Psychology 100

Phil Mazzocco
General Psychology – 9/23
I) Brief History of Psychology
A) Pre-scientific
1) 1600’s
a) Philosophers debate psychological issues
2) 1700’s
a) Anton Messmer discovers basic principles of hypnosis
3) 1800’s
a) Franz Gall and Phrenology (early 1800’s)
b) Gustav Fechner and Psychophysics (1850)
B) Scientific Era
1) 1875
a) William James establishes psychology lab at Harvard
2) 1879
a) Wilhelm Wundt establishes psychology lab at U. Leipzig
3) 1900
a) Sigmund Freud
4) 1905
a) Binot and Simon develop first intelligence test
5) 1910
a) Pavlov discover classical
6) 1913
a) John Watson
7) 1920(s)
a) Jean Piaget
b) Gordon Allport
8) 1924
a) Floyd Allport
II) What is Psychology?
A) Psychology: the study of the mind, the brain, and behavior
B) Levels of Analysis
1) Social
2) Behavioral
3) Mental
4) Neurological
5) Neurochemical
6) Molecular
III) Major Schools of Thought
A) Structuralism
1) “Atoms” of consciousness
2) Introspection (describing your thoughts)
3) Edward Titchener (student of Wilhelm Wundt)
B) Gestalt
1) Organized wholes
C) Functional Approach
1) Perception
 EX) Awareness of Bear, Fear, Arousal, Running
D) Behavioral Approach
1) Stimulus and Response
E) Cognitive Approach
1) Brain / Mind back into psychology
2) Stimulus  Mental Operations  Response
F) Psychoanalytic Approach
1) Analysis
a) dream represents subconscious fears of failure
IV) Influences
A) Structuralism  Neuropsychology
B) Gestalt  Cognitive
C) Functionalism  Evolutionary
D) Behavioralism  Learning, Methodology
E) Cognitive
F) Psychoanalytic  Implicit

Methodology – 9/28
Alternatives to Science
1) Intuition
2) Common Sense
3) Authority Figures
4) Personal Anecdotes
I) Hallmarks of Science
A) Empiricism
1) Careful testing and experimentation
B) Parsimony / Burden of Proof
1) Simplest explanation is expected
C) Objectivity
1) No subjectivity, everyone agrees (minimal bias)
D) Openness / Skepticism
1) Open to almost any idea
2) The ‘burden of proof’ is on you
E) Verifiability
1) ability for others to perform the study and reach the same results
F) Generality
1) Some general findings that apply to most humans
II) The Scientific Method
-Hypothesize
-Operationalize
-Measure
-Evaluate
-Revise / Reevaluate
REMEMBER HOMER
III) Observational Method
A) Observing behavior (a single variable) in real world settings
EX) Study happiness in the very rich / very poor
EX) Find a bunch of happy people and see how wealth differs within group
 C) A problem with Observational Designs
1) They can’t answer the question of how two variables relate to one another
(how they associate)
IV) Correlation Method
- Examines the association between two variables
- Prediction is key
A) Scatter Plots
1) plotting each data point (X,Y combo) on axes
B) The Correlation Coefficient (r)
1) r indicates the size / direction of the relationship between two variables
2) is a number between -1 and +1
a) + = more or X leads to more of Y
b) - = more of X leads to less of Y
3) The closer r is to -1 or +1, the stronger the relationship
a) r values close to 0 indicate no relationship
C) Meaning of Correlation
1) r = ability to predict on variance form the other
2) r2 is a measure of effect size
a) Effect Size: the percent of the variance in one variable that can be
explained by another variable
EX) find 100 people & measure both their wealth & happiness
A) The Third Variable Problem
1) Correlation does not imply causation
EX) Heat and Crime (X & Y)
- more people outside when warm (Z)
E) Uses of Correlational Designs
1) Interest in prediction
2) when manipulation is:
a) impossible
b) impractical
c) unethical
F) Internal Validity
1) Can you be sure that X (wealth) actually caused Y (happiness)?
2) Is there another explanation?
3) Why is causation important?
V) Experimental Method
A) Control (changes) one variable to see the effect on another variable
B) Experiments
1) Independent Manipulation
a) independently manipulate the causal variable (the IV) to see if it
influences the dependent variable (the DV)
i) the DV is what you measure
b) Naturalistic third variables are controlled
2) Random Assignment
a) using random procedure to determine which level of X participants are
assigned to
b) balances participant characteristics across levels of the IV
C) Internal Validity
 1) Internal Validity: extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect influences
from a study
2) If you have used independent manipulation and random assignment correctly,
internal validity will be high
EX) Select 100 random participants: randomly assign 50 to receive
$1,000,000 and another group to receive $1 – measure happiness
after 1 year

Neuroscience – 9/30
Mind-Body Dualism
Plato: separation between the body and the spirit
History of Studying the Brain
Franz Joseph Gall (1758 – 1828): Phrenology
- mapped out the brain into characteristics
Current Understanding
“Everything psychological is simultaneously biological”
- David Meyer
I) Neurons
A) Nerve Cells
B) The basic units of the nervous system
1) motor neurons – connected to muscles
2) sensory neurons – sensory organs
3) intraneurons – between (sensory  intra  motor)
C) Process
1) Dendrites
2) Cell Body
3) Neural Impulse
4) Travels the Axon (covered by myelin sheath)
5) Terminal Branches of Axon (form junctions w other cells)
II) Neural Communication
Resting Potential  Depolarization  Action Potential
A) Axon Transmission
1) Action potential spreads down the axon
2) Myelination increases speed and efficiency of conduction
B) Neural Activation
1) Neurons “fire” for two reasons:
a) activated by a physical stimuli
EX) light, heat, pressure
b) activated
2) Dendrites receive excitatory and inhibitory
a) if excitatory minus inhibitory exceeds a minimum level (threshold),
firing will occur
C) Neural Communication
1) when a neuron fires, the axon terminal release neurotransmitters
2) these cross the synaptic gap & activate the dendrites on adjacent neurons
D) Psychoactive Drug
1) Three types of effects
a) mimic effects at receptor site
 b) block receptors
c) blocking reuptake
E) Neurotransmitters
1) Glutamate – main excitatory signal
2) GABA – main inhibitory signal
3) Acetylcholine – muscle contractions
4) Norepinephrine – cortical arousal
5) Dopamine – motor function and rewards circuit (needs perfect level)
6) Seratonin – cortical arousal (depression)
7) Endorphins – pleasurable feeling, pain reduction
8) Anadamide – pleasurable feeling, pain reduction, and provokes hunger
III) Brain Structures
A) Brain Stem
1) Medulla – controls heartbeat and breathing
2) Pons – basic functions / movements
3) Reticular Formation – transmits sensory info to the thalamus (from spinal
cord)
4) Thalamus – relay station that directs information
5) Cerebellum – non-verbal learning (in animals, almost their brain)
voluntary movements sense of time and balance, muscle memory
B) Limbic System
1) a complex of structures with functions relating to memory, emotion,
fight/flight response and approach/avoidance
a) Amygdala – fight (aggression) or flight (fear) response
b) Hypothalamus – regulates and rewards survival related behaviors
c) Hippocampus – involved in explicit memory processes
d) Pituitary Gland – controlled by hypothalamus, controls endocrine
system
C) Cerebral Cortex
1) responsible for higher mental processes
2) Broken down into four lobes and fissures
a) Frontal – personality, social, ability to feel emotion, intelligence
i) strip on FL – motor cortex
b) Parietal – movement and touch is activated/received here
c) Temporal – under ears, sound and language comprehension
d) Occipital – visual processing
D) Motor/Sensory Functions
1) Motor Cortex – Frontal, voluntary motor activity
2) Sensory Cortex – parietal, registers touch and movement
E) Association Areas
1) Brain’s Computer
2) Complex planning, thinking and language
3) Stream of consciousness
F) Hemisphere Lateralization
1) Left
a) Analytic thought
b) Logic
c) Language
 d) Science and Math
2) Right
a) Holistic thought
b) Intuition
c) Creativity
d) Art and Music
3) Connected by corpus callosum
G) Split Brains
1) People with no corpus callosum
2) Brain hemispheres cannot communicate

