PSY 213 Final Exam

Remove it:

- Brain damage - Phineas Gage did it and it drastically changed his personality from good to bad - Lesions (happened on accident)

"Poke it": and see what happens

- Brain stimulation - Mostly done on animals - Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

Scan it

- Electroencephalography (EEG) - electrical signals - Positron Emmission Tomography (PET) - blood flow - Functional Magnetic Resistance Imaging (fMRI) - brain activity (more precise than PET) - Computerized Tomography (CT) small structures

Parts of the Brain : Subcortical

- Located at the base - Evolved early - Unconscious, automatic, impulsive - React automatically (without "thinking")

Parts of the Brain : The Amygdala

- Negative and positive emotions - threats and rewards - links perceptions & thoughts to emotion centers for meaning

Problems w Brain Scans

- Technology is difficult to use - Expensive - You have to get trained on how to use it - Brain activity may be inhibitory - sometimes part of your brain lights up but doesn't mean something is actually happening (don't always know why its lighting up) - All parts of the brain are always active (to some degree) - Mostly look at small area, no context

Traits related to amygdala functioning

- anxiety, neuroticism - sociability and extraversion - sexuality - optimism

3 Main ways to study the brain

- remove it (lesion) not the whole thing - poke it (stimulate) - scan it (fMRI, CAT, etc)

Transitional Objects

- sentimental objects

Explains personality through

-Unconscious motives and conflicts -Early childhood experiences -Coping with "primal urges"

Conscious Mind:

-Whatever's on your mind -Once you start thinking about it its on your conscious mind

Oral Stage (0-18 months)

-Pleasure- mouth -Too much gratification- oral dependent personality -Dependency, optimism ,gullibility -Too little gratification- oral aggressive

Psychoanalysis after Freud

Big Changes.. -Deemphasize -Sex and the libido -Instinctual drives -Unconscious process - continuous process

What was wrong with Elliot?

He was missing the connection between frontal lobe and amygdala

How did Dr. Damasio figure out what was wrong with Elliot?

Iowa Gambling Task

latency stage (7 to puberty)

-Pleasure- hyphen -Learning to become a boy or girl

the frontal lobes and emotions

- somatic marker hypothesis : emotions are necessary part of problem solving and decision making - special understanding and self control - phones gage - Elliot (as told by Damasio, 1994) --- business man, had a brain tumor in his prefrontal cortex, intelligence,attention and memory BUT he has no experience of emotions, irrational behavior, had no emotional pull to good decisions or push from bad decisions, every decision =game of choice

The Cortical Brain

- top/outer layer of the brain - evolved later in its history - rational, conscious thought - can consciously process information and exert some control over subcortical areas

Assessing the unconscious mind

-Dreams -Free-association -Parapraxis

Freudian ideas as cliches in American culture

-Ego -Compensating -The term "anal" to mean "likes things neat and orderly" -Defensive -"Oh, you're studying psychology, are you analyzing me now?" -Phallic symbols

Reaction Formation

-Ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites -"Are some men "homophobic" because they're secretly attracted to men?" -Empirical finding: homophobic men were more sexually aroused by gay pornographic content

The Man

-1856-1939 -Grew up in Austria with a Jewish family -Physician -Context- Victorian Era Sexual repression -Darwin theory -Didn't like America much -Too sexually repressed/judgemental -Smoked about 20 cigars a day

Personality Development

-5 stages -Ids energies focus on pleasure sensitive part of the body (erogenous zones) -Fixation- stage not resolved; stuck in that stage -Maladaptive behavior results from unresolved conflicts

Object Relations Theory

-Analysis of interpersonal relationships -Objects -The images of close relationships in our minds

Attachment Theory

-Attachment styles- how you attach to people and how you react when they leave -Anxious-ambivalent attachment -Caregivers are inconsistent -Adult- needy,clingy, may drive people away Avoidant attachment -Caregivers rebuff attempts for contact and reassurance -Adult-distance, cold, actively push people away -Secure Attachment: -Easily soothed actively explore the environment -Adult - well adjusted, trusting healthy relationships

How neurotransmitters work

-Axon releases neurotransmitters -Neurotransmitters influence other neurons -Neurotransmitters are then pulled back into the axon through a process called reuptake

Freud's Methodology continued

-Case studies -Humanities -Done by therapists, not university professors -Disliked "statistics" and "experiments"

Dopamine associated with "plasticity" traits

-Extraversion -Positive mood -Assertively engaging life -Openness to experience -Prefer variety -Intellectually curious

Parapraxis

-Freudian Slip- -No action is accidental -Insight into the unconscious mind -Latent desires, emotions, thoughts etc

Serotonin associated with "stability" traits

-High conscientiousness -Regulates impulses and work -High agreeableness -Control negative feelings/actions towards jerks -Low neuroticism- fewer mood swings and overreactions

The Id

-Immediate gratification -Primitive, instinctive part of personality -Continuous, pre conscious or unconscious -Pleasure principle Maximum pleasure, minimum pain -Primary process thinking Metaphors,images,no logic

