Aug 30, 2022 | Introduction to Psychology

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Notes
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Action items

Unit 3: Module 42-45-51

Module 45: Feudian/Psychodynamic

❖ Psychodynamic:
➢ Inner forces that interact to make us who we are
➢ Behavior as well as human emotions and personality, develop om a
dynamic
➢ ( interaction changing)
❖ Sigmund Freud: Developing Psychoanalysis
➢ Started Vienna Physician: claimed that mental and physical symptoms
could be caused by purely psychological factors.
➢ He was more aware that many powerful ,mental processes operate in the
unconscious, without our awareness.
➢ The Structure of human personality and its development.
➢ His name of the theory and his therapeutic: Psychoanalysis
❖ Techniques:
➢ Techniques such as free association: he encourage the patient to speak
whatever comes to mind , then the therapist verbally traces a flower of
thoughts into the past and into the unconscious.

❖ The Unconscious:

➢ A reservoir of thoughts, wishes, feelings, memories that are hidden from

awareness because they feel unacceptable.
❖ 1.“Pleasure Principle:” ID/personality
❖ 2.“Reality Principle:”ego
❖ 3. “Super Ego:” morality
❖ Ego works as the “executive” to manage bodily needs and wishes in a socially
acceptable way. Ex: Someone trying to diet wants a candy bar.

❖ Psychosexual Stages:
❖ I'd focused on the needs of exogenous zones.
❖ “Fixation” a default shame, never resolve how to manage the needs of that zone
needs.
❖ Stage
Oral (0-18 months) Pleasure centers on the
month-sucking, biting, chewing

Anal (18-36 months) Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder

elimination, coping with demands for
control

Phallic (3-6 years) Pleasure zone, Sexual feelings

Latency ( 6–puberty) A phases of dormant sexual feelings

Genital (puberty…) Maturations of sexual interest

❖ Defending Against Anxiety:

❖ We have anxious about unacceptable wishes and impulses and we repress this
anxiety with the help of the stages
Module 45: 11/10

❖ Reaction Formation vs Projection:

❖ Reaction Formation:
➢ A politician give ant-gay speeches

❖ Neo-Fraudian:
➢ The importance of the unconscious and childhood relationships in shaping
personality.
➢ Personality: id, ego, superego
➢ The defense Mechanisms in reducing anxiety about uncomfortable ideas
➢ Adler and Horney Beleieves that anxiety and personality are a function of social
not sexual tensions in childhood
➢ Jung believed that we have a collective unconscious containing images from our
species experience not just personal repressed memories and wishes
➢ Charals Dawin

❖ Freud Legacy:
 ➢ He gives ideas about: the impact of childhood on adulthood and human
irrationality, sexuality, evil defenses, anxiety and the tension between our
biological sleeves and our socialized
➢ He gives us: ego, projections, regression, rationalization…

Module 46: Humanistic

❖ Maslow: Becoming a self actualization person

❖ Rogers: Growing, in social environment of: Genuineness, Acceptance
❖ Humanistic Theories:
❖ Maslow: Dehumanizing ideas in Behaviorism
❖ “Third Force”: Humanistic Perspective (Maslow & Rogers)
➢ They studied healthy people rather than people with mental health problems
❖ Humanism:
➢ Focusing on the conditions that support healthy personal growth
❖ MASLOW: The Self Actualizing Person
➢ People are motivated to keep moving up a Hierarchy of needs, growing beyond
getting basic needs met.
➢ Hierarchy: Self Actualization, fulfilling one's potential and self transcendence

❖
❖ Personality include, being self aware, self accepting, open, ethical, spontaneous, loving
caring, focusing on a greater mission than social acceptance.
❖ Rogers Person Centered Perspective:
➢ People have natural tendencies to grow, become healthy
➢ “Client Center Therapy”
➢ The 3 conditions that facilitate growth (water, nutrients, and light facilitate growth
of a tree)

❖ Genuineness:
➢ Being honest, direct and not using a facade
➢ Rogers “Gloria”

❖ Acceptance:
➢ Unconditional Positive regard: Acknowledging feelings, even problems without
passing judgment, honoring devaluing

❖ Empathy:
➢ Showing the feeling of others: efforts to understand, listening well

❖ Ideal Self vs Actual Self:

➢ The core personality is the self concept, our sense of our nature and identity
➢ People are happiest with a self concept that matches their ideal self

❖ Critiquing the Humanistic Perspective:

➢ “Evil” as a social phenomenon, not an individual trait.
➢ “When i look at the world, Im pessimistic but when I look at People I am
optimistic” -Rogers
➢ Self Acceptance: allows us to move on and love ourselves and others
➢ Some say that the pursuit of self-concept, an accepting ideal self, and
self-actualization encouraged not self-transcendence but self-indulgence,
self-centeredness.
➢ Humanist response: The therapist using this approach should not encourage
selfishness, and should keep in mind that that
➢ "positive regard" means not "praise."acceptance,
Module 41: 11/15/22: Social Thinking

❖ Fundamental Attribution Error when thinking about the behavior

❖ Attitudes and Actions affecting each other § Peripheral and Central Route
Persuasion § Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon § Role playing affecting
attitudes § Cognitive Dissonance: Actions affecting beliefs

