• MCQ Practice: Quia

Unit 1: Biological Bases of Behavior

• Psychology is the study of behavior and mental processes

• Nature vs. Nurture

  Structuralism	Functionalism	Behaviorism	Humanistic Psych	Psychoanalytic
  Titchner Introspection Finding structures of the mind Too vague	William James & Darwin Processes Evolution of how they work	Watson & Skinner Observable behavior Objective study (no introspection) Conditioning	Rogers & Maslow Positive psych Potential for growth	Freud Unconscious mind and childhood shape behavior Sex and aggression

• Hindsight bias: evidence supporting the idea is obvious, “I knew it all along”

• Overconfidence: overestimating abilities

• Perceiving patterns in random events

• Hypothesis is a testable prediction, often connected to a theory

• Case studies examine an individual or group

• Naturalistic observation watches people with no involvement

• Surveys ask people to answer questions

• Correlation does not equal causation

• 68% of data falls within one standard deviation

• Statistically significant: not likely due to chance

• Independent variable is changed

• Dependent variable is measured

• Confounding variables affect experiments

• Random sample, random selection, random assignment (experimental or control)

• Inter-rater reliability: consistency of when different people administer the same test to same subject

• Nervous system communicates through neurons

  

• Transmit action potentials

• Selectively permeable membrane, negative inside and positive outside

• Excitatory signals (GO) and inhibitory signals (STOP)

• During the refractory period, a neuron cannot fire again until it “resets”

  • Firing is “all-or-nothing”

• Neurotransmitters released at the axon terminals

  • Influence our emotions and actions

• Agonists increase neurotransmitter actions

  • Block reuptake or increase production

  • Amplify responses

• Antagonists decrease/block neurotransmitter responses

  Acetylcholine (ACh)	Enables muscle action, learning, and memory	ACh-producing neurons fail (Alzheimer's)
  Dopamine	Influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion (Parkinson’s)	Too much → schizophrenia Not enough → tremors, decreased mobility
  Serotonin	Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal	Not enough → depression SSRIs and other drugs that raise serotonin are used to treat depression
  Norepinephrine/ epinephrine	Controls alertness and arousal	Not enough → depressed mood
  GABA	Major inhibitory neurotransmitter	Not enough → seizures, tremors, insomnia
  Glutamate	Major excitatory neurotransmitter Involved in memory	Too much → overstimulation, migraines, seizures
  Endorphins	Influences perception of pain and pleasure	Too much → opiates suppress body’s natural endorphins

• Central Nervous System: brain and spinal cord

  • Spinal cord connects PNS and the brain

• Peripheral Nervous System: other NS parts

  • Somatic Nervous System

    • Controls voluntary movement

    • Skeletal system

  • Autonomic Nervous System

    • Controls glands and internal organs

• Sympathetic Nervous System

  • Arouses and uses energy

  • Fight or flight

  • Increases heart rate, slows digestion, raises blood pressure

• Parasympathetic Nervous System

  • Starts after the threat is removed

  • Conserves energy

  • Slows heart rate, stimulates digestion

• Types of neurons

  • Sensory: respond to input of senses, afferent

  • Motor: sends signals to muscles, efferent

  • Interneurons: transmits impulses between neurons

• The Endocrine System secretes hormones into the bloodstream

  • Hormones are the same as neurotransmitters

    • Testosterone, estrogen, progesterone

  • Ovaries and testes, thyroid, pineal gland (circadian rhythm), pancreas

    • Control growth and development, reproduction, and body metabolism

  • Slower than the nervous system

• The pituitary gland is the most important gland in the brain

  • Controlled by the hypothalamus

  • Releases growth hormones and oxytocin (closeness hormone)

  • Accelerates sex glands

  Electroencephalogram (EEG)	Electrodes on scalp measure electrical activity in neurons	Anxiety and depression relate to activity in the right frontal lobe
  Magnetoencephalography (MEG)	Head coil record brain’s magnetic fields	Soldiers with PTSD show stronger magnetic fields in the visual cortex
  Computed tomography (CT)	X-rays generate images that may locate brain damage	Children’s brain injuries predict impairments in intelligence and memory processing
  PET	Tracks where radioactive glucose goes when the brain does a task	Anxious monkeys use more glucose in fear, memory, and reward areas
  MRI	Magnetic fields and radio waves provide a map of brain structures	People with a history of violence have smaller frontal lobes
  fMRI	Measures blood flow to brain regions by comparing continuous MRI scans	Crash survivors had greater reactions in their brain’s visual, fear, and memory centers

