chap 11
Personality
Personality
With regard to Psychodynamic theory, define intrapsychic, drives, and psychic determinism.
The core of personality is events within the mind (Intrapsychic).
These intrapsychic events motivate our behavior.
◦ Operate consciously and unconsciously
All behavior is motivated. NO chance or accidental happenings cause behavior; all acts are determined by motives.
Drives: The source of motivation for human actions is psychic energy found within each individual.
Each person has inborn instincts or drives that are tension systems. When activated, these energy sources can be expressed in many different ways:
◦ Self-preservation: meeting basic needs (ex. hunger).
◦ Eros: sexual urges and preservation of the species.
◦ Libido: the sexual energy that underlies psychological tension.
Psychic Determinism: all the mental and behavioral reactions are determined by earlier experience.
These Earlier experiences are buried in the unconscious.
◦ Behaviors are motivated by drives in our unconscious and all behavior has a manifest and latent content.
Identify and describe the 3 approaches presented to diminish the stigma of mental illness.
3 approaches that may diminish aspects of the public stigma experienced by people with mental illness
◦ 1) Protest: protest inaccurate and hostile representations of mental illness and for people to stop believing negative views.
◦ 2) Education: provides information so that the public can make more informed decisions about mental illness.
◦ 3) Contact: stigma is further diminished when members of the general public have contact with people with mental illness who can hold down jobs or live as good neighbors.
Briefly describe psychodynamic therapy, including the goals of psychodynamic therapy.
An individual’s difficulties are caused by the psychological tension between unconscious impulses and wishes and inner conflicts that are repressed.
Goal: establishment of intrapsychic harmony and understanding of the client’s use of defense mechanisms to handle conflict.
◦ Bring inner conflicts, impulses, and wishes into consciousness to gain insight.
What is Altruism?
Describe the factors that inhibit altruism.
A concern for the welfare of others is expressed through such prosocial acts as sharing, cooperating, and helping.
◦ Behavior that benefits another person, regardless of the actor’s motives.
◦ Selfishness in reverse
◦ A motive to increase another’s welfare without conscious regard for one’s self-interests.
Bystander Effect: a person is less likely to help when there are others present.
◦ When the situation is ambiguous, people are less likely to help.
◦ Fail to feel responsible because others will help.
◦ Taking action may lead to embarrassment or disapproval.
Time Pressure: people in a hurry are less likely to help.
Similarity: people are more likely to help those similar to themselves.
To improve altruism:
Socializing Altruism:
◦ Model Altruism
◦ Attribute helpful behaviors to altruistic motives.
◦ Learn about altruism.
Define fixation and regression
give an example
◦ Fixation (an inability to progress normally to the next stage of development) at different stages can produce a variety of adult traits.
◦ “used to describe individuals who have never matured beyond a certain point of psychosocial development and are unable, in many ways, to mature further” (Strean, 1994, pgs. 19-20).
◦ Regression: “implies that the individual has successfully mastered certain psychosocial tasks but he or she returns to previous, less mature gratifications when certain demands in the present induce anxiety” (Strean, 1994, p.19)
Identify and describe the three components of Freud’s structure of personality.
ID: storehouse of fundamental drives, operating irrationally on impulse, pushing for expression and immediate gratification (Pleasure Principle)
SUPEREGO: Storehouse of values, including morals.
◦ The “oughts and “should nots”
◦ The individuals view of the kind of person he/she should strive to become.
◦ Often in conflict with the ID.
EGO: Reality based aspect of the self.
◦ Director between ID impulses and SUPEREGO demands.
◦ Reality Principle.
What are the 4 social-cognitive processes of the stigma of mental illness?
The stigma of mental illness affects individuals seeking and/or completing treatment.
Stigma as 4 Social-Cognitive Processes
◦ 1) Cues: psychiatric symptoms, social skills deficits, and physical appearance
◦ 2) Stereotypes: commonly held stereotypes about people with mental illness (violence, incompetence, to blame)
◦ 3) Prejudice: negative emotional reactions and negative evaluations
◦ 4) Discrimination: avoidance, not associating with an individual with mental
illness
Describe counterconditioning and contingency management. (behavior therapy techniques).
Counterconditioning: when a new response is substituted for a previous maladaptive on using conditioning. Behavior that is learned can be unlearned. Types include: (ex: anxiety)
◦ Systematic Desensitization: a client is taught to prevent the arousal of anxiety by confronting the feared stimulus when relaxed.
◦ Implosion Therapy: The client is exposed immediately to the most frightening stimuli at the top of a fear list but in a safe setting. As the situation happens over and over, the stimulus loses its power to elicit anxiety.
◦ Flooding: similar to Implosion, but involves the client being placed in the feared situation.
Contingency Management: (relies on operant conditioning) the general treatment strategy of changing behavior by modifying its consequences.
◦ Strategies include token economies, shaping, and behavioral contracts.
