Applications 8-12

Basic Features of Treatment

• Common elements:

  • Client (patient)

  • Quality of the therapeutic relationship

  • Theory about causes of client's problems

• Treatment option:

  • Inpatient

  • Outpatient

Mental Health Services

• Clinical psychologists:

  • Apply the principles of psychology

  • Work in hospitals or mental health facilities

  • Assess conditions and develop interventions

• Counselling Psychologists:

  • Treatment of everyday difficulties

• Psychiatrists:

  • Physicians specialised in mental health

  • Medically trained

  • More likely to use psychoanalysis or medication

• Multidisciplinary Teams:

  • Professions from many settings

    • Clinical psychologist

    • Nurse

    • Psychiatrist

    • Social worker

Instiutional Treatment:

• Conducted in institutions

  • Mental hospital: Medical institution specialising in providing inpatient care for psychological disorders

  • Recently undergone transition

  • Deinstitutionalisation: Transferring the treatment of mental illness from inpatient institutions to community-based facilities that emphasise out-patient care

    • Effective drug therapies

    • Community mental health centres

Deinstiutionalisation:

• Positives:

  • Avoids disruption to life

  • Hospitalization can be as effective as inpatient care

  • Greater freedom

• Limitations:

  • May not have anywhere to go when released

    • Communities may not have been able to fund "halfway houses"

  • May not be ready to go back to the community

    • Relapse due to inadequate care in community

      • Revolving door

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy:

• Established by Sigmund Freud

• Assumes that personality and behaviour reflect egos attempt to resolve conflicts

• Psychoanalysis aimed at understanding unconscious conflicts

• Strategies to achieve insight:

  • Free association

  • Exploring manifest and latent content of dreams

  • Analysis of Freudian slips

  • Analysis of transference

Change in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy:

• Therapeutic change involves:

  • Insight

  • Understanding of psychological processes

  • Symptoms

    • Maladaptive views of self and relationships

    • Unconscious conflicts between wishes and fears

    • Maladaptive ways of coping with emotions

  • Therapist-patient relationship:

    • Therapeutic alliance: Need to feel comfortable

    • Empathic listening is therapeutic

    • Allows exploration of problematic interpersonal relationship problems

Techniques: Psychodnamic Therapy

• Free association

  • Understand the unconscious events that lead to a behaviour

  • Spontaneous expression of thought

  • Explore associations between thoughts

• Dream analysis:

  • Therapist interprets symbolic meaning

    • Road to the unconscious

  • Training to remember their dreams

• Interpretation:

  • Help to interpret associations and experiences

  • Resistance: Symptoms are developed to reduce anxiety

    • Unconscious defensive mechanisms which hinder progress

    • Many forms: Showing up late, hostile towards therapist

• Analysis of Transference:

  • Therapist can be seen as authority or attachment figure

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapies

Behaviour Therapy - Based on classical conditioning

Behaviour Modification - Based on operant conditioning

Cognitive-behaviour therapy - focused on changing thoughts and behaviour

Behaviour Therapy:

• Effective change brought about through extinguishing maladaptive behaviour

  • Symptoms sees as the problem, rather than a symptom of underlying distress

• Application of learning principles to direct efforts to change clients maladaptive behaviours

• Learned behaviours can be reduced/eliminated through process of extinction

Classicial Conditioning: Systematic Desensitization

• Systematic Desensitisation

• Useful for anxiety symptoms - specifically phobias

  • Gradual exposure to phobia to reduce the conditioned response a participant experiences

  • If conditioned stimulus can be experienced without the fear, the response should be reduced

• Four steps:

  1. Relaxation techniques

  2. Develop hierarchy of feared imagined stimuli

  3. Desensitisation proper

     • Techniques to relax

     • Vividly images the least feared scene, then the next

  4. Confront Fears

Behaviour Therapy: Exposure Therapy

• Classical Conditioning Techniques

  • Exposure Techniques

    • Use real phobic stimulus

    • Very successful for phobias

  • Flooding:

    • Confronts phobic stimulus - head on

    • Unable to escape - desensitisation

  • Can be scary for the patient

  • Graded Exposure:

    • Graduated exposure to real stimuli

  • Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy:

    • Virtual Images

    • Cose effective

Behaviour Therapy: Positive Reinforcement

• Operant Conditioning Techniques

  • Behaviour controlled by its consequences - reinforcement and punishment

  • Alcoholism - Rewards increase treatment retention

• Positive reinforcement preferred over positive punishment

  • Why?

