Psychology 111: Exam 3

Kelley’s Attribution Theory

Theory that, for behaviors that are consistent with consensus and distinctiveness low (not common in everyone and not uncommon in the individual) we assume they act because of a character trait, but otherwise assume it is a factor of their environment that drove them to act that way

Fundamental attribution error

Error that all humans have, in which we tend to over-assume that people do things because of their personalities and that they themselves do things because of the circumstances

Mere-exposure effect

Tendency for a person to develop preferences for things that they are familiar with.

Lake Wobegon effect

The tendency of a person to believe that they are above average when placed in a group, regardless of where they really stand in the group

Self-serving bias

The tendency to place an external locus of control on negative experiences and an internal locus of control on positive experiences (we deserve the good that happens to us, not the bad)

Prisoner’s Dilemma (Social Traps)

conflicts of interest that arise within a group, in which people deciding to pursue their own short-term goals instead of those of the group leads to loss for the group (but oftentimes larger losses for the individual if they do not act self-interested)

Compliance

Going along with the specific requests of a social group

Conformity

Going along with the unspoken rules of a social group. There are two different kinds:

Private conformity

Conformity inside and out. Actual opinions and behavior change from the original paradigm.

Public conformity

Performative conformity only. Behavioral change without the actual change in belief or opinion one would expect.

Sherif paradigm

Study that showed that groups are likely to converge at a single answer for something vague, and privately conform to the group answer even away from the group

Asch paradigm

Study in which people were shown to be willing to go along with a group on an answer that was clearly wrong, but only publicly--the changes did not last mentally

Milgram’s shock study

Study of obedience, in which “teachers” would deliver “electric shocks” to a study confederate even as they begged them to stop. Showed that social power in the right setting is incredibly powerful, as most participants went all the way to the theoretically lethal voltages at the end of the experiment despite obviously being caused distress by doing so.

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

A person is more likely to fulfill a larger request for someone if they have just fulfilled a smaller request first

Informational influence

Power of a social group over information. More powerful in the case of ambiguity in the correct answer, and can lead to both private and public conformity.

Normative influence

Power of a social group arising due to fear of punishment by the rest of the group. Always present in social situations, but decreases with the presence of other dissenters in the group

Stanford Prison Study

Study demonstrating the sheer power of social norms and expectations--despite none of them having committed a crime or been in jail before, the simple environment of a simulated prison was enough to create severe psychological stress and behaviors that were not common to the participants otherwise (simply because it was believed to be expected of them)

Central persuasion route

Audience persuaded by the strength and quality of someone’s argument. Only works if a person is analytical or involved in the issue discussed

Peripheral persuasion route

Heuristic-abusing route to persuasion using slogans, appearance, etc. to incidentally persuade the audience of your argument

Cognitive dissonance

Internal tension caused by behavior that conflicts with our attitudes. Can lead to change--more commonly leads to attitude change rather than behavioral change, however

Social facilitation

The presence of others often increases performance in simple tasks and lowers performance in highly complex tasks

Social loafing

The tendency of people in group settings to work less hard in a group than they otherwise would, as they feel less responsible for their actions

Groupthink

Phenomenon by which group members tend to increase harmony in decision-making and ignore conflicting opinions

Group polarization

The strengthening of a group’s prevailing opinion about a topic following a group discussion of the topic. Everyone learns a new reason to think the way they already do. Leads to the creation of echo chambers

Deindividualization

Extreme loss of self-consciousness and restraint while in a crowd, leading to the loss of individual values. Often is the cause of rioting

Altruism

Helping behavior that is motivated primarily by the desire to benefit others. An evolutionary paradox--helping someone else seems to be against the odds of you also surviving if you are in competition. Why?

Bystander effect

Offshoot effect to social loafing. Everyone in a group thinks that someone else will attempt to help/take charge in a situation, which decreases the likelihood anyone does at all

Diffusion of responsibility

Part of the bystander effect. People feel less responsible for the results of their (in)actions while part of a large group

Robber’s Cave experiment

Study of two groups of boys at a summer camp that concluded that competition between groups leads to hostilities and cooperation leads those hostilities to decrease

Attractiveness bias

Physically attractive people are rated higher on intelligence, competence, sociability, morality, etc. when asked about

Just-world hypothesis

Belief that the world fundamentally is fair and gives people what they deserve. May be a mechanism to cope with life’s inherent randomness

Symmetry and sameness

Human attraction tends to be driven by?

