Chapter Two Flashcards
Temporal Lobe
Stores visual memories, processes auditory info, and decodes the meaning of speech. Also contributes to conscious experience. Abnormal functioning in the temporal lobe can produce intense emotions such as elation when a person is manic.
Parietal Lobe
Processes spatial info. Has role in self-awareness.
Frontal Lobe
Crucial roles in feeling emotions and using emotional responses in decision making as well as in thinking and problem solving, also involved in programming actions and controlling body movements. Abnormalities here may cause schizophrenia.
What are the 3 ways in which neural communications can be disrupted?
- Neurons have too many or too few dendrites or receptors, making the neurons more or less sensitive, to even normal amounts of nt’s. 2. The sending neurons might produce too little or too much of a nt. 3. Not all nt’s bind to a receptor and linger, and/or reuptake may not work.
Define: Heritability
An estimate of how much of the variation in a characteristic within a population (in a specific environment) can be attributed to genetics.
Fx. Of Endogenous Cannabinoids
Fx: emotion, attention, memory, appetite, control of movements.
Associated disorders or problems with endogenous Cannabinoids.
Too little: chronic pain
Too much: eating disorders, memory impairment, attention difficulties, schizophrenia (possibly).
Fx and associated problems with Gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA)
Fx: inhibits brain activity in specific areas.
Problems: too little: anxiety, panic disorder (possibly).
Too much: lack of motivation.
Fx and problems associated with Glutamate
Fx: registering pain, storing new info in memory.
Problems: too little: schizophrenia.
Too much: substance abuse.
Temperament
The aspects of personality that reflect a persons typical emotional state and emotional reactivity (including the speed and strength of reaction to stimuli).
Inappropriate Affect
An expression of emotion that is not appropriate to what a person is saying or to the situation.
Emotion
A short-lived experience evoked by a stimulus that produces a mental response, a typical behavior, and a positive or negative subjective feeling.
Labile Affect
Affect that changes inappropriately rapidly.
Mood
A persistent emotion that is not attached to a stimulus; it exists in the background and influences mental processes, mental contents, and behavior.
What is the Diathesis-stress model?
A model that focuses on the idea that a psychological disorder is triggered when a person with a predisposition - a Diathesis - for the particular disorder experiences an environmental event that causes significant stress.
Cognitive Distortions
Dysfunctional, maladaptive thoughts that are not accurate reflections of reality and contribute to psych. Disorders.
Brain Circuits
Sets of connected neurons that work together to accomplish a basic process.
Brain Systems
Sets if brain circuits that work together to accomplish a complex function.
What is the Social Causation Hypothesis
The hypothesis that the daily stressors of urban life, especially as experienced by people in a lower socioeconomic class, trigger mental illness in those who are vulnerable.
What is the Social Selection Hypothesis?
The hypothesis that people who are mentally ill “drift” to a lower socioeconomic level because of their impairments; also referred to as social drift.
What is all-or-none thinking?
Cognitive distortion: Seeing things in black and white. Ex. If you’re not perfect, you’re a failure.
What is overgeneralization?
Seeing a single negative event as part of a never ending pattern of such events. Ex. After having bad day, you predict future days will be as bad.
What Is mental filter?
Cognitive distortion: focusing too strongly on negative qualities or events, to the exclusion of the other qualities or events. Ex. While overall appearance is fine, you focus on bad haircut you recently had.
What is disqualifying the positive?
Cognitive distortion: not recognizing or accepting positive experiences or events, thus emphasizing the negative. Ex. After presentation, you discount pos. feedback and focus only in what you didn’t like about it.
