psych notes

Philippe Pinel

He wanted to remove the persons shackles and chains and talk to them, give them exercise and fresh air.

Patients benefitted.

Sigmund Freud

Developed psychoanalysis.

Helps uncover unconscious thoughts and promote insight.

Psychodynamic therapy

Focuses on helping people gain insight on the impact of unconscious internal forces early relation and critical childhood experiences

humanistic approach

Physiologists who take this approach are guided by the idea that people should take responsibility for their lives and their actions and live fully in the present.

Inside oriented; focuses on growth than curing illness

Carl Roger’s

Created a client centered therapy

He encouraged therapist to provide an empathetic genuine and accepting environment and to use active listening where the therapist echoes and clarifies what their clients are saying and feeling

Believed this created a safe and non judgmental space where people could accept themselves and feel valued.

Behavior therapist

View negative behaviors as the problem to be solved that all behavior is the result of learning and that the remedy simply needs new learning

Work with to replace negative behaviors with positive or effective ones

Goal: change behavior to change emotions

*IVAN PAVLOV MENTIONED* : changing behavior by using positive or negative reinforcement

Exposure therapy

Used to treat anxiety by having patients face their fears through exposure to situation that they typically avoid

*Virtual reality is an important role now*

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

Focuses on present issues instead of the past

Includes highly structured sessions and even homework aimed at helping people learn new skills and how to treat themselves

RCT → randomized control trial

Usually measure the efficacy of a treatment under ideal condition or the effectiveness of the treatment, how well it works in real world situation.

Eclecticism

• drawing on multiple perspectives

• Tailoring an approach to the specific person

Proponents -

Results of trail cannot be applied to individuals; instead the treatment should be based on a therapists judgment.

Opponents-

Argue that it is critical that evidence-based treatment is delivered with integrity

Prescription medication

Mental health medicines have become so common that they’ve become household names..take effect usually in 30-40 mins

For generalized: a jetty disorder, panic disorder, PTSD, Alcohol withdrawal, insomnia and various other stress-related disorders

Who actually seeks treatment with these promising options?

In the United States only about 40% of those with clinically significant disorders had received treatment in the past year

Common barriers:

• insurance

• The availability of providers

• And the individuals motivation to seek treatment

Somatogenic Hypothesis

argues that mental disorders have physiological causes like illness genetic inheritance or brain damage or brain balance

Psychogenic Hypothesis

the symptoms are caused by psychological processes

Biopsychosocial Model

this is a holistic perspective taking into account psychological processes like:

• stress, trauma, and memories

and biological factors like:

• genetics and brain chemistry

Diathesis-Stress Model

Diathesis - the predisposition towards a disorder

stress- the trigger that sparks the disorder

Mental disorder

Dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that interfere with daily life

DSM-5: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorder

include:

• anxiety disorders

• Obsessive compulsive disorder

• Trauma/stressor disorder

• bipolar disorders

• depressive disorders

• personality disorders

• etc.

Anxiety disorders: 15-20% in us population

Include:

• panic disorder

• agoraphobia -intense fear about being in situations where escape might be difficult or help unavailable

• social anxiety disorder

• generalized anxiety disorder

• phobias

• obsessive compulsive disorder

• trauma/stress-related disorders

Panic disorder

characterized by having unexpected panic attacks

they are intensely afraid of being watched and judged by others

Generalized anxiety disorder

is characterized by continuous and pervasive feelings of anxiety.

people w/ this condition tend to feel continually tense and apprehensive,

experiencing unfocused negative and out of control feelings

GAD

• worry all the time

• frequently agitated

• unlike other people w/ anxiety, people can’t identify what’s causing the anxiousness

OCD- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

used to be in an anxiety disorder, now its complex enough to be its own disorder

Often conditioned as unwanted repetitive thoughts which become obsessions which are sometimes accompanied by action and that comes with compulsions

