Download Psychology Chapter 19: Group Interaction

Watch “What About Bob and complete worksheet
1. Some behavior people see as normal while others see the same behavior as
abnormal
a. Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over, expecting a
different result
b. The term insane is not used much more in the medical profession, replaced with
psychopathology
2. Deviation from Normality
a. Any deviation from the average or majority
b. Different cultural norms must be taken into consideration
i. Because the majority isn’t always right or best, this deviance approach is not
in itself a useful standard
3. Adjustment
a. Normal people are able to get along socially, physically and emotionally in the
world
b. Can feed and clothe themselves
c. Abnormal people fail to adjust in these ways
d. But, behavior in one society may not be acceptable in other societies
4. Psychological Health
a. Self-Actualization – Humanistic view that to be normal or healthy involves full
acceptance and expression of one’s own individuality and humanness
i. Problem with this approach is that its hard to determine whether a person is
actualizing themselves
b. Labeling a person as mentally ill because of their odd behavior is a mistake as
well as cruel and irresponsible
c. Many of these people just have problems in living that causes conflicts
d. It is only when a psychological problem becomes severe enough to disrupt
everyday life that it is thought of as an abnormality or illness
5. The Problem of Classification
a. DSM – The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
i. Currently in its 4th revision
ii. A classification manual that show such things as
1. Features
2. Diagnosis
3. 5 Axis
Section 1 Review
1. Anxiety – a general state of dread or uneasiness that a person feels in response to a
real or imagined danger
a. Feeling anxiety out of proportion to the situation provoking it
b. Affects 19 million Americans annually
c. Characteristics:
i. Feelings of anxiety
ii. Personal inadequacy
iii. Avoidance of dealing with problems
iv. Unrealistic images of themselves
v. Unable to free themselves of recurring fears and worries
d. Expressed through:
i. Constant worrying
ii. Sudden mood swings
iii. Physical symptoms
a. headaches
b. sweating
c. muscle tightness
d. weakness
e. fatigue
e. Anxious people often have difficulty forming stable and satisfying relationships
2. General Anxiety Disorder
a. Feeling nervous for reasons they can’t explain
b. Can become full blown panic attacks
i. Choking sensation
ii. Chest pain
iii. Dizziness
iv. Trembling
v. Hot flashes
c. They neglect social relationships
d. Trouble dealing with friends, family or responsibilities
e. The more they worry the more difficulty they have, the more difficulty they
have the more they worry – a vicious cycle
f. Physical symptoms attached include: poor appetite, frequent urination,
indigestion and diarrhea
g. Causes:
i. Learned anxiety
ii. Inherited
iii. Environmental factors
iv. Uncertainties of modern life
3. Phobic Disorder (phobia)
a. Phobia/Phobic Disorder – when severe anxiety is focused on a particular object, animal,
activity or situation that seems out of proportion to the real danger involved
b. Develop elaborate plans to avoid those situations
c. Can range from mild to severe
d. Treatment
i. Providing the person a experience their phobia under conditions where they feel safe
4. Panic Disorder
a. Panic – a feeling of sudden, helpless terror
b. During a panic attack, the person experiences sudden, unexplainable, attacks of intense
anxiety, leaving them fearing death and doom
c. Physical Symptoms:
i. Sense of smothering
ii. Choking
iii. Difficulty breathing
iv. Faintness or dizziness
v. Nausea
vi. Chest pains
d. Can last minutes or hours and occur without warning
e. Causes:
i. Inherited
ii. Environment
a. interpreting a physiological arousal (higher heart rate) as disastrous
5. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
a. Obsession – an uncontrollable pattern of thoughts
b. Compulsion – repeatedly performing coping behaviors
c. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – experiencing both together
i. Everyone has obsessions and compulsions
ii. Problem when it interferes with what a person wants and needs to do
iii. Causes:
a. Serve as diversions from a person’s real fears and their origins and
may reduce anxiety
b. May run in families, genetic
c. Most people with the disorder know that their thoughts and actions are
irrational, but they feel unable to stop them
6. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
a. PTSD – a person who has experienced a traumatic event feels severe and long
lasting aftereffects
b. Those who suffer include:
i. Veterans of wars
ii. Survivors of terrorist attacks
iii. Natural disaster victims: hurricanes, tornadoes
iv. Plane crashes
v. Assault and rape victims
c. The event that triggers the disorder overwhelms a person’s sense of reality and
ability to cope
d. Can begin immediately after the event or later in life
e. Symptoms
i. Flashbacks
ii. Nightmares
f. Can be long lasting
g. People exposed to events repeatedly or over a long period of time are more
likely to develop the condition
Section 2 Review
1. Somatoform Disorders – when anxiety creates a variety of physical symptoms for
which no physical cause is apparent
a. Also known as hysteria – unexplainable fainting, paralysis or deafness, used in
Freud’s time
b. Conversion Disorders
i. Conversion Disorder – the conversion of emotional difficulties into the loss
of a specific physiological function
a. No actual physical damage is present
ii. When someone is frightened and they can’t move (common), uncommon for
it to persist
iii. Results in a real and prolonged handicap
iv. If a person wakes up paralyzed from the waist down and accepts it with
calmness (la belle indifference), its known to be a psychological
problem
v. Psychologists believe that people suffer from conversion disorders to gain
freedom from unbearable conflict
vi. Very Rare!!