❖ Attribution: Identifying Causes:

❖ Attribution:
➢ A conclusion about the cause of an observed behavior/event
❖ Attribution Theory:
➢ We explain others behaviors with two types of attributions

❖ Situational attribution:
➢ Factors outside the person doing the action such as peer pressure

❖ Dispositional Attribution:
➢ The personal stable, enduring traits personality, ability, emotion

❖ Social Thinking: Fundamental Attribution Error

➢ Seeing if you can find the error in the following comment: “I notice
the new guy tripping and stumbling as he walked in. How clumsy
can you be” Does he never watch where he’s going”
➢ Error: When we go too far in, assuming that a person;s behavior is
caused by their personality.→ we think a behavior demonstrates a
trait→we think behavior demonstrates a trait→We tend to
overemphasize…attribution and underemphasize.
➢ We make this even when we are given the correct fact: Williams
Study: “A woman was paid and told to act friendly to some students,
unfriendly ro others. The students felt that her behavior was part of
her disposition, even when they were told that she was just obeying
instructions”

❖ Self vs. Other/Actors and Observers:

➢ When we explain our own behavior, we partly reverse the
fundamental attribution error: we tend to blame the situation dor our
failures (although we take personal credit for successes)
➢ This happens not just out of selfishness: it happens whenever we
take the perspective of the actor in a situation, which is easiest to do
for ourselves and people we know well.

❖ Cultural Differences:
➢ People in collectivist cultures: (Emphasize group unity, allegiance
and the purpose over the wishes of the individual) do not make the
same kinds of attributions: 1. The behavior of others is attributed
more to the situation, also. 2. Credit for successes is given more to
others. 3. Blame for failures is taken on oneself
❖ Political Effects of Attribution:
➢ Would your assumptions change if the person were drunk? Or spoke
articulately? What Solutions and policies make sense if you make
the first attributions? The second?

❖ Attitude and Actions:

❖ Attitude:
➢ Feeling, ideas and beliefs that affect how we approach and react to
people, objects and events. They affect our actions!

❖ Persuasion;
➢ Two cognitive pathways to affect attitudes. Central Route
Persuasion: Going directly through the rational mind, influencing
attitudes with evidence and logic. Peripheral Route Persuasion:
Changing attitudes by going around the rational mind and appealing
fears, desires, associations

❖ Attitude affect our actions:

➢ 1. External influences are minimal. 2. The attitude is stable. 3. The
attitude is specific to the behavior 4. The attitude is easily recalled.
➢ “ I feel like [attitude] eating at micDs and I will [action];” 1. There
are no nutritionists here telling me not to. 2. I've enjoyed their food
for quite a while. 3. It's so easy to get the food when I have a
craving. 4. Its easy to remember how good its is when I drive by that
big sign every day.

❖ Actions actions affect attitudes:

➢ If attitudes direct our actions, can it work the other way around?
How can it happen that we can take an action which in turn shifts
our attitudes about that action?
➢ “The food in the Door Phenomenon
➢ The Effects of Playing a Role
➢ Cognitive Dissonance

❖ Small Compliance→Large Compliance:

 ➢ A Political campaigner asks if you would open the door just enough
to pass a clipboard through.
➢ The Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: the tendency yo be more likely
to agree to a large request after agreeing to a small one.
➢ Effect on attitudes: people adjunct their attitudes along with our
actions , liking the people that agreed to help, disliking the people
they agreed to harm

❖ Role Play Affects Attitudes:

➢ Nathaniel Hawthorne
➢ When we play a role, even if we know it is just pretending , we
eventually tend to adopt the attitudes that go with role, and become
the role

❖ Cognitive Dissonance:
➢ CD is when our actions are not in harmony with our attitudes
➢ CD Theory is the observation that we tend to resolve this dissonance
by changing our attitudes to fit our actions.
➢ Festinger's Study (1957): Students were paid either large or small
amounts to express enjoyment if a boring activity. Then many of the
students changed their attitudes about the activity. Which amount
shifted?

❖ Module 42: 11/16/22

❖ Social Influence:
❖ Conformity: Mimicry and more:
❖ Conformity refers to adjusting our behavior or thinking to fit in with a
group standard: Automatic Mimicry affecting behavior, Social Norms
affecting our thinking,
❖ Automatic Mimicry:
➢ Not by choose but automatic
➢ Contagious Yawning
➢ Adopting regional accent, grammar and vocabulary
➢ Empathetic shifts in mood
➢ Adopting coping styles
❖ Responding to Social Norms:
 ➢ A social norm (a correct or normal way to behavior or think in this
group)
➢ Asch Conformity Studies: About 1/3 if people will agree obvious
mistruths to go along with the group
❖ What makes you more likely to conform?:
➢ 1.I”You are not firmly committed to one set of beliefs or style of
behavior. 2. The group is medium-sized and unanimous. 3. You
admire or are attracted to the group. 4. The group makes you feel
incompetent. Insecure and closely watched. 5. Culture encourages
respect for norms
➢ TWO types of social Influence:
➢ Normative Social Influence: Going alone with other in pursuit of
social approval or belonging (Avoid disapproval) Clothing choice.
➢ Informational Social Influence:
➢ Going with other because their ideas and behaviors make sense, the
evidence in our environment changes our minds. Deciding which
side of the road to drive on.