  • Punishment can generate undesirable effects

    • Aggression, anger, apathy

    • Suppression of behaviours other than target behaviour

    • Punishment programmes demand continuous monitoring of behaviour (not the case for reinforcement)

  • Other issues of abuse, ethical implications

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapies

• Focus also on the clients cognitions

• Varies combinations of verbal interventions and behaviour modification techniques to help clients change maladaptive patterns of thinking

• Basic Principles

  • Strategies to correct habitual thinking errors

  • Example: Depression

    • Focus on negative

    • Pessimistic future projections

    • Blame yourself

  • Detect automatic thoughts and reality test

  • Modelling, monitoring behaviour and behavioural rehearsal

Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy:

• Psychological problems are caused by how people think about events, not be the events themselves

• Involves:

  • Cognitive restructuring

  • Replacing self-defeating thoughts with alternative/more realistic thoughts

  • Self-instruction

  • Calming thoughts to use in difficult situations

Becks Cognitive Therapy":

• Some clients expect the worst and assume that negative events confirm their incompetence or worthlessness

• Therapists help clients develop more optimistic ways of thinking

• Cognitive restructuring may be combined with

  • Social skills training

  • Logical thinking practice

  • Anxiety management techniques

Humanisitc psychotherapy

• Concept of treatment:

  • A human encounter between equals

  • Not a cure given by an expert

• Ideal conditions established through relationship of acceptance and support

• Client respocible for choosing how they will think and behave

• Focus on how the patient experiences the self, their relationships and the world

  • Get in touch with their true selves

Client Centered Therapy:

• Carl Rodgers used the term clients rather than patients

• People want to solve their problems, not cure disease/disorder

• Concept of self is seen as incongruent with actual experience

Unconditional Positive Regard

Empathy

Active Listening

Congruence

Gestalt Therapy

• People create their own versions of reality

  • Psychological growth continues as long as they perceive, remain aware of and act on their true feelings

  • Growth stops and symptoms of mental disorder appear when people are not aware of all aspects of themselves

  • Therapy should create conditions that promote self-awareness so that clients are ready to grow again

Group Therapy

• Therapies sees client interaction

• Client realises others have similar difficulties and learn from one another

• Group members can boost each others self-confidence and self-acceptance

• Clients can test new skills in a supportive environment

• Can include self-help organisation

• Groups concerns may include:

  • Alcohol and drug addiction, abuse, overeating, grief, gambling

• Increased demand for therapy led to group therapy

• 4-12 screened participant

  • Describe problems, offer different viewpoints, discuss strategies to cope

  • Acceptance and emotional support

• Therapies selects goals for the group and maintains therapeutic process

  • Group cohesiveness by modelling supportive behaviour

• Advantages:

  • Cost effective and efficient

  • More affordable for the client

  • Appreciate others who are going through similar circumstances

Family and Couples Therapy

• Treating two or more individuals from the same family system

• Structural family therapy concentrates on communication patterns

• Couple therapy focuses on improving communication between partners

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

• Biomedical treatment in which electric shock is used to produce a cortical seizure accompanied by convulsions

  • Electric current applied to brain for a second

  • Trigger brief seizure

  • Three treatments a week

  • Very few psychiatrists administer this procedure

• Efficacy

  • Depression

  • Alternatively, no more effective than a placebo

• Memory loss, impaired attention are short term side effects

Neuroleptic Drugs

• Antipsychotic Drugs

  • Treatment of schizophrenia

    • Thorazine, Mellaril, Haldol

  • Gradually reduce positive psychotic symptoms, including hyperactivity, mental confusion, hallucinations and delusions

    • 70% effective

    • Gradual effects: Few weeks

    • Can prevent relapse

• Drowsiness, constipation, dry mouth, dizziness, muscle rigity, restless, tremors and slowed movement

  • Taradive dyskinesia - jerky movements

  • If stop taking, 70% relapse in first year

Antidepressant Drugs

• Gradually elevate mood and help bring people out of a depression

  • Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

• Several classes of antidepressant drugs:

  • Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs)

  • Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs)

  • Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

    • Zoloft, Paxil and Prozac

• Effectiveness:

  • Some but not all patients experience better mood

Mood Stabilizers:

• Used to control mood swings in patients with bipolar mood disorder

• Lithium is used in treatment of bipolar disorder

  • Prevents mania and depression for 30%-50% of patients

  • Overdose may cause nausea, vomiting, tremor, fatigue, slurred speech, coma or death

• Combining lithium with other mood-stabilising drugs has enhanced benefits more adverse side effects