Sensation and Perception – 10/5 & 10/7

Key Concepts
- Your body and mid are amazingly well-equipped to sense and represent many aspects of
reality in your mind
- However, in many cases, what you perceive in your mind differs (sometimes greatly)
from reality
Basics
Sensation: representing information from our environment as neural impulses (i.e. transduction);
a bottom-up process, data driven
Perception: organizing and interpreting sensory information; a top-down process, starting with
information
I) Psychophysics
A) Psychophysics: how physical energies relate to psychological experiences
B) Thresholds
1) Absolute Thresholds
2) Difference Thresholds (just noticeable differences)
a) Weber’s Law
i) based on a constant percentage
ii) minimum difference noticeable
EX) slowly turning on a light
EX) “dog whistle” app on ipod
C) Subliminal Detection
1) Subliminal: below conscious awareness
D) Adaptation
1) Adaptation: constant stimulation of a sense receptor will lead to decreased
sensitivity
II) Sensation
A) Six main senses
1) Body Senses
a) Proprioception: body position/movement
b) Vestibular Sense: balance
2) Hearing
a) cochlea
b) hearing  amplitude + wavelength = soundwave
c) hearing is computed
i) “McGurk Effect”
3) Taste
 a) at least 5 different kinds of taste receptors
b) taste = tongue + sight + smell
c) taste and fat
d) Supertasters… (25% of population with “super” tastebuds)
i) salty, bitter, sweet, sour, umami
4) Smell
a) based on receptors in nose
b) we can identify 2000-4000 odors
c) protect us from poisoning
d) wired to emotion sensors
e) pheromones!
5) Touch
a) temperature, pressure and pain
b) registered on the Sensory Cortex
c) Endorphines (yay!)
d) Pain is felt in the brain
e) Phantom Limb Pain
6) Vision
III) Vision
A) Vision: transducing light energy into neural impulses
1) wavelength/frequency
2) amplitude/intensity
B) Rods vs Cones
1) Rods
a) detect shades of gray
b) very useful at night (do not require much vision)
c) peripherals are mostly made up of rods
d) 120 million in each eye
e) not a lot of acuity, more hazy
2) Cones
a) process color
b) need a lot of light
c) can give great detail
d) 7 million per eye (roughly)
e) focused around the center of the eye
C) Parallel Processing
1) Different parts of the brain working on different visual perception “problems”
simultaneously, eventually combining the solutions
D) Color Vision
1) Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory: our cones only respond to green, red
and blue
a) These 3 signals can be combined to produce the entire color spectrum
2) Opponent Processes Theory
a) color vision enabled by opposing retinal processes
IV) Perception
A) Perception: organizing and interpreting sensory information; recognizing meaningful
objects and events
1) Three Key Concepts
 a) Selective Attention
i) conscious attention is limited and selective
ii) attending to one stream of sensory info limits ability to attend to
others
b) Gestalts
i) organized/meaningful wholes
c) Form Perceptions
i) Figure Ground Contrast
- we organize our world into figures (whole objects) that
are separate from a ground (their
background)
ii) Grouping: how we make sense of the figure
- proximity
- similarity
- closure
- continuity
- connectedness
2) Depth vs Color Perception
a) Depth Perception
i) ability to see in three dimensions
ii) two kinds of cues
- Binocular (requires two eyes) Cues
A) Retinal Disparity: greater difference in images
from both eyes = closer
B) Convergence: feeling of eyes crossing
- Monocular (requires just one eye)
A) Relative Size E) Relative Height
B) Interpostion F) Relative (Motion) Parallax
C) Relative Clarity G) Linear Perspective
D) Texture Gradient H) Light & Shadow
3) Perceptual Constancy
a) Known objects typically appear the same despite visual differences in
size, shape, color, brightness and context
b) Novel objects can appear very different due to context
4) Color Constancy
a) Our knowledge of a stimuli and its context influence how we sense and
perceive color

Nature, Nurture and Human Diversity – 10/7

I) Nature vs Nurture
A) Nature
1) DNA
2) Things you can’t really change
B) Nurture
1) Environment
2) Learn/Unlearn things
3) Very flexable
C) Behavioral Genetics
 1) Comparison
2) Study of the contribution of both
D) Genetics: basics
1) Humans have 46 sets of chromosomes
2) 23 from Mom, 23 from Dad
3) Chromosomes are composed of genes
4) Genes are sequences of DNA that code for protein structures
a) Twin Studies
i) identical twins
- same DNA
ii) fraternal twins
- different embryos
iii) reared apart vs reared together
- identical & reared apart become harder to compare over
time
b) Adoption Studies
i) are adopted children more like their biological parents (nature)
or their adoptive parents (nurture)?
ii) conclusion of adoption studies
- “environmental factors (including parenting) shared by a
family’s children have virtually no impact
on their personalities”
- BUT… parents do shape children’s values, manners,
faith-orientation, policies, etc
E) Heritability
1) Percentage of variability in given trait that is due to genetics (as opposed to
environment) differences
2) Similarity of environments is important
3) Surprisingly high heritability coefficients have been found for:
a) intelligence
b) aggressiveness
c) preference for jazz music
d) enjoyment of pleasure reading, etc.
` 4) Gene x Environment Interaction
a) environments can trigger/facilitate gene behavior and affect gene
functions
F) Bottom Line
1) These studies testify to the invisible power of genetics (and the surprising
relative unimportance of environments)
II) Evolutionary Psychology
- The study of evolution of behavior and mind
A) Natural Selection
1) The Process by which genes/traits “compete” to be passed on to the next
generation
B) Human Sexuality
1) Clark and Hatfield (1978)
a) Male researchers walked around a college campus and asked female
students to have sex with them
 i) 100% said no
b) Female researchers walked around the campus and asked male students
to have sex with them
i) 75% said yes
c) WHY?
d) Evolutionary explanation
i) men and women make different investments into offspring
ii) this leads to different mating strategies for men and women
C) Caveats
1) Evolutionary explanations of given phenomena are designed to explain, not to
justify or excuse
2) Evolutionary mechanism explains average traits (e.g. average intergroup
differences). They fail to account for often large intra-group
variability
D) Testing Evolution
1) Looking for little variation across cultures and a genetic component to the
behavior or trait in question
III) Cultural Psychology
- Culture, driven by language, is more flexible than natural selection
- Allows for much faster and more complex changes
A) Individualism vs Collectivism
1) Individualists
a) focus on individual
b) placed high – “dreams, hopes”
c) Western Europe, America
d) chase dreams; “Just do it.”
2) Collectivists
a) interested in groups, social harmony
b) compromise
3) Contrasting Proverbs
a) American saying: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
b) Chinese saying: “ The nail that sticks out gets pounded down.”
4) General Cultural Differences
a) East Asians/Japanese think about the world in a holistic (vs analytic)
manner

