Cognitive - psychology applications Flashcards
What are the ‘7 sins of memory’?
- Transcience (i.e forgetting, transient information)
- Absentmindedness
- Blocking (e.g tip of the tongue feeling)
- Misattribution (e.g in eye witness identification)
- Suggestibility
- Bias
- Persistance (e.g intrusive thoughts, rumination
TAB-MiS-BiP
Are memory distortions unfortunate artifacts of an otherwise good sysmtem, or something we could do without?
DO they have a purpose?
Our cognitive operations must be flexible in order to imagine the future and reconsider the past.
in many cases they are functional/necessary.
e.g in promoting positive current self-image/identity (temporal self-appraisal theory)
What are the two reasons (Discussed in class) that rely on/require our cogitive processes to be flexible?
- Imagining the future
- Reconsidering the past.
What is autobiographical memory (AM) and what are the two kinds of autobiographical memory?
Memory across the lifespan
Specific events (episodic)
Self-related information (semantic)
What are the three functions of the autobiographical memory?
- Social - allow communication and bonding
- Directive - guide thoughts and behaviour
- Self - maintain a positive self-concept and promte continuity and growth - self-presentation and protection from adversity.
What are some of the social functions of the autobiographical memory?
Responding to oppourtunity to share own story.
To give information about self.
Update people about current events in one’s life.
What are some of the directive functions of the autobiographical memory?
Direct decision making.
Role in both mundane and important decision:
e.g what movie should i rent? what career should i pursue?
What is the self function of the autobiographical memory?
Self-identity, we are what we remember (william joans)
What is the ‘temporal self-appraisal theory?’
that people have a tendency to maintain a positive evaluation of the current self by distancing their self-concepts from their negative selves and paying more attention to their positive selves.
In addition, people have a tendency to perceive the past self less favorably (e.g., I’m better than I used to be) and the future self more positively (e.g., I will be better than I am now).
finally, we tend to view our failures as temporarily more distant, likely to consider our ‘worst grade’ as being further away temporaly
in regards to ‘temporal self-appraisal theory?’
describe how we might determine whether their is actual self-improvement or just a biased feeling that one has gotten better and is getting better (hint: experiment)
Earlier selves that feel temporaly ‘closer’ are enhanced over earlier selves that feel temporaly ‘distant’
…even if it is the same actual time, this can be manipulated via framing/suggestion in experimentation
by saying ‘remember SO LONG AGO when you did X’ vs. ‘remeber not that long ago when you did X’
where ‘X’ is the same event or time-frame.
Why do people tend to evaluate their most current selves (and furture selves) better then their past selves?
shield from blame, credit for achievements.
Positive self-evaluation is adaptive.
Apply the theory of temporal self-appraisal to marital satisfaction.
Marital satisfaction actually decreases in early years. BUT people tend to consider their current-selves better then their past selves and thus underestimate their previous contentment - resulting in an illusion of improvement
Does remembering emotions tend to be a constructive/reconstructive process (i.e explicit), or a automatic emotional response (i.e implicit).
Usually explicit/reconstructive, though implicit/automatic can occur in intrustions (e.g in PTSD)
Are people better at remembering facts or emotions?
Facts, emotions tend to be poor/insconsistent and exaggerated.
What factors influence (mis)remembering emotions?
- Current appraisal (appraise based on current feeling)
- Cultural beliefs (i.e what it would or would not be appropriate to feel at certain times/events)
- Individual characteristics
- Emotion regulation stratergy
- Expectations (what one expects to feel in certain situations/events)
- Peak and end rule
What is the ‘peak’ and ‘end’ rule of remembering emotional or physical pain?
When the ‘peak’ (i.e height) of the pain and the final moments at the end of the painful experience are the most influential parts in the memory of the pain.
E.g
2 groups of study participants are asked to put there hand in ice-water for 5 minutes.
One group gets an extra 30 seconds of hand in the ice-water, but during this time the water is warmed slightly
The group who spent longer in the ice-water is likely to report it as overall less painfull then the other group because the end was less painful, even though overall they would have experienced more total pain (owing to having their hand in cold wter longer.)
Why is it good to be able to remember emotions? (i.e its functional features)
- Summarise significance of past event (e.g recommending a book without remembering specific detail)
- Guide decision making
- transmit culture.
Why might it be good to forget emotional memories? (i.e what would it be maladaptive to remember)
- Earlier suicidal thoughts
- good current functioning predicted by poor recall of (high) pre-therapy distress
- People who remember how bad they reacted to a trauma later down the track usually have the worse symptoms/adapting
What is the ideal/most adaptive shape of remembering and then misremembering emotion? (i.e ideally when should one remember and one forget emotions?)
