Psych 270 - Exam 1

Psychoanalysis

Freud's orthodox form of psychotherapy that is practiced rarely today because of its time, expense, and questionable effectiveness in treating mental disorders - Freud viewed the tasks of psychoanalysis as promoting insight by uncovering the unconscious conflicts and motivations that cause psychological difficulties

Identity

Erikson's term or the broad definition of self; in his view, identity is the product of the adolescent struggle to answer the question "Who am I?"

Iatrogenic

Of or relating to illness caused by medical examination or treatment.

Classical conditioning

Pavlov's form of learning through association- a conditioned response eventually is elicited by a conditioned stimulus after repeated pairings with an unconditioned stimulus (which produces an unconditioned response)

Culture

bound syndrome-patterns of erratic or unusual thinking and behavior that have been identified in diverse societies around the world and do not fit easily into the other diagnostic categories that are listed in the main body of the DSM-IV-TR

Empathy

emotional understanding - involved understanding others' unique feelings and perspectives - highlighted by Rogers but basic to most forms of psychotherapy

Polygenic

caused by more than one gene - characteristics become normally distributed as more genes are involved in the phenotypic expression of a trait

Chromosomes

chainlike structures found in the nucleus of cells that carry genes and information about heredity- humans normally have 23 pairs

Hormones

chemical substances that are released into the bloodstream by glands in the endocrine system - hormones affect the functioning of distant body systems and sometimes act as neuromodulators

Neurotransmitters

chemical substances that are released into the synapse between two neurons and carry signals from the terminal button of one neuron to the receptors of another

Harmful dysfunction

a concept used in one approach to the definition of a mental disorder - a condition can be considered a mental disorder if it causes some harm to the person and if the condition results from the inability of some mental mechanism to perform its natural function

Developmental stages

a distinct period of development focused on certain central "tasks" and marked by boundaries defined by changing age or social expectations

Operant conditioning

a learning theory asserting that behavior is a function of its consequences - specifically, behavior increases if it is rewarded, and it decreases if it is punished

Hypothesis

a prediction about the expected findings in a scientific study

Diathesis

a predisposition to disorder - also known as vulnerability - only causes abnormal behavior when it is combined with stress or a challenging experience

Correlational study

a scientific research method in which the relation between 2 factors (their co-relation) is studied in a systematic fashion- has the advantage of practicality, as correlations between many variables can be studied in the real world, but also has the disadvantage that "correlation does not mean causation"

Dizygotic (DZ) twins

fraternal twins produced from separate fertilized eggs - like all siblings, DZ twins share an average of 50% of their genes

Lateralized

functions or sites that are located primarily or solely in one hemisphere of the brain (the left or the right)

Gene-environment interaction

genetic risk and an environmental experience working together to produce a given outcome - many psychological disorders are assumed to be caused by such combinations of genetic risk and difficult experience

Psychodynamic psychotherapy

an "uncovering" form of psychotherapy in which the therapist typically is more engaged and directive - the process is considerably less lengthy than in psychoanalysis

Humanistic psychotherapy

an approach that assumes the most essential human quality is the ability to make choices and freely act on them (free will) - promoted as a "third force" to counteract the deterministic views of psychodynamic and the behavioral approaches to psychotherapy

Developmental psychopathology

an approach to abnormal psychology that emphasizes the importance of normal development to understanding abnormal behavior

Rating scale

an assessment tool in which the observer is asked to make judgments that place the person somewhere along a dimension

Prevalence

an epidemiological term that refers to the total number of cases that are present within a given population during a particular period of time

Interpersonal therapy (IPT)

an evidence-based approach to treatment emphasizing the historical importance of close relationships to the development of both normal and problematic emotions and patterns of relating to others - used particularly in the treatment of depression, IPT uses the past to better understand and directly make changes in the present

Genotype

an individual's actual genetic structure, usually with reference to a particular characteristic

Actuarial interpretation

analysis of test results based on an explicit set of rules derived from empirical research

Random assignment

any of several methods of ensuring that each subject has a statistically equal chance of being exposed to any level of an independent variable

Couple therapy

partners who are involved in an intimate relationship are seen together in psychotherapy - improving communication and negotiation are common goals

Attributions

perceived causes; people's beliefs about cause-effect relations

Monozygotic (MZ) twins

identical twins produced from a single fertilized egg - thus MZ twins have identical genotypes

Probands

index cases - in behavior genetic studies, probands are family members who have a disorder, and the relatives of the index cases are examined for concordance

Personality inventory

inflexible and maladaptive patterns of personality that begin by early adulthood and result in either social or occupational problems or distress to the individual

Projective tests

personality tests, such as the Rorschach inkblot test, in which the person is asked to interpret a series of ambiguous stimuli

