whats on psychology test
prevention oriented
protective of what they have, fearful of failure, and vigilant about avoiding loss im going to be careful at camp fire, I don't want to start an fire, so im going to take certain types of woods.
sociocultural theory
the approach that emphasizes how cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members of a culture
cognitive development
the development of thinking, problem solving, and memory
self-actualization needs
the need to be the best one can be; at the top of Maslow's hierarchy, fully becoming the person you have the potential to become.
external locus of control
the perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate. external locus of control is the belief that your life is under the control of forces outside of you
Yerkes-Dodson Law
the principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases if high arousal (anxiety) gone get scared to take test, if low arousal (gone to take the test) you want optimal arousal so you can be able to perform with no panics or more effort.
abnormal psychology
the scientific study of abnormal behavior in an effort to describe, predict, explain, and change abnormal patterns of functioning
Conscientiousness
the tendency to be organized, responsible, and deliberate
Openness to experience
the tendency to be receptive to new or unconventional ideas
extraversion
the tendency to be socially outgoing
neutrocism
the tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and stress
Overweight BMI
25-29.9
Obesity BMI
30-39.9
cross-sectional design
A cross-sectional design is a research design in which people of different ages are compared to each other at the same point in time.
cross-sectional design
A cross-sectional study might make it look like digital literacy drops drastically across the life span, but that drop may be a cohort effect rather than true development. A longitudinal study, even though it takes many years, could eliminate the cohort effect (Cavanaugh & Whitbourne, 2003).
menarche
A girl experiences enlargement of her uterus, clitoris, and labia, and of course menarche: her first menstrual period. All of these changes to both primary and secondary sex characteristics are driven by the hormones that the pituitary gland produces.
Leptin
A hormone produced by adipose (fat) cells that acts as a satiety factor in regulating appetite. WHEN YOUR FULL
ghrelin
A hunger-arousing hormone secreted by an empty stomach
identity
A primary challenge of adolescence is figuring out who we are as individuals. Erik Erikson, a German psychologist whose developmental theories became prominent in the 1950s and 1960s (and remain influential today), focused extensively on this process of forming an identity: a person's stable sense of who he or she is. Actually, identity is just a small part of Erikson's psychosocial theory of development, which features eight stages that cover the entire life span (Erikson, 1950, 1959; Erikson & Erikson, 1998; Coles, 2000). Here, we'll focus on the stages most relevant to adolescence, but Table9.4 offers a description of all eight stages, from birth through late adulthood.
Homeostasis
A tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level
Teratogen
A teratogen is any substance that harms the embryo or fetus. Teratogens can enter the pregnant woman's body in many forms (Fryer et al., 2008): Drugs of abuse, like alcohol, nicotine, tobacco, or cocaine Prescription drugs, like the acne drug Accutane and many others Environmental pollution, like pesticides, mercury, and lead Diseases, like chickenpox, rubella, Zika, and some other viruses
arousal theory
A theory of motivation suggesting that people are motivated to maintain an optimal level of alertness and physical and mental activation.Arousal theory is a theory of motivation stating that you are motivated to obtain and maintain an optimal level of arousal. The term arousal is often used in a sexual context, but here it refers to a more general excitement or attentiveness. Actually, arousal is how some people explain the curiosity motivations we just discussed. Specifically, they say that curiosity allows you to stay at least mildly aroused in situations in which you might otherwise become completely bored.
social comparison
A third factor that promotes prejudice is social comparison: assessing yourself by determining how you measure up to other people. When you prejudge outgroups negatively, you seem better by contrast (Suls & Wheeler, 2012; Carrillo et al., 2011; Festinger, 1954). If you pigeonhole other people as dishonest, you seem more truthful; if you write other people off as lazy, you seem more energetic. Research has shown that we compare ourselves to other people in many ways, from our weight to our health to our looks to our relationship satisfaction (Corcoran et al., 2011; Buunk et al., 1990; Poran, 2002).
fixation
According to Freud, each psychosexual stage centers on a particular body part that is the focus of the child's life during that period (Freud, 1905). Kids typically move successfully through each psychosexual stage. However, when a problem arises, a fixation can occur: a lingering psychological problem directly related to unsuccessful experience of a particular psychosexual stage. A fixation tends to stay with a person long after the psychosexual stage is over, stirring up psychological problems (and possibly shaping personality) long into adulthood. It is like snagging your sweater as you walk past a doorway: You keep moving forward, but you're caught on something and you can't fully move on until you untether yourself
psychosexual stages
According to Freud, the experiences we have as young children shape our personalities. He placed special emphasis on the way our parents interacted with us in the earliest years of life. He divided these early years into phases called psychosexual stages: the five biologically based developmental stages of childhood during which personality characteristics are formed. Figure 12.3 presents all of these stages.
psychic determinism
According to Freud, the impact of the unconscious is so great that it can explain our actions that are otherwise unexplainable. In other words, "random" things we do aren't random at all. Instead, they are caused by unconscious thoughts, wishes, or urges. Freud called this idea psychic determinism: the belief that all thoughts and behaviors, even those that seem accidental, arbitrary, or mistaken, are determined by psychological forces. For example, consider Jason, a sales rep who has a big presentation today. As he gets into his car to head to the client meeting, he notices his shoe is untied. Jason takes his computer bag off his shoulder, sets it down, and ties his shoe. He then drives off, leaving the computer bag on the ground. Even if Jason can't come up with a conscious reason why he would do that (after all, he needs that laptop for his presentation), that doesn't mean there is no reason for it. According to Freud, the reason lies in Jason's unconscious (Cabaniss et al., 2011; Rycroft, 1968). Perhaps deep down, Jason is terrified about this presentation and desperately wants to avoid it. Or maybe he has some unrecognized hatred for his job. A blown presentation might get him fired and force him to find a new job, which may be exactly what he wants on some level.
cognitive development
According to Piaget's timetable, adolescents should have entered the last cognitive stage. The formal operational stage enables adolescents to think logically about all kinds of things, both tangible and abstract. Of course, anyone who has spent time around adolescents knows their thinking is far from fully developed, at least sometimes. Many adolescents think in ways that recall the egocentrism they exhibited when they were much younger children (Smetana & Villalobos, 2009; Elkind, 1967, 1985; Frankenberger, 2000; Somerville, 2013).
congruence
According to Rogers, the root of mental wellness is congruence: a match between your real self and your ideal self. People feel good when they are allowed to grow organically, according to their own natural tendencies. In our plant analogy, congruence happens when the sunlight comes from every direction. In human terms, congruence happens when you get unconditional positive regard from important people in your life, no matter how you behave. That doesn't mean, for example, that your mother and father approve of everything you do, but that they continue to value and appreciate you even when they may disapprove of a particular behavior of yours
Erickson psychosocial stages
Actually, identity is just a small part of Erikson's psychosocial theory of development, which features eight stages that cover the entire life span (Erikson, 1950, 1959; Erikson & Erikson, 1998; Coles, 2000). Here, we'll focus on the stages most relevant to adolescence, but Table9.4 offers a description of all eight stages, from birth through late adulthood. As the table indicates, each stage is characterized by a crisis
interpersonal attraction
After so much focus on people hurting each other, it's refreshing to remember that we often like or even love each other! Social psychologists place liking, loving, and any similarly warm and fuzzy reaction into the broad category of interpersonal attraction: the desire to enhance a relationship with another person. Lots of factors influence the attractiveness of one person to another, from nearness to sameness to beauty to the odds of being liked back. Let's consider them one by one.
Agreeableness
Agreeableness—the tendency to cooperate and comply with other people
metabolic rate
Amount of energy an animal uses in a unit of time; the sum of all the energy-requiring biochemical reactions.
ingroup
An ingroup is a social group to which you believe you belong ("us")
Embroyo
Around that point, we begin to use the term embryo: the prenatal human organism from about 2 weeks to about 2 months after conception.
projective personality tests
Assessments that present stimuli without a specified meaning to test takers, whose responses can then be interpreted to uncover underlying personality characteristics
behavioral theory of personality
Behavioral and social-cognitive theories of personality offer a perspective much more grounded in science than either psychodynamic or humanistic theory. The behavioral theory of personality emphasizes the influence of the environment and the importance of observable, measurable behavior.
fetal alchohol syndrome
By far, the most studied teratogen is alcohol (Jones & Streissguth, 2010). It is common knowledge that pregnant women should avoid alcohol, but the specific consequences are not as well known. The most hazardous consequence is fetal alcohol syndrome: a pattern of physical and behavioral abnormalities common in people whose mothers drank alcohol excessively during pregnancy. Fetal alcohol syndrome affects about 1 per 1000 children, but fetal alcohol effects—basically a less extreme version of fetal alcohol syndrome—affect another 9 per 1000. Fetal alcohol syndrome involves a number of physical abnormalities that include small size, both before and well after birth. There is also a distinct set of facial features, including small eyes, a thin upper lip, and a near absence of the groove between the bottom of the nose and the upper lip.
collective unconsciousness
Carl Jung was once so in line with Freud's way of thinking that Freud personally chose Jung as his successor, but their views eventually diverged so much Freud changed his mind (Bair, 2004; Shiraev, 2011). Among the big differences in their ways of thinking was the understanding of the unconscious. In contrast to Freud's notion that each of us created our own unique unconscious, Jung proposed the collective unconscious: common, inherited memories that are present in the minds of people of every culture. The idea is that the collective unconscious equips every person with basic, primal concepts (like a computer comes equipped with basic software) that have become central to human life throughout the ages (Jung, 1963).
cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by having an attitude that contradicts another attitude or a behavior (Figure 13.3). You may be familiar with "dissonance" in music: a pair of sounds that are not in harmony with each other, and can be unpleasant to experience. The same holds true for cognitive dissonance. We prefer for our attitudes (or our attitude-behavior combinations) to be in harmony with each other. At times, however, we sense that they are not, and that experience is indeed unpleasant. Like saying one thing when you believe another, it is an inner hypocrisy that demands to be resolved
cognitive symptoms
Cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia involve the disturbed, illogical ways that people with schizophrenia think. The behavior and speech of people with schizophrenia often seems blatantly disorganized and disordered to others (Keefe & Eesley, 2006). For example, people with schizophrenia often display loose associations, thoughts that proceed with little apparent logical connection from one to the next. People with schizophrenia may jump nonsensically from a casual comment about last night's baseball game to a harsh criticism of their neighbors to a list of their favorite foods. If there is an identifiable reason for jumping from one sentence to the next, it may be the sounds of the words rather than their meaning. Some psychologists use the word derailment as a synonym for loose associations, which offers a visual image of a train (of thought) going off the tracks.
Depressive and Bipolar Disorders
Depressive and bipolar disorders are the category of psychological disorders based on extreme moods or emotional states. Of course, some variation in mood is entirely normal. We experience good moods or bad moods every day, and we casually use terms like down or blue to describe our state of mind when things are not going well. There is a difference, however, between these common, passing struggles with mood and full-fledged depressive or bipolar disorders. For people with these disorders, the emotional experiences are so intense or long-lasting that they significantly disrupt daily life (Craighead et al., 2008; Klein et al., 2006). According to DSM, these disorders can occur in one of two specific ways: when a person becomes stuck at the low end of the mood range, where sadness prevails, or when a person skips over the middle range of mood and alternates between the lowest lows and the highest highs (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Let's focus on four specific disorders in this category: major depressive disorder, persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia), bipolar disorder, and cyclothymic disorder.
developmental psychology
Developmental psychologists conduct lots of cross-sectional studies and longitudinal studies (Card & Little, 2007). However, they also use other research methods, from observing babies and making educated guesses about their thoughts and feelings to using MRIs to see how the brain changes over time (Paus, 2009; Perrin et al., 2008; Bornstein, 1999). Regardless of how research is conducted, developmental psychologists often focus on a few big questions: stability versus change, stage development versus continuous development, and nature versus nurture (Lerner et al., 2005).
parenting styles
Developmental psychologists have done the same thing. While researchers acknowledge that each parent has his or her own unique approach, there are three big categories that capture most of them—authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative
conservation
During the preoperational stage, children's mathematical abilities bloom. However, through much of this stage, children continue to struggle with conservation, a mental operation in which an amount or quantity remains the same regardless of the shape it takes. One of Piaget's best-known observations involved a young child looking at two glasses filled with exactly the same amount of liquid. When one of those glasses was poured into a taller, thinner glass, a child who had not yet attained the ability to conserve would immediately (and mistakenly) say the new glass had "more" (because the liquid was higher in the comparison glass). Likewise, to a child who has not yet mastered conservation, a ball of dough becomes "more" when it is rolled out into a pizza crust (Martí, 2003).
