Unit 8 psych

54: How do hormones influence human sexual motivation?

For all but the tiny fraction of us considered asexual, dating and mating become a priority from puberty on. The female estrogens and male testosterone hormones influence human sexual behavior less directly than they influence sexual behavior in other species. These hormones direct sexual development in the prenatal period; trigger development of sexual characteristics in adolescence; and help activate sexual behavior from puberty to late adulthood. Women's sexuality, as well as men's, is responsive to testosterone levels. Short-term shifts in testosterone level are normal in men, partly in response to stimulation.

60: What developmental stages did Freud propose, and how did he think people defended themselves against anxiety?

Freud believed children pass through five psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital). According to this view, unresolved conflicts at any stage can leave a person's pleasure-seeking impulses fixated (stalled) at that stage. For Freud, anxiety was the product of tensions between the demands of the id and superego. The ego copes by using unconscious defense mechanisms, such as repression, which he viewed as the basic mechanism underlying and enabling all the others.

62: Does research support the consistency of personality traits over time and across situations?

A person's average traits persist over time and are predictable over many different situations. But traits cannot predict behavior in any one particular situation.

55: What is achievement motivation?

Achievement motivation is a desire for significant accomplishment, for mastery of skills or ideas, for control, and for attaining a high standard. High achievement motivation leads to greater success, especially when combined with determined, persistent grit.

59: How effective is aerobic exercise as a way to manage stress and improve well-being?

Aerobic exercise is sustained, oxygen-consuming activity that increases heart and lung fitness. It increases arousal, leads to muscle relaxation and sounder sleep, triggers the production of neurotransmitters, and enhances self-image. It can relieve depression and is associated with longer life and better cognitive functioning in later life.

63: How do social-cognitive theorists view personality development, and how do they explore behavior?

Albert Bandura first proposed the social-cognitive perspective, which views personality as the product of the interaction between a person's traits (including thinking) and the situation—the social world around us. The behavioral approach contributes an understanding that our personality development is affected by learned responses. Social-cognitive researchers apply principles of learning, as well as cognition and social behavior, to personality. Reciprocal determinism describes the interaction and mutual influence of behavior, internal personal factors, and environmental factors. Assessment situations involving simulated conditions exploit the principle that the best predictor of future behavior is a person's behavior patterns in similar situations.

61: How have humanistic theories influenced psychology? What criticisms have they faced?

Humanistic psychology helped renew interest in the concept of self, and also laid the groundwork for today's scientific subfield of positive psychology. Critics have said that humanistic psychology's concepts were vague and subjective, its values self-centered, and its assumptions naively optimistic.

54: What is the human sexual response cycle?

William Masters and Virginia Johnson described four stages in the human sexual response cycle: excitement, plateau, orgasm (which involves similar feelings and brain activity in males and females), and resolution. Males then enter a refractory period, during which renewed arousal and orgasm are impossible.

57: How do the genders differ in their ability to communicate nonverbally?

Women tend to read emotional cues more easily and to express more empathy.

59: What is the feel-good, do-good phenomenon, what is the focus of positive psychology research, and what are the factors that affect our happiness levels?

A good mood brightens people's perceptions of the world. Happy people tend to be healthy, energized, and satisfied with life, which makes them more willing to help others (the feel-good, do-good phenomenon). Positive psychologists use scientific methods to study human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive. Subjective well-being is your perception of being happy or satisfied with life. The moods triggered by good or bad events seldom last beyond that day. Even significant good events, such as sudden wealth, seldom increase happiness for long. Happiness is relative to our own experiences (the adaptation-level phenomenon) and to others' success (the relative deprivation principle).

64: How do individualist and collectivist cultures differ in their values and goals?

Although individuals vary, different cultures tend to emphasize either individualism or collectivism. Cultures based on self-reliant individualism tend to value personal independence and individual achievement. They define identity in terms of self-esteem, personal goals and attributes, and personal rights and liberties. Cultures based on socially connected collectivism tend to value group goals, social identity, and commitments. They define identity in terms of interdependence, tradition, and harmony.

56: What are the primary emotions, and what is the link between emotional arousal and the autonomic nervous system?