c. Hypochondriasis
i. A person in good health who becomes preoccupied with imaginary ailments
ii. Hypochondriacs spend time looking for signs of serious illness and
misinterprets minor aches, pains and bruises as early signs of fatal
illness
a. Regardless of medical tests and diagnosis, they will continue to believe
it
b. Occurs during young adulthood
c. Occurs when an individual represses emotions and then expresses
them symbolically in physical symptoms
2. Dissociative Disorders – when a person experiences alterations in memory, identity
or consciousness
a. Can be normal, daydreaming and not hearing your name being called
b. Amnesia and multiple personality are very, very rare
c. Dissociative Amnesia
i. Memory loss that has no biological explanation
ii. May be an attempt to escape from problems by blotting them out entirely
iii. Remember how to speak and retain general knowledge, but don’t know who
they are, where they are from, how they got where they are
iv. Most often results from a traumatic event – a terrible accident
d. Dissociative Fugue
i. Amnesia coupled with an active flight to a different environment
ii. Person disappears and then wakes up the next day long ways from home
iii. If not treated, they establish a new identity in the new place
iv. Represses all knowledge of a previous life
v. May last for days or years
vi. When they re-emerge, they have no memory of what had happened
vii. Escape from unbearable conflict or anxiety
e. Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality disorder)
i. A person exhibits two or more personality states, each with its own behavior and thinking
patterns
ii. Different states may take controls at different times
iii. Famous Case – Eve White
a. Treatment for severe headaches and blackouts, conscientious, self-controlled, and shy
b. During one treatment, her expression and personality suddenly changed, became Eve
Black
c. Child-like, fun-loving and irresponsible (opposite of her other self)
d. Eve Black was conscious of Eve White but considered her a separate person, Eve
White didn’t know about Eve Black though nor Jane (a 3rd personality)
e. Film – The 3 Faces of Eve
f. Went on to write a book detailing 22 identities
g. Sybil (book and film as well) had 16 personalities
iv. Psychologists believe that dividing up the personality is the individual’s effort to escape from
a part of the self that they fear
v. The secret self then emerges as a separate identity
vi. EXTREMELY RARE!!! And controversial
vii. People diagnosed usually suffered from severe physical, psychological or sexual abuse
during childhood
Section 3 Review
Watch “A Beautiful Mind” and complete worksheet
1. People with schizophrenia often have difficulty using language to communicate
a. They go from one phrase to another by random association
b. Schizophrenia affects the area of the working memory used to make sentences
c. Don’t remember the beginning of the sentence so they finish it with an unrelated
thought
2. People with schizophrenia withdraw from normal life, have distorted perceptions and
whose behavior reach an irrational, fantastic, fear-laden, unimaginable levels
3. Examples:
a. Marshall Applewhite and 38 members of Heaven’s Gate
b. Charles Manson (In Dispute)
c. Joan of Arc
d. Adolf Hitler
e. Jim Jones
f. Son of Sam – David Berkowitz (In Dispute)
g. Unabomber Ted Kaczynski (In Dispute)
h. Syd Barrett
i. Mary Todd Lincoln
4. What is Schizophrenia
a. Schizophrenia – involves confused and disordered thoughts and perceptions
i. Affects 1 in 100 worldwide
ii. Thoughts are disturbed and contact is lost with reality to a considerable
extent
iii. Live life as an unreal dream
Read quote ending with “Naturally, I am growing my father’s hair.”