Consciousness – 10/14 and 10/19

I) States of Consciousness
A) Consciousness
1) Reflection
2) Planning
3) Voluntary Behaviors
B) Unconsciousness
1) Body functions and perception
C) Subconsciousness
1) Just below level of awareness
2) Priming: when some recently encounted concepts come to mind easily and
influence subsequent responses
 a) Two key concepts:
i) accessability: heightened level of activation (come to mind
easier)
ii) spreading activation: one leads to another
b) Main Methods of Priming
i) Subliminal
- no idea, but stimuli is still activated
ii) Supraliminal
- aware
c) Priming can influence judgments, behaviors and emotions
3) Automatic
a) nonconscious
b) unintentional
c) involuntary
d) effortless
4) Controlled – limited, due to effort
a) conscious
b) intentional
c) voluntary
d) effortful
5) Unconscious Mind: Functions
a) monitors your environments for important information
b) discovers complicated patterns and solve complex problems
c) initiates and moderates thoughts, behaviors and emotions
6) Interaction of Automaticity and Control
a) controlled behaviors can become automatic
b) automatic behaviors can become controlled
II) Biological Rhythms
A) Biological functions fluctuate based on:
1) 28 days
2) 24 hours (circadian rhythms)
3) 90 minute cycles (sleep cycles)
B) Circadian Rhythms
1) Daily rhythms of sleep and wakefulness
2) Normally regulated by sunlight, which affects melatonin production
a) pineal gland: produces melatonin
b) suprachiasmatic nuclueus: activates pineal gland
c) optic nerve: carries light to suprachiasmatic nucleus
C) Sleep Stages/Cycles
1) Sleep involves different stages, which lead to cycle in roughly 90-min. periods
a) REM sleep (stage 1)
i) dreams
ii) Rapid Eye Movements
iii) increased arousal
iv) motor cortex turned off
b) Deep Sleep (stage 4)
i) restorative sleep stage
ii) hard to awaken
 iii) the unconscious monitor
c) Sleep Deprivation
i) many negative side effects
2) Functions of Sleep
a) Four Major Theories
i) protective
ii) restorative
iii) growth
iv) memory
III) Dreams
A) Why do we dream?
1) Freud
a) manifest content: details, actual dream
b) latent content: actually represents, what dream is really about
2) Jung (young)
a) said dreams are portal to collective unconsciousness
B) Modern Understanding of Dreams
1) Memory Facilitation
2) Develops and preserves neural pathways
3) Mind’s attempt to make sense of random neural static
4) Lucid dreaming: waking up within a dream, being aware that one is dreaming
IV) Hypnosis
- a seemingly altered state on consciousness characterized by heightened state of social
suggestability
- Anton Mesmer (1734 – 1815) typically credited with discovering hypnosis (studied it
scientifically first)
A) Individual Differences
1) Everyone is somewhat suggestible, but this varies greatly
2) Postural Swaying Test
B) Supposed Hypnotic Properties
1) Increased suggestibility – YES
2) Pain Relief – YES
3) Breaking Bad Habits – SOMETIMES
4) Recall of Forgotten Events – NO
5) Age Regression – NO
6) Acting against one’s will – NO

