Psychology Exam

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 

7.16: The Constructive Character of Memory 

How reliable is the memory of eyewitnesses? 

Can you make yourself remember events that never happened?  

False Memory: Retrieval of an event that never occurred. Depend on recollected gist memory, the general global aspects of the supposed event 

Verbatim Memory: the specific details of the memory 

Misinformation Effect: The decreased accuracy of episodic memories because of information provided after the event. 

Imagination Inflation: Boost in confidence associated with imagining the misleading information 

Source Memory: the ability to recall the context in which we acquired a memory 

Amnesia: We cannot remember where our memories come from, even though we remember the event 

Error of Source Monitoring: When we forget whether the source of our facts was an article or a news feed 

Reality Monitoring: when we forget whether we experienced or imagined an event. When you mistake an imaginary event for a real one. 

The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm: Used to induce false memories in the lab. Participants read a list of words and are asked to recall as many as possible. Often, they will recall related words that the experimenter never presented.  

8.4: Of Two Minds: Forming Judgements and Making Decisions 

What are the challenges associated with making judgments and decisions? 

How do people overcome these challenges using different types of thinking? 

• Such a task is possible, but daunting, which may explain why too many choices having can lead people to make no decision at all 

• In a now-classic study, grocery store shoppers were offered free samples of some jams. The experimenters manipulated whether the samples contained either 6 of 24 varieties of jam 

• People liked having more choices. More shoppers stopped at the table for 24 varieties than for 6 varieties.  

• But when presented with 24 choices, the shoppers were less likely to buy any jam 

• Therefore, people passing by a display of jams were more likely to stop for a taste test if there were more options to choose from, but they were less likely to purchase a jam than were people presented with fewer options 

• There is a limit to how much information we can consider when making a decision 

• Our thinking capabilties are limited: we have limited attention, memory capabilities, and processing power 

• Often we have limited information and time 

• This also constrains how logical and reasonable our decisions can be  

• Bounded rationality: The idea that rational decision making is constrained by limitatons in peoples cognitive abilities, available information, and time 

• Dual-processing theories- the proposal that people have two types of thinking to make judgements and decisions:  

• Two types of thinking:  

1. One that is slower, more effortful, and leads to more thoughtful and rational outcomes. 

2. One that is fast, fairly effortless, and leads to decent outcomes most of the time 

• Control system: Slower and more effortful and leads to more thoughtful and rational outcomes. Requires conscious attention and effort. Ex: weighing pros and cons of the details in someone’s profile. 

• Automatic system: Fast and fairly effortless and leads to decent outcomes most of the time. Intuitive reactions and responses. Ex: skipping past a profile because you don’t like someone’s shirt 

• The automatic system allows for quick judgement so people fall back on this mode when they are tired, overwhelmed by information, or especially interest in coming to a fast resolution 

• The controlled system takes more time and mental energy so people engage it for decisions that really matter and that don’t involve time pressure 

8.6: “Going With Our Gut”: How Emotion Guides Reason 

What is affect and how is it related to emotions, moods, and attitudes? 

How do affective reactions influence judgments and decisions? 

Is it useful or problematic to use affective reactions to guide thinking? 

• Far from our emotion being the enemy of reason, the emotional or “gut” responses we experience provide another way for people to make judgements and decisions efficiently and effectively  

• Bob Zajonc proposed that when people first encounter a decision to be made, their first reaction is an affective one 

• Affective reactions: a key ingredient in our emotions, moods, and attitudes but are more simple: They are a basic feeling of “good-for-me" (positive affect) or “bad-for-me" (negative affect).   

• Initial affective reactions are so quick and automatic that they guide people’s decisions more often than reason. 

• Affect heuristic: a tendency to use the positive or negative affect we associate with various objects and events in the world to make judgements and decisions  

• A mental shortcut for making judgements and decisions involves relying on affect – the good-for-me or bad-for-me feelings we associate with various objects and events in the world.  

• People apply the affective heuristic even when thinking about events that haven’t happened yet but that they only imagine 

• Antonio Damasio has argued that affective reactions are not only helpful for guiding our decisions, they are essential. He studied people with damage to a part of the brain called the ventromedial frontal cortex.  

• When this region of the brain is damaged, people are unable to properly evaluate the emotional consequences of their actions. 

• They lack the ability to associate affective reactions of “good” or bad” with the possible consequences of their actions.  

• Ex: being unable to use affect to guide decisions: making choices that are not in one’ best interest, no emotions, feeling nothing so you can’t learn from your mistakes 

• This lack of an affective response makes it much more difficult to know how to act (no feeling of fear when standing on the edge of a building, excitement for vacation) 

• Affective reactions play an important role in the everyday thinking of people without brain damage 

• The domain of moral judgment or judgements about the “rightness” or  “wrongness” of a particular behaviour 

• Does feeling disgusted make people more judgmental? When participants evaluated ambiguous moral situations in a mildly stinky room (due to fart spray in a nearby trashcan) they thought the situations were less morally permissible)  

• A potential downside of using affect to guide our thinking: if our affect can be manipulate, our judgments and decisions 

• Manipulating our decisions through our emotions is a key part of many advertising campaigns 

• Ex: using affect to make healthy foods more appealing by taste-focused labels compared to basic levels 

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 

15.1:  Social Psychology: Putting People in Context  

What distinguishes social psychology from personality psychology? 

What core motivations underlie social behavior? 

• Social psychology is the study of how social context as well as broader cultural environments influence people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.  

• The challenges posed by different contexts, other people’s expectations, and your own past experiences combine to shape your behavior. 

• Social psychology: Focus on how the immediate environment changes our behavior can be contrasted against personality psychology’s focus on an individual’s stable characteristics and their effects on behavior 

• Social psychologist: want to understand why people act consistently across those situations. They don’t deny the existence of consistent personality traits, but they do try to examine the features of context that explain the variability in human behavior 

• People carry a host of core motivations that underlie their actions. 

• There are fundamental motivations underlying how people interact within the social world and understand it. Ex: need to belong, form trusting relationships with others, perceive ourselves and our groups positively, and the need to feel a sense of control over the world around us 

• In examining how people think about the social world and relate to others in it, it’s helpful to keep in mind these guiding motivations that direct how people are influenced by their social context  

15.8: Cultural Norms and Conformity 

Why do we sometimes conform to what other people are doing? 

How is conformity affected by being in a large group or having a defined social role? 

Why do you think we like people more when they unconsciously mimic our behavior? 

• Your speech, dress, and behavior are likely to be quite different at a party with your friends than they are at a job interview. 

• This variability occurs because our surrounding social context, as well as the broader culture, often dictates social norms – patterns of behavior, traditions, beliefs, and preferences that are accepted and reinforced by others and influence our behavior 

• Social norms evolve over time and place through processes that foster the success and growth of a society  

• They vary considerably between cultures and generations  

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health organizations, businesses, and communities crafted messages designed to foster social norms for social distancing, wearing masks, and getting vaccinated  

• Example: in 2020 people like the father of two got creative in trying to foster norms for mask-wearing to protect against the spread of COVID-19 

• People often implicitly mimic or adopt the behaviours, beliefs, and preferences of those around them through a process of conformity. 

