What makes a good theory??

-Theory must be consistent with prior observations such as predictions that are supported by research

-Must conform to law of parsimony

-Law of parsimony/occam's razor: theory should be as simple as possible so components may be added to base theory to increase the complexity. 

-Specific, allows us to add appropriate complications to be measured.

-Measurable

-Establish Causality

-Causality: know if A causes B or if B causes A

-Falsifiable: Something that can be disproven to create certainty, it must always contain evidence against it.

How Do We Collect Data?

-Direct observation:Watch and record behavior as objectively and precisely as possible.

Ex. Livestream

-Questionnaire: A series of written questions designed to obtain info about attitudes, opinions, and specific aspects of behavior.

-Interview:Face to face dialogue

-Psychological test:A standardized measure to obtain a sample of subjects' behavior.

Ex. Intelligence tests

-Physiological/neural recording: An instrument monitors and records specific physiological processes in a subject.

Ex.Using electrodes to measure stress. 

-Examination of archival records: Analyze existing institutional records

Types of Research:

-Descriptive Research:How common is X? When does Y occur?

-Reports a rate

-Correlational Research:Are X&Y related? If X changes, how will Y change?

-To find a relationship, measure and compare.

-Experimental Research: Does X cause Y? If we manipulate X, how does Y change in response?

-Uses manipulation to evaluate effect.

Descriptive research

-Descriptive Research: any means to capture,report,record, or otherwise describe a group

Ex. naturalistic observation, participant observation, case studies, surveys

-Based on a single measured variable and may be grouped with correlational research

Types of Statistics:

-Statistics: Using math to organize, summarize, and interpret numerical data.

-Descriptive Statistics: Organizing and summarizing data in a useful way that is easier to visualize

-Inferential Statistics: Interpreting data and drawing conclusions.

Describing Data:

-Mode: Most frequent value.

-Median: Look at total number of values, divide in half,record value given for middle data point

-Mean: Average; center of dataset skewed by outliers

-Range: Subtract lowest from highest data value

Correlational Research:

• Correlational research: looks at the relationship between two or more measured variables.

• CORRELATION キCAUSATION

• Correlation coefficient ( R ): Describes the relationship between two variables

•  Between -1.0 (increase in one variable leads to decrease in the other) to +1.0 (increase in one variable = increase in other )

•  Sign indicates direction of correlational scale with 0= no relationship

• Correlation: direction and strength of a relationship between two variables.

Experimental Research:

• Experimental research: Manipulating one variable under controlled conditions so resulting changes of another variable can be observed

•  Differs from descriptive research and correlational research

•  Experimental research acts to detect cause-and-effect relationships and tests theories through experimentation. Hypothesis driven!!!

• Independent variable: Variable manipulated

• Dependent variable: Variable affected by manipulation

• Extraneous (confounding) variable: Uncontrolled events that can effect the dependent variable

• Internal validity: Degree to which results can be attributed to the independent variables and not other explanations.

• External validity: The degree to which results can be generalized to others.

• Ethics is a general set of principles of how people should be treated when participating in a study.

• Core ethical principles:

  • Respect for persons

    • Participants must be treated as autonomous, free to make their own decisions.

    • Informed consent: provide information about the research and potential risks and benefits.

  • Principle of beneficence

    • Researchers must take precautions to protect participants.

  • Principle of justice

    • Everybody must be representative of the group that will benefit.

Animal Research

• All animals require legal protection, and must follow the three R’s of animal care; Replacement, refinement, reduction.

  • Replacement: Must explain why a simpler species cant be used for the experiment.

  • Refinement: Improvements that can be made to mitigate harm

  • Reduction: Reduce pain and the amount of specimen being tested.

Ch 9:  Language & thought:

The Structure of Language:

• Phonemes: Smallest speech units

• Morphemes: Smallest unit of meaning (prefixes,suffixes)

• Semantics: Meaning of words and word combinations (meaning behind what we said)

• Syntax: A system of rules for arranging words into sentences (included in grammar)

Language Milestones:

• 0-3 months: coos, gurgles and orients to sounds

• 4-6 months: responds to name, consonant sounds, babbles and cries.

• 7-18 months: copies gestures, becomes familiar with native language and responds to gestures.

• 2-3 years: Uses short sentences; can match objects to names, follows verbal commands. TELEGRAPHIC speech

• 4-5 years: Uses proper simple grammar

.

Theories of language acquisition

• Skinner:Behaviorist

  • Believes language was verbal behavior which is learned through reinforcements from another person.

  • Language is learned and guided by parents Ex. babbling dada and seeing parents happy.

  • CAN'T explain the rapid development of human language in early childhood.

• Chomsky: Nativist

  • Believed brains are evolved to produce language.

  • Children acquire nouns before verbs

  • Believed in critical periods for language which demonstrate a biological constraint. Sensitive period is a better way to refer to this idea.

• Interactionist

  • Nature and nurture both contribute language acquisition.

• Broca's area: Area of brain responsible for speech production

  • Aphasia: Inability or difficulty producing speech 

    • Broca's aphasia is mostly lower frontal lobe trauma.

• Wernicke's area:  (temporal lobe)Area of brain responsible for speech comprehension.

  • Aphasia: Could produce speech, however it was nonsense

    • Wernicke’s aphasia  is mostly temporal lobe trauma

Mental Lexicon

•  Mental lexicon: storage of words and related concepts

  • Related to priming

  • Occurs in the order of phonemes–morphemes — semantics.

• Linguistic relativity (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis): A theory which claims structural differences in language can alter one’s perception and understanding of reality.

Creativity:

• Steps to creativity

  • 1. Preparation: becoming familiar with topic

  • 2. Incubation: taking break from effortful problem solving

  • 3. Illumination: suddenly realizing solution to problem

  • 4. Evaluation: deciding how good your solution is

Ch.10: Intelligence and Psychological Testing

What is intelligence?