• Anticonvulsants are alternatives to lithium

  • Fewer side effects, safer at high doses and easier to regulate

  • Long term benefits are not as well established

Antianxiety Drugs

• Tranquillising Drugs

  • Relieve tension, apprehension and nervousness

• Meprobamate (Miltown, Equanil) act like barbiturates (CNS depressant drug)

  • Side effects can include impaired psychomotor and mental functioning

  • If combined with alcohol, can be fatal

  • Severe withdrawal symptoms possible

• Benzodiazepines

  • Diazepam (Valium), alprazolam (Xanax)

  • Immediate effect

  • Impact short lived (hours)

  • Drowsiness, dry mouth, depression, withdrawal symptoms

Disadvantages of Drug Therapies:

• Drugs may mask problem without curing it

• Abuse may lead to physical or psychological dependence

• Side effects

• Questions about effectiveness

Sociocultural factors in Psychotherapy:

• Problems

  • Under-use or withdrawal from mental health services by immigrants or minority groups

  • Miscommunication or mistrust impair:

    • Therapeutic relationships

    • Clients motivations to change

• Solutions

  • Training more clinicians from traditionally undeserved minority groups

  • Matching therapies with clients culturally-based expectations and preferences

  • Required courses or supervised experience focused on cultural factors

Advantages of Combing Drug therapy and Psychotherapy

• Recommended in cases of bipolar disorder

• Slightly better results than either method alone in people suffering from severe, long-term depression

• More effective than either method alone in treating ADHD, OCD, alcoholism, stammering and panic disorder

• Useful for clients initially too distressed to benefit from psychotherapy

5 core ethical principles

• Autonomy (take responsibility for ones own behaviour and allow others to do the same)

• Non-malifence (do no harm/prevent or minimise harm)

• Beneficence (do good/promote wellbeing)

• Justice (fair and equal)

• Fidelity (honesty/integrity)

Free association

• Patient and therapist must map their unconscious networks of association to see what fears and wishes are linked with symptoms

• Free associations explores networks and unconscious process involved in symptom formation

  • Say whatever comes to mind

• Patient and therapist collaborate to solve mystery of the symptom

• Piecing together the connections of what is said noting what hasn’t been said

Interpretation

• The therapist is trained in making psychological inferences and is not involved in patients conflicts and ways of seeing the world

• Interpretation of conflicts, defences, compromise formations and repetive interpersonal patterns

• Therapist helps the person understand their experiences in a new light

• Interpretation addresses resistance, barriers to free association or to treatment

• Patient is consciously on the trail of mental processes that are unconsciously covering up

• Resistance emerges as patient developed symptoms to reduce anxiety - closer to the source the more they are motivated to run

Analysis of transference

• Relationship between patient and therapist provides a useful source of information in psychotherapy

• Freud said patients play out with their therapist the same interpersonal scenarios from their lives

• Relationship becomes a magnet for experiences from prior relationships involving intimacy and authority

• Patients relationships with parents is a good predictor of their capacity for threptic alliance

• Transference refers to process whereby people experience similar thoughts, feelings, wishes in new relationship

Basic principles CBT

• Typically short term

• Focus is on individuals present behaviour and cognitions

• Much more directive than psychodynamic

• They suggest ways patients should change thinking and behaviour - homework and structured sessions

• Begin with behavioural analysis - examine stimuli or thoughts that are associated with symptom

Modelling

• In participatory modelling the therapist models the desired behaviour and induces the patient to participate

• Done via vicarious conditioning

• Alters self-efficacy expectances - observing the mode suggests the patient can do it too

Skills training

• Skills training involves teaching the behaviours necessary to accomplish goals

• Skills are a form of procedural knowledge and carried out automatically

• Social skills training involves teaching new skills to peoples with interpersonal deficits - social awkwardness

  • Treatment begins by teaching set of skills or modelling behaviour on film

  • Rehearsals of new skills - imagining responses

  • Followed by feedback and renewed practice

Mindfullness

• Directing ones attention to present moment with acceptance and without judgment

• Being aware of breathing and bodily sensations and paying attention to current stimulus

• Being conscious with what is happening now

ACT

• ACT is a mindfulness based cognitive- behavioural therapy that focus on changing individuals relationships with their conditions

• ACT model of behavioural change compromises various commitment and behaviour change processes, and mindfulness and acceptance processes

• ACT involves commitment oneself to goal and fully accepting what is occurring now

Ellis rational-emotive behaviour therapy

• Ellis says what people think and say to themselves about a situation affects the way to respond to it

• Proposed ABC theory of psychopathology

  • A = activating conditions

  • B = belief systems

  • C - emotional consequences

• Rational-emotive behaviour therapy proposes that patients can rid themselves of problems by minimising irrational thinking