• Conformity: The process by which people implicitly mimic, adopt, or internalize the behaviours and preferences of those around them 

• In an episode of the classic TV show Candid Camera, the unsuspecting man in the center of this photo found himself facing the rear and then the side of the elevator, and taking his hat on and off, all in effort to conform to the behavior of those riding the elevator with him  

• The Candid Camera elevator sequence reveal how powerful social norms can be 

• Think of the pandemic when you did or didn’t wea wear a mask due to what others around you were doing. Why are we so ready to mold our behaviour to those around us? 

• Norms provide an easy guidebook for what to do or believe in unfamiliar situations. Ex: if an exchange student in a foreign country entered an elevator with other students facing the rear wall, the exchange student might reasonably assume that this might be the correct way to ride an elevator in that country 

• This kind of conformity to others’ actions or beliefs, in order to behave correctly or gain an accurate understanding of the world, is called informational social influence 

• Informational social influence: Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs based on a desire to behave correctly  

• Classic demonstration of this phenomenon: participants took turns estimating the distance travelled by a single dot of light in a completely darkened room  

• The light did not move at all, but due to a visual phenomenon known as the autokinetic effect, a single stationary light will appear to move if there are no other visual cues to anchor it in place 

• People's estimates for how far the light was moving from its original point were influenced by the estimates given by others in the room 

• On the first day, 3 individuals might give very different responses, but on each subsequent day, their estimates would increasingly converge until they had developed a shared belief about the distance the light had moved. 

• In follow-up studies, new members that were introduced to the group would pick up on the established group norm and shape their beliefs accordingly. 

• These experiments show how we form and transmit our beliefs to others and make sense of ambiguous (can be understood and interpreted in more than one-way, double meaning) situations 

• Another reason we conform: to satisfy our need to belong and fit in with people around us 

• Riders on Candid Camera probably turned to face the rear to avoid disapproving stares that would make them feel rejected  

• When we conform to gain approval from others or avoid disapproval, we are responding to normative social influence. 

• Normative Social Influence: Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs to gain social approval from others or avoid social sanctions (reactions to someone’s actions that can be positive or negative, and are used to enforce social norms) 

• Ex: which of the 3 lines on the right is the same length as the line on the left? Obviously the answer is 2.  

• The power of norms lead people to respond incorrectly to such a simple question 

• In Asch’s classic studies of conformity, participants were asked to indicate which comparison line was the same length as the standard line. When everyone else in the group replied with an answer that was obviously wrong, participants often conformed to the collective and gave the same incorrect response 

• Most of the time: Conformity allows us to adapt to the broader culture and get along with others. Ex: research reveals that norms for given situations guide our behaviour unconsciously, as when entering a library automatically cues us to be quiet 

• In some cases: Conformity can lead us to do silly, dangerous, or unlawful things. Ex: peer pressure and doing something you shouldn’t 

• In extreme cases and in large crowds: The presence of others can cause us to experience deindividuality, which involves losing sight of our own individuality. This causes conformity pressures to be particularly high, which is why normally law-abiding people sometimes get caught up in unlawful riots. 

• In addition to conforming to behaviour we directly observe from others, the social roles we hold provide unstated but clear social norms that guide our behaviour. Any role, such as friend, student, parent, employee, class clown, comes with certain expectations, and through conformity people often automatically mold their behavior to fit them  

• Out of all the ways we might identify, gender might have one the earlier and strongest effects in shaping our social roles  

• Although not everyone identifies themselves in gender binary terms, as either being a woman or man, from the time we are born, binary gender role expectations exert a strong influence on how people interact with children 

• How parents socialize their children: the largest difference was encouraging their sons to engage in stereotypically masculine activities and their daughters to take on stereotypically feminine activities  

• Girls tend to develop a stronger norm for helping others and boys tend to develop a stronger norm for competing with others, norms that then set the stage for different roles they might choose in adulthood.  

• Overall, gender roles can have a powerful influence on our behavior, especially during childhood, but not everyone conforms to stereotypical gender roles 

• The desire for social approval is called normative social influence. Conformity can also stem from informational social influence, a desire to behave correctly. 

15.9: Performance in Groups 

Do people perform better or worse in front of an audience? 

Why do people sometimes slack off when working in a group? 

• Simply being around others or feeling a sense of social connection can boost motivation 

• When our need for belonging is met, our engagement with the world around us is heightened and performance becomes more fluid. Early evidence of this improved performance, when we feel connected, comes from studies of a phenomenon known as social facilitation. 

• Social facilitation refers to evidence that the presence of others can boost arousal in a way that facilitates the dominant response, or more likely behavioral reaction, to that task.  

• Social Facilitation: an enhancement of the dominant behavioral response when performing a task in the mere presence of others; easy or well-learned tasks are performed better, but difficult or novel tasks are performed worse 

• Tasks that are easy or well-practiced: one’s dominant response is more likely to be a fluid, fast, or successful performance 

• Children winding string on a spool (a bit like reeling in a fishing line) performed much faster when performing with others than when performing this easy task alone 

• When people performed in front of an audience, even when they weren’t directly competing with others 

• Tasks that are difficult or something we have little experience doing: the dominant response is to make mistakes. 

• An evaluative or critical audience facilitates this dominant response and increases the number of mistakes we make  

• When individuals in one experiment had to perform a complicated cognitive task while being watched by others, not only did they exhibit a cardiovascular pattern suggesting that they felt threatened, but their performance also suffered  

• Being examined by others during a difficult task can increase stress and impair the ability to concentrate, and this combination puts us at a marked disadvantage for living up to our potential 

• Ex: a successful athlete sometimes chokes when the game is on line and everyone is watching, but the athlete isn’t completely certain of their ability to perform 

• Situations where we are working cooperatively with others: members of an orchestra, factory workers on an assembly line, or classmates doing a group project work together to do something that none of them could carry out alone.  

• Being too anonymous as part of a group can impair performance through social loafing, the tendency for individuals to put in less effort on a task when they are doing it with others rather than alone (like the slacker who never comes to the meetings for your group project) 

• Social Loafing: the tendency for individuals to put in less effort on a task when they are doing it with others rather than alone 

• Sing or clap as loud as they could: individuals would sing or clap louder when they believed they were the only person making the noise than when they believed that the sounds they made would be combined with other people in separate soundproof booths 

• Ex from interactive figure: Math problem in front of class scenario: In what conditions is she most likely to display social facilitation? When the problem she is assigned is easy and she is working on it in front of her class. 

• Explanation: Karen is likely to perform extremely well when given an easy problem and asked to do it in front of others. Knowing that everyone is watching will encourage her to make an extra effort.  

• Ex from interactive figure: In what conditions is Karen most likely to display social loafing? When the problem she is assigned is easy and she is working on it in a group 

• Explanation: When working on an easy problem with her classmates, Karen is likely to give only minimal effort, resulting in social loafing. 

• Because people are most likely to engage in social loafing when they feel that their individual performance is unnoticed by others, managers can reduce social loafing by holding both groups and individuals accountable for meeting certain goals  

• When everyone must work together to achieve a collective goal, each individual is less likely to socially loaf 

• Whereas being in front of an audience can harm performance when a task is difficult, social loafing is less likely to occur when people work together on challenging, interesting, or personally important tasks 

• Social facilitation suggests that we perform better when others watch us engage in a relatively easy task. Ex: invite lots of friends to watch you participate in a hot dog eating contest.  

