Unit 2 Exam Review

• Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, and experiment
• Survey -  a data collection tool used to gather information about individuals
• Case Study - in-depth study of one person
• Naturalistic Observation - observing subjects in their natural environment
• Experiment - manipulating one variable to determine if changes in one variable cause changes in another variable

• Independent vs. Dependent Variable
• Independent - manipulated
• Dependent - changed

• Random Sample
•  individuals that are randomly selected from a population

• Correlational Research
• a statistical measurement of the relationship between two variables

• Hindsight Bias
• believing that you knew something all along, after being told the outcome

• Placebo
• a substance having no pharmacological effect but administered as a control in testing experimentally or clinically the efficacy of a biologically active preparation

• Single-blind & double-blind experiment
• Single-Blind - subjects don't know whether they are in the control group or the experimental group
• Double-Blinded - both subjects and experimenters don't know which group is the experimental group or controlled group

• Mean, median, and mode
• Mean - the average
• Median - the middle
• Mode - most frequent

• Experimental and control group
• Experimental - exposes subjects to treatment
• Control - comparison for evaluation

• Positive vs. negative correlation
• Positive - both variables increase or decrease at the same time
• Negative - as the amount of one variable increases, the other decreases

• Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal research
• Cross-Sectional - utilizes different groups of people who differ in the variable of interest, but share other characteristics such as socioeconomic status, educational background, and ethnicity
• Longitudinal -  research method used to discover relationships between variables that are not related to various background variables. This observational research technique involves studying the same group of individuals over an extended period of time.

• Hypothesis 
• a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables

• American Psychological Association (APA) and their response to ethics in regards to animal and human research
• The acquisition, care, housing, use, and disposition of nonhuman animals in research must be in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local, laws and regulations, institutional policies, and with international conventions to which the United States is a party. APA members working outside the United States must also follow all applicable laws and regulations of the country in which they conduct research

• Standard Deviation
• a measure of dispersion in scores, whether they are narrowly or broadly dispersed around the mean

• Descriptive research vs. inferential research
• Descriptive - describes the results of research
• Inferential - used to make an inference or draw a conclusion beyond the raw data

Notes - February 10, 2014

Experimental Research

• explores cause and effect relationships
• independent variable - manipulated
• dependent variable - changed

Experimental and Control Groups

• Experimental Groups - exposes participants to the treatment
• Control Groups - comparison for evaluating effect

Experimental Method

• Blind Study - subjects are unaware if assigned to control group or experimental group
• Double Blind Study - neither subjects or researchers know which group is control or experimental

Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics

• Descriptive Stats - describe the result of the research
• Inferential - used to make an inference or draw a conclusion beyond the raw data

Measures of Central Tendency

• Central Tendency - where does the center of the data tend to be?
• Mode - most frequently occurring score in a distribution
• Mean - average of scores in distribution
• Median - middle score in rank order distribution
• Range - difference between high and low scores in a distribution
• Standard Deviation - computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean

Notes - February 5, 2014

Research Methods

• Hindsight Bias - the tendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that you knew it all along.
• Overconfidence - we tend to think we know more than we do.
• The Barnum Effect - tendency for people to accept very general or vague characteristics of themselves and take them to be accurate. 
• Applied Research - clear and practical applications you can use.
• Basic Research - explores questions that you may be curious about, but not intended to be immediately used.
• Hypothesis - expresses relationship between two variables.
• Variable - anything that can vary among participants in a study.
• Independent Variable - what is being manipulated
• Dependent Variable - what is measured in the experiment
• Operational Definition - explain what you mean in your thesis. How will the variables be measured in 'real life' terms.

Notes - January 31, 2014

Psychological Therapies

• treatments based on psychological principles
• Biomedical Therapies - focus on altering the brain with drugs, psycho surgery or electroconvulsive therapies

Therapy

• used to be if someone exhibited abnormal behavior, they were institutionalized 
• because of new drugs and better therapy,  US went to a policy of deinstitutionalization

Psychoanalysis - Freud

• free association, hypnosis and dream interpretation to gain insight into the new clients's unconscious
• hypnosis and dream interpretation