• Self- Enhancement Bias: tendency to judge one’s performance as superior without any evidence of expertise.

Intelligence testing

• Ratio IQ: Divide a person's mental age by their physical age then multiplying by 100

• Deviation IQ: Divide a person's test score by the average test score of people in the same age group x 100.

Nature of intelligence

• Charles Spearman:

  • 3 tier:

    • General intelligence (g)

    • Middle level ability (m)

    • Specific abilities (s)

• The Flynn effect: intelligence quotients seem to increase over time.

• Crystallized intelligence: Apply previously learned knowledge to current problems

  • Built up over time

• Fluid intelligence: Deal with novel situations without any previous knowledge.

  • Starts high then declines over time.

  • Deal with abstract problems and see the abstract relationships

• Triarchic theory of intelligence (Sternberg) :

  • Analytic Intelligence: Ability to problem-solve; traditional intelligence tasks.

  • Creative intelligence: Ability to generate novel solutions using existing skills and information

  • Practical Intelligence: Ability to adapt to everyday situations.

• Theory of Multiple intelligences (Gardner) : 

  • Consists of 8 independent intelligences.

Psychometric Standards:

-Achievements Tests: Designed to discover how much someone knows

Ex. midterm

-Aptitude Tests: Designed to measure potential for future learning and performance

Ex. GRE for those looking to enter graduate school

Heredity: Predisposition

• Natural selection: Those whose genes endow them with more adaptive traits are more likely to survive and reproduce

  • Pass on desired genes causes shift in population to increase said gene in general population

• Heritability: Percentage of the variation in a characteristic attributed to genetic factors.

  • Correlation is preferred over heritability.

  • Galton  believed in heritable components

Group Differences in Intelligence

• Outcome bias: Refers to the extent that a test underestimates a person's true intellectual ability.

• Predictive bias: Occurs if the test successfully predicts criterion measures for some groups but not for others.

Ch. 11 Human Development

Developmental Research Designs:

• Cross-sectional: compares individuals of different age groups at the same point in time

• Longitudinal: Repeatedly test the same individuals as they age.

• Sequential: Repeatedly test multiple age cohorts as they grow older.

Prenatal development:

• Germinal Stage: Period from conception to 2 weeks (zygote)

  • Rapid cell division occurs

• Embryonic Stage: Period from 2-8 weeks

  • Growth of major body structures.

  • Occurs once blastocyst implants itself in the wall of the uterus.

  • Life support structures develop

  • Cephalocaudal Principle of Development (TOP-BOTTOM):Tendency for development to occur from the head to the tail

  • Proximodistal Principle of Development (INSIDE-OUTSIDE): Tendency for development to occur from internal organs outwards to extremities.

• Fetal Stage: From 9 weeks - birth

  • Refinements and finishing touches

  • Capable of movements + has a skeleton

  • Brain cells begin to generate axons + dendrites and undergo cell-cell communication.

Genetics + Sex Determination:

• Men always get Y chromosomes from dad .

• Sex linked traits are typically shown in men.

• The Y chromosome in men contains TDF

  • TDF (Testosterone determining factor): Initiates development of testes= male

Teratogens:

• Teratogens: Environmental agents or substances that negatively impact prenatal development.

  • Ex. alcohol, malnutrition, nicotine

• Teratogens may not only occur from maternal drug use but also maternal illness/ exposure to toxins as well as malnutrition and emotions.

• Teratogens have such a negative impact on prenatal development due to the rapid cell growth which occurs meaning a small amount of teratogens have a major impact.

• Embryos are more vulnerable than the fetus however the CNS is constantly vulnerable.

• Unborn children mimic the cadence of their mothers native tongue.

Infancy + childhood (cognitive development)

• Cognitive Development: How the brain develops

• Nerve connection in the occipital lobe occurs before birth.

• Psychologist William James believed that newborns are confused by the world since they have no context due to a lack of interaction. He believed that they have an empty mind (tabula rasa) which is written on and developed through experience. This idea was later proven wrong since perceptual systems are stimulated in the womb and are functional at birth.

• Visual systems are not stimulated till birth however after birth they develop in a continuous fashion which starts off with a very limited range.

• Babies at 3-4 months organize visual stimuli into Gestalt where humans group certain things together to create a simpler image.

• Newborns are especially attentive to objects that resemble faces due to selective vision pressures of infants which perfectly allow them to see their mother when breastfeeding.

Sensory-perceptual development:

• Audition

  • Sound localization disappears at 4 months and reappears at 6 months

  • Phoneme discrimination exceeds that of an adult but disappears by age 1

  • Music perception shows similar responses of consonant + dissonant patterns of an adult.

• Jean Piaget Believed that children construct their own knowledge through experience and learn to add or create new  concepts as conflicting information is encountered. Key features of Piaget's theory include assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium.

  • Assimilation: where NEW INFO IS ADDED to existing cognitive structures. Key to category formation.

  • Accommodation: where we must CREATE A NEW cognitive structure to accommodate new info that didn't fit before.

Piaget’s Stage Theory

• The stage theory proposed by Piaget was later disproved but acts as a starting point for modern psychological studies on cognitive development.

  • Sensorimotor Stage: 0-2 yrs old where info is acquired through motor abilities.  .

    • Development of primary circular reactions (repeated actions on their own bodies) secondary circular reaction ( repeated actions on objects outside of their bodies) Tertiary circular reactions (experiment with different items in varying context to experiment)

  • Preoperational: 2-7 Begins egocentrism and motor skills but don't get conservation.

    • World is represented symbolically, words represent things that aren't there.

  • Concrete operational: 7-11 Sometimes gets conservation but cant really think abstractly.

  • Formal operational: 11+ Can think about abstract concepts logically

    • Have a scientific experimentation mentality.

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

• Psychologist Lev Vygotsky believed that parents provided a scaffold for their children, they gave them cognitive support to complete tasks. Believed cognitive development had a lot to do with person to person interaction over person to object.