15.11: Obedience to Authority  

What type of leadership is most effective for inspiring productivity? 

Can most people be made to commit harmful acts in the name of obedience? 

• Although cultures and organizations vary in how hierarchical they are, in most groups someone emerges as a leader – a person who gains authority to wield influence over others’ behavior.  

• Many leaders gain influence by demonstrating their skills for the job and thus earning their followers’ respect  

• Others rise to power by showing their dominance and intimidating others to follow their lead 

• This strategy can be effective for influencing behavior, but as you might imagine, dominant leaders are often feared more than liked  

• In early research by the pioneering social psychologist Kurt Lewin, dominant, or authoritarian, approaches to leadership enhanced productivity when the leader was present, but a more democratic approach that invited collaboration and collective decision-making inspired group members to work effectively even when the leader wasn’t there 

• It’s not surprising or concerning that people will be influenced by leaders they respect and admire  

• Health and safety depend on people following the advice or orders of trusted teachers, parents, and public officials 

• People obey dominant and authoritative leaders, even against their better judgment 

• Early social psychologist Stanley Milgram asks: Can the influence of a powerful leader lead average people to carry out extraordinarily cruel acts?  

• Milgram designed a provocative paradigm to test this question.  

• In the original experiment, participants came to his laboratory at Yale University for what they thought was a learning study: They were paired with another participant who is assigned the role of a “learner”. The teacher participant’s task was to read a list of word pairs over an intercom to the learner, who was in another room.  

• Purpose of Milgram’s Shock Machine that participants were told: Assess whether punishment would help the learner memorize these pairings. 

• After every incorrect answer by the learner, the teacher, who sat in front of the machine was instructed to hold down a switch to administer a painful electric shock through electrodes attached to the learner  

• MILGRAM’S SHOCK MACHINE: In Milgram’s classic studies of obedience, particpants were instructed to flip switches on this shock generator to what they believed to be increasingly painful electric shocks for each memory error made by a learner 

• Outcome of study/experiment: Milgram’s true interest was not in learning but IN OBEDIENCE (being willing to obey and involves altering your behavior because an authority figure has told you to do so) 

• Deception: Because Milgram’s question was whether participants in the role of teacher would be willing to give shocks of increasing levels of intensity to another person, even though the learner cried out in pain, complained of a heart problem, insisted on stopping the study, and eventually stopped responding at all. (Prerecorded responses, not real) 

• In response to questions from the participant, the experimenter repeatedly insisted “The experiment requires that you continue.” 

• 65% of participants continued to obey the commands of the experimenter even though many of them admitted afterward that they had grave concerns about the health and well-being of the learner 

• Modern ethical practices would prevent researchers from directly replicating Milgram’s experiment, but more recent studies have replicated parts of the procedure and revealed similar rates of obedience 

• Data proves that many of us follow the orders of a dominant leader even when we know those actions will bring harm to others  

• Obedience to laws, policies, and commands of leaders is required to live safely and harmoniously together in a civil society to prevent disobeying laws (traffic laws, evading tax policies, and ignoring the request of bosses, teachers, and parents) 

• Key takeaway message from Milgram’s study:  not to valorize disobedience to all authority, but to appreciate the role that obedience plays in human psychology.  

• Obey the leaders and laws that legitimately protect and maximize the collective good is integral to society 

• However unquestioning obedience to dominant leaders who fail to protect others is not good for society  

• The results of research conducted by Milgram led to which of the following conclusions about people’s obedience to authority? Obedience to authority can be changed by altering the legitimacy of the authority figure.  

• Explanation: Milgram repeated the study several times, making various alterations to the procedure, which led to differing levels of obedience 

15.12: Aggression  

What makes people act aggressively in some situations? 

Why are people more aggressive when they are hungry or tired? 

Does seeing violence make people act more aggressively?  

• Aggression: any behavior directed toward the goal of harming another living being. Intention to do harm is as important as whether harm is actually done. 

• Includes physical, emotional, and psychological harm 

• Personality/clinical approach: what makes a person aggressive 

• Social-psychological approach: why any of us might be prone to be aggressive in some situations but not others 

• General aggression model: an integrative framework of various factors and psychological processes that contribute to an act of aggression. 

• Both personality and situation combined can alter one’s affective, physiological, and cognitive responses to a situation in ways that can increase aggressive behavior unless one actively controls that impulse  

• Earlier observation: people act aggressively when their progress toward a goal is frustrated and the closer a person is to the goal, the more frustrating it is to have that goal blocked 

• Ex: waiting in a long line to purchase a movie ticket, people who are nearer to the ticket window are more likely than people at the back of the line to be aggressive toward someone who cuts the line 

• Experiencing a persistent, annoying noise, ex: headache or uncomfortably hot room can lead to aggression.  

• Drivers were more likely to lay on the horn when a car ahead failed to proceed through a green light on a very hot day compared to a cooler day 

• Negative events are more likely to cue negative thoughts and emotions, especially anger 

• As a result, the experience of one aversive stimulus (unpleasant or repelling stimuli that induces behavioral change) makes it more likely that we interpret a triggering event in a more negative light, lashing out in anger. 

• Hangry: describes the empirically validated phenomenon of being quicker to anger when hungry. Also, because anger is a highly arousing emotion, when we are already physically aroused (after going for a run), our aggresive reactions to insults are intensified  

• The general aggression model also acknowledges that some individuals, because of personality traits or the environments they were raised in, are more prone to react with aggression than others.  

• The model suggests that various situations can make us more aggressive even if we do not have an aggressive personality 

• The way a person shows aggression can also be shaped by situation-level and person-level variables  

• Ex: direct acts of aggression, such as giving a friend the silent treatment or spreading rumours about a person, is more likely to be employed by women 

• The norms, values, and laws of the culture people live in may cue them to engage in efforts to reappraise the situation, distract themselves, or otherwise regulate or redirect their anger 

• One explanation for men’s greater use of direct aggression is simply that boys more than girls are socialized to see direct aggression as a gender-appropriate response to negative events  

• If situations can cue us to act aggressively, is it possible that violent forms of entertainment, such as movies and video games, can also make us more aggressive?  

• Weapons Effect: Simple exposure to a gun or weapon can increase aggressive responses by bringing violent thoughts to mind.  

• Ex: participants gave more electric shocks to a participant who had earlier shocked them if the study took place in a room that had a gun present rather than a badminton racket 

• Playing video games might elevate aggression: violent video games in a controlled laboratory setting has been found to increase physiological arousal, as well as aggressive thoughts, actions, and interpretations of events 

• Generally, desensitize people to the suffering of others and violence in the world  

• These effects happen immediately after playing a game, but they also seem to accumulate when violent games are played repeatedly over a series of days  

• Research found no clear evidence that violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children and adolescents  

• However, there is evidence that exposure to violent video games can bring to mind more aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavioral impulses 

• These effects might be relatively shorted lived, as the evidence does not point to any strong links between violent video games and criminal acts of violence, or delinquency (minor crime, especially by young people) 

15.13: Prosocial Behaviour: Why Do We Help? 

