applied psychology Flashcards
what was believed to be the cause of mental illness in prehistoric times?
madness was believed to be the cause of mental illness. Trepanation used in 6500BC.
Ancient Greeks blamed it on demonic possession and used exorcisms, beatings, and starvation to drive out demons.
hippocrates 5000BC theory
theorised the cause was an imbalance of four bodily humours- blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm as sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic.
Advanced understanding through suggesting cause as a physical change and began the medical model.
what began to be used in 300AD?
the Church used bloodletting and prayers saw madness and illness as a punishment from God. Often confined without any real help.
when did psychiatry become a recognised medical specialty?
in 19th century- underfunded and understaffed with poor living conditions.
Mental hospitals established- Bedlam founded in 1330.
1900s saw leukotomies, lobotomies and electroshock therapy which reset electrical rhythms and destroyed specific areas of the brain.
what did talking treatments lead to?
outpatients and shorter stays in hospital 1918-1939.
when was the antipsychiatry movement?
1960s questioned coercive power- Lang and Szasz. Community healthcare in 2000, but underfunded -> criminal justice system bears the impact.
when was the first recorded treatment of insanity?
1403- 6 men diagnosed with insanity and inmates were publicly viewed until 1815.
what do newer treatments include?
prescription drugs, talking cures, therapy, systematic desensitisation, cognitive behavioural therapy, and counselling.
ICD-10
is an international classification system with 11 categories of mental disorder and features of them.
DSM-V
is a multiaxial tool to consider people’s mental condition.
benefits of ICD-10 and DSM-V
Both of these are generally accepted, consistent and kept updated.
limitations of ICD-10 and DSM-V
However, cultural bias can influence new categories, it becomes complex if patients fall into multiple categories and is widely reductionist.
what does the chinese classification have?
40 culturally related diagnoses. In 2013 Internet Gaming Disorder was included and homosexuality was removed in 1986.
what percent of the panel working on DSM-V had links to the pharmaceutical industry?
69%
how did stratton and hayes define abnormality?
statistical infrequency, deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, and deviation from ideal mental health.
statistical infrequency
states that any behaviour that is 3SD from average is abnormal. But this implies there is not a normal curve for behaviour and does not consider desirability.
deviation from social norms
breaking societal rules or standards. But this is subjective, and unclear at who decides the limit. Reliant on value judgements.
failure to function adequately
inability to experience normal range of emotions and behaviour, but uncertain what constitutes dysfunction or distress, and is hard to agree on.
deviation from ideal mental health
identifies characteristics people should possess such as positive self-view, accurate perceptions, and social interaction. Shows that statistical infrequency is not necessary for abnormality.
rosenhan aim
Rosenhan aimed to test the reliability of diagnosing mental illness.
rosenhan method and sample
Eight psuedopatients went to different psychiatric hospitals reporting hearing voices and were admitted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
rosenhan results
Once they were patients everything they did was interpreted in the context of their diagnosis- such as ‘writing behaviour’, ‘oral-acquisitive syndrome’ and they felt dehumanised.
Psychiatrists responded to requests 7% of the time, nurses only 3.6% and patients spent less than 7 minutes a day with psychologists.
A second study challenged a hospital to spot fake patients- none were sent, but the hospital said 41 had been detected.
rosenhan conclusion
This shows the process of diagnosis is neither reliable nor valid.
symptoms of affective disorder (depression)
loss of interest, disturbed sleep, changed activity level, disturbed appetite and extreme sadness.
symptoms of anxiety disorder (OCD)
recurrent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviours (compulsions).
Performing compulsions prevents obsessive thoughts and provides temporary relief from anxiety.
symptoms of psychotic disorder (schizophrenia)
need to have both 2 positive (an excess of normal function) and negative (loss of normal function) symptoms for at least a month.
positive symptoms
hallucinations, delusions (paranoid delusions, delusions of grandeur, delusions of control) and disordered thinking and speech.
negative symptoms
affective or emotional (reduction in range of emotional expression), poverty of speech, and reduced motivation (‘catatonic state’).
issues with categorising mental disorders
validity of diagnostic tools can be questioned.
Ford and Widiger (1989) found presenting same symptoms but changing gender results in different diagnoses- women had histrionic disorder and men had anti-social disorder.