• Therapist brings self-defeating thoughts to their attention and shows them they are causing problems

Becks Cognitive Therapy

• Viewed cognitive therapy as collaborative empiricism meaning the patient and therapist work together testing hypothesis

• Began as treatment for depression

• Therapy has 12-20 sessions

• Therapist and patient work together at changing maladaptive patterns of thought and behaviour

• Patient keeps a log recording thoughts and moods

• Sessions are structured - setting an agenda

Approaches to family therapy

• Structural and strategic family therapy focus on family structure and use of active strategies to disrupt dysfunction

• Attend to boundaries between generations, alliances, hierarchy and family homoeostatic mechanism

• Genogram is the map of the family over 3 of 4 generations

Psychotropic medications

• Psychotropic medications act on the brain to affect mental processes

• Lithium used to make animals calm and quiet

• Thorazine and Largactil used to treat schizophrenia

• Clozapine and ozapine led to improvement in psychotic patients

• Psychotropic medications act at neurotransmitter sites

• Inhibit overreactive neurotransmitters or receptors that are sensitive

• Locking up the post-synaptic membrane, binding with receptors that would bind to neurotransmitters

• Other medications increase the actions of neurotransmitters

• Prevent neurotransmitters from being taken back up in presynaptic membrane

• Causes neurotransmitter to remain in synapse and facilitate further firing

• Others prevent neurotransmitter from being broken down when it has returned to presynaptic neuron

Antipsychotic medications

• Used to treat schizophrenia

• Inhibit dopamine which is involved in positive symptoms of hallucinations

• Suffer from cognitive deficits

• Antipsychotic medications are less effective for negative symptoms - interpersonal difficulties

• Dopamine exists in many areas of brain

• Blocking its overactivity may inhibit normal functioning

Types of antidepressants:

• Tricyclic antidepressants block the reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine into presynaptic membrane

• MAO inhibitors keep MAO from breaking down neurotransmitter substances in presynaptic neuron

  • Make more neurotransmitters available for release into the synapse

  • More effective than tricyclics in treating depressed patients with personality disorders

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are antidepressants that target serotonin

  • The prevent the reuptake of serotonin into the presynaptic neuron and keep the neurotransmitter active at synapse longer

  • Better tolerated over longer period

  • Sexual dysfunction often occurs with these medications

• Serotonin reuptake inhibitors can help people with chronic low grade depression

• Patients with chronic bouts of depression have smaller hippocampus then patients with intermittent bouts of depression

• The SSRI Prozac can protect the brain from detrimental effects of depression on hippocampus

• Lithium acts slowly 3/4 weeks before effect

Indigenous SEWB

• People from collectivist cultures might find focus on oneself uncomfortable

• 9 principles that underpin understanding of Indigenous SEWB:

  • Health as holistic

  • The right to self-determination

  • The need for cultural understanding

  • The impact of history in trauma and loss

  • Recognition of human rights

  • The impact of racism and stigma

  • Recognition of the centrality of kinship

  • Recognition of cultural diversity

  • Recognition of aboriginal strengths

Efficacy vs effectiveness

Efficacy versus effectiveness:

• Efficacy studies assess treatment outcome under controlled conditions

• Effectiveness studies assess treatment outcome under less controlled circumstances

 

Eclectic psychotherapy:

• Clinicians combine techniques from different approaches to fit a particular case

 

Integrative psychotherapy:

• Less about picking and choosing among strategies from different approaches than about developing approach to treat patients based on theories that cut theoretical lines

• Difficult to practice

Social Psychology and Social Cognition

• The scientific investigation of cognition, emotion and behaviour in a social context

  • How do others influence our thought, feelings and behaviours? And how do we influence others?

• Social Cognition:

  • Interested in how mental processes are associated with social understanding and reactions

Attitudes

• Positive or negative evaluation of thought

  • Social issues, Groups, People, Products

Attitude Characteristics

• Attitude strength

  • Durable and impactful

  • Influenced by

    • Attitude importance - personal relevance

    • Attitude accessibility - the ease of access from memory

• Attitude complexity

• Attitude ambivalence

  • Conflicting evaluations

Implicit vs Explicit

• Explicit attitudes - attitudes you are consciously aware of

  • Influenced by what you think is right or wrong

  • Measures with direct questions

• Implicit attitude - attitude in your subconscious

  • Strongly influenced by culture

  • Measured by IAT or GNAT

• Implicit and explicit can be in contrast to one another

  • Higher implicit racism associated with less eye contact, and sitting further away from another race