• Zone of proximal development: What a child can do independently vs what they can do with assistance.

Social Development + Attachment

• John Bowlby studied attachment styles in infancy

• Mary Ainsworth Studied attachment styles and strange situation

• Kohlberg: studied morality and Heinz’s dilemma

• Attachment: The emotional bond created between caregivers and their young.

Infant Attachment Styles:

• Secure attachment: Most common where child adjusts calmly to departure and return of p.c. happy return

• Insecure-resistant: The child freaks out at their departure

  • Typical of parents with limitations to how long they can see you but you know they love you.

• Insecure-avoidant: doesnt gaf when parent comes or goes

  • Usually seen in parents who choose not to interact with their kid.

• Disorganized: error/ catch all terms for kids who react in various ways.

Moral Development

• Kohlberg’s stage theory is made up of 3 stages

  • Preconventional Reasoning: Judgements are not based on internalized moral values but are instead based on negative or positive consequences.

  • Conventional Reasoning: Judgements are based on conformity to expectations of social rules.

  • Postconventional Reasoning: Moral judgements are based on internalized principles.

Physical, Brain, and Motor Development:

• First areas of brain to develop is the brainstem while the last are the associative areas of cortex

• Skill development typically occurs in stage-like sequences and age of acquiring skills varies.

• Brain gets rid of any parts of the brain which aren't used hence damage to visual abilities when visual deprivation occurs.

• Biological & environmental factors interact.

Adolescence

• The brain's hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to secrete hormones.

• The brain begins to share info faster due to maturation and corpus callosum growth which allows for specialization and more info sharing.

• Synaptic pruning occurs which eliminates unused connections to increase specialization.

• Adolescents tend to do stupid shit due to the frontal cortex not being fully developed

Adulthood + Old Age

• Fluid intelligence declines while crystallized intelligence increases.

• Frontal and Parietal lobes show greatest loss, they control flexible thinking therefore older people typically have more rigid beliefs.

• Socioemotional Selectivity Theory: A theory on aging which specifies the perception of time impacts selection and pursuit of goals.

  • Younger adults favor info related goals while older adults favor emotion related goals’

Ch 12 Personality

The Psychodynamic Perspective (Freud)

• Psychodynamic: Believes personality and behavior are formed by unconscious needs and desires.

• Under this approach personality is constructed by three levels: conscious, preconscious, unconscious

• Psychodynamic perspective has a focus on psychic energy which is generated by instinctual drives and is discharged in socially acceptable ways or non socially acceptable ways.

  • The Id: Exists within the unconscious mind and is who we are in the center of our being which is later filtered by everything else.

    • Acts on the pleasure principle which seeks immediate gratification or release.

  • The Ego: Decision making aspect which suppresses the Id and functions at a conscious level.

    • Operates under the reality principle which decide when and under what conditions it is appropriate for the Id to discharge its impulses and satisfy its needs.

  • The Superego: Final personality structure to develop which includes moral aspects of personality and understand internal + societal values.

    • Instead of when this could happen the Superego questions if  impulses should occur based on moral ideals and values of society

  • Conflict occurs when the id is unable to be suppressed by the Ego  which causes anxiety. These conflicts due to the lack of Id control cause us to use defense mechanisms.

  • Defense mechanisms:

    • Repression: Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious.

    • Projection: Attributing one's own thoughts and feelings onto another person. 

    • Displacement: Diverting emotional feelings from their original source to a substitute target.

    • Regression: A reversion to immature behavior.

Stages of Psychosexual Development

• Series of stages which focus on pleasure sensitive areas of the body and the adult personality is based off of progression through these stages.

• 

Analytic Perspective: Jung

• Focused on differing between two types of unconscious:

  • Personal Unconscious: Freud's unconscious

  • Collective Unconscious: Ancestral/ store of experience such as reflexes or archetypes

    • Archetypes: Universal behavior or thought patterns triggered by specific stimuli.

Individual Perspective:Adler

• Believed like humanists that we strive for superiority through improving oneself and mastering life's challenges.

• Feelings of inferiority (inferiority complex) forces us to engage in compensation to improve our inferiority or to engage in overcompensation where we attempt to hide our problems.

• Came up with Birth Order and its effects even though it is NOW known that environmental roles and needs affect personality and not birth order.

Interpersonal Perspective: Horney

• Neo-freudian who believed in social security where we need close relationships as we are social beings and it is the motivational force underlying our expression of personality.

• Lack of these important relationships and feeling may cause anxiety and  reactions of hostility

Behaviourism

• System of psychology where only OVERT behavior is worth studying with a focus on external 

• On opposite side of spectrum of Behaviourism — Cognitive

Skinner + Personalityz

• Skinner is famed for his focus on Operant conditioning which is a form of learning that focuses on behavior as determined by the consequences of engaging in that behavior.

• Believed personality is a collection of responses tied to various stimuli and the strength of response was affected by experience as humans are reactive beings.

• His theory tells us that Personality is dynamic as experience is gained.

Social Cognitive Theory: Bandura

• Broad theory which does not focus on personality exclusively, this theory takes major opposition to the prior idea of behaviorism which believed humans had no free will however in Bandura's theory we are conscious beings.

• Bandura believed learning is not a passive process and we actively seek out information, the environment influences our behavior but does not determine it.

• Reciprocal Determinism: The interplay and influence Internal mental events, external environment, and behavior.

• Came up with the idea of Observational Learning(vicarious conditioning) where organisms' response is influenced by observing others which may be highlighted by the BoBo the clown experiment.

• Confidence and Insecurity in ability is determined by Self-efficacy which is your beliefs about your ability to perform behaviors that would lead to certain outcomes. These determinations of Self-efficacy are subjective as they depend on many variables.

• Situational factors have a large effect on behavior, responses are decided whether they lead to reinforcement in their specific situation, they're not thinking of the big picture.

Humanist Approach

• Pioneered by Maslow and Rogers which is a reaction to Freud and behaviorists that focus on self-actualization and the importance of what makes humans unique.

• Humanists believe people may take intentional actions to overcome biological urges, move away from reactivity, and embrace the Phenomenological Approach where things we looked at may be framed diff.

• Rogers focused on the self and our tendency to maintain our self-concept which may cause someone to engage in self-verification or self-enhancement that is caused by incongruence.

Maslow’s Self-Actualization Theory

• Focus on the total realization of one's full human potential which describes two categories of needs:

  • Deficiency Needs: Things concerned with survival whether its physical or social

  • Growth Needs: Unique human need that drives us to our fullest potential.

Five Factor Model

• Used to try to understand personality through Five traits known by the acronym OCEAN

  • Openness to experiences

  • Conscientiousness

  • Extraversion

  • Agreeableness

  • Neuroticism

Eysenck's Theory

• Believed personality is structured from a 3 traits that other traits branch off from as a continuum.(Extraversion,Neuroticism, Psychoticism)

• Believed to be genetically influenced

• Good at predicting behavior across a broad range 

Cattel’s 16 factors

• Range of factors which predict behavior more specifically.

Neuroscience Perspective

• According to the neuroscience perspective introverts have overly aroused cortexs’ while extroverts and under aroused cortexts. 

• Differences are also related to autonomic nervous system stimulation

• Ascending Reticular Activating System: Acts as a filter, regulates arousal in the brain, is tied to introversion and extraversion

Theory + Assessment

• Psychodynamic= projective techniques

• Humanistic= Self Report measures

• Social-cognitive=Behavioral assessment

• Biological= Physiological measurements

• Trait theorists= inventories (MMPI)

Ch.13 Social Behaviour

Attribution

• Attributions: Judgements about causes of our own and others’ behavior and outcomes.

• Attribution theory refers to how we interpret the behavior of OTHERS, we could judge them based on dispositional (a flaw of them as a person) or as situational.

• Kelly's theory consists of behavior,attributional factors(consistency,Distinctiveness,Consensus) which lead to an attribution.

• Attributional biases may occur such as the Fundamental Attribution Error which we use to explain OTHERS behavior where we underestimate situational factors and overestimate personal factors.

• Attributional biases may lead to Self-serving bias where we try to explain our own behavior by overestimating personal attributes when successful and overestimating situational factors for failures.

• The Primacy effect causes an individual to pay more attention to initial info which then affects how we perceive any prior info thus being a huge impact on our attributions of others (first impression).

Detecting + Resisting Compliance Techniques

• Norm of Reciprocity is the expectation for us to treat others well when they've been kind to us.

• The Door-in-the-face technique is used by persuaders where they begin with a larger request that they know will be refused to then follow up with a smaller request that doesn't seem as bad in comparison making them more likely to say yes.

• The Foot-in-the-door technique: Is when the persuader uses smaller requests to lead them to a bigger request

Crowd Behaviour and Deindividuation

• In crowds we typically undergo deindividuation to increase cooperation through uniformity as we crave to belong as we have evolved to seek safety in numbers which requires us to adjust our thinking and behaviors to be able to belong and collaborate with others more efficiently.

The Bystander Effect

• Bystander effect: As groups of people grow someone requiring aid is less likely to receive it

• Diffusion of Responsibility: When the number of people increases individuals feel less accountable.

• Pluralistic ignorance: When people fail to act because they rely on social cues from others to let them know what behavior is acceptable. Relying on faulty social cues.

  • Results from human assumption that other people know best.

• Escalation of commitment: the longer one remains in a group the more difficult it is to leave.

  • Similar to foot-in-door, use small tasks to increase commitment until you're fully devoted then you are isolated.

Attitudes

• Attitudes: Variations in thoughts

  • Typically a positive or negative reaction to a stimulus

• The main components of attitude:

  • Cognitive: Thoughts and logic

  • Affective:Emotional component: feelings

  • Behavioural: Actions of attitude

Aggression

• Aggression:Behavior that is intended to harm others.

  • Reactive: Aggression with no goal

  • Premeditated: Aggression with a goal

• Hypothalamus stimulation causes aggressive behavior due to its involvement in maintaining homeostasis and fight-or-flight response.

• Decrease of amygdala. Frontal lobe is related to a decrease in aggression.

• Frustration-aggression hypothesis believes that aggression is a reaction to frustration.

• The Attribution of intentionality refers to how we tend to perceive others as having hostile intent.

  • Caused by survival instincts, intention changes how we perceive things completely

• Degree of empathy: How well we understand others and regulate our emotions.                

Psychodynamic processes:

• Principle of Catharsis: Aggressive behavior that discharges aggressive energy to temporarily reduce impulses to aggression by channeling energy into socially acceptable behaviors. (VENTING TO AVOID REAL WORLD AGGRESSION EX. PLAYING SPORTS)           

• Overcontrolled hostility: Straw that broke the camel's back idea of an immediate reaction following multiple provocations that may erupt into sudden violence.

• Social learning: Exposure to violent media is related to a tendency to behave aggressively.

  • This occurs due to learning behaviors through modeling

Altruism or Prosocial Behaviour

Evolutionary Approaches:

• From an evolutionary perspective we are more likely to help others which we share the most genes with due to the idea of kin selection.

• Another evolutionary idea is the idea of reciprocal altruism occurring because it increases the likelihood that that same person will aid us in the future.

Social learning:

• Social learning approaches believe that we engage in the norm of reciprocity because we believe we should help when others help us.

• Social learning approaches also believe we engage in the norm of social reciprocity because we believe we should help others and contribute to society's welfare.

Socialization 

• Children act more pro-socially if they are taught to be empathetic.

Empathy and Altruism

• Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: feelings of empathy for another person produce an altruistic motivation to increase that person's welfare.

Ch.14: Stress,coping, and health

Stress:

• Stress: Term used to describe external stimuli to internal experiences and bodily responses.