Caroll Izard's 10 primary emotions are joy, interest/excitement, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame, and guilt. The arousal component of emotion is regulated by the autonomic nervous system's sympathetic (arousing) and parasympathetic (calming) divisions. In a crisis, the fight-or-flight response automatically mobilizes your body for action.

58: Why are some of us more prone than others to coronary heart disease?

Coronary heart disease, the United States' number one cause of death, has been linked with the competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and (especially) anger-prone Type A personality. Compared with relaxed, easygoing Type B personalities, who are less likely to experience heart disease, Type A people secrete more stress hormones. Catharsis doesn't work to reduce the anger that can be so harmful to our health, but waiting, distracting, and distancing do. Chronic stress also contributes to persistent inflammation, which is associated with heart and other health problems, including depression.

56: How do arousal, expressive behavior, and cognition interact in emotion?

Emotions are psychological responses of the whole organism involving an interplay among physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience. Theories of emotion generally address two major questions: (1) Does physiological arousal come before or after emotional feelings, and (2) how do cognition and feeling interact? The James-Lange theory maintains that emotional feelings follow our body's response to emotion-inducing stimuli. (We observe our heart pounding and feel fear.) The Cannon-Bard theory proposes that our body responds to emotion at the same time that we experience the emotion (one does not cause the other).

64: How do excessive optimism, blindness to one's own incompetence, and self-serving bias reveal the costs of self-esteem, and how do defensive and secure self-esteem differ?

Excessive optimism can lead to complacency and prevent us from seeing real risks, while blindness to one's own incompetence may lead us to make the same mistakes repeatedly. Self-serving bias is our normal tendency to perceive ourselves favorably, as when viewing ourselves as better than average or when accepting credit for our successes but not blame for our failures. Narcissism is excessive self-love and self-absorption. Defensive self-esteem is fragile, focuses on sustaining itself, and views failure or criticism as a threat. Secure self-esteem is sturdy, enabling us to feel accepted for who we are.

54: How do external and imagined stimuli contribute to sexual arousal?

External stimuli can trigger sexual arousal in both men and women. Viewing sexually coercive material can lead to increased acceptance of violence toward women. Viewing sexually explicit materials can cause people to perceive their partners as comparatively less appealing and to devalue their relationships. Imagined stimuli (dreams and fantasies) help trigger sexual arousal.

60: Which of Freud's ideas did his followers accept or reject?

Freud's early followers, the neo-Freudians, accepted many of his ideas. They differed in placing more emphasis on the conscious mind and in stressing social motives more than sexual or aggression motives. Neo-Freudian Carl Jung proposed the collective unconscious. Contemporary psychodynamic theorists and therapists reject Freud's emphasis on sexual motivation. They stress, with support from modern research findings, the view that much of our mental life is unconscious, and they believe that our childhood experiences influence our adult personality and attachment patterns. Many also believe that our species' shared evolutionary history shaped some universal predispositions.

53: What cultural and situational factors influence hunger?

Hunger also reflects our memory of when we last ate and our expectation of when we should eat again. Humans as a species prefer certain tastes (such as sweet and salty), but our individual preferences are also influenced by conditioning, culture, and situation. Some taste preferences, such as the avoidance of new foods or of foods that have made us ill, have survival value.

53: What physiological factors produce hunger?

Hunger's pangs correspond to the stomach's contractions, but hunger also has other causes. Neural areas in the brain, some within the hypothalamus, monitor blood chemistry (including glucose level) and incoming information about the body's state. Appetite hormones include insulin (controls blood glucose), ghrelin (secreted by an empty stomach), leptin (secreted by fat cells), orexin (secreted by the hypothalamus), and PYY (secreted by the digestive tract). Basal metabolic rate is the body's resting rate of energy expenditure. The body may have a set point (a biologically fixed tendency to maintain an optimum weight) or a looser settling point (also influenced by the environment).

52: How do psychologists define motivation? From what perspectives do they view motivated behavior?