The ideal functioning of remembering and misremembering emotions should be such as to minimise negative emotions.
Remembering emotions is good when an related issue is unresolved or the emotion is ‘fresh’ because it leads to goal-directed behaviour (toward resolving the problem or react better in the future) and mobalise appropriate coping resources.
when the memories are no longer ‘needed’ for these ends, then the better cognitive distortion to have are forgetting ones e.g positive illusions of growth (as in temporal self-appraisal theory)
What is the ‘fading-affect-bias’?
Affective intensity of positive memories fade more slowly.
In healthy people, how do memory distortions/bias promote self-enhancement? (e.g positive over negative)
- Fading affective bias: affective intensity of positive memories fade more slowly
- faster recall of positive memories
- recall more positive life experiences
- Detailed recall of positive memories
Memory distortions serve to promote self-enhancement in healthy functioning people, when does it go wrong?
- PTSD
- Deppression
- Overgeneral memory
- Negative memory bias
What unhealthy cognitive memory distortions arise from PTSD?
Intrusive remembering (Distress and vividness)
e.g nightmares, flashbacks and ‘re-experiencing’
What unhealthy cognitive memory distortions arise from Deppression?
Rumination - repetitive but passive thinking about current depression symptoms and their causes, meaning and consequences
Associated with the onset and maintenance of deppression.
What unhealthy cognitive memory distortions arise from Overgeneral memory?
Not good at remembering specific memories. leading to deficits in problem solving and imagining future.
e.g (happy experience) “watching the sunset last thursday with X”
vs.
” I have never been happy”
What unhealthy cognitive memory distortions arise from Negative Memory Bias?
What is the Differential activiation hypothesis?
Tendency to preferentially recall negative information resulting in sad mood. Often with the emotional regulation stratergy of rumination.
The Differential activiation hypothesis is:
- sad mood activates negative thought
- Cyclic effect among vulnerable people (i.e negative thought then causes sad mood)
What are the legal and ethical implications of using drugs like propranolol to dampen emotional memories?
adrenaline (improve encoding memory)
adregenic (i.e inhibitors) reduce memory.
**just think about it - no confidence rating**
People with deppression tend to be poor at processing positive information.
in what particular ways are they poor at this?
- Poor at mood repair using positive memories
- Poor ability to vividly imagine future positve events
- Poor at recalling vantage point.
Health behaviour is influenced by cognitive factors as well as demographic factors - what demographic factors influence health behaviour?
- Gender
- Age
- SES
- Ethnicity
What are barriers to good health behaviour?
- When there is no immediate effect of bad health behaviour
- Enjoyment of competing bad behaviour (e.g smoking)
- Lack of resourses
- The degree of effort it would take
- Fear –> denial
What three models seek to explain the role of attitudes and beliefs in the acquisition of health behaviours?
- Health belief model
- Theory of reasoned action
- Theory of planned behaviour
How does the “health belief model” explain the role of attitudes and beliefs in the acquisition of health behaviours?
What is the limitation to this model?
Health behaviour =
Degree of perceived health threat: general values, vulnerability and severity
Versus. +
Belief that a health behaviour will reduce that threat: probability, cost/benefit
Limitation: does not consider what other people thing, societal pressures. Assumes ppl make rational choices.
How does the “Theory of Reasoned action” explain the role of attitudes and beliefs in the acquisition of health behaviours?
(Fishbein & Ajzen)
What is the limitation to this model?
Norms + attitudes —-> intentions —->behaviour
Limitations:
- Assumes the link between intention and behaviour. Assumes ppl make rational choices.
- Assumes people use information they have about health in health decisions
- Focus on individuals (e.g what if one is trying to lose weight, but their partner keeps buying cakes)
How does the “Theory of Planned Behaviour” explain the role of attitudes and beliefs in the acquisition of health behaviours?
How does it differ from the “Theory of Reasoned Action’ model?
Norms + attitudes ——> intentions + percieved control —-> behaviour
Remedies the link between intention and behaviour that suggests that percieved control influences the actual enacting of a behaviour.
What types of people/situation are people more likely to seek health help?
(help-seeking behaviour = recognising/intepreting health problems, likelihood of seeking health help)
- Psychological states (e.g anxiety/deppressed who are more aware of physical problems)
- Mood (state) and self-reported health
- Emotional reaction - more emotion = seeking health (e.g panic over a mole)
- High health service uses (hyperchondriacs)
- Expectations (e.g ideas about what would happen during a heart attack)
How does perception of an illness’s ‘cause’ affect health behaviour or beliefs/attitudes about the illness?
What kind of treatments wanted/used
e.g if you think poor eating caused the illness, then you might want a dietary treatment.
