introduction to psychology notes and key points

Chapter 1:
Early Theories
1. Wilhelm Wundt
1. First to separate psychology from physiology/sociology
2. Opened the first formal laboratory for research in
psychology
3. First journal devoted to publishing research on
psychology
2. Stanley Hall
1. Driving force of the APA association and its first
president
2. Did the same things as Wundt but in America (lab and
journal)
Competing Psychology
1. Structuralism
1. Goal was to identify the “structures” of psychological
experiences (elements of
sensation)
2. Identifying objects (putting together sensations from
five senses from your past to
associate with the object) (ex. you know an orange even
without seeing it because of
feel, smell, taste)
1. There is a difference between the sensation of a
stimulus and the perception of that
stimulus
3. Introspection
1. involves asking research participants to describe
exactly what they experience as
they work on mental tasks, such as viewing colors,
reading a page in a book, or
performing a math problem
4. Limitations
1. Even highly trained people were unable to report
subjective experiences (ex. how
they solved a math problem) (this pointed to an
unconscious process)
2. Functionalism
1. Combines with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural
selection (applies to psychology)
2. Defines the mental states by function (brain produces
different behaviors depending on
signal received) (brain itself is neutral, has no behavior
but produces different behaviors
depending on the signal it receives)
3. There is a stream of consciousness (flow of thoughts)
4. Your senses are driven by experiences to adjust to new
environments (if you grew up in
the city you are most likely less afraid of possible crime
when walking the streets)
5. Considered the more practical view over structuralism
and the ideas of sensation;
Functionalism focused on child growth and education
Women in Psychology
1. Mary Calkins
1. First woman president of the APA
2. Worked with development of self-psychology and
inventing the paired-associate
technique (showed people a series of numbers and colors
to test memory)
3. Believer in the idea of the conscious self
2. Margaret Washburn
1. Second female president of the APA
2. Researched animal cognition and psychological
processes
3. Leta Hollingworth
1. Researched exceptionally smart children (educational
psychology)
2. Psychology of women (why women were inferior to
men)
Sigmund Freud Theory (the
unconsciousness/Psychoanalytic)
1. Free association (associating colors,etc with memories
or experiences from one’s past) and
impact of unconscious forces fighting (can cause pain)
2. Treating mental and emotional disorders (new
techniques and ways to think about it)
3. Father of Psychoanalysis (unconsciousness)
1. When slips of the tongue happen this reveals a
person’s true feelings
2. Dreams: unconscious; contains important feelings one
is unaware of (desires, thoughts,
memories,etc) that are well below the surface but also
greatly influence behavior
Behavioralism
1. How our behavior results from stimuli in the
environment and within ourselves
1. Based on the idea that all behaviors are acquired
through conditioning (interaction with
the environment you grow up in)
2. Believe our responses to environmental stimuli shape
our actions (stimulus-response
psychology)
3. Scientists thought it was too objective to study
emotions, but rather decided it was better
to focus on external behavior
2. John Watson
1. Father of behavioralism
2. Disagreed with Freud about the unconsciousness being
the reason for our behavior
(broke this previous theory)
3. “Little Albert Experiment” (paired animals with loud
sounds, overtime the baby became
afraid of the animals because he associated them with
the sounds)
3. Burrhus Skinner
1. Believed free will did not exist and focused on
observable behaviors
2. Believed that internal emotions affect our behavior
3. Believed we are the way we are behaviorally because
we were rewarded for being that
way (rewards and punishments)
Learning

1. Learning is purely changing behaviors
2. Positive reinforcement vs punishment (striving for
positive recognition, avoiding negative)
Humanism
1. People are free to choose their own behaviors
(personal growth)
2. Emphasizes unique qualities of humans (freedom to
grow and change as a person)
3. Carl Rogers
1. Client-centered/person-centered therapy
1. Talk to client about what they want to talk about
(therapist does not direct
conversation)
2. Genuineness, Unconditional positive regard, Empathy
Cognitive Psychology
1. Focuses on the mental processes involved in acquiring
knowledge (thinking or having
conscious experiences)
2. Believe most behavior can be explained in terms of the
brain and chemical processes
Evolutionary Psychology
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1. Believe patterns of behavior in a species are products
of evolution in the same way
anatomical characteristics are (things species have been
used to in the past stick with them
in the present)
2. ex.) a long time ago people would eat high calorie/high
fat foods because there was not
much food around and kept them from starving,
nowadays we continue to do this even
though we no longer have a reason to (like the taste of it)
Positive Psychology
1. Optimism: hopefulness (can be learnt, change self-talk)
1. Moved away from traditional psychology
2. People can act in different ways/deal with things
differently due to being optimistic or
pessimistic
3. Optimists solve problems easier (genetically linked)
2. Martin Seligman
1. Changed the approach to life in order to make life
better/happier (become an optimist)
3. Main points of positive psychology
1. Positive emotions and personal strengths
2. Positive societies (healthy community, family,
workplace, etc)
3. Complements but does not replace traditional
psychology
Research in psychology
1. Developmental psychology (cognitive growth, behavior
throughout life changes)
(conversation tasks; ex.video with kid and same mass
objects)
2. Social psychology (understanding how individual
behavior is affected by the environment)
3. Educational psychology (studies how people learn and
the best way to teach information)
4. Health psychology (how physiological factors influence
someone’s health/illness)
5. Physiological psychology (influence of genetics and the
brain)
6. Experimental psychology (sensation, perception,
conditioning, etc)
7. Cognitive psychology (memory, reasoning, problem
solving)
8. Psychometrics (measurement of behavior and
capacities; use series of tests)
9. Personality psychology (largest group of psychology;
how emotion and personality effect
how we behave)
1. Clinical psychology (concerned with treating mental
illness)
2. Counseling psychology (help people deal with social
and life concerns)
3. Industrial/Organizational psychology (applies to the
workplace; physical and mental well
being of employees)
4. School psychology (social and mental development of
children)
5. Clinical neuropsychology (disorders and mental trauma
6. Forensic psychology (trials, law, court, etc)
Main Ideas of Psychology
1. Psychology is empirical (refers to data and requires
observation)
2. Psychology is diverse in its many theories which
complement each other (link unrelated
observations and try to explain them)
3. Psychology evolves in sociohistorical context (it
develops in both social and historical
context; trends and issues from the past and also new
advances in psychology come
together)
Main Themes of Psychology
1. Behavior is determined by multiple causes not just
single causes (usually incomplete; there
is a complex network of factors)
2. Behavior is shaped by cultural heritage (traditions and
values vary) (ex.manners)
3. Heredity and environment both influence behavior and
personality development (genetics
and the way someone was raised both play a part)
4. People’s experience of the world is highly subjective
(an elaborate set of “filters” on the
world are placed by different people who perceive the
world differently; motives and past
experiences color and shape peoples present
experiences)
Chapter 3:
Nervous System
1. Neurons are the basic links that permit communication
within the nervous system

1. Specialized cells that transmit chemical and electrical
signals
2. Eye to brain, brain to arms/muscles/etc (signals are
constantly being received)
3. Nuerons
1. Receive, process, and transmit chemical and electrical
signals
2. Send signals from sensory organs
4. Components:
1. Dendrite (receive signals/information from other cells)
2. Axon
1. Pass signals/impulses away from the soma to other
neurons, muscles, or glands and
eventually to the brain
3. Myelin Sheath (main function fatty protective covering
over axon; also helps speed
signals/impulses)
4. Cell body (Cytoplasm and Nucleus) (also called the
Soma)
5. Terminal branches of axon
1. Form junctions with other cells at the end of the axon
where synapses are and
secrete neurotransmitters
Glial Cells (cells that provide support for neurons)
1. Smaller than neurons but outnumber them
2. Increase of decrease transmission of signals to the
brain
3. Functions:
1. Surround neurons and hold them in place
2. Supply nutrients and oxygen to neurons
3. Insulate one neuron from another
4. Destroy and remove dead neurons (clean up)
Resting Neuron (inactive neuron)
1. Fluids exist both inside and outside neurons that
contain positively and negatively charged
atoms and molecules called ions that constantly cross in
and out of neurons
1. Positively charged sodium and potassium ions
2. Negatively charged chloride ions
2. Resting potential
1. In the resting state, the inside of a neuron has a slightly
higher concentration of
negatively charged ions than the outside does
1. This situation creates a slight negative charge inside the
neuron, which stores
potential energy called the resting potential
2. Potassium channels are open (ions flow in and out of
neurons)
3. Sodium channels remain closed at rest)
3. Active potential (carry information)
1. A very brief shift in a neuron’s electrical charge, from
negative to slightly less negative or
even positive, that travels along an axon
Sodium Potassium Pump
1. At rest, the pump functions to maintain the negative
internal environment of the cell
1. Pumps out three NA+ ions for every two K+ ions in
takes in
2. Order of neuron operation:
1. Resting potential
2. Sodium ions flow in when sodium gates open and the
inside of cell is positive now
3. Action potential
4. Potassium ions flow out and cause hyper polarization
and the inside of the cell returns to
a negative state
5. Refractory period when neurons can’t send signals for
a short time
6. Return to resting potential
All or None Law
1. Once impulse is triggered the signal is constant
1. As long as you can start the action potential, the
reaction will be the same (just have to
get it over the hump to start)
2. All or none law: Stimulus does not provide the energy
of the nervous impulse
1. The neural impulse is an all-or-none proposition, like
firing a gun. You can’t half-fire a
gun.
2. Either the neuron fires or it doesn’t, and its action
potentials are all the same size
3. A stronger sensation is caused by a greater number of
neurons being stimulated, not a
stronger impulse (Number of neurons tells us the
intensity of the original signal)
Synapses
1. A synapse is a small gap at the end of a neuron that
allows a signal to pass from one
neuron to the next where nerve cells connect with other
nerve cells
1. When a nerve signal reaches the end of the neuron it
must trigger the release of
neurotransmitters which can then carry the impulse
across the synapse to the next
neuron (electrical signal becomes a chemical signal)
2. Receptors on the post synaptic neuron get
neurotransmitters from pre synaptic cell
2. Post synaptic potentials
1. EPSP (Excitatory postsynaptic potential)
1. positive, speeds up signal
2. small depolarization
3. results from opening Na+ channels
2. IPSP (Inhibitory postsynaptic potential)
1. negative, slows down or ends signal
2. small hyper-polarization
3. results from opening K+ or Cl- channels
3. Synaptic pruning
1. Start with many synapses but overtime as you grow
they are pruned out gradually and
the less active or less strong ones are destroyed