Motivation is a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior. The instinct theory explores genetic influences on complex behaviors. Drive-reduction theory explores how physiological needs create aroused tension states (drives) that direct us to satisfy those needs. Environmental incentives can intensify drives, and we can be motivated intrinsically or extrinsically. Drive reduction's goal is homeostasis, maintaining a steady internal state. Optimal arousal theory proposes that some behaviors (such as those driven by curiosity) do not reduce physiological needs but rather are prompted by a search for an optimum level of arousal. The Yerkes-Dodson law states that performance increases with arousal, but only to a certain point, after which it decreases. Performance peaks at lower levels of arousal for difficult tasks, and at higher levels for easy or well-learned tasks. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs proposes a pyramid of human needs, from basic needs such as hunger and thirst up to higher-level needs such as self-actualization and self-transcendence.

57: How do we communicate nonverbally?

Much of our communication is through body movements, facial expressions, and voice tones. Even seconds-long filmed slices of behavior can reveal feelings.

53: How are we affected by obesity, and what factors are involved in weight management?

Obesity, defined by a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above, is associated with increased depression (especially among women), bullying, and some physical health risks. Physiological factors and environmental factors interact to produce obesity.Storing fat was adaptive to our ancestors, and fat requires less food intake to maintain than it did to gain. Set point and metabolism matter; lean people tend to move around more. Twin and adoption studies indicate that body weight is also genetically influenced.Environmental influences include sleep loss, social influence, and food and activity levels. Those wishing to lose weight are advised to make a lifelong change in habits: Begin only if you feel motivated and self-disciplined, exercise and get enough sleep, minimize exposure to tempting food cues, limit variety and eat healthy foods, reduce portion sizes, space meals throughout the day, beware of the binge, plan eating to help monitor yourself during social events, forgive the occasional lapse, and connect to a support group.

55: What evidence points to our human affiliation need—our need to belong?

Our need to affiliate or belong—to feel connected and identified with others—had survival value for our ancestors, which may explain why humans in every society live in groups. Social bonds help us to be healthier and happier. Feeling loved activates brain regions associated with reward and safety systems. Ostracism is the deliberate exclusion of individuals or groups. People often respond to ostracism with initial efforts to restore their acceptance, with depressed moods, and finally with withdrawal. Social isolation can put us at risk mentally and physically. People suffer when socially excluded, and they may engage in self-defeating or antisocial behaviors.

62: What are personality inventories, and what are their strengths and weaknesses as trait-assessment tools?

Personality inventories (such as the MMPI) are questionnaires on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors. Test items are empirically derived, and the tests are objectively scored. But people can fake their answers to create a good impression; objectivity does not guarantee validity.

60:What is personality, and what theories inform our understanding of personality?

Personality is an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. Psychoanalytic (and later psychodynamic) theory and humanistic theory have become part of Western culture. They laid the foundation for later theories, such as trait and social-cognitive theories of personality.

56: How effective are polygraphs in using body states to detect lies?

Polygraphs, which measure several physiological indicators of emotion, are not accurate enough to justify widespread use in business and law enforcement. The use of the Concealed Information Test and new forms of technology may produce better indications of lying.

60: What are projective tests, how are they used, and what are some criticisms of them?

Projective tests attempt to assess personality by showing people ambiguous stimuli with many possible interpretations; answers reveal unconscious motives. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the Rorschach inkblot test are two such tests. The TAT provides a valid and reliable roadmap of people's implicit motives, and responses have been shown to be consistent over time. The Rorschach has low reliability and validity, but some clinicians value it as a source of suggestive leads, an icebreaker, or a revealing interview technique.

60: How did Sigmund Freud's treatment of psychological disorders lead to his view of the unconscious mind, and what was his view of personality?

Psychodynamic theories view personality from the perspective that behavior is a lively (dynamic) interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind. The theories trace their origin to Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. In treating patients whose disorders had no clear physical explanation, Freud concluded that these problems reflected unacceptable thoughts and feelings, hidden away in the unconscious mind. To explore this hidden part of a patient's mind, Freud used free association and dream analysis. Freud believed that personality results from conflict arising from the interaction among the mind's three systems: the id (pleasure-seeking impulses), ego (reality-oriented executive), and superego (internalized set of ideals, or conscience).