Why do people help relatives? 

Why do people help strangers? 

Why might people find it harder to empathize with some people more than with others? 

• Human beings have an extraordinary capacity to be cruel to others, but humans also have an extraordinary capacity to be kind 

• Early in infancy, babies show a preference for people who are helpful and are biased against those who harm others. When they get a bit older, toddlers take pains to help others around them 

• From the time they are quite small, children show a capacity to recognize, reward, and repeat helpful behavior 

• From an evolutionary perspective, it is reasonable that a social species like human beings would have developed a natural capacity toward prosocial behavior: actions aimed at assisting others toward their goals  

• Helping people we are related to (parents sacrifice personal luxuries to fund their child’s education) might result from kin selection: an evolved or adaptive strategy of assisting those who share one’s genes, even at personal cost, as a means of increasing the odds of genetic survival  

• An adaptive advantage to helping complete strangers is that people generally follow a norm of reciprocity: an automatic tendency to help others who have helped in the past or are expected to help in the future 

• People agree to help others who have helped them in the past or might help them in the future 

• Why does this norm exist? How do we explain why people sometimes engage in extraordinary acts of prosocial behavior, undertaken at great personal risk? Theories of cultural evolution further suggest that prosocial behavior might have developed as a strong social norm because it helps societies succeed 

• According to the cultural evolution argument, each successively larger society will be more successful to the degree that it develops clear norms for people to form trusting, cooperative relationships not only with relatives, but also with others we see as part of our social group or broader culture 

• The norm of reciprocity is an adaptive behavioral tendency that encourages prosocial behavior even among unrelated members of a species 

• Biological and cultural evolutionary perspectives thus emphasize the role of natural tendencies and strong social norms that encourage prosocial and helpful behaviors 

• Empathy is the key to altruism (the unselfish concern for other people, doing things simply out of a desire to help others) 

• When we feel similar to someone else, we are more able to feel what they feel and are thus more motivated to take action aimed at reducing their suffering  

• This tendency to help those we identify with might explain why studies consistently find that people are more likely to help a member of their own racial group than a member of a racial outgroup 

• The problem is that we don’t always find it easy to mentally stimulate the suffering of others, a phenomenon that’s been labeled the empathy gap 

• Empathy gap: The inability to accurately stimulate the mental suffering of another person 

• Teachers were more supportive of school policies and programs aimed at helping students targeted by bullying if the teachers themselves were first put in a context where they felt excluded by others.  

• Our own painful experience or otherwise feel similar to those in need, we find it easier to empathize with them and are more likely to help 

• We also find it easier to empathize with a difficult/unfortunate/dangerous single innocent victim, and we tend to avoid dwelling deeply on people’s suffering on a more massive scale  

• EX: Charitable organizations understand this tendency to feel more empathy and compassion toward a single person, so they highlight the suffering of one child rather than the vast numbers of people who might have been harmed by famine or natural disaster 

• People don’t only help others because they empathize with the suffering of those in need. Sometimes prosocial behavior is motivated by personal benefits that outweight the costs 

• Ex: a petty thief who provides an eyewitness account to the police of an assault might not be doing so out of compassion for the victim but rather to gain immunity for their own crimes  

• Self-serving benefits of helping can also be psychological: people feel happier after spending money on other rather than on themselves 

• Interactive check your understanding: Your friend volunteers at a local food bank that collects food donations for people in need. They ask you if you would like to volunteer with them next weekend. According to the concept of empathy and its link to prosocial behavior, which of the following would be more likely to make you volunteer?  

• Whether your roommate agrees to help you in your effort to raise money for a new park next month: this may encourage you to be prosocial, but this is an example of the norm of reciprocity 

• Whether you can imagine what it is like to be unable to afford groceries: empathy is the ability to feel what someone else is feeling. According to Batson, when we feel empathy, we will behave altruistically. 

• Whether a member of your family has visited a food bank: this may encourage you to be prosocial, but this is an example of kin selection 

• Whether you can put this volunteer service on your resume: this may encourage you to be prosocial, but this is an example of being motivated by personal benefit. 

15.15: Perceiving Groups: Why Do We Stereotype?  

What is a stereotype?  

Are stereotypes ever accurate? 

Why do we stereotype others? 

• Impressions are the mental representations or schemas that we have about individuals 

• Stereotypes are the mental representations or schemas we have about groups 

• Similar to the way we pick up the language, customs, and beliefs of our surrounding culture, we also absorb the stereotypes that make up the fabric of our beliefs about people 

• Children learn the cultural stereotypes about different groups at a young age, this can be learned through parents, teachers, and peers 

• Stereotypes are transmitted through TV, film, and other media that continue to present a narrow range of images of people of color, women, older adults, or people who are physically or mentally disabled  

• Ex: TV news has not always provided an accurate representation of crime data by race and ethnicity. People in the United States who were watching TV in the late 1990s were likely exposed to an overrepresentation of reports on felonies committed by Black suspects 

• White Americans are still overrepresented when reporting on victims of crimes, while Latinos are underrepresented as crime victims  

• When news media misrepresent this information, those exposed to the news tend to form stronger stereotypes of different racial and ethnic groups 

• People hold violent stereotypes of Black Americans  

• A second source of inaccuracy arising from stereotyping is our tendency to rely too heavily on stereotypes of a group when judging the likely characteristics of an individual member of that group  

• Gender stereotypes often lead to people to overestimate the differences between men and women in psychological traits. These stereotypes can mask the ways these distributions largely overlap. There is much more variation within gender groups than between gender groups.  

• Stereotypes aren’t always inaccurate. When stereotypes are accurate summaries of group differences, they can help us make reasonable predictions about our social world 

• Another reason we rely on stereotypes in forming impressions of people and groups: regardless of accuracy, they are efficient. We need a quick idea of what a person is like, the stereotypes we have about their group provide a ready resource 

• The more overloaded or exhausted we are, the more likely we are to use stereotypes to form impressions  

• When people are mentally alert and aware that stereotypes might influence their views, they can correct them if motivated. People with strong egalitarian motives might be practiced at this self-correction that they do it automatically 

• When we perceive the commonalities between ourselves and individual members of another social group, we are also more likely to transfer our own traits, beliefs, and preferences onto them than to assume they are similar to some cultural stereotype of their group  

• A third reason stereotypes exist is that they help us explain and also justify the way things are. Ex: White Americans who more strongly stereotype Black Americans as having lower-status jobs are more likely to deny their own White privilege (advantages they experience by being White) and support beliefs and policies that maintain racial hierarchy in the United States 

• People who are weathy, White, and/or who have high status in society are often stereotyped to be more competent and assertive than those who have lower incomes, are people of color, and/or are disadvantaged  

• Those who have lower incomes or who have lower status in society are sometimes granted their own positive stereotypes of being happier, warmer toward others, and more moral  

• Complementary stereotypes: those who are wealthy are cruel and unhappy, whereas those with low incomes are content 

15.18: Reducing Prejudice 

Can contact with another group reduce prejudice against them? 

How can teachers help kids develop more respectful relationships in the classroom? 

Can imagining positive interactions with others reduce prejudice? 

• Prejudice: a negative attitude or judgement about a person or group that is formed before having any experience with them 

• Many of us take it for granted that others will assume we are “normal”, but Jazz Jennings sees it as a luxury to have others see her and treat her like any other young woman since she came out publicly as transgender at age six  

• Anyone who is part of a group or social category that is stigmatized in society, other people’s prejudices can be extremely harmful 

• The Nature of Prejudice book: prejudice can be reduced through friendly or cooperative interactions between members of different groups 

• Contact Hypothesis: the proposal that prejudice can be reduced through sanctioned, friendly, and cooperative interactions between members of different groups working together as equals toward a common goal 

• Gordon Allport identified four important elements of positive contact that can help reduce prejudicial attitudes: 1. working together, 2. as equals, 3. toward a common goal, and 4. in an environment where those in the position of authority support social change  

• Positive intergroup contact is effective in reducing prejudice, particularly when Allport’s four conditions are met  

• One way that positive interactions lessen intergroup prejudice is by reducing the anxiety and other negative emotions that people normally feel when interacting with someone different from themselves 

• When we have positive interactions with a person from another group, we develop the ability to see the world from another viewpoint and empathize with that person’s experience 

• When we make friends with people from other groups, we also expand our sense of self to include a more diverse array of attributes and experiences that allow us to grow as individuals  

• People hold the strongest prejudices toward groups with no personal experience or exposure.  

• Imagining having a positive interaction with someone from a different group or background might even be somewhat beneficial in reducing prejudice  

• As cisgender people learn more about the personal experiences of people like Jazz Jennings, they develop a deeper understanding and more positive attitudes toward those who are transgender 

• Change people’s biased behavior by changing the norms in the context: When University students saw posters or videos, nonmarginalized students reported more positive attitudes toward students of color and marginalized students reported feeling a greater sense of belonging at their university. 

• Inclusive norms can be a powerful signal of respect  

• Reduce prejudice by involving contact and a common goal that has each student equally contribute  

15.22: Online Social Interaction 

In what ways does online social interaction benefit psychological well-being? 

In what ways does online social interaction diminish psychological well-being? 

Is online dating an improvement over traditional methods of meeting people? 

• How relationships change, for the better or the worse, because of these technological changes: new technology that allows people to meet, connect, and interact at a distance  

• Self-disclosure is a good strategy for deepening social bonds, this new method of self-disclosing to a broad collection of social contacts might be particularly good 

• Participants who were instructed to post more to Facebook than they usually did later reported feeling more socially connected and less lonely, regardless of whether or how others commented on their posts 

• However, there is a tendency for people with lower self-esteem to share their negative thoughts and feelings can be off-putting to others 

• Social media has a small negative effect on well-being, as most people post positive events and experiences that present an idealized version of themselves to the virtual social world  

• Additionally, online social networks for desire of belonging can take us away from people who are close at hand. Ex: many people report experiences where the felt that others use of online media made them feel neglected and ignored  

• Younger adults are more likely to use online dating as a way to meet people who are a good match 

• It is a benefit to be able to sort through many possible dating partners without investing too much time, money, and awkward small talk to find out if they are the one 

• Given that people don’t always have a clear sense of what they truly are attracted to in another person, the matching algorithms do not necessarily help users identify a compatible partner 

• Also, the process of sorting through a long menu of potential partners can give people unrealistically high expectations of finding the perfect match out of so many fish in the sea 

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

13.1: Defining Psychological Disoders 

What is a psychological disorder? 

How prevalent are psychological disorders? 

What are the costs associated with psychological disorders? 

• The phrase psychological disorder conjures up images of someone whose psychological functioning is “abnormal.” However, if you stop to think about it, many things that people think, feel, and do may be abnormal without necessarily being symptoms of a disorder 

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, the experience of troubling levels of anxiety and depression have become even more common than they were previously  

• The most commonly accepted definition of psychological disorder is by American Psychiatric Association (2013) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychological  

• Psychological Disorder: A clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognitive, emotional regulation, or behavior that is usually associated with significant distress or disability in social, occupational, and other important activities 

• The DSM-5 states that psychological disorders (mental disorders) are syndromes, or clusters of symptoms, that tend to occur simultaneously 

• Syndrome: A cluster of physical or mental symptoms that are typical of a particular condition or psychological disorder and that tend to occur simultaneously 

• Symptom: A physical or mental feature that may be regarded as an indication of a particular condition or psychological disorder  

• Many different mental health professionals use the DSM-5 to diagnose mental disorders 

• Psychopathology: the scientific study of psychological disorders or the disorders themselves  

• 2 closely related terms: abnormal psychology and clinical psychology  

• Abnormal psychology: the nature and origins of psychological disorders 

• Clinical psychology: the assessment and treatment of psychological disorders 

• To qualify as a psychological disorder, a syndrome must not be: 

1. An expectable response to common stressors and losses (such as the loss of a loved one) 

2. A culturally approved response to a particular event (religious rituals) 

3. Simple deviance from social norms (behavior that differs from what is normal or accepted) 

• The last element is crucial: socially acceptable behavior varies accross cultures and over time, which makes it important to take social context into account when assessing whether an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are the result of a psychological disorder 

• When thinking about psychological disorders, imagine a continuum of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses ranging from normal to severely disordered 

• Consider responses to the academic and social challenges that students often face as they transition from high school into first term of college.  

• Normal responses at the start, middle of the continuum you see mild to moderately disordered responses, end of the continuum you see more severely disordered responses 

• As a person moves across the continuum from left to right, the chances increase of having the symptoms needed to qualify as a psychological disorder 

• Prevalence: how widespread a disorder is.  

• Point prevalence: the percentage of people in a given population who have given a psychological disorder at a particular point in time.  

• Lifetime prevalence: the percentage of people in a certain population who will have a given psychological disorder at any point in their lives. 

• Looking at the Lifetime Prevalence (%) of Selected Psychological Disorders in the United States 

• Anxiety-related disorders: 29% 

• Mood-related disorders: 21% 

• Schizophrenia: 1% 

• Two or more disorders: 28%. More than a quarter will experience two or more disorders 

• Any disorder: 46%. Nearly half will experience at least one disorder during their lifetime 

• Large numbers of people have at least one psychological disorder and an even larger number of people (friends, family members, coworkers, and neighbors with a psychological disorder) are affected by these disorders indirectly  

• From a global perspective, the total costs associated with psychological disorders are shocking 

• Nearly half a billion people worldwide suffer from psychological disorders, representing five of the ten leading causes of disability and premature death worldwide  

• Psychological disorders are responsible for between 7 and 13% of the total disability-related impact on human health and well-being worldwide  

• Mood-related disorders account for 41% of the impact worldwide 

13.2: Assessing Psychological Disorders 

What are the typical components of a clinical assessment? 

What techniques do some clinicians use to help diagnose psychological disorders? 