Prognosis

predictions about the future course of a disorder with or without treatment

Gender roles

roles associated with social expectations about gendered behavior, for example, "masculine" or "feminine" activities

Attachments

selective bonds that develop between infants and their caregivers, usually their parents, and are theorized to be related to later development - analogous to the process of imprinting, which has been observed in many animals

Insight

self-understanding; the extent to which a person recognizes the nature (or understands the potential causes) of his or her disorder - in psychoanalysis, insight is the ultimate goal - to bring formerly unconscious material into conscious awareness

Cerebral hemispheres

the 2 major structures of the forebrain and the site of most sensory, emotional, and cognitive processes- the functions are lateralized - the left cerebral hemisphere is involved in language and related functions, and the right side is involved in spatial organization and analysis

Abnormal psychology

the application of psychological science to the study of mental disorders. Includes investigation of the causes and treatment of psychopathological conditions.

Evolutionary psychology

the application of the principles of evolution in understanding the mind and behavior and identifying species-typical characteristics

Psychiatry

the branch of medicine that is concerned with the study and treatment of mental disorders

Nonshared environment

the component of a sibling's environment inside or outside the family that is unique to the sibling - for example, being a favorite child or one's best friend - contrasts with the shared environment, family experiences that are common across siblings

Reciprocal causality

the concept of casualty as bidirectional (or circular) - interaction is a process of mutual influence, not separable causes and effects

Autonomic nervous system

the division of the peripheral nervous system that regulates the functions of various bodily organs such as the heart and stomach - the actions of the autonomic nervous system are largely involuntary, and it has two branches, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems

Gene-environment correlation

the empirical and theoretical observation that experience often, perhaps always, is correlated with genetic makeup - genes influence personality and other characteristics, and these traits affect the environment parents provide children and the environments people seek or responses they elicit from others - therefore, experience is associated with genes, and studies of environments are confounded by this correlation

Cognitive-behavior therapy

the expansion of the scope of behavior therapy to include cognition and research on human information processing - includes various general techniques, such as Beck's cognitive therapy and Ellis' RET

Extinction

the gradual elimination of a response when learning conditions change - in classical conditioning, extinction occurs when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditional stimulus - in operant conditioning, extinction occurs when the contingent is removed between behavior and its consequences

Experimental group

the group of participants in an experiment that receives a treatment that is hypothesized to cause some measured effect - compared with untreated participants in the control group

Dominance

the hierarchal ordering of a social group into more and less powerful members - dominance rankings are indexed by the availability of uncontested privileges

Placebo effect

the improvement in a condition produced by a placebo (sometimes a substantial change) - an overriding goal of scientific research is to identify treatments that exceed placebo effects

Reactivity

the influence of an observer's presence on the behavior of the person who is being observed

Experimental method

the powerful scientific method that allows researchers to determine cause and effect by randomly assigning participants to experimental and control groups - in an experiment, researchers systematically manipulate independent variables and observe their effects on dependent variables

Null hypothesis

the prediction that an experimental hypothesis is not true - scientists must assume that the null hypothesis holds until research contradicts it

Diagnosis

the process of determining the nature of a person's disorder - deciding that a person fits into a particular diagnostic category, such as schizophrenia or major depressive disorder

Assessment

the process of gathering and organizing information about a person's behavior

Clinical psychology

the profession and academic discipline that is concerned with the application of psychological science to the assessment and treatment of mental disorders

Concordance rate

the rate, often a percentage, at which two related individuals are found to both have a disorder or problem or neither has a disorder or problem- ie; they are concordant - in discordant pairs, only one individual is disordered - concordance rates often are computed for twin pairs

Reductionism

the scientific perspective that the whole is the sum of its parts and that the task of scientists is to divide the world into its smaller and smaller components

Epidemiology

the scientific study of the frequency and distribution of disorders within a population

Culture

the shared way of life of a group of people, a complex system of accumulated knowledge that helps the people in a particular society adapt to their environment

Comorbidity

the simultaneous manifestation of more than one disorder

Behavior genetics

the study of broad genetic influences on individual differences in normal and abnormal behavior, usually by studying twins or other family members who differ in terms of shared genes and/or experiences - behavior genetic studies also provide information on environmental contributions to behavior

Psychophysiology

the study of changes in the functioning of the body that result from psychological experiences

Psychopharmacology

the study of the effects of psychoactive drugs on behavior - clinical psychopharmacology involves the expert use of drugs in the treatment of mental disorders

Group therapy

the treatment of three or more people in a group setting, often using group relationships as a central part of therapy

Cerebral cortex

the uneven surface of the brain that lies just underneath the skull and controls and integrates sophisticated memory, sensory, and motor functions

Psychotherapy

the use of psychological techniques in an attempt to produce change in the context of a special, helping relationship

Independent variable

the variable in an experiment that is controlled and deliberately manipulated by the experimenter (for example, whether a subject receives a treatment) - affects the dependent variable

Family therapy

treatment that might include two, three, or more family members in the psychotherapy sessions - improving communication and negotiation are common goals, although family therapy also may be used to help well members adjust to a family member's illness

Defense mechanism

unconscious processes that service the ego and reduce conscious anxiety by distorting anxiety-producing memories, emotions, and impulses- for example, projection, displacement, or rationalization

Psychopathology

the manifestations of and the study of the causes of mental disorders - generally used as another term to describe abnormal behavior

Neurons

the nerve cells that form the basic building blocks of the brain - each neuron is composed of the soma or cell body, the dendrites, the axon, and the terminal buttons

Incidence

the number of new cases of a disorder that appear in a population during a specific period of time

Phenotype

the observed expression of a given genotype or genetic structure, for example, eye color

Dependent variable

the outcome that is hypothesized to vary according to manipulations in the independent variable in an experiment

Dualism

the philosophical view that the mind and body are separate - Rene Descartes

Interpretation

a tool in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in which the therapist suggests new meanings about a client's accounts of his or her past and present life

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

a treatment that involves the deliberate induction of a convulsion by passing electricity through one or both hemispheres of the brain - modern ECT uses restraints, medication, and carefully controlled electrical stimulation to minimize adverse consequences - can be an effective treatment for severe depression, especially following the failure of other approaches

Limbic system

a variety of brain structures, including the thalamus and the hypothalamus, that are central to the regulation of emotion and basic learning processes

Dimensional approach to classification

a view of classification based on the assumption that behavior is distributed on a continuum from normal to abnormal - also includes the assumption that differences between one type of behavior and another are quantitative rather than qualitative in nature

Categorical approach to classification

a view of the classification based on the assumption that there are qualitative differences between normal and abnormal behavior as well as between one form of abnormal behavior and other forms of abnormal behavior

Biopsychosocial model

a view of the etiology of mental disorders that assumes that disorders can best be understood in terms of the interaction of biological, psychological, and social systems

Id

one of Freud's three central personality structures - in Freudian theory, the id is present at birth and is the source of basic drives and motivations - the id houses biological drives (such as hunger), as well as Freud's two biological drives, sex and aggression

Ego

one of Freud's three central personality structures - the ego must deal with reality as it attempts to fulfill id impulses as well as superego demands - the ego operates on the reality principle, and much of the ego resides in conscious awareness

Receptors

sites on the dendrites or soma of a neuron that are sensitive to certain neurotransmitters

Case study

a careful description and analysis of the problems experienced by one person

Allegiance effect

a characterization of psychotherapy outcome research such that investigators commonly find the most effective treatment is the one to which they hold a theoretical allegiance

Endocrine system

a collection of glands found at various locations throughout the body, including the ovaries or testes and the pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands- releases hormones that sometimes act as neuromodulators and affect responses to stress - important in physical growth and development

Correlation coefficient

a number that always ranges between -1.00 and +1.00 and indicates the strength and direction of the relation between 2 variables - a higher absolute value indicates a stronger relation, while a correlation coefficient of 0 indicates no relation - the sign indicates the direction

Psychoanalytic theory

a paradigm for conceptualizing abnormal behavior based on the concepts and writings of Sigmund Freud - highlights unconscious processes and conflicts as causing abnormal behavior and emphasizes psychoanalyses as the treatment of choice

Hypothalamus

a part of the limbic system that plays a role in sensation, but more importantly that it controls basic biological urges, such as eating, drinking, and activity, as well as much of the functioning of the autonomic nervous system

Premorbid history

a pattern of behavior that precedes the onset of an illness - adjustment prior to the disorder

Paradigm

a set of assumptions both about the substance of a theory and about how scientists should collect

Modeling

a social learning concept describing the process of learning through imitation - contrasts with the broader concept of identification

Emotion

a state of arousal that is defined by subjective feeling states, such as sadness, anger, and disgust - often accompanied by physiological changes, such as in heart rate and respiration rate

Meta-analysis

a statistical technique that allows the results from different studies to be combined in a standardized way

Classification system

a system for grouping together objects or organisms that share certain properties in common- in psychopathology, the set of categories in DSM-IV that describes mental disorders

Psychosis

a term that refers to several types of severe mental disorder in which the person is out of contact with reality - hallucinations and delusions are examples of psychotic symptoms

Genes

ultramicroscopic units of DNA that carry information about heredity - located on the chromosomes