Baby face effect

Adults and other people/things that look like babies are more likely to be rated as nice, honest, warm, helpless, etc.--we tend to treat them like babies in some ways

James-Lange Theory of Emotion

Theory that states that emotions arise from separate physiological arousal states for each emotion

Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

Theory of emotion that states that body and mind are independently activated at the same time, and that there is only one state of arousal that occurs at the same time as cognitive processing of events as “emotion”

Schacter-Singer Theory of Emotion

Theory of emotion that states that mind and body combine inputs, interpreting the state of arousal through the cognitive lens to produce the emotional state

Sympathetic nervous system

Portion of your autonomous nervous system that directly acts in response to danger, without the interference of the majority of the brain/cognition

Parasympathetic nervous system

Portion of your autonomous nervous system that controls your ability to relax

Amygdala

Part of the brain directly responsible for controlling fear and anger and with a role in processing other emotions/responses as well

High road of emotion

Traditional pathway for emotion to be processed as laid out in Schacter-Singer, in which arousal is processed to generate emotion

Low road of emotion

Alternate pathway of emotion that shortcuts processing altogether and goes straight to the amygdala. Common for base negative responses like fear and anger

Polygraph

Device that measures the autonomic nervous system’s arousal to detect if they are lying. Has a tendency to falsely flag people as lying if they are simply nervous (35%)

Guilty knowledge test

Improved test for using a polygraph in which knowledge is tested that only the culprit of a crime would have and measuring the reaction to it. Has a higher degree of accuracy than traditional polygraph tests

Ekman’s theory of facial expression

Theory that states each basic emotion (happiness, anger, fear, sadness, surprise, disgust, and maybe interest) is hard-coded into us, along with a corresponding facial expression

Facial feedback hypothesis

The idea that expressing an emotion with a facial expression provides feedback that strengthens that emotion

Misattribution of arousal

Phenomenon in which a person is primed to experience their state of arousal in a way that is not consistent with what originally triggered it (ex: a person who just did something scary is more likely to find another person attractive)

Adaptation-level phenomenon

We evaluate our current experiences based on what we are used to--causes spikes in happiness or sadness to usually be temporary as a person gradually returns to their baseline emotional state

Social comparison theory

Theory that people tend to evaluate themselves based on the people around them

Stress

The psychological and physiological response to anything difficult, threatening, or challenging

Stressor

A source of stress

catastrophic stressors, major life events, and microstressors

What are the types of stressors?

Microstressors

What is the most significant source of stress in a person’s life?

Social readjustment rating scale

Scale for measuring risk based on how many stressful major life situations you are currently experiencing. The higher your rating, the higher chance you have of contracting illnesses

General adaptation syndrome

The three stages a body goes through in response to new stress: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion

Alarm

Threat mobilizes your body to act in resistance to stress

Resistance

Bodily resistance to stress that allows you to function under it. Not designed to last forever

Exhaustion

Damages built up from functioning under stress

Type A personality

General personality corresponding to competitiveness, high achievement, perfectionism, and higher levels of stress

Type B personality

General personality corresponding to being more laid-back and lower overall levels of stress

Uplifts

The opposite of microstressors: little things in a person’s day that make them happier or relieve their stress

Relaxation, exercise, and optimism

What are three things that a person can do to reduce their stress overall?

Psychological disorder

Categorized by the DSM as clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior that reflects dysfunction in the processes underlying mental function

DSM-5

The most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is used by psychologists to guide diagnosis of mental disorders.

