Chapter Extra- Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory

Question 1

This theory emphasizes the importance of various developmental stages-infancy, childhood, the juvenile era, preadolescence, early adolescence, late adolescence, and adulthood. Healthy human development rests on a persons ability to establish intimacy with another person, but unfortunately, anxiety can interfere with satisfying interpersonal relations at any age.

Answer 1

Sullivans interpersonal theory

Question 2

Sullivan was a an immature and isolated a child, but nevertheless formed one close interpersonal relationship with a boy that was _____ years older than himself. Many thought he was a homosexual.

Answer 2

Five

Question 3

Sullivan gained a reputation working at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital while working with these type of patients:

Answer 3

Schizophrenic patients

Question 4

Sullivan saw personality as an _____ system

Answer 4

Energy

Question 5

According to Sullivan, energy can exist either as _______, or potentiality for action, or as actions themselves also known as _____ ________.

Answer 5

Tension, energy transformations

Question 6

These transform tensions into either covert or overt behaviors and are aimed at satisfying needs and reducing anxiety

Answer 6

Energy transformations

Question 7

This is a potentiality for action that may or may not be experienced in awareness

Answer 7

Tension

Question 8

Sullivan recognized two types of tensions:

Answer 8

Needs and anxiety. Needs usually resulting productive actions, whereas anxiety leads to nonproductive or disintegrative behaviors

Question 9

According to Sullivan, needs can relate to either the general well-being of a person or to specific zones, such as the _____ or ______

Answer 9

Mouth or genitals

Question 10

According to Sullivan, general needs can be either _______, such as food or oxygen (zonal), or they can be _________, such as tenderness and intimacy.

Answer 10

Physiological, interpersonal

Question 11

Unlike some needs, tenderness requires actions from at least ___ people

Answer 11

Two

Question 12

Unlike needs which are conjunctive and call for specific actions to reduce them, _____ is disjunctive and calls for no consistent action for itself. It is the chief disruptive force in interpersonal relations

Answer 12

Anxiety

Question 13

All infants learn to be anxious through the ______ relationship that they have with their mothering one

Answer 13

Empathetic

Question 14

A complete absence of anxiety and other tensions is called

Answer 14

Euphoria

Question 15

Energy transformations become organized as typical behavior patterns that characterize a person throughout a lifetime, Sullivan called these behavior patterns

Answer 15

Dynamisms A term that means about the same as traits or habit patterns

Question 16

According to Sullivan, dynamism’s are two major classes:

Answer 16

They may relate to specific zones of the body or to tensions

Question 17

The disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred, characterized by the feeling of living among one’s enemies.

Answer 17

Malevolence. Children who become malevolent have much difficulty giving and receiving tenderness or being intimate with other people

Question 18

According to Sullivan, this is a conjunctive dynamism marked by a close personal relationship between two people of equal status

Answer 18

Intimacy. Facilitates into personal development while decreasing both anxiety and loneliness

Question 19

According to Sullivan, this dynamism is an isolating dynamism, it is a self centered need that can be satisfied in the absence of an intimate interpersonal relationship. Based solely on sexual gratification and requires no other person for its satisfaction

Answer 19

Lust

Question 20

According to Sullivan, this is the most inclusive of all dynamism and is that pattern of behaviors that protects us against anxiety and maintains our interpersonal security. It is a conjunctive dynamism, but because it’s primary job is to protect the self from anxiety, it tends to stifle personality change

Answer 20

Self-system

Question 21

According to Sullivan, experiences that are inconsistent with our self-system threaten our security and necessitate our use of ______ ______, which consist of behaviors designed to reduce interpersonal tensions

Answer 21

Security operations

Question 22

Two important security operations according to Sullivan are:

Answer 22

Dissociation and selective in attention

Question 23

According to Sullivan, this security operation includes those impulses, desires, and needs that a person refuses to allow into awareness

Answer 23

Dissociation

Question 24

According to Sullivan, this security operation is a refusal to see those things that we do not wish to see. The control of focal awareness.

Answer 24

Selective inattention

Question 25

According to Sullivan, people acquire certain images of self and others throughout the developmental stages, and he referred to the subjective perceptions as:

Answer 25

Personifications

Question 26

The bad mother personification grows out of infants’ experiences with the nipple that does not satisfy their ______ needs

Answer 26

Hunger

Question 27

Later, according to Sullivan, infants acquire a ____-______personification as they become mature enough to recognize the tender and cooperative behavior of their mothering one

Answer 27

Good-mother

Question 28

According to Sullivan, during infancy children acquire three “me”personifications:

Answer 28

The bad-me, the good-me, the non-me

Question 29

According to Sullivan, this me personification grows from experiences of punishment and disapproval

Answer 29

The bad-me

Question 30

According to Sullivan, this me personification results from experiences with reward and approval

Answer 30

The good-me

Question 31

According to Sullivan, this me personification allows a person to dissociate or selectively not attend to the experiences related to anxiety

Answer 31

The non-me

Question 32

Unrealistic traits or imaginary friends that many children invent in order to protect their self-esteem

Answer 32

Eidetic personifications

Question 33

Sullivan divided cognition into three levels or modes of experience:

Answer 33

Prototaxic, parataxic, syntaxic. Levels of cognition referred to ways of perceiving, imagining, and conceiving

Question 34

According to Sullivan, experiences that are impossible to put into words or to communicate to others are called

Answer 34

Prototaxic. Newborn infants experience images mostly on this level, but adults to frequently have preverbal experiences that are momentary and incapable of being communicated

Question 35

According to Sullivan, experiences that are prelogical and nearly impossible to accurately communicate others. Usually result when a person assumes A cause-and-effect relationship between two events that occur incidentally. Their meaning remains private, therefore they can be communicated to others only in a distorted fashion

Answer 35

Parataxic experiences

Question 36

An illogical belief that a cause-and-effect relationship exists between two events in close temporal proximity

Answer 36

Parataxic distortion

Question 37

Cording to Sullivan, these are experiences that are consensually validated and that can be symbolic we communicated. Those experiences on whose meaning two or more persons agree

Answer 37

Syntactic level experiences. Children becomes capable of syntaxic language at about 12 to 18 months of age when words begin to have the same meeting for them that they do for others

Question 38

Sullivan saw interpersonal development as taking place over seven stages, from infancy to mature adult hood. Personality changes are most likely during ________ between stages

Answer 38

Transitions

Question 39

According to Sullivan, this is the period from birth until the emergence of syntaxic language, a time when the child receives tenderness from the mothering one while also learning anxiety through and empathic linkage with the mother

Answer 39

Infancy

Question 40

According to Sullivan, during infancy anxiety may increase to the point of care, but such terror is controlled by the built-in protections of _____ and ______ _______ that allow the baby to go to sleep even if they’re hungry

Answer 40

Apathy and somnolent detachment

Question 41

Private language of infants that makes little or no sense to other people

Answer 41

Artistic language

Question 42

According to Sullivan, this stage lasts from the beginning of syntaxic language until the need for playmates of equal status. The child’s primary interpersonal relationship continues to be with the mother, who is now differentiated from other persons who nurture the child

Answer 42

Childhood

Question 43

According to Sullivan, this stage begins with the need for peers of equal status and continues until the child develops a need for an intimate relationship with a chum. At this time children should learn how to compete, compromise, and to cooperate. The three abilities, as well as an orientation toward living, help a child develop intimacy, a chief dynamism of the next developmental stage

Answer 43

Juvenile era

Question 44

Accrding to Sullivan, this is perhaps the most crucial stage because mistakes made earlier can be corrected during this stage, but errors made during this stage are nearly impossible to overcome in later life. Spans the time from the need for a single best friend until puberty

Answer 44

Preadolescence. Children who do not learn intimacy during preadolescence have added difficulties relating to potential sexual partners during the later stages

Question 45

According to Sullivan, with this stage comes the lust dynamism and the beginning of puberty. Development during this stage is ordinarily marked by a coexistence of intimacy with a single friend of the same gender and sexual interest in many persons of the opposite gender

Answer 45

Early adolescence

Question 46

According to Sullivan, this stage may start anytime after about age 16, but psychologically it begins when a person is able to feel both intimacy and lust toward the same person. Characterized by a stable pattern of sexual activity and the growth of the syntaxic mode, as young people learn how to live in the adult world

Answer 46

Late adolescence

Question 47

According to Sullivan, this stage is a time when a person establishes a stable relationship with a significant other person and develop a consistent pattern of viewing the world

Answer 47

Adulthood

Question 48

Sullivan believe that all psychological disorders have an interpersonal origin and can be understood only with reference to the patients ____ environment

Answer 48

Social

Question 49

Sullivan pioneered the notion of the therapist as a _____ _______, who establishes an interpersonal relationship with the patient. He was primarily concerned with understanding patients and helping them develop foresight, improve interpersonal relations, and restore their ability to operate mostly on a syntaxic level

Answer 49

Participant observer

Question 50

Research stemming from Sullivans work on the pros and cons of chums for girls and boys found that:

Answer 50

Co-rumination is associated with better friendships for boys and girls, and also that co-rumination is associated with more depression or anxiety for girls, but not for boys. Rumination is the act of dwelling on a negative event or negative aspects of an otherwise neutral or even positive event.

Question 51

What has the research found in relation to Sullivans notion of imaginary friends

Answer 51

There is evidence to support Sullivan’s theory that children who develop imaginary friends tend to have higher levels of creativity, imagination, and intelligence. Also, researchers have found support for Sullivans idea that children view imaginary friends as a source of nurturance, support and enjoyment, and that they help to model how real friendships should work. Having an imaginary friend is a normal, healthy experience.

Question 52

Sullivan’s theory rates low in three areas

Answer 52

Falsifiability, it’s ability to generate research, parsimony

Question 53

Sullivan’s theory rates about average in three areas

Answer 53

It’s capacity to organize knowledge, to guide action, and self consistency

Question 54

Sullivans theory rate very high on social influences and very low on

Answer 54

Biological ones

Question 55

Sullivan’s theory rates high on _______ determinants, average on free _____, optimism, and causality. It rates low on _______.

Answer 55

Unconscious, free choice, uniqueness

Question 56

Sullivan evolved a theory of personality that emphasized the importance of interpersonal relationships although he had a ______ and _______ childhood

Answer 56

Lonely and isolated