Consciousness, Personality, Psychological Disorders, Treatment, and Healthy Living Flashcards

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts related to consciousness, personality, psychological disorders, treatment, and healthy living.

Conscious beings

Experiencing the world from a first-person perspective.

The Problem of Other Minds

The fundamental difficulty we have in perceiving the consciousness of others.

Intentionality

The quality of being directed toward an object.

Unity

The resistance to division; the mind creates one unified consciousness despite numerous sensations.

Selectivity

The capacity to include some objects but not others.

Transience

The tendency to change.

Mindfulness

Being fully present in each moment; being aware of your own thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

Self-Consciousness

Directing attention to the self as an object.

The Dynamic Unconscious (Freud's view)

An active system encompassing hidden memories, deepest instincts and desires, and the inner struggle to control these forces.

The Cognitive Unconscious (Cognitive Psychology's view)

All the mental processes that are not experienced by a person but that give rise to thoughts, choices, emotions, and behavior.

Repression

A mental process that removes unacceptable thoughts and memories from consciousness and keeps them in the unconscious mind.

Personality

Individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting; relatively consistent and unique.

Self-report surveys

Asking people to use metacognition.

Projective techniques

Respondents’ inner thoughts and feelings are revealed by their responses to standard, ambiguous stimuli.

Rorschach Inkblot test

Participants describe that they see, responses are scored relative to standard responses.

Thematic Apperception Test

Participants tell a story about a picture, responses are scored relative to standard responses.

The Trait Approach to Personality

Description, not cause.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Our conscious thoughts and actions come from mostly unconscious motives and conflicts.

Self-concept

A person's explicit knowledge of their own behaviors, traits, and other personal characteristics.

Self-esteem

The extent to which an individual likes, values and accepts the self.

Self-regulation

The capacity to alter one's responses (thinking, emotions, impulses) and task performance.

Self-efficacy

A person’s belief in their ability to perform tasks needed to attain goals.

The Medical Model

An approach that conceptualizes abnormal psychological experiences as illnesses that have biological and environmental causes, defined symptoms, and possible cures.

Disorder

A common set of signs and symptoms.

Disease

A known pathological process affecting the body.

Diagnosis

A determination of whether a disease or disorder is present.

DSM

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Anxiety

Negative, high arousal mood state.

Anxiety Disorders

Disorder in which anxiety is the predominant feature.

Phobic Disorders

Marked, persistent, and excessive fear and avoidance of specific objects, activities, or situations.

Specific phobia

An irrational fear of a particular object or situation that markedly interferes with an individual’s ability to function.

Social phobia

An irrational fear of being publicly humiliated or embarrassed.

Panic Disorder

The experience of unexpected panic attacks and a consistent fear of more.

Agoraphobia

A specific phobia involving a fear of venturing into public places.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Chronic excessive worry accompanied by restlessness, fatigue, concentration problems, irritability, muscle tension, or sleep disturbance.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Repetitive, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and ritualistic behaviors (compulsions) designed to fend off those thoughts interfere significantly with an individual’s functioning.

Mood Disorders

Mental disorders that have mood disturbance as their predominant feature.

Major Depressive Episode (MDE)

A severely depressed mood that lasts 2 or more weeks and is accompanied by feelings of worthlessness and lack of pleasure, lethargy, and sleep and appetite disturbances.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

Having one or more MDEs.

Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD)

Feeling depressed most of the day for more days than not, for at least two years.

Bipolar Disorder

An unstable emotional condition characterized by cycles of abnormal, persistent high mood (mania) and low mood (depression).

Schizophrenia

The profound disruption of basic psychological processes; a distorted perception of reality; altered or blunted emotion; and disturbances in thought, motivation, and behavior.

Hallucination

A false perceptual experience that has a compelling sense of being real despite the absence of external stimulation.

Delusion

A patently false belief system, often bizarre and grandiose, that is maintained in spite of its irrationality.

Disorganized speech

A severe disruption of verbal communication in which ideas shift rapidly and incoherently from one to another unrelated topic.

Grossly disorganized behavior

Behavior that is inappropriate for the situation or ineffective in attaining goals, often with specific motor disturbances.

Ego-dystonic

Thoughts and behaviors (dreams, compulsions, desires, etc.) that are in conflict, or dissonant, with the needs and goals of the ego, or in conflict with a person's ideal self-image.

Ego-syntonic

The behaviors, values, and feelings that are in harmony with or acceptable to the needs and goals of the ego, or consistent with one's ideal self-image.

Psychotherapy

An interaction between a therapist and someone suffering from a psychological problem, with the goal of providing support or relief from the problem.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Explore childhood events and encourage individuals to use this understanding to develop insight into their psychological problems.

Client-centered therapy

Assumes that all individuals have the capacity for growth.

Behavioral Therapies

Disordered behavior is learned; symptom relief is achieved through changing overt maladaptive behaviors into more constructive behaviors.

Exposure therapy

Confronting an emotion-arousing stimulus directly and repeatedly, ultimately leading to a decrease in the emotional response.

Cognitive Therapies

Helping a client identify and correct any distorted thinking about self, others, or the world.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

A blend of cognitive and behavioral therapeutic strategies.

Psychopharmacology

The study of drug effects on psychological states and symptoms.

Treatment Illusions

Natural Improvement, Non-specific treatment effects, Placebo effect, Reconstructive memory.

Placebo Effect

An inert substance or procedure that has been applied with the expectation that a response will be produced.

Healthy Psychology

How do emotions and personality factors influence the risk of disease?

Fight-or-flight response

An emotional and physiological reaction to an emergency that increases readiness for action.

Primary appraisal

Interpretation of a stimulus as stressful (or not).

Secondary appraisal

Determining whether it’s something you can handle (or not).

Burnout

A state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion resulting from long-term involvement in an emotionally demanding situation accompanied by lower performance and motivation.

Rational coping

Facing stressors and working to overcome them.

Reframing

Thinking about a stressor in a way that reduces the threat.

Positive Psychology

A focus on enhancing human strengths.