1. Makes the network in the brain more developed,
productive, and stronger
Neurotransmitters
4. Chemical substances that help mediating signals from
neuron to another neuron, gland, or
muscle through chemical synapses (direct all brain
function)
5. Binding process is like lock and key (induced fit model)
6. Acetylcholine (ACh)
1. It’s the only neurotransmitter between motor neurons
and voluntary muscles. Every
move you make depends on ACh released to your
muscles by motor neurons
2. Primarily exhibitory but can also be inhibitory (plays a
role in arousal, memory, learning)
1. Helps to engage sensory functions upon waking, helps
people sustain focus, and
acts as part of the brain’s reward system.
3. Can be influenced by other chemicals
1. Agonist: a chemical that mimics the action of a
neurotransmitter
2. Antagonist: a chemical that opposes the action of a
neurotransmitter (blocks action)
7. Monoamines
1. Dopamine
1. Pleasure, attention, patience/will power (movement,
learning, attention, and emotion)
1. Used by neurons that control voluntary movement
2. Norepinephrine
1. Energy, fight or flight response, stress, blood circulation
rhythms
3. Serotonin
1. Sleep, overrides impulses, hunger, emotions
8. GABA
1. Inhibitory (plays role in wearing or stopping anxiety)
1. When nerve signals fire too quickly and carry anxiety
inducing signals, GABA acts to
slow the signals down, reducing overwhelming feelings of
anxiety
9. Endorphins
1. Inhibitory, released during stress and pain
2. Natural pain killer (ex.runner’s high) (‘END’ pain)
Nervous System
1. Central nervous system
1. Consists of brain and spinal cord (It is protected by the
skull and by enclosing sheaths
called the meninges; also covered in protective
cerebrospinal fluid in ventricles)
1. Brain Stem
1. Connects the brain to the spinal cord
2. Spinal Cord
1. Relay messages from the brain to different parts of the
body (usually a muscle) in
order to perform an action
2. Pass along messages from sensory receptors (found all
over the body) to the
brain
3. Coordinate reflexes/quick responses that don't go
through the brain and are
managed by the spinal cord alone
3. Brain
1. Lobes:
1. Frontal (movement, behavior, memory, speaking)
2. Parietal (knowing right from left, reading, sensation,
understanding
concept of ‘space’, ex. doing math)
3. Occipital (vision)
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4. Temporal (understanding language, hearing)
1. Forebrain
1. Cerebrum (has two hemispheres)
1. Separated by the corpus collosum (bundle of fibers)
2. Split brain patients
1. Those with right brain only are unable to name objects,
letters,
numbers
2. Those with left brain only are unable to recognize
faces, draw objects
3. Alien hand syndrome
1. Hand acts independently (no control over movements)
2. Limbic system (emotions, learning, memories,
motivation)
1. Hippocampus (memory)
2. Amygdala (aggression and fear)
3. Located between the cerebral cortex and the deeper
subcortical areas
3. Thalamus
1. Relays information from sensory receptors to proper
areas of the brain to
be processed (directs to different lobes)
4. Hypothalamus
1. Involved in controlling thirst, hunger, body
temperature, sexual arousal
and the endocrine system
2. Midbrain
1. Reticular formation (cluster of neurons with receptors
for dopamine, serotonin
and norepinephrine)
2. Relay information between the hindbrain and the
forebrain, particularly
information coming from the eyes and the ears (vision
and hearing)
3. Hindbrain
1. Cerebellum
1. Two hemispheres
2. Coordination of voluntary motor activities, balance and
posture
3. Regulates tongue and jaw muscles

2. Pons
1. Controlling autonomic functions
2. Relaying sensory information between Cerebellum and
Cerebrum
3. Influences sleep and arousal
3. Medulla
1. Involuntary movements (breathing, heartbeat)
2. Peripheral nervous system
1. Consists of all other nerves in categories
1. Somatic nervous system (made up of nerves that
connect to voluntary skeletal
muscles/motor neurons and to sensory receptors)
1. Afferent nerves
1. Axons that carry information inward to the central
nervous system from the
body
2. Efferent nerves
1. Axons that carry information outward from the central
nervous system to the
body
2. Autonomic nervous system (controls/regulates
automatic, involuntary functions that
people don’t normally think about, such as heart rate and
digestion)
1. Sympathetic division
1. Mobilizes the body’s resources for emergencies (fight
or flight)
2. Parasympathetic division
1. Calms body and conserves/saves bodily
resources/energy (rest and digest)
Mirror Neurons
1. Signal from visual cortex
1. When you pick up a ball certain neurons fire; when you
see someone else pick up a ball
the same neurons fire
2. Important when babies imitate their parents or form
connections between things
3. Vital for human development
4. Way we empathize (put ourselves in someone else’s
shoes)
1. Psychopaths and Narcissists can’t to this (problem with
mirror neurons)
Neuroplasticity
1. Exposing brain to different environments and
information (brain makes changes such as
shape in order to learn new info)
2. Influenced by other factors (drugs, alcohol, stress, etc)
3. Abuse can affect the brain:
1. Temporal lobes are not active after abuse in children
2. These kids suffer emotional and cognitive problems
4. After the corpus callosum has been cut, responses to
stimuli depend on which hemisphere
receives information
1. Split-brain studies
Brain communication:
1. Brain communicates to itself
1. Left controls right muscles, right controls left muscles
2. Broca’s area
1. Located in frontal lobe near areas responsible for
muscles of mouth (jaw, etc)
2. Problems with pronunciation but not with meaning of
words
3. Wernicke’s area
1. Located in temporal lobe
2. Deals with language comprehension (problems with
meaning of words but not
pronunciation)
Endocrine System
1. Communicates and controls body functions
2. Secretes Hormones (chemical messengers similar to
neurotransmitters)
1. Travel through bloodstream
3. Pituitary gland
1. Sends orders with the amount of hormone needed and
where it needs to be sent
4. Oxytocin: a hormone released by the pituitary gland,
which regulates reproductive behaviors
(most commonly associated with new mothers, triggers
memory gland for milk)
DNA/Genetics
1. The basic units of genetic transmission are genes
housed on chromosomes. Genes operate
in pairs, which may be homozygous or heterozygous.
When a pair of genes are
heterozygous, one may be dominant and the other
recessive (Child receives one allele from
each parent)
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2. Phenotype: physical characteristic
3. Genotype: DNA/genetic makeup
4. Twin studies: studying effects of heredity and
environment on identical and fraternal twins
1. In twin studies researchers assess hereditary influence
by comparing the resemblance
of identical twins and fraternal twins with respect to a
trait
5. Adoption studies: studying to see if the child will obtain
traits of the adoptive parents or the
biological parents (if environment plays a big role)
1. Adoption studies assess hereditary influence by
examining the resemblance between
adopted children and both their biological and their
adoptive parents
6. Family studies: studying if the relatives of the family
have increased the risk of developing a
disease
1. In family studies researchers assess hereditary
influence by examining blood relatives to
see how much they resemble one another on a specific
trait

Chapter 7:
Memory
1. Encoding
1. Involves forming a memory code; process by which
information is initially recorded in a
form usable to memory
2. Storage
1. Involves maintaining encoded information in memory
over time
3. Retrieval
1. Involves recovering information from memory stores;
how memory is brought to
awareness and used
1. Visual: seeing something
2. Acoustic: saying something aloud
Attention
1. Selective: focus on one aspect of an experience while
ignoring others
2. Divided: multitasking (concentrating on more than one
thing at a time)
3. Sustained: vigilance (maintaining focus on one thing
over a long period of time)
4. Executive: focus on planning, future goals, monitoring
progress
1. Attention span: how long someone can focus in
minutes (age x 2)
2. Attentional loss: divided attention/multitasking
1. Older people find it more difficult but practice can help
2. Need full attention on one thing to fully get all
information from it
1. ex. watching tv and studying at the same time
Encoding
1. Structural (way a word looks)
2. Phonemic (rhyming)
1. Elaboration: linking a stimulus to other information at
the time of encoding (like using
examples)
1. Ways to make our memories distinctive:
1. Visual imagery: creation of visual images to represent
words to remember
(information is represented as mental pictures)
2. Self-Referent encoding: making information
personal/meaningful (encode better
when issue relates to us)
3. Εlaborative rehearsal: a method of transferring
information from STM into LTM by
making that information meaningful in some way
2. MTR (motivation to remember)
1. Influences encoding effectiveness at the time of
encoding (perceive info to be important)
3. Sensory Memory (iconic memory, visual mental
images)
1. The very first stage of memory, the point at which
information enters the nervous system
through the sensory systems
2. Capacity is very limited, very brief duration, accepts
information through all five senses
4. Short term memory (working-memory)
1. Information after short term is either committed to
long term memory or lost/forgotten all
together
2. Stores sounds, images, and words for at least 50
minutes
3. Rehearsal: the process of repetitively verbalizing or
thinking about the information either
to maintain it in consciousness or to encode it for storage
1. Without rehearsal, information in short-term memory
is lost in 10 to 20 seconds
4. Chunking: People can increase the capacity of their
short-term memory by combining
stimuli into larger units called chunks. A chunk is a group
of familiar stimuli stored as a
single unit
5. Short term memory has a more limited capacity than
sensory memory and a longer
duration
5. Central Executive
1. Visual spacial sketch pad (ex. remembering layouts of
rooms)
2. Episodic buffer (integrates information from different
memory components)
3. Phonological loop (acoustic information/speech)
6. Flashbulb memory (when an event happened)
1. Where you were, what you were doing, who told you,
affect of event, aftermath of event
(ex. 9/11) (highly personal memories)
7. Long term memory
1. The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of
the memory system. Includes
knowledge, skills, and experiences
1. Neural connections gradually strengthened through
rehearsal over time
8. Long Term Memory Errors
1. LTM is very prone to errors and can easily be altered or
molded
2. Misinformation effect:
1. Misleading information in incorporated into memory
after an event
Storage
1. Clustering: involves organizing information into groups,
putting similar items into categories
(makes recall easier) (similar to chunking but more
sophisticated)
2. Schemas: short cut to make similar situations easier by
using information from past
experiences (an organized cluster of knowledge about a
particular object or event
abstracted from previous experience with the object or
event)
1. Selection: main things you remember about an
experience
2. Integration: new experiences are added to schema