Schema
Each category, or box, according to Piaget, is a schema: a concept or mental representation that guides the way you make sense of new information. Once the schema is in place, it can be reused indefinitely for new things you encounter
emotional regulation
Emotion Regulation Emotion regulation is your ability to manage the type, intensity, length, and expression of your own emotions. Of course, you're never in complete control of your emotions. For example, you can't force yourself to be happy when you hear about the death of a relative, or force yourself to be calm when a tornado siren shrieks. But you can have some control over your emotions. For example, you might try to hold back your sadness about your relative's death when other family members need you for support, or you might try to avoid panicking when you hear the tornado siren so you can calmly find safety. That ability to not let your emotions get the best of you is emotion regulation
psychosocial theory
Erikson emphasized that in addition to mediating between id impulses and superego demands, the ego makes a positive contribution to development, acquiring attitudes and skills that make the individual an active, contributing member of society
facial feedback theory
Facial feedback theory states that your brain can influence your emotions by monitoring your facial expressions. Researchers have tested this theory by having participants hold a pencil in their mouths in such a way that it forces either a pout or a smile and then asking them to rate the funniness of cartoons. Smilers rated the same cartoons as funnier than pouters, presumably because their facial expressions influenced their mood
eating disorder
For some people, weight and body image translate into attractiveness and self-worth. These people are especially vulnerable to eating disorders: the category of psychological disorders that involve significant disturbances in behaviors related to eating or food. Eating disorders, like other psychological disorders, range in severity. In some cases, they become so severe that the person with the eating disorder must stay for days or weeks in a hospital. There, mental health professionals work with physicians and dieticians toward the primary goal of ensuring that the person takes in enough calories to stay alive and healthy. Let's examine the three most common disorders within this category: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.
latency stage
Freud's fourth psychosexual stage was the latency stage, which lasts through the elementary school years, when puberty has not yet kick-started the child's sexual drive, and the child's energies are focused primarily on school and other tasks that have little to do with the sexual or bodily issues that are so prominent in other stages. (As the name of the stage implies, the child's sexuality is latent during this time.) As a result, there is relatively little of psychological consequence that takes place during the latency stage, and Freud deemphasized it in his writings
self-actualization
Imagine a new plant just peeking out of the ground in the spring. We assume this plant has an inborn tendency to grow, to blossom and bloom. Likewise, Rogers assumed you have an inborn tendency toward self-actualization: fully becoming the person you have the potential to become. To grow, the plant needs water and sunlight.
dizygotic twins
In contrast, the fraternal (or nonidentical) twins you know are dizygotic twins, with di- referring to the fact that they started as two separate zygotes—that is, two eggs fertilized by two sperm.
projective personality tests
In projective personality tests, clients respond to ambiguous stimuli in a free-form way. Projective personality tests are based on the assumption that the way you interpret what you see reveals something about your personality. You "project" your personality onto the world around you, especially when the world gives you room to make interpretations that may differ from those of others. Rather than forcing clients into a multiple-choice or true-false response, projective tests allow them to respond however they choose, with no restrictions (Tuber, 2012; Smith & Archer, 2008).
bystander effect
In some cases, it is because you're not the only one around. This is the bystander effect: the decrease in likelihood that you will help another person caused by the presence of others also available to help. Research on the bystander effect was triggered by the murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York, in 1964. According to news reports, Kitty was stabbed repeatedly over a half-hour period outside her own apartment building. Many of Kitty's neighbors watched the 3 A.M. crime unfold from their own apartments, hearing her cries for help the whole time. However, nobody intervened, and only some even called police. (The facts of the case, including the number of bystanders and the lack of help offered, have since come into question
locus of control
Julian Rotter, another important social-cognitive theorist, highlighted another kind of cognition that influences personality: locus of control, or your belief about how much control you have over what happens to you. The Latin word locus is the root of the word location, and according to Rotter, there are two locations for locus of control: within yourself and outside yourself
cyclothymic disorder
Many people with bipolar disorder experience extreme manic episodes like Terri, but some people describe milder episodes. In these milder cases, the ongoing up-and-down mood cycle can still interfere with daily life in significant ways, particularly when the ups and downs continue for a prolonged period. DSM has a different diagnostic label for this experience: cyclothymic disorder, a long-term, lower-intensity version of bipolar disorder. Essentially, cyclothymic disorder is to bipolar disorder what persistent depressive disorder is to major depressive disorder—the same core symptoms, but less intense and longer lasting. A person with cyclothymic disorder alternates between emotional ups that aren't quite manic and emotional downs that aren't quite depressive for 2 years or more (Ketter & Wang, 2010; Newman, 2006; Stewart et al., 2006).
hierarchy of needs
Maslow's pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must first be satisfied before higher-level safety needs and then psychological needs become active
secondary sex characteristics
Most of them involve secondary sex characteristics: the parts of the body that characterize sexual maturation but are not directly involved in reproduction. For example, in girls, hips widen, breasts develop, and body fat increases in certain areas. In boys, shoulders broaden, facial hair grows, muscles develop, and the voice deepens. In both, height surges, underarm and pubic hair appears, and acne does too, at least for some.
stranger anxiety
Of course, they did cry at times when mom left or when the stranger spoke to them. All babies exhibit stranger anxiety, the fear of unfamiliar people that emerges in children at about 8 months of age. But when securely attached babies got upset, the crying was relatively brief and ended quickly when mom returned. T
stereotypes
Once a prejudice is in place, it produces stereotypes: beliefs about a group's characteristics that are applied generally, and often inaccurately, to group members. Prejudice is a general bias toward the group as a whole; stereotyping is a specific application of that bias to a person within the group. For example, Justine's prejudice against older adults becomes a stereotype when she meets 65-year-old Hannah and presumes that Hannah is forgetful before giving Hannah a chance to prove otherwise.
primary sex characteristics
Other changes that are not as apparent to the outside observer involve the primary sex characteristics: the parts of the body directly involved in sexual reproduction, such as genitals, ovaries, and testes. For example, a boy's penis and testes enlarge, and he experiences his first ejaculation
social role
Our attitudes are also shaped by our sense of who we are and what we are supposed to do. Our attitudes and ultimately our actions are often influenced by our social role: a title, position, or status that carries expectations for acceptable behavior. The power of the social role is often most evident right after our role changes. When a person becomes something new—a college graduate, an employee, a parent, a boss, a retiree—he or she often feels a new pressure to behave as someone with that label should behave (Hogg et al., 1995; Stryker & Statham, 1986). A recent college graduate starts to rethink the clothes he wears and the music he listens to, eventually graduating to something a bit more "grown-up." A woman who becomes pregnant begins to reconsider her eating habits, swears off alcohol altogether, and suddenly views her subcompact car as far too unsafe. After all, she's now in a position of being doubly responsible.
attribution
Our thoughts about other people frequently focus on why they behave as they do. We develop an attribution: an explanation of the cause of behavior. A single behavior can generate a wide range of attributions. For example, imagine yourself in line at a coffee shop. As you wait to order, you see a woman walk in, stroll past the line, straight over to the "Pick Up Orders Here" counter, grab a coffee and go. You ask the person in front of you, just to make sure: "Did she really just steal a cup of coffee?" When he confirms that he saw the same thing, you wonder: "Why?"
Personality
Personality is a person's distinctive and stable way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It is the psychological equivalent of your fingerprint: a unique set of characteristics that differentiates you from other people and stays with you long-term. For example, if you've ever gotten together with a friend or relative you haven't seen in years, you can appreciate what personality means. In spite of the time apart, the person rarely surprises you. There may be some superficial changes—a new haircut, a few pounds gained or lost, some wrinkles—but rarely are there changes in who the person is. Personality is stable. People's tendencies, their predispositions, their singular way of interacting with the world are generally the same as they have always been.
positive symptoms
Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are experiences that are present or excessive in people with schizophrenia but largely absent in people without it. Positive symptoms are the most visible signs of schizophrenia, especially delusions and hallucinations.
objective personality tests
Psychologists use a wide variety of personality tests, but they are generally categorized as either objective or projective personality tests. In objective personality tests, the client responds to a standardized set of questions, usually in multiple choice or true-false format. Typically, these are pencil-and-paper tests (although some can be taken on computers as well) in which clients read a list of brief statements about their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. After each statement, the client marks the response that best describes him or her (Morey & Hopwood, 2008). The response options are often true-false, or a broader range of agreement, such as strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. The scoring of objective personality tests is straightforward and can often be done by computer.
social loafing
Related to choking is social loafing: a decrease in individual performance when tasks are done in groups. The difference between choking and social loafing is that choking takes place when we feel we are being watched and evaluated by an audience, but social loafing takes place when we simply find ourselves in a group of people that is collectively responsible for the task (Karau & Williams, 1993; Latané et al., 1979; Ingham et al., 1974). Think about group projects you've worked on with classmates for which all members of the group will receive the same grade. Or when you and your siblings were collectively told to clean up the house, with no individual chores assigned. Those are the kinds of situations much more likely to produce social loafing—slacking off, basically.
fundamental attribution error
Research on attribution theory has repeatedly found that the way we explain the behavior of other people tends to differ from the way we explain our own behavior (e.g., Ross, 1977; Gilbert & Malone, 1995). Specifically, we often commit the fundamental attribution error: overestimating the importance of traits and underestimating the importance of the situation when explaining the behavior of other people. Basically, when I do it, it is because of the situation around me, but when you do it, it is because of who you are (Funder & Fast, 2010; Ross & Nisbett, 1991). Driving behavior offers some common examples: I'm speeding because the traffic made me late, but he's speeding because he's reckless; I ran the red light because the light is malfunctioning, but she ran it because she's absentminded; I talk on my phone while driving because it's an important call, but you talk on your phone while driving because you're irresponsible. For our own behavior, we can often identify many extenuating circumstances that caused us to behave as we did. For ourselves, "it's complicated." For others, we assume it is simple: their personality traits explain it all.
incongruence
Rogers believed that this incongruence—a mismatch between your real self and your ideal self—leads to unhappiness and mental illness. People experiencing incongruence feel like they can't be true to themselves but instead must edit themselves to gain others' approval (or even pretend to be someone they are not). For example, the third-grader who plays hockey to win dad's affections when he would much rather be practicing his violin; the teenager who does drugs to impress her friends even though she doesn't really want to; the actor who auditions not because she enjoys acting but because her family pushed her into the field—all of these people will eventually sense a disconnect between who they really are and who they are acting like (Cain, 2010). (Think about that lopsided plant imagining, longingly, how it would feel to have all of its branches blooming.)
Scaffolding
Scaffolding is a process by which a person (like this child) learns new words, ideas, and ways of thinking by interacting with a more advanced person (like this adult) who provides decreasing levels of help. Scaffolding was an idea of Lev Vygotsky, who believed that children's cognitive development was primarily influenced by nurture, or interactions with others. By contrast, Jean Piaget believed that children's cognitive development was primarily influenced by nature, or biologically determined stages.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a severe psychological disorder in which the person exhibits bizarre disturbances in thinking, perception, feelings, and behavior.
secure attachment
Secure attachment. These babies appeared the most stable and well adjusted. When mom was present, they were comfortable enough to explore the new toys and interact with the stranger. In general, these babies seemed to use mom as a secure home base. For the most part, they felt comfortable straying from that secure home base as long as they knew they could return to it. Of course, they did cry at times when mom left or when the stranger spoke to them. All babies exhibit stranger anxiety, the fear of unfamiliar people that emerges in children at about 8 months of age. But when securely attached babies got upset, the crying was relatively brief and ended quickly when mom returned. Thankfully, most American babies develop secure attachment (Figure 9.8).
self-transcedence needs
Self-transcendence needs were added to Maslow's hierarchy of needs long after it was originally proposed (Maslow, 1969, 1971). They involve needs beyond the self, often involving religious or mystical transformation or a connection to something larger than the self.
freudian theories
Sigmund Freud attracted many disciples, many of whom became well-respected personality theorists themselves. Some knew Freud personally; others came along after his death. Their neo-Freudian theories revised, but did not entirely reject, the basics of Freud's original psychodynamic theory. Freud's followers held on to his core ideas: the unconscious, the significance of early childhood experiences, and the notion that the mind contained id, ego, and superego. However, his followers let go of some of his ideas too. They deemphasized the biology that was so prominent in Freud's theories, such as the id's bodily drives and the explicit sexuality of the phallic stage
Obedience
Solomon Asch had a graduate student, Stanley Milgram, whose own research in social psychology became even more widely known than that of his mentor (Prislin & Crano, 2012). Milgram studied obedience: changes in an individual's behavior to comply with the demands of an authority figure. Obedience differs from conformity in important ways. We conform to groups of peers, whose status is equal to ours. We obey superiors, who hold positions of power over us (Hogg, 2010). Milgram's obedience studies focused on following orders.
