Psychology Flashcards

Psychoanalysis

A type of treatment that focuses on understanding the underlying emotional conflicts and unconscious practices that contribute to psychological distress

* Believes that assessing the unconscious mind is key to understanding desires/motivation
* Human personality is made up of the conscious and unconscious minds

Levels of Consciousness

Conscious mind - The present awareness and immediate perception of our thoughts, feelings, and surroundings

Subconscious mind/Preconscious mind - A deeper level of consciousness that exists below the surface of our awareness

* The memories, thoughts, and emotions that are not currently in the conscious awareness but can be brought to the conscious level

Unconscious mind - The deepest and least accessible part of the mind, containing memories, desires, and experiences that have been repressed or forgotten

* Influences our behaviours and thoughts, often in ways that we are not aware of
* Freudian slips - mistakes linked to the sub or unconscious mind

the Pleasure Principle

Inclines humans toward easy physical and emotional rewards and away from unpleasant things like discipline

* Can lead to dangerous and reckless behaviours if not constrained

the Reality Principle

We need to adjust our behaviour to avoid dangerous situations resulting from the pleasure principle

* **Neuroses** can occur when individuals are unable to cope effectively with the normal demands of life

Id, Superego, and Ego

**ID:** urges and instinct (driven by pleasure principle)

**SUPEREGO:** driven by the desire to follow rules and do the right thing (morality principle)

**EGO:** has to accommodate/balance between the others (reality principle)

Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development

Freud believed that psychological development happens through 5 stages

* Stages are driven by fixations of the libido (sexual drives) on different areas of the body 
* Each stage is marked by conflicts that need to be resolved to help with growth and development
* If these conflicts are not resolved properly, fixations can occur
* For example, a person who is fixated on the oral stage may seek oral stimulation through smoking, drinking, or eating

The Oral Stage

Birth to 1 Year

The libido is centered in the baby's mouth because it gets pleasure and satisfaction from putting things in its mouth, so the Id demands more

* Sucking, biting, tasting, breastfeeding

Conflict : the weaning process - the child must become less dependent

Fixations: issues with dependency (needing lots of attention) and other physical oral fixations like smoking, nail-biting, etc.

The Anal Stage

1 to 3 Years

Libido focused on the anus because the child is learning about bowel and bladder control

Conflict: toilet training, specifically how it is approached by parents

* Supportive = conflict resolved
* Lenient = anal-expulsive personality (messy, rebellious)
* Too strict = anal-retentive personality (stubborn, tidy)

The Phallic Stage

3 to 6 Years

Libido focused on the genitals because children are becoming more aware of their bodies and the differences between males and females

Conflicts: the Oedipus Complex and the Electra Complex

* Resolved through **repression** and **identification**

Fixations: difficulties with relationships, gender identity issues, etc.

* Boys become mother fixated and girls become father fixated

the Oedipus Complex and the Electra Complex

Boys begin to view this fathers as rivals for the mother's affection (Oedipus)

Girls experience the same feelings, but for their father and they wish to have a penis (Electra)

Latency Stage

6 Years to Puberty

Libido is dormant, and no further psychosexual development is taking place. The energy is still there but it is being put into things like hobbies and intellectual pursuits. A child is developing defense mechanisms at this stage

Fixations: difficulties with relationships and expressing emotions

Genital Stage

Puberty to Death

Individuals become more sexually mature and explore their sexual feelings and desires. For example, a teenager beginning to experience sexual attraction

Overall fixations from other stages can cause sexual perversions

* e.g, oral fixations can cause individuals to be pleasured by kissing rather than sex

Freud's Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious strategies used to protect a person from shame, anxiety or other unacceptable feelings or thoughts

Behaviourism

Focuses on observable behaviours and not unobservable mental processes

* Believes that psychology should only study external behaviour because it is observable and objective
* What goes on in the mind cannot be known/measured
* Deemed ‘behaviour’ as the response of an organism to stimuli (stimulus ⇨ response)

Ivan Pavlov and the Dog Experiment

While studying dogs, he noticed how the animals would salivate after whiffing their dinner

