Studied by 23 people
Midterm 1
Mental processes: Attention
Results in selecting/enhancing certain stimuli including those that may be relative to a disorder, like a spotlight
Ex) Eating disorder patient focusing on “ugly” parts of their body
Mental processes: Perception
Results in registering and identifying a specific stimuli like spiders or a particular facial expression
Ex) Depressed people is less likely to rate neutral/mildly neutral happy faces as happy
Mental processes: Memory
Involves storing, retaining, processing and accessing stored info including what is emotionally relevant to a disorder
Ex) Memory bias in hypochondriacs
Dopamine
Enhancement of neuroplasticity *
Wanting something, desire and motivation to do something -> not about the pleasurable feeling you get when you have something
Ex) Inhalant addictions: “What I just did was horrible, but I can’t wait to do it again”
Pleasure goes down, wanting goes up -> Chasing the first high
Mental contents: Cognitive distortions
Aaron Beck: Dysfunctional, maladaptive thoughts that are not accurate reflections of reality and contribute to/cause psychological disorders
Ex) Woman is convinced she is unlovable and if her boyfriend really knew her, he wouldn’t love her
Recognizing cognitive vulnerabilities can reduce psychological problems
Cognitive distortions: All or nothing thinking
Seeing things in black and white
Ex) you think that if you are not perfect, you are a failure
Cognitive distortions: Overgeneralization
Seeing a single negative event as part of a never-ending pattern of such events
Ex) While having a bad day, you predict that subsequent days will also be bad
Cognitive distortion: Mental filter
Focusing too strongly on negative qualities or events, to the exclusion of other qualities and events
Ex) Although your overall appearance is find, you focus persistently on the bad haircut you recently had
Cognitive distortion: disqualifying the positive
Not recognizing or accepting positive experiences or events, thus emphasizing the negative
Ex) After giving a good presentation, you discount the positive feedback you received and focus only on what you didn’t like about your performance
Cognitive distortions: Jumping to conclusions
Making an unsubstantiated negative interpretation of events
Ex) Although there is no evidence for your inference, you assume that your boss didn’t like your presentation
Cognitive distortions: Personalization
Seeing yourself as the cause of a negative event when in fact you were not actually responsible
Ex) When your parents fight about finances, you think their problems are somehow your fault, despite the fact that their financial trouble weren’t caused by you
Teenagers and the imaginary audience
Believing others are paying attention to/judging you way more than they actually are
Flat affect
Lack of or considerably diminished emotional expression, occurs when someone speaks robotically and shows little facial expression
People with schizophrenia often display inappropriate or flat affect
Inappropriate affect
An expression of emotion that is not appropriate to what a person is saying or the situation
Ex) Laughing at a funeral
Labile affect
Emotional expression changes inappropriately rapid
People with depression may change quickly from sad, to angry, to irritable
Self serving attributional bias
Occurs when people attribute positive events but not negative events to ones own personality traits
Ex) Good grade = “I’m so smart” - Bad grade = “Professors fault”
People with depression rarely display this bias
Externalizing problems
Primary effects on others and/or their environment, usually observable to others
Too little control of emotions and related behaviors like aggression and disruptive behavior
Internalizing problems
Primary effect is on the troubled individual rather than others, less observable
Negative internal experiences like anxiety, social withdrawal, depression
Temperament
The aspects of personality that reflect a persons typical emotional state and emotional reactivity
Specific types of temperament makes a person especially vulnerable to psych disorders
Ex) People who are more emotionally reactive are more likely to develop disorders related to high levels of anxiety
Some disorders are an extreme form of normal variation in temperament → Shyness vs. Social phobia
C. Robert Cloninger: 4 types → Novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependance, persistance
Temperament: Novelty seeking
Searching out novel stimuli and reacting positively to them; high levels can lead to being impulsive, avoiding frustration, and easily getting angry
Associated with dopamine and disorders that involve impulsive or aggressive behaviors
Temperament: Harm avoidance
Reacting very negatively to harm and avoiding it whenever possible
Associated with serotonin and anxiety disorders
Temperament: Reward dependance
Degree to which past behaviors that have led to desired outcomes in the past are repeated
Associated with norepinephrine and substance use disorders
Temperament: Persistence
Making continued efforts in the face of frustration when attempting to accomplish something
Associated with possibly dopamine and ADHD
Social causation
Socioeconomic disadvantages and stress cause psychological disorders → daily stressors of urban life trigger mental illness in those who are vulnerable
Social selection
Those who are mentally ill drift to a lower socioeconomic status because of impairments → Socioeconomic status contributes to disorders and is a consequence of having a disorder
Collectivists
High value on getting along with others, prioritize the goals of the group over the individual
Individualists
Value independence and autonomy, prioritizes goals of the individual over the group
Classification
Provides a means of making comparisons of behavior and psychological functioning to a standard of normalcy
Most common is the DSM
Benefits of diagnosis/classification
Enables clinicians and researchers to group certain thoughts, feelings, behaviors into “constellations”
Convey useful information about etiology of the disorder, its course and indications for its treatment
Indicate needs for attention, treatment, support, benefits
Some people find relief in learning they are not alone
Diagnostic bias
Systematic error in diagnosis that can cause:
Disproportionate diagnoses for certain groups based on unrelated factors (sex, race, age)
May be a stigmatizing label or result in a self-fulfilling prophecy
Reliability & Validity
If a classification system has consistent results over time, its reliable
If the categories characterize what they are meant to be classifying, it is valid
Prognis & Prevalence
Prognis: The likely course and outcome of a disorder
Prevalence: Number of people who have the disorder in a given time period
DSM
Identifies criteria (kinds, number and duration of relevant symptoms) for diagnosing each disorder
It is categorical → either has the disorder or does not, there is no scale (continuum)
It is subjective (uses words like “markedly” and “significant”
Computerized Axial Tomography (CT)
Builds images of the brain slice by slice
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Makes especially sharp images of the brain allowing a precise diagnosis when abnormalities are subtle
Reveal parts of the brain that are larger/smaller than normal
Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
Introduces a radioactive substance into the bloodstream, while task is performed, active regions of the brain take up more blood & radioactive substance than less active regions
Brighter colors in scan = higher radiation
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
Most widely used for measuring brain function
Reflects difference in oxygen levels in images, activated brain regions draw less blood, oxygen used up
Malingering
Intentionally reporting symptoms they don’t actually have or exaggerating ones they do for material gain or to avoid unwanted events
Factitious Disorder
Occurs when someone intentionally falsely reports/induces psychological symptoms to receive attention
Family Environment Scale
Requires family members to answer a set of questions to create a profile of the family environment:
How its organized, control and conflict, values, emotional expressiveness etc
Note 
Flashcard (21)