• Stressors: EXTERNAL stimuli and events that pose potential harm,challenge.

• Stress responses: INTERNAL integrated psychological and biological responses to stressors that work to restore equilibrium.

• Acute stressors: SHORT-TERM external circumstances 

• Chronic stressors: External circumstances that last WEEKS OR YEARS

• Traumatic stressors: Stressor involving THREAT TO LIFE OR PHYSICAL BEING.

• Frustration: Emotion or state experiences when failure occurs in pursuit of a goal.

• Primary Appraisals: Based on PERCEPTIONS OF STRESSORS CHARACTERISTICS.

• Secondary Appraisals: Based on PERCEPTIONS OF COPING RESOURCES AVAILABLE.

  • May be broken down further into internal and external factors.  EX. Internal = personality External= financial resources

Challenge + Threat Theory: aftermath of primary or secondary appraisals

• Challenges: Situations where resources exceed the demand of the situation.

  • Ability to feel more optimistic about outcomes.

• Threats: Situations where demands exceed the resources available for coping.

  • These things tend to be viewed in a more negative way.

Types of internal conflict

1. Approach-approach: two good ones

2. Avoidance-avoidance: lesser of two evils (both bad)

3. Approach-avoidance: choose a goal with good and bad aspects.

Emotional arousal + performance:

• Yerkes-Dodson Law; Idea that too little or too much stress impairs performance efficiency.

• Maximal Adaptability Model: Idea which emphasizes that animals are highly adaptive to stressors and may maintain high levels of performance when facing extreme highs or lows of demand from the environment.

Physiological Responses:

• Our autonomic nervous system acts as a stress response to protect the body and restore homeostasis.
  

• Prefrontal cortex: deals with consequence and decision making (Higher order processing of stimuli.)

• Thalamus: routes sensory info. Maintains homeostasis.

• Amygdala: Responds rapidly to stimuli increased or decreased by other brain areas.

• Hippocampus: long term memory + revival and storage.

• The hypothalamus controls to autonomic nervous system to enter either

  • Sympathetic nervous system: fight or flight (epinephrine and norepinephrine)

  • Parasympathetic nervous system: dampens stress response.

• The hypothalamus is triggered by the amygdala when cortisol needs to be released (long term stress) which triggers the HPA axis

  • HPA axis= Hypothalamus (CRH)– pituitary (ACTH) — adrenal glands (cortisol)

• Regulation of these systems comes in the form of  one of two types of feedback loops.

  • Positive feedback loop: Occurs when the presence of a  product of a reaction leads to MORE of that product to be produced.

  • Negative feedback loop: Occurs when the presence of a product leads to the INHIBITIONof that response. (most common in nature) occurs in the HPA axis.

• Reciprocal inhibition: activity of one thing inhibits another system.

  • Works in the ANS as the sympathetic nervous system acts first to the stress response and the parasympathetic nervous system stops it to calm down.

• The immune system contains an inflammatory response which is a response to injury and psychological stressors to fight infection and healing of bodily tissue. 

  • When the body experiences large amounts of stress it releases proteins called cytokines as this is the immune system's fight response as it prepares the body for injury.

Types of stress + how we adapt

• Psychologist Hans Selye was a major contributor to studying stress and places emphasis on the fact that stress poses a positive in our lives. He believed stress is unavoidable and its the thing that adds some spice to our lives.

• There are primarily two types of stress

  • Eustress (good stress): Things that the body can handle which may be beneficial and motivating.

  • Distress (bad stress): Things that the body cant handle which may be harmful and impair functioning.

• General adaptation syndrome describes the three phases which eventually lead to burnout associated with stress. This happens in three phases:

  • Burnout: Physical and emotional exhaustion usually due to work related stress.

  • Alarm: Activates sympathetic nervous system and is short lived.

  • Resistance: This is longer lasting but is eventually depleted as recruitment of resources is continued.

  • Exhaustion: Where resources are dangerously  depleted causing people to be easier susceptible  to sickness.

Behavioral responses to stress:

• Coping stress: efforts made to reduce demands of stress. (may be good or bad)

• Learned helplessness: behaviors are passive due to unavoidable unpleasant experiences. (giving up/acceptance)

• Self-blame: becoming very self critical.

• Self-indulgence: Acting on impulse when facing a stressor. (linked to addiction)

• Defense mechanisms: usually unconscious actions to handle emotions triggered by stress.

• Constructive Coping: Relatively healthful efforts to deal with stressful events which may help us change how we frame the stressor.

Effects of Stressors on Health

• Diathesis-Stress Model: Theory which states that mental disorders come from a genetic predisposition of the illness (diathesis) combines with stressful conditions which bring out a illness.

  •  This describes the interplay of genes and the environment and how the nature of these interactions affects disorders.

Relaxation Techniques:

• Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction:  Enhanced physical health based on medical symptoms.

• Stressors involving social rejection are MOST likely to trigger depression,       

Ch.15 Psychological Disorders

What is abnormal?

• Concepts of abnormality may be influenced by various biases

• Abnormality is a social construct consisting of the 3 D’s which all exist on a spectrum where as each D’s severity increases they begin to lean closer to abnormal.

  • Distressing: Causes stress/ discomfort to the self or others

  • Dysfunctional: Impairs ability to survive or causes interruption to their function in society

  • Deviant: Atypical behavior which violates social norms    

Terms to know

• Diagnosis: IDENTIFYING an illness or disorder

• Etiology: CAUSE and developmental history of an illness or disorder.

• Prevalence: AMOUNT of a population with a disorder at a given time

• Prognosis: probable COURSE of illness or disorder. (WHERE IT GOES FROM HERE)

• Institutionalization: Movement to relocate the mentally ill into asylums or other institutions.

• Deinstitutionalization: Movement to remove the mentally ill from institutions to integrate them into communities.

• Revolving door: Cycle of movement of mentally ill individuals, needing treatment, reentering society only to end up in an institution again due to a lack of resources.

• Reliability: Various clinicians should agree highly in diagnostic decisions.

• Validity: Diagnostic categories should capture the most essential features of various disorders.

• NONE of these are solidified ideas they are all dependent on past experiences

Historical perspectives

• The idea of a Demonic Model believes abnormal behavior is the result of supernatural forces

  • Believes mind is insatiable to understand basically it is kinda scapegoat

• The Medical Model believes that abnormal behavior is the result of bodily processes.

Diagnosis + Classification

• The DSM-5  is a psychological diagnostic manual consisting of 3 sections however it is not a perfect system as it relies heavily on categorization and has a lot of concerns with how it describes symptoms and not disorders.

  • It has two main alternatives the ICD 10 (europe) RDoC (USA)

• Diagnostic labels themselves pose social and personal issues as well such as

  • Human tendency to stereotype and believe labels makes it easy to believe a stereotype associated with a certain label.

  • Those who are diagnosed may fall victim to a self- fulfilling prophecy

Anxiety disorders

• Anxiety Disorders: Class of disorders characterized by feelings of excessive apprehension. The intensity of these feelings are typically way more severe than what the initial triggering situation was.

  • Made up of emotional symptoms, cognitive symptoms, physiological symptoms, behavioral symptoms

• OCD and PTSD were once seen as anxiety disorders however they now exist in their own category.

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD):CHRONIC  stress that is not tied to a SPECIFIC threat.

  • This disorder causes many physical symptoms involving weakness due to the use of the autonomic nervous systems fight or flight response burning through resources.

  • Starts earliest that most anxiety disorders usually beginning in the middle of the teenage years.

  • GAD avoidant behavior is caused by operant conditioning when you learn that you can avoid what scares you to feel better.

• Phobias (Phobic Disorders): PERSISTENT irrational fear of certain objects or situations that pose no real threat.

  • Often develop in childhood and get worse over time due to operant learning.

  • May occur from a single incident which makes neutral stimuli fear inducing.

  • Fears may not come from first hand experience but potentially a biological predispositional fear such as a fear of snakes or spiders.

• Panic Disorder:RECURRENT  intense instances of anxiety which occur suddenly and unexpectedly with potentially no specific trigger.

  • A disorder with a cyclical nature, when you experience one panic attack you become anxious about experiencing another one and that increased anxiety causes panic attacks.

  • Panic Attack:Highly intense anxious feelings that may increase in intensity to the extent of feeling terror.

    • Also seen in other disorders such as anxiety,mood, and eating disorders.

  • Anxiety Attack: Less intense reaction that is often triggered by a certain stressor making it avoidable.

Biological + Cognitive Factors:

• Low levels of GABA (neurotransmitter related to neuroticism) correlate with the more reactive nervous system seen in Anxiety Disorders. This lack of GABA doesn’t allow for the nervous system to calm down from its fight or flight response.

• Anxiety disorders cause maladaptive thoughts and beliefs causing things to be viewed as the scariest worst thing that may occur. 

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• OCD: Own branch of disorder characterized by persistent,uncontrollable intrusions of unwanted thoughts and urges to engage in ritualistic behavior, may experience thoughts of this action must be done or else something bad will happen.

• Obsessions:Repetitive  and unwelcome THOUGHTS

• Compulsions:Repetitive BEHAVIORAL responses

  • Engaging in compulsions help alleviate the anxiety 

Brain Areas Involves in OCD:

• Cingulate:Links reward and punishment info provoking emotional response.

• Caudate nucleus: Plans execution of movement and is involved in learning and emotion.

• Thalamus:Brain relay station, all senses but smell pass through here.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

• Enduring psychological disturbance after experiencing traumatic event(s) which may stem from physical or emotional trauma

Mood (Affective Disorders).

Depression

• Clinical Depression:The frequency, intensity, and duration of  symptoms are disproportionate to the actual situation.

• Major Depressive Disorder:PERSISTENT feelings of sadness that bring a loss of things that were once enjoyable (extreme) which may last for weeks,months, or years.

  • Anhedonia:Reduced ability to experience pleasure.

• Chronic Depressive Disorder:Far less intense prolonged feelings of sadness

• Women typically experience depression earlier than men.

• Depression is made up of various components such as emotional symptoms, cognitive symptoms, motivational symptoms, somatic symptoms (most varied) which all influence each other to continue the cycle of depression.

Bipolar Disorder

• Bipolar 1 Disorder: periods of depression that alternate with mania.

  • Even 1 manic episode is enough for diagnosis

• Bipolar II Disorder:Periods of depression alternating with hypomania

  • Hypomania: State between normal and hypermania that is still classified as abnormal.

Factors involved in mood disorders

• A major factor involved in mood disorders is Depressive Cognitive Triad

  • Depressive cognitive triad: Describes how depressed individuals think about themselves, the world, and the future which is in an extremely pessimistic manner and they are unable to help suppress these thoughts.

  • They recall more failures vs. success due to the role emotions play in recall, similar emotions recall memories that happened during that mood and for people who are constantly in a saddened state they are going to recall other memories from that state.

• Another factor is the Depressive Attributional Pattern.

  • Depressive Attributional Pattern: Relates success to factors outside of oneself and attributes negative outcomes to personal factors, they're too hard on themselves and don't reward themselves as they don't believe it was them.

• Learning factors also play a major role such as Learned Helplessness or the Loss of reinforcers

  • As describes before depression is a cyclical disorder, negative behaviors push you deeper into depression causing more negative behaviors continuing the cycle.

Dissociative Disorders:

Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder:

• Depersonalization:Feeling separated from your body and who you are.

• Derealization:Sense that the world is strange/ unreal like there's something wrong overall.

• This disorder is diagnosed through assessing a pattern of concerning thought processes.

• Dissociative Amnesia:Extensive memory loss following a traumatic event

  • Dissociative Fugue: Following a traumatic event where one flees their stressful life often to completely dissociate from who they are which may cause them to fully get up and leave their original environment.