*Being neat orderly and fastidious doesn’t mean you have OCD*

OCD is a condition that become obsessive like washing your hands, this action can become compulsive to relieve intense anxiety

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

It’s symptoms are often classified into major clusters

• relieving the event through dreams, memory, and flashbacks

• Involves avoiding the situation that associate with the event

• Describes excessive physiological arousal, like heart pounding, muscle tension, anxiety or irritability

Depression

The #1 cause of disability and lost work days within a lifetime. 22%

Five signs of depression:

• Appetite weight gain or loss

• Too much or little sleep

• Decrease interest in activities

• Feeling worthless fatigued or lethargic

• Difficulty concentrating and or making decisions

For a diagnosis, these symptoms need to cause the person or people around them prolonged distressed

Bipolar disorder

Involves dark lows of depression and bouts of mania

A true manic episode doesn’t just mean being energetic and happy; it’s a period of intense restlessness but often optimistic hyperactivity

Schizophrenia

Are often characterized by disorganized thinking emotions and behaviors that are often incongruent with their situations and disturb one’s pov

Including delusion and hallucinations; involve a loss of contact with reality

Positive symptoms: Hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking are called

Negative symptoms: blunted affect, reduced speech, and social withdrawal

Eating disorders

Have been increasing since the 1950’s; around 20 million women and 10 million men have experienced an ED at some point in their lives

Three symptoms:

• Anorexia Nervosa

• Bulimia Nervosa

• Binge-eating Disorders

Anorexia Nervosa

Typically starting around puberty, most known within adolescents

involves maintains a starving diet, to maintain being skinny out of fear of being fat

Beings as a diet which becomes out of control.

A refusal to maintain a weight at or above what would normally be considered minimally healthy.

Bulimia Nervosa

Includes body image disturbance

Occurs at any body weight the following behavioral symptoms are:

• binge eating followed by fasting or purging (vomiting/laxatives)

This cycle of symptoms and damage many body systems including a whole digestive system → irregular heartbeat inflammation of the esophagus and mouth, tooth decay and other organ damage.

Binge eating disorder

Binge-eating, followed by emotional distress;

• lack of control, disgust or guilt but without purging or fasting

Although binge-eating disorder is not defined by a disturbance of body image; many individuals report feeling unsatisfied with their body weight/shape

Casual attributions

The process by which people explain the causes of events and behaviors, attributing them to internal factors (like personality) or external factors (like the situation)

its is also broken into two types:

-situational attributions

-Dispositional attributions

situational attributions

focuses on factors external to the person, such as their expectations, rewards or punishments

ex. we might see a women smile warmly and believe that the situation demanded she be polite

Dispositional attributions

focuses on the person themselves such as their traits, preferences and other personal qualities.

ex. looking at the same smiling women, we might use dispositional attribution and believe she smiled because she’s joyful or friendly

Fundamental Attribution Error

the assumption that people are in control of their own behavior

ex. when we hear someone yelling at another person, the most common attribution is that they are mean and easily angered or unfriendly rather than they might be frustrated or disappointed about something that’s happened.

Just world hypothesis

the belief that people get the outcomes they deserve

Implicit theories of personality

allow us to interpret the world without having to scrutinize every situation we encounter instead we can fill in an information missing

Out-group homogeneity effect

A bias in the way we think that we think about other people. most of us have a lot of exposure to people in our own group, our in group. We often have less exposure to other groups, that is our groups

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Make two types of judgement

The first is whether a face they see out of a computer screen is out of a black person or a white person

The second is whether a word they see is a good or bad word

Self serving bias

The tendency of an individual to take credit by making dispositional or internal attributions for positive outcomes

but situational or external attributions for negative outcomes

Bystander effect note

Failing to help is often produced by the way people understand the situation

Multiple bystanders = ?

Diffusion of responsibility

Each bystander persuaded that someone else will respond to the emergency

Larger groups: bystanders

Less help: members = strangers

More help: members = familiar

Behaviorism

Learning only has to do with observable behaviors. NOT with unobservable or internal processes

Habituation

The decline in an organism’s response to a stimulus once the stimulus has become familiar.