No category of mental disorder has consistently high reliability- only 3 mental disorders had a satisfactory Kappa score, and the majority of categories were poor.
behavioural model
ssumed that behaviour is the consequence of abnormal learning from the environment and what is learned can be unlearned. No qualitative difference between normal and abnormal behaviour as they are all learned in the same way.
learning by association
when two environmental changes occur together, we learn to associate them. Responses can transfer, meaning behaviours can be learned. Watson and Rayner’s (1920) classical conditioning with Little Albert and the white rat.
learning by consequence
the likelihood of individuals repeating behaviour depends on its consequence, e.g. avoiding situations negatively reinforces anxiety.
learning by observation
if someone grows up around someone with mental illness they may imitate this behaviour.
behavioural treatments
include systematic desensitisation- learn to relax and participants are taken through a hierarchy of increasingly frightening stimuli.
Aversion therapy- patients learn to link negative associations to objects.
Flooding- unlearning associations all at once by being exposed to the stimulus.
systematic desensitisation
phobics can be gradually reintroduced to a phobic object or situation by learning to relax and associating the phobic object with lower levels of stress.
Involves constructing a hierarchy of fears, training in relaxation, and graded exposure to the stimulus and reaction.
70% of patients show improvement- even gradual can be helpful- and McGrath (1990) resolved Lucy’s phobia of balloons.
benefits of behavioural explanations
simple, testable, and supported by evidence. They are hopeful and predict that people can change behaviour.
Paul and Lentz (1977) found it was effective in reducing symptoms of schizophrenia.
limitations of behavioural explanations
However, they can be dehumanising and mechanistic (Heather 1976) by reducing people to stimulus-response units and cannot explain all disorders and cannot cure conditions such as schizophrenia.
cognitive model
assumes dysfunctional behaviour is caused by faulty irrational thoughts. Inaccurate representations of the world may cause behaviour to become distorted.
Irrational beliefs include when people feel unloved and as if nothing good will ever happen.
what did beck believe?
depressed people have acquired negative schemas in childhood which create an expectation of failure.
Found 80% benefited from his cognitive behavioural therapy- a talking therapy that changes the way people think and behave.
cognitive treatments
aim to change faulty cognition and help the client see how their irrational beliefs are contributing to their mental illness.
benefits of cognitive explanations
focus on individual experience and are hopeful in assuming people have the power to change their behaviour.
limitations of cognitive explanations
But it encourages the idea people are responsible for their own psychological problems and can be blamed for abnormalities. It is reductionist and cannot see cause and effect.
psychodynamic model
assumes disorders are caused by emotional problems in the unconscious mind and these can be traced back to early childhood. Parent-child relationships are crucial towards mental health.
latent motives
unconscious forces that drive behaviour
manifest motives
he lies people tell themselves.
Ego defence mechanisms (reaction formation, displacement, and sublimation) turn latent behaviours into manifest ones to decrease internal stress.
how can latent content be unlocked?
free association and dream analysis
freud’s psychoanalytic theory
explains the neurotic psyche (prevalence of superego), psychotic psyche (prevalence of id) and the psychopathic psyche (prevalence of id and complete lack of superego).
benefits of psychodynamic explanations
Apter (1997) assessed suicidal patients for ego defence mechanisms and found they scored higher on regression and other ego defences. No objective proof any ego defence mechanisms exist.
limitations of psychodynamic explanations
However, if Freud is correct, then psychoanalysis should be an effective treatment. It negatively impacted OCD recovery by thinking more about intrusive thoughts and obsessions.
Psychodynamic explanations are subjective and qualitative (self-report), unscientific and not falsifiable.
szasz
Szasz believed mental illness is a myth, not a disease that can be scientifically proven and that the medical model is not the only way.
He was concerned that governments decide which mental illnesses exist and that mental hospitals are like prisons to control behaviour denying people freedom and choice.
The involvement of big businesses is an issue too- diagnosis is subjective.
Mentally ill people are actively trying to cope in the world using whatever coping mechanisms they can- they are not passive players to biological forces.
We need to try understanding the reasons for a person’s actions by respecting, understanding, and helping them, not diagnosing under a loose fitting definition.
halo effect
when physically attractive people are deemed to have other attractive properties. This is why defendants are advised to turn up smartly dressed, clean and fit for their day in court.
sigall and ostrove (1985)
aimed to find whether attractiveness affected jury decision making, and if there was a relationship between attractiveness and type of crime committed.
The attractive photo had a big effect on their decisions- participants thought attractive Barbara should spent longer in prison for fraud and less for burglary- however attractiveness is subjective.
Concluded that good looking people do tend to get away with some crimes, but if they have used their looks to commit the crime they are less likely to get away with it.
dixon aim
Dixon wanted to see whether a Brummie accent elicited more guilty verdicts and if the race of type of crime would also be an issue.
dixon method and sample
119 white undergraduates at University of Worcester heard a recording based on a real police interview.