Assimilation
That classification process is assimilation: making sense of new information by sorting it into already existing schemas. Of course, sometimes an item doesn't fit into an existing schema, or a schema needs to be subdivided or redefined (Gelman & Kalish, 2006).
empirical test construction
The MMPI-2 was made by a process known as empirical test construction: a way to create objective personality tests in which items are included only if different groups respond differently to them. The authors of the MMPI-2 originally came up with more than 567 items. Then they gave all the items to people with and without psychological diagnoses. If people with a particular disorder answered an item one way but people without the disorder answered it the other way, the authors considered that item a keeper. This method of test construction is different because items only make the cut if the empirical data—say, a large percent of depressed versus nondepressed people who say "true" to an item—indicates that the item distinguishes one group from another
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) is a widely used and respected objective personality test that emphasizes mental disorders. It was originally created in 1943; the second edition came out in 1989. It is used with adult clients, but in 1992, a separate version for adolescents (MMPI-Adolescent, or MMPI-A) was published (Butcher & Williams, 2009; Williams & Butcher, 2011). In 2008, a shortened version of the adult form (MMPI-Restructured Form, or MMPI-RF) was also offered (Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008).
genital stage
The fifth and final psychosexual stage is the genital stage, which lasts from puberty through adulthood and focuses on mature, adult sexual relationships. Freud believed that the personality is already set by the time a person enters the genital stage. Freud believed that people who had navigated successfully through the earlier stages (especially the first three) would have the greatest chance of success, which he defined as a long-term romantic relationship with an opposite-sex partner. Those who had become fixated would, by contrast, struggle.
Zygote
The first term is zygote: the prenatal human organism from the moment the egg is fertilized by sperm to about 2 weeks. Zygotes don't always reach the embryo stage. (In many of these cases, the woman will not know she conceived.) Among the zygotes that do survive, a few divide into two (for reasons we don't completely understand). Each of these new zygotes develops into a separate embryo, fetus, and eventually, baby.
jigsaw classroom
The jigsaw classroom is a strategy for reducing prejudice by giving each student in a diverse group an essential part of the solution to a problem that must be solved via group interaction. Essentially, the jigsaw classroom forces students who are different from each other to cooperate on a shared project, and their success hinges on each student's participation. For example, a group of diverse science students is learning about the parts of a cell. Each student is assigned to become an expert on a particular part of the cell (nucleus, mitochondria, cell wall, protoplasm, etc.). For the group to be successful, they must share and integrate what each has learned. Such an interdependent assignment requires the students to work as partners toward a collective goal—something they might not otherwise do during the regular school routine. Jigsaw classroom exercises have been found effective in a wide range of educational settings, from young children to adult learners
ego
The job of the superego—to counteract the ongoing stream of powerful id impulses—is certainly a difficult one. This rivalry between the id's drive for gratification and the superego's restraint makes for never-ending conflict within the mind. Freud believed this conflict was managed by the third component of the mind, the ego: the part of the mind that serves as a realistic mediator between the id and superego. The ego makes compromises. Its task is to find ways to satisfy both the id and the superego, while also meeting the demands of the real world (Gabbard, 2005). The ego works according to the reality principle: the force that guides a person toward rational, reality-based behavior (Fodor & Gaynor, 1950).
puberty
The most observable sign that childhood is ending and adulthood is on the horizon is the beginning of puberty, the time period featuring physical changes that mark the onset of adolescence and enable sexual reproduction. You know from your own experience (and your biology or sex ed classes) the outward hallmarks of puberty
dissociative identity disorder (or DID),
The most widely known and sensational dissociative disorder is dissociative identity disorder (or DID), in which a person exhibits two or more distinct personalities. (It is perhaps better known by its former name, multiple personality disorder.) Instead of having a single coherent "self," a person with dissociative identity disorder has two or more selves that are not integrated. These are entirely separate selves that seemingly share nothing other than the body in which they are located. These personalities typically alternate, with only one operating at a time. The shifts from one personality to the next are often sudden and unpredictable, and the contrast between personalities is often striking. When any particular personality is in control, the person finds it difficult or impossible to remember any details, or even the existence, of the other personalities. Most people with DID also experience a more general memory impairment for events that took place before the onset of DID (Lilienfeld & Lynn, 2003). For example, some have no recollection of long periods of their childhood.
groupthink
The obvious goal for the city council just described is to make a wise decision, but another goal (often unspoken) is for the group to be cooperative toward each other. Usually, both goals can be accomplished, but if cooperation starts to outweigh wise decision making, we get groupthink: a phenomenon that occurs when group members value getting along with each other more than finding the best solution. If this happened in the city council meeting, there is a good chance that the first suggestion—"Let's get the kids a new playground!"—will be met by one "yes" after another. Eventually, the group is unanimous and happy, and the meeting is adjourned. Never mind that the police force needed that new car much more desperately than the kids needed a new playground. Pushing for the new police car would have caused a clash at the meeting, and that's to be avoided at all costs when groupthink is involved.
mania
The other pole is mania, an emotional state of excessively elated mood and overabundant energy (Johnson et al., 2009; Miklowitz & Johnson, 2008; Miklowitz & Craighead, 2007). There are two variations of bipolar disorder, distinguished largely by the intensity and length of the mania experience. Bipolar I disorder features full-fledged manic episodes that last at least a week and cause significant impairment in daily functioning; in bipolar II disorder, the mania symptoms are typically briefer and less debilitating (and are called hypomanic episodes rather than manic episodes).
altruism
The purest motivation for prosocial behavior is altruism: completely unselfish concern for others. Earlier in this chapter, we recognized the extent to which aggression comes naturally to human beings. Thankfully, altruism seems to come naturally too. After Hurricane Sandy hit the New York and New Jersey area in October 2012, thousands of people offered their displaced neighbors a place to stay and food to eat. Within 3 weeks, the American Red Cross had received $145 million in donations from around the world (Ellis & Anthony, 2012). Speaking of the Red Cross, over 9 million people donate blood every year (http://www.redcrossblood.org/learn-about-blood/blood-facts-and-statistics).
sensorimotor stage
The sensorimotor stage is the first stage in Piaget's theory of development, from birth to about age 2, when babies understand the world through sensory experience. Babies know something is real by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, or tasting it. That direct experience is crucial because babies can't yet imagine or remember much. For example, consider how babies learn about Cheerios—their taste, texture, color, size, and shape. They don't yet have the brainpower to imagine Cheerios when they're not around or understand someone's description of Cheerios. Babies need to see the Cheerios with their eyes, feel the Cheerios on their fingers, and taste them with their tongues. They need to interact with Cheerios in direct ways to appreciate those crunchy little circles.
social cognitive theory of personality
The social-cognitive theory of personality emphasizes the interaction of environment, thought processes, and social factors.
bipolar disorders
The term bipolar refers to the two poles of mood. Picture them as the North Pole of elation and the South Pole of sadness. We all experience mood swings that take us back and forth between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere, but most of us rarely stray far from the equator in the middle. Some people, however, don't spend much time in the middle at all. These people may have bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression): a psychological disorder characterized by alternating between extremely high moods and extremely low moods. As Figure 14.4 illustrates, their emotional state fluctuates back and forth from elation to sadness, and with little explanation or control over the shifts from one emotional extreme to the other
Trait theory of personality
The trait theory of personality emphasizes the discovery and description of the basic components of personality. All other personality theories attempt to explain why personality develops the way it does. By contrast, trait theory attempts to explain what personality is made of (John et al., 2008). Many of the other personality theories, especially psychodynamic and humanistic, rely heavily on speculations about the inner workings of the mind that can't be empirically proven or disproven. Trait theory—especially the five-factor model (or Big Five), which we will examine in detail—has emerged in recent decades as a more scientific alternative. For that reason, while research on some other approaches to personality has dwindled in recent decades, research on trait theory has flourished.
accommodation
We deal with these situations by using accommodation: making sense of new information by revising or creating new schemas.
social exchange theory
Whether the altruistic motivation is pure or not, people provide help to others all the time. Social psychologists have put forth a number of theories to explain why people help others. One explanation is social exchange theory: the comparison of benefits and costs to the individual for helping. This explanation emphasizes what you get out of the helping behavior in comparison to what you give away. Imagine Scott and Lori, a couple out on a dinner date. They leave the restaurant with their leftovers boxed up. Outside the restaurant, they pass a homeless person. Scott gives the leftovers to the homeless person—a truly kind act, but not without some benefit to Scott. As he recounted to his friend the next day, "That box was gonna spill all over my car. Plus, Lori smiled and told me I was sweet when I did it." By helping, he lost half an order of pasta but kept his car clean and got a compliment from his girlfriend—not a bad exchange for Scott.
monozygotic twins
You know these pairs as identical twins, but the more scientific name is monozygotic twins, with mono- referring to the fact that they started as one zygote
self concept
Your self-concept is your view of who you are. The way important people in your life treat you, particularly how they respond to your self-actualization tendencies, has tremendous power in shaping that view of yourself. For example, the conditions of worth that others place on you become conditions of worth that you place on yourself (Rogers, 1959; Hattie, 1992). Think again about the fifth-grader whose dad pushes him to excel at hockey despite the boy's lack of passion for the game. The condition he has learned from dad (You're a worthy person only if you continue to pursue sports over the arts) is likely to become a rule he will apply to himself (I'm a worthy person only if I continue to pursue sports over the arts). By the same token, someone who receives unconditional positive regard (You are a good person no matter what) is likely to internalize that message and have unconditional positive self-regard (I am a good person no matter what).
flow
a completely involved, focused state of consciousness, with diminished awareness of self and time, resulting from optimal engagement of one's skills. (intrinsically motivated)
instinct
a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned
promotion orientation
a concern with advancing oneself and aspiring for gains at camp fire its a great opportunity to see things, high expectations
inartistic motivation
a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake
peak experiences
according to Maslow, times in a person's life during which self-actualization is temporarily achieved. a moment of self actualization that produces strong, mystical, feelings of personal fulfillment.
drive-reduction theory
approach to motivation that assumes behavior arises from physiological needs that cause internal drives to push the organism to satisfy the need and reduce tension and arousal
abnormal behavior
behavior that is deviant, maladaptive, or personally distressful over a relatively long period of time
content
chap 9,8,12,13,14,
instinct theory
focuses on genetically predisposed behaviors
Achievement Goal Theory
focuses on the manner in which success is defined both by the individual and within the achievement situation itself
Achievement Goal Theory
focuses on the manner in which success is defined both by the individual and within the achievement situation itself a theory of motivation stating that when the person is motivated to achieve a goal, certain goals (mastery goals) produce better outcomes than other goals (performance goals).
mastery goals
goals framed in terms of increasing one's competence and skills for Spanish class going to speak it meaningfully with others and appreciate the language and the culture surrounding it.
longitudinal design
longitudinal design is a research design in which the same group of people is compared to itself at different points in time (Table 9.1). As an example, consider Dr. Kirk, a developmental psychologist who is interested in how digital literacy—basically, how tech-savvy a person is—changes as people get older. The quickest way to answer that question would be for Dr. Kirk to design a cross-sectional study in which she measures the digital literacy of people who are 10, 30, 50, and 70 years old right now. The quickness of the study is the main upside of the cross-sectional design. It provides an immediate answer to the research question without having to wait until people actually get older.
permissive parenting
A permissive parenting style is an approach to parenting in which parents place minimal demands on children and allow them to run their own lives. These "whatever" parents either lack the time or energy to involve themselves in their children's lives, or choose to indulge them by agreeing to everything they want. When the new 16-year-old driver goes out on a Saturday night, his permissive parent either tells him to stay out as late as he wants, or says nothing at all.
social responsibility norm
A third theory of helping is the social responsibility norm: the notion of duty to help those who need it, regardless of any potential payback to the helper. According to the social responsibility norm, you help because you are supposed to, period. It is your job as a citizen of your city, country, or the world to take care of other people who can't take care of themselves. New York City Police Officer Lawrence DePrimo illustrated the social responsibility norm when, on a particularly frigid night, he bought a brand-new pair of boots for a homeless, barefoot man. He explained: "It was freezing out and you could see the blisters on the man's feet...I said, I don't care what the price is. We just got to help him out" (Kim, 2012).