Ex. Getting used to a busy street after living in the area after a while.

Dishabituation

An increase in responding caused by a change in something familiar

Ex. Someone seemingly oblivious to traffic noise will notice if the noise suddenly stopped.

Classical conditioning

an experiments credited with the discovery of classical conditioning

Ex. Pavlov’s expirement ringing a bell that indicated its time for his dog to eat. After repeating this expirement his dog knows that the bell signalizes its time to eat.

Conditioned stimulus

A signal that has no importance to the organism until it is paired with something that does have importance.

Ex. The bell in Pavlov’s experience is the conditioned stimulus. Before, the dog associated the bell with nothingness. After multiple times hearing it with the presentation of food, he associated the bell with food and started to drool.

Stimulus generalization

a response to a range of stimulus provides that the stimuli are similar enough to the original CS.

Ex. Like the bell, the dog will also respond to anything that has the same pitch. And have a less strong reaction to sounds that are a few notes higher or lower.

Extinction

conditioned responses dish without reconditioning

Ex. If Pavlov’s kept ringing the bell without giving the dog any food, eventually the dogs response would no longer happen b/c the bell will no longer be a productive of food.

spontaneous recovery

sometimes, long after extinction re-exposer to CS evokes the CR

operant conditioning/ instrumental

occurs when a behavior is associated with the occurrence of a significant event.

Ex.a rat with no knowledge in a laboratory learns to press a lever in a cage to receive food after exploring its cage.

Thorndike’s law of effect

when a behavior has a positive effect, it is likely to be repeated; REINFORCERS increase behaviors

When a behavior has a negative consequence, it is less likely to be repeated; PUNISHERS decrease behaviors

reinforcers

POSITIVE: strengthen responses through rewards

NEGATIVE: strengthen responses through removal of upsetting stimulus

• ex: the beeping sound when you turn on the car, telling you to put on your seatbelt.

A negative reinforcement takes away the punishing event to increase a behavior.

Fixed ratio schedules

reinforce behavior after a set number of responses.

Ex. Coffee shops rewards us with a free coffee after our 5th visit.

Variable ratio schedules

reinforce behavior after an unpredictable number of responses.

Ex. Slot machines; gambling

Fixed interval schedules

reinforce the first response after a fixed time period.

Ex. People checking time/outside more frequently as their mail/package time gets near

variable interval schedules

reinforce the first response after an unpredictable time period

Ex. Instructor giving periodic pop quizzes to test your knowledge and make sure you were paying attention

Cognitivism

learning also has to do with inner mental activity.

Constructivism

learning is more than acquisition. It is an active process.

Humanism

learning is a personal act to fulfill one’s potential.

Focuses on human freedom, dignity and potential.

Prenatal development

Sperm and egg merge turning into a zygote. This then turns into a blastocyst. Then the embryonic stage begins.

Embryonic stage

Cells differentiate into 3 distinct types

Those that will form:

• Nervous system and outer skin

• Skeletal system and voluntary muscles

• Gut and digestive organs

Fetal stage

begins two months after conception. The fetus grows 1in in length and has a heartbeat.

Cellular neighbors

cells that form its physical environment, as the cells reproduce and differentiate they become distinct. The newly made neurons migrate towards their appropriate positions.

Glial cells

act like guide wires to help neurons go where they need to. Various chemicals also guide the process by attracting some types of nerve cells.

Teratogens

factors that can disrupt development. Include general environmental factors such as

• air pollution

• Radiation

• Lead and mercury

• Cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol

• Viruses mom may carry

infancy

avg. Weighs 7.5lbs, reflexes and sensory capacity help them interact w/ the envoirment

Rooting reflex

its response to anything that touches their cheek, when you stroke her cheek she naturally turns her head in that direction.