Suspect had either a Brummie or standard accent, was white or black, and had committed a blue or white collar crime.
dixon results
Accent had a significant effect- Brummie was rated higher on guilt, and the black Brummie in the blue collar condition got the highest rating.
dixon conclusion
Some accents are seen as more guilty than others.
strategies to influence a jury
hard to research as all jury notes and negotiations must be kept anonymous and secret forever so there is no ecological validity.
Loftus (1974) found that even discredited eyewitnesses who had no glasses on were more influential than having no eyewitnesses (68% vs 17% guilty).
The Halo Effect can be used to change accents to match the judge or to a standard accent.
Screens around the witness box.
what did jane jacobs say about the design of modern cities?
Reducing visibility on an area can cause problems.
Important to focus on territoriality, surveillance, and crowding out crime.
pruitt-igoe
destroyed in the 1970s due to its design that isolated the community and encouraged crime- one of the greatest failures of modern architecture.
Newman introduced the concept of ‘defensible space’ in 1972 with the idea that space can be defensible if it clearly belongs to people.
high rise flats and low rise flats
High-rise flats make it difficult to distinguish between neighbours and potential criminals. Blocks of flats do not appear to belong to anyone, e.g. stairwells, lifts, parking areas and shared gardens diminish people’s sense of responsibility and community.
Low-rise flats had a common, visible entrance which gave greater chance for surveillance and challenging strangers. More care put criminals off.
van dyke and brownsville
had a similar social density, but Van Dyke had far higher crime and vandalism.
Brownsville left doors open and let children play out, which creates community vs the vandalism being caused by Van Dyke children.
Played a tape recording of an argument- Van Dyke bolted doors, but Brownsville challenged the researchers before they entered the building.
broken windows theory
explains that visible disorder in an environment encourages further disorder and crime.
wilson and kelling aim
Wilson and Kelling wrote a discussion piece proposing a theory of neighbourhood safety.
wilson and kelling conclusion
Suggested that officers on the beat prevent crime from happening by maintaining public order which makes people feel safer.
Say that disorder leads to crime- one unrepaired broke window quickly leads to others being smashed.
Tackling low-level and anti-social behaviour needs to be a priority.
Zero tolerance is needed.
strategies for crime prevention
include situational crime prevention such as target hardening, creating defensible space and increasing risk of detection.
Instead of targeting offenders, should look at the environment to minimise opportunity for crime or make criminal acts disappear.
Draws on defensible space and rational choice theory.
target hardening
environmental intervention designed to alter cost-benefit of committing a crime. Makes target harder and less attractive, e.g. locks, tagging and immobilisers.
But criminals can change tactics and targets, which becomes a big criticism of situational crime prevention.
creating defensible space
entry phones, fences, and electronic access to buildings. If the risk of being observed is too high, an offender may refrain from the activity.
increasing risk of detection
neighbourhood watch schemes and property marking measures. Community increases surveillance, reporting, and deterrence of crime. CCTV, streetlighting and electronic tagging.
what happens when people are deprived of sleep?
their cognitive function declines.
Have difficulty responding to rapidly changing situations and making rational judgements. It severely affects the part of their brain that controls language, memory, planning and time.
After 17 hours of being awake, performance decreases to a blood alcohol level of 0.05%.
circadian rhythms
the sleep-wake cycle that repeats every 24 hours.
suprachiasmatic nucleus
controls the sleep-wake cycle and receives information about light levels through the optic nerve. Located in the hypothalamus. Controls things we are aware of and things we are unaware of (body temperature). This comes into conflict during jet lag and shift work.
evidence of endogenous (internal) processes
Michael Siffre lived in a cave for 2 months. His body followed a daily sleep cycle of 24.5 hours, which is evidence of an internal body clock.
exogenous zeitgebers
Light is crucial in maintaining circadian rhythms. Campbell and Murphy altered circadian rhythms in line with light exposure on the back of participant’s knees.
Their SCN detected altered blood chemistry, but social factors can reset rhythms- such as light levels in the Arctic circle.
what percent of workers have permanent or rotating shift patterns?
20%
Results in fatigue, sleep disturbance, digestive problems, mood, memory, and concentration.
People’s biorhythms are in a permanent state of desynchronisation which reduces productivity and increases health risks as not everyone has the same tolerance to CR shifts.
what are rotating shift workers at higher risk for?
had higher levels of fatty acids and were at higher risk for CHD and hypertension.
disagreement over the speed and kind of rotation
clockwise (phase delay) or anti-clockwise (phase advance).