Rorschach inkblot technique:
An assessment instrument that resembles this abstract art scenario is the Rorschach inkblot technique: a projective personality test in which the client responds to 10 inkblot images. Created in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist, it is administered in two phases. In the first phase, the psychologist shows the client each inkblot and asks what the client sees. In the second phase, the psychologist asks the client for an explanation of each response—What was it about the inkblot (its color, its shape, etc.) that made the client offer that response? Later, the psychologist codes the client's responses and calculates a variety of scores to describe the client's personality (Weiner, 2004; Exner, 1986).
attitude
An attitude is a viewpoint, often influenced by both thoughts and emotions, that affects your responses to people, things, or situations. Attitudes (often called preferences by social psychologists) land somewhere between what you know and how you feel (Banaji & Heiphetz, 2010; Petty et al., 1997, 2009a). Consider your attitude toward capital punishment (the death penalty). It certainly consists of more than mere facts, such as whether capital punishment decreases crime rates, or the financial costs of capital punishment versus life in prison. It is also certainly more than pure emotion, such as your gut reaction to the idea of a convicted criminal being put to death. Instead, your attitude is a hybrid of thoughts and emotions, both informed by facts and infused with sentiment.
authoritarian parenting
An authoritarian parenting style is an approach to parenting in which parents require children to obey unquestionable strict rules. These "because-I-said-so" parents demand compliance without explanation and with the threat of harsh punishment. When an authoritarian dad tells his 16-year-old newly driver's-licensed son that he must be home by 9 P.M. on a Saturday, there is no negotiation, no discussion, no debate. There is just a respectful "Yes, sir" because any resistance would bring about punishment.
authoritative parenting
An authoritative parenting style is an approach to parenting in which parents set rules, but also explain and negotiate those rules with their children. These "here's why" parents are much more engaged in their kids' lives than permissive parents, but not as inflexibly controlling as authoritarian parents. They provide firm boundaries and limits for their kids and exert power at times when parents should. However, these authoritative parents also explain their rationale and consider their kids' input when making decisions. In short, they raise their kids through balance of clout and cooperation. When the 16-year-old driver of an authoritative dad heads out on a Saturday night, dad might tell him to be home by 10:30. When the son explains that the movie won't end until 10:45, dad extends the deadline to 11, but reminds his son that he'll be grounded if he is late.
internal locus of control
An internal locus of control is the belief that your life is under the control of forces inside of you,
outgroup
An outgroup is a social group to which you believe you do not belong ("them"). Each of us identifies with many ingroups; for example, Michelle Obama may consider herself part of the ingroups of Americans, African Americans, women, wives, moms, Christians, Chicagoans, and first ladies.
anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa (often called simply anorexia) is an eating disorder based on a refusal to eat enough food to maintain a minimally normal body weight, based on the person's height and age. This refusal to eat usually starts with a distorted view of one's own body as fat. Additionally, people with anorexia typically base their self-image on their physical appearance, with thinness at the top of the list of desirable physical qualities. People with anorexia are shockingly thin—sometimes to the point that they risk starving themselves to death—but refuse to eat adequately because they wrongly see themselves as overweight (Keel & McCormick, 2010; Steiger & Bruce, 2009).
transitive reasoning
Another achievement of the concrete operational stage is transitive reasoning (Halford & Andrews, 2006). You might remember from a math class that the transitive property goes like this: if A equals B, and B equals C, then A must equal C. In the concrete operational stage, kids come to understand this mathematical version, as well as other versions of transitive reasoning. For example, if Ms. Alexander is as tough a science teacher as Mr. Barker, and Mr. Barker is as tough as Ms. Crawford, then Ms. Alexander must be as tough as Ms. Crawford.
group polarization
Another common occurrence in group decision making is group polarization: the tendency for a group's attitudes to become more extreme as a result of group discussions. For example, at first, a group of neighbors kind of lean toward a particular candidate for mayor, but then become that candidate's most hardworking campaigners after several chats on the subject. At first, a group of people are kind of prejudiced, but then become even more prejudiced after sharing their opinions with each other (Myers & Bishop, 1970; Myers & Lamm, 1976).
fetus
For the remainder of the pregnancy, we say fetus: the prenatal human organism from about 2 months after conception to birth.
peripheral route persuasion
is a persuasion strategy that emphasizes factors other than the message's content Advertisers have undoubtedly made you familiar with both persuasion strategies. However, when you see a TV commercial for another car that simply pairs the car with a hot celebrity or trendy music, the advertisers are using peripheral route persuasion. The first ad, because of its direct approach, is more likely to be effective in the long run, especially if it gets the viewer to think about the advantages mentioned in its message.
central route persuasion
is a persuasion strategy that emphasizes the message's content For example, when you see a TV commercial that directly explains the advantages of a particular car—good gas mileage, high safety rating, plenty of leg room—the advertisers are using central route persuasion
display rules
t is important to keep in mind the idea of display rules: norms within a group about the acceptable verbal and nonverbal expression of emotion.
Course Objectives
38. Describe relevant theories and research on prenatal development, temperament, and early childhood devel-opment and compare, contrast, and evaluate the viewpoints of major developmental theorists including the fol-lowing: 9. Outline the basic principles of psychoanalytic/psychodynamic, humanistic, social-cognitive, behavioral, and trait theories of personality. Compare and contrast these theories. 10. Identify major objective and projective personality tests and evaluate them based on the characteristics of a good psychological test in terms of reliability, validity, standardization and norms. 11. Compare and contrast various criteria that can be used to identify a person's behavior as "abnormal." De-scribe the current classification system and its strengths and weaknesses. 12. Compare and contrast the major theories on the etiology of psychological disorders, including psychoanalyt-ic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, biological and sociocultural. 13. List the major characteristics of anxiety disorders, mood disorders, dissociative disorders and eating disor-ders. Identify the specific disorders that are grouped in each
low-ball technique
A final persuasion strategy used both on the sales floor and in day-to-day interactions is the lowball technique: a persuasion strategy in which one person quotes another person a low price to get an initial agreement and then raises the price. Car dealers are notorious for lowballing customers—luring them in to the dealership with a low advertised price and then nonchalantly adding hundreds or thousands for undercoating, delivery, and various mysterious fees. It happens elsewhere too. A friend moving to a new apartment invites you to help him move his couch and promises free pizza as a reward. You agree, but once you finish with the couch, he asks for help with the bed, the furniture, the TV, and the dozens of boxes of clothes, books, and other stuff. Hours later, sweaty and exhausted, you realize that you've worked much harder and longer than expected to earn that "free" pizza.
Kinship Theory
A fourth theory of helping is more evolutionary in nature. Kinship theory emphasizes the importance of passing your genes on to future generations. To whom would you be most likely to donate a kidney? For most of us, a relative would definitely outrank a stranger, and the closer the relative, the higher they are on our list. The tendency to help family first is evident throughout the animal kingdom. Bees, ants, and termites routinely give up their own lives for the sake of their colonies of relatives (Crawford, 1998; Hamilton, 1964). We similarly feel the impulse to help when doing so could benefit someone who carries at least some of our genes, such as our siblings, children, or cousins. By helping them survive, we help part of ourselves survive (Van Vugt & Van Lange, 2006; Neyer & Lang, 2003). Even if it is not a life-or-death situation, some impulse to help kin remains, which can extend to those with whom we feel a closeness. Good friends and adopted relatives essentially qualify as family somewhere deep in our minds, whether or not we share genetic material
preoperational stage
After the sensorimotor stage comes the preoperational stage, from about age 2 to about age 7, when children can use language and other symbols for real objects but still can't complete many mental operations. This is the period when kids develop the ability to represent things in their mind. They are no longer as dependent upon actual direct sensory experience. One sure sign of the preoperational stage is pretend play, which takes place when kids assign fictional roles to people (telling a friend, "You be the mommy and I'll be the little girl...") or give fictional powers to objects (singing into a hairbrush as if it is a microphone) (Müller & Racine, 2010; Müller, 2009). In each of these cases, the child demonstrates the ability to break free of the literal meaning of an object and instead imagine that the object is something or someone else.
Recriprical Determinism
Albert Bandura, the most prominent social-cognitive theorist, argues that your personality involves an ongoing interaction of multiple forces (Bandura, 1977a, 1986, 2001). He calls this idea reciprocal determinism: the theory that three factors—your behavior, your environment, and your cognitions—continually influence each other. Figure 12.5 illustrates this interaction. Notice the double-sided arrows between all three boxes in the figure. These indicate that the relationships between behavior, environment, and cognitions are two-way streets—in other words, they all affect each other. As an example, consider Yolanda, who decides to get in shape by taking a boot-camp exercise class at a nearby gym. According to Albert Bandura's concept of reciprocal determinism, your thoughts, your environment, and your behavior all influence each other
impression formation
All relationships begin with impression formation: the initial appraisal, or "first impression," that a person makes of another person. You know from firsthand experience how quickly you form impressions of other people, and how strong those impressions can be. Imagine meeting a woman at a party. Within seconds, you've gathered a massive amount of information (Kelley, 1950; Eiser, 2012; Uleman & Saribay; 2012). You realize that this information—her clothes, her hairstyle, her attractiveness, her age, her voice, the way she carries herself—is all superficial and preliminary. You don't really know her, but you can't help but to start form an opinion.
personal fable
Another example of egocentrism in adolescence is the personal fable: a common way of thinking among adolescents in which they believe themselves to be special or invulnerable. It is as if the adolescent is the hero in a fairy tale that can only have a happy ending, despite the fact that this is real life, in which tragic endings happen too. In fact, kids whose thinking includes the personal fable (as well as other egocentric tendencies) engage in more high-risk behaviors than other kids (Greene et al., 2000; Alberts et al., 2007). For example, the personal fable can convince adolescents that my car won't crash if I text while driving or I won't get suspended if I steal the chemistry exam from my teacher's desk. In addition to underestimating the chances of bad endings, the personal fable can sway adolescents toward overestimating the chances of good endings. For example, the high school sophomore who's a second-string offensive lineman on the JV football team but is certain that he is a lock for the NFL, or the eighth grade girl who couldn't sing or dance well enough qualify for her middle school talent show but has no doubt she is the next Beyoncé.
theory of mind
Another hallmark of the preoperational stage is the child's development of theory of mind: the understanding of the thoughts, feelings, intentions and other mental activities of oneself and others. Simply put, kids in the preoperational stage gain an ability to "get inside the head" of other people (and themselves) that they did not have when they were younger (Carpenter, 2011; Lewis & Carpendale, 2011; Meltzoff, 2011; Perner, 1999; Wellman et al., 2003). Their language certainly reflects this newfound ability, as they use words to refer to mental events—like want, think, and feel—increasingly during this period (Wellman, 2011; Bartsch & Wellman, 1997). The preoperational stage is when children achieve a sense of conservation, or the understanding that an amount or quantity remains the same regardless of the shape it takes. Before developing a sense of conservation, children (like this girl) commonly make the mistake of assuming that a substance becomes "more" or "less" according to its size or shape.