Rosenhan study

Study in which a psychologist sent fake patients into a mental hospital to see if the doctors could tell that they were not. They could not, and threw false positives when told falsely that fakers would be coming. Debated as to whether or not it was a fair study

GAD, phobias, panic disorder

Anxiety disorders

Generalized anxiety disorder

High level of anxiety lasting for 6 months or more and with no obvious source of distress

phobic disorder

disproportionate and disruptive fear of something. Freud believed they were a displacement of a much deeper fear

Panic disorder

Pattern of intense physiological reactions that occur in the absence of an emergency to trigger them

PTSD

No longer classified as a panic disorder; Haunting memories, nightmares, numbed feelings, etc. that lingers in response to a traumatic experience

OCD

Disorder hallmarked by a cycle of obsessions and compulsions that cause great distress and disruption in daily life that a person gets locked into

Obsession

A persistent, uncontrollable thought present in someone with OCD

Compulsion

An intrusive, repetitive, inappropriate action related to a person with OCD’s obsessions, attempting to relieve the anxiety caused by the obsession

Fugue state, Amnesia, DID

Dissociative Disorders

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Disorder in which a person displays two or more distinct personalities that may not fully be aware of each other. Often comes from a history of childhood abuse, and may be the ultimate coping mechanism: allows alternate personality to hide from trauma

Amnesia

Psychological loss of memory for self-relevant issue. Separate from the kind that can be triggered by brain injury

Fugue state

A more extensive state than simple amnesia where a person forgets their old life, wandering off to start a new life altogether

Major depression

Overwhelming feelings of sadness, despair, and hopelessness--one of the most common psych disorders

Minor depression

Depression that is not severe enough to be considered major depression but can become it. Responds to the same kind of treatments

Dysthymia

A chronic, low-intensity mood disorder--like depression, but less severe and much longer lasting. Responds to the same treatments as depression

Bipolar Depression

Disorder categorized by extreme moods, swinging between depressive states and (in type 1, delusional) manic states

Seasonal affective disorder

Depressive disorder that results from the change in season, and repeatedly relapses and starts again at predictable times of the year. In addition to depressive treatments, is also helped by a sun lamp (as it is often triggered by a decrease in sunlight)

Vicious cycle of depression

The cycle by which depression worsens itself over time, where depression leads a person to act unsociably in a way that causes their depressive situation to worsen (not hanging out with people, self-deprecation, etc.)

Learned helplessness

Possible theory of how depression is caused. A person learns that they cannot change their situation thanks to experience and develops depressive, resigned thought patterns

Depressive explanatory style

Style of explaining the events of the world around you to yourself often related to depression. Attributes negative events around you as internal (their fault), global (everywhere/applicable to everything), and stable (unchangeable).

Schizophrenic disorders

The most expensive mental illness to take care of. Leads to a host of positive and negative symptoms, including delusions, hallucinations, disturbance of affect, and incoherent thinking

Delusions

Held beliefs by a schizophrenic person that are at odds with reality, such as the idea that a shadowy organization is specifically spying on them

Hallucinations

Sensory experiences of a schizophrenic person that are fabricated by the mind. Most commonly auditory, but can be of any sense.

Paranoid schizophrenia

Deprecated classification of schizophrenia marked by delusions, suspicion, and hostility

Catatonic schizophrenia

Deprecated classification of schizophrenia marked by frenzy states followed by immobility

Disorganized schizophrenia

Deprecated classification of schizophrenia marked by inappropriate actions, thinking, and affect

Undifferentiated schizophrenia

Deprecated classification of schizophrenia marked by symptoms that are a mix of other classifications

Residual schizophrenia

Deprecated classification of schizophrenia that shows no symptoms but has in the past and may be at risk of doing so again

Personality disorders

Highly inflexible and maladaptive personalities, present in about 10% of the population

Borderline personality disorder

Personality disorder marked by instability in self-image, mood, and social relationships, as well as impulsivity and an extreme fear of abandonment. Most common in women

Antisocial personality disorder

Personality disorder marked by chronic patterns of self-centered, empathy-less thinking, as well as a failure to learn from experience and a lack of insight into one’s own motives. Most common in men

Psychopharmacology

The study of the effects of drugs in the treatment of psychological disorders

Trephination

The drilling of holes in the skull. One of the earliest known surgeries, and very common in its time, but we do not know what purpose it exactly served

Lobotomy

The severing of portions of the frontal lobe from connecting areas. Once believed to maintain everything else about a patient, but now known to cause a host of difficulties thinking ahead and other disordered thought patterns, in additions to being irreversible.

Antipsychotic drugs

Drugs that block dopamine and serotonin (though the first generation only blocked dopamine) to deal with the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia

Antidepressant drugs

Drugs, now most commonly SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) that are used to treat depressive disorders