Unit 7 - Psychological Disorders and Treatments

A harmful dysfunction in which behavior is judged to be atypical, disturbing, maladaptive, and unjustifiable

U - unjustifiable

M - Maladpative

A - Atypical

D - Disturbing 

DSM V

• DSM will classify disorders and describe their disorders
• DSM will NOT explain the cause or possible cures

Disorders

Anxiety Disorder

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

Panic Disorder

• an anxiety disorder marked by minute-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking and other frightening sensations

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

• an anxiety disorder in which a person is continuously tense, apprehensive and in a state of automatic nervous system arousal
• the patient is constantly tense and worried, feels inadequate, is oversensitive,, can't concentrate and suffers from insomnia

Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder

• persistent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) cause someone to feel the need (compulsion) to engage in a particular action
• obsessions about dirt and germs may lead to compulsive hand washing

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

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

Somatoform Disorders

• occurs when a person manifests a psychological problems through a physiological symptom

Hypochondriasis

• has frequent physical complaints for which medical doctors are unable to locate the cause 

Conversion Disorder

• report the existence of severe physical problems with no biological reason
• like blindness or paralysis

Dissociative Disorder

• these disorders involve disruption in the consciousness process

Psychogenic Amnesia 

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

Dissociative Fugue

• people with psychogenic amnesia that find themselves in an unfamiliar environment 

Dissociative Identity Disorder

• used to be known as multiple personality disorder 
• a person has several rather than one integrated personality
• people with DID commonly have a history of childhood abuse or trauma

Mood Disorders

• experience extreme or inappropriate emotion

Major Depression

• unhappy for at least two weeks with no apparent cause
• depression is the common cold of psychological disorders 

Seasonal Affective Disorder

• experience depression during the winter season 
• based not on temperature, but the amount of sunlight
• treated with light therapy

Bipolar Disorder

• for many manic depression
• involves periods of depression and manic episodes
• manic episodes involve feeling of high energy
• engage in risky behavior during the manic episode

Schizophrenia

About 1 in every 100 people are diagnosed with schizophrenia

Symptoms

• disorganized thinking 
• disrupted perception
• inappropriate emotions and actions

Disorganized Thinking

• the thinking of a person with schizophrenia is fragmented and bizarre and distorted with false beliefs
• disorganized thinking comes from a breakdown in selective attention

Delusions

• delusions are persecution 
• delusions of glandular 

Disturbed Perception 

• hallucinations- sensory experiences without sensory simulations

Inappropriate Emotions and Actions

• Laugh at inappropriate times
• flat affect
• senseless, compulsive acts
• catatonia- motionless

Positive vs Negative Symptoms

• Positive - presence of inappropriate symptoms 
• Negative - Absence of appropriate ones

Types of Schizophrenia

Paranoid Schizophrenia

• preoccupation with delusions or hallucinations 
• somebody is out to get me!!!

Disorganized Schizophrenia 

• disorganized speech or behavior, flat pr inappropriate emotion

Catatonic Schizophrenia

• parrot like repeating of another's speech and movement

Undifferentiated Schizophrenia

• many and varied symptoms

Personality Disorders

Psychological disorder characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning

Paranoid Personalty Disorder 

• paranoid personality disorder is characterized by a distrust of others and a constant suspicion that people are you have sinister motives

Antisocial Personality Disorder

• characterized by lack of conscience 
• tend to lie and steal   

Borderline Personality Disorder

• characterized by mood instability and poor self-image
• people with this disorder are prone to constant mood swings and bouts of anger

Histrionic Personality Disorder

• constant attention seeker

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

• characterized by self-contentedness

Schizoid Personality Disorder

• avoid relationships and do not show emotions 

Schizotypal

• characterized by a need for social isolation, and behavior and thinking often unconventional beliefs such as being convinced of having extra sensory abilities
• some people believe that schizotypal personality is a mild form of schizophrenia

Avoidant Personality Disorder

• characterized by persuasive patterns of social inhibition, feeling of inadequacy, and extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation
• considered themselves to be socially inept or personally unappealing, and avoid social interaction for fear of being ridiculed or humiliated

Dependent Personality Disorder

• characterized by a persuasive psychological dependence on other people
• has difficulty making everyday decisions without excessive amount of advice and reassurance from others 

Obsessive Personality Disorder

• characterized by general psychological inflexibility, rigid conformity to rules and procedures, perfectionism, and excessive orderliness 

  

Unit 5 - Social Pyschology

Social psychology is the study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Social Thinking

Attribution Theory

• the idea that we give a casual explanation for someone's behavior
• we credit that behavior either to the situation or...
• to the person's disposition

Fundamental Attribution Theory

• the tendency to underestimate the impact of a situation or overestimate the impact of a personal disposition

Attitudes

• a belief or felling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to something

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

• the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to later comply with a larger request

Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon

• the tendency for people who say no to a huge request, to comply with a smaller one 

Cognitive Dissonance 

• we don't like when we have either conflicting attitudes or when our attitudes don't match our actions
• when they clash, we will change our attitude to create balance

Social Influence

Conformity

• adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard

Conditions that Strengthen Conformity

• one made to feel incompetent 
• the group is at least 3 people
• the group is unanimous 
• one admires the group's status
• one had made no prior commitment
• the person is observed 
• Normative Social Influence: influences resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disappointment 
• Informational Social Influence: influence resulting from one's willingness to accept other's opinions about reality

Social Facilitation

• improved performance of tasks in the presence of others
• occurs with simple or well learned tasks
• not with tasks that are difficult or not mastered yet

Yerkes-Dodson Law 

There is an optimal level of arousal for the best performance of any task:

• easy tasks- relatively high
• difficult tasks- low arousal
• other tasks- moderate level

Social Loafing

• the tendency for people in a group exert less effort when pooling efforts toward a common goal than if they were individually accountable 

Deindividuation 

• the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity 

Group Polarization

• the concept that a group's attitude is one of extremes and rarely moderate

Group Thinking

• The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides common sense 

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 

• occurs when one person's belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief

Social Relations 

Prejudice 

• An unjustifiable attitude towards a group of people
• usually involves stereotyped beliefs (a generalized belief about a group of people)

Social Inequalities 

• Ingroup Bias: the tendency to favor one's own group
• Ingroup: "us" - people wit whom one shares a common identity
• Outgroup: "them" - those perceived as different than one's ingroup  

Scapegoat Theory

• the theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger providing someone to blame

Aggression

• any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone 

Conflict

• a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas

Love

• Passionate love: an aroused state of intense positive absorption of another
• Compassionate Love: the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined 

Altruism

• unselfish regard for the welfare of others 
• Kitty Genovese Case
• Bystander Effect: bystanders are less willing to help if there are other bystanders around