Scrape goat theory
Another rationalization for prejudice is the scapegoat hypothesis: the notion that prejudice can be fueled by the need to find someone to blame. By pawning off negative characteristics onto other groups, we try to convince ourselves that we couldn't have any such negative characteristics. History is full of examples of such scapegoating, including the blame that Germans wrongly piled on Jews during the Holocaust and the blame that Americans wrongly piled on Muslims after the attacks of September 11, 2001. More recently, some have argued that certain American politicians scapegoat Hispanics, particularly those who immigrated illegally, as being solely responsible for high levels of unemployment and other economic woes within the country (Hohmann, 2012). Such scapegoating overlooks the complexity of the U.S. economy and promotes prejudice toward Hispanics.
reciprocity norm
Another theory of helping is the reciprocity norm: the expectation that those who provide help will receive help in the future. Remember why Bill Withers invites you to "Lean on Me": "...for it won't be long 'til I'm gonna need somebody to lean on." You may be the one providing help now, but you'll be the one seeking it in the future, so it can't hurt to bank some good will. The key difference between the reciprocity norm and social exchange theory is how certain the repayment is. In social exchange theory, the repayment happens right away—it's a sure thing. When you bank on reciprocity, however, you're taking a chance that if you help others, they'll return the favor in the future. Restaurant servers who bring candies or mints with the bill know all about the reciprocity norm. As Figure 13.9 shows, providing this small gift can increase tips by 20% (Strohmetz et al., 2006). Special interest groups who donate to a candidate's fundraising efforts and poor people (usually in big cities) who voluntarily clean the windows of stopped cars are also hoping that their act of kindness prompts a payback.
attribution theory
Answers to that question could span a wide range, but social psychologists believe that they fall into two distinct categories. These two categories are specified by attribution theory: a theory that behavior is caused either by traits within the individual or by the situation surrounding the individual. Sometimes people are driven to behave a certain way because of who they are—their personalities or dispositions, essentially—but other times people are driven to behave a certain way by temporary factors that are outside themselves (Malle, 2006, 2011; Kelley, 1973; Heider, 1958). For example, if we attribute the coffee bandit's behavior to enduring qualities within her—she's cheap, crazy, or a thief—we're pointing at her personality traits. But maybe there's a better explanation based on her situation. Perhaps she's on a new prescription medicine that is causing confusion and erratic behavior. Perhaps she ordered and paid before you came in, then ran out because she saw a friend on the sidewalk, before returning for her coffee. Either of these explanations point to her situation, not her disposition.
antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder is a psychological disorder based on a disregard for, and violation of, the rights of other people (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Patrick, 2007). In this diagnosis, antisocial does not mean that a person prefers not to be social, or would choose to stay home alone rather than go to a party. Instead, antisocial means antisociety—a threat to society and the people living in it. Essentially, having antisocial personality disorder is like having no conscience, particularly regarding the welfare of others. To someone with antisocial personality disorder, other people are tools to be used for one's own benefit, with no concern or empathy for what happens to those people in the process.
Schater-Singer Two-Factor THeory
As an alternative example, consider Ronnie, a high school basketball player taking the court for a big game immediately after finding out that a scout from a local college team is in the crowd to check him out for a potential scholarship. Ronnie notices that his heart is pounding, and (unconsciously and instantly) wonders why. The options are many: shock (from just learning about the scout), nervousness (about the stakes of his performance in this particular game), exhilaration (about the opportunity to earn a college scholarship), or irritation (that he didn't get any advance notice about the scout). It is not the physical reaction itself, but the label that Ronnie places on it after he notices it, that determines how he experiences it mentally.
Trust vs. Mistrust
As the table indicates, each stage is characterized by a crisis. If the crisis is successfully met, it produces a virtue that can benefit the person from that point forward. For example, in the infancy stage (0-18 months), Erikson identifies the crisis as trust versus mistrust. Babies can't take care of themselves, so they have to rely on other people for their every need: to feed them, keep them warm, change their diapers, respond to their cries, and so on. Their experience during these early months teaches them whether they can depend upon, or trust, other people. If it is a positive experience, they emerge with the virtue of hope, or a sense that things will work out and other people will come through for them.
personality disorders
As we discussed in Chapter12, your personality is your unique way of behaving, thinking, and feeling—and personality traits are stable across long periods of time. In some people, however, these longstanding traits are the very qualities that are disordered. According to DSM, these people have personality disorders: the category of psychological disorders based on an enduring pattern of inflexible and maladaptive behavior that appears across a wide range of situations and interferes with interpersonal interaction (Sperry, 2016; South et al., 2011; Widiger & Lowe, 2010; Millon, 2004).
attachment
Attachment is a close emotional bond between two people, particularly a young child and a caregiver. Two researchers—John Bowlby and his one-time student, Mary Ainsworth—devoted their careers to the study of attachment between children and parents. Their work forms the foundation of our understanding of the subject (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1965; Bowlby, 1969, 1973; Ainsworth, 1989). Their research was based on the notion of the critical period: a period of time during which a particular developmental task is especially likely to be influenced by outside events. Of course, there are all kinds of critical periods. For example, the fetus is especially vulnerable to teratogens during pregnancy when particular parts of the body or brain are forming. The focus for these researchers, however, was the critical period of a baby's first months of life for attachment to caregivers.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder emerging in childhood that features significant problems with attention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, or both. Symptoms must be present before the age of 12 (even if the diagnosis comes later) and must occur in at least two settings, such as school and home. For some people with ADHD, the main problem is inattention: They are easily distracted or sidetracked, struggle to listen effectively, forget things easily, and make careless mistakes. For other people with ADHD, the main problem is hyperactivity or impulsivity: They have trouble staying seated or still, waiting their turn, and preventing themselves from interrupting others' words or actions (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Roberts et al., 2015).
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autism spectrum disorder is a disorder emerging in childhood that features significant social interaction deficits and rigid, repetitive patterns of behavior. Autism spectrum disorder was introduced in DSM-5 as a combination of several disorders that were listed separately in previous editions of DSM, including autistic disorder and Asperger's disorder. The inclusion of the word spectrum in the name of the disorder reflects the fact that its severity can vary greatly from one child to another. (It is also the root of the term on the spectrum, often informally used to describe children with this diagnosis.) Symptoms of autism spectrum disorder typically appear before the child turns 2 years old (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Matson et al., 2013).
binge eating disorder
Binge eating disorder is an eating disorder with the overeating pattern of bulimia but without the purging. Binge eating disorder is an appropriate diagnosis for people who binge on food at least once a week for 3 months but do not engage in calorie-subtracting behaviors like self-induced vomiting, overexercising, using laxatives, or fasting. Like people with bulimia, people with binge eating disorder feel a lack of control over their eating, and often choose to binge alone to avoid embarrassment. Binge eating disorder has been informally recognized by clinicians for many years, often as a variation of bulimia, but it became an official disorder of its own with the release of DSM-5 in 2013 (Fairburn et al., 2000; Kessler et al., 2013; Hudson et al., 2012).
borerline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a psychological disorder based on instability in many areas of the person's life, including interpersonal relationships, mood, and self-image. For people with borderline personality disorder, everything is tumultuous—their view of themselves, their relationships with others, and their emotional reactions to the world around them. As a result of this instability, life feels chaotic and uncertain, as if things could change drastically at any moment, not only for the person with borderline personality disorder but for others around that person as well (Hooley & St. Germain, 2008; Paris, 2007). A leading expert in the disorder, Marsha Linehan, explains it this way: People with borderline personality disorder are "the psychological equivalent of third-degree burn patients. They simply have, so to speak, no emotional skin. Even the slightest touch or movement can create immense suffering" (Linehan, 1993, p. 69).
bulimia nervosa
Bulimia nervosa (often called simply bulimia) is an eating disorder in which an individual exhibits a pattern of overeating followed by drastic attempts to prevent weight gain. Originally, bulimia was considered a variation of anorexia, but for decades it has been recognized as a distinct disorder (Russell, 1979). People with bulimia are overly concerned about their weight, but find themselves trapped in a pattern of binging and purging (rather than flatly refusing food, as people with anorexia do). They overeat (binge) and then try to undo that overeating by quickly subtracting those calories from their bodies (purge). The overeating episode feels out of control and involves eating far more than others would eat in the same situation, at least once per week for 3 months. Often, the foods that people with bulimia choose to binge on are high-calorie sweets, like cakes, cookies, or ice cream. Also, people with bulimia often feel quite embarrassed by their binges, and only do so when they are alone or can hide the evidence (wrappers, packages, etc.). The most common form of purging is self-induced vomiting, but other forms include excessive exercise, misuse of laxatives or other medications, and temporary fasting (Sysko & Wilson, 2011).
ideal self
By contrast, the ideal self is the self-actualized version of yourself that you naturally strive to become
Cannon-Bard Theory
Cannon-Bard theory is a theory of emotion stating that you experience emotion by simultaneously becoming aware of bodily changes and feelings. So, rather than the physical part of emotion hitting you first and the mental part hitting you next, they hit at the same time. In our example, seeing water spill onto your smartphone would simultaneously produce the conscious experience of fear in your mind and produce the heart rate, breathing, and muscle changes in your body. Cannon and Bard, who were physiologists and tested their theory by experimenting on the brains of cats, explained that their theory reflected the important role of the thalamus within the brain (Bard, 1934). Specifically, the thalamus is where the processing of the image of the stimulus—in this case, water spilling onto your phone—divides into two separate and simultaneous streams, one that heads toward the cerebral cortex to produce the conscious experience of fear and another that heads toward the hypothalamus to produce the bodily changes
diffusion of responsibility
Cases like Kitty Genovese's continue to occur. Some are smaller crimes against individuals (a purse is snatched, a car is broken into), but others are large-scale crimes against humanity (genocides, country-wide oppression of women or exploitation of children). Why do some people choose to stand by and do nothing? The reason may involve a diffusion of responsibility: a decreased sense of obligation to help when others are present. People presume that others will take care of it, and dismiss any sense of obligation. The larger the group, the greater the diffusion of responsibility, and the lower the chances that people will help.
conventional morality
Conventional morality is a moral decision-making strategy driven by the desire to follow society's norms and laws. In this stage, what's right is what puts you in line with your culture's expectations of you. You make decisions to ensure that others will approve of you and you realize that the system would fall apart "if everyone did it."
Cognitive Appraisal Theory
Cognitive appraisal theory is a theory of emotion stating that what you think about a stimulus causes the emotion. The key difference between this theory (developed largely by Richard Lazarus) and other theories of emotion is that it deemphasizes physical reactions. Unlike the other three theories we have considered, the definition of cognitive appraisal theory doesn't mention bodily or physical reactions. A criticism of the cognitive appraisal approach centers on the notion that thought must take place before emotion.
common group identity
Common group identity is a strategy for fighting prejudice based on the creation of a larger group that includes multiple smaller groups. Think of the U.S. Men's Olympic basketball team. Members of different professional teams—players who typically view each other as opponents—come together to play for a bigger common goal. They are no longer the Warriors versus the Cavaliers, or Kevin Durant versus Kyrie Irving. The antagonism disappears as competitors become teammates to form a single team representing their country.
major depressive disorder
Danny's experience vividly illustrates major depressive disorder: a psychological disorder in which a person experiences at least 2 weeks of depressed mood and a loss of interest in most activities. Major depressive disorder goes by many other names among mental health professionals and the general public: clinical depression, unipolar depression, or simply depression. Although major depressive disorder has many possible symptoms, its cornerstone is sadness—an unshakable, persistent, relentless sadness that pervades all parts of the person's life. Activities that used to bring pleasure now bring none. Weight changes are common, either because the person has little appetite or because they become unusually inactive while eating more than usual. Sleep is also frequently disrupted—sometimes more, sometimes less than normal. Energy levels, physical activity, and the ability to concentrate tend to dwindle, while feelings of worthlessness and thoughts of death often increase
Delusions
Delusions are completely false beliefs that a person with schizophrenia believes to be reality. It doesn't matter that no one else in the person's family or culture holds those beliefs, or that they seem magical or peculiar to others, or that they defy logic. In spite of all of this, the person with schizophrenia accepts these beliefs as completely legitimate, usually without questioning them at all. For example, one man with schizophrenia believed that the streetlights (and presumably the people who control them) were communicating directly with him, threatening him as he drove under them. When his family members tried to convince him otherwise, he not only refused to believe them, but suspected that they were in on the streetlights' plot (McLean, 2003).
developmental psychology
Developmental psychology is the study of the changes to body, mind, and interpersonal interaction that people experience across the life span.
