Download Study Guide for Learning Evaluation #4

Study Guide for Final Learning Evaluation
Modules 15-17, 29-44
Dr. Michael Green - General Psychology 2301
Module 15 – Waking and Sleeping
Consciousness
our awareness of ourselves and our environments
Selective Attention
focusing of consciousness on a particular stimulus
Selective attention video
Counting the number of passes many people missed the girl with the umbrella
walking across the room.
Biological Rhythms
periodic physiological fluctuations
Circadian Rhythm
the biological clock
regular bodily rhythms, such as of wakefulness and body temperature, that
occur on a 24-hour cycle
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep
recurring sleep stage
vivid dreams
“paradoxical sleep”
muscles are generally relaxed, but other body systems are active
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 Alpha Waves
 slow waves of a
relaxed, awake
brain
 Delta Waves
 large, slow waves
of deep sleep
 Hallucinations
 false sensory
experiences
Daily Sleep Cycle
Awake
Sleep
stage
s
1
2
3
REM
4
0
1
2
3
4
Hours of
sleep
Effects of Sleep Loss
fatigue
impaired concentration
depressed immune system
greater vulnerability to accidents
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Insomnia
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5
6
7
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 persistent problems in falling or staying asleep
Narcolepsy
 uncontrollable sleep attacks
Sleep Apnea
 temporary cessation of breathing during sleep
 momentary reawakenings
Neurotransmitters that induce sleep
GABA – sleep onset
Melatonin – reset circadian clock to suggest it is time to sleep
Tips for a Good Night's Sleep
Set a schedule:
Exercise:
Avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol:
Relax before bed:
Sleep until sunlight:
Don't lie in bed awake:
Control your room temperature:
See a doctor if your sleeping problem continues
Adapted from "When You Can't Sleep: The ABCs of ZZZs," by the National Sleep
Foundation.
Night Terrors
occur within 2 or 3 hours of falling asleep, usually during Stage 4
high arousal-- appearance of being terrified
seldom remembered
Dreams
sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s
mind
hallucinatory imagery
discontinuities
incongruities
delusional acceptance of the content
difficulties remembering
Dream Interpretation
Sigmund Freud--The Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
wish fulfillment
discharge otherwise unacceptable feelings
Manifest Content
 remembered story line, the surface meaning
Latent Content
 underlying meaning
Module 16 – Hypnosis
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A social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that
certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.
Explaining the Hypnotized State
1. Social Influence Theory: Hypnotic subjects may simply be imaginative actors playing a
social role.
2. Divided Consciousness Theory: Hypnosis is a special state of dissociated (divided)
consciousness (Hilgard, 1986, 1992).
Module 17 – Drugs and Consciousness
Psychoactive Drug: A chemical substance that alters perceptions and mood (affects consciousness).
Continued use of a psychoactive drug produces tolerance. With repeated exposure to a drug, the drug’s effect
lessens. Thus it takes greater quantities to get the desired effect.
Withdrawal and Dependence
1. Withdrawal: Upon stopping use of a drug (after addiction), users may experience the undesirable effects
of withdrawal.
2. Dependence: Absence of a drug may lead to a feeling of physical pain, intense cravings (physical
dependence), and negative emotions (psychological dependence).
Psychoactive drugs are divided into three groups.
1. Depressants
2. Stimulants
3. Hallucinogens
Depressants are drugs that reduce neural activity and slow body functions. They include:
1. Alcohol
1. Alcohol affects motor skills, judgment, and memory…and increases aggressiveness while
reducing self awareness.
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2. Barbiturates
1. Barbiturates: Drugs that depress the activity of the central nervous system, reducing anxiety but
impairing memory and judgment. Nembutal, Seconal, and Amytal are some examples.
3. Opiates
Stimulants are drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions. Examples of stimulants are:
1. Caffeine
2. Nicotine
3. Cocaine
4. Ecstasy
5. Amphetamines
6. Methamphetamines
Caffeine and nicotine increase heart and breathing rates and other autonomic functions to provide energy.
Cocaine induces immediate euphoria followed by a crash. Crack, a form of cocaine, can be
smoked. Other forms of cocaine can be sniffed or injected.
Hallucinogens are psychedelic (mind-manifesting) drugs that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in
the absence of sensory input.
Module 29 – Theories of Emotion