Attitudes and Behaviour

• Not a strong relationship

• Stronger if

  • Attitude specific to behaviour

  • Less obstacles stopping the behaviour

  • People support the behaviour

  • Attitude is perceived as important

  • Direct experience with the attitude object

Forming Attitudes

• Social learning:

  • Attitudes from parents friends etc

• Classical and operant conditioning:

  • Associations between object or attitude and other stimuli

  • Reward or punished for attitudes

• Mere exposure effect:

  • The more you are exposed to something the more positive the attitude to it

Efforts to change attitudes - Source

• Source factors (person communicating the message)

  • Credibility

    • Expertise

    • Trustworthiness

      • Person is not gaining by changing your opinion

  • Likeability

    • Similar to yourself

    • Attractiveness

• Message factors (content of the message)

  • One sided or two sided message

  • Repetition

    • Repeating a statement increased perceived validity

  • Fear appeals

    • Fear reduction - take steps to avoid situation

      • When steps can be taken

    • Fear avoidance - switch off from message

      • When believe that steps cant be taken

Efforts to change atitudes - audience

• Attention

  • More attention focused on the message less attitude change

• Attitude strength

  • Strong attitudes harder to change

• Channel (how message is sent)

  • Images, verbal, face to face, written

• Context

  • Associated with strong emotions

  • Number of counter messages

Theories of Attitude Change

• Elaboration likelihood Model

  • Two pathways to attitude formation/change

  • Central Route

    • Careful consideration of the information (high attention)

    • Leads to strong durable attitudes

    • More likely when more personally involved

  • Peripheral Route

    • Minimal processing of information (low attention)

    • Influenced by aspects not associated with the message

      • Source information: credibility or likeability

    • Less durable attitude

    • More likely when not paying attention or distracted by other things

    • Implicit attitude change in the peripheral route can occur in several ways

      • Classical conditioning of an object with an emotional response

      • Repeat a message enough times that people start to believe itr

      
      

    • Cognitive dissonance - Inconsistency between attitude and behaviour

    • Causes psychological discomfort

    • Reduce discomfort by changing one so that they are consistent with each other

      • Usually easier to change attitude than to change behaviour

Self-perception theory

• We infer attitudes from our behaviours

  • Rather than attitudes causing behaviours

• Interpretation of Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) findings

  • 1 dollar participants

    • I told the person I liked the task

    • Therefore I liked the task

  • 20 dollar participants

    • I was paid to tell the person I liked the task

    • I remember how bored I was

    • I didn’t like the task

• Possibly more likely when no prior attitude

First impressions

• Formed quickly

  • Face perception of trustworthiness in 10th of a second

  • SES from non-verbal in 1 minute

• Biased

  • Physical appearance

  • Halo Effect

• Long lasting and change slowly

  • Self-fulfilling prophecy

    • Because of our behaviour, people behave consistent with our beliefs

Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination:

• Stereotype:

  • Perception, belief, and expectations about a particular category (group of individuals, objects, etc)

• Prejudice:

  • Attitude toward a person is based on group membership

    • Often caused by stereotypes

• Discrimination:

  • Treatment of people based on prejudice

Racism

• Prejudice and discrimination of an ethnic group

• Couple with a belief of inherit superiority/inferiority of ethnic groups

• Old fashioned racism - explicit beliefs, clear behaviours (refuse entry or voting rights)

• Modern racism - more subtly, less explicit

  • Series of attitudes that are unfavourable to minorities (anti-immigrations, anti-welfare)

  • Symbolic racism - mainstream culture

• Implicit racism

  • Reflects negative attitude held in society in general

  • Strong influence on unconscious behaviour

  • Regardless of explicit attitude

Perception of others: Cognitive theories

• Categorising objects and individuals is normal part of cognitive process

  • Cognitive efficiency

• Stereotypes are natural

  • But can work to avoid negative stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination and racism

• Stereotype as a schema

• Schema

  • Organisation of knowledge to a particular topic in LTM

  • Schemas influence:

    • Attention: information consistent with schema gets more attention

    • Memory: information consistent with schema is more likely to be remembered

    • Judgements: make judgments based on information stored in schema

• Schemas about a person or group can have a strong bias on what is seen, remembered and interpreted

  • Reinforce the schema

Perception of others: in group our group

• In group our group

  • Ingroup favouritism (more than outgroup derogation/devaluation)

  • Seeing ones own group as better than another group makes you feel better about yourself

• Social identity theory

  • People who get a sense of identity from ingroup - more likely to make ingroup outgroup judgments

• Authoritarianism (individual difference)