Define Social Roles and Social Norms.
relate it to an example
Roles and Rules
◦ Social Role: a socially defined pattern of behavior that is expected of a person when functioning in a given setting of group.
◦ Different situations make different roles available.
◦ Different roles make different types of behaviors more or less appropriate and available.
◦ Situations are also determined by the operations of rules (behavioral guidelines for specific settings).
◦ Rules can be explicit or implicit (learned through transactions with others in a specific setting).
Roles and Rules
◦ The Stanford Prison Experiment
◦ A “growing confusion between reality and illusion, between role-playing and self-identity... This prison which we had created... was absorbing us as creatures of its own reality” (Zimbardo 1972)
◦ Self-conscious acting may diminish as the actors becomes more absorbed in the role and experiences genuine emotions,
◦ Can this happen in everyday life?
◦ Positive and/or negative
Social Norms: the specific expectations for socially appropriate attitudes and behaviors that are embodied in the stated or implicit rules of a group.
- Can be broad guidelines and/or can embody specific standards of conduct.
Belonging to a group typically involves discovering the set of social norms that regulate desired
behavior in the group setting. Occurs in two ways.
- You notice the uniformities in certain behaviors of all or most members, and you observe the
negative consequences when someone violates a social norm.
Norms serve important functions
- Orienting members and regulating social interactions.
What are the A,B,C of Rational Emotive Therapy? (Chap 14)
Albert Ellis Rational Emotive Therapy (RET).
Psychological problems are caused by people’s reactions to such events based on irrational beliefs.
ABC model:
◦ A) Activating Experience, B) Irrational Belief or thought that follows, C)
Consequences for the person.
Therapy involves confronting and disrupting the irrational beliefs (B) so that emotional and behavioral consequences will change accordingly.
Teaches clients to recognize the “should”, “oughts” and “musts”
Identify and define the four characteristics of Humanistic theory.
Holistic: explain an individual’s acts in terms of their whole personality.
Dispositional: focus on innate qualities that exert a major influence over the direction behavior will take.
Subjective: emphasize the individual’s frame of reference.
Existential: focus on higher mental processes.
Identify and describe the 4 main categories of child and adolescent disorders.
DSM classifies disorders by syndromes. The 4 main categories are:
◦ 1) Disruptive Behavior Disorders: involving impulsive, aggressive, and other acting out behaviors.
◦ ADHD, Conduct Disorder,
◦ 2) Disorders of Emotional Distress: anxiety and depression.
◦ Separation Anxiety Disorder,
◦ 3) Habit Disorders: disruptions of eating, sleeping, and elimination.
◦ Anorexia, Bulimia, Enuresis, Encopresis
◦ 4) Learning and Communication Disorders: involving difficulties with reading, writing, and speaking.
◦ Learning Disorders.
Explain the difference between transference and countertransference.
Transference: the development by the client of emotional feelings toward the therapist formerly held toward some significant person in a past emotional conflict.
Countertransference: the therapist’s development of emotional feelings toward a client because the client is perceived as similar to significant people in the therapist's life.
This does not mean romantic feelings
Identify and describe the three types of conformity.
A change in behavior or belief to accord with others. Types include:
◦ Compliance: conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing.
◦ Obedience: acting in accord with a direct order.
◦ Acceptance: conformity that involves both acting and believing in accordance with social pressure.
◦ Sometimes follows compliance.
Explain the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.
Our ideas lead us to act in ways to produce their apparent confirmation.
Examples:
◦ Pygmalion in the classroom
◦ Subjects in a learning experiment who expected to be taught by an excellent teacher, perceived their teacher as more competent and interesting than students with low expectations and thus worked harder.
Explain Reciprocal Determinism. (social learning theory)
draw it for bonus
Reciprocal Determinism: Your behavior can be influenced by your attitudes, beliefs, or prior history of reinforcement as well as by environmental influences.
Observational Learning is a critical component.
Models
◦ The basis of observational learning.
◦ Learning can occur through observation or example rather than only by direct reinforcement.
◦ We learn by observing other people and modeling our behavior after theirs.
◦ By observing the behavior of a model and repeating that behavior, it is possible to acquire
responses that we have not performed previously and/or to strengthen or weaken existing
responses.
What is the difference between major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder?
Major Depressive Disorder: characterized by the presence of a major depressive episode.
◦ Depressed mood, loss of interest, weight fluctuations, sleep difficulties, fatigue, worthlessness, difficulty concentrating, thoughts of death.
bipolar disorder: characterized by periods of severe depression alternating with manic episodes.
◦ Inflated self-esteem, decreased sleep, talkative, flight of ideas, distractibility, activities with a high potential for painful consequences.
Define cognitive distortions and cognitive restructuring.
BONUS: beck's cognitive triad model
Change problem feelings and behaviors by changing the way clients think about significant life experiences.