* He first saw how dogs salivate from smelling their food, and then concluded that they will start salivating even to the sound of a bell

Founded associative learning and classical conditioning

Associative Learning

When a subject links certain events, behaviours, or stimuli together in the process of conditioning

Classical Conditioning

When one learns to link two or more stimuli to anticipate events

* Adaptive learning that helps animals survive by changing behaviour to better suit environment
* Shows how a process like learning can be observed through direct observation of behaviours

John B. Watson

Argued that given a dozen healthy infants, he could train them to become a doctor, lawyer, or even thief regardless of talent

Conducted the Rat Experiment

The Rat Experiment

Watson conditioned a young child to be scared of a rat

* He did this by pairing the rat with a loud scary noise
* Demonstrated that this could cause the fear to be associated with other furry white animals

His research made other psychologists wonder if adults were just holding tanks of conditioned emotions

* If so, could new conditioning be used to undo old conditioning?

Controversy: the child was never deconditioned

* Could have undone this conditioning to relieve this trauma

B.F. Skinner and the Skinner Box

Skinner box is an enclosed box with a lever and a slot that dispenses some kind of reward

* The animal is **shaped** into pressing the lever for the first time (little nibbles each time they approach until they actually do it)
* The animal would press the lever and the food would dispense
* The animal would keep wanting to press it for more

Helped B.F. Skinner form the concept of **operant conditioning**

Operant Conditioning

A type of learning in which behaviour is strengthened if followed by reinforcement or diminished if followed by a punisher

* Associating our own behaviour with consequences
* The kid who gets a cookie for saying please is trained with operant conditioning

Behaviours increase when followed by reinforcement or rewards but they decrease when followed by punishment 

Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, and Punishment

PR- strengthens responses and behaviours by giving a reward after a desired event

* Pleasant stimulus ⇨ behaviour increases

NR - increases a response or behaviour by taking away an aversive or unpleasant stimulus

* Bad stimulus ⇨ behaviour increases
* e.g, when you get in the car and it beeps continuously to get you to wear your seatbelt
* It **takes away** the beeping when you put it on, therefore reinforcing you wearing your seatbelt by taking away the negative stimulus (beeping)

Punishment - decreases behaviour by punishing

* bad stimulus ⇨ behaviour decreases

Critiques of Behaviourism

* Doesn’t account for anything that isn’t observable such as internal feelings and thoughts


* Underplays the role of biology and **free will** - essentially saying that humans are “conditioned response machines”

Cognitive Psychology

The study of individual-level mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, emotion, etc.

Bobo-Doll Experiment - Conducted by Albert Bandura

* A child watched a woman beat up an inflatable doll for 10 minutes


* The child was then made mad, and taken back to Bobo to see what would happen
* The kids who watched the woman beat the clown were much more likely to act the same way
* The kids who didn’t watch acted better

Helped form the **social learning theory**

Social Learning Theory

Learning occurs through observing, imitating, and modeling others' behaviour 

Jean Piaget

French psychologist and important figure in cognitive psychology and developmental/child psychology

* Developed 4 stages of cognitive development
* While studying children's abilities, he noticed how younger kids kept giving wrong answers to questions that an adult would answer correctly

Developed the T**heory of Cognitive Developmen**t - the notion that children move through four different stages of learning

Sensorimotor Stage

Birth to 2 Years

Baby is experiencing the world through their sense and actions 

* Touching, grabbing, hearing, putting things in their mouths, etc.

They develop object permanence - knowing that an object still exists even if it is not seen, as well as seperation anxiety

Preoperational Stage

2 to 6 Years

The child starts to use symbols (images and words) to represent objects, but still cannot reason logically

Marked by egocentrism - kid thinks that it is all about them

* This drives most of what a child thinks and says
* They have a hard time imagining other POVs

Concrete Operational Stage

7 to 12 Years

Kids are starting to think logically about concrete objects, as well as events they have actually experienced

They are now able to see beyond just one aspect of something

Formal Operational Stage

12 Years and up

Our reasoning expands to include more abstact thinking, problem solving, and hypothetical questions 

