Comprehensive Psychology Study Guide: Humanistic, Psychoanalytic, Sociocultural, and Positive Perspectives

Humanistic Psychology - Money (27+h - Conditions of worth: These are the circumstances under which individuals feel they are worthy of self-regard; often derived from societal or parental expectations that acceptance is conditional upon certain behaviors. - Free will: The humanistic emphasizes human agency and the ability of individuals to make choices that are not predestined by genetics or environmental pasts. - Hierarchy of needs: A motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid, ranging from basic physiological needs to self-actualization. - Self-actualization: The complete realization of one's potential and the full development of one's abilities and appreciation for life. - Self-concept: The collection of beliefs about oneself, including elements such as academic performance, gender roles, sexuality, and racial identity. - Self-esteem: An individual's subjective evaluation of their own worth; encompasses beliefs about oneself as well as emotional states. - Unconditional positive regard: A concept developed by Carl Rogers that involves showing complete support and acceptance of a person no matter what they say or do. - Key Theorists: Focus on individuals like Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers who pioneered this person-centered approach. - Treatment of Disorders: Emphasizes therapy that fosters growth, empathy, and personal responsibility. # Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Perspectives - Archetypes: Universal, inborn models of people, behaviors, and personalities that play a role in influencing human behavior according to Carl Jung. - Collective unconscious: A segment of the deepest unconscious mind is genetically inherited and is not shaped by personal experience. - Defense mechanisms: Unconscious psychological operations that function to protect a person from anxiety-producing thoughts and feelings related to internal conflicts. - Fixation: An obsessive interest in or feeling about someone or something; in Freudian terms, it refers to getting stuck in a specific psychosexual stage. - Free association: A psychoanalytic technique where the patient is encouraged to verbalize whatever comes to mind without censorship to aid in discovering unconscious thoughts. - Id, Ego, and Superego: The three parts of the psychic apparatus; the Id represents instinctual drives, the Ego is the realistic mediator, and the Superego is the moral conscience. - Latent vs. manifest content: In dream analysis, manifest content is the actual literal subject matter of the dream while latent content is the underlying hidden psychological meaning. - Projective tests: Personality tests designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts. - Key Theorists: Specifically Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Karen Horney. - Treatment of Disorders: Generally involves psychoanalysis to bring the unconscious to the conscious mind to resolve repressed conflicts. # Sociocultural Psychology - Wensday (29th) - Altruism: The principle and moral practice of concern for the happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. - Bystander effect: A social psychological theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. - Cognitive dissonance: The mental discomfort experienced by a person who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or ideas. - Deindividuation: The loss of self-awareness and individual identity in groups, often leading to uninhibited behavior. - Ethnocentrism: The act of judging another culture based on preconceptions that are found in the values and standards of one's own culture. - Actor-observer bias: The tendency to attribute one's own actions to external causes while attributing other people's behaviors to internal causes. - Self-serving bias: Thinking that successes are the result of one's own character while failures are the result of external factors. - Fundamental attribution error: The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior. - Ingroup vs. outgroup: The 'us' versus 'them' mentality; the ingroup is the social group to which a person identifies as being a member. - Social facilitation: The finding that people sometimes perform better on tasks when others are around. - Social loafing: The phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone. - Social norm v. social role: Social norms are the unwritten rules of acceptable behavior, while social roles are the parts people play as members of a social group. - Just-world phenomenon: The tendency of people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve. - Individualism v. collectivism: Individualism prioritizes the individual over the entire group; collectivism stresses the importance of the community. - Social comparison theory: The idea that individuals determine their own social and personal worth based on how they stack up against others. - Social Influence: Divided into Normative social influence (desire to be liked or fit in) and Informative social influence (desire to be correct). - Group dynamics: Includes Groupthink (desire for harmony leading to poor decision-making) and Group polarization (strengthening of a group's initial leanings through discussion). - Persuasion techniques: Includes the Central route (logic and data-driven) and the Peripheral route (association with positive cues like beauty or fame). - Halo effect: A cognitive bias where one positive trait of a person influences the total judgment of that person. - False-consensus effect: An attributional type of cognitive bias whereby people tend to overestimate the extent to which their opinions or beliefs are typical of those of others. - Social trap/dilemma: A situation in which a group of people act to obtain short-term individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group as a whole. - Locus of control: Internal locus (belief that one can control one's own life) versus External locus (belief that life is controlled by outside factors which the person cannot influence). - Mere-exposure effect: A psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. - Self-fulfilling prophecy: A prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. - Stereotype v. Prejudice v. Discrimination: Stereotype is a thought; prejudice is a feeling; discrimination is an action. # Health and Positive Psychology - friday (1st) - Health psychology: The study of psychological and behavioral processes in health, illness, and healthcare. - Tend-and-befriend stress response: A behavior performed by some animals, including humans, in response to threat; it involves the protection of offspring (tending) and seeking out the social group for mutual defense (befriending). - Stress: A feeling of emotional or physical tension; the body's reaction to a challenge or demand. - Stressor: A chemical or biological agent, environmental condition, external stimulus or an event that causes stress to an organism. - Eustress: Moderate or normal psychological stress interpreted as being beneficial for the experiencer. - Distress: Great pain, anxiety, or sorrow; negative stress that can be destructive. - Problem-focused coping: Targets the causes of stress in practical ways which tackles the problem or stressful situation that is causing the stress, consequently directly reducing the stress. - Emotion focused coping: A type of stress management that attempts to reduce negative emotional responses associated with stress. - Well-being v. subjective well-being: General well-being refers to the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy; subjective well-being is defined as how people experience the quality of their lives. - Gratitude: The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. - Grit/resilience: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals; the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity. - Signature strengths: The character strengths that are most essential to who we are. - Posttraumatic growth: A positive psychological change experienced as a result of struggling with highly challenging, highly stressful life circumstances. - Positive characteristics: These include Wisdom (knowledge and judgment), Courage (bravery and persistence), Humanity (love and kindness), Justice (fairness and leadership), Temperance (forgiveness and modesty), and Transcendence (appreciation of beauty, gratitude, and hope).