Psychology 111 Exam 3

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Lie Detection

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-Human lie detections: how good are we
-probably not better than chance
-little to no correlation between confidence and accuracy
-little evidence that some occupational groups are better than others (i.e. police investigators better than others is not supported with research evidence)
-some possible exceptions: secret service agents and psychologists studying lying (Ekman)
-some facial cues are slightly useful - microexpressions

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Lie Detection - Polygraph Test

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-records a variety of physiological signals (e.g. skin response, heart rate, respiration)
-examiner typically asks relevant questions and control questions and compares magnitude of responses to each.

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The Polygraph Test: Problems

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-"Pinocchio response" - assumption that there is clear pattern of physiological responses associated with lying.
-there is no specific lie response
-the polygraph test is misnamed; it is an "arousal detector"
-although correct at somewhat better than chance rates...
-yields a high rate of false positives (says lying, but really not) 10%
-also a nontrivial rate of false negative (says telling truth, but not)
-not admissible as scientific evidence in most courts.

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Hypnosis: A Brief History

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-Mesmer (1770s): believed some people suffered from psychological disorders because of an absence of magnetic energy
-1800s: hypnosis used to induce anesthesia during surgical operations; some awareness that its power lies in the "hypnotee"
-Freud (1800s-1890s): initially used hypnosis in treatments to recover traumatic memories, but abandoned it.

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Hypnosis Misconceptions

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-hypnotized people can perform acts of remarkable physical strength
-people have no memory of what occured during hypnosis
-hypnosis enhances memory

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Hypnotic Susceptibility

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[FILM: Pain Control]
-approximately 85% of people are susceptible to some degree
-approximately 10-15% are highly susceptible/suggestible
-possible psychological predictors:
(a) presence of imaginary playmates in childhood
(b) "absorption" - personality trait - high or low or middle on trait - assessing how susceptible you are to certain events (absorbed in movie)

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Hypnosis and Memory

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-evidence does NOT indicate that hypnosis enhances memory...
-but it does enhance confidence in memory
-therefore, it can produce false memories and eyewitness errors
-DOES NOT concern the question of whether memories can be forgotten or repressed
-DOES concern whether memories (e.g. traumas) can be forgotten for long periods and recovered in accurate form.
-existence of recovered memories remains scientifically controversial.
-many therapists use suggestive techniques (e.g. hypnosis) to recover possible memories of early abuse.

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Recommendations about Suggestive Memory Procedures

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-don't use them in psychotherapy
-don't accept recovered memory reports as truthful without objective corroboration.
-remember that our memories fool us at times.

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Personality Introduction

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-relatively enduring characteristics that influence our behavior across many situations.
-assumption: cross-situational consistency.
-controversy: whether personality traits can predict behavior in any useful way
-personality traits aren't good at predicting isolated behaviors, but are often useful for predicting long term behavioral trends.
-questions to consider:
- what is the structure of personality?
- what causes personality?

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Sigmund Freud

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-psychoanalysis
-Freud's theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts.
-treatment techniques used to expose and interpret unconscious tensions
-Freud viewed virtually all symptoms and mental errors as meaningful.

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Freud: structural Model (iceberg model)

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-Id: contains our most basic drives and impulses; all that is present at birth
-strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives
-pushes to satisfy drives "I want/need/must have now"
-operates on the "pleasure principle," demanding immediate gratification.
-Ego: the "executive" part of personality
-responsible for decision making
-operates on the "reality principle" satisfying the id's desires but also delaying gratification until an appropriate source of gratification is found.
-Superego: is our sense of morals; part of personality that represents internalized structures of society
-two components:
(a) conscience - punishes with guilt when we have done something wrong
(b) ego-ideal: rewards us with pride when we have done something right

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Freud: Personality Development

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-Psychosexual Stages
-childhood stages during which the id's pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones.
-Fixation
-lingering focus of pleasure seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage where conflicts were unresolved.

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Freud: Personality Development Stages

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-Oral (0-10 months): pleasure centers on the mouth (e.g. 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
-Latancy (6 to puberty): dormant sexual feelings
-Genital (puberty on): maturation of sexual interests

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Oedipus Complex

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-involves sexual attraction of the child to the opposite sex parent (Phallic Stage)
-Castration Anxiety: boy fears that father will castrate him as a means of eliminating him as a rival.
-Penis Envy: girl, already believing herself to have been "castrated," begins to envy having a penis.

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Anxiety and Defense Mechanisms (Sigmund and Anna Freud)

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-Defense Mechanisms: methods that the ego uses to decrease anxiety; unconsciously distorting reality.
-are not by themselves unhealthy, although overuse is hypothesized to be pathological.