Critiques of Cognitive Psychology

* Memory and other mental states cannot be directly observed


* Emphasizes congitive processes over biology and social conditions (reductionism/oversimplification)
* Experiments are often conducted in unnatural environments (lack of ecological validity)

Humanistic Psychology

Behaviourism and psychoanalysis are pessimistic about people

* Humanistic psychology believes that:
* Conscious thoughts are most important
* Humans are innately good and have free will
* Psychology should focus on helping people achieve self-actualization

Abraham Maslow

Founder of Humanistic Psychology (along with Carl Rogers)

* He developed a “hierarchy of needs” which expressed his understanding of human motivation
* Offered new ways of thinking about mental health and psychotherapy

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

**Physiological Needs** - breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, shelter

**Safety Needs** - overall security of the body, employment, resources, family, health or property

**Love/Belonging Needs** - friendships, family, relationships, intimacy, connection

**Esteem Needs** - confidence, self-esteem, achievement, respect from others

**Self-actualization Needs** - reaching one’s full potential, creativity, problem-solving, acceptance

Critiques of Humanistic Psychology

* Needs don’t always follow a hierarchy, it really depends on the individual
* Some people have different aspires and motives


* Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is hard to verify or falsify
* Chance of the theory being classist, because not all social classes are always capable of self-actualization

Neuroscience and Psychology

Biological psychology has been around since the 19th century but neuroscience only became a distinct field in the 1960s

Two subfields

* Behavioural neuroscience
* Cognitive neuroscience

Neuroscientists link all thoughts, moods, memories, etc. to the physical substances of the brain (esp. neurons, neurotransmitters), and that behaviours are solely a result of the interactions of the physical parts of the brain

Brain Mapping

New techniques of neuroimaging have made it possible to observe brain activity and how it changes with different behaviours and thoughts. This developing map of the brain and the connections between neurons is called the **connectome**

Neurons and Neural Networks

Neurons are specialized cells in the brain that send signals to your body. One's memories and experiences are stored in the connections between neurons. The neural network is essentially pathways that are carved when one develops new habits and memories.

Corpus Callosum

Thick bundle of nerve fibers that ensures that both sides of the brain can communicate and send signals to each other

Critiques of Neuroscience

It focuses too much on the brain - it does not look at us as whole human beings, and does not consider other social or environmental factors

* It doesn't take into account **free will** 
* e.g, looking at one's experiences
* It is more focused on biology rather than the individual


* Assuming that one can find all the answers about human thinking and behaviour just by looking at the brain and science
* People say "i am more than my genes"

Social Psychology

Understanding how individual behaviour and thinking is influenced by the **social environment** (situations)

Takes a scientific approach

* e.g, social experiments are a common method to study

Areas of interest include : conformity, obedience, aggression, prejudice, discrimination, altruism, and group behaviour

Albert Bandura - Bobo Doll experiment

Helped develop **social learning theory**

* Behaviour is influenced by social situations
* Learning occurs through observing, imitating, and modeling others' behaviour 

Leon Festinger - **Cognitive Dissonance**

Cognitive Dissonance : the feeling of discomfort when an individual's behaviour does not align with their values or beliefs

* Influenced by social situations

Stanley Milgram - Shock experiment

Concluded that people obey to authority out of fear or desire to look cooperative

* Obedience, conformity

Philip Zimbardo - Prison experiment

Concluded that people will conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards

Henri Tajfel - **Social Identity theory**

Describes the conditions under which social identity becomes more important than one's identity as an individual

* Prejudice results simply from an awareness of an “out-group”

Social Situation and Health

Research in social psychology suggests that people who have a stable social support system are happier, have fewer psychological problems like mental illnesses, eating disorders, depression, etc., lower rates of suicide, and they are also physically healthier

Social Determinants of Health

Childhood experiences, housing, education, social support, family income, employment, communities, access to health services

Critiques of Social Psychology

Generally blind to the macro-level of sociology

* e.g, it does not look at social structures that influence behaviour and thinking

It undervalues the importance of biology and free will (agency)