3. Interpretation: how experience is interpreted
3. Semantic network:
1. A semantic network consists of nodes representing
concepts, joined together by
pathways that link related concepts.
2. Brain creates web of memories by making connections
stronger
4. Parallel distributed processing
1. PDP models assume that cognitive processes depend
on patterns of activation in highly
interconnected networks that resemble neural networks
(cognitive processes can be
explained by activation flowing through networks that
link nodes)
5. Sequential theory
1. Sensory to short term to long term
Retrieval
1. Tip of the tongue phenomenon
1. The temporary inability to remember something you
know, accompanied by a feeling that
it’s just out of reach (partially but not fully recalled)
2. Context-Dependent cues
1. Recall memories when in a context where an old
memory was formed (stimuli help gain
access to memories)
2. Environmental cues act as a retrial method (sights,
sounds, smells)
3. Cognitive interview technique
1. Questioning to enhance retrieval (going backwards in
time and recalling insignificant
memories can help recall more information)
4. Source Monitoring
1. Making attributes to the origins of memories (ex. did it
happen last week or yesterday)
5. Reality Monitoring
1. Involves determining whether a memory is based on
actual events or your imagination
(ex. did I lock the door to the house on my way out)
6. Recognition
1. Remembering information you already know
Forgetting (memory failure)
1. Forgetting Curve
1. Exponential decay and loss of memory unless
information in reinforced
2. Relationship of remembered information over time
(most information is lost in a short
time)
2. Factors that influence memory
1. How interested in information we are
2. How much focus we give to learning it
3. If information is difficult or easy to learn
4. If information is easily related to our own lives
3. Why do we forget? (theories)
1. Retrieval failure
1. Retrieval doesn't recall memories; cues are absent
2. Encoding failure
1. Information never made it into LTM
3. Motivated forgetting
1. Painful memories are repressed
2. Recovered Memory vs False Memory controversy
1. Whether repressed memories are accurate or if
traumatic memories are made up
or misremembered
4. Interference
1. Interference of new memories between a time frame
(ex. meals you ate in a week)
5. Decay
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1. Memory traces fade/disappear if information isn't
recalled frequently enough
Long Term Memory
1. Declarative Memory (explicit memory; memory with
conscious recall)
1. Recollection of names, dates, addresses, faces,
experiences, language
2. In Hippocampus (higher function memory)
3. Types:
1. Episodic: Stuff about yourself (“its all about me”)
2. Semantic: Facts (“just the facts”)
1. General knowledge; things you’ve read or heard before
(ex. definition of words,
history, geography)
2. Procedural Memory (implicit memory) (automatic
memory)
1. Recollection of actions, skills, emotional responses (ex.
talking, writing, walking, etc)
2. In Cerebellum (synapses pruned overtime to do these
actions automatically without
thinking)
3. Retrospective Memory
1. Remembering events from the past or previously
learned information
4. Prospective Memory
1. Remembering to remember (ex. to take pill or to turn
in a paper)
Chapter 9:
Intelligence Testing
1. Intelligence Testing uses tests combined with interview
to asses patients’ general mental
abilities
1. The intelligence test scores of identical twins are
greater than that for fraternal twins
raised together
2. Psychological Tests
1. Verbal, writing, introvert/extrovert, depression,
anxiety, careers a person has interest in
2. Instruments used to measure how much of a specific
psychological construct an

individual has
3. Mental Abilities Tests
1. Intelligence: General mental abilities
1. Spearman’s two factor theory: general intelligence and
specific mental abilities
2. Aptitude: Specific mental abilities (numerical, abstract
reasoning)
3. Achievement: Knowledge of various subjects (ex.
history, literature, etc)
4. Personality Tests (used to measure personality style or
traits; diagnosis)
4. Standardization
1. Making things uniform for all participants (all
circumstances are the same)
2. Implies uniformity of procedures in administrating and
scoring the test. If the scores
obtained by different persons are to be comparable,
testing conditions must obviously be
the same for all
5. Norms
1. Scores compared to others; established from tests
2. The normal or average performance
3. In the process of standardization a test, it is
administrated to a large, representative
sample of the type of persons for whom it is designed.
This group known as the norm
group serves to establish these norms
6. Standard scores
1. Indicate where a score lies in comparison to a norm
group (above or below average)
7. Percentile scores
1. Raw score converted to a percent to show how many
people scored below you
8. Reliability (testing if the results are repeatable) (the
degree to which an assessment tool
produces stable and consistent results) Test and Retest: If
a test has similar results at two
different points in time
1. Alternate Form: Two versions of the same test have
similar results
2. Internal: Different parts of the test yield similar
answers; others do not
3. Interrater/Interjudge: Two or more judges who
administer a test to an individual have
similar scores from that individual
4. A test can be reliable and not valid but not unreliable
and valid
1. Familiar with the content, poor questions, etc
9. Correlation Coefficient (a numerical representation of
the relationship between the two
variables)
1. Close to Zero: no relation between variables
2. Near One: high relation
3. To be reliable the correlation coefficient needs to be
above .8
10. Validity (testing how well a test measures what it is
supposed to measure)
1. Construct
1. Defines how well a test or experiment measures up to
its claims
2. Attribute, skills, brain ability (ex. intelligence, anxiety,
etc)
3. Degree to which a test measures these things
1. Convergent: degree that a measurement agrees with
another test
2. Discriminative: degree that a measurement does not
agree with other tests
2. Content
1. When items cover all aspects of what is being
measured
2. The estimate of how much a measure represents every
single element of a construct
3. Criteria
1. Assesses whether a test reflects a certain set of abilities
1. Concurrent: measurements of present performance
(measuring at the same
time)
2. Predictive: one measurement can predict another
measurement (future
performance)
11. Normal Distribution: frequency distribution curve
1. A symmetric, bell-shaped curve that represents the
pattern in which many characteristics
are dispersed in the population
1. Further from center (mean) is less likely to occur
2. Majority of data points cluster in center
12. Standard Deviation: indicated how much a group of
scores vary from the average
1. Raw scores are translated to SD IQ scores
2. Mean of deviation (SD) is set at 15 points
1. Score of 100 is average
2. Score of 115 is one SD above the mean
Important people in Intelligence Testing
1. Sir Francis Galton (developing sensori-motor tasks)
1. Eugenics (heredity traits/desired traits)
1. Ideas about predicting and improving the populations
through genetics
2. Coined the term Nature vs Nurture (believed nature
mattered more)
3. First to make effort to measure IQ (reaction-time tests
and percentile scores)
4. Selective reproduction/parenthood to enhance the
capabilities of the human race
5. Attempted to measure intelligence and hypothesized
that bright people should exhibit
exceptional sensory acuity
6. Invented the basic math behind correlational
coefficient
2. Alfred Binet and Theadore Simon
1. Mental age (what a person should know at a specific
age, how child is preforming
intellectually)
2. Chronological age (true age)

3. Intelligence is flexible and happens over time, not
determined at birth (relies on
environment child is exposed to; disagreed with Galton)
4. Developed tests to measure intelligence/ thought that
a child had both chronological and
mental age
1. Binet-Simone Scale: First reliable intelligence test
3. Lewis Terman
1. Invented the Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
1. IQ = Mental age/True age x 100
2. He adapted a new and revised scale centered around
100 (Stanford-Binet tests)
3. Stanford-Binet Scale/incorporated new scoring scheme
based on Stern’s IQ which is
a child’s mental age divided by chronological age,
multiplied by 100
4. David Wechsler
1. Developed age based IQ tests
2. Same scoring but different formula than the Stanford-
binet tests
3. Specific scores for different types of ability (ex. verbal
vs nonverbal)
1. Acknowledged peoples underlying intelligence skills
and abilities and not just overall
intelligence
4. One size fits all did a poor job of categorizing people
and so he modified it by adding
these different tasks
5. Invented practical, skill-based intelligence tests/ built
tasks that measured general
knowledge, language, ability to reason, memory, spatial
skills, ability to sort and
sequence tasks and problem-solving
Two Original Theories of Intelligence
5. Charles Spearman
1. General intelligence (general cognitive ability) (g factor)
1. General intelligence g refers to the existence of a broad
mental capacity that
influences performance on cognitive ability measures
2. Responsible for an individual’s overall performance on
a mental ability test
3. Can be expressed by a general IQ test
4. Stems from Lewis Terman’s approach
6. Louis Thurstone
1. Specific intelligence
1. Seven primary mental abilities
1. verbal comprehension, reasoning, perceptual speed,
numerical ability, word
fluency, associative memory, spatial visualization
2. Individuals specific pattern of mental abilities is more
important than g factor
3. Stems from David Wechsler’s approach
7. Fluid vs Crystalized intelligence
1. Fluid (ex. using street smarts in a new city)
1. Inherited abilities, flexible, adaptive, minimal
dependence on school training, nature
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2. Defined as the ability to solve new problems, use logic
in new situations, and identify
patterns
2. Crystalized (book smarts)
1. Accumulated knowledge over time, education
dependent, nurture, overtime becomes
more stable, verbal/general knowledge
2. Defined as the ability to use learned knowledge and
experience
1. When you first learn something, brain must be flexible,
but once learned brain
relies on crystalized to memorize and add to the learning
information (both fluid
and crystalized work together and rely on each other)
Performance Inhibitors
1. Test anxiety: awareness of anxiety reduces the affect
on test taking (ex. affirmations)
2. Overthinking/Overconciousness
3. Timed element
Controversies
1. IQ controversy
1. Fairly good predictors of academic performance
2. IQ correlates with school attendance, breastfeeding,
head size, and nutrition
3. Intelligence is plural (different mental abilities)
2. Student motivation and engagement play a role in
learning and academic achievement
3. Self-discipline
1. Predicted academic achievement based on IQ
2. Highly self-disciplined kids are likely to have goals
3. Internal self-discipline is the most important
Types of Intelligence
1. Practical Intelligence
1. Ability to deal with problems or situations of daily life
(common sense)
2. Social Intelligence
1. Ability to interact/communicate with others
(cooperation) (people skills)
3. Verbal Intelligence
1. Vocabulary, how you describe/analyze things using
words (language based learning)
4. Emotional Intelligence
1. Monitor your own and other people’s emotions to
guide your thoughts and actions
1. Perceive emotions
2. Use emotions
3. Understand emotions
4. Manage emotions
Adolescents