Grasping reflex

a baby will automatically grasp anything that touches their palm. (Already known just to be sure)

Moro reflex

a newborn’s response when they feel like falling; baby spreads their arms and pull them back in and usually cry

Habituation procedures

is the decline in responding to a stimuli once the stimulus has become familiar.

Jean Piaget

known for testing children’s aptitudes and abilities.

“Do not actively learn but try to make sense of their world.”

Assimilation

The use of already developed schemas to understand new information. Label new information with existing knowledge

Ex. Is schemas is horses, children may call a stripped animal a horse instead of zebra.

Accommodation

involves learning new information, thus changing the schema. The child may adapt the schema to fit the new stimulus learning.

Ex. When a mother corrects the child.

Stage one; Sensorimotor stage

From newborn to two years. This the time when babies experience the world through senses and actions. Kids need to see something to know it exists.

Stage one; A not B effect

where A designates the place where the object was first hidden and B is the place where it was hidden last.

Ex. The child doesn’t understand that the object is its own independent item, doesn’t require the blanket.

Preoperational stage

age 2 - age 6; marked by child’s ability to mentally represent objects and events with words and images.

Big into animism. Kids believe this stuffed animals have feelings now.

Egocentric

the ability to take someone else’s viewpoint and increase rapidly during the preoperational stage.

The strange situation - Mary Ainsworth

• secure attachment

• Ambivalent attachment

• Avoidant attachment

• Disorganized attachment

Secure attachment style

• usually explores freely while the child is present

• Engages with the stranger

• Maybe be -set when the mother leaves but happy when she returns

Ambivalent attachment style

• child is weary about the situation in general

• Especially the stranger

• Stays close/ clings to the mother

• Doesn’t explore the room at all

• Child is in distress when mother leaves and comes back

Avoidant attachment style

• will ignore or avoid the mother

• Show little emotion when the mother leaves and returns

• May run away from mother if she approaches

• Won’t explore

• Won’t treat the stranger any differently

Disorganized attachment style

• cry in the situation when their mother leaves but avoid her when she returns

• Child might approach the mother but frees or fall to the floor

Worldwide

the proportion of children who fall into each attachment category is relative constant across cultures

Aphasia

a neurological impairment of language

Broka’s Area

located in the left frontal lobe; is involved with the production of speech, trauma to this area may cause difficulty with speech production.

Wernicke’s area

a region in the left temporal lobe; involved in expression and comprehension. allows a person to speak fluently but in a way that does not make sense.

a person may speak easily but their understanding of speech is impaired; answers might not match the question

psycholinguistics

the psychology of language; the study of mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind and brain.

phonetics and phenology

study of speech and sound, with the research focused on how the brain processes and understands these sounds

Morphology

the study of words structures, especially between related words. such as dog and dogs

Syntax

the study of how words are combined to form sentences and SEMANTICS considers the meaning of these words

SYNTAX: the structure how words are combined

SEMANTICS: what the words mean

pragmatics

concerned with the role of context in the interpretation of meaning.

B.F Skinner

pioneering behaviorist who brought us learning through reinforcement. He believed language was a product of associative principles and operant conditioning.

Noam Chomsky

Linguist, argues that children would never reach their full complex writing potential if learning is dependent.

Absolute threshold

The minimum stimulation needed to register a particular stimulus 50% of the time

• ex: seeing a candle from 30 miles in a dark clear night

• Ex: to hear the tick of a clock at 20ft under quiet conditions

Signal detection theory

A model for predicting how and when a person will detect a weak stimulus, partly based on context.

• ex:when you walk to your car that is parked in empty lot by yourself, your aware of the little noises around you b/c the situation is somewhat threatening.

Difference threshold

Ex: looking up at stars and seeing one brighter than the other, knowing that two stars can’t have the same brightness, some may still seem to exactly alike.i know there must be a difference but i just can’t detect the difference in their brightness

Weber’s law

We perceive differences on a logarithmic rather than linear scale. it’s not the amount of change, but rather the % of change that matters