Unit 5 study guide AP Psych

Behavioral medicine

Study of how stress influences health and illness.

Active listening

Empathetic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

A group of developmental disabilities that can cause significant social, communication and behavioral challenges.

Schizophrenia

Characterized by abnormal thinking, perceptions, and losing touch with reality.

Health psychology

Subfield of psychology that explores the impact of psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors on health and wellness.

Psychoneuroimmunology

Study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes affect our immune system and health.

Stress

Process by which we perceive and respond to certain events called stressors.

Lazarus’s Cognitive Appraisal Theory

Theory stating that we appraise stressors as threatening or challenging.

Person-Centered Therapy

Humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers; therapists used techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting. Empathic environment to facilitate clients growth.

Eustress

Positive stress that motivates and is perceived as a challenge.

Distress

Negative stress that is debilitating and perceived as a threat.

General adaptation syndrome

Body’s adaptive response to stress in three phases: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.

Tend-and-befriend response

Under stress, people (especially women) nurture themselves and others and seek support.

Type A personality

Characterized by competitiveness, impatience, and high levels of aggression, linked to coronary heart disease.

Problem-focused coping

Attempting to alleviate stress by changing the stressor or the way we interact with it.

Positive psychology

Scientific study of human flourishing, promoting strengths and virtues for well-being.

Learned helplessness

The hopelessness and passive resignation learned when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.

External locus of control

Perception that outside forces control our fate.

Internal locus of control

Perception that we control our own fate.

Self-control

Ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for long-term rewards.

Happiness set point

General level of happiness from which we slightly fluctuate.

Broaden-and-build theory

Proposes that positive emotions broaden awareness and help build skills that improve well-being.

Cognitive Therapy

Teaches new, adaptive ways of thinking and acting.

Dissociative identity disorder

Characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personalities in one individual.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Characterized by persistent, repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions).

Psychotherapy

An emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties.

Eclectic Approach

An approach to psychotherapy that, depending on the client’s problems, uses or integrates techniques from various forms of therapy (also known as psychotherapy integration).

Psychoanalysis

Freud believed the patient’s free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences—and the therapist’s interpretations of them—released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight.

Resistance

Blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material.

Interpretation

The analyst’s noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors in order to promote insight.

Transference

The patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships.

Behavior Therapy

Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors.

Counterconditioning

Procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors, based on classical conditioning, includes systematic desensitization and aversive conditioning.

Systematic Desensitization

Type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli, commonly used to treat phobias.

Aversive Conditioning

Type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior, think about the alcohol/nausea example.

Token Economy

An operant conditioning procedure that rewards desired behavior; the patient exchanges a token of some sort, earned for exhibiting the desired behavior, for various privileges or treats.

Cognitive Therapy

Teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

Rational-Emotive Therapy

Confrontational cognitive therapy developed by Albert Ellis, vigorously challenges people’s illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions.

Classical Antipsychotics

Remove a number of positive symptoms associated with schizophrenia, like agitation, delusions, and hallucinations. [Chlorpromazine (Thorazine)].

Atypical Antipsychotics

Remove negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia, like apathy, concentration difficulties, and difficulty in interacting with others. [Clozapine (Clozaril)].

Antianxiety Drugs

Depresses central nervous system and reduces anxiety and tension by elevating the levels of the Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) neurotransmitter. (Xanax and Ativan).

Antidepressant Drugs

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) improve mood by elevating the levels of serotonin by inhibiting reuptake. (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil).

Lithium

Mood stabilizer used to treat the symptoms of bipolar.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

Therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.

Psychosurgery

Surgery that removes destroyed brain tissue in an effort to change behavior.

Lobotomy

A now rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

In TMS, a pulsating magnetic coil is placed over prefrontal regions of the brain to treat depression, with minimal side effects.

Clinical Psychologists

Mostly PhDs. Expert in research, assessment, and therapy, supplemented by a supervised internship.

Clinical or Psychiatric Social Worker

Master of Social Work plus postgraduate supervision prepares some social workers to offer psychotherapy, mostly to people with everyday personal and family problems.

Counselors

Pastoral counselors, abuse counselors work with problems arising from family relations and substance abuse and with spouse and child abusers and their victims.

Psychiatrists

Physicians who specialize in the treatment of psychological disorders. Not all psychiatrists have had extensive training in psychotherapy, but as MDs, they can prescribe medications.

Light Exposure Therapy

Used to help patients suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a light lamp will boost vitamin D and help patients maintain their natural circadian rhythm.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR uses a variety of external stimuli while the patient is asked questions about upset or traumatic events. After many sessions, the trauma will be reprocessed and the patient should be able to discuss the event without symptoms.

