modifying behavior

So, health psychologists try to modify behavior to save lives

What is abnormal?

Abnormal Psychology = Study of “Abnormal” Behavior

Deviance - “Too Different” from the average

Another Problem: Abnormal suggests “bad”

Many “abnormal” behaviors aren’t harmful

• Exercising twice / day

• Geniuses with abnormally high intelligence

Practically speaking - Clinical psychologists are interested in behaviors that are abnormal and harmful

How do you decide if a behavior is normal or abnormal?

Why is it better to focus on harmful behaviors?

Oneself: interferes with daily functioning

- Exercising 15 hours / day

- Avoiding social interactions

Others / society: disrupts / impairs group behaviors

- Unwarranted aggressive behavior

- Narcissism

Diagnostic Challenges

• Same disorder can present differently across people

• Some symptoms may be present, others absent

• Disorders often come in groups

• Diagnosis often relies on self report, introspection

Modern (best?) approach: Standardization

DSM

A manual of checklists for all disorders

- Tells the clinician if a person meets diagnostic criteria

- Classifies disorders:

• Axis 1, Axis 2, etc. – if you’re interested in being a clinical psychologist,

Good

- Very systematic, based on lots of data

- Reliable, 2 clinicians usually reach the same diagnosis

Bad

- May categorize too many people with a mental disorder

- Influenced by non-scientific agendas

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Disproportionate anxiety signals a disorder

Criteria: Excessive anxiety on most days for 6 months or more

Symptoms:

• Restlessness

• Fatigue

• Difficulty Concentrating

• Irritability

• Muscle Tension

• Sleep Disruption

GAD is a chronic, high level of anxiety

Other anxiety disorders are more transient

Phobias

Intense, irrational fear in anticipation of or in the presence of a particular object or situation

Specific Phobia: flying, heights, spiders, blood, …

Social Phobia: performance situations, meeting people

Agoraphobia: Outdoor, wide open places, situations where escape (esp. from embarrassment) is difficult

More common fears are not more common phobias

Phobias don’t seem to be related to “normal scariness”

How do phobias develop?

Classical conditioning - one trial conditioning; through single exposure, especially in young children/

When something scary happens that thing can they just cause the fear alone.

To extinguish a conditioned response

Present CS (Bell) but no US (Food)

Eventually CS (Bell) will no longer elicit CR (Salivation)

Panic Disorder

Recurrent “Panic Attacks”

- A normal, but intense, fear response

- But without any obvious danger

Panic attacks result from a “positive feedback loop”:

- Distress about future attacks → more panic

- Worry about health effects of attacks → more panic

Panic disorder often co-occurs with

• Agoraphobia - Irrational, excessive fear of outdoors, open places where escape to safety is difficult; stop going out

• Social Anxiety - stop socializing; for both of these, don’t want to have a panic attack in front of others

  • Believe that others are observing you - self conscious

  • Noticing every mistake they make - paranoid

How to treat panic disorder?

Treat with cognitive methods - not likely having heart attack

Treating thoughts, not behaviors

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Obsessions: Recurrent thoughts / images that cause anxiety, interfere with patient’s life

Compulsions: Repetitive behaviors that a person must perform, to reduce anxiety caused by obsessions

• Cleaning - may do something directly related

• Checking

• Order/Balance

• Touching/Counting - ritualistic behavior to make them feel better about it

Obsessions, compulsions are NOT random

Obsessions = evolutionarily adaptive thoughts

Compulsions = evolutionarily adaptive behaviors

But… in OCD, thoughts and behaviors are excessive

In 2013 OCD was reclassified from Anxiety disorder to its own category, “Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders”

• Genetic, brain activity differences between OCD and other anxiety disorders suggests it is distinct

• New theory suggests OCD primarily involves problems with “self- regulation”. However, OCD almost always includes anxiety.

• Main point: DSM / understanding disorders is an ongoing process

PTSD

Previously an Anxiety disorder

• Reclassified “Trauma & Stress-Related” disorder in 2013

Disabling response to experiencing very high stress

Symptoms:

• Nightmares

• Flashbacks

• Excessive startle response

• Anxiety

• Depression

Usually lasts less than 6 months, but can last much longer

Commonly treated with talk-therapy and antidepressants

WWI - Shell Shock

Not just soldiers:

• Accident / disaster survivors

• Sexual Assault victims

• Prostitutes

• Witnesses of atrocities: