Psychology 105

Chapter 8: Thinking, Reasoning, & Language

• Thinking - any mental activity or processing of information

  → such as learning

  • cognitive miser- tries to reduce mental effort

  • “System 1 thinking” → automatic, quick, intuitive

    • learned the piano years ago and then sit down to play

    • Lots of the way we process information

    • Can backfire

  • “System 2 thinking” → controlled, effortful

    • really thinking about something

    • trying to learn the piano for the first time

• Quick thinking

  • Predictions are frequently accurate

  • Looking at someone’s face can tell what kind of music the person listens to

  • Can lead to cognitive biases

    • stereotyping individuals → not necessarily accurate

  • Miss small details/make poor judgement

• Heuristics

  • mental shortcuts/rule of thumb

  • Can be inaccurate

  • Can easily be counteracted

  • Easy to change

  • Mental shortcut aimed at saving mental energy

  • Can be correct

• Representative heuristic

  • guessing how likely X is, based on how superficially similar it is to Y

  • Sounds like the prototype of a certain position → personality traits, hobbies

  • We ignore base rates → how common a characteristic is in the real world

  • Based on mental models that already exist in our minds/stereotypes

  • How much does a certain event/person represent a prototype in our minds

• Availability heuristic

  • guessing how likely X is, based upon how easily you can think of an instance where X occurs

  • How available a memory is in your mind

  • How quickly a memory pops into your mind

  • The more media coverage, the more likely one is to assume it occurs more often → what feels safer: driving your car or flying a plane

  • Estimate the probability of something

• Cognitive biases

  • systematic errors in thinking

  • Not easy to change → because it is systematic

  • Fundamental issue in the way we think

  • Not aimed at conserving mental energy

• Hindsight bias

  • overestimating your ability to have predicted known outcomes

  • After knowing the result of something, you exaggerate how much you actually know about the result → “I knew they were going to win”

    • confident they always knew it

    • I knew it all along effect → Make you feel the lessons you learn you already know (in a class)

    Ex. When a famous couple breaks up or when the Oilers win a hockey game

  • lure into a false sense of security

• Confirmation bias

  • tendency to seek out information that aligns with our beliefs and neglecting conflicting evidence

    • blackout/distort any conflicting information

  • Not seek out information that would conflict their train of thought

  • Downplay/forget information

  • Look for news that supports our thinking

  • We like people who agree with us → surround ourselves with likeminded individuals

• Top-down processing

  • filling in gaps of information based on our preexisting knowledge

  • System 1 thinking

  • We have our own ideas of how certain groups should act etc

  • Adding something to what we already know

Two types:

1. Concepts - knowledge of particular “sets” which share core properties

   • The concept of an apple → they are all apples

   • Particular set of objects that all share core properties → we all sit in chairs

2. Schemas - knowledge of how particular actions, objects, and ideas are related

   • how the concepts fit together/are related → apples and bananas are both fruit, the role of a dog owner

   • Person or group schemas → stereotyping

     • Canadians, professors, dog owner, how to host a dinner party, events (how to act)

     • Self schema → oilers fan, from Edmonton, student (System 1)

Both are apart of the cognitive economy

1. Bottom up processing

   • starting with nothing, then receiving information and building opinion from there

   • System 2 thinking

• Decision making - process of selecting between a set of possible options

  • Made in subconscious (implicit), to reserve cognitive economy

  • Long term (system 2) vs short term (system 1) impacts

  • We make so many decision we sometimes don’t think about them

  • Consequential decisions = thinking more

  • Thinking deeply/overanalyzing decisions can be problematic

    • Gut decisions are better → lead people to be happier with their choices

    • Our brain gets overwhelmed with too much information → can’t make a good decision/emotional decision

• Framing - how information is presented

  • framing of facts and information can significantly influence our decisions

• Problem solving - creating a cognitive strategy to accomplish a goal

  • series of stages that represent the cognitive process of problem solving

  • Situation where there is a difference between where you’re at and where you’re at later on

  • Stages

    • Identify the problem

      → ill-defined solution - there is not one correct solution, can vary (getting dressed)→ well-defined solution

      → well-defined solution - has one correct answer, you know what you have to do (sudoku)

    • Define the problem

      → functional fixedness - difficulty conceptualizing that an object can be used for multiple purpose

    • Develop a solution

      → trial and error strategy

      • Algorithms - step by step guide that does not change → there are situations where they do not work/is disrupted

      • Insight - suddenly realizing a solution

      → obstacles

      • Salience - focus on superficial/surface level similarities between problems → we might try to solve them in the same way (different algebra problems about trains or young children and dogs)

      • Mental set - becoming stuck on a proven strategy or being confined to previous ideas, and being unable to generate new alternatives → using the same strategy over and over and over again

    • Allocate resources

      → problem solving involves (constrained by our cognitive system)

      • Attention → how long can you focus on the problem itself

      • Long-term memory → drawing from things we learned a long time ago (how to make a sandwich, tying your shoes)

      • Working memory capacity → have to be able to have it in the front of our mind in order to be able to solve the problem

      • Expert → the more expert you are at the problem, the easier you will be able to solve it (use more effective problem solving strategies because have gone through the process already)

    • Monitor progress

      → take home message - “look back and learn”

      → evaluate how you solve the problem

• Language - combines symbols (words, gestures) to create meaning

  • Follows agreed-upon rules

  • Entirely arbitrary

    • No good reason why we use the words we use

  • Helps express emotion and maintain social ties

• Phoneme - the sounds used in a language

  • Changes to vocal apparatus produces different phonemes

    • Shoe vs cheese

• Morphemes - Smallest unit that provide information

  • Convey information about semantics

  • Can we words or word modifiers

    • Apple, help, teach, re-, ish-

• Syntax - the rules that govern how sounds should be combined to form sentences

  • Word order

  • Morphological markers

    • Change the meaning of words (adding -ed, -ing,)

  • Sentence structure

→ commonly ignored

• Extralinguistic information - parts of communication that exist outside of the language content, but influences interpretation

  • Non-verbal cues

  • Tone of voice

The nerdy psychologist made a video

1. Does the sentence follow proper syntax → yes

2. How many morphemes does psychologist have? → 3

3. How many phonemes does the word video have? → 5

• Dialects - differences in the use of the same language by different groups

  • Newfinese

  • Influenced by geographical location, culture

Evolution:

• Disadvantages

  • Lengthy learning period

  • Large mental space/energy requirement

• Advantages

  • Allows communication of complex ideas

  • Helped coordination of social interactions

→ Phoneme, morphemes, and syntax are arbitrary

• Is the arbitrary nature a good thing?

  • We can come up with new words and ways to describe things

→ Words may not always be arbitrary

• Onomatopoeia - buzz, meow, beep

• Sound symbolism - certain speech sounds associated with a particular meaning

Learning language;

• Babies in utero (5 months) recognize their mother’s voice and some songs/stories

• At 2 days old, babies respond to their mother’s native language using high amplitude sucking procedure

  • Captures how hard the baby is sucking on the pacifier

• By the end of year 1, babies start babbling → comprehension precedes production

  • Babies can recognize words before they can produce them

• By their first birthday, children start producing their first words

• By their second birthday, most children can produce several hundred words

• Underextend - when children apply words in a narrow sense

  • “Flower” refers to only a rose

  • “Ball” refers to only their red ball

• Overextend - children apply words in a broad sense

  • “Truck” for all vehicles

  • “Apple” for all round food

Learning Syntax:

• Begin at the one word stage

  • Dog, juice, mom

  • Same word used for multiple meanings

• Combine two words around 2 years old

  • Follow syntactic rules

  • Big Bird and the Cookie Monster study

    • Which photo is associated with the video

• Sign language - relies on visual communication

  • Uses hands, face, body, and “sign space” (the space in front of the communicator)

  • Same brain areas are used

    • Developmental stages are unchanged

• Bilingualism - being proficient and fluent at speaking and comprehending two distinct languages

  • Learning another language is easier when:

    • Living with native speakers

    • Motivated

    • Younger

  • Bilingual children syntactic development is slightly slower

Explanation for children’s learning:

→ Nature - biological

→ Nurture - learned

Language deprivation suggests there is a period of time where language development is crucial → the case of “Genie”

• Home signers - children with hearing loss whose parents do not know sign language

  • Develop their own rudimentary language → inventing their own signs

Nature vs Nurture:

• Critical periods - able to learn a language better with earlier exposure

  • age of immigration

• Sensitive period - “less is more” hypothesis

  • The earlier you learn it, the more likely you are to learn a language

  • Can learn a language easier

  • Less is more hypothesis

    • Suggests it is easier to learn a language from the ground up → with no prior knowledge

Accounts of Language Acquisition:

1. Pure nature/nurture account

   • Children learn through imitation

     • Hear language according to language rules, so we follow it and are reinforced for using language correctly

   → problem = does not account for the generative aspects of language

2. Nativist account (strongly nature)

   • Children are born with basic knowledge of language

   • Noam Chomsky’s language acquisition device

     • construct in the brain that is pre programmed with universal parameters of language

   → problem = unfalsifiable

   • Very hard to test whether people have a language acquisition device in their brains

3. Social pragmatics account (largely nurture)

   • Child infers the meaning of the words by observing how people use words in conversation

     • Context and figuring out what word applies to which thing

   → problem = parsimony

   • We always prefer the simplest explanation → this theory is not simple

4. General cognitive processing account

   • The development of language is an expression for the same vernal l children have for other abilities

     • Children are good at learning things

   → problem = contradictory evidence

   Researchers have settled on #3 and #4 for the most correct/reasonable

Non-human Animal Communication:

• Different forms and purposes for communication in animals

  • Scents, visual, and vocal

• Less generative and complex than human communication

  • Mating, food, aggression, predators

• Human communication is much more generative

  • Coming up with new communication

→ Chimpanzees

• Can learn rudimentary language

• Never master syntax

• Requires a lot more repetition and rewards

→ Bonobos

• More similar to human learning

  • Do better when they are young

  • Learn a lot through observation

  • Use symbols

  • No syntax

→ African grey parrot

• Not understanding what they are saying

  • Imitation of what they heard before

• Lots of reinforcement

Reading:

• Very automated and difficult to turn off

  • Stroop task

To master reading:

• Understand whole words

  • Whole-word recognition

• How to sound out unfamiliar words

  • Phonetic decomposition

• Need to understand format of reading

  • Right to left

  • Top to bottom

Chapter 9: Intelligence

• Intelligence - reflection of your senses

  • Knowledge comes through the senses, and therefore, individuals with stronger sense are more intelligent

    • However, strength of one sense does not correlate with intelligence

Intelligence Test (Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon):

• Used to differentiate students who were falling behind peers

• Used diverse items that together helped measure higher mental processes

General vs Specific Abilities:

→ Charles Spearman noted that items on a intelligence test correlate

• Some underlying factor should account for this

  • g is the underlying intelligence — “mental energy”

  • s are the specific abilities that fall within g

Fluid and Crystallized:

→ Raymond Cattell and John Horn

• Fluid intelligence - ability to learn new ways to solve problems

  • Used when mastering new tasks

• Crystallized intelligence - knowledge we have acquired over time

  • Used to recite facts

Multiple Intelligences:

→ Howard Gardner’s “Frames of Mind”

• Different frames of mind have different way of viewing the world

  • Each type should be relatively independent, and verifiable from studies of brain damage and autistic savants

Intelligence Types:

• Linguistic - speak and write well

• Logico mathematical - use logic and mathematical skills to solve problems, such as scientific questions

• Spatial - think and reason about objects in three dimensional space

• Musical - perform, understand, and enjoy music

• Bodily kinaesthetic - manipulate the body in sports, dance, or other physical endeavours

• Interpersonal - understand and interact effectively with others

• Intrapersonal - understand and possess insight into self

• Naturalistic - recognize, identify, and understand animals, plants, and other living things

Triarchic Model (Robert Sternberg):

• Analytical intelligence - ability to reason logically, traditional “book smarts”, g

• Practical intelligence - ability to solve real world problems, especially socially

• Creative intelligence - ability to create novel and effective answers

Weaknesses:

• Practical intelligence is related to g

• The measures of practical intelligence may be considered measures of job knowledge

Measuring Intelligence:

• Self reports do not work

  • Double curse of incompetence

    • Poor cognitive skills lead to poor metacognition and therefore, poor estimation one’s intelligence

→ Lewis Terman

• 1916 — Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test

• Established norms

  • Typical scored from large groups of people at different ages

  • Norms are used to compare Person X to peers

→ What is IQ?

• Intelligence quotient

  • Wilhelm Stern

  • Mental age is the “age” corresponding to the persons performance

  • Mental age / chronological age X 100 = IQ

    → know this formula for the midterm

→ Reformulating IQ

• Works well for children, but not for adults

• IQ formula needed to be revised

• Deviation IQ

  • Compares each person to what is normal for their age, with an average of 100

• Bell curve - intelligence follows a normalized distribution in most populations

  • Most people will be pretty close to 100

• Wechsler test

  • Wechsler adult intelligence scale (WASIS-IV)

  • 15 subtests that can generate 5 main scores:

    1. Full scale IQ → g score, overall intelligence

    2. Perpetual reasoning → spatial awareness skills

    3. Working memory → how much information can you hold in your mind at one time

    4. Verbal comprehension → ability to use and understand language

    5. Processing speed → how fast can you think through something

  • Wechsler intelligence scale for children

  • Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence

  • Used for kids 16 and older

Examples:

• Who is the president of the United States?

  • Possible item from the information subtext

  • Measures general knowledge

• Why should people be tested to get a driver’s license?

  • Possible inter from the comprehension subtext

  • Measure’s understanding of social conventions and use of past experiences

• Complete the empty spaces using the legend

  • Possible item from digit symbol subtest

  • Measures speed of learning and processing speed

• Which two pieces can be combined to make the object above?

  • Possible item from visual puzzles subtest

  • Measures spacial abilities, mental organization

  • Perceptual reasoning index

• Repeat this number set after me…

  • Possible item form digit span subtest

  • Measures attention and short-term memory

• What does the word repugnant mean?

  • Possible item from vocabulary subtest

  • Measures verbal intelligence

  • Crystallized intelligence

→ intelligence tests must be standardized

• Must be done at the same speed and same way

Reliability of IQ Scores:

• For adults, intelligence scores tend to be extremely stabile

  • Very high correlations, regardless of test-retest duration

• Very low correlations between intelligence scores taken before age 3 and adult correlations

  • However, speed of habituation in infants is related to adult intelligence

    • Getting bored of looking at an image (habituating to it) → the faster you habituate, the higher IQ they will have

Validity of IQ Scores:

• Strong concurrent validity

  • Do other intelligence tests agree with each other

  • Convergent validity

• Are you measuring the thing you say you are measuring

  • Correlation is high between different intelligence measures

• Predicative validity

  • Does the test tell you about the person in the real world

  • Real world criteria

Correlations:

0.5> = strong relationship

.30 - .50 = moderate/medium relationship

.10 -. 30 = weak relationship

.00 - .10 = no relationship

→ intelligence is the best predictor of how well you will do in life (school, work)

• Strong predictive validity

  • Positively associated with health related outcomes

    • People with higher IQ tend to be healthier

  • Negatively associated with criminal tendencies

• Socioeconomic status

  • What are your parents’ jobs?

  • What neighbourhood do you live in?

Environment Influences:

• Children from larger families may have lower intelligence

  • Have less opportunities/parents don’t have as much money

  • People with higher intelligence wait to have children and have less children

• If you believe intelligence is “fixed”, may be less likely to challenge yourself academically and mentally

  • “I suck at this and there is nothing I can do about it”

  • Versus a growth mindset → “I will work and get better”

• More education may lead to higher intelligence

  • Children with more time in school score higher on intelligence tests than children of the same age with less school

  • IQ score decrease when out of school

  • Kids who start school earlier boost IQ

  • Bloomer study

    • Psychologist lie to teachers and tell them a specific kid is going to be smart → teachers treat them differently

→ if your teacher expects you to be smart, may add a minor boost to intelligence

• Head start program

  • Gave disadvantaged preschool chilled access to enriched educational environments

    • After program ended, the kids’ IQs went back down

  • Hoped it would help them “catch up”

  • Provided a short-term boost to IQ score

  • If you give people equal opportunity, their IQs match

  • Had high emotional intelligence

    • Able to regulate their emotions better

• Poverty

  • Arthur Jensen’s cumulative deficit study

    • Older siblings had lower intelligence than younger siblings → the older child has lived longer not having resources (younger child has not had intelligence sucked out yet)

  • Lead poisoning

    • Has a clear detrimental effect on intelligence

  • Breastfeeding

    • Boosts IQ scores, but could be de to SES

      → Women who have time to breastfeed often are able to go on long-term maternity leave/have enough money to take a year off

  Biology and Intellect:

• Brain volume and intelligence

  • r = .30 - .40

    • Stronger for verbal abilities than spatial abilities

    • Moderate correlation, but may not be casual

    • Bigger brain is better → more connections to different aspects of the brain

      → Einstein is the exception - small, but FULL of connections

• Smarter brains may be more efficient brains

  • Reaction time

  • Overall activity

  • Working memory

    • Moderately to strongly correlated with intelligence tests than

    • Ability to hold multiple things in your mind at one time

→ Tetris study and reaction time boxes study (pg. 340-341)

• Prefrontal cortex is highly active when engaging in “g-loaded” tasks”

  • Parietal lobe is related to spatial reasoning

    • Awareness of your body

    • Able to move shapes around in your head

Genes and IQ:

• Intelligence runs in families

  • Family studies show significant correlation

  • Identical twins IQ, r = .70 - .80

  • Fraternal twins/siblings IQ, r = .30 - .50

    • Same as any brother and sister

  • Cousins IQ, r = .15

→ heritability of IQ is 40%-70%, and becomes higher in adulthood

→ genes account for about 50% of people’s IQ

• Identical twins reared apart are as similar on intelligence tests as identical twins reared together

  • Adoption studies

    • If leaving a deprived environment, intelligence will increase

    • Adopted children’s intelligence is more closely related to biological parents than adopted parents, especially with age

Eugenics:

• Intelligence tests were used to determine who was “feeble-minded”, “dumb”, etc

• Belief in biological basis of intelligence led to a fear of the “low IQ” of immigrants, minorities, and others, mixing with the majority populations

  • It will “dumb down” the population (lose IQ)

• Positive eugenics vs negative eugenics

  • Positive - offering something to people to have children

    • Money, support, encouraging smart people

  • Negative - Stopping someone from having children

    • Sterilizing people with low IQ

→ sexual sterilization act lead to over 2800 individuals being sterilized from 1928 to 1972

• Flynn Effect

  • Discovered by James Flynn in the 1980s

  • Average IQ scores rise by approximately 3 points every decade

→ environmental influences

• Increased experience with test

  • However, finding is stronger or uncommon tests

• More information processing required in modern life

• Improved nutrition

• Improvements at home

• Improvements in education

Mental Giftedness:

• Top 2% of IQ (Mensa criteria)

  • Tend to reside in “higher” occupations

• Terman’s “termites”

  • 1500 junior high students with IQs of 135+

  • Many eared prestigious degrees

  • Lower rates of mental illness and suicide

  • May be a link to between worry/rumination and verbal intelligence

• While genes play a role, dedication and practice are essential

  • Rare that insights com without substantial effort

Intellectual Disability:

→ three general criteria

1. Childhood onset

2. Deficits in intellectual functioning

   • Previously stated as IQ below functioning

3. Deficit in adaptive functioning

   • Have a hard time living independently, communicating, dressing themselves

→ often lose the diagnosis as life skills are developed

→ mild (55-70), moderate (45-55), severe and profound

• Mild - immature social judgement

• Severe

  • Rare genetic mutations

  • Birth accidents

  • Fragile X syndrome

    • Mutation on X chromosome

    • Nearly half meet criteria for autism

    • Boys are at higher risks

• Down syndrome

  • Extra copy of chromosome 21

  • Most have mild to moderate intellectual disability

  • Likelihood increases with mother’s age

Sex Differences & IQ

• Very few, if any, differences between men and women on average

  • However, men have a wider distribution of scores

• Differences do appear to exist in a few specific aspects of intelligence

  • Women tend to do better with verbal tasks, arithmetic, and recognizing emotions

  • Men tend to do better with spatial abilities and mathematical reasoning

• Biology as a casual agent

  • Estrogen related to verbal abilities

  • Testosterone related to spatial abilities

• Yet, environment plays a major role

  • Infants show few differences

  • Different problem-solving strategies

  • Gender roles ands stereotypes

Racial Differences and IQ:

• Common findings

  • Asian-Americans score higher than Caucasians

  • Jews score higher than non-Jew

  • African-Americans and Hispanics sore lower than Caucasians

  • Non-indigenous recruits in the Canadian Forces scored higher in verbal abilities than First Nation member from remote areas

• Many have argued for genetic and evolutionary support for origins

  • Not due to “racial superiority”

    • IQ scores gap is shrinking

    • Substantial overlap in overall distributions

    • World War II study

    • Social deprivation, prejudice etc lead to differences

• Within-group heritability

  • How much the variability of a trait in a group is due to genes

• Between-group heritability

  • How much the difference in a trait between groups is due to genes

• Differences between groups are largely environmental

  • Within-group differences may be at least partially genetic

• Does stereotype threat play a role?

  • Influences behaviour in research, but unclear whether it plays a role in the real world

  • Genes play little role in group differences

“Culture-Fair” IQ Testing:

• Heavy reliance on language has always been criticized

  • Could culture or language be negatively impacting IQ scores?

• Raven’s progressive matrices

  • What pattern complete the sequence

• American vs Canadian knowledge

  • Just because something looks bias, doesn’t mean there is

Creativity:

• Requires divergent thinking

  • Ability to generate many alternative solutions

  • “Use of an Object Test”

• Also requires convergent thinking

  • Ability to generate the best solution

• Weak to moderate association with standard IQ test

Emotional Intelligence:

• Ability to recognize an regulate emotions in our selves and others

• Specific components are debated and depend on the model of EI

  • May be considered a personality trait or a skill

• May be used to manipulate and lie

• Does not appear to improve predictions of job performance

• Weak predictor of general intelligence

Chapter 10: Human Development

• Developmental psychology - the study of how humans change over the lifespan

  • How behaviour and mental processes trained across one’s life

    • Personality

    • Physiology

    • Behaviour

Research methods in developmental psychology:

• Cross sectional design - people from different age groups are all compared at the exact same time

  • Giving a memory test to a certain age group → give people the same test

    • Cost effective

    • Only need to run the test once

  • Cohort effect - systematic difference between different age groups

    • Experiences of COVID could influence

• Longitudinal design - the same group of people are studied over a long period of time

  • Giving 10 year olds and memory test and then giving them the same test 5 years later

  • Very expensive and takes up time

  • Result are going to be more trustworthy → eliminates cohort effect

• Gallup happiness study

  • 340 847 individuals between 18-85 years old

    • Result → before age 50, happiness decreases

  • Cross-sectional study

• Edmonton transition study

  • Collected samples of data from two different groups

    • 1. High school seniors followed from age 18-43

    • 2. University seniors followed from age 23-37

    → result = happiness increased into 30s in both samples, with a slight downturn by age 43 in the high school example

  • Longitudinal

Challenges in developmental psychology:

• Cohorts - a group born around the same time, who would have similar cultural experiences

  • Knowing how to use a rotary phone

• Post-hoc fallacy - logical error where you assume A cause B, only because A came before B

  • Just because two events happen in the same order doesn’t mean it directly caused what came after it

  • Ex. Children who are read to at a very young age grow up to be very good at reading and do better in school later

• Bidirectional influences - human development is rarely linear

  • Parents have a strong impact on their child’s behaviour, but the behaviour will impact the parent

    • We can’t really know what effects what

• The influence of early experiences (MYTHS)

  • Infant determinism

    • indicates that the first three years of life are the most influential in shaping adult behaviour

  • Childhood fragility

    • children are easily damaged/fragile creatures → we must protect them at all costs

• Nature-nurture debate

  • Nature via nurture

    • Genetic predisposition drive us to select particular environments

    • The children can seek out environment that fits their genetic predisposition

  • Gene expression

    • The activation/deactivation of genes by environmental experiences

  • Gene-environment interaction

    • There is an ongoing interaction between our genetics and our environment

    • Make looking at causal claims for difficult

• Chronological age is not especially related to behavioural and biological changes

  • Other types of age are better predictors

    • Biological age

      → estimate of a person’s based on biological functioning

    • Psychological age

      → person’s mental attitude/ability to function in high stress environment

    • Functional age

      → Person’s biliary to function in a given roles in society

    • Social age

      → Whether people behave in accordance with social behaviours that are appropriate for their age

• Physical development

  • Contributes to cognitive and social development

  • How your brain grows

Cognitive Development:

• How we acquire the ability to learn, think, reason etc

  • Differ

    1. Stage-like changes(sudden changes or jumps in cognitive development skills) vs continuous changes (as you move throughout life, cognitive develops)

    2. Domain-general (al cognitive skills rise together) vs domain-specific (different skills develop individually)

    3. Primary source of learning

• Jean Piaget

  • Domain-general theory of development

    • All cognitive skills develop together but there are also skills that develop individually

  • Children aren’t miniature adults

    • Don’t learn the same way adults learn

  • Assimilation - absorbing new experiences into current schemas

    • Requires that children add new information to what they already know without changing the understanding of the schema

      • Any four-leg small animal is a dog

  • Accommodation - altering a schema to make it more compatible with experiences

    • Requires child to create or modify the existing schema

    • Much larger/bigger examples

      • Santa isn’t real → have to come up with a new schema

    • Basic process of thinking children go through while experiencing new experiences

Piaget’s Stages of Development:

1. Sensorimotor Stage (birth - 2 years)

   • Lack of object permanence

     • If the object can’t be seen anymore, it doesn’t exist anymore

       → test - whether a child reaches for a toy they were previously playing with it

   • Lack differed imitation

     • Inability to imitate

   • Focused on current physical environment

→ will move on from this stage when they can do both of these things

2. Pre-operational Stage (2 - 7 years)

   • Show egocentrism

     • Only see the world from your perspective

     • Theory of mind → recognizing you have different perspective

   • Can use mental representations

     • Start to take on imaginary roles (play with their dolls)

     • Struggle to change representation (what happens when the doll breaks?)

   • Lack of conservation

     • Knowing objects retains heir basic value/amount even though they might change shape or orientation

       → different sized beaker, the taller one has more water even though they actually have the same amounT - related more to maturation

3. Concrete Operations Stage (7 - 11 years)

   • Can pass conservation task

   • Can sort/create scenes with physical objects

   • Struggle with abstract reasoning

   • Can only think about one way to solve a problem

4. Formal Operations Stage Stage (11 - adult):

   • Engages in hypothetical reasoning

   • Understands if-then and either-or statements

   • Thinks about abstract questions

Strengths:

• Recognizes that children are not mini-adults

• Learning as an active process

• Explored general cognitive process to explain changes to multiple domains

Weaknesses:

• Development is continuous

• Underestimated children’s abilities

  • Ability to detect object permanence

• Hard to replicate in ways that do not rely on language

  • Ignored language ability

• It is a stage model (specific age timeline)

  • Restrictive

Lev Vygotsky:

• Scaffolding - caretakers work with children in a way that guides them along during tasks and learning opportunities

  • Really focused on the social interaction

  • Focusing on a students ability to learn information with the help of a knowledgeable individual

  • Zone of proximal development

    • Where a child is ready to learn a new skill → use the assistance to teach a child more and more

      • Riding a bike → need to walk before they can learn to ride a bike

    • Finding ways to slowly introduce the child to a new skill

→ did not believe in stages, instead that children learn and develop on their own

Cognitive changes:

• Childhood

  • Self-recognition

  • Theory of mind

  • Counting and math

• Adolescence

  • Frontal lobe maturing

  • More active limbic system

    • Processing emotions

    • Experiencing peer-pressure

  • Personal fable

    • Adolescences think they are special and unique compared to other people

• Late adulthood

  • Cognitive decline in recall, processing sped

  • Vocabulary and crystallized intelligence increases

Chapter 12: Stress, Coping & Health

• Stress - the tension, discomfort, or physical symptoms that arise when a stressor strains our ability to cope

• Stressor - a stimulus in our environment that provokes stress

• Traumatic event - extreme stressor that causes long-term psychological or health consequences

Three Ways of Studying Stress:

1. stressors as stimuli

   • identifying types of stressors

   • which people respond the most to certain types of stress

   • disasters that affect whole communities

2. stress as a transaction

   • how people interpret and cope with stressors

     • primary appraisal

     • secondary appraisal

   • problem-focused coping vs emotion-focused coping

3. stress as a response

   • physical and psychological responses to stressors

   • variables that could be examined

     • hopelessness

     • depression

     • hostility

     • changes in corticosteroids/cortisol

Measuring Stress:

• Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

  • number of major life events in the past year

  • moderate predictive validity

  • however has several limitations

• Hassles Scale

  • frequency and severity of daily stressors/minor annoyances

  • better predictor of physical health, depression, and anxiety than the SRRS

Physiological response to stress:

• General Adaptive Syndrome (Hans Selye)

→ phase 1 - alarm reaction

• limbic system activates

• stress hormones releases (HPA axis)

• autonomic nervous system activates

• physical symptoms of anxiety develop

→ phase 2 - resistance

• adapt and cope with stressor

• physical symptoms may still occur

→ phase 3 - exhaustion

• breakdown of resistance

• physical symptoms may change/intensify

Diversity of Stress Responses:

• women are more likely to tend-and-benefit than men

  • evolutionary advantage

• post traumatic stress disorder

  • vivid memories

  • heightened startle response

  • depression-like symptoms

→ symptoms predicted by:

• number of events

• severity, nearness, & duration

• lack of social/family support

Coping with stress:

• social support and mortality rates

  • social support includes family, friends, religious membership, and other community groups

• proactive coping - trying to prevent or minimize an anticipated stressful event

• a sense of control decreases stress

→ five types of control:

1. behavioural control → problem focused coping

2. cognitive control → emotion focused coping

3. decisional control

4. informational control

5. emotional control → expression and suppression

• catharsis - sudden emotional release of stress

• critical incident stress debriefing (crisis debriefing) - a single session treatment immediately following trauma

  • must describe negative emotions in detail

  • if forced, may cause PTSD

• individual differences

  • hardiness

    • seeing changes as a challenge, not a threat

    • believing you can control events

  • optimism

    • focus on the positives

    • leads people to be more productive, focused, and handle frustration better

  • spirituality

    • feeling connected to a higher power

    • positive outcomes may be due to social nature, rejection of vices, and/or sense of meaning and control

  • rumination and worry

    • endlessly over-thinking past and future events

  • flexible coping

    • important to change coping strategies as the situation changes

    • suppressing/avoiding emotions or specific stressors is generally NOT helpful

Stress and the immune system:

• the immune system - the body’s natural defence against invading bacteria, viruses, and other illness-producing organisms

  • includes the skin and other means used to expel pathogens

    • phagocytes

    • lymphocytes (T and B cells)

    • macrophages

  • can be compromised by disorders (eg. AIDS)

  • some disorders cannot be contained by the immune system (eg. cancer)

  • immune system can become overactive creating autoimmune diseases (eg. multiple sclerosis)

  • psychoneuroimmunology - the relationship between the immune system and the central nervous system

    • stress and developing a cold

    • the stress of someone who cares for an individual with Alzheimer’s

    • it can takes weeks/months for immune system to go back to normal after stress is removed

Stress-related illnesses:

• many diseases are biopsychosocial in origin and maintenance

• psychophysiological illnesses (psychosomatic)

  • stress plays a role in the disease/keeps it going

  • peptic ulcers → caused by bacteria

  • coronary heart disease → associated with multiple psychological characteristics

    • stress → direct and indirect effects (immediate impact vs long-term)

    • type A personality → hostility (really connects to heart disease)

      → impatient, aggressive, competitive, ambitious

      → direct and indirect pathways

Healthy living:

• health psychology (behavioural medicine) integrates behavioural sciences with medicine

  • includes education and psychological interventions

  • promotes having good health, as well as preventing and treating illness

    1. stop smoking

  • only 5-10% successfully quit when doing it on their own

  • 25-35% can quit when using methods from health psychologists

  • easy to go back to

    2. curb alcohol consumption

  • severe withdrawals from regular consumption

  • binge drinking (heavy episodic drinking) is associated with increases in cancer, liver problems, pregnancy complications, and brain shrinkage

    3. achieve a healthy weight

       • roughly 35-45% of Canadians are overweight or obese

       • based on body-mass index (BMI)

       • obesity is associated with:

         → heart disease and stroke

         → cancer

         → diabetes

         → depression, anxiety, and social issues

       • obtaining (and keeping) a healthy weight:

         → avoid fads and crash diets (yo-yo effect)

         → exercise regularly

         → monitor total calories and body weight

         → eat properly (good fats, low salt, high fibre)

         → get social support

         → control portions

         → reward your achievements

    4. exercise

       • lowers blood pressure and risk for coronary heart disease

       • relieves arthritis

       • decreases diabetes risk, breast cancer, colon cancer

       • 30 minutes several times a week is best

→ up to 80% of patients do not follow their doctor’s advice

• personal inertia

• under-estimate the risks

• feelings powerless

→ prevention

• psycho education around peer-pressure and risks

• introduction of good role models

• effective coping skills

• D.A.R.E general not effective

Complementary & Alternative Medicines (CAM):

• alternative medicines - using a health care practice/product instead of conventional medicines

• complimentary med ideas - using heath care practice/product instead addition to conventional medicine

• biologically based CAMS

  • most herbal supplements are no more effective than placebo

    • St. John’s Wort, shark cartilage, açai Bettie’s, gingko biloba

  • weak evidence for most vitamins & supplements

    • calcium, vitamin C

  • may negatively interact with modern medicines

    • 5-HTP supplements → precursor to serotonin

      → can develop serotonin syndrome - bad stomach, headaches, and can put you into a coma

→ have been poorly regulated by Health Canada, but new regulations are coming

• manipulative methods (chiropractors)

  • manipulate the spine to treat pain

    • some argue that their treatments work for severe illnesses and other disorders

  • subluxation theory

    • misalignment of the spine is the cause of problems in the nervous and immune system

  • no more effective than exercise, relaxation, or physical therapy

• mind-body medicine

  • biofeedback

    • provides immediate feedback for internal sensations, such as pulse or body temperature → can do it on purpose (train your body)

    • no better than relaxation

  • meditation

    • heightens creativity, empathy, self-esteem

    • decreases anxiety and depression

    • increases blood flow to the brain and immune functioning

    • better than placebo treatments

    • relaxation induced anxiety - being scared of the feeling of their body relaxing

• energy medicines

  • based on mapping our energy field and managing disruptions

  • acupuncture

    • needles relieve blockages of qi (energy/life force) → “chee”

    • helps relieve nausea after surgery

    • helps treat pain

    • no scientific support for qi

• homeopathy → whole medical system

  • consuming an extremely diluted dose of a harmful substance is believed to help you avoid or alleviate illness

    • Rhus Tox → poison ivy supposed to treat arthritis, sprains, flu

    • Ignatia → treat anxiety, grief, depression (used to be a very popular rat poison)

  • not effective

Placebo and CAMs:

• placebo effect is often as effective as CAMs

• sham acupuncture treats back pain and migraines as well as true acupuncture

• pain is very responsive to placebo, which may be why CAMs are so popular/effective

Reasons why people believe CAMs are effective:

1. The placebo effect

2. Conventional medicine

3. Natural changes

4. Misdiagnosis/non-severe issues

5. Believed to have “no side-effects”

Chapter 13: Social Psychology

• social psychology - the scientific study of how people influence other’s behaviour, beliefs, and attitudes

  • primary mode of investigation is experiment

  • applies to everyone

    • bias → people say they are not influenced (systematic error in thinking)

Research Methods:

• experimental research

  • watching more violent television is associated with higher aggression in children

    • can develop hypothesis

    • create an experiment to study this

  • isolate the cause

  • variables

    • independent → manipulated

      → watching violent television

    • dependent → measured/assessed

      → aggression (observe responses)

Social Nature of Humans:

• need to belong - fundamental human motivation to form and maintain an significant interpersonal relationships

  • need to feel connected to people

  • satisfy this need through social media

• evolutionary purpose

  • advantageous to get along with other people

    • need help with something

• social comparisons - people compare themselves to others to obtain an accurate assessment of their own abilities

  • we also try to explain other people’s behaviours

Fundamental Attribution Error:

• internal attribution - focused on something internal about the person themselves

  • don’t like the class, unreliable

• external attribution - focused on the situation the person is in

  • bus was late

→ more likely to make internal attribution for other people’s behaviour

• fundamental attribution error - believing that internal factors influence behaviour to a far greater extent than external factors

  • external attribution error for yourself

  • internal attribution for other people

  • we never talk about it when thinking about our own behaviour

  • situational attribution

    • overhearing someone saying they are traveling to their mother’s deathbed

  • dispositional inference

    • your reconsider your assumption about rudeness

• ultimate attribution error - assumption that behaviour among individual members of a group are due to their internal dispositions

  • particularly damage when it occurs to minority/stereotyped groups

Stereotypes:

• positive or negative beliefs (schemas) about most individuals in a group

  • might be correct/accurate

  • can be over-applied

  • massive over generalizations

  • illusory correlation - the tendency to overestimate the link between variables that are loosely or not at all correlated

Prejudice:

• an attitude (usually negative) toward members of a group based on their membership in that group

  • in-group bias - favouring people within our group over others

    • see more diversity

  • out-group homogeneity - all members of the other group are the same

    • we see people in a group are all the same (posses the same characteristics)

Developing Prejudice:

• scapegoat hypothesis - blaming those beneath us for our misfortunes

  • after COVID, there was more hate towards Asian individuals

    • scapegoating them for the pandemic

• just-world hypothesis - blaming the victim

  • belief that things happen for a reason/the world is fair

  • if somebody is disadvantaged, there is a reason

• conformity to social norms - want to fit in and be liked

  • drives a lot of people’s behaviour

  • “supposed” to hate a specific group because everyone else is

Hidden Prejudice:

• explicit - stated/conscious beliefs

• implicit - unstated/unconscious beliefs

  • thought of as what is important today

  • subtle form of prejudice

Discrimination:

• act of treating the out-group differently

Overcoming Prejudice:

• stereotype activation - cultural stereotypes may come to mind automatically

  • will come to everyone’s mind automatically but might not be applied

• stereotype application - expression of stereotypes is controlled

• contact hypothesis

  • increase our contact with people who are different than us

• need collaborative group work

Attitudes

• favourable or unfavourable evaluative reaction toward something or someone

  • self-esteem → attitude towards ourselves

  • political → conservative, liberal

    • our attitudes aren’t the best predictor of what we do

      Ex. survey of 3600 Edmonton drivers

      → 95% believe that running a red light is unacceptable

      → 24% admitted to running a red light within the past month

  • situational occurrence → other factors that influence our behaviour

• when do attitudes predict behaviour?

  • easily accessed attitudes

    • we think about it a lot

    • had a negative experience

  • firmly held

    • involvement → politics

• cognitive dissonance - unpleasant mental anxiety due to conflicting thoughts or behaviours

  • to reduce anxiety, you must change your thoughts or behaviours

  • coming up with a rational reason why

    Ex. Cheating on a test

    → cognition A - “I’m an honest person”

  • change cognition A - “I am not an honest person after all”

    → cognition B - “I cheated on my psychology exam”

  • change cognition B - “I didn’t really cheat, I just saw someone’s answers”

Boring Study Experiment:

• boring experiment, but you are asked to help recruit the next participant

• offered either $1 or $20 as compensation

• how do you justify the behaviour

  • helping the researcher

  • $1 doesn’t feel as justified

    • dissonance → not good reason to lie, so have to change your mind

  • $20 is sufficient justification

    • no dissonance

→ independent variable = whether to participant is given $1 or $20

→ dependent variable = the ratings of how boring the tasks are

Alternatives to Cognitive Dissonance:

• self-perception theory - our actions give us clues to our attitudes

  • I eat a grilled cheese, so I must like cheese

  • using your behaviour to infer your attitude

• impression management theory - change our behaviours to appear consistent

  • how do I make myself look consistent to other people

  • might lie about our attitudes to appear consistent

  • we don’t have to change our attitudes, we just have to say we did

Persuasion:

• efforts to change attitudes through various kinds of messages

  • central route (system 2)

    • analytical

      → list pros and cons

      → do research

    • high effort

    • argument strength is key

      → systematic

    • have to be highly motivated to come up with a decision

    • have to have the ability to think deeply about a particular issue

    • strong and stable attitudes

  • peripheral route (system 1)

    • not analytical

    • low effort

    • incidental cues are key

    • everything outside of the fact that can bias or sway our decision

      → how pretty something is, the colours etc

    • unstable and weak attitudes

      → change from time to time

      → not enduring

    • attitudes can greater influence decisions

• increasing persuasion

  • attractiveness/famous spokesperson

    • celebrities

  • “experts”

    • dentists

    • doctors

  • vivid testimonials

    • immerse audience → videos/images of people in need

  • “natural goodness”

    • emphasizing things that are natural/organic

  • emphasizing scarcity

    • things are running out/losing opportunity to buy something

    • limited supply/limited time offer

  • people with similar features

    • make us feel similar to them

    • somebody like us

  • name-letter effect

    • we like ourselves and things that are associated with ourselves

    • features of our name

    • implicit egotism

    • more drawn to things that are similar to ourselves

• persuasion techniques

  • foot in the door

    • make a small request first, then follow up with a bigger request

    • increasing request

  • door in the face

    • ask for a large favour then quickly bring it down

    • people say no the large favour are more likely to say yes to a smaller request

    • inducing guilt

    • can backfire if initial request is too big

  • lowball

    • start with a very low price, then bring in the add-ons

    • agree to something small then mention the much needed add-ons

    • base-model car with nothing else

  • “but you are free”

    • ask someone to do something for you while informing them they can refuse

    • gets others to agree based on the illusion of free choice

    • double the odds of the person complying because they feel like they have a choice

Conformity:

• the tendency for people to alter their behaviour due to group pressure

  • public compliance - outwardly going with a norm, but privately don’t agree with it

    • dressing up for a Halloween costume

  • private acceptance - acting with accordance to what the group is doing and agreeing with the idea

    • using the proper place to study at school

Solomon Asch’s Conformity Study:

• you and 7 other “participants” (confederates)

  • others hired by researcher to say certain things and act a certain way

• which of line A, B, or C match the first line

• what would you do it the other participants all said “B”

• researchers found 75% of participants conformed in the study at least once

→ we will conform to social pressure

• increasing conformity

  • unanimity

    • the group being unanimous

    • it takes one person to give an alternate response decreases conformity

  • differences from the majority

    • you feel okay saying a different answer if the group is small ( > 5) → 5 is the magic number

  • size of majority

    • the larger the group, the more likely chance for group conformity

  • having to answer publicly

    • more likely to conform

Conformity and the Brain:

• activates our amygdala

→ other influences

• self-esteem

  • more likely to conform if you have low self-esteem

• individual vs collectivist cultures

  • collectivists cultures have more conformity

    • care more about what the group think

Deindividuation:

• the tendency for people, upon being striped of their usual identity, to engage in behaviours that they would almost never engage in

  • anonymity

    • feel more anonymous

    • can’t be personally identified

  • lack of responsibility

    • everyone is doing something (getting in a fight)

Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment:

• 24 male students randomly assigned to be guards or prisoners

• guards began treating prisoners harshly

• prisoners tried to rebel, guards acted worse

• study ended on day 6, 8 days early

• could be result of demand characteristic

→ social roles matter

Obedience:

• adherence to instructions from authority figures

  • conformity to following social norms/peers

Milgram’s Study of Obedience:

• participant is the “teacher”

• wrong answer receives shocks, increasing in voltage

• “student” is confederate, acting as though shocks are working

• urged to continue after wanting to stop administering shocks

• 62% completed the test, went to 450 volts

  • was thought only 0.1% of people would complete the study

→ we tend to obey authority figures

Variations:

• more “psychological distance” between experimenter and teacher decreased compliance

• less “psychological distance” between teacher and learner decreased compliance

  • sitting side by side → less likely to obey

• other variation

  • authority figures needs to be seen as official/have power

  • school was associated with Yale

    • more likely to comply

  • teacher told somebody else to shock to the learner

    • more likely to comply because they aren’t the ones shocking the learner

Groupthink:

• emphasis on group unanimity at the expense of critical thinking

  • Ex. Titanic, Research Ethics Board protocols

  • maintaining group cohesion is more important

Group Polarization:

• the tendency for group discussions to push dominant ideas to be held more strongly

  • cults

    • gradual indoctrination

  • group discussion can strengthen feelings about a decision

  • reduce group polarization by avoiding conformation bias

Social Loafing:

• slacking off in groups, when individual efforts are unclear

  • Ex. clapping and cheering in groups, tug-of-war

  • everyone working towards the same goal and not being able to tell the amount of effort each person put in

  • reduce loafing when a task is challenging, appealing, or people feel motivated to do something

  • less social loafing when people think they are the smartest in a group

    • if they get to choose their own groups/in groups with their friends

Bystander Non-Intervention Effect:

• Kitty Genoese - 1964

  • stabbed numerous times in the early morning outside her apartment

  • numerous people heard her screams, but no one called for help

• bystander non-intervention effect - tendency for individuals to assume that others will act

  • pluralistic ignorance - error of assuming no one in the group perceive things as we do

  • diffusion of responsibility - people feel less responsible when there are more witnesses near by

• enlightenment effect - learning about psychological research can change real-world behaviour for the better

Social Interactions:

• prosocial

  • helping behaviour

    • help only if rewards outweigh costs

    • help regardless of rewards and costs

  • altruism - type of helping behaviour where people help others for unselfish reasons

    • helping regardless of reward/no benefit for them

  • helping behaviour

    • situational influences

      → number of bystanders

      → no escape — more likely to engage if they can’t escape the situation

      → being in a good mood — happy people are more likely to help others

      → observing positive role models — if we are encouraged to be empathetic, we are more likely to do so

      → no time constraints (Good Samaritan study) — feeling rush, you are a lot less likely to help

      → victim characteristics — much more likely to help an older person with a cane/someone who looks like us

    • individual differences

      → less concern with social approval — if people are less, they are going to be more helpful

      → more extroverted — more likely to help than an introverted person

      → training/expertise — trained medical workers are more likely to help than

    • gender differences

      → men more likely to help is risky situations

      → women more likely to volunteer (safer situation)

• asocial

• anti-social

  Aggression:

• aggression - any behaviour intended to cause physical or psychological pain

  • physical harm, verbal harm, decision to harm someone

• predicting aggression

  • situational influences

    • interpersonal provocation → whether or not we are provoked

    • frustration → more likely to behave aggressively when frustrated

    • media influences → watching violent media increases odds of engaging in violence (observational learning) — relatively short term

    • aggressive cues → external cues associated with violence can prime more aggressive responses (being a presence of some sort of violent cue like a knife) — weapons effect - the mere presence of weapons increases aggression

    • arousal → autonomic system is hyped up, we might interpret this arousal as anger

    • alcohol/drugs → decreases inhibition to act violently/lower self-awareness

    • temperature → being warm increases irritability/bodily discomfort/levels of arousal

  • individual differences

    • high levels of negative affect → anxiety, depression, mistrust

    • impulsivity → very impulsive/can’t withhold feelings of anger

    • less prevalent among Asian cultures (collectivist cultures)

    • culture of honour in Southern USA → insult wife, try to take land = aggressive reaction

  • gender differences

    • men tend to be more physically aggressive

    • women display more relational aggressive

Chapter 14: Personality

• personality - people’s typical ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that influence how they live

  • relatively consistent

  • characteristics that remain stable across situations that then we often use to predict how people are going to act/react in new or certain situations

  • we tend to categorize people to help us understand others (sometimes to even predict behaviour)

    • categorize in terms of extroversion/introversion and other similar ways

Two Major Ways of Studying Personality:

1. nomothetic - researchers find general rules that govern all individuals

   • what is true for everyone; making generalities about people, personality, or tendencies

2. idiographic - researchers find unique combinations of characteristics and experiences within individuals

   • looking at one individual, we may be able to figure out their personality qualities and how they might have predicted their success and their behaviour

   • can be difficult to falsify post hoc, but studying one person via idiographic research can be a good starting point for going into nomothetic approaches to compare the traits of one person to others

Behavioural Genetics Research:

→ three broad influences on our personalities

1. genetic factors - heritability is not super accurate in identifying personality, but a large part of our personality comes from genetic factors

   • approx 50% of our personality comes from genetic factors

2. shared environmental factors - experiences in one family/house/community that makes individuals more alike

   • diet, routines, access to things such as technology, manners/mannerisms

3. nonshared environmental factors - specific for each individual

   • putting one sibling in soccer and the other in martial arts, different friends, different teachers

   • have a larger influence on personality that shared environmental factors

   • a larger portion of our personality comes from non shared environmental factors

→ things that differentiate individual members from the rest of their family

→ some things that look shared may not truly be shared

• parenting styles with multiple children

Twin + Adoption Studies:

• twins reared together - comparing identical twins (100% same genetic makeup) to fraternal twins (50% same genetic makeup → same as siblings)

  • identical twins are more alike in personality traits than fraternal twins

    • suggests the role of genetics

• adoption studies - compares an adopted child’s personality to their biological parents to their adopted parents

  • adopted children tend to be more like their biological parents

    • suggests greater influence of genetics

• identical twins reared apart - comparing identical twins that were raised apart

  • about similar as regular kids being reared together → the shared environment has little difference/impact on personality

  • the nonshared environmental factors have greater impacts than the shared ones but still less than genetics

Psychoanalytical Theory:

Sigmund Freud - used his hypothesis and free association to access the unconscious mind, studied neurosis, and came up with a base of personality that is true for most/all people

→ father of psychoanalytic theory

→ treated many patients with hysteria

• assumptions

  • psychic determinism - all our actions are due to inner forces/conflicts

    • dreams, accidental slips of the tongue, repressed/suppressed emotions or thoughts

    • our dreams our symbolic messages for hidden, unconscious desires

  • symbolic meaning - our actions represent our inner forces and conflicts

    • Freud studied this via dream content → thought that what we dream about is a reflection of our unconscious desires

  • unconscious motivation - the reason for our actions are outside our awareness

    • view human personality that we have little control over what we do

    • thought we had to engage in psychoanalysis to bring the unconscious out and make it conscious to find out how we can be motivated

Structures of Personality:

1. id - primitive instincts

   • libido - sex drive and urges

   • thanatos - aggression and death → impulses — immediate gratification

2. superego - sense of morality

   • conscience → moral compass, holds impossible standard of ideals and values, deciding right from wrong

3. ego - the decision maker

   • conscious awareness and wishes → the rational part of our brain that mediates between the id and superego — sense of reality that controls and directs the other two in ways that are acceptable and “right”

Example:

→ id in a hungry state would want to grab a snack and eat in the grocery store without paying for it

→ superego says “you can eat anything now, you have to buy it first”

→ ego makes the decision to buy the snack then eat or eat it then buy it (find a compromising decision)

Defense Mechanisms:

→ work to keep us psychologically healthy, unless we begin to rely on one or two of the mechanisms exclusively

• repression - motivated forgetting of threatening memories or impulses

  • blocking out traumatic experiences

• denial - motivated forgetting of current experiences

  • denying something that is currently happening to reduce anxiety in the moment

• regression - returning to a psychologically younger state

  • regress to a lower level of maturity, returning to things that gave you comfort as a child or infant