Pet Therapy

Patients, especially those suffering from PTSD, have reported the beneficial effects of having a therapy session with a certified therapy dog present.

Catastrophes

Large scale disasters.

Significant life changes

Events such as having a loved one die, moving, losing a job, parents getting divorced, going to college, etc.

Daily hassles & social stress

Everyday frustrations such as annoying siblings, to-do lists, dropping off & picking up children, etc.

Biogenic Stressors

Substances that activate nervous system activity.

Approach & avoidance motives

The drive to move toward (approach) or away from (avoid) a stimulus (proposed by Kurt Lewin).

Approach-approach conflict

The least stressful conflict; involves choosing between desirable options.

Avoidance-avoidance conflict

Choosing between undesirable options.

Approach-avoidance conflict

The most stressful conflict; involves choosing between options that have both desirable & undesirable qualities.

Sympathetic NS

Triggers a fight, flight, or freeze response (fast).

Endocrine system

Releases adrenaline and cortisol (slow).

Phase 1 - alarm reaction

Sympathetic nervous system is activated and the body is mobilized for a threat (heart rate increases, blood diverted to muscles).

Phase 2 - resistance

Body summons all resources to meet the challenge (temperature, blood pressure, & respiration run high; adrenaline pumped into bloodstream).

Phase 3 - exhaustion

Body’s resources are depleted; becomes more vulnerable to illness, collapse, or death.

Catharsis

The idea that “releasing” aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges.

Emotion-focused coping

Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor & attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction.

Personal control

Our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless.

Resilience

Personal strength that helps people cope with stress & recover from adversity & even trauma.

Aerobic exercise

Sustained exercise that increases heart & lung fitness; also helps alleviate depression & anxiety.

Biofeedback

A system of recording, amplifying, & feeding back information about subtle physiological responses in an effort to help people control them.

Mindfulness meditation

Reflective practice in which people attend to current experiences in a nonjudgmental & accepting manner.

Gratitude

An appreciative emotion people often experience when they benefit from others’ actions or recognize their own good fortune.

Psychopathology

Mental disorder.

Maladaptive

Dysfunctional behavior that interferes with a person’s ability to function normally in one or more important areas of life.

Distressful

Unpleasant feelings or emotions that impact a person’s level of functioning.

Medical model

A way of helping people with abnormal behavior: diagnose, treat, cure.

DSM-5

The book used for classifying psychological disorders by medical professionals.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Characterized by developmental deficits that produce impairments of personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

A group of developmental disabilities that can cause significant social, communication, and behavioral challenges.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Characterized by a pattern of behavior that can result in performance issues in social, educational, or work settings.

Dissociative identity disorder

Characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personalities

Delusions

A bizarre or farfetched belief that continues in spite of competing contradictory evidence

Delusions of reference

Believing that hidden messages are being sent to you via newspaper, TV, radio, or magazines.

Delusions of grandeur

Believing you are someone very powerful or important, such as Napoleon.

Delusions of persecution

Believing that spies, aliens, the government, or even your neighbors are plotting against you.

Hallucinations

A false or distorted perception that seems vividly real to the person experiencing it, which can include hearing voices, seeing people, or smelling things that are not really there.

Positive symptoms

Characteristics of schizophrenia that are added to a person’s personality, such as hallucinations, delusions, inappropriate emotions, and word salad.

Negative symptoms

Characteristics of schizophrenia that are taken away from a person’s personality, such as flattening of emotions and speech, apathy, a general disinterest in life, and social withdrawal.

Genetic basis for schizophrenia

The risk of developing schizophrenia increases if there is schizophrenia in the family.

Dopamine hypothesis

Over activity of certain dopamine neurons may cause some forms of schizophrenia, especially those involving hallucinations and delusions.

Diathesis-stress model

People inherit a predisposition or diathesis that increases their risk of schizophrenia; stressful life experiences then trigger schizophrenic episodes.

Viral effects

Mothers who catch certain viruses, such as the flu, while pregnant may increase the risk of brain abnormalities in babies leading to schizophrenia.

Bipolar and Related Disorders

Includes changes in mood and changes in activity or energy.

Bipolar I disorder

Characterized by repeated episodes of both mania and depression.

Bipolar II disorder

Never develops severe mania, but instead experiences hypomania — mild to moderate mania that doesn't usually lead to as much disruptive behavior as severe mania.

Depressive Disorders

Includes disorders that have the presence of sad, empty, or irritable mood, accompanied by somatic and cognitive changes that significantly affect the individual’s capacity to function.

Major (Unipolar) Depression

Characterized by a lasting and continuous depressed mood, often causing lethargy and suicidal thoughts.