58: How does stress make us more vulnerable to disease?

Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health. Stress diverts energy from the immune system, inhibiting the activities of its B and T lymphocytes, macrophages, and NK cells. Stress does not cause diseases such as cancer, but by altering our immune functioning it may make us more vulnerable to diseases and influence their progression.

59: In what ways might relaxation and meditation influence stress and health?

Relaxation and meditation have been shown to reduce stress by relaxing muscles, lowering blood pressure, improving immune functioning, and lessening anxiety and depression. Mindfulness meditation is a reflective practice of attending to current experiences in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner. Massage therapy also relaxes muscles and reduces depression.

57: How do our facial expressions influence our feelings?

Research on the facial feedback effect shows that our facial expressions can trigger emotional feelings and signal our body to respond accordingly. We also mimic others' expressions, which helps us empathize. A similar behavior feedback effect is the tendency of behavior to influence our own and others' thoughts, feelings, and actions.

63: What criticisms have social-cognitive theorists faced?

Social-cognitive theories of personality build on well-established concepts of learning and cognition, and sensitize researchers to how situations affect, and are affected by, individuals. Social-cognitive theorists have been faulted for underemphasizing the importance of unconscious motives, emotions, and biologically influenced traits.

59: What predicts happiness, and how can we be happier?

Some individuals seem genetically predisposed to be happier than others. Cultures, which vary in the traits they value and the behaviors they expect and reward, also influence personal levels of happiness. Tips for increasing happiness levels: Take charge of your schedule, act happy, seek meaningful work and leisure, buy shared experiences rather than things, exercise, sleep enough, foster friendships, focus beyond the self, and nurture gratitude and spirituality.

61: How did humanistic psychologists assess a person's sense of self?

Some rejected any standardized assessments and relied on interviews and conversations. Rogers sometimes used questionnaires in which people described their ideal and actual selves, which he later used to judge progress during therapy.

58: How does our appraisal of an event affect our stress reaction, and what are the three main types of stressors?

Stress is the process by which we appraise and respond to stressors—events that challenge or threaten us. If we appraise an event as challenging, we will be aroused and focused in preparation for success. If we appraise an event as a threat, we will experience a stress reaction, and our health may suffer. The three main types of stressors are catastrophes, significant life changes, and daily hassles—including social stress. Kurt Lewin explained that stress is compounded when we experience motivational conflicts.

58: So, does stress cause illness?

Stress may not directly cause illness, but it does make us more vulnerable, by influencing our behaviors and our physiology.

59: What are the links among basic outlook on life, social support, and stress and health?

Studies of people with an optimistic outlook show that their immune system is stronger, their blood pressure does not increase as sharply in response to stress, their recovery from heart bypass surgery is faster, and their life expectancy is longer. Social support promotes health by calming us, by reducing blood pressure and stress hormones, and by fostering stronger immune functioning. We can significantly reduce our stress and increase our health by building and maintaining relationships with family and friends, and by finding meaning even in difficult times.

62: Which traits seem to provide the most useful information about personality variation?

The Big Five personality factors—conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion (CANOE)—currently offer the clearest picture of personality. These factors are stable and appear to be found in all cultures. Many genes, each having small effects, combine to influence our traits, and heritability generally runs about 40 percent for each dimension.

56: To experience emotions, must we consciously interpret and label them?

The Schachter-Singer two-factor theory holds that our emotions have two ingredients, physical arousal and a cognitive label, and the cognitive labels we put on our states of arousal are an essential ingredient of emotion. Lazarus agreed that many important emotions arise from our inferences. Zajonc and LeDoux, however, have contended that some simple emotional responses occur instantly, not only outside our conscious awareness but before any cognitive processing occurs. This interplay between emotion and cognition illustrates our two-track mind.

59: What is the faith factor, and what are some possible explanations for the link between faith and health?

The faith factor is the finding that religiously active people tend to live longer than those who are not religiously active. Possible explanations may include the effect of intervening variables, such as the healthy behaviors, social support, or positive emotions often found among people who regularly attend religious services.