• DSM-5 provides specific definitions for each of the different psychological disorders 

• These specific definitions make it possible to decide which disorder a client has (client refers to a person who is seeking professional assistance) 

• Clinical assessment: a procedure for gathering the information that is needed to evaluate a clients psychological functioning and to determine whether a diagnosis is warranted 

• Often begin with a clinical interview: the clinician asks the client to describe their problems and concerns 

• Clinician’s goal is to explore the client’s current mental state, life circumstances, and history 

• Interview questions are open-ended, flexible, no particular script followed 

• Clinician may employ one or more structured interviews, asking specific questions in a specific sequence, with attention to certain types of content 

• Ex: Clinician might use the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5, which asks questions directly about certain diagnostic categories (anxiety-related disorders or mood-related disorder) 

• Clinicians pay attention to clients’ concerns, any behaviours that may hint at difficulties clients are not reporting (avoiding eye contact, shake visibly, become tearful) to note these down, also discrepancies between what they observe, and problems that clients report  

• The full pattern of a client’s problems, together with their onset and course, usually allows the clinician to form an opinion as to whether the client has a psychological disorder 

• Clinicians may revise the diagnosis as they gain new information about the client’s current life circumstances and history, family and cultural background, and how a client responds to a particular form of treatment. The clinical diagnosis is not set in stone, it serves as the clinician's initial judgment about the client's current state 

• Self-report measures: a standardized clinical assessment tool that consists of fixed set of questions that a patient answers 

• Relatively brief and target a certain well-defined set of symptoms 

• Sample items from the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory assess symptoms of depression.  

• Client picks the statement that best describes how they have been feeling during the past two weeks 

• Projective tests: a form of clincial assessment in which a person responds to unstructured or ambigious stimuli (typically pictures) 

• Clients cannot help but impose a structure of their own 

• In the process of describing this strucutre, they are thought to provide valuable information about unconcious wishes and conflicts 

• Thematic Apperception (TAT): client makes up a story to describe what is going on in a picture 

• Responses to these pictures reveal implicit or otherwise hidden motives 

• Historically, projective tests have been extremely popular: in the mid 1990’s, 8 in 10 clinicians in the United States used projective tests at least ocassionally  

• Today popularity of these tests outweights their demonstrated usefulness, as it takes time to administer these tests and the mixed evidence regarding their validity  

• Declining use of projective tests in graduate training programs, but remain in use among clinicians 

• Adult Attachment Projective Picture System: assesses attachment styles and have presented evidence for reliability and validity of these tests 

13.4: Benefits and Costs of Diagnostic Labels 

What are some of the benefits and costs of using diagnostic labels? 

Why do clinicians distinguish between people and their disorders? 

• For psychological disorders, diagnostic labels carry very real costs as well as benefits 

• One important benefit of diagnostic labels: improved treatment of psychological disorders 

• Having specific labels for different disorders helps to ensure that clients get the appropriate treatment (therapy, medication, or both) 

• Without diagnostic labels, it would be difficult to know which treatment to provide 

• Help create a uniform framework for difficulties a client is having, allowing different healthcare providers who work with the same client to coordinate treatments. 

• Benefit from the client’s point of view: having a label for a puzzling set of symptoms may provide relief and motivate the client to seek and obtain treatment 

• Diagnostic labels facilitate research on psychological disorders 

• Without specific diagnoses that can be reliably applied, we wouldn’t know whether the clients with schizophrenia (or any other disorder) who were studied in one hospital had the same illness as the clients who received the same diagnosis in another hospital  

• We wouldn’t know whether we could legitimately compare the results of different studies or pool results across studies  

• We also wouldn’t have any way of knowing how common any given disorder is and wouldn’t be able to make rational decisions about how to distribute the resources that are available for research purposes 

• The development of an increasingly reliable and valid set of diagnostic categories has increased integrating very different approaches to psychopathology, bringing together neuroscientific findings with clinical and first-person accounts  

• Diagnostic labels can have serious drawbacks  

• A considerable stigma is attached to psychological disorders: people with psychological disorders and their family members are often viewed negatively 

• Labels can have an unfortunate effect on how we perceive someone and how people percieve themselves  

• Ex: I’m depressed and there is no point in seeking treatment. I have a mental disorder so nothing else in my life matters 

• It is the opposite perspective, as stated earlier labelling may provide some measure of relief  

• Self-defeating and destructive attitudes are in many cases reinforced by media portrayals of people with psychological disorders as violent criminals  

• Psychiatric labels also encourage the view that each disorder is entirely seperate from other disorders 

• If a researcher focuses on only one disorder, develop research programs on that disorder, public that disorder, read others’ papers about that disorder, and attend scientific meetings that focus on that disorder: This would make the very real overlap hard to see, hindering the search for common underlying mechanisms that might provide common treatment targets 

• From a research perspective, there are drawbacks associated with the use of psychiatric labels  

• Labels encourage researchers and clinicians to think of each psychological disorder as a fixed and suffering diagnosis  

• Ex: a sutyd effectively demonsrates the staying power of psychiatric labels 

• 8 healthy partcipants went to various hospitals and complained of hearing voices 

• Each was diagnosed with a psychological disorder  

• After admission to the hospital, the participants no longer complained of having any symptoms and behaved as they naturally would  

• How long would it take the psychiatric staff to update their views of the participants? 

• Not a single hospital discarded its initial diagnosis so the label had staying power 

• Psychologists are working hard to combat these stereotypes 

• One way they seek to humanize psychological disorders is by not speaking of someone as “a depressive” or “a schizophrenic”. The person has no identity behind the disorder  

• Instead use first-person language and speak of a client as “someone suffering from depression” or “a person with depression” 

• No matter what their diagnosis is, they have an identity, value, and dignity 

14.1: Early “Therapies” for Psychological Disorders 

How did early conceptions of psychological disorders shape early treatments?  

What were the conditions like in early mental institutions? 

What 19^th century innovations laid the foundation for contemporary therapies? 

• Have efforts to alleviate the suffering and problematic behaviors associated with these disorder 

• Hundreds of therapies for psychological disorders exist, ranging from behavioral therapy to brain surgery, from psychoanalysis to drug treatments 

• Early therapies were based on the idea that evil spirits caused psychological disorders 

• None of these treatments worked 

• Trephination: an early therapy for mental disorders that involved cutting a hole in the skull 

• In a process called trephination, treatment providers cut large holes in a patient’s skull, so that demons could be driven out through this “exist.”  

• Other treatments sought to calm the demons with music, to chase them away with prayers, or to purge them with potions that induced vomiting 

• To make the evil spirits uncomfortable in the patient’s body that they would fee 

• Patients were starved, flogged, or immersed in boiling water. 