Dopamine

-Incentives trigger release -Teaches us which events are rewarding -Activated goal directed behaviors

Inferiority and superiority

-Inferiority feelings Are normal -We compensate for these -Superiority feelings -Enables us to overcome obstacles

Collective Unconscious

-Memories and ideas that all humans share ( unconscious) -Archetypes appear in multiple cultures in dreams,fantasies,mythology and modern literature -Ex: mother earth, hero, devil, supreme being -Persona --The social mask one wears in public --False self, to some degree --Possible danger: identifying with persona more than real self -Personality Ideas --Introverts vs.Extraverts- focus inward vs outward -Ways of thinking: rational, feeling, sensing and intuiting -The Myers- Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)-1943 -Inspired by Jung

Brilliant Insights

-Mind is full of internal conflict -Sometimes we are driven by hidden motives -Some of the hard to access mental stuff might be important

Serotonin

-Mood regulation, appetite and sleep -Inhabits impulses- worrying, anger and sensitivity to criticism

The superego

-Moral part of personality -Internalized rules of parents and society -Controls ego by giving: rewards for compliance (pride) -Punishment for non-compliance (guilt and shame)

Current Psychoanalytic Research

-Mostly done by academics -Experiments and correlational methods -Many researchers don't realize they are studying Freudian ideas -Personality traits such as narcissism

Neurotransmitters

-Neurons and the brain -78-94 billion neurons in your brain -125 trillion synapses in cortex alone -More than there are stars in 1,500 Milky Way galaxies

Got details wrong

-No evidence for ID, ego, superego "energies" -What is a psychic energy -Everything have a hidden motive? Paranoid much?

Psychic Determination

-Nothing a person does is ever accidental -All mental processes are determined by preexisting mental processes -This is a freudian assumption

Birth Order

-Oldest child: favored, spoiled , center of attention, high achievement -Second of two: behaves as if in a race, often opposite to first child ( rivalry) -Middle: often feels squeezed out -Youngest: the baby, creative, rebellious -Only: may not learn to share or cooperate with other children, learns to deal with adults

Preconscious Mind:

-Outside of conscious awareness -Often unacceptable or unpleasant Ex: painful childhood memory

Erikson's Stage Theory

-Personality develops as response to life-crises -Psychosocial stages -During each stage we face a specific crisis that must be resolved in order to move forward -Successful resolution- virtue

Anal stage (18-36 months)

-Pleasure - bowel and bladder elimination -Too much punishment: --Anal retentive personality ---Very strict and demanding - Too little punishment: - anal exclusive personality - very loose and indifferent

Phallic Stage (2-7 years)

-Pleasure - genitals -Desires are directed at opposite sex parent -Oedippus complex (boys) -Unconscious sexual feelings for their mother and jealousy/hatred for father -Feelings of guilt,castration anxiety -Repress sexual feelings and identify with father -Electra complex (girls)

Prozac and Serotonin

-Prozac( fluoxetine) inhibits the reuptake of serotonin -Increasing levels in the body -Many people describe prozac as a personality enhancer -Worry less' -Deal with stress -More productive -13% of americans take some anti-depressant

The ego - the reality principle

-Rational decision- making part of personality -Realizing ID's desires can't always be met -Mediates between id and superego - Continuous, pre conscious or unconscious -Reality principle- delays gratification until appropriate outlet can be found -Secondary process thinking- logical, thinks of cause/effect, based in reality

Regression

-Reverting to a previous developmental stage -Acting childish -Pushing unwanted thoughts, feelings ,memories into the unconscious -"I don't even remember that"

Genital Stage (puberty on)

-Sexual urges reappear- But directed at their own age group -Sexual and aggressive urges -Sublimated into marriage and work

My take

-Some brilliant big ideas -For a lot of details wrong -A little too focused on sex -Assumes a hidden meaning into everything -Brilliant big ideas

Carl Jung

-Thought Freud focused too much on sex -Interested in how a person's sense of self develops -Enjoyed mystical and spiritual matters

Erik Erikson

-Thought freud focused too much on sec -Disagreed with emphasis on oral, anal, phallic and genital stages -"Identity crisis"

Karen Horney

-Thought freud focused too much on sex -Disagreed with "penis envy" -Founded feminist psychology -Basic anxiety: fear of being alone/helpless in a hostile world

Alfred Adler

-Thought freud focused too much on sex -People are "discouraged" not "sick" -Gemeinschaftsgefühl: psychological health characterized by : social connectedness and the interest in the well being of others

Inner conflict - personality structure

-Three psychic energies -ID -EGO -SUPEREGO -Our behavior is the outcome of interactions among the components

Information flow through neurons

Dendrites- collects electrical signals Cell Body- Integrates incoming signals and generates outgoing signal to axon Axon- Passes electrical signals to dendrites of another cell or to an effector cell

Defense Mechanisms

How it works: -Self-concept is threatened -Anxiety is heightened -Defense mechanisms reduce anxiety by distorting anxiety