iv. Not a single problem, no single cause, no single cure
v. Symptoms
a. Delusions – false beliefs maintained in the face of contrary evidence
b. Hallucinations – perceptions in the absence of corresponding
sensation
c. Incoherence – marked decline in thought process
d. Word Salad – lots of words thrown together
e. Disturbances of affect – emotions that are inappropriate for the
circumstances
f. Deterioration in normal movement – slowed movement, nonmovement
or highly agitated behavior
g. Decline in previous level of functioning – sharp drop off in productivity of
work
h. Diverted attention – as if the person is unable to focus their attention
b. Types of Schizophrenia
i. Paranoid Type
a. Involves hallucinations and delusions
aa. Grandeur – “I am the savior of my people”
bb. Persecution – “Someone is always watching me”
ii. Catatonic Type
a. Remain motionless for long periods
b. Exhibiting waxy, flexibility in which limbs in unusual positions may take a
long time to return to a resting, relaxed position
iii. Disorganized Type
a. Incoherent language, inappropriate emotions, giggling for no apparent
reason, generally disorganized motor behavior and
hallucinations/delusions
iv. Remission Type
a. Anyone whose symptoms are gone or still exist but aren’t severe
enough to have earned a diagnosis of schizophrenia in the first place
b. Belief is that the symptoms will return
v. Undifferentiated Type
a. Encompasses a large amount of the symptoms all in one person
c. Treatment
i. Very complex condition
ii. Treatment is long term and usually requires hospitalization
a. Sometimes leads to burn-out – one who is not likely to function
normally in society
iii. May go into remission but adjustment tends to deteriorate between
successive episodes of the reappearance of symptoms
iv. No real cure for schizophrenia exists
d. Cause of Schizophrenia
i. Biological Influences/Genetics
a. Almost certainly involved
b. 1% of having schizophrenia, 10% if someone else in the family has it, in
twins there is a 48% chance if one has it, the other will
c. Can’t specify the exact contribution hereditary factors have
ii. Biochemistry and Physiology
a. Chemical imbalances in the brain
b. Too much or too little of a specific chemical in the brain has upset the
processing of information, interferes with normal synaptic transmission
(Page 157-158)
c. Dopamine Hypothesis – too much dopamine at the selected synapses
d. Using CAT and MRI scans, shows signs of deteriorated brain tissue
e. Exact role of the environment is fostering schizophrenia is unclear, but it
is involved
iii. Family and Interactions
a. Pathogenic, unhealthful, families may contribute to problems in adult
years, but don’t in and of themselves lead to schizophrenia
5. Mood Disorders
a. Emotions that hamper the ability to function effectively
i. In extreme cases, a mood may cause them to lose touch with reality or
threaten their health or lives
b. Major Depressive Disorder
i. Spend at least 2 weeks feeling depressed, sad, anxious, fatigued and
agitated
a. Causes a reduced ability to function and interact with others
b. Mild feelings of uneasiness, sadness and apathy to intense suicidal
despair
c. CAN NOT be associated with bereavement – loss of a loved one
d. Marked by 4 symptoms
aa. Problems with eating, sleeping, thinking, concentrating and
decision making
bb. Lacking energy
cc. Thinking about suicide
dd. Feeling worthless or guilty
c. Bipolar Disorder – individuals are excessively and inappropriately happy or
unhappy
i. High elation, hopeless depression or an alternation between the two
ii. Manic Phase
a. Elation, extreme confusion, distractibility and racing thoughts
b. Exaggerated sense of self-esteem and engages in irresponsible
behaviors
aa. Shopping sprees or insulting remarks
c. Act as though they need less sleep, activity level increases as does the
loudness and frequency with which they speak
iii. Depressive Phase
a. Failure, sinfulness, worthlessness and despair
b. Marked by lethargy, despair and unresponsiveness
c. Essentially the same as the major depressive disorder
d. May alternate between frantic action and motionless despair
iv. Some people have episodes separated by long intervals of normal behavior,
others have no normal behavior and just alternate between the two
d. Seasonal Affective Disorder
i. In winter these people develop a deep depression
ii. Spirits only lift with the coming of spring