• In the 16^th century, a number of special “hospitals for the insane” were established throughout Europe 

• Their real function was to isolate social “undesirables” from the rest of humanity 

• Criminals, beggars, epileptics, and “incurables” were institutionalized and treated alongside the psychologically disturbed  

• In England, patients were put on display at the Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem in London, and members of the public paid admission to wander around patients with psychological disorders 

• Submerged patients in hot or cold water until they were short of drowning or twirled them on special devices at speeds that rendered them unconscious  

• Believed to reestablish balance between bodily and mental functions  

• They almost certainly had no such positive effects, although they did terrify the patients 

• Early methods for treating psychological disorders: a centrifugal-force bed, a crib for violent patients, and a swinging device 

• In the mid 19^th century, retired schoolteacher Dorothea Dix became a passionate advocate for appropriate treatment for those suffering from psychological disorders  

• Dix’s report is a powerful indictment of the treatment of psychologically disordered persons in the 19^th century North America, and fortunately it achieved the intended effect 

• Her work on behalf of those with psychological disorders eventually led to the dramatic growth of state-supported instituions for psychological care in both the United States and Canada  

• Other deveopments in the mid to late 19^th century shaped how people thought about, and tried to treat, psychological disorders 

• The successful treatment of general paresis: a disorder characterized by a broad decline in physical and psychological functioning, culminating in marked personality abnormalities that include delusions concerning one’s own importance  

• Without treatment, the disorder progresses to the point of paralysis, and death occurs within a few years  

• Across the following decades, a medical perspective regarding psychological disorders became much more common 

• This approach meant treatment through medications, a trend that laid the basis for many of today’s biological therapies  

• Major development at the end of the 19^th century: Sigmund Freud’s “talking cure”.  

• First psychological therapy that drew attention to the environmental and social dimensions of psychological disorders and led to the powerful new tools for the treatment of psychological disorders that are used today 

14.2: Comptemporary Therapy Providers 

Who are the main providers of psychological therapies today? 

What factors predict successful psychological therapies? 

Who are the main providers of biological therapies? 

• Today, many professionals and nonprofessionals provide therapies for psychological disorders 

• Offers psychological therapies and biological therapies  

• Providers who are licensed to offer psychological therapies:  

• Clinical psychologists 

• Psychiatrists 

• Psychratric nurses 

• Mariage, family, and child counsellors 

• School and vocational counselors 

• Mental-health counselors 

• Clinical social workers  

• Some “therapists” practice without a license, meaning that they have not completed an officially prescribed course of training or passed an official licensing exam  

• How well therapists match their clients’ needs has been shown to be more important than their level of experience, but seeking help from a trained professional has many advantages 

• Research has shown that neither professional credentials nor years of experience are particularly good predictors of a person’s success in providing psychological therapies 

• Who therapists are, what they do, and how well therapies match clients’ needs may be more important than therapists’ level of experience oe degrees they have earned  

• Working with trained professionals has some clear advantages 

• Professionals' knowledge regarding specific treatments, their awareness of and relationships with other health-care professionals, their ability to detect and handle emergencies in which clients pose a danger to themselves or someone else, and their sensitivity to the many complex level and ethical issues associated with treating psychological disorders 

• Psychologists follow a set of ethical principles: striving to benefit the people they work with, establishing relationships that are based on trust, showing integrity by being accurate, honest, and truthful, being vigilant about potential biases, and showing respect for the dignity and worth of all people  

• The admintration of psychological therapies doesn’t require a license  

• The administration of biological therapies always requires a lincense  

• For biological therapies, who should be allowed to prescribe medications to treat psychological disorders? Psychraists are medical doctors, so they can prescribe medications throughout the United States 

14.3: Contemporary Therapy Recipients 

What are some of the costs associated with psychological disorders? 

What are some of the barriers to seeking and obtaining therapy? 

Who is most likely to benefit from therapy? 

• Psychological disorders can cause pain and suffering both for the nearly 1 billion individuals worldwide who suffer from mental disorders, and for their friends and family 

• There are very real emotional costs and significant financial costs associated with psychological disorders 

• These alarming estimates understate the true cost of psychological disorders due to many projections leaving out a number of important factors: full costs of productivity loss due to the early death, incarceration (being in prison), or institutionalization of those with psychological disorders 

• Missing from these estimates are the costs of the far more prevalent “less serious” psychological disorders, as well as subsyndromal disorders – versions of psychological disorders that do not meet the DSM-5 criteria for diagnosis but still cause significant problems  

• Depressive symptoms that do not quite reach the threshold required for an official diagnosis, but still cause deep suffering and dysfunction 

• Given these emotional and financial costs, many people seek therapy, not only for psychological disorders and subsyndromal disorders, but also because they need help coping with feelings of loss, grief, or anxiety; want to improve their relationships; or simply wish to live happier and more fulfilling lives 

• Although many people seek therapy and numbers are increasing each year, many who benefit from therapy do not obtain it  

• Surveys reveal that in the United States, more than half of those with clinically significant disorders (depression, anxiety, or substance use disorders) do not receive mental health treatment  

• Although men and women see to benefit equally from therapy, women generally are more likely than men to seek therapy 

• Among young adults, European Americans are more likely than those in other ethnic groups to seek therapy  

• The first barrier is access, as relevant health-care providers are simply not available in many places in the world  

• According to the World Health Organization, the majority of individuals who have psychological disorders live in developing countries, where 90% of these individuals have no access to treatment 

• A second barrier is financial, as many psychological disorders are common among those with low incomes. They are less likely to have insurance coverage, which leads to lower rates of psychological treatment  

• A third barrier is recognition. Before they can get help, individuals with psychological disorders must recognize that they have a treatable condition; they must also believe that seeking treatment is a good idea 

• Although there are signs that seeking therapy is becoming less stigmatized, a high level of stigma is still associated with psychological disorders in many places 

• This stigma is thought to be one of the key reasons for ethnic differences in seeking therapy 

• Therapy does not work for everyone, as a certain population of people – between 5 and 10% - actually get worse as a result of therapy  

• Therapy seems to have roughly equal benefits for people from a wide range of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds 

• What matters is whether the client feels a strong sense of rapport with the therapist, is strongly motivated to participate actively in the therapy, and has a psychological disorder or other treatment target that can be treated effectively with the type of therapy being offered 

14.10: Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches  

What is cognitive-behavioral therapy? 

What are two prominent types of “third wave” therapies? 

• The success of both behavioral and cognitive approaches has led to hybrid cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) that is now more common than either “pure” behavioral therapy or “pure” cognitive therapy 

• Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies mission statement: “committed to the advancement of health and well-being by advancing the scientific understanding, assessment, prevention, and treatment of human problems through behavioral, cognitive, and biological evidence-based principles.” 

• Many variants of cognitive-behavioral therapy now exist and differ in important ways 

• As a general rule, cognitive-behavioral therapists are present-focused  

• Concerned with identifying and solving problems that their clients wish to address 

• Therapy sessions are highly structured, and clients are often expected to do homework between sessions  

• Therapists are fully transparent with their clients about their treatment goals, which are typically set collaboratively 

• Also discuss how well clients are progressing toward their goals 

• The development of third-wave therapies 

• First wave: behavioral therapies 

• Second wave: cognitive therapies  

• Third wave therapies retain the behavioral and cognitive therapists’ goals of addressing unhelpful patterns of thinking, feeling and behavior  

• They do not attempt to directly modify either thoughts or behaviors, but rather seek to modify the hold that our thoughts have on us, allowing us to achieve valued goals  

• Ex: instead of working to change irrational beliefs, as Ellis might have done, third waves therapists might concentrate on teaching clients that they can act in valued ways (such as seeking out new opportunities at work, or trying to make new friends at a social gathering) despite feeling anxious  

• 1^st prominent third wave therapy is acceptance and commitment therapy 

• Aims to decrease psychological rigidity (inability to change thoughts or behaviors) and increase psychological flexibility by helping the client achieve a greater awareness and acceptance of thoughts and feelings  

• The therapeutic goal is to make it clear that clients can pursue valued goals despite having unwanted thoughts and feelings 

• 2^nd prominent third wave therapy is mindfulness-based stress reduction  

• Used for a wide range of conditions, including anxiety and mood disorders 

• This therapy teaches people to be fully present in the moment, and to observe their thoughts, feelings, and sensations nonjudgmentally, viewing them as the ever-changing products of their mind rather than something of a greater substance  

• The therapist might encourage clients to regard their negative thoughts and painful feelings as clouds passing in the sky or bubbles floating by on a stream 

• This perspective may help clients pursue valued goals despite the presence of irrational thoughts and feelings of anxiety 

14.19: Physical Activity and Natural Environments 

What is the link between physical activity and psychological disorders? 

