AP Psychology

Names included

Psychological Disorder

a syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior. They interfere with our normal lives

Medical Model

the concept that psychological disorders have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital

Epigenetics

the study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without a DNA change

DSM-5

the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition; a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders. Has criteria that people have to meet to be diagnosed with a disorder but is getting more broad for criteria every year.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

a psychological disorder marked by extreme inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity. The criteria to be diagnosed is getting broader every year which is controversial.

Anxiety Disorders

psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety

Social Anxiety Disorder

Intense fear and avoidance of social situations

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

an anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal

Panic Disorder

An anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations. Often followed by worry over a possible next attack, and someone might fear going into situations they think might bring an attack.

Agoraphobia

fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open places, where one has felt loss of control and panic

Phobia

An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

an anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions)

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

a disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience

Major Depressive Disorder

A mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or a medical condition, two or more weeks of significantly depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished interest or pleasure in most activities.

Bipolar Disorder

A mood disorder in which the person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania.

Mania

a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state in which dangerously poor judgement is common

Rumination

compulsive fretting; overthinking our problems and their causes

Schitzophrenia

A group of severe disorder characterized by disorganized and delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions and inappropriate emotions and actions

Positive Symptoms In Schitzophrenia

When inapropriate behaviors of schitzophrenia are present. (might experience hallucinations, talk in disorganized ways, or laugh/cry at inapropriate times)

Personalization

distortion of thinking in which a person takes responsibility or blame for events that are unconnected to the person. A kid might think that they're parents are getting devorced because of them. Someone might get an f on their test and say its because they are lazy and stupid.

Maximization/ Minimization

This is when someone blows up a bad event to make it seem way worse. (got an f on their test and think they will fail the class so they will never succeed in life and be living on the streets.) and minimize good things that happen to them (got an a on a test but says "oh everyone got an a on that test" or "the teacher made the questions easy on purpose")

Dichotomous Thinking

In this type of thinking, situations are viewed in either something was abosultely amazing or the worst thing in the world. Since most things aren't great, most things seem like the worst thing in the world.

Negative Symptoms In Schitzophrenia

when apropriate behaviors are absent in schitzophrenia. (might exhibit an absense of emotion in their voices, expressionless faces, or have unmoving-mute and rigid- bodies)

Psychotic Disorders

a group of psychological disorders marked by irrational ideas, distorted perceptions, and a loss of contact with reality

Hallucinations

false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus. Some people with schitzophrenia have these.

Delusion

a false belief, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders. If someone has paranoid tendencies, they might believe they are being threatened or persued.

Chronic Schitzophrenia

(also called process schizophrenia) a form of schizophrenia in which symptoms usually appear by late adolescence or early adulthood. As people age, psychotic episodes last longer and recovery periods shorten. This is slow developing schitzophrenia

Acute Schitzophrenia

begins at any age, frequently occurs in response to an emotionally traumatic event, and has extended recovery periods. They more often have positive symptoms that respond to drug therapy, and has a more likely chance for recovery.

Somatic Symptom Disorder

psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause. (ex: a woman has mixed feelings about her husband which triggers dizzyness and nausea shortly before she expects her husband home. She doesn't know whats causing this reaction everyday.)

Conversion Disorder

A rare disorder related to somatic symptom disorder in which a person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no physiological basis can be found.

Illness Anxiety Disorder

a disorder related to somatic symptom disorder in which a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease. (someone might have symptoms and go to the doctor, and doesn't believe their doctor when they are told they will be fine, because they think its a serious illness, so they then might go to many doctors until they are told they have something serious)

Dissociative Disorders

disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings. (one man left the world trade center right before 9/11 and felt sad from his comarades deaths. He went missing for 6 months and when he was found in a homeless shelter he had no memories of his identity or family)

Dissociative Identity Disorder

A rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities. Also called multiple personality disorder.

Personality Disorders

inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning. They are in three clusters characterizzed by either anxiety, eccentric or odd behaviors (schitzophrenia), or dramatic or impulsive behaviors (attention seeking disorders)

Antisocial Personality Disorder

A personality disorder in which the person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members. May be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist.

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder in which a person aintains a starvation diet despite being significantly underweight, sometimes accompanied by excesive excersize

Bullimia Nervosa

an eating disorder involving gorging with food, followed by induced vomiting or laxative abuse

Binge-Eating Disorder

significant binge-eating episodes, followed by distress, disgust, or guilt, but without the compensatory purging, fasting, or excessive exercise that marks bulimia nervosa

Sigmund Freud

Created psychoanalysis. He believed there were things that people repressed, and that therapy should try to bring those memories to conscious awareness

Carl Rogers

Was a humanistic psychologist nd created the client-centered therapy, where the therapist listens to the client without judgement, and to have empathy.

Mary Cover Jones

Worked with a 3 year old who was scared of rabits by associating the rabit with a relaxed state. So when the 3 year old was eating and relaxed she introduced the rabit far away, and got the rabit closer everyday. The fear was replaced with a relaxed state.

Joseph Wolpe

Refined Mary Cover jone's work into exposure therapies.

B. F. Skinner

Researched operant conditioning and found that consequences strongly influence our voluntary behaviors.