Dissociative amnesia
Dissociative amnesia occurs when a person becomes unable to recall important information from their past. Essentially, they blank out regarding a particular period of their lives. In most cases, dissociative amnesia represents a gap in an otherwise intact memory, and almost always, the gap includes something horrific that happened to (or perhaps was done by) the person with the disorder. As an example, a person involved in a terrible car wreck may be unable to recall anything from the day of the accident. Or, a person who violently attacks a loved one may have no recollection of the episode (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).ociative occurs when a person becomes unable to recall important information from their past. Essentially, they blank out regarding a particular period of their lives. In most cases, dissociative amnesia represents a gap in an otherwise intact memory, and almost always, the gap includes something horrific that happened to (or perhaps was done by) the person with the disorder. As an example, a person involved in a terrible car wreck may be unable to recall anything from the day of the accident. Or, a person who violently attacks a loved one may have no recollection of the episode (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
Dissociative disorders
Dissociative disorders are the category of psychological disorders in which the person loses awareness of, or becomes disconnected from, essential parts of the self such as memories, emotions, or identity. When people dissociate in this way, they lose touch with some component of their own mental processes to such an extent that their day-to-day lives are significantly impacted. Their minds become fragmented rather than integrated, with certain facets seemingly split off from others (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; van der Hart & Nijenhuis, 2009).
emotion
Emotion is all aspects of feeling, including changes to the body, behavior, and consciousness. Notice that the letters mot in the word emotion also appear in the word motivation. Both words come from the same root, which means to move. The purpose of emotion is to move you, to stir you into action (Solomon, 2008; Frijda, 2008). That action may be obvious, like when joy makes a child run and hug a parent returning from a military deployment.
Theories of Emotion
Emotions are both mental and physical experiences. Consider sadness, for example. One of my psychotherapy clients, Cody, had an appointment with me the day after the death of his dog, who had provided 12 years of loving companionship. Cody tried to describe what was going through his mind: He was enduring pure despair, thinking about how much he would miss her, and remembering great times they shared. But he also communicated his sadness through tears, a headache, and physical exhaustion that made him look like he was dragging himself around. His sadness saturated not just his mind, but his body as well.
identity vs. role confusion
Erikson identified the challenge for adolescence as identity versus role confusion (Erikson, 1959, 1968; Marcia, 1966, 1980; Côté, 2009). Our aim during those years is to develop an answer to a fundamental question: Who am I? (see Table 9.4). That answer, of course, stems from answers to many more specific questions, each crucial to a person's individuality: Who am I in terms of religion? Ethnicity? Politics? Sexual orientation? Career? Style of dress? Social group? Music, sports, and other interests? At first, the options can seem overwhelming, especially as we begin to look beyond our immediate family and see the vast range of choices available not just among our peers but among people across the country or the world. We may "try on" a variety of these options during adolescence, only to replace each one quickly with another. Society seems to allow for these temporary phases of identity during adolescence, at least to a greater extent than if they took place later. For example, a teenager who goes through a new look, a new set of friends, and a new passion every few months probably just gets an eye roll and a head shake from friends and family, but an equally fickle 35-year-old gets more serious disapproval. Erikson called this tolerance of rapidly shifting identities a moratorium, suggesting that we suspend judgment of adolescents as they work their way through this process of identity formation.
menopause
For women, a hallmark of middle adulthood is menopause: the time in a woman's life when she stops having menstrual periods. The average age for menopause is 51, but it can take place as early as the upper 30s or as late as the upper 50s (Gold et al., 2001; Morabia & Costanza, 1998). Menopause is associated with a drop in estrogen levels and other physical changes that vary from woman to woman, including hot flashes, fatigue, and stomach and heart irregularities. Typically, these changes do not cause severe or lasting disruption to the woman's life.
identification
Freud believed that success in the phallic stage was marked by identification, in which the child models himself or herself after the undefeatable same-sex parent. Simply put, the child realizes that the parent they desire is already "taken" by the other parent, who is too powerful a foe to overtake. The child then adopts the attitude, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." The boy decides to become a protégé of daddy; the girl decides to become a protégé of mommy. That way, the boy and the girl can develop into adults much like their same-sex parents, and eventually find a special opposite-sex partner of their own.
unconsious
Freud contributed many important concepts to the field of psychology, but one of the most essential is the unconscious (also known as the unconscious mind): mental activity of which the person is unaware. The term unconscious is commonly used today, but it was a radical idea at the time Freud introduced it (Kernberg, 2004; Lane & Harris, 2008). In Freud's time, people didn't recognize that there are activities going on inside our minds that are outside our awareness. And these unconscious activities—thoughts, impulses, wishes, and the like—are not meaningless or negligible. They drive us, influence our thoughts and actions, and affect our lives (Kris, 2012; Karon & Widener, 1995).
anal stage
Freud's second psychosexual stage is the anal stage, which lasts from about age 18 months to about age 3, and focuses on the psychological consequences of toilet training. Toilet training is all about control. For the first time, children are expected to control this natural bodily function rather than just letting it happen as they did when they wore diapers. Actually, toilet training is just one of many new demands for self-control placed on kids this age. They are also expected to sit still, be quiet, and behave much more appropriately than they did as babies
Hallucinations
Hallucinations are false sensations or perceptions. Hallucinations are sounds, images, scents, or other physical sensations that the person with schizophrenia experiences even though those sensations do not exist in reality (Castle & Buckley, 2008; Guillin et al., 2007). The most common type of hallucination is auditory, often described as "voices." Hearing voices is quite different from the common experience of a train of thought or even a two-sided argument going back and forth within your mind. Instead, during an auditory hallucination, the person with schizophrenia hears the voice as entirely separate. The voice is like another person talking to them, but the person with schizophrenia can't recognize that the voice is in fact coming from within their own head. They have a hard time dismissing what these voices say, and often respond to them aloud, which can strike observers as odd or disturbing.
Schater-Singer Two-Factor THeory
In truth, participants received an injection of epinephrine, which (as you recall from Chapter2) is essentially adrenaline and is used in EpiPens to increase breathing rate and heart rate for people having allergic reactions. Some participants were told that the "vitamins" would have "side effects" (the actual effects of epinephrine), but others received no such information. Then, the participants waited in a room with another person, supposedly another participant who had received the same injection, but actually an actor pretending to be either euphoric (playing games and acting excited and happy) or angry (complaining and refusing to do what the researchers had requested). Twenty minutes later, participants were asked how they felt. Those who had received the accurate "side effect" information attributed any physical sensations to the injection they had received. But those who had received no "side effect" information described feelings that matched those of the actor with whom they shared the room. If the injection made the "other participant" euphoric, the real participant was likely to report feeling euphoric, and if the injection made the "other participant" angry, the real participant was likely to report feeling angry (Schachter & Singer, 1962; also see Cotton, 1981). The main point here is that when physical sensations are ambiguous, they are open to interpretation. That interpretation can lead to a wide range of labels and subsequent mental experiences of emotion.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Inkblots are not the only things ambiguous enough to allow people's personalities to come through. Interpersonal scenes—basically, pictures of people without any caption—can serve the same purpose. That is the approach taken by the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) : a projective personality test in which the client creates stories in response to cards that show people in undefined situations. The stories a client tells may include what's happening in the scene, what led up to it, what may happen next, and what the people in the scene are thinking or feeling (Morgan & Murray, 1935; Murray, 1943; Ackerman et al., 2008). The administration of the TAT is not standardized. The psychologist can choose any cards and present them in any order. Scoring processes also vary widely, and in many cases, the psychologist simply makes subjective interpretations of the client's stories rather than scoring them in any systematic way (Moretti & Rossini, 2004).
insecure-avoidant attachment
Insecure-avoidant attachment. These babies didn't seem to care much when mom left, and they avoided her when she returned.
insecure-resistant attachment
Insecure-resistant attachment. These babies got quite upset when mom left, and they didn't entirely welcome her return. They had a mixed reaction involving both seeking out mom and angrily resisting the comfort she offered.
intergroup contact
Intergroup contact is a strategy for fighting prejudice based on direct interpersonal interaction between members of multiple groups. People who hold strong prejudices against certain groups have, in many cases, never even met someone from that group. When they do, those prejudices often dissolve (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). To illustrate, researchers followed 2000 White, Asian, Latino, and African American students through their college years. They found that first-year students with more outgroup friendships showed less anxiety about outgroups, as well as less ingroup bias, by the end of college (Levin et al., 2003). The same researchers also found that students who had a first-year roommate of a different ethnicity were less prejudiced about that ethnicity, and usually about other ethnicities as well, by the end of college than students who shared the same ethnicity as their first-year roommate (Laar et al., 2005).
James-Lange Theory
James-Lange theory is a theory of emotion stating that you experience emotion by noticing bodily changes first and then interpreting them as particular feelings. The James in James-Lange theory is William James, whom you remember from Chapter 1 James wrote one of the earliest psychology papers about emotion, which argued that the physical sensation comes first and that the sensation is followed by the feeling (James, 1884). How does James-Lange theory explain the fear you feel when water spills on your smartphone? It says that first, your heart starts pounding, your breathing quickens, and your muscles tense up. After that bodily reaction, you become consciously aware of the emotion, and your mind feels fear. The key here is that your physical reaction, and your awareness of it, trigger the mental reaction.
flat affect
One specific negative symptom of schizophrenia is flat affect, the absence of appropriate emotion. For example, a person with schizophrenia may be the only one who doesn't laugh during a funny movie or cry at a funeral. Instead, this person may stare vacantly, expressing no emotion through words or facial expressions. When people with schizophrenia do express emotion, it can be way off-base. For example, they might be angry at a drinking fountain, surprised by a flower, or joyful about a tornado.
Negative symptoms of schizophrenia
Negative symptoms of schizophrenia are behaviors that are lacking in people with schizophrenia, but that are usually present in people without the disorder. In general, negative symptoms don't draw as much attention as positive symptoms, but their impact on day-to-day functioning can be quite strong. Usually, negative symptoms involve a withdrawal from life's activities, especially interpersonal interaction and emotional involvement. People with schizophrenia often find themselves disengaged, not only from others, but from their own emotions as well.
behavioral assessment
Objective and projective personality tests both try to uncover something within the person that is presumed to be at the root of their behavior—personality characteristics, traits, disorders. So why not simply assess the behavior itself? That's the rationale behind behavioral assessment: an approach to assessment that assumes client behaviors are themselves the problems, rather than signs of deeper problems. As its name suggests, behavioral assessment is typically conducted by behaviorists—the same psychologists who question whether anything as internal or stable as "personality" even exists. It makes sense that they would devise and use an assessment method that focuses on observable behavior itself rather than any possible "cause" or "source" of it, which couldn't be empirically proven to exist
longitudinal design
Of course, the longitudinal design has an upside too: higher validity, or a better chance of measuring what the study actually intends to measure (Little et al., 2009). If Dr. Kirk designed a longitudinal study, she would measure the digital literacy of people who are 10 years old right now, and then measure digital literacy of the same people again when they are 30, 50, and 70 years old. Your childhood was full of computers, tablets, and cell phones, but your grandparents' childhood wasn't. Computers were something they tried to get used to in midlife. Each generation moves through history at a unique point in time, and its members form a cohort whose experiences are unlike those of any other generation
door-in-the-face technique
Opposite to the foot-in-the-door technique is the door-in-the-face technique: a persuasion strategy in which one person gets another person to reject a large request before making a smaller one. In this case, the smaller request is the target that the first person has in mind from the beginning. The name of this term reflects the second person slamming the door in the face of the first person, only to reopen it when the more reasonable request follows. For example, a teenage girl who wants a $100 pair of shoes for her birthday might begin by asking her parents for a $300 pair. When they respond "Absolutely not!" her subsequent request for the $100 gift may seem much more reasonable by comparison.
foot-in-the-door technique
Other strategies for attitude change resemble sales tactics even more closely. The foot-in-the-door technique is a persuasion strategy in which one person gets another person to agree to a small request before asking for a bigger one.
social cognition
Our thoughts about other people strongly influence our feelings and behavior. Social psychologists use the term social cognition to refer to a person's thoughts about other people and the social world. In this section, we focus on forms of social cognition that social psychologists have studied extensively, including attributions, attitudes, and cognitive dissonance.
passionate love
Passionate love is characterized by arousal and desire, and often experienced early in relationships. Couples feeling passionate love burn for each other. They are smitten by the thought of each other, by being together, and are distraught at the thought of being apart (Hatfield & Rapson, 1993). Sometimes, couples who burn for each other burn out. But when they don't, their passionate love often evolves to a more mature love in which the raging fire becomes a steady warm flame
object permanence
Peek-a-boo doesn't work on you anymore because you developed object permanence: the ability to realize that an object continues to exist even when you can't see, hear, or otherwise sense it. Piaget argued that object permanence emerges around a child's first birthday, so it is lacking in the first part the sensorimotor stage (Piaget, 1936/1952, 1954). As evidence of young infants' lack of object permanence, Piaget pointed to his experiments in which he hid toys from children in simple ways (under a cloth, for example). The children who had not yet achieved object permanence didn't even look for the toy (remember, it is gone to them), but the older children did. The older children knew the toy continued to exist even if they temporarily couldn't see it.
in-group bias
People have a natural tendency to favor the groups to which they belong (Mullen et al., 1992; Brewer & Silver, 2006). Social psychologists call this ingroup bias: the tendency to hold a more positive attitude toward the ingroup than the outgroup.
Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development
Piaget believed that children's thinking progressed through distinct stages. According to his observations, kids stick with the same way of thinking for years, then shift to a new way of thinking in a very short time. He argued that these different stages were biologically determined and only minimally influenced by environment or experience. The idea is that kids around the world move through the same stages in the same order at around the same ages (Keil, 2006; Messerly, 2009; P. H. Miller, 2011). Table 9.3 offers a summary of Piaget's stages: the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage. Let's examine each in detail.
formal operational stage
Piaget's fourth and final stage is the formal operational stage, beginning around age 11 and lasting through adulthood, in which the person becomes able to think logically about abstract things. The key difference between this stage and the concrete operational stage is that mental operations don't need to be applied to concrete things. Mental operations can be theoretical, figurative, or conceptual. For example, during the formal operational stage kids develop the ability to appreciate political approaches (such as liberal or conservative), religious beliefs (not just visible objects and symbols of religion), and philosophical points of view. Think about your own experiences. You probably didn't start considering such issues, either in school or with family or friends, until you were well into middle school or high school.
concrete operational stage
Piaget's third stage is the concrete operational stage, from about age 7 to about age 11, in which children acquire the ability to think logically about concrete things. They master conservation completely. Also, their ability to perform mental manipulations on things, even when those things are just representations in their heads rather than real items in their hands, increases dramatically (Bibok et al., 2009). One such mental manipulation is reversibility, which involves an understanding of how certain pairs of mathematical calculations (addition-subtraction or multiplication-division) are opposite. Picture an 11-year-old girl who knows she had $40 cash in her room but who only counts $32.50 right now. She does a subtraction problem in her head to calculate that $7.50 is missing. Later, she finds the missing $7.50 in the pocket of the jeans she wore a few days ago. To know how much she has after this discovery, she doesn't need to recalculate that 32.50 + 7.50 = 40. Instead, she can jump immediately to the correct conclusion that she has $40 again, since she understands that addition reverses subtraction.
post conventional
Postconventional morality is a moral decision-making strategy driven by fundamental rights and ethical principles. The personal consequences of the decision, as well as how well the decision fits with society's preferences, take a backseat at this point. In this stage, what's right is what's right in the larger sense. You make decisions because ethical principles that steer all people toward such collective values as justice, dignity, and equality guide you to do so.
preconventional morality
Preconventional morality is a moral decision-making strategy driven by the potential rewards and punishments of the decision. In this stage, what's right is what maximizes benefit and minimizes hardship for you. You make decisions to serve your own needs.
conditions of worth
Problems arise when those around you don't provide unconditional positive regard, but instead impose conditions of worth, or requirements that you must meet to earn their positive regard. For example, some parents' love for their children depends on the grades they get, the sports they play, or the friends they choose. Because the parents' love and approval are so essential, the children will often meet their parents' conditions of worth, even if it means straying from the interests or passions that come naturally to them. Like a plant that only gets sunlight from certain directions, certain "branches" of the child flourish while others wither. So, a child may sacrifice an important part of their true self in order to maintain their parents' approval. Or as Rogers put it, the child's real self and ideal self would not match.
prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior is behavior intended to help others. Social psychologists have explored many questions surrounding prosocial behavior, but two of these questions—why people help others and why people don't help others—have received the most attention. The sections below cover both.
Schachter-Singer Theory
Schachter-Singer theory is a theory of emotion stating that the label you assign to your bodily reaction determines your mental reaction. (Schachter-Singer theory is also known as two-factor theory, with the two factors being your bodily reaction and your label for it.) When Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer created their theory in the mid-1900s, they pointed out that the physical component of many emotions is quite similar. For example, consider the physical reactions we've been discussing in our example about water spilling on your phone: increased heart rate, rapid breathing, and tensed muscles. So far, we've tied those physical reactions to fear, but they are actually so generic that they could signal any number of emotions: excitement, anger, surprise, and more.
Freudian slip
Sometimes, that unconscious material makes itself evident through errors in your words or actions. Psychologists call such leaks Freudian slips: verbal or behavioral mistakes that reveal unconscious thoughts or wishes. If you're a fan of Jennifer Aniston's old TV show Friends, you know that her character, Rachel, and Ross (played by David Schwimmer) have had strong feelings for each other since the sitcom began. When Ross is marrying another woman (Emily), he absentmindedly calls her Rachel during the wedding vows ("I, Ross, take thee, Rachel..."). As you can imagine, Emily doesn't laugh it off as if it were a meaningless mistake that Ross just happened to make at the altar. Emily knew exactly where the Freudian slip came from, as did everyone else at the wedding: Ross' unconscious, where he deeply wished that his bride were Rachel instead of Emily.
defense mechanisms
Sometimes, the compromises formed by the ego are quite simple: If the id wants to eat a big piece of cake, but the superego says no way, the ego says eat a smaller piece. Other times, the ego resorts to more creative methods to deal with id-versus-superego conflict. Freud and his followers (including his daughter, Anna Freud) identified a number of these defense mechanisms: techniques used by the ego to manage conflict between the id and superego. When a person leans heavily on a particular defense mechanism, it can influence or even dominate his or her personality (Dewald, 1964; Freud, 1905, 1936; Sandler & Freud, 1985).
self-efficacy
Speaking of cognitions, Bandura (1977b, 1982, 1997) emphasized one kind especially: self-efficacy, or your beliefs about your own capabilities. Yolanda's cognition—"I can do this"—reflects the importance of self-efficacy. If she left the first boot-camp classes overwhelmed and intimidated, thinking, "No way—this is too hard for me," she would be unlikely to return. But she did return, thanks to her belief that she could succeed. The key here is that Yolanda's self-efficacy (what she believes she can do) might be just as important as her actual physical ability or the difficulty level of the class. (I wonder if Bandura's parents read him The Little Engine That Could when he was a kid: "I think I can, I think I can...")
temperament
The child's behavior matters too. A major factor in the child's behavior is his or her temperament: the basic emotional responsiveness that characterizes a person throughout his or her life span. Ask any mom or dad with several kids and they'll tell you that kids are different from each other from the beginning. In their first days, way before the world around them has had time to exert any real influence, some kids are content and some kids are cranky. Some are easy to soothe, some endlessly fussy, some high-energy, and some relaxed. These qualities are biologically based, noticeable from an early age, and likely to form the foundation of the personalities that will carry through childhood and adulthood
Id
The first component is the id: the animalistic part of the mind that generates our most primal, biologically based impulses such as sex and aggression. For example, imagine a wild animal walking down the hallway outside your psychology classroom, a ferocious bear guided entirely by primal instinct. And it's hungry. How will the bear behave in response to its hunger pangs? Will it kindly ask a student for a small bite of his sandwich? Will the bear patiently slip a dollar into the vending machine? Absolutely not. The bear will devour the student's sandwich (and perhaps devour the student too). The bear will smash the glass of the vending machine, slash open the packages with its teeth and claws, and gorge on all of the chips, candy, and mini-donuts inside. And it certainly won't feel any need to apologize afterward.
oral stage
The first of Freud's psychosexual stages is the oral stage, which takes place from birth to about 18 months and focuses on the psychological consequences of feeding behavior. Babies experience much of the world through their mouths, and breastfeeding or bottle-feeding is a primary activity. Babies learn what to expect from others by the way their parents respond to their need for food. Most of the time, parents handle feeding just right, and babies learn they can expect to get food when they ask (cry) for it. However, if parents provide too much food too often, then babies may come to expect that others—friends, romantic partners, and so on—will do the same for them as they grow up.
humanistic personality theory
The humanistic theory of personality, based on the ideas of Carl Rogers, emphasizes our inherent tendencies toward healthy, positive growth and self-fulfillment. Rogers went to graduate school at a time when the psychodynamic view was dominant, but he (like many others) soon grew weary of Freud's negative view of human nature. He simply didn't see people as fueled by biological, id-based desires like sex, aggression, and an insatiable drive for instant pleasure. Rogers had a much more optimistic view of human nature and believed people to be driven by the desire to reach their full potential (Cain, 2010).
emerging adulthood
The idea was that adolescence is over and adulthood has begun by the time a person graduates, or certainly when he or she hits 20. But some developmental psychologists (Arnett, 2000, 2007) have made the claim for emerging adulthood: a recently proposed developmental stage during which the person gradually moves from adolescence to adulthood, typically during the late teens and twenties in modern Western cultures. As an example of emerging adulthood, consider Joshua, who went away to college for a couple of years after high school but returned to his parents' house at the age of 20. He continues to take classes at the local college on a part-time basis, and holds a part-time job as well, but still relies on his parents for money, food, and emotional support. Through his twenties, he occasionally moves into an apartment with friends, but only with his parents' backing. He typically moves back home after a short stint. He's now approaching 30, still striving toward self-sufficiency.
intimacy
The importance of the outcome of this identity versus role confusion stage is especially clear when you consider Erikson's next stage: intimacy versus isolation. Intimacy is long-term emotional closeness with a romantic partner. According to Erikson, the intimacy versus isolation stage is when young adults seek monogamous, loving relationships that will last a lifetime. Erikson believed that success at the young adult stage depended heavily on success at the adolescent stage: those who have formed a strong identity are most likely to form successful couples, while those still in a state of role confusion are most likely to struggle. (Would you want to marry someone still unable to commit to a single identity?)
psychodynamic theory
The psychodynamic theory of personality is an explanation of personality, based on the ideas of Sigmund Freud, that emphasizes unconscious forces and early childhood experiences. The study of personality was founded on Freud's psychodynamic theory. Developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Vienna, Austria, it came first historically and has been hugely influential in both academic and popular culture (Routh, 1996, 2011). In fact, many other personality theories were developed because the theorist was dissatisfied with psychodynamic theory (Engel, 2008; Hollon & DiGiuseppe, 2011). (A brief note on terminology—the word psychoanalytic is often used to refer to Freud's theories. Among Freudian scholars, there are distinctions between psychodynamic and psychoanalytic, but the two terms are generally equivalent for our purposes. For simplicity, we'll stick with psychodynamic.)
real self
The real self is the version of yourself that you actually experience in your day-to-day life.
phalic stage
The third psychosexual stage is the phallic stage, which runs from 3 to 6 years old and focuses on the psychological consequences of attraction to the opposite-sex parent. Freud believed preschool-aged children strive to have a special relationship with their opposite-sex parent, but see their same-sex parent as a rival. For boys, Freud called this the Oedipus complex: the childhood experience of desiring the mother and resenting the father. For girls, he called it the Electra complex: the childhood experience of desiring the father and resenting the mother. (Both terms are borrowed from Greek mythology.)
imaginary audience
They are so self-focused that they can only understand the world with themselves at the center of it. For example, many adolescents' thinking features an imaginary audience, in which they believe that their lives are continuously being watched and evaluated by other people. If thoughts like "What will people think?" or "I'm so embarrassed!" were prominent during your middle school and high school years, then you know all about the concept of imaginary audience. Often, these concerns are about trivial things—which shoes you wear with a particular outfit, who you sit with at lunch on a given day, whether your friends see you with your parents at the mall. But to adolescents, these events seem hugely important and often spark significant drama, as if a reality show crew is following them with cameras and boom mikes, broadcasting their lives to millions. Today, the not-so-imaginary audiences represented by Twitter and Instagram followers and Facebook friends no doubt reinforce adolescents' sense that their every move is being anticipated and scrutinized.
companionate love
This is companionate love: love characterized by deep commitment and affection, and often experienced later in long-term relationships. These companion couples still describe themselves as being "in love," but the love they share is different than it was when they initially dated: less exhilarating, perhaps, but more stable and secure (Sprecher & Regan, 2007; Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986).
behavioral genetics
Twin studies and adoption studies also indicate biological contributions to personality. Such research comes from the field of behavioral genetics: the study of the impact of genes (nature) and environment (nurture) on personality and behavior. Numerous studies of behavioral genetics have found that identical twins, who share all of the same genes, have a much higher likelihood of matching each other on many personality traits than fraternal twins, who share only some of the same genes
conformity
This is precisely the methodology used by Solomon Asch in his classic 1950s studies (Asch, 1951, 1955, 1956). Asch was examining conformity: changes in an individual's behavior to correspond to the behavior of a group of other people. In these studies, Asch made it seem like there was a roomful of participants. In reality, there was only one participant: you. The others were actors (confederates, as psychology researchers call them) whom Asch had instructed to provide answers to set you up for the decision about conforming. His findings were quite interesting. About 37% of the time, participants conformed. They went along with the group's opinion even when that opinion was obviously wrong. Only about 25% of participants never conformed to any of the 12 situations in which all the confederates answered incorrectly.
outgroup homogeneity
This misperception is called outgroup homogeneity: the assumption that all members of an outgroup are essentially similar. Social psychologists have argued that of these two biases, ingroup bias comes first, and that any outgroup homogeneity occurs only when that outgroup is perceived as a threat (Brewer, 2007; Stephan & Stephan, 2000). In other words, it is more about rooting for your own group to succeed than rooting for the other group to fail, unless the other group is directly challenging something your group holds dear, such as resources, values, or well-being. This is why most sports fans cheer for their own team to win much more often than they cheer for an opposing team to lose.