Humanistic Approach - Maslow and Rogers

• potential for self-fulfillment (self-actualization)
• present and future; never the past
• conscious thoughts
• take responsibility for your actions instead of blaming childhood anxiety
• 2 Types
• Group Therapy
• Self-Help Support Groups
• client-centered therapy is the most used
• developed by Carl Rogers
• should use genuineness, acceptance and empathy to show unconditional positive regard

Behavior Therapy 

• therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors 
• the behaviors are the problems so we must change the behaviors
• Systematic Desensitization - a type of counter conditioning that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety triggering stimuli
• Exposure Therapy - form of desensitization where the client directly faces the stimuli
• Aversive Conditioning- a type of counter conditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior
• Token Economy - conditioning procedure that rewards a desired behavior. A patient exchanges token of some sort, earned for exhibiting desirable behavior

Cognitive Therapy

• teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting, based on assumption that thought intervene between events and our emotional reactions

Biomedical Therapies

• Psychopharmacology - study the effect of drugs on the mind and behavior
• Antipsychotic Drugs - a class of meds used to treat psychosis (delusions, hallucinations, agitations) it is also beginning to help schizophrenia
• Antianxiety Drugs -drugs like valium, lubrium and alcohol.
• Antidepressant Drugs - lift you out of depression.most of them increase neurotransmitter norepinepherine (prozac, paxil, zoloft - block serotonin reuptake)
• Electroconvulsive Therapy - biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which brief electric currents are sent throught the brain of anesthetized patients

Notes - January 23, 2014

Anxiety Disorders

• a group of conditions where the primary symptoms are anxiety or defenses against anxiety 

• patient fears something awful will happen to them 

• they are in a state of intense apprehension, uneasiness, uncertainty or fear 

Phobias

• a person experiences sudden episodes of intense dread
• must be an irrational fear 

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

• continuously tense, apprehensive and in a state of automatic nervous system arousal
• constantly tense and worried, feels inadequate, oversensitive, cant concentrate and suffers from insomnia

Panic Disorder

• marked by a minute long episode of intense dread where a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking and other frightening sensations

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

• persistent unwanted thoughts causes someone to feel the need to engage in particular actions

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

• flashbacks or nightmares following a person's involvement in or observation of an extremely stressful event 
• memories of the event can cause anxiety

Somatoform Disorders

• occurs when a person manifests a psychological problem though a physiological symptom

Hypocondriasis

• frequent physical complaint where doctors cannot seem to find the cause

Conversion Disorder

• report the existence of of severe physical problems with no biological reason 

Dissociative Disorders

• involve a disruption in the conscious process

Psychogenic Amnesia

• a person cannot remember things with no physiological basis for the disruption in memory
• retrograde amnesia
• not organic amnesia

Dissociative Fugue

• people with psychogenic amnesia find themselves in an unfamiliar environment

Dissociative Identity Disorder

• multiple personality disorder
• several rather than one, integrated personality
• commonly have a history of childhood abuse or trauma

Mood Disorders

• experience extreme inappropriate emotion
• Major Depression
• AKA unipolar depression
• unhappy for at least 2 weeks with no apparent cause
• common cold of psych disorders
• Seasonal Affective Disorder
• experience depression in the winter months
• not temp caused but lack of sunlight
• treated with light therapy
• Bipolar Disorder
• formally manic depression
• involves periods of depression and manic episodes
• manic episodes involve feelings of high energy

Personality Disorders

• well established maladaptive ways of behaving that negatively affect peoples ability to functi
• dominates personality

Antisocial Personality Disorder

• lack of empathy
• little regard for other's feelings
• view the world as hostile and only look out for themselves

Dependent Personality Disorder

• Rely too much on the attention and help of others

Histrionic Personality Disorder

• needs to be the center of attention
• whether acting silly or dressing provocatively

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

• unwarranted sense of self importance
• thinking you are the center of the universe

Schizophrenic Disorders

• 1 in 100 have schizophrenia

Symptoms:

• Disorganized Thinking
• thinking is fragmented and bizarre and distorted with false beliefs
• comes from a breakdown in selective attention
• they cant filter out info
• Delusions of Persecution
• being chased
• delusions of grandeur - over exaggeration
• Disturbed Perceptions
• hallucinations - sensory experience without sensory stimulation
• Inappropriate Emotions and Actions
• laugh at inappropriate times
• flat effect
• senseless, compulsive acts
• catatonia - motionless

Positive v. Negative Symptoms:

• Positive (inappropriate)
• hallucinations
• disorganized diluted in talk (word salad)
• inappropriate laughter, tears and rage
• Negative ( absence of appropriateness)
• monotone
• expressionless
• mute
• rigid body

Types of Schizophrenia

• Disorganized Schizophrenia
• disorganized speech, behavior or inappropriate emotion
• imagine the worst
• Paranoid Schizophrenia
• preoccupations with delusions and hallucinations
• Catatonic Schizophrenia
• flat effect/ waxy flexibility
• parrot like repeating of speech and movements
• Undifferentiated Schizophrenia
• many varied symptoms

Notes - January 22, 2014

Psychological Disorders

• Psychological Disorder - a 'harmful dysfunction' in which behavior is judged to be atypical disturbing maladaptive and unjustifiable 
• Early Theories - afflicted people were possessed by evil spirits
• Somatogenic - mental illness has a bodily cause
• Medical Perspective - psychological disorders are sicknesses and can be diagnosed, treated and cured
• Bio-psycho-social Perspective - assumes biological, physiological and sociocultural factors combine to interact, causing psychological disorders
• Diathesis Stress Model - predisposition and stress meaning environment 
• DSM-IV - diagnostic statistical manual of mental disorders
• Neurotic Disorders - distressing but one can still function and act rationally
• Psychotic Disorders - Person loses contact with reality, experiences, and distorted perceptions

Notes - January 9, 2014

Key Players in the History of Psychology

• Roots of psychology can be traced back to 2000 years ago to the early philosophers, biologists, and physiologists of ancient Greece.
• Hippocrates - mind and soul resides in the brain not composed of a physical substance.
• Mind-Body Dualism - the mind and body are two different things.
• Plato (360 BC) - Greek philosopher that believed that who we are and what we know are innate (inborn)
• Aristotle - Plato's student believed that who we are is from experience. He also believed in monism, seeing the mind and body as different aspects of the same thing.
• John Locke - believed that knowledge comes from observation and what we know comes from experience. he coined the term "tabula rasa" meaning blank slate. "The mind is like a blank slate in which the environment writes upon."
• Rene Descartes - believed that what we know is innate. "I think therefore I am."

Nature vs. Nurture

• Nature - certain elementary ideas are innate to the human mind, not gained through experience.
• Nurture - anything we know , we learn from experience. "Tabula rasa" "Men are made, not born"

The Birth of Psychology

• Willhelm Wundt (1879; University of Leipzig) - Psychology's first experiment; the birth of science. Estimated to have the first psych lab. Believed in introspection, the art of looking inward. 
• Edward Titchner - n/a

Schools of Psychology

Structuralism

• Wundt, Titchner, Hall
• introspection to explore the structural elements of the mind
• breakdown mental processes into the most basic part

Functionalism

• reaction to structuralism
• sought to explain how our mental and behavioral processes function
• How do they enable us to adapt, survive and flourish?
• focused on purpose of behavior

William James - influenced by Darwin. 1st professor of psychology at Harvard. The purpose of behavior.

The Seven Perspectives

Biological

• seeks to understand the interaction between anatomy (brain/nervous system) and behavior.
• how body and brain enable emotions, memory and sensory experiences
• what affects your body affects your behavior

Behavioral

• argues psychology is the study of observable behavior
• behavior is determined by your environment and experience, not genetics.
• mind and mental events are not important because they cant be observed (feelings don't matter)
• everything is trained and learned, nothing is born
• Key People: Watson, Skinner, Pavlov

Cognitive

• understand how they think
• Key Person: Jean Piaget

Evolutionary

• how adaptive that behavior is to survival - inherited
• must have helped ensure our ancestors survival
• selects physical and behavioral characteristics to promote survival 
• Key Person: Charles Darwin

Humanistic

• humans have unique qualities of behavior, different from other animals
• free will and potential for personal growth guide behavior and mental processes
• emphasize the importance of feelings, love, and acceptance
• self-actualization
• Key Person: Abraham Maslow

Sociocultural

• much of feelings and behavior is dictated by the culture you live in

Psychoanalytical/Psychodynamic

• interaction between conscious and unconscious behavior
• stresses the importance of childhood experiences to the development of personality
• focus is to resolve the unconscious conflicts through uncovering information that has been repressed