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A Few Defense Mechanisms

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-Repression: motivated forgetting at anxiety - provoking material - ego intentionally pushing this out and forgetting
-denial: refusal to believe an important aspect of reality ego is not seeing some aspect of reality - protection
-sublimation: transformation into positive behaviors (not problematic) ego transmits energy to better outlet

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Criticisms of Freudian Theory

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-unfalsifiability
-lack of research support for psychoanalysis
-reliance on case examples

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Neo-Freudian Theories

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-generally, places less emphasis than did Freud on drives and errogenous zones
-emphasized social and cultural factors more
-generally, more optimistic than was Freud regarding personality development
-did not typically believe that personality was largely fixed by early childhood

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Neo-Freudian: Karen Horney

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-discussed 10 "neurotic needs" (if not met lead to problems)
-regarded as a feminist personality theorist

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Neo-Freudian: Carl Jung

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-"collective unconscious" - shared heritage of ancestral memories
-archetypes: thought - images that are cross-culturally universal
-healthy adjustment involves development of contradictory sides of our nature
ex: internal self vs. external self
must manage both so not inconsistent conflict

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Neo-Freudian: Alfred Adler

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-primary driving force in personality is "striving for superiority"
-psychopathology results from the "inferiority complex" and efforts to overcompensate for inferiority
-"the style of life" - each person's unique style for compensating for inferiority

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Behaviorism: Learning Theory

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(1) Behaviors (and, therefore, personality) are a product of learning and genetic factors
(2) Psychological problems are maladaptive learned behavior patterns
(3) Principal focus is on real-world behavior
-two major laws of learning
-classical conditioning
-operant conditioning

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Classical Conditioning Paradigm: Ivan Pavlov

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(1)Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) -> (will elicit) Unconditioned Response (UCR)
(2) Conditioned Stimulus (CS) paired with UCS -> UCR
(3) CS -> Contitioned Response (CR)

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Classical Conditioning Concepts

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-Acquisition: response increases as CS and and UCS are jointly presented
-Extinction: response decreases as CS is presented without UCS
-Spontaneous Recovery: if, following extinction, we wait a given time period and then present the CS alone again, the response reappears (DO NOT associate extinction with unlearning)
-Stimulus Generalization: after the learning process has occured, the organism learns to respond to stimuli similar, although not identical, to the original CS
-example: Pavlov's dogs came to respond to tones similar [higher or lower] to the original tone

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Classical Conditioning and Phobia Acquisition

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-John B. Watson: Case of "Little Albert" repeatedly paired a white rat (CS) with a very loud noise (UCS)
-phobia is maladaptive -> irrational fear
-Little Albert developed a fear of white rats as well as other furry objects (e.g. rabbits, Santa Claus mask)
-suggests that classical conditioning may play a role in phobia aquisitions
-however many phobics appear not to have a traumatic conditioning history
[FILM: "Little Albert"]

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Operant Conditioning Concepts

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-reinforcement (positive/negative) [want ehavior increase]
-positive -> give something good to make behavior increase
-negative -> take away something bad to make behavior increase
-punishment (positive/negative) [want behavior decrease]
-positive -> give something bad to make to make behavior decrease
-negative -> take away something good to make behavior decrease

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Contingencies of Reinforcement

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-skinner: behaviors are almost always under the control of contingencies of reinforcement
-argued that punishment is not an efficient means of changing behavior
-continuous (always - learn quickly) vs. intermittent (depending - long term effect) reinforcement

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Social-Cognitive Perspective

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-behavior/personality influenced by the interaction between people and their social context
-learned helplessness (seligman) - passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events
-self-efficacy (Bandura) - belief about one's ability to perform specific tasks
-locus of control (Rotter)
-External Locus of Control
-perception that chance or outside forces beyond one's personal control determine one's fate
-Internal Locus of Control
-perception that one controls his/her own fate

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Humanistic Models

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-Focus on human potentialities
-regard psychological problems as the consequences of blocked drives toward growth

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Humanistic Theorist: Carl Rogers

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-the central driving force in personality is toward self-actualization
-self-actualization - one's innate potential to the fullest extent [positive]
-conditions of worth - occur when others make their acceptance of us dependent ("conditional") on our behaviors
ex: person who says would not be accepted by parents if not athlete/doctor/etc... [only ok if it fits with what you want to do]
-incongruence - results from conditions of worth; inconsistency between our innate potentialities and out outward personalities
-incongruence blocks drives toward self-actualization

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Humanistic Theorist: Abraham Maslow

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-posited a hierarchy of needs with basic needs at bottom and "self-actualization" at the top
-studied self-actualization processes of productive and healthy people
-pyramid (from bottom to top) - physiological needs, safety needs (shelter, financial, job, relationships), belonging needs (interpersonal relationships), esteem needs (self-esteem, competence), self-actualization
-must have bottom parts to get to top
-humor similar between people who get to top