Emotion
 a response of the whole organism
 physiological arousal
 expressive behaviors
 conscious experience
James-Lange Theory of Emotion
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Experience of emotion is awareness of physiological responses to emotion-arousing
stimuli
Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion
 Emotion-arousing stimuli simultaneously trigger:
 physiological responses
 subjective experience of emotion
Schachter’s Two Theory of Emotion
 To experience emotion one must:
 be physically aroused
 cognitively label the arousal
Performance and Arousal
Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for
easy or well-learned tasks

Polygraph
 machine commonly used in attempts to detect lies
 measures several of the physiological responses accompanying emotion
 perspiration
 cardiovascular
 breathing changes
Module 30 – Expressed Emotion
The Amygdala--a neural key to fear learning
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Catharsis
 emotional release
 catharsis hypothesis
 “releasing” aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves
aggressive urges
Feel-good, do-good phenomenon
 people’s tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood
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Subjective Well-Being
 self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life
 used along with measures of objective well-being
 physical and economic indicators to evaluate people’s quality of life

Adaptation-Level Phenomenon
 tendency to form judgments relative to a “neutral” level
 brightness of lights
 volume of sound
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 level of income
 defined by our prior experience
Relative Deprivation
 perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares
oneself
Module 31,32 – Stress and Illness, promoting health

Stress
 the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called
stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging
General Adaptation Syndrome
 Selye’s concept of the body’s adaptive response to stress in three stages
Phase 1
Alarm reaction (mobilize resources)
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Phase 2
Resistance (cope with stressor)
Phase 3
Exhaustion (reserves depleted)
Stressful events in your life
 Catastrophic Events
 earthquakes, combat stress, floods
 Life Changes
 death of a loved one, divorce, loss of job, promotion
 Daily Hassles
 rush hour traffic, long lines, job stress, burnout
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Type A
 Friedman and Rosenman’s term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient,
verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people
Type B
 Friedman and Rosenman’s term for easygoing, relaxed people
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Psychophysiological Illness
 “mind-body” illness
 any stress-related physical illness
 some forms of hypertension
 some headaches
 distinct from hypochondriasis-- misinterpreting normal physical sensations as
symptoms of a disease
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Biofeedback
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system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information
regarding a subtle physiological state
 blood pressure
 muscle tension
Module 33 – Psychoanalytic Perspective
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Personality
 an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
 basic perspectives
 Psychoanalytic
 Humanistic
Freud
Freud’s theory proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence
personality
 Psychoanalysis
 Freud’s theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to
unconscious motives and conflicts
 techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and
interpret unconscious tensions
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Free Association
 in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious
 person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or
embarrassing
Unconscious
 according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes,
feelings and memories
 contemporary viewpoint- information processing of which we are unaware
Id
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contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy
strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives
operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification
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Superego
 the part of personality that presents internalized ideals
 provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations
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Ego
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the largely conscious, “executive” part of personality
mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality
operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will
realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
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Psychosexual Stages
 the childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure-seeking
energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
Oedipus Complex
 a boy’s sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred
for the rival father
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Stage
Focus
Oral
(0-18 months)
Pleasure centers on the mouth-sucking, biting, chewing
Anal
(18-36 months)
Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder
elimination; coping with demands for
control
Phallic
(3-6 years)
Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with
incestuous sexual feelings
Latency
(6 to puberty)
Dormant sexual feelings
Genital
(puberty on)
Maturation of sexual interests
Identification
 the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their
developing superegos
 Fixation
 a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual
stage, where conflicts were unresolved
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Defense mechanisms
 Compensation
 Denial
 Displacement
 Intellectualization
 Projection
 Rationalization
 Reaction Formation
 Repression
 Regression
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
Repression
 the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts,
feelings, and memories from consciousness
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Regression
 defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a
more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains
fixated
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Reaction Formation
 defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable
impulses into their opposites
 people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing
unconscious feelings

