Exam 5 Notes

7/2/2012 1:38:00 PM

Module 30: Classic Perspectives on Personality

The Psychoanalytic Perspective Personality- an individuals characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting Psychoanalysis- attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts The Mind (represented by an iceberg) Id- contains unconscious psychic energy that tries to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives o Pleasure principle Superego- represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscious) and for future aspirations Ego- conscious, executive part of personality that mediates the demands of the id, superego, and reality o Reality principle Personality Development Stages Oral stage (0-18 months)- sensual pleasure is centered around the mouth, conflict- weaning away from mothers breast, fixationobsessive eating, smoking, biting nails/ verbally aggressive Anal stage (18-36 months)- sensual pleasure shifts to the bowels, conflicts- proper toilet training, fixations- rigidity, punctuality orderliness/ hording, careless, rebellious Phallic stage (3-6 years)- sensual pleasure shifts to the genitals, conflicts- oedipal/ Electra complexes, fixations- seductive or submissive female/ vanity, over-ambitious male Latency (6 to puberty)- sexuality is dormant, same-sex play is predominate, conflict- social concerns rather than sexual concerns, fixations- doesnt occur in this stage

Genital stage (puberty onwards)- sexual pleasure is refocused on the genitals and sexual urges are directed towards others, conflictsreemergence of sexual interest, fixation- little or no sexual intimacy Fixation- a lingering focus of pleasure seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved Phallic Stage Complexes Oedipal Complex- a boys sexual desires towards his mother and jealousy for his father/ Castration Anxiety leads to father/son bond Electra Complex- a girls sexual desires for her father which is overcome when the female learns to bond with her mother due to penis envy Identification- when children incorporate their parents values link their developing superegos Defense Mechanisms Repression- primary defense mechanism, banishes anxietyarousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness Regression- individual faced with anxiety retreat to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where psychic energy is fixed Reaction Formation- ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposite, people express opposite feelings of their anxiety- arousing feeling Projection- people disguise their own threatening impulse by attributing them to others Rationalization- offer self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for ones action Displacement- shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person Sublimation- transformation of unacceptable impulses into a socially acceptable outlet

Assessing the Unconscious

Projective Test- present people with ambiguous stimuli (pictures) and assume they will include their own unconscious interests and conflicts into the story they tell about the pictures, two main types: o Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)- developed by Henry Murray, individuals are asked to interpret the meaning of ambiguous pictures o Rorschach Test- developed by Hermann Rorschach, individuals are asked to interpret the meaning of ambiguous patterns

Neo-Freudian Psychodynamic Theorist Alfer Alder and Karen Horney- both agreed that childhood is important but believed that childhood social tensions rather than sexual tensions is curial for personality formation Carl Jung- the unconscious contains more than our repressed thoughts and feelings. We also have a shared unconscious Collective Unconscious- shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species history The Modern Thinking Freuds Ideas in the Light of Modern Research o 1- It is hard to test Freuds ideas or make predictions o 2- Research has failed to validate that repression occurs o 3- Many of Freuds principles have been integrated into everyday language (ego, fixation, Freudian slips, complex) The Modern Unconscious- psychologist today more commonly think of the unconscious as the center for information processing that occurs without our awareness

7/2/2012 1:38:00 PM

Module 31: Contemporary Perspective on Personality Trait and Social Cognition

The Trait Perspective Traits- a characteristic pattern of behavior or disposition to feel and act as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports Exploring Traits How can you possibly take individual terms and condense them down to groups? FACTOR ANALYSIS The Big Five (OCEAN) Table 31.1 Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism Assessing Traits Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): The most widely researched and used personality inventory to assess abnormal/normal personality tendencies Empirically Derived Test- a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups The Person- Situation Controversy Social-Cognitive Perspective- views behavior as influenced by the interaction between peoples traits including their thinking and their social context Reciprocal Influences Personality, Current behavior, and Environmental factors all affect each other Reciprocal Determinism- Internal personal factors, the environment and behavior mutual influence current behaviors

o Difference people choose different environments o Personalities shape how one interprets and acts to events Locus Control- control of the environment and control of you External locus control- people perceive that chance or external forces guide the events of their lives Internal locus control- people feel that, to a great extent, they control their own destiny (this is better, leads to greater aspects of life) One exception- religion in Gods arms Learned Helplessness- the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events Uncontrollable bad eventperceived lack of controlgeneralized helpless behavior Evaluating the Social-Cognitive Perspective Critics feel that personal traits are underrepresented in the socialcognitive approach Exploring the Self Self-Esteem- ones feeling of high or low self-worth, benefits include: o Fewer sleepless nights o Succumb less easily to pressures to conform o More persistent at difficult tasks o Less shy and lonely o Happier * Research has revealed slightly higher self-esteem scores for black then white children, teens, and young adults

7/2/2012 1:38:00 PM

Module 32: Basic Concepts and Mood Disorders

Stats: 450 million people worldwide suffer from psychological disorders 1 out of 7 Americans in the past year (alcohol abused or dependence, phobias and mood disorders) 2.1 million Americans admitted to inpatient clinics 2.4 million Americans admitted to outpatient clinics 20% of Americans need psychological help Poverty and psychological disorders

Psychological Disorder Timeline Age 8 = anti-social personality disorder (want to kill) Age 10 = Phobias Age 20(ish)- Alcohol dependence, obsessive compulsive disorder, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia Age 25+ = Major depression

