Chapter 14 Flashcards
Clinical Psychology (def)
The study, assessment, and treatment of people with psychological difficulties
What’s the main problem in clinical diagnosis that affects accuracy?
Expert intuition rules over objective formulas
What shows that clinical psychologists tend to be overconfident?
Most rate themselves at the 80th percentile.
Why might Rorschach inkblots in clinical setting be a problem?
They’re not very predictive of clinical illness; so they promote illusory correlations
How do illusory correlations happen in clinical settings?
Clinicians perceive a relationship when they expect it.
Hindsight bias in clinical setting
When depressed individual takes own life, we fall into i-should-have-known-all-along phenomenon
Self-confirming diagnoses in clinical settings
Patients reveal information that confirm the clinician’s expectation.
Clinicians ask for confirming evidence when they suspect. (they’ll probably find the evidence if they’re looking for it)
Clinical intuition vs. Statistical prediction
confidence in clinical judgements?
Statistical predictions are more accurate.
little correlation between confidence and accuracy.
When clinicians were allowed interview, what happened to accuracy of their judgements?
accuracy got even worse
Some suggestions for better clinical practice
Know agreement from patient doesn’t mean it’s valid. Careful when seeing associations. Use notes, not memory. Consider opposing ideas.
Are depressed people more realistic? Judgements are memories?
Yeah. More accurate judgements memories, and knowing others’ feelings.
Depressive Realism
why might this exist?
Phenomenon where mildly depressed individuals have more accurate judgements, attributions, and predictions
Normal people tend to exaggerate how good they are
People with depression more likely have what kind of explanatory style? What does that breed?
A negative explanatory style. Attribute bad things to self. Breeds hopelessness
3 Characteristics of negative explanatory style
Stable (this bad attribute will be with me forever), Global (this bad attribute affects everything i do), Internal (it’s all my fault)
Is negative thinking a cause or result of depression?
Both.
How does negative thinking cause depressive moods?
Those with dispositions to depression usually have negative explanatory styles, leading to self-blame, then depressive moods.
What might explain why women have 2x risk of depression in adolescence compared to men?
Women tend to overthink and have negative explanatory styles.
A psychologists suggests what reason to be reason for high depression rates today? What phenomenon this relate to?
Emphasis on self-focus and self-blame in today’s culture.
Relates to how negative thinking breeds depression
How is short-term depression adaptive?
Makes us slow down and reassess how we can improve when we fail.
How does depression lead to negative thinking?
Bad mood primes negative memory recollection (depressed people recall more bad events)
Moods modify memories
When in life is loneliness the most increasing?
Early teen and mid 20s. Declines afterwards
Compare 2010s in-person social time to 1980s
1 hour less on average.
Genetic factors of loneliness
Identical twins are more likely to share degree of moderate to extreme loneliness.
What groups are most prone to loneliness?
Young people, men, and individualistic
What must be necessary for one to be considered lonely?
Alone does not mean lonely.
Need to feel excluded or unloved
How does loneliness affect health outcomes?
Increases stress hormones, resulting in many negative health outcomes. Increases risk of death as much as smoking