Psych notes chapter 13

-cognitive therapy therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

-rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) a confrontational cognitive therapy, developed by Albert Ellis, that vigorously challenges people’s illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions.

-cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) a popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior).

-group therapy therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction

-family therapy therapy that treats the family as a system. Views an individual’s unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members.

-regression toward the mean the tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back (regress) toward their average.

-meta-analysis a procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies.

-evidence-based practice clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences.

-therapeutic alliance a bond of trust and mutual understanding between a therapist and client, who work together constructively to overcome the client’s problem.

-resilience the personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma.

-Psychopharmacology: The study of the effective of drugs and mind behavior 

-antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder. 

-antianxiety drugs drugs used to control anxiety and agitation.

-antidepressant drugs used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. (Several widely used antidepressant drugs are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—SSRIs.)

-electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.

-repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) the application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity

-psychosurgery surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior.

-lobotomy a psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain.

-social psychology the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

-attribution theory the theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition.

-fundamental attribution error the tendency for observers, when analyzing others’ behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

-attitude feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events.

-peripheral route persuasion occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness.

-central route persuasion occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.

-foot-in-the-door phenomenon the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

-role a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.

-cognitive dissonance theory the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.