Projection
 defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses
by attributing them to others
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Rationalization
 defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the
real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions

Displacement
 defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more
acceptable or less threatening object or person
 as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet
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Intellectualization
 Intellectualization is treating an emotionally charged situation in a muted or
non emotional fashion.
 For example, someone who accepts the news of a marital breakup passively
and with stoicism may be using intellectualization.
Compensation
 A perceived deficit is compensated for by skill or success in another area.
 For example, a perceived lack of height is compensated for skill in business,
the arts, or other areas.
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Projective Test
 a personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous
stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics
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Rorschach Inkblot Test
 the most widely used projective test
 a set of 10 inkblots designed by Hermann Rorschach
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seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of
the blots
Neo-Freudians
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Alfred Adler
 importance of childhood social tension
Karen Horney
 sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases
Carl Jung
 emphasized the collective unconscious
 concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our
species’ history
Module 34 – Humanistic Perspective

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
 studied self-actualization processes of productive and healthy people (e.g.,
Lincoln)

Self-Actualization
 the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and
psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved
 the motivation to fulfill one’s potential

Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
 focused on growth and fulfillment of individuals
 genuineness
 acceptance
 empathy
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Unconditional Positive Regard
 an attitude of total acceptance toward another person
Self-Concept
 all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in an answer to the question,
“Who am I?”
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Module 35 – Contemporary Research on Personality
Trait perspective
 Trait
 a characteristic pattern of behavior
 a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer
reports
 Personality Inventory
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a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which
people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and
behaviors
used to assess selected personality traits

Hans and Sybil Eysenck use two primary personality factors as axes for describing
personality variation

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
 the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests
 originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most
appropriate use)
 now used for many other screening purposes
The Big Five Factors
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Openness
Extraversion
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Social Cognitive perspective
Bandura (1986, 2001, 2005) believes that personality is the result of an interaction that
takes place between a person and their social context.
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Personal Control
 our sense of controlling our environments rather than feeling helpless
External Locus of Control
 the perception that chance or outside forces beyond one’s personal control
determine one’s fate
Internal Locus of Control
 the perception that one controls one’s own fate
Learned Helplessness
 the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when
unable to avoid repeated aversive events
Positive Psychology
 the scientific study of optimal human functioning
 aims to discover and promote conditions that enable individuals and
communities to thrive
Spotlight Effect
 overestimating others noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance,
and blunders
Self Esteem
 one’s feelings of high or low self-worth
Self-Serving Bias
 readiness to perceive oneself favorably
Module 36 – Introduction to Disorders
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Psychological Disorder
 a “harmful dysfunction” in which behavior is judged to be:
 atypical--not enough in itself
 disturbing--varies with time and culture
 maladaptive--harmful
 unjustifiable--sometimes there’s a good reason
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Medical Model
 concept that diseases have physical causes
 can be diagnosed, treated, and in most cases, cured
 assumes that these “mental” illnesses can be diagnosed on the basis of their
symptoms and cured through therapy, which may include treatment in a
psychiatric hospital
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Bio-Psycho-Social Perspective
 assumes that biological, sociocultural, and psychological factors combine and
interact to produce psychological disorders
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DSM-IV
 American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (Fourth Edition)
 a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders
Module 37 - Anxiety
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Anxiety Disorders
 distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
 person is tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system
arousal
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Panic Disorder
 marked by a minutes-long episode of intense dread in which a person
experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening
sensation
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Phobia
 persistent, irrational fear of a specific object or situation
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
 unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions)
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Dissociative Disorders
 conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories,
thoughts, and feelings
Dissociative Identity Disorder
 rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and
alternating personalities
 formerly called multiple personality disorder
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Personality Disorders
 disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair
social functioning
 usually without anxiety, depression, or delusions
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Antisocial Personality Disorder
 disorder in which the person (usually man) exhibits a lack of conscience for
wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members
 may be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist
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Module 38 – Mood Disorders
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Mood Disorders
 characterized by emotional extremes
Major Depressive Disorder
 a mood disorder in which a person, for no apparent reason, experiences two or
more weeks of depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished
interest or pleasure in most activities
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Manic Episode
 a mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state
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Bipolar Disorder
 a mood disorder in which the person alternates between the hopelessness and
lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania
 formerly called manic-depressive disorder
Depression
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Altering any
one
component of
the chemistrycognitionmood circuit
can alter the
others
Vicious cycle of depression