• Dissociative Identity Disorder:Presence of 2+distinct personality states which each have their own sets of memories and thought patterns which may be as extreme as having totally different handwriting, allergies and glasses prescriptions.

  • Trauma-dissociation Theory/ Posttraumatic Model: Theory that DID stems from severe childhood trauma where an individual breaks up into alters to take on protective roles and at times childlike roles when they are faced with the trauma and eventually return to their true state following the stressor.

Personality Disorders

• Antisocial Personality Disorder: What we typically think of when thinking of a psychopath or sociopath, exhibit virtually no anxiety or guilt and indulge in impulsive behavior due to their inability to delay gratification of their needs.

  • Impulsivity that accompanies Antisocial Personality Disorder is due to reduced thickness in the prefrontal cortex.

  • Believed to stem from MAO-A gene which is linked to aggression and is mainly only seen in males. MAOA causes trouble regulating serotonin levels, too low of serotonin past a threshold results in explosive temperaments and impulsivity.

• Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Individuals who have grand self inflative fantasies about themselves. They have a major lack of empathy for others unless it affects how they may be viewed.

• Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): Characterized by an instability of behavior, emotion and identity which cycles through positive and negative emotions drastically and suddenly.

  • Individuals with BPD typically struggle with decision making and maintaining relationships as their frames of mind change drastically with little to no warning.

• Avoidant Personality Disorder: Individuals who struggle with extreme social discomfort due to feelings of inadequacy and a fear of being negatively evaluated.

• Obsessive-Compulsive PERSONALITY Disorder: Extreme perfectionism and rigidity characterized as mental and interpersonal control manifesting itself in lists,schedules,and rules.

• Schizotypal Personality Disorder: Those with ritualistic eccentric behavior who find extreme discomfort in social situations.

Somatic System Disorders

• Physical symptoms with no biological cause

• Somatic nervous system is the nerves which go to skin and muscles that are responsible for conscious activities.

• Hypochondriac: Concern about symptoms that are not that significant, believe it is  a greater illness constantly.

• Pain Disorder: Experience pain that is way out of proportion to what is causing it.

• Conversion disorder(functional neurological symptom disorder): Sudden paralysis, blindness, or loss of sensation.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (SAD):Characterized by poor communication skills, lack of social responsiveness (trouble with eye contact) , repetitive routine like behaviors, and atypical thought patterns.

• Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder: Characterized by difficulty maintaining attention or high impulsivity.

Schizophrenia

• Schizophrenia: Involves severe disturbances in thinking and behavior. May cause  disorganized speech patterns which only make sense to themselves.

  • Delusions: False beliefs that are kept even though there is plenty of evidence against it.

    • Delusions may come as delusions of grandeur which are delusions where your importance is inflated or as delusions of persecution where they fear someone/something is out to get them

  • Hallucinations: False perceptions that feel real.

Subtypes of Schizophrenia:

• Type I: Mostly consists of positive symptoms, where they behave in extreme and socially unacceptable ways with delusions and disordered behavior

• Type II: Mostly made up of negative systems, where they lack normal reactions, emotions or motivation. (does not struggle with dopamine)

• Even though Type I schizophrenia is looked at as the more extreme type it is also the only type which may have symptoms revered and may have intellectual impairment completely absent. Type I is easier/more effective to treat.

Factors involved in Schizophrenia:

• Dopamine hypothesis: Theory that schizophrenia involves high dopamine activity. (Dopamine causes the positive symptoms: the hallucinations and shit)

• Aberrant salience hypothesis: Suggests heightened dopamine levels increase attention to emotions and motivation making the environment more severe.

• Tardive dyskinesia: High dosage antipsychotic side effect which causes involuntary movements due to long term blocking of dopamine receptors.

• Glutamate theory: Low function  of NMDA receptors leading to an increase in glutamate which causes an increase in dopamine producing positive and negative symptoms.

• Stressful life events and high reactivity correlate with psychotic behaviors.

• Negative family dynamics especially in childhood may increase likelihood especially if the home is high in expressed emotion, high levels of hostility and a lack of personal space.

Ch.16  Treatment of Psychological Disorders

Elements of Treatment Process:

• The goal of psychological treatment is to help change maladaptive feelings, thoughts of behaviors however this treatment usually only comes when it gets to the point where an individual cant take it anymore.

Psychodynamic Therapies

• Psychoanalysis: based on Freudian principles where the main goal is to help the patient gain insight for them to have a conscious awareness of psychodynamic underlying problems which typically come from childhood.

• Psychoanalysis utilizes two methods:

  • Free association:Uncencorsed conversation based on the belief that things which are easiest to recall are things that are wanting to escape the unconscious to be brought into the consciousness for the client and the doc to talk about.

  • Dream Interpretation:Therapists help client understand the symbolic meaning of their dreams.

• Psychoanalysis also takes barriers to treatment into account:

  • Resistance:Defensive maneuvers that act as a sign that anxiety arousing material is being approaches (closer to insight)

  • Transference:Client responds irrationally to the therapist as if they're the troubled figure from their past which is being discussed which brings out repressed feelings and maladaptive behaviors.

    • Positive transference:feelings of affection, love

    • Negative transference: expressions of anger and hatred.

• Psychoanalysis also relies on statements of what the insight into behavior is which is completely based off of their interpretation and is very time consuming.

• A more time efficient psychodynamic approach is Interpersonal Therapy.

  • Interpersonal Therapy:Focus on clients CURRENT relationships with key figures in their lives.

Humanistic Psychotherapies

• Humanistic therapy takes a focus on the CONSCIOUS control of behavior and humans as being able to have personal responsibility. In humanistic psychology disordered perceptions are typically due to lack of awareness or negative self image.

• Client-Centered Therapy (Carl Rogers): Person centered therapy which focuses more on conversation thus having a less extreme power dynamic opening the client to be able to express themselves more freely.

