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.
What is jumping to conclusions?
Cognitive distortion: making an unsubstantiated negative interpretation of events. Ex. Although there is no evidence, you assume your boss didn’t like your presentation.
What is personalization?
Cognitive distortion: seeing yourself as the cause of a negative event when in fact you were not actually responsible. Ex. When parents fight about money, you think their problems are somehow your fault, despite the money problems were not caused by you.
What are the main cognitive distortions (6)?
- All-or-none thinking
- Overgeneralization
- Mental filter
- Disqualifying the positive
- Jumping to conclusions
- Personification
What is stimulus generalization?
The process whereby responses come to be elicited by stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus (CS).
What are the three way in which genes can affect the environment?
- Passive Interaction
- Evocative Interaction
- Active Interaction
What is Passive Interaction (in reference to genes)?
The parents genes affect the child environment - and the child passively received these influences. Ex. If parent avoids social situations (in part bc of genes), the child will have fewer social experiences. Child may not have inherited parents shy temperament, but the parents genes nonetheless act through the environment to affect the child.
What is Evocative Interaction (in reference to genes)?
A person’s inherited traits encourage other people to behave in particular ways, and hence, the person’s social environment will be affected by his genes. Ex. People react to tall people differently. (They may be afraid for ex.).
What is Active Interaction (in reference to genes)?
Each of us actively seeks out some environments and avoids others, and our genes influence which environments feel most comfortable to us. Ex. A person who is sensitive to environmental stimulation might prefer spending a quiet evening at home curled up with a book instead of going to a loud party.
What is the Fx of Cortisol, where is it made, and what are the problems associated with it?
- Fx: helps body cope with challenges by making more resources available.
- Produced by: adrenal glands.
- Abnormal amounts of cortisol have been linked to anxiety and depression.
What is the reciprocal gene-environment model?
Characterizes the relationship that genetic differences influence the environment.
What is a phobia?
An intense, irrational fear of an object or situation.
What are Cognitive Distortions also called?
Cognitive Vulnerabilities.
What are Cloninger’s Four Temperaments?
- Novelty Seeking
- Harm Avoidance
- Reward Dependence
- Persistence
What is “Novelty Seeking”? What nt is it associated with? And what disorders are associated with it?
Searching out novel stimuli and reacting positively to them; high levels can lead to being impulsive, avoiding frustration, and easily getting angry.
- Dopamine
- Associated with a high level, disorders that involve impulsive or aggressive behaviors.
What is “Harm Avoidance”? Assoc. nt and problems.
- Reacting very negatively to harm and avoiding it whenever possible.
- Serotonin
- Associated with a high level, anxiety disorders.
What is “Reward Dependence”?
- Degree to which past behaviors have led to desired outcome in the past that are repeated.
- Norepinephrine
- Associated with a low level (in combo with high impulsivity), substance use disorder
What is “Persistence”?
- Making continued efforts in the face of frustration when attempting to accomplish something.
- Possible dopamine
- Associated with a low level, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