  • Conventional/traditional values

  • Follow orders from authority without question

  • Act aggressively toward out-group identified by authority

• People high in this trait feel comforted, more secure and capable when seeing other groups as inferior

Reducing Prejudice, Discrimination, Racism

• Contact hypothesis:

  • More contact between group decreased prejudice, but usually when interdependence and cooperation are elements of contact

    • Creation of subordinate goals

• Perspective taking:

  • Image the world from the view point of an individual in the minority group

• Conscious effort:

  • Be aware of what you are thinking and why you are behaving as you are

  • Recognize faulty cognition and change them

Attribution

Attribution:

• Inferences made about cause of others or own behaviours or events

• Attributions made for a behaviour

  • Internal: caused by the persons traits or abilities

  • External: caused by something in the environment or situation

• Intuitive scientists: theories, hypothesis and collect evidence to help make attributions

Infulential factors

• Consensus: if most other people are acting in a similar way = external attribution

• Consistency: if the person always behaves in this way = internal attribution

• Distinctiveness: if person only behaves in this way in certain situations = external attribution

• Discounting - downplay a factor

• Augmentation - highlight a factor

• Attribution style (individual difference)

  • Tendency to make more internal/external attributions

• Confirmation bias:

  • Attend to information consistent with out beliefs

Attribution Error

• Fundamental attribution error:

  • Tendency to attribute others behaviours to internal causes

    • But when explaining our own tendency to make external attributions

  • Actor-observer effect:

    • Own behaviours = externally

    • Others behaviour = internally

      • Reasons

        • Difference in perspective

        • Difference in knowledge

• Self-serving bias:

  • See oneself in positive light

  • Above average

  • Recall positive self-information

  • Attributions

    • Own successes = internal attribution

    • Own failures = external attribution

Self perception

• Self-concept

  • Knowledge about the self

  • What do I like, what are my beliefs, who are my friends

  • Who am I?

• Self schema

  • Influenced attention, memory and judgments

  • Reinforces self concept

Self-esteem:

• Evaluation of self worth

  • Positive or negative evaluation

  • Am I good enough?

• Maintaining self esteem:

  • Self-esteem as a hierarchy - more weight given to certain dimensions

  • Self-handicapping

    • Set up for failure when success is uncertain

  • Downward social comparison

    • Compare self to others lower on the comparison trait

Self Presentation

• Efforts to influence others perceptions of you

  • Schema's of self

    • Actual self, ideal self, Ought self

• Self-esteem and self-presentation

  • High self-esteem = actual self in presentation

• Self-monitoring (individual difference)

  • High = behaviour varies depending on situation

• Self-presentation predicament

  • Failure at self presentation - embarrassment

Components of attitudes

• Cognitive component or belief

• An emotional or evaluative component

• Behavioural disposition

• Early theories of attitude assumed a strong attitude-behaviour association

• Tripartite theory of attitudes - affective, behaviour and cognitive

Attitude Coherence

• Attitudinal coherence is the extent to which an attitude is internally consistent

• The cognitive and emotional aspects of attitudes should be congruent because an emotional evaluation of an object should reflect a cognitive appraisal of its qualities

Ostracism

• Ostracism occurs when people are ignored, excluded or rejected

• Affects 4 human needs - belonging, self-esteem, control and meaning

Attribution

• Attribution is the process of inferring the causes of ones own and others mental states

• Plays a role in every social encounter

• Model of attribution:

  • People seek to understand why certain events happened

  • People attribute the outcome to a cause

  • People base their future behaviour on the attributions that they make

Making inferences

• People can make external attributions - attributions about the situation

• Internal attributions - attributions about the person

• People rely in consensus, consistency and distinctiveness

• Consensus refers to the way people respond

• Consistency refers to the extent to which a person always responds in the same way to the same stimulus

Fault Cognition

Cognitive biases:

• Heuristics can lead to biases in social thinking

• Heuristics can allow people to make decisions rapidly

Motivational biases:

• Schemas and attributions are influenced by wishes, needs and goals

• Motivation can influence the extent to which people think in a complex way about themselves

 Interactions of cognition and motivation:

• Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out information that confirms ones hypothesis

• People are interested in looking good, maintaining positive feelings about themselves, believing good things will happen

Approaches to self

 

Approaches to the self:

• William James - the self as a subject

• The self as an object is the persons view of the self

Psychodynamic perspective:

• Self representations are mental models or representations of the self

• Peoples representations of themselves and others play a role in personality and psychopathology

• Self concept is attitude towards the self including beliefs, feelings and tendencies

• Characterises that distinguish psychodynamic views of the self:

  • People associate the self with positive and negative emotions - activated under circumstances