Learning – 10/19 and 10/21

- a change in an organisms behavior or thought as a result of experience
Habituation
- orienting reflex: something new/relevant, focus/orient on it
- habituation: tendency to become familiar with a stimulus due to repeated exposure
I) Classical Conditioning
- a process by which an organism comes to associate two stimuli
A) Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
1) 4 components
a) US – unconditioned stimuli
b) UR – unconditioned response
 c) CS – conditioned stimuli
i) started as a neutral stimulus (NS)
d) CR – conditioned response
EX) fear of lightening
1) US (thunder)  UR (fear)
2) CS (lightening)  US (thunder)  UR (fear)
3) CS (lightening)  CR (fear)
B) Acquisition
1) conditioning generally superior when
a) US follows the CS (CS comes 1st)
b) duration between the two is fairly short
2) can occur subconsciously
C) Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery
1) Extinction
a) occurs when CS no longer elicits the CR
2) Spontaneous Recovery
a) link not ‘cut’ but just stops using it
b) then begins using again
D) Generalization and Discrimination
1) Generalization
a) close to CS, stimulus, will gain some results
2) Discrimination
a) similar CS will not elicit same results
b) tell scarf from rabbit or mice
E) Building on Pavlov
1) Biological predispositions to learn/not learn certain pairings
2) Classical conditioning also influenced by expectancies
II) Operant Learning
- associating a behavior with a reinforced response
- do something, and there’s a consequence
A) Key Concepts
1) Law of Effects
a) rewarded behavior is more likely to occur again
2) Shaping
a) repeated reinforcement
b) lead to final produced/guiding
B) Types of Reinforcement
1) Positive Reinforcement
a) makes it more likely to occur, like a reward or trip to a toystore
2) Negative Reinforcement
a) more likely for behavior to occur, but with bad things, like late fees
3) Primary Reinforcers
a) immediate reaction, pain, warmth, food (especially for animal)
4) Conditioned Reinforcers
a) money, house
b) need to be learned
5) Immediate Reinforcers
a) much more effective (animal especially)
 6) Delayed Reinforcers
a) motivates human (4 years, have degree, work hard now)
C) Types of Reinforcement Schedules
1) Continuous
a) everything is reinforced, everytime
b) when treats stop, extinction happens very quickly
2) Partial (intermittent)
a) Two Variables
i) Fixed vs Variable
- Fixed: predictable
- Variable: random
ii) Ratio vs Interval
- Ratio: # of times behavior is done = x amount of treats
- Interval: certain number of intervals, 5 minutes
b) Fixed-interval
i) predictable time period per treat
c) Fixed-ratio
i) x number of times behavior is done = 1 treat
d) Variable-interval
i) never known when coming (always do behavior in background),
(extinction less likely)
e) Variable-ratio
i) get treat, but varies: 1 time = treat/20 times = treat/4 times = treat
D) Punishment
1) Decreases likelihood of a behavior
a) Positive Punishment
i) adding something: spanking, shock, yell
b) Negative Punishment
i) taking a toy, activity, allowance
III) Latent Learning
- learning in the absence of any direct reinforcement
A) Motivation
1) Intrinsic Motivation
a) desire to perform a behavior, just for it’s own sake
2) Extrinsic Motivation
a) perform a behavior for a reward
3) Reinforcing intrinsic motivated behaviors can backfire
IV) Observational/Social Learning
A) Learning by Observation
1) No direct reinforcement
B) Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment
1) Children watched adults play with a Bobo doll and then modeled their
behaviors
C) Requirements
1) Pay attention
2) Retention
3) Ability to Reproduce
4) Motivation to Reproduce
Memory – 10/21
- Persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information
I) Encoding (representing information in the brain)
A) Two levels of Interest
1) Automatic
a) encoding without our awareness
2) Effort
a) encoding in our brain with our own effort
b) able to retrieve with effort
B) Effortful Processing
1) Study pioneered by Hermann Ebbinghaus
2) Ebbinghaus himself memorized lists of nonsense syllables (LEP, DOK, VEQ)
C) Serial Positioning Effect
1) When given a list of words to memorize, there is a differential recall based on
the order of that the words appear on the list
a) Primary Effect: first parts of list (better recall)
b) Recency Effect: last parts of the list (better recall)
D) Methods of Encoding
1) Visual Encoding
a) paying attention to the color, font, shape, etc of words
2) Acoustic Encoding
a) audible qualities of the word
3) Semantic Encoding
a) remembering the meaning
4) Imaginal Encoding
a) words that can be represented basically with images are often
remembered better
b) Dual-Coding Theory (Allen Paivio)
i) high imagery (ex. Brick) works can be encoded semantically and
with an image
ii) Low imagery (ex. Freedom) words can usually only be encoded
semantically
5) Chunking
a) Short-term recall is typically about 7 ‘pieces’ of information (+/- 1 or 2)
6) Encoding Specifity
a) context in which something is encoded influences storage & retrieval
E) Synesthesia
1) stimuli that are typically sensed in a given modality (hearing) are also sensed
II) Storage
A) Long-Term Potentiation
1) aka consolidation
2) Changes that occur in the brain given long-term information in storage
B) Three Stage Model of Memory
1) Sensory Memory
a) occurs on senses
b) iconic memory
i) lasts less than a second (close eyes)
 c) echoic memory
i) sound; lasts 3 seconds (ringing on auditory nerve)
2) Short-Term Memory
a) 15-20 seconds
b) 7 pieces of info
3) Long-Term Memory
a) Could last a lifetime
b) Depends on how well you learned something
C) Implicit vs Explicit Memory
1) Explicit (hippocampus)
a) things you know and can tell
2) Implicit (cerebellum)
a) cannot consciously say how or describe
EX) how to balance on a bicycle
III) Retrieval (a conscious process)
A) Priming Effect
1) Makes certain things more accessable
2) Not always the right thing
B) Context Effect
C) Mood Effects
1) If happy – recall happy things
2) If sad – recall sad things
D) Forgetting (flip-side of retrieval)
1) Not necessarily a bad thing
2) Amnesia
a) Retrograde Amnesia
i) forget everything prior to the injury
b) Anteretrograde Amnesia
i) inability to form new memories beyond the injury
3) Explanations for Normal Forgetting
a) encoding/storage deficiencies
b) simple decay (over time)
c) Retrieval Failure
i) interference
- Proactive Interference
~ something you learn earlier disrupts something
you learn later
- Retroactive Interference
~ something you learn later can disrupt something
you learned earlier
ii) Motivated Forgetting/Distortions
- selectively forgetting or distorting past to avoid painful
memories of those that threaten self esteem
- but, NO evidence of widespread repression of traumatic
events

Thinking and Learning – 10/26

I) Categories and Schemas
- mental groups of simlar things; hierarchically organized
- initially constructed through experience
- eventually, influence every level or cognition
A) Benefits of Schemas
1) Fill in gaps / Resolve ambiguity
2) Store and apply past learning
3) Respond quickly
B) Problems with Schemas
1) Can be wrong
2) May be over-relied on
3) Confirmation bias
C) Script
1) sequence of expected behaviors for a given situtation
D) Category Formation
1) Similarity
a) looks, tastes, generalize
2) Prototype
a) best example of the category
II) Problem Solving
A) Trial and Error
1) Identify Problem
a) What actually is the problem?
2) Gather Information
3) Try a Solution
4) Evaluate Results
B) Other types of problem solving
1) Algorithm
a) step by step, systematic, guaranteed to give right answer
2) Heuristic
a) Problem solving short cuts, usually work
b) Shift when motivation or ability is lacking
c) Common Heuristics
i) Availability heuristic
- when the feeling of ease/difficulty of recall is used to
make judgments
EX) False Consensus Effect
ii) Anchor/Adjust Heuristic
- when making decisions, people start from anchor points,
and then adjust upward or downward, but
often insufficiently
EX) The Spotlight Effect
C) Problems with Problem Solving
1) Functional Fixedness
a) tendency to think of objects only in terms of their usual functions
2) Mental Set
a) tendency to over-use a strategy that’s worked in the past
EX) O, T, T, F, F, __, __ ?
EX) J, F, M, A, M, __, __?
Intellegence – 10/26
I) Intellegence
- capacity to lean from experience and adapt successful to one’s environment
A) Intellegence Quotient (IQ)
1) a score representing “level of intelligence”
2) depends on how intelligence is determined
a) anecdotes
b) comparisons with others
c) standardized testing
d) <70 = mentally handicapped; 100 = average; >130 = gifted
3) Spearman’s g
a) one’s general ability (g) underlies intelligence,
b) also specific abilities (s) related to specific kinds of performance
c) performance on a specific task = g + s
B) Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
1) Suggests there are three largely independent types of intelligence
a) analytical: problem solving
b) creative
c) practical: what pertains to you
C) Gardner’s ‘Frames of Mind’
1) Multiple Frames of Mind
a) Linguistic
b) Logical-Mathematical
c) Spatial
d) Musical
e) Bodily Kinesthetic
f) Interpersonal
g) Intrapersonal
D) Fluid vs Crystallized
1) Fluid
a) capacity to learn new ways of solving problems
i) highly related to g
ii) born with it
iii) declines over lifespan
2) Crystallize
a) accumulated knowledge over life span
i) not clear if born with
ii) can continue to increase
iii) less related to g
E) Nature vs Nurture
1) Nature influences IQ
a) identical twins reared together more similar than fraternal twins
b) siblings reared together are more similar than unrelated individuals
(step-siblings)
c) children more similar to biological parents than adoptive
2) Nurture influences IQ
a) but environmental factors still matter
 F) Intelligence: What do you think?
1) Genetically determined and fixed VS Based on the environment and flexible