1. Brain development leads to improved memory,
information processing skills, and better IQ
scores
2. Middle aged people have IQ scores that are more
stable
Vocational Success
1. High IQ is more likely to land high-stake jobs than low
IQ
2. Highly motivated people with a low IQ can beat No
motivated people with high IQs
(controversy)
3. Cultural Bias
1. Tests use western definitions and tools
2. Immigrants will have a much harder time with
westernized tests
Intellectual Disability
1. Conceptual: language, reading, writing, reasoning
2. Social: empathy, judgement, friendships
3. Practical: personal care, responsibility, money
4. Savant syndrome: low IQ but have specific genius
abilities
5. Diagnosis
1. Based on IQ tests (how many SDs under the norm) and
deficits in adaptive functioning
2. Delays: slower or faster learning than others of the
same age
6. Levels
1. Mild: 85% of Intellectual Disabilities (generally learn up
to 6th grade knowledge)
2. Moderate: 10% (basic reading and writing)
3. Severe: 5% (not able to read or write, need support for
daily activities)
4. Profound: 1% (need intensive/constant support)
7. Causes
1. Genetic Factors: Down syndrome (#2 cause)
2. Prenatal Illnesses/Issues: Alcohol syndrome, Birth
defects (#1 cause)
3. Childhood Illnesses/Issues: Meningitis, Inadequate
treatment of health problems
4. Environmental Factors: Neglect in infancy,
malnutrition, abuse
8. Challenges they face
1. Self-care (everyday tasks to take care of yourself)
2. Stigma by society
3. Difficulty learning social rules and boundaries
Intellectual Giftedness
1. Weakness: not all scales are the same
2. Intellectual abilities form with higher intellectual
capacity
3. Common characteristics:
1. Rapid learner, very good memory, large vocabulary,
abstract thinking, probing questions/
curiosity, organization, vivid imagination
4. Lasting influence
1. Longitudinal test (still ongoing) tested those with
giftedness to see what impact it had on
their lives
5. Also different categories of giftedness (Mild, Moderate,
Severe, Profound)
6. Productive giftedness
1. Creativity, task commitment (motivation), and above
average ability
7. Genetic influences
1. Heredity and environment both effect intelligence
2. Twin studies, adoptive studies, and family studies to
measure this
1. Monozygotic twins (same DNA)
2. Adoptive studies help see if intelligence is related to
biological parents or
environment of growth
3. Glitch in the studies: Twins (adopted or not) share a
prenatal environment, so are
these tests valid?
8. Savant Syndrome: When you are below normal
intelligence (low IQ) but have special talents
and places where you exceed others
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Brain Size and Intelligence
1. MRI found a modest correlation
2. Whales might have the largest brain for example, but
humans have more brain mass (larger
frontal and parietal lobes)
3. Highly educated people also have more synapses than
less educated people
Adults and IQ
1. People with higher IQs live longer
1. Explanation is socioeconomic status
2. Smarter people are able to get better jobs and
therefore better resources/healthcare
3. A certain amount of intelligence is required for good
self-care as well
Sternberg’s Intelligence Theory
1. Success in life is related to different types of ability
1. Practical: expertise to manage everyday tasks
2. Analytical: solving a well defined problem with an
answer (book smarts)
3. Creative: using new ideas to adapt to situations
1. Experiential learning: applying knowledge to a new
situation
1. Novelty: performing new tasks for the first time
2. Automatization: performing repeated tasks
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory
1. Verbal/Linguistics (spoken language and how to use it)
2. Scientific/Mathematical (logical, analyze, reasoning)
3. Musical (compose rhythms, composition)
4. Bodily (coordination)

5. Spacial (3 dimensional understanding, visual)
6. Social/Interpersonal (understanding people)
7. Intrapersonal (knowing yourself)
8. Naturalist (knowing/understanding the living world)
Chapter 12:
Personality Traits
1. Patterns of thoughts, feelings, behaviors (durable
disposition to behave in a particular way in
a variety of situations)
2. Trait Theory: measurement of personality in terms of
traits (ex. extrovert/introvert)
1. Depends on how you develop over time and the
stability of different personalities
3. Raymond Cattel
1. Classified people based on personalities
2. Factor analysis: describe and relate personality traits
3. Believed an individual’s personality can be described
completely by measuring just 16
traits; eventually modified by others to the 5 factor model
4. 5 factor model (most well known) (most people lie
somewhere between the two extremes of
each category and this may also fluctuate with age)
(OCEAN)
1. Openness (creativity, adventurousness, independence)
2. Conscientiousness (organization, self-discipline, goal
directed)
3. Extroversion (outgoing, cognitive ability, talkative)
4. Agreeableness (friendliness, passionate, helpfulness)
5. Neuroticism (confidence, emotional stability)
Sigmund Freud (Psychodynamic Theory)
1. Used hypnotics to cure hysteria and explain illnesses
that didn’t have a physical cause (ex.
Anna O; cured her limb paralysis using the “talking cure”
where people spoke freely about
unconscious painful inner conflict)
1. Free association: a method of exploring the
unconscious in which the person relaxes
and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial
or embarrassing
2. Freud thought that by doing this he could find the
origin of the persons painful
unconscious memories
2. Structural Model (all parts of mind compete and create
personality) (developed by the time
we are 5)
1. ID
1. Pleasure principle, which demands immediate
gratification of its urges
2. Unconscious, instinctive, desires/impulses that want
satisfaction
3. Led by the libido (energy that drives you to do things;
mostly for survival)
1. Large part of personality is motivation and desires
2. Ego
1. The decision-making component of personality that
operates according to the reality
principle (which seeks to delay gratification of the id’s
urges until appropriate outlets
and situations can be found)
2. Conscious, rationality, logical, reality (contact with
outside world)
3. Negotiates with the ID and Superego (moderates both)
(stronger egos negotiate
better; create better/more logical outcomes)
3. Superego
1. Moral component of personality that incorporates
social standards about what
represents right and wrong (a large superego would make
an overly judgmental
person)
2. Conscious, right vs wrong, moral aspects, learned
3. Judge of performance (main conscious)
1. Serial killers lack this ability to feel guilty
3. Topographical Model
1. Unconscious: below surface of awareness (ex. slips of
tongue)
1. Contains thoughts, memories, and desires that are well
below the surface of
conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great
influence on behavior
2. Conscious: contact with outside world
1. Consists of whatever one is aware of at a particular
point in time
3. Preconscious: material just below the surface of
awareness (ex. name of an old
childhood friend) that can easily be retrieved
4. Iceberg image
1. Everything underwater is unconscious (majority of
everything)
2. Only the very tip is consciousness
5. Two basic forces that drive personality: sex and
aggression
4. Defense Mechanisms (how people distance themselves
from unpleasant thoughts)
1. Repression
1. Force yourself to forget a bad memory; not successful
causes anxiety
2. Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the
unconscious
2. Regression
1. Reverting back to immature behavior from childhood
3. Displacement
1. Diverting emotional feelings (usually anger) from their
original source to a substitute
target
4. Sublimation
1. Occurs when unconscious, unacceptable impulses are
channeled into socially
acceptable, perhaps even admirable, behaviors
5. Reaction Formation
1. Behaving in a way that’s exactly the opposite of one’s
true feelings
6. Projection

1. Attributing ones feelings to someone else as the cause
7. Rationalization
1. Creating false but plausible excuses to justify
unacceptable behavior
8. Denial
1. Refusing to accept reality
9. Identification
1. Bolstering self-esteem by forming an imaginary or real
alliance with some person or
group
5. Psychosexual Stages (differential zones of pleasure;
libido is the driving force) (If all
stages are completed correctly, person should have a
clear and healthy personality)
1. developmental periods with a characteristic sexual
focus that leave their mark on
adult personality
1. Oral: mouth, sucking, eating (dependency, optimism)
2. Anal: anus, toilet training (cleanliness, orderliness)
3. Phallic: genitals, sexual curiosity (flirtatiousness)
1. Identification: children manifest erotically tinged
desires for their opposite-sex parent,
accompanied by feelings of hostility toward their same-
sex parent
1. Oedipus Complex: boy wanting mothers affection,
jealous of dad
2. Electra Complex: girl wanting fathers affection, jealous
of mom
4. Latency: no body part, period of sexual calm
5. Genital: genitals, sexual interests, mature relationships
6. Strengths and Weaknesses of Model
1. Strengths:
1. Helps explain how early relationships effect our adult
personalities
2. Pays attention to childhood experiences
3. Pays attention to and recognizes the unconsciousness
4. Internal stress can influence behavior
2. Weaknesses:
1. Generalizations (not everyone can be categorized)
2. Cultural variations (non representative sample)
3. Biological component and genetics are ignored
Carl Jung (Analytic Psychology Theory)
1. Disagreed with Freud about the role of sexuality in
personality
2. Believed in two parts of the unconscious that create
the ‘self’
1. Personal Unconscious (resembles Freud’s unconscious
ideas)
1. Composed of complexes: emotional experiences,
individualized components
2. Houses material that is not within one’s conscious
awareness because it has been
repressed or forgotten
2. Collective Unconscious
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1. Storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from
people’s ancestral past.
2. Composed of archetypes: dreams are main source of
archetypal material
3. Emphasized over personal components
4. Archetype: ancestral experiences that are registered in
the brain (inherited way to
view certain things) (ex. bad vs good) (emotionally
charged images derived from
collective unconscious)
Alfred Adler (Individual Psychology Theory) (Focused on
the consciousness)
1. Everyone has a sense of inferiority and strives from a
young age for superiority as a
universal drive to adapt, improve oneself, and master
life’s challenges
2. Inferiority Feelings
1. Origins come from encounters as an infant; as an infant
we rely on others to satisfy our
basic needs
2. Feeling inferior/superior isn't always a bad thing; but it
can be if it leads to inferiority or
superiority complexes
3. Compensation
1. Making up for overcoming a weakness
2. Efforts to overcome imagined or real inferiorities by
developing one’s abilities
4. Overcompensating
1. Exaggerated efforts to cover up weaknesses that
entails a denial instead of an
acceptance of the real situation
Differences in Theories
1. Jung vs Freud
1. Believe in different levels of awareness
1. Jung: personal and collective unconscious
2. Freud: conscious, precocious, unconscious
2. Jung vs Adler
1. Striving for superiority (Adler) vs individual growth
(Jung)
2. Both disagree with Freud about the emphasis he places
on sexuality as a motive of
personality
3. Jung and Adler were different from Freud in two ways:
they placed more emphasis on the
conscious mind's role in interpreting experience and in
coping with the environment; they
doubted that sex and aggression were all-consuming
motivations, instead they focused on
social interactions
Behaviorism Theory
1. Believes scientific psychology should study only
observable behavior