Defining Psychological Disorders Deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions o 1. Deviant- significantly different from cultural standards o 2. Distressful- others find behavior troubling or distressing o 3. Dysfunctional- causes harm The Medical Model- a mental health illness needs to be diagnosed on the basis of its symptoms and cured through therapy The Bio-Psycho-Social Approach- considers the interplay of biological, socialcultural, and inner psychological dynamics Classifying Psychological Disorders (DSM-IV-TR)

 Axis 1: Axis 2:

DSM- finds the disorder and finds the treatments and trends that follow The APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders Mood Disorders Schizophrenia Anxiety Dissociative Disorders Personality Disorders

Labeling Psychological Disorders Labeling a person with a disorder can bias how people perceive the person Mood Disorders Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes o Major Depressive Disorder- when a person experiences two or more weeks of depressed moods, feelings or worthlessness, sluggishness and diminished interests/ pleasure in most activities o Bipolar Disorder- alternations between mania and depression Explaining Mood Disorders The Biological Perspective o Genetic influences (35-40 percent) o The Depressed Brain Altered brain activitychanges in neurotransmitter levels different psychological states The Social-Cognitive Perspective o Self-defeating beliefs can establish a vicious cycle of negative assumptions and depressive interpretations of life o Explanatory Style: Depressed individuals vary in their explanatory styles (internal, global, and stable causes)

Depressions Viscous Style 1. Stressful experiences 2. Negative explanatory style 3. Depressed mood 4. Cognitive and behavioral changes How can the depression cycle be broken? Moving to a different environment Revising self-blame and negative attributions Turning attention outwards Engaging in more pleasant activities and more competent behavior

7/2/2012 1:38:00 PM

MODULE 33: Schizophrenia

What is Schizophrenia (split mind)? Disorganized thinking- fragmented bizarre thoughts and distorted false beliefs (delusions) Disturbed perceptions- hallucinations Inappropriate emotions and actions (flat effect- being completely still) Charles Mansons epic questions. Quintessential example of word salad. Development of Schizophrenia Demographics o Prevalence- 24 million people o Age- older you get, more likely you can get it o Location- no specific location o Gender- men tend to get worse cases and earlier in age (4 years) o Rate to receive this is 1% Chronic/ Process Schizophrenia- development is slow, recovery is doubtful, people have more social withdrawals, more negative symptoms Acute/Reactive Schizophrenia- development is rapid, and follow life stress, recovery is more likely, more positive symptoms, and more likely to respond to drug therapy

Childhood Schizophrenia Symptoms of Schizophrenia Positive (shows inappropriate behavior) o Hallucinations o Disorganized talk o Inappropriate Emotions Negative (absence of inappropriate behavior) o Toneless voice

o Expressionless Faces o Rigid Bodies *LOOK up types in books Schizophrenia results in: Overactive supply of dopamine Frontal lobe malfunctions Thalamus (tends to be smaller) and Amygdala have changes of normalcy Enlarged fluid-filled areas/ small cerebral tissues *Multiple areas in the brain affect the development of schizophrenia. Some believe that low birth weight, famine; oxygen deprivation during delivery causes these abnormalities. Statistics: 1 out of 100 odds of developing schizophrenia worldwide 1 in 10 among siblings and parents 1 in 2 for identical twins Refrigerating Mothers?

7/2/2012 1:38:00 PM

MODULE 34: Other Disorders

Anxiety Disorders (17%): Psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety, or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety Generalized Anxiety Disorder: When a person is continually tense, apprehensive and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal Panic Disorders: Marked by episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror, chest pains, choking, and other frightening sensations Agoraphobia: A fear of situations where escape might be difficult Phobias: Marked by persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of specific objects or situations Arachnophobia- spiders Social phobia- social or public situations Aerophobia- flying Agoraphobia- open and public spaces Claustrophobia- enclosed spaces Emetophobia- vomiting Acrophobia- heights Cancer phobia- developing cancer Brotophobia- thunderstorms Necrophobia- death

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Marked by persistent thoughts (obsessive) and repetitive behaviors (compulsive) that significantly interfere with daily functions or cause distress High metabolic activity in frontal lobe areas involved with directing attention Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia that lingers for 4 weeks or more after a traumatic experience

The Learning Perspective: Fear Conditioning- Fear (anxiety) can be classically conditioned through life experiences Stimulus Generalization- Fears can remain intact for long periods after the original conditioning and may generalize to other stimuli Reinforcement- Conditioned anxieties are frequently reinforced through avoidance behaviors Observational Learning- people may acquire anxieties by observing others The Biological Perspective: Evolutionary- The evolutionary process seems to have predisposed human to acquire some fear quite easily Physiology- Anxiety disorders often involve over arousal or failure to inhibit regions of the brain Dissociative Disorders: Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings Dissociative Identity Disorder- A rare disorder where a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities

Skepticism VS True Believers Questions whether DID is a genuine disorder or an extension of our normal capacity for personality shifts They believe DID is the desperate efforts of the traumatized to detach from a horrific existence Personality Disorders: Psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning Cluster 1 o Expressions of eccentric behavior Schizoid- emotionless disengagement Cluster 2 o Expressions of Anxious behaviors

Avoidant- fearful sensitivity to rejection that predisposes withdrawn behaviors

Cluster 3 o Expressions of dramatic/ impulsive behavior Histrionic- attention getting Narcissistic- self-focused/ self-inflating

Antisocial Personality Disorder- disorder in which the person exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing. It is marked by: Lack of remorse for ones actions Disregard for social norms Limited emotions Few fears *PET Scans illustrate reduced activation in a murders frontal cortex which is used to stop impulsive behavior