1.
2.
3.
4.
The
vicious
cycle of
depression
can be
broken at
any point
Negative stressful events.
Pessimistic explanatory style.
Hopeless depressed state.
These hamper the way the individual thinks and acts, fueling personal rejection.
Module 39 – Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia
 literal translation “split mind”
 a group of severe disorders characterized by:
 disorganized and delusional thinking
 disturbed perceptions
 inappropriate emotions and actions
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Delusions
 false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic
disorders
Hallucinations
 sensory experiences without sensory stimulation
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Module 40 - Therapy
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Psychotherapy
 an emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and
someone who suffers from psychological difficulties
Eclectic Approach
 an approach to psychotherapy that, depending on the client’s problems, uses
techniques from various forms of therapy
Psychoanalysis
 Freud believed the patient’s free associations, resistances, dreams, and
transferences – and the therapist’s interpretations of them – released
previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight
 use has rapidly decreased in recent years
Resistance
 blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material
Interpretation
 the analyst’s noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other
significant behaviors in order to promote insight
Transference
 the patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships
Client-Centered Therapy
 humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers
 therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting,
empathic environment to facilitate clients’ growth
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Active Listening- empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies
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Behavior Therapy
 therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted
behaviors
Counterconditioning
 procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted
behaviors
 based on classical conditioning
 includes systematic desensitization and aversive conditioning
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Exposure Therapy
 treat anxieties by exposing people (in imagination or reality) to the things they
fear and avoid
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Systematic Desensitization
 type of counterconditioning
 associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering
stimuli
 commonly used to treat phobias
Aversive Conditioning
 type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an
unwanted behavior
 nausea ---> alcohol
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Token Economy
 an operant conditioning procedure that rewards desired behavior
 patient exchanges a token of some sort, earned for exhibiting the desired
behavior, for various privileges or treats
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Cognitive Therapy
 teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting
 based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our
emotional reactions
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Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
 a popular integrated therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing selfdefeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior)
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Family Therapy
 treats the family as a system
 views an individual’s unwanted behaviors as influenced by or directed at other
family members
 attempts to guide family members toward positive relationships and improved
communication
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Module 42 – Biomedical Therapies
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Psychopharmacology
 study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior
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Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
 therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent
through the brain of an anesthetized patient
Psychosurgery
 surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior
 lobotomy
 now-rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably
emotional or violent patients
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Module 43 – Social Thinking
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Social Psychology
 scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another
Attribution Theory
 tendency to give a causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by
crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition
Fundamental Attribution Error
 tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate
the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal
disposition
Attitude
 belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to
objects, people and events
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
Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes as well as by external social
influences
Internal
attitudes
External
influences
Behavior
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Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
 tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later
with a larger request
Role
 set of expectations about a social position
 defines how those in the position ought to behave
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
 we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts
(cognitions) are inconsistent
 example- when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we
can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes
Module 44 – Social Influence
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Conformity
 adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard
Normative Social Influence
 influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
Informational Social Influence
 influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about
reality
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Milgram’s Social Influence study
Social Facilitation
 improved performance of tasks in the presence of others
 occurs with simple or well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or
not yet mastered
Social Loafing
 tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts
toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable
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Deindividuation
 loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal
and anonymity
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Group Polarization
 enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the
group
Groupthink
 mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making
group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives
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