The Developing Person – 11/2

Developmental Psychology
- the study of human development across the lifespan
- Basic Methods
1) Longitudinal research: 1 group, study overtime (often pay to keep)
2) Cross-Sectional research: studying many groups one time
cohort: different experiences due to age
I) Brain Development
A) Environment
1) Critical Periods
a) particular time frame for development, where it has to occur
EX) learning a language at a young age (2-6 year period)
EX) cats and line-goggles
2) Plasticity
a) parts of the brain specifically to be used
b) the brain’s capacity for self-modification
EX) rat’s and cage experiment
B) Early Brain Development
1) Connection between neurons
a) brain programmed by experience
2) Shift from automatic/reflexive to controlled behaviors
3) Newborn Reflexes
a) Rooting (nursing) e) Babinski
b) Darwinian (grasping) f) Walking
c) Swimming g) Crying
d) Moro (startle) h) Smiling
II) Personality Development
A) Freud’s Theory of Development
1) Periods of Development
a) sexual focus (need to reproduce)
b) impacts for adult personality
c) fixation
2) Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
a) Oral
i) birth – 1 ½ years
ii) gratification/pleasure based around the mouth
iii) weaning from breast feeding
- if bad, could lead to chewing gum, smoking, over eating
iv) successful events lead to optimistic
b) Anal
i) 1 ½ - 3 years
ii) gratification comes from defication
iii) almost sexual pleasure given (potty training)
iv) certain rules to learn at this phase about society
v) anal-retentive: needs clean and organized
 vi) anal-expulsive: very messy
vii) self-control develops here (potty – where, when)
c) Phallic
i) 3 – 6 years
ii) exploring, playing around, self-stimulation
iii) Oedipus complex (boys) or Electra Syndrome
iv) Identify with dad or mom
v) promiscuity, immature sexual attitudes
d) Latency
i) 6 – 11 years, or puberty
ii) repressing sexual attitudes
iii) guys with negative attitudes toward women (never outgrow
cooties)
iv) forming social groups
e) Genital
i) show sexual attitudes
ii) project toward (normally) the opposite sex
iii) never be able to have a mature adult relationship
B) Neo-Freudians
1) Alfred Adler
a) believed in social explanation
b) mastery over themselves, others, tasks, etc
c) could develop insecurity complex
2) Karen Horney
a) sense that the world is a big scary place and just a small kid
b) focus on caregivers and helping child anxiety
III) Cognitive Development
- Jean Piaget proposed that intelligence develops qualitatively with age (in stages) as well as
quantitatively
A) Equilibriation
1) Assimilation
a) process of trying to fit world into your schema (BIAS)
2) Accommodation
a) changing/ ability to change schemas based on experience
B) Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
1) Sensorimotor
a) birth to 2 years
b) simple reflexes, motor skills
c) process of accommodation is big, building schemas
d) object constancy: unaware that things still exist when out of vision
2) Preoperational
a) 2 – 7 years
b) thinking of objects
EX) mom’s face, food
c) tell stories and develop language
d) egocentrism: cannot view world from another’s eyes
i) lessens across the stage
3) Concrete Operation
 a) 7 – 11 years
b) logic and reasoning
c) literal thinking
4) Formal Operational
a) abstract thinking
b) 11 years and up
IV) Parent/Child Interactions
- Parenting Styles: correlational findings
ex) “chicken vs egg” ordeal
A) Authoritarian
1) Punishment oriented, strict rules
2) Most children tend to have low self-esteem and poor social skills
B) Permissive
1) Few rules, punishment uncommon
2) Children tend to be aggressive or immature
C) Authoritative
1) Demanding but respective
2) Some rules are middle ground
3) Children tend to have high self-esteem, good social skills, mature
D) Attachment Theory
1) Harlow’s Monkey Studies
a) baby monkey taken away from mother & raised in “non-parent” settings
b) fed by wired mother, but had a cloth mother in the same area
c) monkey spent 17-18 hours with cloth monkey and only 1 hour with
wired monkey. When scared, the baby goes to cloth
monkey.
2) Attachment goes beyond biological fulfillment
3) Bowlby’s Orphan Studies
a) children have disorders
b) bonds are necessary
4) Strange Situation
a) examines reaction of a child to three situations with or without mom
i) exploration
ii) mom leaves (stranger present)
iii) mom returns
5) Primary Attachment Styles
a) secure: yes, they’ll be there; trusting; carries on in older relationships
b) avoidant: usually not; no or little bond; guarded relationships, distant
c) anxious-ambivalent
i) sometimes; yes/no
ii) really inconsistent
iii) clingy in relationships