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Trait Models of Personality

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-Trait Models: propose the existence of a small number of basic traits underlying personality
-can be measured
-are nomothetic, as opposed to idiographic in emphasis
-nomothetic -> looking for ways in which find sturcture and relate to others
-idiographic -> individual case studies
-Cattell (1950s): used factor analysis to uncover the basic structure of personality
-Factor Analysis: technique designed to uncover a smaller number of dimensions underlying a set of data

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"The Big Five"

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-derived from the "lexical approach": assumes that all important aspects of personality are embedded in language
-Big Five Dimensions (OCEAN or CANOE)
(1)extraversion - more sociable, seek-excitement, like being around people
(2)neuroticism - high strung, tendency to feel higher negative emotions, nervous, anxious
(3)agreeableness - you are cooperative, compassionate, agreeable
(4)conscientiousness - self-motivated to be orderly and neat, self-disciplined
(5)openness to experience - intellectually curious, artistic, express self, openness to the world
-The Big Five and work performance (Barrick and Mout, 1991)
-Rubenzer et.al. (2005): use of the Big Five to predict presidential performance
-highest: Lincoln, FDR, Clinton - openness to experience - people who scored lowest on agreeableness were better
-lowest: Taft
-The Big Five are cross-culturally generalizable
-But may not be comprehensive (e.g. honesty) or...
-fully applicable to psychopathology (e.g. schizophrenia)

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Personality Assessment

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-two crucial principles involved when evaluating psychological (e.g. personality) tests:
(1)reliability: consistency in measurement
(a)test-restest: before and after testing - scores should be similar from initial to later
(b)inter-rater: consistency in measurement depending who rater is (you fill out, friend does for you, interviewed,...)
(2)validity: extent to which a test measures what it says it measures
(a)concurrent: test correlates highly with part of BLANK
(b)predictive: people who score high on BLANK also score high on BLANK - correlation - test for one then predict other

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Three Common Pitfalls in Personality Assessment

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-P.T. Barnum Effect:
-FILM example
-tendency to accept vague highly generalized personality descriptions as accurate; probably underlies success of astrology, crystal ball reading, palm reading, etc...
-Halo Effect (common in rating data): (Pitchfork Effect)
-study of student course evaluations (if first impression good, still good evaluations)
-Leniency effect (also common in rating data):
-letters of reference (is "best student", will describe as such)

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Types of Personality Tests

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-structured (objective): Are typically paper-and-pencil tests that have only one of a very few fixed answers (true-false or likert format [4-7 answers])
-MMPI/MMPI-2: developed in 1940s at University of Minnesota using an empirical method of test construction
-empirical method: involves comparing item responses of several criterion groups (in this case, groups of individuals with diagnosed psychopathology and groups of normals)
common consequence of empirical method: low face validity - extent to which respondents can detect what items are measuring
-Projective techniques: consist of ambiguous stimuli that participant must interpret or make sense of
-rely on projective hypothesis: when interpreting ambiguous stimuli, subjects reveal things about their personalities in the process

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The MMPI/MMPI-2

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-consists of 10 clinical (e.g. Schizophrenia) scales and 3 validity (e.g. lie frequency) scales
-scores on these scales are plotted on a profile, which is interpreted by the examiner

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Projective Techniques (examples)

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(1)Rorschach Inkblot Test (Rorschach, 1921)
-random inkblot person must make sense of
-what base response on
-no time limit or answer limit
(2)Thematic Apperception Test (Murray and Morgan 1943)
-presented with picture
-say what's going on, what thinking or feeling, make story
(3)Sentence Completion Test (e.g. Rotter)
-Projective Tehniques are widely used, although they have been criticized on scientific grounds
-reliability is often poor (e.g. many Rorschach variables have low inter-rater reliability)
-concurrent and predictive validity are often problematic likely exception: thought disorder
-incremental validity is questioned
-given error rates, ethics are questioned for use in proving things
-may lead to overperception of psychopathology

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Some Proposed "Criteria" of Mental Abnormality

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(1)Statistical Rarity - (e.g. Schizophrenia)
-...but many rare conditions are not pathological and not all common conditions are healthy
-giftedness, bouts of intense depression
(2)Subjective distress
-...not necessarily the case with hypomania and anti social personality disorder
-hypomania - decreased sleep, optimistic, energy, feel like at best creative potential, on top of world - don't say have problem - rarity exists by itself - problem in long run
-antisocial personality disorder - psychopathic, irresponsible, jerks, some feel badly but not all do, distress, pervasive personality
(3)Impairment
-...but many people with severe symptoms are not viewed as impaired
(4)Societal Disaproval (most controversial)
-...Thomas Szasz argued that "mental illness is a myth"
-labels are used to stigmatize people who have "problems in living"
-labels become self-fulfilling prophecies