Superego
Those guidelines eventually become a built-in part of the child's mind. So, with the help of others, the child develops a superego: the part of the mind that opposes the id by enforcing rules, restrictions, and morality. A toddler who yanks a toy out of another child's hand may be told disapprovingly by a parent (or day care worker, or preschool teacher, or grandparent): "No, Steven. It's not OK to take toys away from your friends. Ask if you can have a turn with it next." As Steven hears comments like this repeatedly, they become part of his own standards of conduct—his own set of "shoulds"—which he carries with him regardless of who (if anyone) may be supervising him in a particular situation. Steven will behave properly not just to gain the approval of those around him, but to gain the approval of himself as well. In this way, Freud's concept of the superego matches the more common notion of the conscience, the internal monitor that tells us how acceptable our actions are.
psychosis
To describe this blatantly unrealistic way of perceiving the world, psychologists use the word psychosis: a significant impairment in the basic ability to tell the difference between the real world and imagination. As a result, people with schizophrenia often seem to have created their own personal fantasy world. They see things others don't see, hear things others don't hear, think things others don't think, and believe things others don't believe. In short, people with schizophrenia don't live in the same reality as those around them (Mueser & Duva, 2011; Lieberman et al., 2006).
social influence
To illustrate, imagine yourself spending a full week completely alone. You are absolutely inaccessible, with no contact (in person, on the phone, online) with anyone else. The difference between the way you would behave in such isolation and the way you behave in your usual, day-to-day life illustrates social influence: any way in which the presence of other people influences your thoughts, feelings, or behavior. Let's explore some ways that having others around you could cause you to conform, obey, or otherwise affect what you do.
positive self-regard
To self-actualize, you need what Rogers called positive regard: warmth, acceptance, and love from those around you. Rogers liked to use the word prizing as a less formal alternative to the term positive regard. Prizing captures the tender appreciation of another person (Rogers, 1959). For example, Rogers might say that Dinah, a grandmother, prizes her granddaughter Melissa: she cherishes Melissa without any kind of evaluation, simply because she is Melissa.
Five Factor Model of Personality
Today, the leaders of trait theory are Paul Costa and Robert McCrae, who have continued the work of identifying the underlying "supertraits" of personality that was started by Allport and Cattell. Their work, along with related work by other researchers, has produced the five-factor model of personality (also known as the Big Five): an explanation of personality that emphasizes five fundamental traits present in all people to varying degrees. So, decades after Cattell reduced Allport's list of 18,000 personality ingredients to only 16 clusters, Costa and McCrae further reduced it to just 5 traits (Costa & McCrae, 1985, 1992, 2008; McCrae & Costa, 2003, 2008; Widiger & Costa, 2012). The Big Five have received so much attention and generated so much research in recent decades that they have become absolutely central to the study of personality (McCrae & Costa, 1996; Digman, 1990). One researcher boldly stated that "most personality psychologists have come to agree that the Big Five are the basic dimensions of personality" (Hunt, 1993; italics added). Let's take a close look at those five traits here and in Figure12.6:
Discrimination
Together, these kinds of biased thinking cause discrimination: action based on prejudice or stereotypes toward a social group. Justine's prejudice and stereotyping toward Hannah produce discrimination when Justine visits the restaurant where Hannah works as a server and assumes that Hannah will make mistakes with Justine's food order. Prejudice and stereotypes occur inside the mind, and might remain unknown to others. Discrimination is a behavior that others can see (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2010; Allport, 1954). Prejudice is "Black people are dangerous." Stereotyping is "DeMarko is dangerous because he's Black." Discrimination is stepping off the elevator when DeMarko steps in.
traits
Trait theorists believe that our personalities, like oatmeal cookies, are all made from the same short list of ingredients. The aim of their research is to uncover those ingredients. They call these ingredients traits: stable elements of personality that influence thoughts, feelings, and behavior across most situations. Trait theorists assume that varying amounts of each trait account for differences in personality, just as varying amounts of each baking ingredient account for differences in taste. Trait theorists don't concern themselves much with how a particular trait develops over the course of a person's life. (That is a big difference from the psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral, and social-cognitive theorists who came before them.) Instead, they try to figure out exactly what those traits are, thereby understanding exactly what makes up human personality
agression
Two of the forces that most passionately draw human beings together are complete opposites of one another, aggression and interpersonal attraction. Aggression is behavior intended to cause harm or death. In interpersonal attraction, people who like or love each other feel a desire to enhance their relationship. Let's consider both in detail, beginning with aggression.
Egocentrism
Until kids develop theory of mind, their thinking is dominated by egocentrism: the inability to understand a situation from a point of view other than their own. Kids influenced by both egocentrism and theory of mind often show a blend of the two perspectives—they kind of see the world as others see it, but kind of see it their own way too. For example, 3-year-old Kenny's elderly grandfather slips and falls during a visit, breaking his hip. The adults try to make Kenny's grandfather comfortable until the ambulance arrives. Kenny does as well, giving his grandfather his own teddy bear and a Band-Aid, while saying "Here Grandpa, this will make it all better!" Kenny's theory of mind allows him to recognize the pain that his grandpa must be suffering, but Kenny's egocentrism limits him to considering what helps Kenny (and not what might help other people) to overcome pain.
Scaffolding
Vygotsky explained that often, a child's way of thinking was pushed along by scaffolding: a process by which a person learns new words, ideas, and ways of thinking by interacting with a more advanced person who provides decreasing levels of help. Consider two children of the same age who live in neighboring apartments, each working on a difficult jigsaw puzzle. The child in apartment A works entirely alone, but the child in apartment B interacts with a parent who is more expert in puzzles. The child in apartment B hears these comments in the process: "That can't be an edge piece. It doesn't have any straight sides." "That has to be a corner piece with its two straight sides." Notice that the parent doesn't do the puzzle for the child, but makes comments that nudge the child to use logic just beyond the child's current level of thinking. Just as scaffolding on a construction site provides a temporary way for people to climb to new heights, Vygotsky's scaffolding allows kids to climb to higher levels of cognition with the help of more advanced people (Langford, 2005; R. Miller, 2011).
incentive
a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior
mere exposure effect
What is it about proximity that causes people to become attracted to each other? Seeing them (often) may actually be the key. Social psychologists call this the mere exposure effect: an increase in the attractiveness of a person (or object) resulting from nothing more than repeated contact. Many studies point to the fact that we feel positive toward what is familiar—not just people, but things too, including shapes, words, photographs, songs, and sounds (Bornstein, 1989; Albarracín & Vargas, 2010; Zajonc, 1968; Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc, 1980).
Kohlberg Moral Development Theory
When Piaget examined the development of kids' thinking, he emphasized logical thinking. But logic is certainly not the only aspect of thinking that develops. Particularly around the adolescent years, moral thinking develops too (Moshman, 2009; Turiel, 2006, 2010; Helwig & Turiel, 2011). Lawrence Kohlberg, a psychologist from New York who was born in 1927 and died in 1987, extended Piaget's work by proposing a theory of moral development that has inspired many developmental researchers (Carpendale, 2009). Kohlberg's basic idea is that the way we think about moral issues—especially how we determine right and wrong—evolves as we move through childhood and into adulthood. Specifically, Kohlberg argues that we move through three stages of moral reasoning—preconventional morality, conventional morality, and postconventional morality (Kohlberg, 1984, 1973a, b, 1974; Kohlberg
just-world hypothesis
When individuals realize that they hold prejudices, they often try to rationalize them, or explain why they are justified in thinking that way. One such rationalization is the just-world hypothesis: the notion that the world is fair and that unfortunate events happen to those who deserve them (Dalbert, 2009; Lerner, 1965; Lerner & Miller, 1978; Hafer & Bègue, 2005). For example, consider Kevin, who hears that his neighbor Louisa lost her job. Kevin says to his brother, "I guess Louisa must have made a lot of mistakes at work." Kevin's assumption that Louisa caused the job loss, and his failure to consider that the job loss might have nothing to do with Louisa's behavior, illustrate the just-world hypothesis. Others who similarly "blame the victim" with "just-world" thinking often target members of particular ethnicities, genders, or age groups.
autonomous motivation
When people are self-motivated by intrinsic factors
extrinsic motivation
a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment
Body Mass Index (BMI)
a measure of body weight relative to height
attachment theory
a theory about how our early attachments with our parents shape our relationships for the rest of our lives
self-determination theory
a theory of motivation stating the strongest and healthiest motivations are those that come from within the person. If you do something you like, its not going to feel like its controlling you, if its controlling you its going to not fuel you to do it. first I was afraid to eat raw, now I love eating raw it became an intrustic motivation.
performance goals
goals framed in terms of performing well in front of others, being judged favorably, and avoiding criticism motivated to do what he needs to do to get a good grade in Spanish, going to attend class everyday, cram for tests.
Biological Theory
maintains that biological characteristics such as chromosomes, hormonal activities, and brain specialization account for gender differences
esteem needs
need for self-esteem, achievement, competence, and independence; need for recognition and respect from others getting good grades, excelling on sports to enhance your sense of self satisfies your esteem needs.
safety needs
need to feel that the world is organized and predictable; need to feel safe, secure, and stable if your alarm go of, or tornado come near, your going to instantly go to a safe place to feel back safe.
belongingness and love needs
need to love and be loved, to belong and be accepted; need to avoid loneliness and separation connect with other people, share their lives with family and friends, social bonds work hard to keep them.
psysiological needs
need to satisfy hunger and thirst, bathroom, sex,sleep when you have to instantly pee, thats all you think about getting that NEED MET.
persistent depressive disorder
peaking of duration, DSM also includes a separate disorder that shares the same core of sadness as major depressive disorder, but it is much longer-lasting. Persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia) is a psychological disorder characterized by a chronic, relatively low-intensity depressed mood. The diagnosis of persistent depressive disorder requires the symptoms to be present for 2 years rather than 2 weeks, and many people with persistent depressive disorder can't remember a time in their lives when they didn't feel blue. It is essentially a perpetual mild gloominess that eclipses any memories of happier times. Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, a native of Ghana and a poet, playwright, performance artist, and social activist, captures the essence of this disorder in her description of her own struggle:
regulatory focus theory
puts forward the notion that consumers orient their behavior either through a prevention or promotion focus
regulatory focus theory
puts forward the notion that consumers orient their behavior either through a prevention or promotion focus keep a balance of both, achieving regulatory fit
set point
the point at which an individual's "weight thermostat" is supposedly set. When the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight.
social cognitive theory
views prejudice as an attitude acquired through direct instruction, modeling, and other social influences For social-cognitive theorists, personality blends the behavioral emphasis on external conditioning and these mental activities that involve our interactions with others ("social") and our thought processes ("cognitive"). These social and cognitive ingredients are not as observable and measurable as strict behaviorists would prefer, but social-cognitive theorists recognize that they are powerful influences on personality.