  • Self-representations can be conscious or unconscious, explicit or implicit

Cognitive Perspective

• Focus on the way self-concept shapes thought and memory

• Self concept is like a theory of oneself

• Self concept as a self schema - a schema abut the self that guides the way we think about and remember information

• Self- schemas may be hieracally organised

• At the core of the broader self-schema are fundamental attributions of the self - name, identity, appearance, relationships

• Below general level in hierarchy are schemas of the self in different situations or relationships

• Each sub-schema is associated with its own attributed

Interpersonal attraction

• Motivation for relatedness (Connectedness to others)

• Interpersonal attraction

  • Positive feelings towards another

    • Liking, friendship, admiration, lust, love

• Factors that increase interpersonal attraction

  • Physical Proximity:

    • Those we see more often we tend to like more

  • Interpersonal reward:

    • What we get out of the relationship

      • Aim for reciprocal rewards

  • Similarity effect:

    • Attracted to those similar to ourselves

      • Age, Race, Religion, Intelligence, Social class, Education, Values, Attitudes

    • Physical attractiveness

      • Matching hypothesis

        • People of similar level of attractiveness more likely to pair up

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

• All encompassing, intense emotion and sexual urges

  • Same Neurotransmitters pathways activated as some addictive drugs (cocaine)

  • Dramatic reduction in passion over time

• Intimacy:

  • Sharing, closeness, warmth

    • Increased over time

• Commitment:

  • Maintaining relationship despite difficulties

    • Increases over time

Types of love relationships

• Liking:

  • Intimacy only

• Infatuation:

  • Passion only

• Empty love:

  • Commitment only

• Fatous love:

  • Passion and commitment

• Romantic love:

  • Intimacy and Passion

• Companionate Love:

  • Intimacy and Commitment

• Consummate Love:

  • Intimacy, Passion and Love

Parental Investment Theory

• Sexual motivation influenced by how much each sex has to invest to produce and nurture offspring

• Low investment

  • Peruse mating opportunities vigously and will compete for the opportunity

• High investment

  • Conservative and discriminating in mating

Parental investment theory in humans

• Females = high investment

  • 9 months pregnant, births can be risky, many years nurturing young

• Males = low investment

  • Act of copulation

• Therefore

  • Males should show more interest in sex, sex with multiple partners and casual sex with females

  • Females should be conservative and discriminating in choice of sexual partners

• Supporting evidence:

  • Males more likely than females to

    • Think about sex

    • Initiate sex

    • Spend time fantasising about sex

    • Overestimate the opposite sex interest in them

    • Wish for more sex

    • Want more sexual partners

    • Have/desire casual sex

Mate Prefrence

• Shared responsibility of producing and nurturing offspring means that offspring is more likely to grow up and pass on genetic material

• Parental investment theory: mate preference

  • Different levels of parental investment should dictate different partner preference

  • Males: desire fertile mate. Young and Attractive (healthy and fertile)

  • Females: desire mate that can provide resources for her and children: wealth and power

Mantaining Relationships

• Evaluation of the costs/benefits of staying in the relationship; investment and commitment

• Overlooking your partners faults (and hoping that they reciprocate)

• Undervaluing the attractiveness of other potential partners

• Avoiding cycles of negative reciprocity

Altruism

Altruism:

• Assisting others without gain to self and with costs to self

Theories:

• Ethical hedonism:

  • No true altruism - positive feelings, material rewards, social rewards

• Genuine Altruism:

  • Natural compassion

• Evolutionary - reciprocal altruism

  • Natural selection favours altruism if the benefit to each other is greater than the costs

Altruism and helping

• Bystanding effect

  • Less likely to provide help when in a group compared to alone

  • Many studies have investigated the effect

    • Assistance less likely when more people present and situation is ambiguous

  • Why:

    • Ambiguous situation - look for cues from others

      • If others aren't helping, assistance is probably not required

    • Diffused responsibility

      • Somebody else will/already has to take responsibility

Helping

• Individual difference traits

  • High in empathy

  • High self-efficacy

• Behavioural traits

  • More likely to offer assistance in general

Aggression

• Aggressive behaviour

  • Action intended to cause harm to another person either physically or mentally

  • Hostile aggression - caused by anger or frustration

  • Instrumental aggression - used to achieve an outcome

• Is it part of being human?