Personality – 11/4
- Personality: unique, relatively consistent pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving\
I) Psychoanalytic Approach
A) Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
1) Josef Breuer’s “talking cure”/Catharsis
 a) Eros: life force
i) people will do incredulous things to stay alive
b) Thanatos: death force
i) violence and aggression
EX of each) reproduction/destruction
2) Freud’s Structure of Personality
a) Conscious (tip of iceberg)
b) Preconscious (water level)
c) Unconscious (everything below)
3) How the Mind Works
a) Id (unconscious)
i) inborn, animal-like desires
EX) eros/thanatos
ii) operates according to the pressure principle
- wants things immediately
b) Superego
i) sense of right and wrong/morality
ii) can inflict guilt if rule is broken (if s.e. is developed)
c) Ego (consciousness)
i) awareness; reality of given situation
ii) search Id and Superego for best option
4) Defense Mechanism
a) Denial
i) flat out say “no, that’s not true”
ii) deny more things through life
b) Repression
i) shove it down to bottom of the Id, causes anxiety
EX) abuse as a child
c) Rationalization
i) excuses, makes situation less odd, more acceptable
ii) makes you feel better
d) Projection
i) some unacceptable desire that you project onto others
EX) feelings of homosexuality
e) Displacement
i) have desire, ego tells you to not unleash there, but on a safer
target
EX) boss yells at you, want to choke him, but instead yell
at kids
f) Reaction Formation
i) completely flip relationship on it’s head
EX) feelings of homosexuality  hating gays
g) Sublimination
i) channel feelings into an acceptable form
EX) angry – go running
EX) aroused – put it into art
5) Projective Tests
 a) People respond to meaningless or ambiguous stimuli, giving away
unconscious conflicts and desires
i) Rorschach Inkblots
ii) Thematic Apperception Test
iii) Word Association
B) The Final Word:
1) Freud’s Theory
a) 1st comprehensive theory of personality
b) sparked psychoanalysis
c) BUT…
d) Overemphasized on the role of sex
e) criticized for focus on sickness and abnormality
f) largely untestable and unfalsifiable
II) The Humanists
- Focus on what makes people ‘healthy’ and well adjusted
- Key Figures: Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
A) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
1) Need for Self-actualization
a) need to realize our full potential
2) Esteem Needs
a) need to achievement, education, competence and respect
3) Belonging and Love Needs
a) need for love, acceptance and belonging
4) Safety Needs
a) need for safety and security
5) Physiological Needs
a) need for food, water, shelter, oxygen, and sleep
B) Roger’s Person-Centered Perspective
1) People inherently good, strive to actualize
a) society makes them bad
2) Focus on self-concept and positive self-regard
III) Trait/Disposition Approaches
A) Principles of Disposition Approach
1) Personality stable over time
2) Personality consistent across situations
B) Allport’s Trait Theory
1) Trait: Things that characterized you
2) Three types of traits
a) Cardinal Traits
i) most defining/important parts of their personality
ii) maybe only one of these
b) Central Traits
i) 3-4 important traits, but not as important
c) Secondary Traits
i) yeah, sort of, but it doesn’t really define me
IV) Social-Cognitive Perspective
- Views behavior as the product of persons (personality and cognition) and their social contexts
A) Self-Esteem
 1) One’s feelings of high or low self-worth
2) One’s opinion of oneself
3) Dangers of Inflated Self-Esteem
a) Stable vs Unstable
i) unstable = based on what happens/people say
b) Self-Esteem and Aggression
i) often go with violence
ii) happens because of high self-esteem
c) Self-Esteem and Feedback
i) American Idol auditions
4) Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins)
a) People have three important
i) Actual Self
- reality, know what you’ve done
ii) Ideal Self
- in ideal world, I’d do this; who I’d like to become
iii) Ought Self
- I know I should study instead of procrastinate
b) Actual Ought Discrepancy
i) cause guilt, upset, horrible
ii) lower self-esteem (high arousal)
c) Actual Ideal Discrepancy
i) regret, sadness, wistfulness
ii) low arousal
5) Self-Awareness Theory
a) when people are more aware of “themselves”, their discrepancies will
be more salient (more aware)
b) Self-Control and Ego Depletion
i) self-control is like a muscle that can get worn out after being
used
B) Psychological Immune System
1) Reduce Self-Awareness
a) allowing oneself to ignore your self-discrepancies
2) Self-Affirmation
a) compensating for failures or discrepancies in one domain by affirming
another importance facet of life
3) Self-Serving Cognitions
a) thinking about things in a way that reflects positively (or less
negatively) on you
4) Downward Social Comparisons
a) an important comparison with a person worse than us on a particular
trait or ability
5) Basking in Reflected Glory
a) associating yourself with successful others
6) Self-Handicapping
a) creating performance obstacles for ourselves which can then be used to
explain away potential failures
C) End Result
 1) We have an unrealistically rosy view of ourselves

Social Psychology – 11/9

- study in the way in which average persons thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by
the real or imagined presence of other people
- Major Themes in S.P.
A) Influence of Powerful Situations
- belonging - enhancing self
- understanding - trusting
- controlling
I) Attribution Theory
- How we explain someone’s behavior (or ourselves)
A) Two types of attributions (explanations)
1) Situational
a) result of the situation
b) “anyone in their place would have done the same”
2) Dispositional
a) have learned something about the person
b) that’s the kind of person they are
B) Correspondent Inference Theory
1) Theory about when people should make dispositional attributions
a) Three Key Factors
i) Free Choice
- more free choice, then more dispositional
EX) stop on a crime show = like crime shows
ii) Expectedness of Behavior
- less likely to be dispositional
EX) put out hand to someone = they shake
iii) Effects (Outcomes) of the Behavior
- more positive the effect, less able to make dispositional
attribution
EX) low status, low income job, but still work =
must really love it
C) Fundamental Attribution Error
1) the tendency for people to make dispositional attributions in favor of situational
attributions (choosing dispositional when you really shouldn’t)
II) Stereotypes and Prejudice
A) Stereotypes
1) Cognitive Level
2) Expectations about other people based on their group membership
3) Can be positive or negative
a) 10 about women
b) 10 about African Americans
4) Out-Group Homogeneity Effect
a) tendency to perceive more variability in our ingroups than outgroups
- know more people in our ingroups than outgroups (all the same)
EX) call a whole group lazy = okay; BUT if our group is called
lazy, we say “NO!”
 5) Interpretation of Behavior
a) ambiguous behaviors are interpreted in stereotype consistent ways
6) Subtyping (aka referencing)
a) tendency to view stereotype-inconsistent individuals as exceptions to
the rule
b) prevents your stereotype schema from being disconfirmed
EX) Birds fly, except ostriches and penguins
7) Self-fulfilling Prophecies
a) stereotypes will provide ready-made expectations which can contribute
to self-fulfilling prophecies
EX) walking down hallway, eye contact or wave to someone
B) Prejudice
1) Actual feelings toward a person or group because of group
2) Social Identity Theory
a) Mere Categorization
i) once ingroup/outgroups are created
b) Minimal Group Paradigm
i) group of people randomly sided = immediately prefers others in
group
c) Group Self-Esteem
i) team wins, feel better about group and others in group
d) Ingroup Love and Outgroup Hatred
i) head/tails groups play game, heads wins = love each other, tails
group dislikes heads group
3) Superordinate Goals
a) redrawing of group boundings
EX) men & women; humans; college students and professor
b) ingroup love spread to all
EX) after 9/11 not so much prejudice, but “we’re all Americans.”
C) Discrimination
1) Actions taken against/for a group
a) not hire because of religion
b) hire because they are “my” race
III) Social Influence
A) Persuasion
1) Trying to change someone’s behavior or attitude
a) make them think your ideas are the best
B) Compliance
1) asking you to do something
2) Cialdini’s 6 Norms of Compliance
a) Reciprocity
i) if someone does you a favor, reciprocate
ii) pre-giving
- giving something small, then ask for a favor
iii) Door-in-the-Face
- make large, often crazy request, which is rejected
- ask for what was really desired, & almost always
complied
 b) Consistency
i) Norm: people should be true to their attitudes and prior behavior
and not contradict themselves
ii) Four Walls
- committed to one idea then test it (feel like hypocrite if
they don’t)
iii) Foot-in-the-Door
- start with trivial request, then go big once they’ve agreed
c) Liking
d) Authority
e) Social Proof
f) Scarcity
C) Obedience
1) When behavior is influenced due to the commands of an authority figure
a) Milgram Shock Study
b) Key Points of Milgram Shock Study
i) learner in a different room (can’t see)
ii) conducted in a lab setting
iii) experimenter in a lab coat
iv) subjects we alone with experimenter
v) complete obedience = 65%
c) Changes
i) in office building: 47%
ii) when learner is in same room: 40%
- Learner is humanized
iii) when experimenter is normal person: 19%
- Authority is not as imposing
iv) when two confederates rebelled: 10%
- Role models for defiance norms are changed
C) Conformity
1) Voluntary changes in perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways consistent
with group norms
a) Informational
i) do whatever everyone else is doing and think it’s right
ii) not really sure what’s right
iii) private change
iv) do it so as to not stand out (anxiety filled)
b) Normative
i) go against actual thoughts
ii) Asch Study Results
- 75% had at least some trials where they went along with
the group
- only 25% never conformed to a single trial
IV) Attraction and Relationships
A) Propinquity Effect
1) People who are closer to us
a) friends who lived a few houses down vs across town
2) Mere Exposure
 a) repeated exposure causes more likeness
B) Halo Effect
1) Tendency to attribute positive characteristics to attractive people
V) Helping Behaviors
A) Latone and Darley speculated the helping behavior is driven largely by situational
factors
1) Five Stage Model of Helping Behavior
a) Stage 1: Noticing
i) don’t hear, don’t help
b) Stage 2: Interpretation
i) Pluralistic Ignorance
- people convince others that nothing is going on
c) Stage 3: Assuming Responsibility
i) Bystander Effect
- many just assume someone else will get it
- more people standing around, less likely anyone helps
d) Stage 4: Knowing How (ability)
e) Stage 5: Deciding to Help (motivation)