• Brainstem is the oldest and central part of the brain

  • Medulla: heart rate and breathing

  • Pons: coordinates movement and sleep

• Thalamus: sensory control center receiving info from all senses, control center

• Reticular formation: nerve network travels through the brainstem and controls arousal

• Cerebellum: processes sensory input and coordinates movement and balance

  • Voluntary movement, distinguishing sounds and time, balance

• The Limbic System includes the amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus

• Amygdala

  • Linked to aggression and fear

• Hypothalamus

  • Directs eating, drinking, body temperature, pituitary gland

    • Hypothalamus is destroyed – rat becomes obese (leptin)

  • Emotion, reward

  • Controls the endocrine system

• Hippocampus

  • Processing memories

  • Damage hinders ability to remember and form long-term memories

• Motor cortex (messages about voluntary movement)

• Somatosensory cortex (sensory input)

• Auditory cortex (sounds)

• Visual cortex (vision/sight)

• Language acquisition

  • Broca’s area (speaking, frontal lobe)

  • Wernicke’s area (understanding, temporal lobe)

• Brains are flexible (plasticity) but most adaptable during childhood

• The left hemisphere is associated with the right side of the body

  • Left: mathematics, speaking

  • Right: perception, facial recognition

• The brain can process multiple stimuli and factors simultaneously

• Humans have 23 chromosomes and are related to chimpanzees

• Twins are most similar in extraversion and neuroticism (OCEAN)

• Heritability is the estimate of if a trait is genetically linked

• Some behaviors are evolutionary

• Consciousness: subjective awareness

• Hypnosis: hypnotic induction and suggestions to influence behavior

  • Can produce false memories

  • Social phenomenon theory: subjects want to be good so they’ll act hypnotized

  • Divided consciousness theory: hypnosis involves a split in consciousness

• Sleep cycles last ~90 minutes

• Alpha waves: relaxed, awake state

• Beta waves: alert, awake state

• Delta waves: deep NREM-3 sleep

• NREM 1: hypnagogic sensations and weird dreams

• NREM 2: sleep spindles

• NREM 3: deep sleep

• REM: dreams, rapid eye movement and breathing, paralysis

• The SCN controls the release of melatonin

• We sleep to consolidate memory, recharge the mind, fuel creativity, and release growth hormones

• Poor sleep increases ghrelin (hunger) and decreases leptin (control/suppression)

• Most dreams are negative

  • Incorporate details from our life and stimuli

• Freud believed the manifest content (actual) was a censored version of the latent content (meaning)

• Activation-synthesis theory: dreams are the brain’s attempt to synthesize neural activity

• Depressants (Alcohol, Barbituates, Opiates)

• Stimulants (Nicotine, Cocaine, Methamphetamine, Ecstasy)

• Hallucinogens (LSD, Marijuana)

  Alcohol	Depressant	Initial high, followed by relaxation	Depression, memory loss, organ damage, slower reaction time
  Heroin	Depressant	Euphoria, pain relief	Depressed physiology, terrible withdrawal
  Caffeine	Stimulant	Increased alertness, wakefulness	Anxiety, insomnia, withdrawal
  Nicotine	Stimulant	Arousal, relaxation	Heart disease, CANCER, DEATH
  Cocaine	Stimulant	Euphoria, confidence, energy	Cardiovascular damage, depressive mood, terrible withdrawal
  Methamphetamine	Stimulant	Euphoria, alertness, energy	Irritability, insomnia, seizures
  Ecstasy (MDMA)	Stimulant; hallucinogen	Emotional elevation, disinhibition	Dehydration, overheating, depressive mood
  LSD	Hallucinogen	Visual trips	Panic
  Marijuana (THC)	hallucinogen	Sensation, pain relief, relaxation	Impaired memory, psychological disorders

• Sensation is the experience, perception is how the brain interprets it

• Bottom-up processing starts at the receptors

• Top-down processing makes assumptions about the input

• Selective attention: only being able to focus on one thing at a time

• Transduction: receiving and converting information

• Thresholds

  • Absolute threshold: minimum energy to detect stimuli 50% of the time

  • Difference threshold: minimum difference to detect 50% of the time

  • Weber’s Law: two stimuli must differ by a constant percentage, more intense stimuli need more

• Perceptual sets are notions that affect sensation

• Extrasensory perception

  • Telepathy: mental communication

  • Clairvoyance: perceiving events somewhere else

  • Precognition: perceiving future events

  • Psychokinesis/telekinesis: moving objects with the mind

  