Cognitive-behavior therapy: combines the cognitive emphasis on the role of thoughts and attitudes influencing behavior with behaviorist strategies of changing performance through reinforcement of contingencies.
Cognitive Restructuring: changing irrational, negative statements into constructive coping statements.
◦ Not just positive “everything is OK” statements.
Cognitive Distortions: the idea that psychological problems arise as a function of how people think about themselves relative to others and the events they face.
According to Milgram, what are the factors that determine obedience?
4 Factors That Determined Obedience:◦
1) Emotional distance of the victim: personalizing the victim decreased obedience.
◦ 2) Closeness and legitimacy of the authority: the physical presence of the experimenter increased obedience.
◦ 3) Institutional Authority: being associated with a university increased obedience.
◦ 4) The presence of at least 1 person that disagreed Þ decreased obedience.
A group of psychiatrists, college students, and middle-class adults predicted that the subjects would disobey giving someone an electric shock at 135 volts. None surveyed expected any subject to go beyond 300 volts.
During the actual experiment, 65 % of subjects went to 450 volts.
Major conclusions:
◦ Subjects were willing to obey a destructive authority at a higher rate than predicted by others.
◦ Obedience increases to a legitimate authority.
◦ Subjects were more likely to shock an anonymous victim. Subjects were more likely to shock when they were led to believe that the authority figure would be held accountable.
◦ The presence of others who do not obey the authority will substantially decrease obedience.
Social psychologists believe that the primary determinant of behavior is
he nature of the social situation in which the behavior occurs.
◦ Social situations exert significant control over individual behavior, often dominating personality and a person’s past history of learning, values, and beliefs.
A number of situational variables can have an effect on people’s behavior
Explain cognitive approaches to personality.
Focuses on ways in which individuals come to know their environment and themselves.
◦ How they perceive, evaluate, learn, think, make decisions, and solve problems.
View human perception and human cognition as the core of what it means to be a person.
The way we interpret the environment is central to our humanness, and the way we differ from one another.
Schema: a cognitive structure that organizes knowledge and expectations about one’s environment.
◦ The schema activated in a given situation is a major determinant of a person’s expectations, inferences, and actions in that situation.
Describe B.F. Skinner’s theory of personality.
The term “personality” is meaningless.
◦ There is no place for internal components of personality, psychical structures (id, ego, superego), traits, self-actualization, needs, or instincts.
What is labeled “personality” is merely a group of responses to the environment.
Operant behaviors taken together = personality.
The universal laws of behavior acquisition resulted in what we know as personality, which operates in the same manner as humans and (although more simply) in nonhuman animals.
compare & contrast dissociative identity disorder (DID) and schizophrenia
Describe Dissociative Identity Disorder.
A disturbance in the integration of identity, memory, or consciousness.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID):previously called Multiple Personality Disorder
◦ Two or more distinct personalities exist within the same individual.
◦ Commonly confused with Schizophrenia
◦ Each personality has a unique identity, name, and behavior pattern
◦ In some cases can have dozens of different personalities.
◦ Most theories on DID point to chronic severe abuse in childhood and that DID developed as a survival tool to distance themselves from the reality of their lives.
Describe Schizophrenia
NOT SPLIT PERSONALITYSevere form of psychopathology in which personality seems to disintegrate, thought and perception are distorted, and emotions are blunted.
Involves illogical thinking, associations among ideas that are remote or without apparent patterns, and bizarre sensory experiences.
◦ Hallucinations: hearing voices is the most common (+)
◦ Delusions: false or irrational beliefs (+)
◦ Language: illogical, incongruent, word salad (-)
◦ Blunted or inappropriate emotions (-)
◦ Psychomotor retardation or agitation. (+) or (-)
◦ Social withdrawal
◦ (+) = positive symptoms, (-) negative symptoms
Briefly describe social learning therapy.
List 2 main aspects
Social Learning Therapy: designed to modify problematic behavior patterns by arranging conditions in which the client will observe models being reinforced for desirable behavior.
2 main aspects:
◦ Models: observing others
◦ Social Skills Training: training more effective social skills using rehearsal and models.
Define the Actor-Observer Effect and the Self-Serving Bias.
In explaining our own behavior, we are more likely to make situational attributions.
◦ The exception is when we make attributions for our own success.
◦ The tendency to make dispositional attributions for our successes and situational attributions for our failures in called the Self-Serving Bias.
Define self-efficacy and describe the aspects of self-efficacy judgments presented in this chapter. (social-learning theory)
Self-Efficacy: the belief that one can perform adequately in a particular situation. Self-efficacy judgments include:
◦ Vicarious experience: your observations of the performance of others
◦ Persuasions: others convincing you that you can do something, you convincing yourself.
◦ Monitoring emotional arousal when thinking about a task (ex. Anxiety suggests low expectations)
Influences how much effort you expand and how long you persist when faced with difficulty.
Behavioral outcomes depend both on people’s perceptions of their own abilities and their perceptions of the environment.