Albert Ellis

created Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), focuses on altering client's patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive behavior and emotions

Aaron Beck

A therapist who helped a client see that her feelings on a test are what makes her sad. She put so much value into the test that if she fails the test she feels like she's not smart enough, so she needs to change her overall thinking

Psychotherapy

treatment with psychological techniques. Involves a therapist and someone wanting to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth.

Biomedical Therapy

prescribed medications or medical procedures that act directly on the patient's nervous system

Eclectic Approach

an approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various forms of therapy

Psychoanalysis

Freuds therapy technique. The patienst free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences-and therapists interpretations of them- released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight

Resistance

in psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material. Like when you filter what you say to the therapist.

Interpretation

in psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight

Transference

In psychoanalysis, the patients transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parent).

Psychodynamic Therapy

therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition that views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and that seeks to enhance self-insight.

Insight Therapies

therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing a person's awareness of underlying motives and defenses

Client-Centered Therapy

a humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathic environment to facilitate clients' growth. (Also called person-centered therapy.)

Active Listening

Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies. A feature of Rogers' client-centered therapy.

Unconditional Positive Regard

a caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients to develop self-awareness and self-acceptance

Behavior Therapy

therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors

Counterconditioning

a behavior therapy procedure that uses classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; includes exposure therapies and aversive conditioning

Exposure Therapies

behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization, that treat anxieties by exposing people (in imagination or actuality) to the things they fear and avoid

Systematic Desensitization

A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

a counterconditioning technique that treats anxiety by creative electronic simulations in which people can safely face their greatest fears, such as airplane flying, spiders, or public speaking

Aversive Conditioning

a type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol)

Token Economy

an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats

Cognitive Therapy

therapy that 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 Behavior Therapy (REBT)

a confrontational cognitive therapy, developed by Albert Ellis, that vigorously challenges people's illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions. Helps the client see how absurd their self-defeating thoughts are.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

a popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior)

Group Therapy

therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction. One way it can help is by showing people that they are not alone in their struggles

Family Therapy

therapy that treats the family as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members

Meta-Analysis

A procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies. Instead of actually conducting an experiment someone might do this instead and collect data from many already existing experiments.

Evidence-Based Practice

clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences, and therapists will use the best techniques suited for their clients problems.

Therapeutic Alliance

a bond of trust and mutual understanding between a therapist and client, who work together constructively to overcome the client's problem

Psychopharmacology

the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior

Antipsychotic Drugs

drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder. They block activity in receptor sites

Antianxiety Drugs

drugs used to control anxiety and agitation. They depress the central nervous system activity

Antidepressant Drugs

drugs used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, and PTSD. Many of these drugs are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). They block the reuptake of serotonin so that there is excess serotonin in the synapse which enhances its mood lifting effect. Takes around 2 weeks to fully kick in.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient, causes a seizure in the brain.

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS)

The application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity. works on 30-40% of people with depression and does not have a side effect of memory loss.

Psychosurgery

surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior. Used as a last resort because it is irreversable. Not performed anymore

Lobotomy

a psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients, or on people with severe OCD. The procedure cut the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain. Not performed anymore.

Resilience

the personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma

Posttraumatic Growth

positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises

Social Psychology

the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another

Attribution Theory

the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition.

Fundamental Attribution Error

the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition. We might see someone always be quiet in the cafeteria and assume thats how they always are.

Attitude

feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events

Peripheral Route Persuasion

occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness. Uses attention getting cues to trigger emotion based reactions. This is like a celeberaty endorsement.

Central Route Persuasion

offers evidence and arguments to trigger thoughtful responses. To get support to stop climate change, someone would show statstics.

Foot-In-The-Door Phenomenon

the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request. Chinese captors had American prisoners write trivial sentence, and increase to list off everything wrong with capitalism, the prisoners then changed their beliefs to be more consistant with their public acts.

Role

a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and of our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes

Norms

understood rules for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior

Conformity

Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Normative Social Influence

influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

Informational Social Influence

influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality

Philip Zimbardo

Conducted Stanford Prison experiment. Volunteers were randomly assigned to either play a guard or a prisoner. Throughout the experiment the volunteers acted more like their role. Guards acted more violent and prisoners started breaking down and attempting to escape.

Leon Festinger

created the cognitive dissonance theory

Soloman Asch

Created an experiment where people were in a study with four confederates, and they were told to chose the line that looked most simiar to the first line. The choices seemed obvious for the first two sets of lines, but in the third set of lines, the choice still seemed obvious, but they saw the 4 confederates chosing a different line. 1/3 of participants changed their answers to conform.

Stanley Milgram

Created the experiment where people were chosen to be the "teacher" and have a confederate list out the correct answer, and if they got it wrong, the teacher was supposed to give the conferderate a shock, and increase the voltage with each wrong answer. Throughout the experiment they heard shriecks from the confederates. The teachers were nervous and shaking, but 60% continued to the end of the experiment. The experimentist was standing next to the teacher saying they had no choice but to continue. Learned about obediance from this study and related it to the holocaust.

Social Facilitation

improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others, and worsened performance on difficult tasks in the presence of others. ex: expert pool players who made 71% of their shots when alone made 80% when four people came to watch them. Poor shooters, who made 36% of their shots when alone made on 25% when watched.