• reaction-formation - doing the opposite of what triggers the anxiety

  • similar to overcompensating to not expose insecurities or weakness

  • ex. unwanted pregnancy leads to overprotective parenting style

• projection - attributing your feelings onto others

  • ex someone not liking someone and describing them as mean

    • though their actual actions many not display these negative feelings because they’ve been projected onto the person

• displacement - transferring your feelings onto a safer object

  • ex. coming home from work and punching a wall

• rationalization - explaining away behaviour

  • excuses for why we act the way we act

  • external attributions → blaming outcomes of situational factors

• intellectualization - explaining emotions with higher concept ideas

  • making anxiety causing things seem more complex

    • ex. calling terminal or chronic rather than fatal because it may sound more intellectual

• sublimation - changing negative impulse into a socially acceptable goal

  • ex. engaging in exercise after a stressful day to get rid of pent-up energy and frustration

Stages of Psychosexual Development:

→ Freud believed that development occurred in 5 erotic stages

1. oral stage (brith - 18 months)

   • babies navigating the world by putting things in their mouths

     • pleasure from food, sucking, chewing

   • individuals in this stage can develop oral fixation

     • the adult version of this stage is being dependent upon others for reassurance

   • adults chewing nails, smokings, rubbing lips

2. anal stage (18 months - 3 years)

   • toilet training and sense of control over self and environment

   • anal fixation - either excessive orderliness or laziness

     • “anal” in reference to intensely orderly people comes from this term and its fixations

3. phallic stage (3 - 6 years)

   • sexual desires for the opposite sex parent and urges to harm or be more like the same sex parent develop

     • oedipus complex - urge to harm father and/or have sex with mother

     • electra complex - urge to kill mother and have sex with father

4. latency stage (6 - 12 years)

   • sexual impulses are held in the unconscious

     • mostly disproved due to the recent research on sexual development between 6 and 12 years old

5. genital stage (12+ years)

   • sexual impulses renew with puberty

   • romantic relationships develop

→ Freud argued that what happened in the first 5 years of life contribute largely to our personality later in life

Scientific Examination:

• unfalsifiable

• failed predictions

• poor support for the unconscious

• unrepresentative and small samples

• poor support for the role of shared environmental influence

Non-Freudian Theories:

• core assumptions

  • emphasis on the unconscious and early childhood experiences

  • less emphasis on sexaulity

  • more optimistic about human nature

• Alfred Adler

  • striving for superiority

    • striving to dominate others, be better than others, achieving the goals you want to achieve

  • children who are pampered or neglected may develop inferiority complex

    • low self-esteem

  • parenting styles impacts inferiority complex

    • children become more dependent on people

• Carl Jung

  • collective conscious

    • suggest all of us have a personal unconscious (traumas) and collective unconscious (shared historical members, desires, wishes, that are passed down from our ancestors)

    • fear of snake → passed down from ancestors

    • accounts for similarities we see in myths about other cultures

  • archetypes

    • symbol of a mother → loving, caring

    • hero

    • circle → unity, wholeness

  • Karen Hornet

    • first major feminist theories that had an issue with Freud’s theory

    • founder of feminist psychology

    • argued against penis envy and oedipus complex

      • argued it had to do with the social/gender norms

    • otherwise, did not stray from Freud

Scientific Examination:

• unfalsifiable

Humanistic Theory:

• core assumptions

  • rejects determinism for free will

  • believe people want to self-actualize

    • trying to develop our innate potential to its fullest extent

• Carl Rogers

  • revolutionized psycho therapy

  • people are inherently positive

  • conditions of worth → expectations we place ourselves regarding appropriate vs inappropriate behaviour

    • rewarding kids who say they want to be a firefighter or a doctor vs not rewarding kids who say they want to be a stay at home parent

  • differences in personality is a reflection of the condition of work that has been put on us

• Abraham Maslow

  • focused on individuals who have “achieved” self-actualization

    • believed only 1% if adults reach this

  • common features → creative, spontaneous, accepting, self-confident

Scientific Examination:

• human nature is no entirely positive

• when people receive therapy to match their current self-identities with “true identities”, symptoms do not necessarily improve

• selection bias for Maslow’s findings

• difficult to falsify the drive for self-actualization

Behavioural Theory:

• core assumptions

  • behavioural determinism - your past learning experiences drive your behaviour

  • our behaviour is governed by what we have been rewarded for or punished in the past

  • there is no such thing as free will

  • the environment drives the “unconscious”

    • can be aware of the influence it has

Scientific Examination:

• if thoughts were unnecessary, why did humans evolve to be able to think?

Social Learning:

• core assumptions

  • reciprocal determinism - how personality, cognitive, behaviour, and the environment include each other

  • all inclusive theory

  • observational learning - learn by watching other people

Scientific Examination:

• social modeling relies on the influence on the shared environment

Personality Traits:

• personality traits - relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that make people different from one another

  • implements our behaviours across situations

  • different ways to describe people’s personality traits

    • aggressive

    • impulsive

    • curious

    • social

Trait Models:

• focused on describing the structure of personality, instead of the cause

  • trait theorists interested in what behaviours and attitudes are consistent across situations

    • Gordon Allport → first trait theorist

      → if we have particular traits, we must be able to describe them

      → noticed many words are synonyms to each other

      → personality traits with the most synonyms might be the most important when considering different models of personality

Factor Analysis:

• Raymond Cattell

  • factor analysis - statistical means of examining which things go together

  • higher correlation between items indicate the items are more related to one another

  • how researchers developed the Big 5 Model

Big Five Model of Personality:

• suggests that all of us possess each of the traits from one degree to another

  1. neuroticism - emotionally unstable

     • anxious

     • tense

     • irritabile

     • lack self-confidence

  2. extraversion - being outgoing

     • sociable

     • assertive

     • energetic

  3. conscientiousness - organized and reliable

     • efficient

     • orderly

     • thorough

     • self-disciplined

     • higher GPAs

  4. agreeableness - highly agreeable

     • kind

     • warm

     • very trusting of others

     • forgiving

     • altruistic

     • compliant

     • modest

  5. openness to experience

     • imaginative

     • curious

     • artistic

     • unconventional values

     • one of the most controversial traits in the Big 5

→ people can vary along any of these traits

→ traits can be describe with different amounts of each trait

→ just because two people match in one trait doesn’t mean they will match in other traits

→ each trait is uncorrelated with one another

• good at predicting our behaviours

• cultural influences

  • lots of cross-cultural support

  • openness to experience may not be cross cultural

    • “group harmony” vs “honesty/humility”

  • individualism vs collectivism

The Big Three:

• neuroticism

• extraversion

• impulse control - how much you can resist a desire to engage in something

The Big Two:

• extraversion/dominance

• agreeableness/love

→ interpersonal traits - interactions between people involving exchanges (traits that can’t be expressed when you are alone on an island)

Can Traits Change:

• until age 30, some changes are common

  • openness to experiences, neuroticism, and extroversion decrease from late teens to early 30s

  • conscientiousness and agreeableness tend to increase

    • suggests that as we mature and gain more social roles, we end up adopting personality that is more consistent with those roles

• after age 30, there is very little personality change

  • psychotherapy can prolong personality changes

Scientifically Examined

• behavioural inconsistency (Walter Mischel)

  • low correlations between similar behaviours in different environments

  • low correlations between traits and specific behaviour

→ response to Mischel

• personality traits predict aggregated behaviours

  • correlation of 0.4 is not that small

• both personality and situations influence each other

• your consciousness cannot predict whether you show up to class → cannot predict situations