What did one critic mean with the claim that today’s children suffer from “nature-deficit disorder”? 

• There might be simpler ways restore healthy patterns of brain functioning, relying on behavior change rather than invasive procedures 

• One back-to-basics approach focuses on the role of physical activity  

• Physical activity is important for both mental health and physical health 

•  Lower levels of regular physical activity are associated with higher levels of mood and anxiety disorders among U.S adults 

• A growing body of research suggests higher levels of physical activity are correlated with higher levels of mental health 

• Levels of physical activity are also lower in individuals with severe psychological illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder 

• Similar relationships between physical activity and psychological distress, with less activity being associated with higher levels of stress 

• A small but growing literature suggests similar relationships between levels of physical activity and mental health in children and adolescents  

• These correlational findings have motivated researchers to examine interventions that manipulate activity levels 

• Adults with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, and other psychological disorders were enrolled in an individually tailored health-promotion program that emphasized healthy eating as well as exercise  

• Weekly meetings with a health advisor 

• This intervention led to increased physical activity, decreased severity of negative symptoms, and increased levels of overall psychological health 

• Subsequent meta-analyses have confirmed that physical activity interventions reduce symptoms of depression and schizophrenia in individuals with mental illness  

• Importantly, physical activity can be effective for individuals with subclinical distress, which means low-level, short-lived, or non-severe symptoms that affect a person's life but aren't severe enough to be diagnosed as a disorder (anxiety or depression) 

• Findings indicate that physical activity had a clear effect on depressive symptoms and reliable but smaller effects on anxiety  

• A second back- to basics approach focuses on exposure to natural environments 

• Exposure to nature can lead to increased levels of well-being 

• This idea motivated early conservationists such as John Muir, who played an intrumental role in saving wilderness lands in the United States 

• Also reflected in the long-standing practice of creating courtyards in public buildings and hospitals  

• Exposure to nature is good for us has gained sold empirical backing: in a panel study of over 10,000 individuals, ready access to green space was associated with higher levels of well-being and lower levels of distress 

• Our appreciation of the value of nature experiences sits uneasily alongside the world’s increasing level of urbanization 

• The prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders is higher in urban residents than in rural residents  

• Rates of schizophrenia are greater among those born in cities than in the country  

• The debate about the role of exposure to nature has taken an increased urgency 

• One author argued that today’s children have “nature-deficit disorder” 

• Why might a person’s exposure to nature be linked to a risk of developing a psychological disorder?  

• Study: Healthy German participants who lived in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, towns with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, or in rural areas  

• Participants take a social stress test, and researchers examined their stress responses 

• Their findings indicate that urban living was associated with activation in the amygdala, which plays a key role in stress responses 

• The notion that cities (urban living) magnify responses to stressful situations 

• These researchers hypothesized that this enhanced reactivity may play a role in placing urban dwellers at greater risk of developing a psychological disorder 

• The level of activation in the right amygdala during a stress test was related to how urban or rural a participant's current home was 

• People living in rural areas showed the lowest amygdala activation 

• Those from towns had moderate activation 

• People from cities had the highest activation levels 

• This suggests that city dwellers may experience more stress or are more sensitive to stress, while those in rural areas seem to have a lower stress response. 

• Clinicians and researchers are beginning to test whether exposure to nature plays a casual role in psychological functioning  

• Findings are encouraging green exercise, outdoor exericse that brings one into contact with nature 

• Studies suggest a positive relationship between green exercise being associated with greater self-esteem/mood 

• Greater exercise associated with greater self-esteem and improved mood  

• Caution is required, as there is not yet compelling evidence that exposure to nature can help treat psychological disorders 

14.21: Do Psychological Therapies Really Work? If So, Which Is The Best? 

What did the earliest formal meta-analysis of psychotherapy show? 

What is the empirically supported treatment movement, and why is it important? 

What is the dodo bird verdict, and why is it controversial? 

• One of the earliest formal studies of whether psychoanalysis and similar “insight” therapies work was conduced by Hans Eysenck 

• He found that therapy decreases the spontaneous improvement evident in people who did not receive therapy, meaning that they improve overtime without therapy  

• Meta-analysis: a statistical technique for combing the results of many studies on a particular topic  

• Comparing patients who received some kind of psychotherapy with a similar group of patients who did not receive any psychotherapy 

• The study concluded that the “average person who receives therapy is better off at the end of it than 80% of the persons who do not” 

• 80% of untreated people have poorer outcomes than the average treated person  

• Two normal distribution curves based on data from studies show the improvement of untreated people and psychotherpay clients 

• The outcome for the average therapy client surpassed that for the 80% of the untreated people 

• Subsequent studies show that patients who benefit from therapy still show these improvements months or even years after treatment  

• Hans Eysenck’s initial conclusions were not correct, as therapy is generally effective 

• However, when we are seeking help for ourselves or for a loved one, the question we want to answer is not whether therapy works in general, but which therapy works best for a given problem 

• Interest in evaluating treatments for specific disorders has been fueled by a worldwide movement toward identifying empirically supported treatments (EST) 

• Empirically supported treatments (EST): a clinical method that research has been effective for treating a given disorder 

• Movement began in medicine but led to a similar movement within education, social work, and psychology 

• Conclusion of research: many studies indicate that even apparently wildly different interventions are equally effective  

• Assessment has led some researchers to offer the dodo bird verdict 

• Dodo bird in Alice in Wonderland: “Everyone has won, and all must have prizes”  

• Dodo bird verdict: an expression used to summarize the comparative effectiveness of different forms of therapy, meaning that all the major forms of psychotherapy are equally effective  

• Others have taken strong issue with the dodo bird verdict, as studies examine the effects of specific modes of therapy for different clinical disorders 

• Example: behavioral therapy is effective in treating anxiety disorders, particularly the phobias, but is rarely used for personality disorders 

• Example: cognitive therapy is effective in treating mood disorders and may be just as effective as drug treatment (but with longer-lasting impact and without the side effects 

• It is also useful for other diagnoses, such as panic disorder and bulmia nervosa  

• Less effective with other problems, including phobias  

• Experiential therapies can alleviate depression and anxiety disorders, but have their limits and are less effective for schizophrenia  

• Least compelling for the earliest form of therapy, Freud’s psychoanalytic technique  

• The more modern psychodynamic therapies (how mental and emotional processes influence behavior), especiailly interpersonal therapy (improving relationships to relieve mental health symptoms) are effective, especially for depression