• Gestalt Therapy:Subset of humanistic therapy which aims to bring feelings, wishes and thoughts into awareness to make the client feel WHOLE again. (Gestalt always refers to a unification.)

  • Typically carried out in groups and employs role-play methods like the empty chair technique which is more active than client-centered therapy.

Cognitive Therapies

• Key figures are Aaron Beck +Albert Ellis who put a major focus on the role of irrational and self defeating thought patterns with a goal to help client change the cognitions which underlie negative thoughts.

• Rational Emotive Therapy:Process of finding an activating event and figuring out how it has affected your belief systems so through therapy you may change those belief systems which cause maladaptive emotions and behavior.

• Becks Cognitive Therapy: Focuses on how irrational beliefs (distorted thought processes) cause maladaptive responses, aims to pinpoint these errors so clients may reprogram thought patterns.

Behavior Therapies

• Believes maladaptive behaviors are learned and are the problem and not a symptom. Aims to unlearn maladaptive behaviors through classical and operant conditioning.

Classical Conditioning Treatments

• Exposure: Treat phobias through exposure to the conditioned stimulus (only produces a reaction because they have learned to associate it with a specific outcome) without the unconditioned stimulus (unlearned response,automatic)

• Flooding: More accelerated form of therapy where you are exposed to real life systems fully without being able to leave.

• Implosion:Imagining scenes involving stimuli.

• Systematic Desensitization:Learning-based treatment for anxiety disorders where you learn to relax muscles to counteract feelings of anxiety, classically conditioning body to relax.

• In-Vivo desensitization:Controlled exposure to fear in real life scenarios to arouse anxiety so you become used to it and desensitized.

Evaluating Psychotherapies

• Psychotherapies are difficult to evaluate as humans are not easily quantifiable, treatment is not set up to be studied and quantified. The complex nature of the human mind is reflected by Spontaneous remission where suddenly the symptoms are reduced even when not treated .

• Meta-Analysis: the assessment of practices where researchers combine statistical results of many studies to come to one conclusion.

• Effect size: what percentage of clients receiving therapy had a more favorable outcome then those who didn't.

• Clinical significance: requirement that clients must fall within a range of those who do not have the problem, severe distress back to baseline. 

Biological Approaches to Treatment

• Psychopharmacology:Study of how drugs affect cognitions,emotions and behavior.

Antidepressant Drugs

• Tricyclics:Increase activity of norepinephrine (emergency response) and serotonin to prevent the reuptake of excitatory neurotransmitters. It keeps happy neurotransmitters in synapse longer to compensate for lower production.

• MAO inhibitors:Inhibits the breakdown of neurotransmitters causing an increase activity of norepinephrine and serotonin.

• SSRIs: Block reuptake of serotonin, has milder side effects since it doesn't affect norepinephrine.

Antipsychotic drugs

• Decrease action of dopamine to reduce positive symptoms(delusions hallucinations)

Electroconvulsive Therapy:

• Highly stigmatized but is useful in treating severe depression as it spikes activity in certain areas of the brain.

Psychosurgery

• Only happens under extreme circumstances when all other resources have failed the most extreme being removing and destroying parts of the brain.

  • Lobotomy:Destroy nerve tracts to frontal lobe causing significant changes in personality and behavior change to become calmer which is really just apathy and social isolation due to inability to handle it.

  • Cingulotomy:Severing of fibers which connect the frontal lobes + limbic system to treat depression and OCD to reduce pain.

• Transcranial Magnetic stimulation:non invasive way to temporarily enhance or depressed activity in certain areas of the brain 

Disorders + Society

• Time and money should be spent on preventive mental health which focuses on treating mental struggles early instead of when you reach a point where its insufferable

  • Situation focused prevention is done to REDUCE ENVIRONMENTAL causes of disorders and to enhance situational factors that prevent disorders,

  • Competency focused prevention is designed to INCREASE PERSONAL resources and coping skills.

  • Areas of the Brain + Function

    Main Branches:

    1. Cerebral Cortex

       • Frontal Lobe

         • Motor Control

         • Decision Making

         • Problem Solving

       • Parietal Lobe

         • Sensory Perception

         • Spatial Awareness

         • Object Recognition

       • Temporal Lobe

         • Auditory Processing

         • Language Comprehension

         • Memory Formation

       • Occipital Lobe

         • Visual Processing

         • Color Recognition

         • Object Recognition

    2. Limbic System

       • Amygdala

         • Emotional Responses

         • Fear Conditioning

         • Memory Consolidation

       • Hippocampus

         • Memory Formation

         • Spatial Navigation

         • Learning

       • Hypothalamus

         • Regulation of Body Temperature

         • Hunger and Thirst

         • Sleep-Wake Cycle

    3. Brainstem

       • Medulla Oblongata

         • Vital Functions (Breathing, Heart Rate)

         • Reflexes (Coughing, Sneezing)

       • Pons

         • Sleep Regulation

         • Relay of Sensory Information

       • Midbrain

         • Visual and Auditory Reflexes

         • Motor Control

    4. Cerebellum

       • Coordination of Movement

       • Balance and Posture

       • Fine Motor Skills

    5. Basal Ganglia

       • Motor Control

       • Habit Formation

       • Reward and Motivation

    6. Thalamus

       • Sensory Relay Station

       • Regulation of Consciousness

       • Sleep-Wake Cycle

    7. Hippocampus

       • Memory Formation

       • Spatial Navigation

       • Learning

    8. Hypothalamus

       • Regulation of Body Temperature

       • Hunger and Thirst

       • Sleep-Wake Cycle

    9. Amygdala

       • Emotional Responses

       • Fear Conditioning

       • Memory Consolidation

    10. Pituitary Gland

        • Secretion of Hormones

        • Regulation of Growth

        • Reproduction

    11. Prefrontal Cortex

        • Executive Functions

        • Decision Making

        • Social Behavior