61: How did humanistic psychologists view personality, and what was their goal in studying personality?

The humanistic psychologists' view of personality focused on the potential for healthy personal growth and people's striving for self-determination and self-realization. Abraham Maslow proposed that human motivations form a hierarchy of needs; if basic needs are fulfilled, people will strive toward self-actualization and self-transcendence. Carl Rogers' person-centered perspective suggested that the ingredients of a growth-promoting environment are acceptance (including unconditional positive regard), genuineness, and empathy. Self-concept was a central feature of personality for both Maslow and Rogers.

56: Do different emotions activate different physiological and brain-pattern responses?

The large-scale body changes that accompany fear, and anger, and sexual arousal are very similar (increased perspiration, breathing, and heart rate), though they feel different. Emotions may be similarly arousing, but some subtle physiological responses, such as facial muscle movements, distinguish them. More meaningful differences have been found in activity in some brain pathways and cortical areas.

57: How are gestures and facial expressions understood within and across cultures?

The meaning of gestures varies with culture, but facial expressions, for primary emotions, such as happiness and fear, are common the world over, as Darwin's evolutionary theory explained. Cultures also differ in the amount of emotion they express.

64: Why has psychology generated so much research on the self? How important is self-esteem to our well-being?

The self is the center of personality, organizing our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Considering possible selves helps motivate us toward positive development, but focusing too intensely on ourselves can lead to the spotlight effect. High self-esteem is beneficial, but unrealistically high self-esteem is dangerous (linked to aggressive behavior) and fragile. Self-efficacy is our sense of competence. Rather than unrealistically promoting children's feelings of self-worth, it is better to reward their achievements, which leads to feelings of competence.

52: Why is the idea that some needs are more compelling than others a useful framework for thinking about motivation?

Theories such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs address the fact that some needs take priority. Although the order of this hierarchy is not universally fixed (as seen when people refuse to eat to make a political statement), worldwide surveys support this basic idea.

60: How do contemporary psychologists view Freud's psychoanalysis, and how has modern research developed our understanding of the unconscious?

Today's psychologists give Freud credit for drawing attention to the vast unconscious, to the struggle to cope with anxiety and sexuality, and to the conflict between biological impulses and social restraints, and for some forms of defense mechanisms. But Freud's concept of repression, and his view of the unconscious as a collection of repressed and unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories, have not survived scientific scrutiny. Freud offered after-the-fact explanations, which are hard to test scientifically. And research does not support many of Freud's specific ideas, such as the view that development is fixed in childhood. (We now know it is lifelong.) Research confirms that we do not have full access to all that goes on in our mind, though today's science views the unconscious as a separate and parallel track of information processing that occurs outside our awareness. This processing includes schemas that control our perceptions, priming, implicit memories of learned skills, instantly activated emotions, and stereotypes that filter our information processing of others' traits and characteristics.

62: How do psychologists use traits to describe personality?

Trait theorists see personality as a stable and enduring pattern of behavior. They have been more interested in trying to describe our differences than in explaining them. Using factor analysis, they identify clusters of behavior tendencies that occur together. Genetic predispositions influence many traits.

58: How do we respond and adapt to stress?

Walter Cannon viewed the stress response as a "fight-or-flight" system. Later researchers identified an additional stress response system in which the adrenal glands secrete glucocorticoid stress hormones, such as cortisol. Hans Selye proposed a general three-phase (alarm-resistance-exhaustion) general adaptation syndrome (GAS). Prolonged stress can damage neurons, hastening cell death. Facing stress, women may have a tend-and-befriend response; men may withdraw socially, turn to alcohol, or become aggressive.

55: How does social networking influence us?

We connect with others through social networking, strengthening our relationships with those we already know. When networking, people tend toward increased self-disclosure. People with high narcissism are especially active on social networking sites. Working out strategies for self-control and disciplined use can help people maintain a healthy balance between their real-world and online time.

62: What are some common misunderstandings about introversion?

Western cultures prize extraversion, but introverts have different, equally important skills. Introversion does not equal shyness, and extraverts don't always outperform introverts as leaders or in sales success. Introverts often experience great achievement; many introverts prosper.