• Light enters cornea, passes through pupil, iris dilates

• Lens focuses light on the retina

• Accommodation: retina changes for viewing

• Receptor cells

  • Rods: detecting black and white, peripheral vision

  • Cones: finer details, color, daylight vision

• Fovea contains the most cones and helps with high-acuity vision

  • Foveal vision is what we use for high focus skills

  • Peripheral vision is seen on the sides

• Young-Helmholtz theory says red, green, and blue color receptors

• Feature detectors respond to edges, lines, and angles

• Gestalts are organized wholes (Max Wertheimer)

• Visual cliff demonstrates depth perception

• Phi phenomenon: appears to have movement

• Amplitude determines loudness

• Frequency determines pitch

• Sound is measured in decibels

• Sound hits the eardrum

  • Damage causes conduction hearing loss

  • Ossicles are bones in the middle ear

• Amplify vibrations to the cochlea

  • Damage causes sensorineural hearing loss

  

• Place theory: pitch is determined by where the neural signal is generated

• Frequency/temporal theory: pitch is determined by rate of sound wave

• Gate-control theory: the spinal cord is a neurological gate

• Kinesthesia (proprioception): awareness of the body

• Vestibular sense: sense of body movement and balance

Unit 2: Cognition

• Deep vs shallow processing

• Selective vs divided attention

• Metacognition: awareness of through processes and general cognition

• Sensory memory: the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system

  • Iconic memory: brief but vivid visual memory

  • Echoic memory: brief, perfect auditory memory

• Prospective memory: remembering to perform an action or intention

• Working memory: new understanding of short-term memory with conscious, active processing, and long-term memory retrieval

  • Short-term memory: activated memory that can hold 5-7 pieces of information before it’s stored or forgotten

  • George A Miller - short-term memory holds ~7 items +/- 2

• Long-term memory: permanent and limitless storage including knowledge, skills, and experiences

• Implicit memory: retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations

  • Procedural: skills and how to perform them

  • Unconsciously encoded

• Explicit memory: retention of facts and experiences one can declare

  • Semantic: facts and general knowledge

  • Episodic: personally experienced events

• Memory consolidation: neural storage of a long-term memory

  • Reconsolidation: previously stored memories can be retrieved and altered before being stored again

• Heuristics are mental shortcuts

  • Representative heuristics: thinking of the best example or prototype

    • Librarians being elderly women

  • Availability heuristics: events that stick in your mind and are easily recalled

    • Islamophobia and terrorist attacks

• Retrograde amnesia: you can remember old memories but can’t make new ones

• Anterograde amnesia: can’t remember old but can remember new

• Retroactive interference: new memories affecting old ones (learning a parody song)

• Proactive interference: old memories affecting new ones (old locker combo)

• Encoding: the process of getting information into the memory system

• Ebbinghaus - forgetting curve

• Loftus - false memories from eyewitnesses

• Intelligence is the ability to learn, solve problems, and adapt

  • Crystallized intelligence: accumulated knowledge attained over time

  • Fluid intelligence: quick reasoning and abstract thinking

• Charles Spearman proposed the idea of general intelligence (g)

• L.L. Thurstone presented 7 clusters of intelligence that were connected

• Howard Gardner identified 8 independent intelligences

• Robert Sternberg proposed a triarchic theory with 3 intelligences (practical, analytical, creative)

• Lewis Terman formed the Stanford-Binet test (mental age / chronological age)

• Flynn effect: increasing average intelligence scores over time

• Principles of Test Construction

  • Standardization (uniform): standard testing procedures and set scores

  • Reliability (consistent): accurate scores with high correlation when retesting

  • Validity (true): test properly measures standards

    • Predictive validity: predict what they’re supposed to

    • Content validity: reliably assess behavior they’re supposed to

• Stereotype threat: self-confirming concern of affirming negative stereotypes, leading to reduced performance

  

Unit 3: Development and Learning

• Important/central issues

  • Nature and nurture

  • Continuity and stages

    • Stage theories present development in progressive steps

  • Stability and change

    • Temperament: a person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity (relatively stable)

• Sperm and egg → zygote (fertilized egg)

  • 10 days later, the germinal stage ends when zygote attaches to uterine wall

• Embryos born around 2 weeks to 2 months

• Fetuses are ~9 weeks to birth

• Teratogens are factors that damage the embryo/fetus

  • Fetal alcohol syndrome

• Association areas are the last to develop in the brain

  • Agility, language, self-control

• Synaptic pruning: use it or lose it

• Infantile amnesia: can’t remember things before 4 or 5

  • Implicit memories remain

• Language receptiveness begins in the womb

• Chomsky - innate ability for language

  • Language acquisition device

• Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

• Sensorimotor stage (birth to nearly 2)

  • Knowledge of the world through sensory impressions and motor activities

  • Object permanence

  • Stranger anxiety

• Preoperational stage (2 to 6/7)

  • Children learn language use but not full operations of concrete logic

  • Pretend play: thinking conceptually through play demonstration

  • Egocentrism: difficulty considering another’s point of view

  • Theory of mind: forming ideas about their own and others’ mental states

    • Understanding thoughts, actions, and consequences

    • Children with ASD and other conditions may struggle with this

• Concrete operational stage (7 to 11)

  • Children gain mental operations and think logically

  • Conservation: understanding mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in forms

  • Arithmetic and simple math

• Formal operational stage (12 to end)

  • Thinking logically about abstract concepts

  • Hypotheticals and consequences

  • Differing ideas of morality

    • Kohlberg’s moral development

  

• Lev Vygotsky believed a child’s mind grows with social interaction

• Parents and teachers provide a scaffold for development

• The zone of proximal development: supportive but still challenging

• Assimilation: child encounters a new object and uses existing schema to identify it

  • Seeing a cat and calling it dog (four legs)

• Accommodation: adjusting schema to fit new experiences

  • Cat and dog are different

• Attachment theory organizes different categories of emotional ties and bonds to another person

  • Imprinting is animals forming immediate attachments

  • Sensitive period during development

• Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation paradigm

  • Insecure attachment (anxious or avoidant): clinging to the parent or indifferent

  • Secure attachment: exploring but still excited to be with mother again

• Harry and Margaret Harlow’s monkeys demonstrated comfort was preferred over food

• Freud’s psychosexual stages

  • Oral stage (birth to 18 months): infants seek pleasure through the mouth

  • Anal stage (18 mths to 3 yrs): focus on potty training

  • Phallic stage (3 to 6): sex realization; Oedipus and Electra

  • Latency stage (6 to puberty): lacking awareness of psychosexual stress

  • Genital stage (puberty to life): focus on genitals

• Erik and Joan Erikson believed children had basic trust in the world

  • Categorized development by age and social dilemmas

  

  Trucks are incoming in igloos going to IKEA; my sister goes into Roblox imitating Selena Gomez’s dancing

• Diana Baumrind’s parenting styles

  • Authoritarian: impose rules, expect obedience

  • Authoritative: demanding but responding, allow flexibility and discussion

  • Negligent: uninvolved, inattentive, lack relationships with children

  • Permissive: few demands or punishments, free rein

• Selection effect: seeking out peers with similar attitudes and interests

• The marshmallow test studied instant and delayed gratification in toddlers

• Puberty is a period of sexual maturation

  • Spermarche: first ejaculation (usually male)

  • Menarche: first period (usually female)

• James Marcia’s identity statuses

  

• Telomeres: tips of chromosomes that wear down over time

• Terminal decline: more negative feelings and decline closer to death

• Neurocognitive disorder: brain damage and erosion

• Alzheimer’s disease: neural plaques and memory decline

  • Loss of ACh

• Learning is the changing of behavior as a response to experience

• Associative learning

  • Classical conditioning

    • Pavlov

    • Unconditioned stimulus & response; conditioned stimulus & response

  • Operant conditioning

    • Skinner

    • Premack Principle: high probability behaviors can reinforce less probable behaviors

• Cognitive learning is acquiring mental information

• Observational learning

  • Albert Bandura

• Kohler - insight learning via chimpanzees

• E.L. Thorndike’s law of effect: positive outcomes (like praise) reinforce and maintain consistent behavior

• Positive reinforcement: adding something positive to increase the likelihood of behavior

• Negative reinforcement: removing something negative to increase the likelihood of behavior

• Reinforcement schedules

  • Fixed ratio, *variable ratio, fixed interval, variable interval

• Positive punishment: adding something negative to decrease the likelihood of behavior

• Negative punishment: remove something positive to decrease the likelihood of behavior

• Overjustification: becoming less intrinsically motivated when offered an external reward

  Thorndike	Law of effect, inspired Skinner
  Martin Seligman	Learned helplessness, Béarnaise sauce
  John Garcia	Conditioned taste aversion, instinctive drift
  Gershoff	Physical punishment
  Robert Rescola	Signal relations
  Tolman	Latent learning, rats in maze