iii. Tend to sleep and eat excessively during their depressed period
iv. Cause
a. Melatonin may play a role
aa. Less light (winter) more melatonin is secrete by the pineal gland
bb. High levels can cause Seasonal Affective Disorder
b. Can be treated by sitting under bright fluorescent lights during the
evening or early morning hours
e. Explaining Mood Disorders
i. Psychological Factors
a. Personality traits (self esteem)
b. Amount of social support
c. Ability to deal with stressful situations
ii. Beck Theory
a. Depressed people draw illogical conclusions about themselves, blame
themselves for normal problems and consider every minor failure a
catastrophic event
iii. Seligman Theory
a. Caused by feeling of learned helplessness
b. Learns to believe that they have no control over events in their lives and
that it’s useless to try
f. Suicide and Depression
i. Not all people who commit suicide are depressed and not all depressed people attempt
suicide
ii. Many depressives do think about suicide though, and some translate these thought
into action
iii. People commit suicide for a number of reasons
a. Escape from physical pain
aa. Terminal illness
b. Escape from emotional pain
aa. Loneliness of old age
c. An effort to end the torment of unacceptable feelings
d. To punish themselves for wrongs they committed
e. To punish others
f. Many times there is no explanation
iv. More than 30,000 Americans end their lives by suicide
a. 1 every 20 minutes
v. More women than men attempt suicide/More men than women succeed in suicide
vii. Most common among the elderly
viii. 2nd most cause of death for college students
ix. People who threaten or make an unsuccessful attempt are very serious
x. 70% of those who commit suicide have threatened to do so within 3 months preceding
the suicide
a. An unsuccessful attempt is usually a trial run
Section 4 Review
1. Personality Disorder
a. Generally don’t suffer from acute anxiety nor do they behave in bizarre,
incomprehensible ways
b. Unable to establish meaningful relationships with other people, to assume social
responsibilities or adapt to their social environment
c. Antisocial Personality (Sociopaths and Psychopaths)
i. Exhibit a persistent disregard for and violation of others’ rights
ii. Treat people as objects
iii. Live for the moment
iv. Seeking thrills is the major occupation
v. If they injure or hurt people along the way they feel no shame or guilt
vi. No matter how many times they get into trouble, jailed or punished, they
never learn to stay out of trouble
vii. Usually intelligent, entertaining and fake emotions, they win confidence and
affection of others
2. Drug Addiction
a. Become a major psychological problem
b. Millions depend so heavily on drugs that they hurt themselves physically, socially
and psychologically
c. Psychological Dependence – depend so much on a drug that without it they
feel nervous and anxious, that feeling of well-being
i. Alcohol
ii. Caffeine
iii. Nicotine
iv. Cocaine
v. Marijuana
vi. Amphetamines
d. Physical Addiction – when the drug state becomes the normal body state,
without the drug there is extreme physical discomfort
i. Tolerance – developed when a person becomes so addicted to a drug that
they have to continually increase the dosage to obtain the high that
used to be achieved with lower doses
ii. Withdraw – a state of physical and psychological upset during which the
body and mind revolt against and finally gets used to the absence of t
he drug
aa. mild nausea, shakes, hallucinations, convulsions, coma and death
e. Alcoholism
i. Most serious drug addiction
ii. 10 to 12 million Americans abuse alcohol
iii. 40% of all deaths in automobile accidents and 40% of all murders, alcohol is
involved
iv. Social drug, causes one to lose some inhibition
v. Is actually a depressive
vi. Perceptions and sensations become distorted, behavior may become
obnoxious
vii. People stumble, weave, slurred speech and slow reaction times
viii. Unconsciousness, coma, death
ix. Can produce psychological dependence, tolerance and addiction
x. Can develop from both environmental and genetic factors
aa. 3 to 4 times higher is a family member is an alcoholic
bb. Poor home life
xi. Treatment
aa. Get through delirium tremens, violent withdraw
bb. Drugs and/or psychotherapy
cc. Group Therapy – AA
dd. Medication – Antabuse, causes a person to become violently sick if
they drink alcohol
ee. No cure!!
Section 5 Review
Chapter 16 Study Guide
Chapter 16 Test