Motivation and Emotion – 11/16

I) Motivation
- an inner state (either a need or desire) that energizes and directs us and keeps us moving toward
our goals
A) Key Human Needs
1) Physiological
a) heat, eat, drink, oxygen
2) Psychological
a) self-esteem, be able to predict/understand/control our world
3) Social
a) need to belong, trust
B) Instinct Theory
1) Instinct
a) Motivations are inherited genetic instincts
b) Flaws
i) circular logic: a lot of hate in the world  instinct of hatred
ii) would need to prove in genes & DNA (some just based on
culture)
C) Drive Reduction Theory
1) Homeostasis: seeking to maintain a state of balance
2) Drive (unpleasant tension)
a) negative drive: really hungry, eat! If eat too much, stop!
b) controls basic drive to be balanced
3) Flaw
a) doesn’t explain why people go to horror movies and roller coasters
D) Arousal Theory (Optimal 1st)
1) some level of arousal we hope to achieve
2) ‘bored’ = under aroused
3) explains horror movies and amusement parks
 E) Incentive Theory
1) Take pros and cons into account
2) Choose which one gives best outcomes
II) Sexual Orientation
- an enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one’s own sex or the other sex (or both)
A) The Biology of Sexual Orientation
1) Many animals demonstrate homosexuality
2) Brain differences
a) sizes, growths of lobes
3) Twin studies have shown a link between sexual orientation and genetics
4) Prenatal levels of certain hormones can influence sexuality
a) men with several older brothers are more likely to be gay
III) Emotion
A) Three Components
1) Physiological Arousal (high-low variation of arousal)
2) Expressive Behaviors
a) facial expressions, body language, use of hands
3) Conscious Experience (labeling)
a) feeling itself
B) Theories of Emotion
1) James/Lange
a) arousal first (heart pumps and adrenaline)
b) then feeling of fear comes second (to help sustain)
2) Cannon/Bard
a) Arousal and fear happen simultaneously
3) Schachter/Singer
a) could come in any order
b) “Bridge” experiment with attractive girl
c) some type of arousal and some type of labeling
IV) Affective Forecasting
- People’s (error prone) attempts to describe how future events will make them feel
- Durability Bias: we tend to believe that events will effect us emotionally typically for longer
than they do
A) Brickman et al. (1978)
1) Compared lottery and non-lottery winners
2) one year after winning, the L-winners were no happier than the control group
B) Some sources of Prediction Error
1) Focalism
a) think event will be the focal point of your life
EX) death of family member or winning the lottery
2) Undercorrection
a) anchor and adjust heuristic
b) death leads to sadness – 10/10 on scale, but slowly goes down
3) Psychological Neglect
a) do anything to make yourself feel better
b) often fail to neglect things (coping methods) that influence us
c) look at end of personality lecture
V) Aggression and Catharsis
 A) Venting/Catharsis
1) get it off your chest, punch a pillow, scream
2) normally we do feel better
B) Freud’s Hydraulic Theory
1) Said it was healthy to vent to safe target
C) Catharsis does not work!
1) acting aggressively is rewarding
2) behavioral habit chronic priming
D) Post-Aggression
1) Exercise
2) Taking “time-outs”
3) Non-aggressive expression

Stress – 11/23
I) Stress
- Unpleasant state of arousal in which people perceive the demands of an event as taking or
exceeding their ability to satisfy or alter those demands
A) General Mode of Stress Effects
1) Potential Stressful Event  (leads to)
2) Appraisal 
3) Coping Strategies 
4) Stress Reaction (health consiquences)
B) Types of Stress
1) Crisis and Catastrophes (multiple people)
2) Major Life Events (less people involved)
3) Microstressors (little things, everyday)
a) Long-Term Health Impact
i) microstressors have greater long term effects on health than
major life events
- don’t cope with these stressors like larger stressors
C) Effects of Stress on Health
1) Studies have shown that all stressors have the same general effects on long-
term health:
a) enlarged adrenal gland
b) shrunken lymph nodes
c) bleeding stomach ulcers
d) muscle weakness
e) loss of appetite and weight
f) lack of ambition
- all of the above – adrenaline and cortisol are released
D) General Adaptation Syndrome
1) Three Stage Model of Stress Response
a) alarm: acute stress response
b) resistance: chronic stress response – long term
c) exhaustion: chemicals are breaking down body
d) coping should normally go between “alarm” and “resistance”
II) Positive Psychology
- Scientific study of optimal human functioning (human happiness)
A) Positive Subjective Experiences
1) happiness, well-being, satifaction
B) Dynamic Equilibrium Theory
1) General level of well-being and happiness remains fairly constant over the
lifetime but can vary temporarily due to life events
C) What determines “happiness baseline”?
1) Cognitive styles (way of thinking)
2) Intrinsic Goals (internal) VS Extrinsic Goals
D) Flow
1) State of full immersion in an activity with:
a) single minded focus
b) feeling of competence and control
c) exhilaration
d) loss of the sense of self
e) loss sense of time
2) You can create your own flow on a daily basis
a) challenges on the y axis, skills on the x axis
E) Focus on the Future
1) Two variables have a large influence on perceptions of future well-being:
a) optimism
b) hope
2) Optimism (vs Pessimism)
a) Three variables relating to perceptions of negative events determine
optimism vs pessimism:
- permanence (negative events will always be present)
- pervasiveness (generalize negative events)
- personalization (negative events are ones own fault)
b) optimism is opposite of these
F) Humor
1) Humor has also been found to be positively related to optimism
2) Positive Effects of Humor
a) negatively related to denial/avoidance
b) decreases distress
c) can allow reforming of stressful or threatening situations as challenging
d) increases immune system effectiveness
G) Hope
1) Overall perception that one’s goals can (eventually) be met
2) Three Key Concepts
a) goal oriented thoughts
i) goals need to be of sufficient value to the individual so as to
occupy conscious thought
ii) goals should be attainable yet uncommon in nature
b) pathways to achievement
i) inorder to achieve goals, people need to generate plausible routes
to achieve goals
c) agency thoughts
i) belief that one can initiate and sustain the pathways to goal
achievement
III) Putting it All Together: The Good Life
A) Qualities of the “Good Life:
1) Outward Connections
a) love and intimacy
b) satisfying work/occupation
c) helping others
d) good citizenship
e) spirituality
f) forgiveness
g) leadership
2) Individual Qualities
a) integrity and ethics
b) creativity/originality
c) subjective well-being
d) play (activity)
e) courage
f) humility
3) Life Regulating Qualities
a) purposeful future-mindedness
b) individuality
c) self control
d) wisdom