Bambra said a faster rotation of 3-4 days is better, so the body never has time to adjust, whereas Czeisler says 3 weeks is recommended.
cziesler aim
Czeisler looked to alter shifts to improve employees sleeping patterns and circadian rhythms.
cziesler method and sample
Workers from the same minerals company in Utah were compared- some worked shifts, others did not.
The shift workers had their patterns altered to see what improved their well-being.
cziesler results
Clockwise shifts on a 21-day rotation were preferred.
cziesler conclusion
Follow ups showed this increased staff retention and productivity.
strategies to reduce the effect of jet lag or shift work
schedule changes, behavioural interventions, controlled exposure to light and dark, and drugs to promote sleep, wakefulness, and adaptation
schedule changes
may be harder to find and keep staff if workers have the same shift with no rotation.
Rapidly rotating shifts will improve sleep, leisure, and blood pressure. Giving shifts to those with more tolerance to CR shifts.
But workplaces are generalised, may be different for other working conditions and expectations of employees.
behavioural interventions
shift workers should increase physical activity and make positive changes. Their diet should mitigate against higher risk of illness.
Power naps (shift workers report feeling cold, shaky, and nauseous between 3am-6am) and hot food and drink to help with resilience.
Short naps reduce risk of fatigue and improve concentration and reflexes.
controlled exposure to light and dark
light exposure during night is the key variable that links shift workers to negative health outcomes.
Bright light treatment can be used to suppress melatonin release and increase body temperature, to control production in nightshift workers.
Light blocking glasses have the opposite effect in the morning after work through aiding CR adaptation by releasing melatonin in daytime sleep.
drugs to promote sleep, wakefulness, and adaptation
melatonin is produced for sleep in the CR cycle. Melatonin pills can be bought to sleep during the day.
Hypnotic and sleep-inducing drugs can lengthen sleep following nightshifts.
Stimulants increase alertness, but they can become addictive long term and cause side effects such as paranoia and irregular heartbeat.
territory
is a particular location that is owned in some way and does not move anywhere.
personal space
belongs to people and goes where they go. Requirements vary according to context. Both are involved in regulating our interactions with others.
what stages of personal space did edward hall define?
intimate, personal, social, public.
what can personal space be influenced by?
gender, age, culture, personality, situation, and status.
research into territory and personal space
It is surprisingly hard to study.
Research in beaches and libraries found that territorial markers were respected at quiet times, but personal markers were more respected at busier times.
Male markers were more respected than female markers.
middlemist
found invasion of personal space can have a significant impact. Closest distance of a confederate delayed the time to start urinating and the length of it. Ecologically supported the arousal model.
socio-biological evolutionary theory
territory is a relic from our past, but it may be learned as it does not appear in all cultures.
cognitive territory theory
to do with our need to categorise and simplify the world.
hotdesking
is when workers have to use any desk at any given time. It reduces clutter and maximises unused space- 40% of workers do this.
However, social structures do emerge which leads to employees identifying less with the organisation, reducing morale and increasing turnover.
personal space in workplaces
moved towards open plan- separated by screens and filing cabinets.
In high density environments, performance in complex tasks is impaired vs improving during simple tasks (Zajonc’s Social Facilitation Theory).
wells aim
Wells looked at the effects of personalising workspace studying workers from 20 small companies in Orange County.
wells method and sample
A survey received 338 responses and then 23 case studies of high and low personalisers were made.
wells results
They found women personalised with identity and men with status. Women personalised more and interviews suggested it was more important to them.
wells conclusion
It linked to workplace satisfaction, job satisfaction, and wellbeing, but not increased productivity. Organisational wellbeing also increased.
office design strategies based on territory- personalisation
personalisation reports a greater organisational climate, employee morale and reduced turnover but does not increase productivity, which may be the biggest concern for an employer.
office design strategies based on territory- hotdesking
stressful and demotivating, due to lack of territory and no perceived control over an area.
Must look at the needs of staff as men need more space- this makes them harder to accommodate and economic factors must be considered.
Complex work such as coding may require more space. Cultures require different space.
Could provide workers with more light and green views (therapeutic influence).
office design strategies based on territory- colour
Spacious rooms and light colours (Baker-Miller Pink) lower blood pressure and aggression levels, and lift mood and concentration.
office design strategies based on personal space
workers with private offices were more satisfied with workplace (Kim and Dear 2015).
Open plan offices were most dissatisfied with privacy aspect of workplaces, as it was impossible to tell if people were listening in.