Unit 4: Social Psychology and Personality

• Attribution theory finds the cause of someone’s behavior (dispositional or situational)

  • Dispositional being one’s personality or traits

  • Situational being the circumstances and surroundings

• Fundamental attribution error overestimates personality as a reason for behavior

• Internal or external; stable or unstable

• Just-world hypothesis is a phenomenon with the belief that good things happen to good people (and the opposite)

  • When bad things happen, they deserved it

• Halo effect: initial positive judgments alter perception of the person as a whole

  • First impressions; thinking attractive people have good personalities

• Cognitive dissonance (Festinger): changing beliefs to fit actions due to discomfort in contradiction

• Attitudes are feelings influenced by beliefs that predispose us to respond a particular way

• Central route persuasion: changes attitude based on facts and evidence

• Peripheral route persuasion: changes attitude based on emotions and feelings

• Conformity: adjusting behavior to match group standards and beliefs

  • Asch’s line study

• Normative social influence: dictates behavior when one attempts to gain approval or avoid disapproval

• Informational social influence: affects behavior based on willingness to accept others’ opinions

• Obedience is likeliest when authority is powerful, victim is removed, and there are no dissenters

  • Milgram’s shock experiment

  • Stanford Prison Experiment

• Bystander effect: the more people are around to witness, the fewer people will help

  • Diffusion of responsibility

• Social facilitation: with people around, excelling at good stuff and failing at bad stuff

  • Home-team advantage

• Group polarization: views become more polarized once discussed with similar people

• Social loafing: in a group, people will exert less effort

  • Group projects

• Deindividuation: people losing self-awareness in a social group

  • Mob mentality

• Social traps: issues arise when people pursue self-interest rather than the group’s

• Superordinate goals rely on cooperation of all groups to achieve

• In-groups and out-groups (us vs. them)

• Altruism is the unselfish concern for others’ well-being

• Social exchange theory: behavior is an exchange, benefits outweigh costs

• Reciprocity norm: good behavior will be rewarded and repaid

• Social responsibility norm: people will help those in need

• Mere exposure effect: increased exposure to a stimuli increases liking

• Display rules are cultural norms for expressing emotion

• Achievement motivation: the desire and goal to succeed and do well

• Motivational theories

  • Instinct theory (instincts are the source of motivation)- William James

  • Drive reduction theory (reducing a psychological or physiological need)

  • Arousal theory (motivation comes from seeking out stimulation)

  • Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (prioritizing needs based on the pyramid)

• Yerkes-Dodson law: moderate arousal creates optimal performance

• Hunger is triggered by drops in blood glucose levels

  • Ghrelin: hunger-triggering hormone secreted by empty stomach

  • Orexin: hunger-triggering hormone secreted by hypothalamus

  • Insulin: controls blood glucose, secreted by pancreas

  • Leptin: protein hormone that increases metabolism and decreases hunger, secreted by fat cells

• Let’s talk about sex

  • Testosterone and estrogen produced by gonads

  • Alfred Kinsey was a researcher who provided more insight into Americans’ sexuality

  • William Masters and Virginia Johnson determined a sexual response cycle

    • Excitement, Plateau, Orgasm, Resolution

  • Refractory period: men can’t orgasm again, women can!

• Motivational conflicts

  • Approach/avoidance: attracted and repulsed by elements of the same situation

  • Approach/approach: choose between two desirable outcomes that are mutually exclusive

  • Avoidance/avoidance: choose between two undesirable outcomes

• James-Lange theory: emotion is caused by physiological reactions

• Cannon-Bard theory: physiological arousal and emotion happen simultaneously 

• Schacter-Singer Theory (appraisal): physical reactions and thoughts → emotion

  • Involves cognition

• Zajonc-LeDoux: the high road (from cortex to amygdala) and low road (shortcut to amygdala)

• Facial feedback effect: using muscles involved will cause the subject to feel that emotion

• Ekman-Friesen experiment

  • 6 universal expressions

• General adaptation syndrome: Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion

• Personality is consistent, characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions

• Unconditional positive regard: acceptance, genuineness, empathy

• Dunning-Kruger effect: people who perform poorly overestimate their abilities

• Gordon Allport argued personality is consistent and made up of cardinal, central, and secondary traits

• Personality disorders: Eccentric behaviors (A), Dramatic/Impulsive (B), Anxiety (C)

  

Unit 5: Mental and Physical Health

• Rosenhan's study found participants were treated differently once labeled as “schizophrenic” and it was hard for them to leave