  • Freud and Evolutionary theorists

  • But cant explain why it differs so much over time and cultures

Biological bases of aggression

• Aggression is controlled by the brain

  • Can be evoked by electrical stimulation of the hypothalamus and the amygdala

• Aggression is modulated by hormones and neurotransmitters

  • High testosterone and low serotonin

• Genetics: Animal temperant of aggression likely to run in families

Theories of aggression

• Cognitive neo association theory:

  • Frustration-aggression hypothesis

  • Exposure to aversive stimuli triggers aggressive thoughts and actions

• Cognitive- social perspective:

  • Aggression results from reward, punishment and social learning

• General aggression model:

  • Person and situation variables combine to determine the presence of aggression

Compliance, Obdience, Conformity

Compliance:

• Change behaviours due to request either explicit (someone has made a request) or implicit (indicated desired behaviour without words)

Obedience:

• Complying with direct order or commands, usually given by authority figure

  • Milgrams shock experiment

Conformity:

• Change behaviours so that they are consistent with the perceive expectations of others

Creating Compliance

• Door in the face:

  • After denying a large request, more likely to comply with a smaller request

    • Reciprocity norm - they are making a concession so I will make one

• Foot in the door technique:

  • After agreeing to a small request people are much more likely to agree to a larger request

    • Self perception and cognitive dissonance

• Low ball:

  • Get someone to agree to behaviour and then increase the demands

    • Obligation to follow the commitment

• Door opener:

  • Giving a person a gift make they are more likely to comply to request

    • Reciprocity norm

Obdience Factors

• Proximity of learner and the experimenter

• Reducing perceived authority only reduced obedience a little

• Reminder of the learners rights (not pain)

• High in empathy and low in authoritarian reduced obedience

• Was Milgram's study ethical?

• What we learned:

  • Obedience to authority is a powerful forcer

  • Under certain circumstances, people are capable of unspeakable acts of brutality

• Obedience seems important in society

Conformity

• Solomon Asch’s line experiment

• Want to be correct

• Want others to like us

• Feel part of a group - increases self-esteem

• Previous reward/punishment for accepting/not accepting group norms

• Influential factors:

  • Collectivists vs individualist societies

  • Low income vs middle class

  • Women - when public and face to face

  • Adolescence - 10-14 and 18-30 more conformity than 14-18

Group Process: Norms and roles

• Group

  • Collection of people whose actions affect one another

• Norms - learned, social rules about what behaviour is acceptable

• Reference group - a groups norms that have a large impact on behaviour

  • Positive reference group - behave consistent with norm

  • Negative reference group - behave inconsistent with norm

• Roles - position within group that behaviour is specified by norms of the group

• Zimbardo prison experiment

Group Proceses Performance

• Social facilitation:

  • The presence of other people improve performance

    • Usually when the task is familiar or easy

  • Social Interference:

    • The presence of others hurts performance

      • Usually when the test is unfamiliar or difficult

• Presence of others increases anxiety which might increase dominant behaviour

  • Well practiced - dominant response is good

  • Less praties - dominant response is to make mistakes

• Social loafing:

  • Productive of a group member is lower than productivity outside a group

    • The more group members the lower the productivity

      • However, dependant on personality type

  • Reason:

    • Diffusion of responsibility

      • Contribution shared

      • Individual contribution less recognisable

Group processes: decision making

• Group polarisation:

  • Group will demonstrate more extreme view than the individuals in that group

• Why?

  • After hearing other opinions in the group, strengths original opinion

  • Identification with the group

    • Show you are part of the group by sharing the opinion of the group strongly

  • Diffused responsibility

• Group think:

  • Emphasis on consensus and not critical thinking

  • Poor decision making

• When?

  • Group cohesive

    • Strong relationships between members

    • Strong, directive leader

    • Us verses them mentally (in group vs out group)

Group process: Leadership

• Leaders exert more influence over a group than the average member

• Leaders have differing styles

  • Autocratic: makes the decisions

  • Democratic: allows group to make decisions but is also involved in process

  • Laissez-faire: does not intervene in the group

• Leadership orientation

  • Task orientation: focus is on efficiency

  • Relationship orientation: focus is on group feelings and cohesiveness

• Effectiveness varies depending on the situation

Principles of social influence

1. The principle of reciprocity asserts that people have a compelling need to reciprocate what has been done to them

2. The principle of commitment asserts that because people are concerned with the impressions that others are forming of them, they feel the need to behave consistently with prior impressions or commitments they have made

3. The principle of liking asserts that we do things for people that we like out of a sense of obligation and so that they will continue to like us in return

prosocial behaviour at 3 levels

• At micro level: altruistic tendencies and individual differences are considered in terms of biological processes, developmental and personality factors

• At meso levels behaviours of helper-recipient dyads are studied according to specific situations

• Prosocial actions at macro level are examined in context of groups and large organisations - volunteering