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Rosehan (1973) "On Being Sane in Insane Places"

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-budget cuts on mental illness care
-12 pseudopatients contacted mental hospitals
-claimed they are hearing voices ("empty, hollow, thud")
-all were admitted, all but one with diagnosis of schizophrenia
-exhibited no symptoms in the hospital (as instructed)
-(would they be admitted? would they be diagnosed with something? what was experience in hospital?)
-given medicines but did not take them
-all discharged with "schizophrenia in remission"
-other notable results: how they were treated

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Psychiatric Classification/Diagnosis

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-potential misconceptions (and consider why only partly right)
(1)Diagnosis is nothing more than pigeon-holing
(2)Diagnoses are unreliable
(3)Diagnoses are invalid
(4)Diagnoses are stigmatisms

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Today's Diagnostic System

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-Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - 4th Edition (DSM-IV)
-provides criteria and decision rules
-provides additional information (e.g. prevalence correlates, prognosis, possible causes)
-high level of comorbidity - individuals with one diagnosis frequently have multiple diagnoses (i.e. depression and anxiety)

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Schizophrenia: Problems with reality...

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-lose touh with reality
-thought disorder
-falls into catagory of psychotic disorders
-does not place you at high risk of violence

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What is Schizophrenia?

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-comes from Greek, meaning "split" and "mind"; intended to convey split between thinking and emotion
-also refers to loss of touch with reality
-prevalence: about 1%
-gender ratio roughly equal
-age of onset: late teens to early 30s (males appear to have earlier onset)

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Symptoms of Schizophrenia

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-Positive symptoms
-hallucinations - false sensory perceptions; auditory hallucinations most common
-delusions - fixed false beliefs; not open to rational arguments to the contrary
-disorganized speech and behaviors
-Negative symptoms
-absence of normal cognition or affect (e.g. flat affect, poverty of speech) [very apparent]
-[Schizophrenia FILM]

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Causes (?) and Prognosis

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-many biological factors seem involved
-family and environmental factors also important
-combined model
-biological predisposition combined with psychosocial stressors leads to disorder
-prognosis

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Major Depression Episode

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-significant change in one's functioning
-symptoms include:
-sadness - crying? no crying?
-anhedonia - inability to experience pleasure
-changes in sleep
-changes in eating
-feelings of worthlessness and/or guilt
-suicidal thoughts
-(note: can have hallucinations and delusions)
-5 of 9 symptoms (including sadness or anhedonia)
-2 weeks

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Depression

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-Major Depressive Disorder
-one or more episodes
-typical course is episodic
-Dysthymic Disorder
-less severe, but long-lasting depression
-lasts for at least 2 years

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Manic Episode

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-change in functioning
-symptoms include:
-elevated, expansive, or irritable mood (intense strong emotions: very happy, etc...)
-grandiose (feel like they are larger than life[still in touch with reality], can do anything [still in touch with reality], superhero [loss with reality])
-decreased need for sleep (maye 3 days no sleep, but energized)
-pressured speech (talk fast, but not speaking fast enough for thoughts)
-racing thoughts
-(note: can have hallucinations and delusions)
-1 or 2 weeks lasting
[FILM: Depression and Mania]

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Bipolar Disorders

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-mood levels typically swing from severe depression to mania
-used to be called "manic depression"
-strong heritable component
-gender ratio about equal

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Suicide

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-most common among people with mood disorders
-schizophrenia and alcoholism also major risk factors
-"hopelessness" (positive symptoms of depression = up risk)
-women more often attempt, men more often commit
-males and females differ in attempts (females = pills, males = guns -> harder to save males)

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Suicide Misconceptions

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-individuals who talk about suicide are extremely unlikely to commit the act
-suicide is typically committed without warning
-asking someone about suicide increases the likelihood he/she will do it
-only depressed individuals commit suicide

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Anxiety Disorder

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-problems with fear and apprehension...
-primary disturbance is distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety (avoidance)

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Panic Attack

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-heart pounding
-sweating
-choking, shortness of breath
-dizzy
-nausea, GI distress
-fear of dying
-peaks w/i 10 minutes!

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What is Psychotherapy?

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-key components/assumptions:
-professional relationship
-therapist has certain training
-confidentiality
-theory drives treatment
-many therapists use an eclectic approach

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So, does therapy work?

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-people report feeling better after therapy
-however, maybe would have gotten better anyway
-need studies comparing no treatment to treatment

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Smith and Glass (1977)

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-meta-analysis

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General conclusions about Therapy effectiveness

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-people in treatment do better than those not
-each type of therapy as effective as the others
-however, some types of therapy work better for specific problems
-some therapists are better than others
-nonspecific factors important
-nonspecific = unrelated to specific principles but critical to outcome
-empathy