• Insanity plea, psychopath, and sociopath are legal terms

• Anxiety disorders are characterized by persistent anxiety or dysfunctional behaviors to reduce distress

  • Panic disorder

  • Agoraphobia: fear or avoidance of public social situations due to lack of control

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder: unwanted and repetitive behaviors; rituals and fixations

• Post-traumatic stress disorder: haunting nightmares, memories, hypervigilance, social withdrawal 

• Major depressive disorder: at least 5 symptoms over 2 weeks

  • Persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia): symptoms over 2 years (1 yr for adolescents)

  • Decrease in norepinephrine and serotonin

• Bipolar disorder: emotional extremes, lethargy & hopelessness with overexcitement

  • Mania: hyperactive, wild state where poor judgment occurs

    • Norepinephrine increases

• Schizophrenia: disturbed thoughts, feelings, emotions

  • Positive symptoms: hallucinations, improper speech, delusions

    • Hallucinations are false sensory experiences, delusions are false beliefs

  • Negative symptoms: flat affect, absence of emotion, catatonia

  • Chronic sees gradual onset and is harder to treat

  • Acute is often caused by a traumatic event, easier to treat positive symptoms with drug therapy

  • Excess of dopamine & dopamine receptors

  • Less frontal lobe activity

  • Enlarged, fluid-filled ventricles

• Somatic symptom disorders: mental and psychological symptoms take on physical effects

  • Conversion disorder: physical symptoms separate from any condition

  • Illness anxiety disorder: interpreting normal symptoms as indicators of serious illness

• Dissociative disorders: conscious awareness separates from memories, thoughts, and feelings

  • Fugue state: sudden loss of memory or change in identity

  • Dissociative identity disorder: two or more distinct identities control subject’s behavior

• Personality disorders: enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning

  • Avoidant: low self-esteem, avoidance of social interactions, fear rejection and criticism

  • Schizotypal: eccentric/erratic thought, behavioral, and speech patterns

  • Narcissistic: grandiose delusions, manipulation, perfectionism

  • Borderline: emotional swings, black-and-white thinking, impulsive behavior

  • Antisocial: lacking empathy and conscience, selfish patterns of manipulation, little remorse

  • Histrionic: Dramatic and impulsive behaviors, obsessive need to be the center of attention

• Eating disorders

  • Anorexia nervosa: starving diet while being underweight

  • Bulimia nervosa: overeating binge periods followed by purging

  • Binge eating disorder: excessive eating followed by distress

• Psychotherapy is talk therapy using psych techniques to overcome and grow

• Insight therapies involve a therapist working with a client to understand their mind

  • Psychoanalysis wanted to release energy from repressed stressors and feelings

    • Free association to unearth internalized thoughts

    • Mental blocks → resistance about a topic

    • Transference is applying feelings from one relationship to another

  • Humanistic therapies emphasize people’s innate potential for self-fulfillment

    • Carl Rogers’s client-centered therapy used active listening and empathy

• Behavior therapies focus on problem behaviors and replacing them with beneficial ones

  • Classical conditioning attempts to create or eliminate associations

    • O.H. Mowner used for bedwetting (bedwetting → alarm)

    • Counterconditioning evokes new responses to triggering stimuli

    • Exposure therapy reduces reactions

    • Systematic desensitization associates relaxed state with stimuli

  • Operant conditioning reinforces good behaviors and punishes bad ones

    • Shaping behavior

    • Token economy with currency for rewards

• Cognitive therapies implement techniques based on the connection between events and reactions

  • Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) by Albert Ellis

    • Aggressively challenged illogical, absurd, negative thoughts

  • Beck’s Therapy for Depression identifies negative thoughts and challenges reasoning

  • Cognitive-behavioral therapy combines changing negative thoughts and behaviors

    • Dialectical behavior therapy

• EMDR uses quick eye movements to relieve clients

• Light therapy used to counteract seasonal affective disorder during winter

• Biomedical therapy uses medications and biological treatments

• Anti-psychotics treat schizophrenia and other thought disorders

  • Risperdal and Zyprexa

  • Treat positive schizophrenia symptoms

  • Long-term usage → tardive dyskinesia (Parkinson’s symptoms)

• Anti-anxiety drugs treat anxiety and agitation

  • Xanax and Valium

  • Depress CNS activity and increase serotonin

• Anti-depressants treat depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, and PTSD

  • Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft

  • SSRIs limit reuptake of serotonin

  • Increase in norepinephrine

• Depakote and Lithium treat manic episodes and manage bipolar disorder