❖ Obedience: Response to Commands:

➢ Milgram want to study the influence of direct commands in
behavior:
➢ What Social conditions are people more likely to obey commands?
➢ The experiment: An authority figure tells participants to administer
shocks to a “learner”
➢ Compliance in Milgram's Study:
➢ Even when the learner complained of a heart condition, most people
complied with the experimenter's direction: “Please Continue.” “You
must continue”
➢ What Factors Increase Obedience?:
➢ Someone with legitimate authority, Someone associated a
prestigious institution, Some standing close by, When the “Learner”
is another room
➢ Lession:
➢ When under pressure to conform or obey. Ordinary principle people
will say and do things they never would have believed they would
do. “The real evil may be in the situation” to look a person
 commiting harmful acts and assume that he person is cruel/evil
would be to make the fundamental attribution error.

❖ Module 51: 11/29/22

❖ Schizophrenia
➢ Symptoms:
➢ Causes:
➢ Gerald
➢ The mind is split from reality, a split from ones own thoughts so that
they appear as hallucinations
❖ Psychosis
➢ refers to a mental split from reality and rationality.
❖ Schizophrenia
➢ Disorganized and delusional thinking. Disturbed perceptions
➢ Inappropriate or limited emotions
❖ Positive and negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia:
❖ Positive presence of problematic behaviors, Hallucinations (illusory
perceptions) especially auditory, Delusion (Illusory beliefs) especially
persecutory, Disorganized Speech, Bizarre behaviors
❖ Negative: absence of healthy behavior, Flatt affect (no emotion showing in
the face), Reduce social interaction, Anedonia (no feeling of enjoyment),
Avolition (less motivation initiative, focus on task), Alogia, (speaking less)
Catatonia (moving less)
❖ Problems with Thinking and Speaking:
➢ Disorganized speech including the “word salad” of loosely
associated phrases.
➢ Delusions (illusory beliefs) often bizarre and not just mistaken; most
common are delusion and not grandeur and of persecution
➢ Problems with selective attention, difficulty filtering thoughts and
choosing which thoughts to believe and to say out loud
❖ Disturbe Perceptions:
➢ People Schizophirenia often experience hallucinations that is
perceptual experience not shared by others
➢ The most common form of hallucination is hearing voices that no
one else hears often with upsetting (shamming) content.
➢ Hallucinations can also be visual, olfactory/smells touch or
gustatory/taste
❖ Inappropriate or Limited emotions:
➢ Odd and socially inappropriate responses such as looking bored or
amused while hearing of a death.
❖ Flat Affect: facial/body expression is “flat” with no visible emotional
content
➢ Impaired perception of emotions, including ot reading others
intentions and feelings
❖ Inappropriate Actions/Behaviors:
➢ Symptoms such as: errors in social perception
➢ disorganized , unflited thinking
➢ Delusion and hallucinations
➢ Body exhibits symptoms such as: repetitive behaviors such as
rocking and rubbing.
➢ Catatonia…
❖ Onset and development of Schizophrenia:
❖ Onset: typically systempoms appear at the end of adolescence and in early
adulthood, later for women than for men
❖ Prevalence: Nearly 1 in 100 people develop schizophrenia slightly more
men than women
❖ Development: The course of schizophrenia can be acute/reactive or chronic.
❖ Course of Schizophrenia:
➢ Acute/Reactive in relation to stress some people develope positive
symptoms such as hallucination.
➢ Chronic/Process Schizophrenia developed which more negative
symptoms such as flat affect and social withdrawal
❖ Understanding Schizophrenia:
❖ Abnormal Brain structure and activity:
➢ Too many dopamine? D4 receptors help to explain paranoia and
hallucinations, it's like taking amphetamines overdoses all the time
➢ Poor coordination of neural firing in the frontal lobes impairs
judgment and self control
➢ The thalamus fires during hallucinations as if real sensations were
being received
➢ There is general shrinking of many brain areas and connections
between them
❖ Biological Risk Factors: More likely to develop when one or mor of these
factors is present: Low birth weight, Maternal Diabetes, Older paternal age,
 Famine, Oxygen deprivation during delivery, Maternal virus mid
pregnancy, Impairing brain Development
❖ Genetic Factors:
➢ If a Twin has Schizophrenia the chance if the other one also having it
are much greater if the twins are identical.
➢ Having adoptive siblings: Does not increase the likelihood of
developing schizophrenia.
❖ Genic and Prenatal Causes:
➢ even on identical twins, genetics do not fully predict schizophrenia
➢ Environmental differences.
➢ Separate placentas
❖ Psychological Factors: Social or psychological factors (such as parenting)
alone can cause schizophrenia
➢ Stress that the onset of schizophrenia
➢ The mechanism of causation all we may have is a list of factors
which correlated with increased risk.