2. Personality is a response tendency tied to various
stimuli and environment situations (can
change and be altered with new experiences)
3. Children’s responses are shaped by:
1. Classical conditioning: involuntary responses to
environment based on stimuli
1. Automatic
2. Operant conditioning: changing voluntary responses
due to punishment or reward
1. Either doing things more or less based on the reactions
of others
2. Burrhus Skinner (highly deterministic; determined by
the environment, no free will)
1. “Radical behaviorism”
3. Observable learning
1. Copying the people around you and learning the
consequences of other people
(mainly those of the same sex) (ex. seeing sister punished
for doing something;
won’t do that)
2. Rewarded: likely to continue behavior
3. Punished: likely to discontinue the behavior
4. Albert Bandura
1. Stressed importance of imitation and modeling
4. Albert Bandura (Social cognitive-theory of learning and
development)
1. Factors that influence personality (reciprocal
determinism: the idea that internal mental
events of the individual, external environmental events,
and behavior itself all influence
one another)
1. Social world (environment)
1. Physical surroundings that contain reinforcing stimuli
(increases frequency of
behavior either more or less)
2. Personal characteristics
1. Mental factors (personalities that have been rewarded
in the past)
3. Behavior itself
1. Something that may or may not be reinforced at
anytime
2. Learning through Observation
1. Observational learning occurs either intentionally or
accidentally
1. Influenced by the observation of others, who are called
models
2. Done through imitation or modeling those around
them (mainly those of the same
sex)
2. Three main concepts:
1. Idea that people can learn through observation
2. Internal mental states are an essential part of this
process
3. Just because something has been learned doesn’t
meant that your behavior is
changed
3. Three basic models
1. Live model (copying people the person is surrounded
with)
2. Verbal instruction (descriptions and expectations of
model)
3. Symbolic (ex. video games)
3. Self Efficiency
1. Believing oneself is capable of successfully performing
certain behaviors or reaching
certain goals
2. Crucial to motivation (learning are more apt to initiate
and persist at activities for
which they have high self efficiency
3. Comes from past successes in an activity (also evolves
throughout life as people
acquire new skills and experiences)
5. Walter Mischel
1. Person-Situation Debate
1. Argued that peoples personalities don't simply depend
on trait theories but depended
on situational cues (things essential to a situation)
1. Someone is not always nice in all situations
(personalities are not stable in every
situation)
2. Intellect is considered to be one of few stable
personality traits
2. Both trait and situation are essential to predicting
personality
6. Strengths of Model:
1. Effect of the environment and conditioning are focused
on
7. Weaknesses of Model:
1. Reductionist: very limited view, thinks we are all blank
sheets with no personality or
individual thought processes
2. Not giving humans free will (dehumanizing) and
ignoring cognitive processes
Humanistic Psychology Theory (emphasis on human
potential)
1. Carl Rogers
1. Emphasizes unique qualities of humans and personal
growth
1. People are free to chose the behaviors and actions they
commit
2. Client-centered/Person-centered Therapy
1. Client engages in the topic they wish to talk about; not
directed by psychologist
2. When people accept themselves as they are, then they
can change
3. Self-Concept
1. Image we have of ourselves
2. Forms during childhood and during growth
1. Influences by interrelations with important people in
our lives
3. Individual perceptions of our unique characteristics and
abilities
1. ex. “I am a good person”

4. As people age and form a better idea of who they are
and what is important to them
their self-concept is stabilized
5. Three Parts:
1. Self-image (how someone perceives themselves and
their flaws)
1. Mix of physical characteristic, social rules
2. Self-esteem (how we compare ourselves to others,
how others respond to us)
3. Ideal-self (way we wish we could see ourselves)
6. Incongruence and Congruence
1. Degree to which a persons self concept matches up to
reality
2. Congruence: when self concept is fairly well aligned
3. Incongruence: when self concept is not aligned very
well
4. When individuals words or actions are not accurate
when compared to
personality (saying you are fine when you are clearly not)
5. Childhood experiences effect
congruence/incongruence:
1. Unconditional love creates congruence
1. Children who receive unconditional love they have less
need to be
defensive, they develop more accurate and congruent
self-concept
2. Conditional love creates incongruence
1. Believe when affection from others is conditional;
therefore people need
to distort shortcomings to feel worthy of affection
(provokes anxiety)
2. Abraham Maslow’s Humanistic Theory
1. Believed other theories were too focused of
psychological processes
2. Motivations: (hierarchy of needs) (basic needs must be
met before less basic needs are
aroused)
1. Self-Fulfillment Needs: (most important for
development of personality)
1. Self-actualization (achieving one’s full potential)
1. Need for personal development throughout life
1. Problem centered (a mission), not self centered
2. Self-actualizing persons are people with exceptionally
healthy personalities,
marked by continued personal growth
2. Aesthetic Needs (order and beauty)
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3. Cognitive Needs (knowledge and understanding)
4. Esteem needs (prestige and feeling of accomplishment)
5. Belongingness and love needs (intimate relationships,
friends)
6. Safety needs (security) (basic needs; least important for
development of personality)
7. Physiological needs (food, water, rest, warmth)
3. Strengths of Humanistic approach:
1. Optimistic view; allows free will and can explain
people’s desire to better themselves
2. Gives room for personal growth
4. Weaknesses of approach:
1. Poor testability; hard to measure, no evidence, not
research evident
2. Unrealistic view of human nature; self-actualizing
person is very difficult to achieve
(unreasonable perfection)
Eysenck’s Three-Factor Model (argued traits are
determined by heredity) (family
environment has little impact on personal behavior)
1. Extraversion (higher need to interact) vs Introversion
(higher need to be alone)
2. Neuroticism (anxiety, negative thoughts) vs Emotional
Stability (able to keep stable)
3. Psychoticism (independent, impulsive, hostile) vs
Impulse Control (cooperative)
4. Genetics in five factor model:
1. Neuroticism 80% genetics, 20% environmental (seen in
twin studies)
2. If identical twins and fraternal twins are raised in the
same household, than
characteristics should be seen in both children (more
similarity between identical twins
than fraternal twins)
3. Environmental factors determine which genes are
expressed (DNA is affected by the
environment)
4. Shared family environment has little impact on
personality (genes have more influence)
5. Brain structures:
1. Neuroticism: reduced volume of left temporal lobe and
hippocampus (negatively
correlated ratio of brain volume) (handles emotions)
2. Extraversion: increased frontal cortex, cerebral
(positively correlated ratio of brain
volume) (handles processing rewards; social interactions
and status in society)
3. Agreeableness: reduced volume in temporal lobe and
posterior cortex (negatively
correlated ratio of brain volume) (memory and planning)
4. Conscientious: volume of parietal frontal cortex
6. Evolution by natural selection is the only brainwork
that can explain why our brains function
the way they are based on ancient problem solving
1. Traits represent the greatest qualities that humans
have needed in the past as they
evolved (bond with others, cooperate and collaborate,
reliability, innovated problem
solvers, handle stress)
7. Main strengths of model:
1. Made the approach more quantifiable (data and
experiments) (Explanations can be
tested and proven through genetics)
2. Traits are determined by differences in people’s limbic
systems

3. Looked at the natural states of arousal (excitation)
(extroverts seek out higher levels of
excitation to gain more arousal)
1. People seek out activities that either increase or
decrease levels of arousal
2. Different peoples natural level of arousals depend on
genetics
Overview of Major Theories of Personality:
1. Psychodynamic View (Sigmond Freud)
1. Past events in childhood determine one’s adult
personality
2. People’s behavior is dominated by unconscious,
irrational wishes, needs, and conflicts
3. Personality development progresses through stages
4. Three interacting components (id, ego, superego)
operating at three levels of
consciousness
5. Emphasis on fixation or progress through psychosexual
stages; experiences in early
childhood (such as toilet training) can leave lasting mark
on adult personality
6. Unconscious fixations and unresolved conflicts from
childhood, usually centering on sex
and aggression
2. Behavioral View (B. F. Skinner)
1. Behavior is determined by the environment, although
this view was softened by
Bandura’s concept of reciprocal determinism
2. Nurture (learning and experience) is more influential
than nature (heredity and biological
factors)
3. Situational factors exert great influence over behavior
4. Collections of response tendencies tied to specific
stimulus situations
5. Personality evolves gradually over the life span (not in
stages); responses (such as
extraverted joking) followed by reinforcement (such as
appreciative laughter) become
more frequent
6. Maladaptive behavior due to faulty learning; the
”symptom” is the problem, not a sign of
underlying disease
3. Humanistic View (Carl Rogers)
1. Clinical practice of client-centered therapy
2. People are free to chart their own courses of action;
they are not hapless victims
governed by the environment
3. People are largely conscious, rational beings who are
not driven by unconscious needs
4. A person’s subjective view of the world is more
important than objective reality
5. Self-concept, which may or may not mesh well with
actual experience
6. Children who receive unconditional love have less need
to be defensive; they develop
more accurate, congruent self-concept; conditional love
fosters incongruence
7. Incongruence between self and actual experience
(inaccurate self-concept); overdependence on others for
approval and sense of worth
4. Biological View (Hans Eysenck)
1. Twin, family, and adoption studies of heritability; factor
analysis studies of personality
structure
2. Behavior is largely determined by evolutionary
adaptations, the wiring of the brain, and
heredity
3. Nature (heredity and biological factors) is more
influential than nurture (learning and
experience)
4. Hierarchy of traits, with specific traits derived from
more fundamental, general traits
5. Emphasis on unfolding of genetic blueprint with
maturation; inherited predispositions
interact with learning experiences
6. Genetic vulnerability activated in part by
environmental factors
Personality Assessment
1. Self-Report Inventory
1. Psychological test in which an individual answers
standardized questions about their
behavior and feelings (ex. personality quizzes online)
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1. Answers are compared to established norms
2. Looking at past behaviors, predicted behaviors, and
behaviors in hypothetical
situations
2. Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory
1. Most widely used personality test (translated into 150
different languages)
1. Used in clinical and employment settings
2. Has different scales (multiphase)
3. Sample items (ex. answer false to happy
questions=depression; answer true to
symptom question=schizophrenia)
1. Measures aspects of personality, that if extreme,
suggest a mental health
problem
3. 16 Personality Factor Test
1. Based of Raymond Cattell
1. Assess the big five personality factors
2. Easy to administer and hand score
3. Developed for adults (need different norms for teens
and college students)
4. Pros and Cons of Self-Report Inventory
1. Pros:
1. Look at changes in personality
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of therapy
3. Fairly reliable in diagnosing psychological problems
2. Cons:

1. Deception on the test (can lie)
2. People may lack skills in accurately describing
themselves
3. May have reliability and validity issues during testing
4. Results are often misunderstood (should be careful
when reading results)
5. Unconsciousness can effect results
2. Projective Personality Tests: (asses the unconscious)
1. A psychodynamic tool used to asses personality
(usually combines with other
assessments)
2. Used to uncover potential unconsciousness, deep-
seated emotions
1. Provides ambiguous stimuli and the client projects his
or her motives (ex. ink blots)
3. Rorschach Test (most used Projective Personality Test)
1. Involving about 10 ink blot cars; each has a symmetrical
inkblot (black and white,
black white and red, and pastel colors)
2. Subject who is tested is told to look at the card and
describe immediately what he/
she sees or feels
1. Designed to reveal their traits and more about their
thinking and personality
3. Measures intelligence, emotional disorders, and
personality
1. Wrote a code book to help psychologists make sense of
patient responses
4. Thematic Apperception Test (“TAT”)
1. TAT has been among the most widely used, researched,
and taught projective
psychological tests
1. Known as the picture interpretation technique (create
an open-ended story using
the picture) (what led up to the image, how do the people
in the image feel, and
how will the story end)
1. Behavior of patient while also telling the story (body
language, change in
voice, etc)
2. Asses personality disorders and thought disorders
(expand personal growth;
understand how people feel about specific things; career,
fantasies, etc)
Chapter 15:
Abnormal Behavior
1. Medical Model (outward signs/symptoms of a mental
illness) ("it is useful to think of
abnormal behavior as a disease")
1. Diagnosis: distinguishing one illness from another
2. Etiology: causation and developmental history of an
illness
3. Prognosis: forecast about the probable course of an
illness
4. Positive and Negative aspects of Medical Model
1. Postive
1. Moved against the idea that those with mental
disorders were possessed by the
devil; began to treat it just like another illness
1. Argues that mental disorder from biological problems
in the brain cause
physical pain/problems
2. Negative
1. Stigmatized (those diagnosed and labeled as mentally
ill)
2. Criteria of Abnormal Behavior
1. Deviance: their behavior deviates from what their
society considers acceptable
1. Ex. men wear kilts in Scotland (acceptable there)
2. Maladaptive: behavior that interferes with the persons
everyday ability to function
3. Personal Distress: behavior is troubling to the
individual (pain and suffering)
3. Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder
(DSM)
1. Manual to explain mental disorders (revived multiple
times as research improves and
new illnesses are discovered and added)
1. Can use the manual to look up symptoms and relate
patient to specific illness
2. Diagnostic symptoms
1. Multi-axial system (five factors that influence mental
health)
1. Clinical
2. Mental disability (retardation) and personality
disorders
3. General medical conditions and physical disorders (ex.
cancer)
4. Psychosocial and environmental factors contributing to
disorder (ex. death in the
family)
5. Global assessment of functioning (scale of 100 to 0
percent)
3. Categorical vs Dimensional Systems
1. Categorical
1. Presence or absence of a disorder (either you are or
you are not)
2. DSM is categorical
2. Dimensional
1. Rank on a continuous quantitative dimensional scale
(how anxious are you from
1-10)
2. Dimensional better captures an individuals functioning
but the categorical
approach has advantages for research and understanding
4. Commonality of mental disorders
1. Estimates of mental disorders in population are tough
to do (many people keep their
mental disorders secret and go undiagnosed as well)
2. Roughly 1 out of 5 people in US suffer from a mental
disorder
Anxiety Disorders (a normal amount of anxiety is normal)
1. Class of disorders marked by feelings of excessive
apprehension and anxiety

1. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) (have symptoms
for 3 months to be diagnosed)
1. Chronic, high level of anxiety that is not tied to any
specific threat
1. Excessive (more than someone else)
2. Persistent (doesn't go away)
3. Unreasonable (shouldn't be worried about)
2. Phobic disorder
1. Persistent and irrational fear of an object or situation
that presents no realistic danger
1. Fear vs Phobia
1. A fear can be explained as a normal response to
genuine danger
2. A phobia is a marked and persistent fear that is
unreasonable and excessive
towards a particular thing (interferes with everyday life)
3. Panic disorder (must be present for at least 1 month to
be diagnosed) (ofter make
personality changes to avoid things)
1. Recurrent short attacks of overwhelming anxiety that
usually occur suddenly and
unexpectedly (accompanied by feeling like they are
having a heart attack; heart
beats faster, breathing is faster, muscles contract, etc)
2. Agoraphobia: fear of going outside and being trapped
around people; avoidance of
going around crowds
4. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
1. Persistent, uncontrollable intrusions of unwanted
thoughts (obsessions) and urges to
engage in senseless rituals (compulsions)
2. Goes in a cycle (obsession, anxiety, compulsion, relief)
5. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
1. Enduring psychological disturbance attributed to the
experience and exposure of a
major traumatic event like sexual violence, death, etc
(reliving the moment of original
trauma)
2. Deterioration of mood and cognitive abilities
2. Factors of Anxiety Disorders
1. Biological Fators
1. Concordance rate: indicates the percentage of twin
pairs or other pairs of relatives
who exhibit the same disorder
1. Genetic predisposition and inheritance (anxiety
sensitivity)
2. GABA circulates in the brain (neurotransmitters have
links to anxiety) (produce not
enough or brain cannot process it correctly)
2. Conditioning and Learning
1. Acquired through classical conditioning or
observational learning
1. Ex. near drowning experience as a kid will give a fear of
water
2. Maintained though operant conditioning
1. Ex. after having this experience as a kid it will stay with
us as we grow
3. Cognitive Factors
1. Misinterpret harmless situations as threatening
2. Focus excessive attention on perceived threats
3. Selectively recall information that seems threatening
4. Stress
3. Differing sensitivity: some research suggests that
people differ in sensitivity to anxiety
4. Evolutionary predisposition: researchers propose that
people may be more likely to develop
conditioned fears to certain objects and situations
1. Ex. people are still afraid of snakes because of
evolution even though now a days we
should be more afraid of guns
5. Observational learning: people may develop phobias
through observational learning
Dissociative Disorders (conscious awareness becomes
separated from painful and
previous memories, thoughts, and feelings)
1. Class of disorders in which people lose contact with
portions of their consciousness or
memory, resulting in disruptions in their sense of identity
1. Symptoms: having a sense of being unreal, being
separated from the body, watching
yourself as if you are in a movie)
2. Dissociative amnesia: a sudden loss of memory for
important personal information that is
too extensive to be due to normal forgetting
1. Inability to recall personal information (attributed to
extreme stress)
1. Generalized vs Selective amnesia
2. Retrograde amnesia: past amnesia; wakes up each day
not knowing who they are or
their life
3. Anterograde amnesia: future amnesia; cannot form
new memories but they
remember everything before amnesia set in
3. Dissociative fugue: people lose their memory for their
entire lives along with their sense of
personal identity (sudden inability to recall one’s past)
4. Multiple personality disorder (dissociative identity
disorder): involves the coexistence in one
person of two or more largely complete, and usually very
different, personalities
1. Fairly common effect of severe trauma during early
childhood (ex. physical or sexual
abuse repetitively) (creates extra personalities if they
cannot cope with trauma; allows
them to function in life)
2. Two or more personalities in order to be diagnosed
Mood Disorders
1. Uni-polar Depressive Disorders: a person experiences
only depressive episodes
1. Lack manic spectrum; just involves one long stretch of
depression

2. Major depressive disorder: people show persistent
feelings of sadness and despair and
a loss of interest in previous sources of pleasure
2. Bi-polar Disorders: a person experiences both manic
(extreme energy) and depressive
episodes (manic depression)
1. Each cycle has one manic phase, one depressive phase,
and one normal phase
2. Mania:
1. Inflated self-esteem (feel like you can conquer the
world), unusual talkativeness,
racing thoughts, agitation, unrestrained actions, high
potential for painful
consequences (going shopping without money, don't
think plans through, etc)
3. Severity: the number of dysfunctions experiences and
the relative degree of impairment
4. Duration: whether the disorder is acute, chronic, or
intermittent
5. Depressive symptoms (separate depression from
sadness):
1. Sad depressed mood, decreased internet in pleasurable
activities, sleep changes,
appetite changes, loss of energy, cognitive changes (loss
of concentration)
2. Cycle: mood changes, vegetative symptoms, cognitive
symptoms, negative selfevaluation, suicide ideas (lasts
longer than 2 weeks to make diagnosis)
3. Difficult to overcome feelings and begin to do things
(keep putting off exercise, meeting
with friends, looking for a job, etc)
4. Biological Factors
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1. Low levels of serotonin
2. Women: post menopausal depression
6. Suicide Risk Factors:
1. Mood disorders (depression)
2. Having a mental disorder and a substance abuse
disorder
3. Feelings of hopelessness or isolation
4. Lack of access to mental health treatment or support
from friends/family
5. Being influenced by other suicides (ex. a family
member)
7. Causes of Mood Disorders
1. Genetic Vulnerability (twin studies)
1. Also environmental factors
2. Neuralchemicals (abnormal levels of norepinephrine
and serotonin)
3. Hormonal change factors
4. Cognitive factors
1. Learned helplessness: not attempting to get out of a
negative situation because your
past has taught you that you are helpless (don’t try new
things)
5. Stress (linked to onset of mood disorders)
6. Inadequate social skills and social support can increase
vulnerability to mood disorders
Schizophrenia
1. Psychotic disorder with different types of symptoms
2. Positive Symptoms (added on; ex adding on
hallucinations)
1. Hallucinations (hearing, seeing, or feeling something
that is not there in reality (hearing
voices is the most common hallucination)
2. Delusions (strong irrational and false beliefs due to an
irritability to separate real from
unreal experiences)
3. Disorganized Thinking (making loose associations,
drawing conclusions not based on
reality, lack of logical reasoning)
4. Agitation (increased tension and irritability)
3. Negative Symptoms (take away something; ex taking
away emotion)
1. Lack of Drive or Initiation (spending a lot of time
sleeping, no motivation to do anything)
2. Social Withdrawal/Depression (person prefers to be
alone)
3. Apathy (feelings of emptiness)
4. Lack of Emotional Response (lacking normal signs of
emotion, reduced face expression)
1. Flat effect
4. Subtypes of Schizophrenia
1. Paranoid (preoccupation with delusions or
hallucination)
1. Person feels extremely suspicious, persecuted, or
grandiose, or experiences a
combination of these emotions. People with this are
preoccupied with at least one
delusion and they often have auditory hallucinations that
go along with their
delusions.
2. They typically do not have problems with disorganized
speech, behavior, or emotions
(live fairly normal lives with managing hallucinations)
2. Disorganized (disorganized speech or behavior, flat
effect or inappropriate emotion)
(particularly severe deterioration of adaptive behavior)
1. Person is often incoherent in speech and thought, by
may not have delusions. They
have a broader range of disorganized symptoms
(disorganized behavior, speech,
and flat or inappropriate emotions) than those with
catatonic schizophrenia, which is
dominated by disturbed behaviors and motor movements
(impairment in daily lives,
not being able to take care of themselves or
communicate effectively)
2. People with this also lack the unifying theme of
paranoid schizophrenia, so any
delusions or hallucinations that they have tend to be
fragmented and have little
meaning
3. Catatonic (immobility or excessive/purposeless
movement, extreme negativism,

repeating of another person’s speech or movement;
icopracsia: mimicking movements)
1. Person can be withdrawn, mute, negative, and often
assumes very unusual body
positions. It is characterized by unusual body movements
and bizarre postures. Their
behavior may show excessive, repetitive activity, or
almost no movement at all,
remaining motionless for hours on end
4. Undifferentiated (marked by idiosyncratic mixtures of
schizophrenic symptoms)
1. Fluctuating symptoms
2. Don’t fit one of the above subtypes
5. Causes of Schizophrenia (unknown but thought to be a
mix of a few things)
1. Genetic factors (heredity) (inherited vulnerabilities)
2. Perinatal factors
3. Psychosocial factors
Personality Disorders
1. Cause distress and creates problems in everyday
functioning (all come with some sort of
interpersonal disorders) (all cause problems in our
interpersonal/social relationships)
1. Find it difficult to communicate and make relationships
with others
2. Types:
1. Cluster A: (odd, eccentric) (social awkwardness and
withdraw) (distorted thinking)
1. Paranoid (suspiciousness of other people, secretive)
2. Schizoid (indifferent, passive, lack of expression)
3. Schizotical (odd in thinking, bizarre fantasies)
2. Cluster B: (dramatic, emotional)
1. Histrionic (attention seeking, flamboyant) (‘drama
queens’)
2. Narcissistic (egocentric, inflated self-worth, ignores the
feelings of other) (can have
hallucinations as well) (powerful sense of entitlement)
3. Borderline (impulsive, manipulative) (intense and
unstable emotions; shift emotions
quickly) (frequently aggressive behavior)
4. Antisocial (rule breaker, aggressive, abusive) (usually
involved in criminals, feel no
empathy) (disregard for the rights of other people)
3. Cluster C: (anxious, fearful)
1. Avoidant (fears criticism, overly serious) (afraid of
criticism by others)
2. Dependent (indecisive, submissive) (strong need to be
taken care of by other
people) (cant stand up for themselves, very vulnerable)
3. Obsessive-Compulsive (perfectionist, rigid) (not open,
not flexible in their approach
to things)
Chapter 16:
Treatment of Disorders
1. Who seek treatment?
1. 15% of population
2. Many do not seek treatment because of the stigmal
around mental disorders
3. Women seek treatment more than men, and higher
educated people do as well
2. Who provides treatment?
1. Psychologists (deal with planning of treatment)
2. Psychiatrists (medical doctor that can prescribe
medication)
3. Clinical Social Workers
4. Psychiatric Nurses (provide mental health services,
evaluate patients)
5. Counselors (evaluate and provide planning of
treatment and act as a person for families
to talk to)
3. Insight Therapy (involve verbal interactions intended to
enhance clients’ self-knowledge and
thus promote healthful changes in personality and
behavior)
1. Psychoanalytic/Psyhodynamic Therapy
1. Free Association (saying whatever comes to mind while
relaxed)
1. Exploring the patients unconscious through their word
association
2. Interpret their responses as patterns of their
personality
2. Resistance (patient abruptly ends the session)
1. Therapist notices when the patient seems blocked in
speaking about certain
subjects (largely unconscious methods to block
information)
3. Transference (projects feelings onto the therapist;
positive and negative feelings
from the client)
1. Transfer of feelings from the past to the presence at
the therapist
2. The patient may have reactions towards the therapist
that are actually based on
feelings towards someone from the past
4. Countertransference (therapist projects feelings onto
the client)
5. Hypnosis (alternative way to enter the unconscious
mind)
6. Dream Interpretation (manifest vs latent content)
1. Recover repressed material
2. Manifest: what you actually remember
3. Latent: what the dream really means (usually has a
sexual significance)
2. Humanistic Person-Centered Therapy
1. Reflection Therapy
2. Therapist:
1. Genuineness (therapist must be honest, direct,
straightforward)
2. Acceptance (therapist must show unconditional
positive regard, no judgement)
3. Empathy (showing effort to understand patient,
listening well)
3. Insight Therapy Overall:
1. Positive Therapy

2. Group Therapy (act as therapists for one another,
provide insights of others and
emotional support)
3. Family Therapy (treatment of a family as a whole; one
ecosystem)
4. Couples Therapy (treatment of both partners in
intimate relationship as one)
1. Studies consistently show that insight therapy is better
than other therapies and
equal to drug therapies)
4. Features/Advantages of Insight Therapies
1. Focus on emotional experiences
2. Exploration of efforts to block repressed information
3. Discussion of past experience
4. Analysis of interpersonal relationships
5. Exploration of fantasy life
4. Behavioral Therapy (change behavior)
1. Desensitization (learn how to relax to reduce
symptoms)
1. Process of identifying an anxiety stimulus, learning to
relax and have coping
techniques, once taught these skills the patient must
learn to use them to overcome
situations (teach client how to relax and overcome fear)
2. Exposure Therapy
1. Expose patient directly to the thing they are afraid of or
have anxiety about (ex.
snake) (uses positive reinforcement as well)
1. Identifying core fears and making a plan to confront
fears
2. Combat anxiety thoughts with more realistic thoughts
3. Aversion Therapy
1. Pair anxieties (addictions like alcohol and drugs) to a
negative stimulus like vomiting
for example
4. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (focuses on the way we
process information)
1. Primarily a self-instructional therapy
1. Focuses on helping clients become aware of their
negative self-talk and to
acquire practical coping skills to deal with problems and
behaviors
2. Process of change
1. Self observation
2. Start a new internal dialogue
3. Learn new behaviors
3. Cognitive Distortion: way you think of yourself
5. Similarities between Cognitive and Cognitive
Behavioral:
1. Client and therapist work together as a team
2. Focus on the result of how we presses information
3. Changing thoughts to change behavior
4. Time limited
6. Main difference between Cognitive therapy and
Cognitive Behavioral theory:
1. `Cognitive therapy focuses on eliminating stress while
cognitive behavioral focuses
on behaviors as well
5. Biomedical Therapy (focuses on treating and rewarding
the brain)
1. Drug Therapy (Psychopharmacology)
1. Antidepressants
1. Major concern: SSRI’s may increase the risk of suicide
2. Bring people out of depressant episodes
2. AntiAnxiety Drugs
1. Major concerns: side effects (nausea, sleepiness)
2. Stop the reoccurrence of anxiety in bi-polar patients
3. Anti psychotics
4. Mood Stabilizers (give to bi-polar patients)
5. Controversy around the use of drugs (they are over
prescribed)
2. Electroconvulsive Therapy
1. Deliver shocks to patients brain which induces a mild
seizure that disrupts severe
depression for some people
2. Only used when nothing else works; rarely used today
3. Use with bipolar patients
3. Transcrainial Magnetic Stimulation Therapy (TMS)
1. Non invasive; helps stimulate part of brain to resume
neurotransmitters in selected
parts of the brain
Chapter 13:
Social Psychology
1. Personality changes depending on who we are around
(in the context of society)
1. Social thinking
1. We construct social reality
2. Our social intuitions are powerful
3. Attitudes shape, and are shaped by, behavior
2. Social influences
1. Social influences and dispositions shape behavior
3. Social relations
1. Feelings and actions towards people are sometimes
negative and sometimes
positive
2. Unconsciously we do things based on what we have
learned
3. Forming impressions immediately (make judgements
and decide if we like them)
1. Person Perception: The information we gather when
we meet another person; the
process of forming impressions of others.
1. Influenced by: what we think, what we say, what we
do, how we are perceived
2. How we think and interact and process information in
our social world (information
processing)
3. Interpersonal Attraction vs Physical Attractiveness

1. Positive traits are assigned to a more attractive person
(Stereotypes)
1. Learned early on that good are beautiful and bad are
ugly
2. Impression of an attractive person unconsciously
causes us to think they are
a good person immediately (tend to think they are
outgoing and kind)
4. Stereotypes
1. Widely held beliefs that people have certain
characteristics because of their membership
in a particular group
2. A picture in your head or an opinion that you have
about a person or group of people
based not he actions or behaviors of others (prejudice is a
huge part)
3. Illusory Correlation
1. Occurs when people estimate that they have
encountered more confirmations of an
association between social traits than they have actually
seen
2. Inaccurately perceiving a relationship between two
variables (behaviors, events,
items, or people) when there is no relationship between
the two (two different
experiences effect each other and make someone
generalize even though they don't
relate)
5. In-Groups and Out-Groups (race, gender, etc)
1. In-group: social group commanding a member’s
esteem and loyalty (the one we identify
with) (group that one belongs to and identifies with)
1. In-group bias: view our own group more favorably
2. Out-group: social group that feels competition or
opposition (someone not in your group)
3. Common bond offers some similarities
6. Attribution Theory
1. Attributions are inferences that people draw about the
causes of events, others’
behavior, and their own behavior (the reasons why we
give for our own and others
behaviors)
2. People are motivated to understand the causes of
behavior. Attribution theory seeks to
explain how and why people make causal attributions
1. Internal-external dimension (internal and external
causes)
1. Internal: effort, mood (unstable); ability, intelligence
(stable)
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1. Internal attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to
personal dispositions,
traits, abilities, and feelings
2. External: luck, chance, opportunity (unstable); task
difficulty (stable)
1. External attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to
situational demands
and environmental constraints
2. Stability dimension (unstable cause and stable cause)
7. Fundamental Attribution Error
1. Refers to observers’ bias in favor of internal
attributions in explaining others’ behavior
2. The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal
disposition and underestimate the
impact of the situation in analyzing the behaviors of
others leads to the Fundamental
Attribution Error (falsely blaming people for their role in
events)
3. Tend to accuse the victim because of their morals
(blaming victim)
8. Bias in Attribution
1. Defensive Attribution: blame victims for their
misfortune, so that one feels less likely to
be victimized in a similar way
2. Self-Serving Bias: take more credit for good outcomes
than for bad
1. Try to see ourselves in a good light; boost our own self-
esteem (defend ourselves)
9. Cultural Influences on Attribution Style
1. Cultural values and norms affect the way people make
attributions
2. Individualist cultues
1. Place a high value on uniqueness and independence,
believe in the importance of
individual goals; define themselves in terms of personal
attributes
2. Involves putting personal goals ahead of group goals
and defining one’s identity in
terms of personal attributes rather than group
memberships
3. Collectivist cultures
1. Place a high value on conformity and the importance of
group goals; define
themselves in terms of their groups
2. Involves putting group goals ahead of personal goals
and defining one’s identity in
terms of the groups one belongs to
10. Love
1. Interpersonal attraction refers to positive feelings
toward another
2. Matching hypothesis
1. Proposes that males and females of approximately
equal physical attractiveness are
likely to select each other as partners
2. Companionate love involves feelings of mutual respect,
trust, and affection
1. Warm, trusting, tolerant affection for another whose
life is deeply intertwined with
one’s own
3. Passionate love involves intense feelings and sexual
attraction
1. Complete absorption in another that includes sexual
feelings and the agony and

ecstasy of intense emotion
4. Tend to fall for people you believe are the same
attractiveness as you
3. Factors influencing Passionate and Companionate love
1. Timing (be ready to be in love)
2. Early attachment styles (how you were attached to
your parents, people who were
securely attached form more secure love)
1. Secure, Avoidant, or Anxious
3. Similarity (how similar you are with your love interest,
we fall companionately in love
with people like ourselves) (passionate love sometimes
leads to companionate love
but usually passionate love fades quickly)
4. Evolutionary Factor (women evaluate men’s financial
capacity, men look for attractive
women)
11. Attitudes (positive or negative evaluations of objects
of thought)
1. Cognitive component: made up of beliefs and ideas
that people hold
2. Affective component: emotions and feelings about
objects of thought
3. Behavioral component: predispositions to act in a
certain way toward an object of
thought
4. Attitudes vary along different dimensions such as
strength, accessibility, and
contradictory ideas
1. Contain both positive and negative thoughts about a
subject
2. Stability: how often it is thought about or comes to
mind
5. Attitude/Behavior
1. Not all attitudes are expressed (will not behave
because of the attitude)
2. Attitude: What you think or feel about something or
someone
3. Behavior: How you will respond toward something or
someone
6. Explicit Attitudes vs Implicit Attitudes
1. Explicit Attitudes
1. Attitudes that we consciously have (deliberately
formed and can express easily)
2. Implicit Attitudes
1. Attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at
times unconscious
3. Usually these two types of attitude will contradict each
other
12. Persuasion
1. Politics and Media
2. Changing peoples general attitudes towards a person
or object
3. Elements:
1. Source (who)
1. Credibility, expertise, trustworthiness, likability
2. Message (what)
1. Fear appeal, two-sided argument, repetition
3. Chanel factors (by what means is the message given)
1. In person, on tv, over the radio
4. Receiver (to whom)
1. Personality, strength of attitude
13. Learning theory of attitude change
1. Classical conditioning
1. Create positive emotional reactions to an object,
person, or event by associating
positive feelings with the target object
2. Operant conditioning
1. Can be used to strengthen desirable attitudes and
weaken undesirable ones
1. Use positive or negative reinforcement to change
attitudes and opinions
3. Observational learning
1. People can also change their attitudes after observing
the behavior of others
14. Elaboration Likelihood theory of attitude change
1. Suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two
ways:
1. They can be motivated to listen and think about the
message, thus leading to an
attitude shift
2. They might be influenced by characteristics of the
speaker, leading to a temporary or
surface shift in attitude
15. Attitude Change Cognitive Dissonance theory
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1. Occurs when a person holds two contradictory beliefs
at the same time
2. Attempt to resolve the dissonance (change the attitude
or change your actions)
3. More power to change attitude than past behavior
16. Conformity
1. Occurs when people yield to real or imagined social
pressure
2. Afraid of being criticized or rejected; people look to
others for guidance about how to
behave in certain situations
3. Obedience vs Conformity
1. Obedience involves order; conformity involves a
request
2. Obedience involves following the order of someone
with a higher status; conformity
usually involves going along with people of equal status
3. Obedience relies on social power; conformity relies on
the need to be socially
accepted
4. Milgram Experiment (Shock torture test)
5. Zimbardo Experiment (Prison test)
17. Social Loafing

1. Reduction in effort by individuals when they work in
groups as compared to when they
work by themselves
2. Productivity decreases (reduced effort) as group size
increases (we pull more of our own
weight by ourselves)
1. Reduced efficiency due to the loss of coordination due
to more people in a group
18. Bystander Effect
1. People are less likely to provide needed help when
they are in groups than when they
are alone
2. Theorizes that in the face of emergency, the distressed
person is less likely to be offered
help if there are multiple onlookers present
19. Commonalities between the Bystander Effect and
Social Loafing
1. Promote lack of action; thinking another person will do
it so you don't have to
2. Rely on the others and not yourself
20. Weaknesses in Groups
1. Group Polarization
1. Occurs when group discussion strengthens a group’s
dominant point of view and
produces a shift toward a more extreme decision in that
direction
2. Where people of similar views form a group together,
discussion within the group
makes their views more extreme
3. Thus, different groups, become more different (more
polarized) in their views
2. Group Think
1. Occurs when members of a cohesive group emphasize
concurrence at the expense
of critical thinking in arriving at a decision
2. When a group makes faulty decisions in order to reach
a consensus
3. Choose more illogical decisions in order to make
harmony in a group (low probability
of success)
Chapter 14:
Health Psychology
1. Health Psychology is the study of psychological and
behavioral processes in health, illness,
and healthcare (daily stressors are the most important
predictors)
2. Concerned with understanding how psychological,
behavioral, and cultural factors are
involved in physical health and illness, in addition to the
biological causes that are well understood by medical
science (concerned with all aspects of health and illness
across life
span) (assess how mind and body work together)
3. Stress
1. No universally agreed upon definition (stress is your
body’s way of responding to any
kind of demand)
1. Any circumstances that threatens or is perceived to
threaten someones well being,
and their body needs coping abilities (depends on how
someone interprets a
situation)
2. Stress is the reaction people have when presented with
demands and pressures that
are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and
which challenge their ability to
cope
3. Stress is anxiety that continues even after the stressor
is gone (stress is more
dangerous)
4. Appraisal Theory of Stress (what leads to stress after a
stimulus; how people think)
1. Primary Appraisal: situation perceived as relevant and
threatening (stress) vs situation
perceived as irrelevant or harmless (no stress)
1. What does the situation mean and how can it effect me
2. Kinds of views of the situation:
1. See the situation either as neutral, positive, or negative
(stressful)
2. Secondary Appraisal: coping resources appear
inadequate (stress) vs appearing
adequate (no stress)
1. Feelings related to the stressor; available coping
mechanisms and resources
1. Evaluates social support, environment, your own
competence, etc
2. Can happen either at the same time or before the
primary appraisal
5. Acute vs Chronic Stress
1. Acute (most widely experienced, daily stressors)
1. Sudden, typically-short lived, threatening event (ex.
giving a speech)
2. Usually gives excitement plus stress
3. Has a clear end point
2. Chronic
1. Dangerous and unhealthy; tears the life of a person
apart with accumulating stress
2. Ongoing environmental demand; long term exposure
to stressors (ex. marital
conflict)
3. PTSD, Depression, and Anxiety can all be brought on by
Chronic Stress
6. Major Classifications of Types of Stress
1. Frustration
1. Stress due to any situation in which the pursuit of some
goal is thwarted. Frustration
is usually short-lived, but some frustrations can be source
of major stress like failures
or losses
2. Conflict
1. When two or more incompatible motivations or
behavioral impulses compete for
expression
2. Types of Conflict
3. Approach-Approach conflict: two things are wanted,
but only one option can be

chosen
1. “I want this but I also want this”
4. Avoidance-Avoidance conflict: two unattractive
alternatives (lesser of two evils)
1. “I don’t want this and I don't want that”
5. Approach-Avoidance conflict: attractive and
unattractive parts to both sides
lOMoARcPSD|24671924
1. “I want this but I don't want what this entails”
3. Life Changes
1. Significant alterations in ones living situations that
require readjustment
4. Pressure
1. Involves expectations or demands that one behave in a
certain way
2. You are under pressure to preform when you’re
expected to execute tasks and
responsibilities quickly, efficiently, and successfully
3. Pressures to conform to other’s expectations (ex.
parental expectations)
7. How we respond to stress:
1. Both positive and negative emotions are emitted by
stress but positive emotions play a
key role in helping people bounce back amor stressful
events (build social,
knowledgable, etc ways to deal with stress)
2. Broaden and Build Theory (positive emotions create
upward spirals)
1. Positive emotions (joy, love, contentment, interest,
happiness)—> Broaden (expand
inventory of thoughts and actions) —> Build (develop
physical, mental, and social
resources) —> Transform (Advances personal growth and
creates more positive
emotions)
2. Positive self-talk helps you do better and preform
better in life (build social relations,
personal growth, and intelligence)
3. Building up positive emotions in a person with build up
their positive feelings and
broaden their outlooks/help them grow
3. Painful emotions serve as a warning that we need to
take actions
4. Subtle relationship between pressure and performance
(when there is the right amount
of pressure people do their best work) (low pressure is
boring, high pressure is anxiety)
1. “Best-You model”
5. Fight or Flight Response:
1. When danger is perceived, the brain sends messages to
the Autonomic Nervous
System (ANS)
2. It releases chemicals that prepare the body
6. General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) (presents a clear
biological explanation of how the
body responds to stress)
1. Stages:
1. Alarm: The alarm stage is the initial stage where the
body prepares for the
attack; either psychological or physical (labels stressor as
a threat; immediately
activates the fight or flight and releases stress hormones
like adrenaline and
blood pressure rises)
2. Resistance: The second stage is called the stage of
resistance; the body uses up
a great amount of energy to prepare for the stressor
(blood pressure is reduced
slightly and body’s defenses become weaker to fix
damages muscle tissues)
3. Exhaustion: The third stage is exhaustion; marked by
body exhaustion and
health problems (body loses its ability to combat stressors
because energy is
drained)
8. Stress Pathways
1. Hypothalamus —> Autonomic Nervous System
2. Hypothalamus —> Pituitary Gland —> Release
Hormones
9. Behavioral Responses to Stress
1. Coping:
1. Refers to active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate
the demands created by stress
2. Adaptive Coping (problem focused)
1. Approach strategies
2. Situation control (figure out what the problem is)
3. Positive self-statements
3. Maladaptive Coping (relieve stressors only temporarily,
and come back stronger)
1. Avoidance
2. Withdrawal/Disengagement
3. Resignation (giving up)
4. Agression
4. Goal Adjustment
1. Giving up is not always bad; people cutting their loses
early on
2. Learned Helplessness
1. Passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable
aversive events
2. Cut their loses, give up, and readjust goals
5. Catastrophic Thinking
1. Thinking the worst thing possible will come about
(taking things to the extreme)
2. Worst case scenario; spikes stress hormones and
reduces ability to react
effectively
2. Frustration-Aggression Theory
1. The idea that frustration (the perception that you are
being prevented from attaining
a goal) increases the probability of an aggressive response
2. Goal proximity

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