Psychological Disorders – 11/25

- Diagnosis/categorization of mental illnesses can be very subjective (Rosenhan study – 1973)
- DSM – IV
1) Provides clear guidelines for diagnosing disorders based on symptoms
2) Categorizes additional factors that can influence disorders (health, job stress, grieving,
drug dependencies, etc.)
3) Emphasizes global functioning
I) Eating Disorders
A) Anorexia Nervosa
1) Symptoms
a) Intense fear of gaining weight mixed with constant desire to keep losing
weight
b) Distorted body image
2) 10% die from this disorder
3) 90% are women
B) Bulimia Nervosa
1) Binge eating followed by purging, fasting, and or intense exercising
2) Often reinforced by peer approval
3) 95% are women
II) Anxiety Disorders
A) Panic Disorders
1) Mental Symptoms
a) attacks of overwhelming anxiety
b) fear of dying or losing one’s mind
2) Physical Symptoms
 a) heart palpitations
b) difficulty breathing
c) chest pain
d) sweating
e) dizziness
B) Phobias
1) Intense, irrational fear of a specific object or situation
2) 25% chance that someone will develop a phobia
C) Agoraphobia
1) Fear of places which may cause a panic attack
D) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
1) Extreme stress following a traumatic event
2) Symptoms
a) bad dreams
b) flashbacks
c) hyper-vigilance
d) panic attacks
3) Often coupled with drug use
4) 7% chance
E) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
1) Obsessions
a) fears and thoughts that intrude into the mind
2) Compulsions
a) some sort of ritual that is performed when the fear or anxiety strikes
3) Role of Operant Conditioning
a) compulsions, for some period of time, make you feel better (negative
reinforcement by taking away anxiety)
III) Mood Disorders
A) Depression
1) Symptoms
a) extreme sadness for 2 or more weeks
b) sleeping disorders
c) significant weight loss
d) thoughts of suicide
2) Not just mental pain, but physical as well
B) Bipolar Disorder
1) Cycles of mania and depression
C) Suicide
1) 30% of clinically depressed people attempt suicide
2) Often seen as a best option by sufferers of depression
IV) Schizophrenia
A) Grossly impaired/altered functioning
1) Social
a) problem forming relationships
b) very withdrawn
2) Affect (emotion
a) no emotion
b) inappropriate displays of emotion
 3) Cognitive
a) delusions
i) inaccurate beliefs about the world and your self
b) hallucinations
4) Motor
a) catatonia (paralyzed in a particular position)
b) repetitive behavior or motions
B) Schizophrenic Disorders: Types
1) Catatonic
a) human system is completely shut down; coma like
b) scratching, odd behaviors that repeat themselves
2) Paranoid
a) Hallucinations, thinking they can fly, warped view of the world
b) able to hold a job, relationship, etc, but hearing voices makes it harder
3) Disorganized
a) Normal human traits are missing or altered
b) Inappropriate displays of affection (laugh at funeral, pee in public,
language)
V) Personality Disorders
A) Borderline Personality Disorder
1) Symptoms
a) instabilities in mood, identity, and impulse control
b) extreme, unpredictable behavior that is often self-destructive
2) Often born this way
3) 2% chance to experience
B) Psychopathic Disorder
1) Characteristics
a) Guiltless, dishonest, manipulative, callous, self-centered
b) but also charming, endearing, personable
VI) Autism
A) Typically severe deficits in language and social interaction
B) Often accompanied by mental retardation
C) Epidemic?
1) +600% increase in autism diagnoses
2) What caused it?
D) Vaccines for it?

Psychological Therapy – 11/30

Kinds of Therapists
1) Psychiatrists (Doctors, get M.D.s)
2) Clinical Psychologists (therapies that involve talking, standardized tests; rarely
administer drugs)
3) School Psychologists (school counselor, administer standardized tests)
4) Counseling Psychologist (mainly talking people through their problems)
I) Psychoanalysis
A) Bring repressed inner conflicts to light and resolving them
B) Treatment is therapist-directed
C) Key Methods
 1) Free Association
a) ink blot tests
b) word association
c) repetitive theme appear?
2) Interpretation
3) Dream Analysis
4) Transference
a) treat/talk to therapist as if he or she were person of conflict
II) Humanistic Therapy
A) Increase self-awareness and unconditional positive self-regard
B) Treatment is patient-directed
C) Key Methods
1) Empathy, acceptance, and validation
a) telling patient that it’s okay to have these feelings
2) Active listening
3) Reflection
a) repeat same thing back, shows patient that therapist really likes them
4) Paraphrasing
III) Behavioral Therapy
A) Apply the principles of learning theory to unwanted behaviors
B) Key Concepts
1) Counterconditioning
2) Aversion Theory
3) Exposure Therapy
a) systematic desensitization
b) flooding/intensive exposure
IV) Cognitive Therapy
A) Enabling new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting
B) Methods
1) Directed discussions
a) give insight, honesty, “a lot of negativity in how you talk of people”
2) Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
a) replacing maladaptive thought processes with productive ones
3) Stress Inoculation Training
a) Teach how to deal with things before they happen
V) Group Therapy
A) Therapies above that occur in groups
B) Added benefits
1) additional relationships/social support
2) additional information
VI) Evaluating Psychotherapy
A) Difficulties
1) Placebo Effect
2) Normal rates of spontaneous remission
3) Regression to the mean
4) Client Perceptions
5) Clinician Perceptions
B) Effectiveness of Psychotherapy
 1) Meta-analysis have shown small but positive effects of psychotherapy
2) No type of therapy is generally superior to any other (nor is individual vs
group) Why?
3) All therapies offer:
a) hope
b) new perspectives
c) positive relationships
4) Client Motivations
VII) Biomedical Treatments
A) Drug Therapy
1) Antipsychotics
EX) things like schizophrenia
2) Antianxiety
EX) Valium
3) Antidepressants
EX) Prozac, Zoloft
4) Mood Stabilizers
B) Electro-Convulsive Therapy
1) Patients are administered electrical shocks to reduce symptoms
C) Psychosurgery
1) Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue