Exam 4: Ch 12, 14, 17 Flashcards
Phenomenology
One’s conscious experience of the world; everything a person hears, feels, and thinks
Construal
A person’s particular experience of the world
Introspection
Observing your own perceptions and thoughts
Anatta
The Eastern Alternative concept that states there is no unchanging soul. Rather, the illusion of an independent and separate self if harmful. All people are interconnected and we do not have to fear individual death because we are all one with the universe.
Includes idea of immortality
Anicca
All things must pass.
One is “Enlightened” when they understand this idea
Nirvana
A serene, selfless state
The Eight Elements of Humanistic Psychology
Humanism, holistic, historic, real-life, value, will, phenomenological, positivity
Goal of Humanistic Psychology
Overcome the paradox of studying humans, practice self-awareness
Role of the therapist in humanistic psychotherapy
Help the patient perceive their own thoughts and feelings, make the patient feel appreciated (through unconditional positive regard)
Repertory (Rep) Test
Created by George Kelly
Asking a person to identify three different (ideas/traits/people etc) and then identify how 2 of them are the same and different from the third. Repeat.
How one discriminates between subject reveals a person’s constructs
Wilhelm Wundt
Founded one of the first psychological laboratories. Used introspection to study Existentialism
Existentialism and Key Questions
Focuses on the basic experiences of being alive and aware.
Key Questions:
- What is the nature of existence?
- How does it feel?
- What does it mean?
Ludwig Binswanger
Existentialist who asserted the three parts of existence: Umwelt, Mitwelt, Eigenwelt
Also came up with the concept of Authentic Existence
Umwelt
Biological being: Bodily sensations of being alive - pleasure, pain, heat, cold, and other
Mitwelt
Social being: What you feel as a social being and what others think/feel about you
Eigenwelt
Psychological experience: Introspection, “experience of experience itself,” and what you feel when understanding something
Martin Heidigger
Existentialist who came up with the concepts of “Thrown-ness”
Sartre
Existentialist who asserted concepts of Angst, free will, optimistic toughness
Optimistic Toughness
One’s existential responsibility to face your mortality and the meaninglessness of life and then find/create your own meaning and purpose in life
Sartre’s idea
Angst
AKA Existential anxiety. It is the unpleasant feelings that arise due to contemplation of the meaning of life.
Three components:
- Anguish - because choices are never perfect, always have trade-offs
- Forlornness - because of no escape from existential solitude
- Despair - arises when person realizes the huge volume of outcomes, many of which are out of their control
Living in Bad Faith
When one ignores the bad feelings of angst. Comes with three problems:
- Cowardly liar
- Unhappiness
- It is impossible to pawn your choices off on others
Viktor Frankl
Wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning”
Believed in three wells of meaning: pursuing a life task, loving selflessly, suffering bravely. Frankl vowed to survive a Nazi concentration camp and did because he told himself he needed to fulfill his life’s meaning.
Love = elevating others around you.
Suffering is no longer suffering when there is established meaning behind it.
Nietzsche’s Superman
One must develop existential strength to rise above the meaninglessness of life (fairly negative in comparison to Frankl and Sartre)
Authentic Existence
Entails honesty, insightfulness, and being morally correct. The alternative to living in Bad Faith.
Proposed by Binswanger
Supposed to ask: “What does life want from us?”
Eastern Alternative
Zen Buddhism - involved Anatta (non-self: the sense of an independent self is just an illusion), Anicca (the idea that all things must pass and the present is not that important), and Nirvana (enlightenment)
Self-Actualization
Intrinsic goal of existence: the basic need to maintain and enhance life. Championed by Carl Rogers
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
PSLSS: physical, safety, love, self-esteem, self-actialization.
Revised by Kenrick
Kenrick
Proposed a revised version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, involved evolutionary psych influence.
Maslow would have discouraged this influence because people are not just animals!
Goals of humanistic psychotherapy
- Help the client perceive their own thoughts and feelings
2. Help the client feel appreciated (through unconditional positive regard)
Personal constructs and the social corollary of this concept
Cognitive compilation of one’s various construals of the world. They help determine how new experiences are construed
Social corollary: understanding a person means understanding their personal constructs
Proposed by George Kelly
Chronically Accessible Constructs
Constructs that one uses for everything automatically. Can be identified through the rep test
Virtues
What are the six core virtues?
Def: Character strengths
The Six Core Virtues: courage, justice, humanity (compassion), temperance, wisdom, and transcendence
Mindfulness
A state of being alert and aware of every thought, sensation, and experience. Origins in Buddhism.
Flow
The subjective enjoyment of an autotelic activity (those that are enjoyable for their own sake). Involves tremendous concentration, absence of distractibility, and thought only concerning the activity at hand. Mood is only slightly elevated. Time seem to pass very quickly.
Csikszentmihalyi states that flow occurs when the challenges presented by an activity are well-matched with your skills.
Awe
The feeling one experiences when they encounter an entity that is vast and challenges their worldview. Those who experience awe tend to be viewed as humble and maintain a balanced view of their own strengths and weaknesses.
Three components of happiness
Overall satisfaction with life, satisfaction with how things are going in particular life domains, and high levels of positive emotion and generally low levels of negative emotion
Self-determination theory
Proposed by Ryan and Deci (Satre would “probably agree”). States that the more time one spends pursuing hedonistic well-being, the greater chance one has of living a life of selfishness and materialism. In contrast, Eudaimonia involves finding the meaning of life instead of such surface-level, shallow, immediate pleasures.
Three major sources of happiness
- One’s individual setpoint (baseline happiness). Genetically influenced as there is some heritability in how people react to negative events (neuroticism). Also linked to extraversion
- Objective life experiences - rather small effect, examples include age, education, being married, and earning money
- Intentional activity, like “looking on the bright side,” “making time for things that matter,” “counting your blessings”
Trend of happiness vs age
Increases pretty steadily after the age of 13, then peaks between 50 and 60, and then declines rapidly thereafter
Potential consequences of too much happiness
- May lead to failure to recognize risky situations or to pouring too much energy into unproductive pursuits
- Happiness may be felt at the “wrong time” - and prevent one from trying to make things better
- “Trying to be happy” is often counterproductive. Failing to become “happy enough” can be disappointing
- Arrogance or hubris of narcissists can hurt relationships
High scores in which Big Five traits are associated with high levels of happiness?
High extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
Cause and effect relationship arrow runs both directions!
Moral and cultural relativism
One cannot judge others based on their own moral code or based on their own culture (respectively)
Principle of Parsimony
George Kelly’s idea that, all other aspects being equal, the simplest theory is always best
Behaviorists believe that one’s ___ influences their behavior most strongly
environment/situation
John B Watson
Behaviorist who performed the Little Albert experiment
Affective forecasting
Predicting how an event will make one feel. Trends in research show that people tend to overestimate the effect an event will have on their life
Stimulus-response associations
Early behaviorists believed that individuals, through learning, build repertoires of S-R associations that determine how they respond to given stimuli.
Thorndike’s Puzzle Boxes
Thorndike was a behaviorist and he practiced experiments in operant conditioning in which hungry cats would be put in puzzle boxes. The cats could only escape and eat the treats outside the boxes by pressing a lever or pulling a wire, etc. The time it took the cats to complete the task decreased exponentially the more times they were put in the box
Respondent conditioning
The conditioned response is essentially passive with no impact of its own. Ex: Pavlov’s dogs’ salivation just happened to be followed by food, it did not bring it about. This is different from operant conditioning (Thorndike’s cats) in which the conditioned response is carried out as an operation that brings about reinforcement
Respondent conditioning is the same as classical conditioning!
Social Learning Theory
The way that people think, plan, and perceive, as well as their social environment, affects learning
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
Most famous and influential version of SLT. Put self-efficacy in a central role and emphasized the goal of psychotherapy to be the improvement of self-efficacy. Major emphasis on observational learning (think of the Bobo Doll experiment)
Idiographic Goals
Those that are unique to the individuals who pursue them
Nomothetic Goals
A relatively small number of essential goals that virtually everyone pursues.
Defensive pessimism
Constantly expecting the worst. Helps avoid disappointment and motivates goal-seeking behavior, driven by attempts to avoid almost certain doom
Sources of emotion
Immediate stimuli, as a conditioned response to a conditioned stimulus, and memories/thoughts
Paul Ekman
Argued that there are a few core emotions that have substantially the same meaning around the world, which are happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust
CAPS
Cognitive-Affective Personality System. Proposed by Mischel. Asserts the idea that the most important aspect of one’s personality is the interaction between personality and cognition.
Everyone has a CAPS, and it is a “stable system that mediates how the individual selects, construes, and processes social information and generates social behaviors
If…then contingencies
Sets of stimuli and corresponding responses that have been constructed by one’s learning and experiences
They are a major component of Mischel’s theory of personality. He wanted them to replace personality traits
Behavioral signature
Proposed by Mischel. It is each individual’s pattern of contingencies, which is unique
BEATS
Carol Dweck’s idea that personality emerges from one’s mental representations, which are beliefs, emotions, and action tendencies (BEATS) that are relevant to one’s most important goals.
Dweck believes that everyone has basic motivations that drive everything they do and the creation of their BEATS. The result is consistent patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior (like personality traits).
Dweck comes close to bridging the gap between cognitive behavioral theory and traditional trait theory
R. Buckminster Fuller
Refers to personality as a verb - it actually encompasses several verbs: thinking, wanting, and feeling
The DSM IV is more ____ whereas the DSM V is more ____ grounded
traditional; scientifically
Five general characteristics of personality disorders
Unusual, tend to cause problems, affect social relations, stable over time, and (in some cases) the person with the disorder does not even realize
Ego-syntonic personality disorders
Disorders in which the person with the disorder does not think anything is wrong. They may think that other people have issues especially if those others have a problem with the one with a disorder.
Ex: Antisocial and narcissistic disorders
Ego-dystonic
Describes personality disorders in which the sufferer is aware of their problems and would like to be cured. Symptoms often manifest as confusion, depression, or anxiety.
Cluster A of DSM IV
Odd and eccentric personality disorders
Includes schizotypal, schizoid, and paranoid
Cluster B of DSM V
Impulsive and erratic disorders
Includes: histrionic, narcissistic, antisocial, and borderline
Cluster C of DSM V
Anxious and avoidant personality disorders
Includes: dependent, avoidant, and OCPD
Dependent PD
Basic belief: “I am helpless”
Resultingly, they latch onto people that they think will take care of them
Avoidant PD
Basic belief: “I may get hurt”, intense fear of failure
Result/Behavior: Avoidance, severe constriction of their interpersonal world
Cluster: A
Paranoid PD
Belief: “People are dangerous”
Action: Wariness
Cluster: A
Narcissistic PD
Belief: “I am special and entitled”, lack of empathy
Behavior: Self-aggrandizement
Cluster: B
Histrionic
Belief: “I need to impress”
Behavior: Dramatics
Cluster: B
Obsessive Compulsive PD
Belief: “I must not err”, also severely judgmental of others
Behavior: Perfectionism, inability to throw things away
Cluster: C
Possible treatments include SSRIs and other antidepressants (shows how OCPD may be driven by anxiety, depression, and general unhappiness)
Antisocial PD
Belief: “Others are to be taken”
Behavior: Attack, vandalism, harassment, theft. In general, highly impulsive
Cluster: B
Most psychopaths meet the criteria for APD, but not all APD patients meet the criteria for psychopathy
Schizoid PD
Belief: “I need plenty of space”
Behavior: Isolation
Cluster: A
Borderline PD
Thought pattern: Confused thinking and chaotic emotions, poor sense of identity. HALLMARK = unstable emotions
Behavior: Disorganized and unpredictable behavior. Often includes self-harm (even suicide in 8-10% of sufferers)
Cluster: B
This is the most severe PD out there. Origins are potentially in genetics and emotional learning. Much more common in women
Schizotypal PD
Thought pattern: Peculiar thoughts (not any in particular)
Behavior: Odd actions
Cluster: A
The Bad Five
Name the traits of the Big Five to which each one is connected
Negative affectivity (high neuroticism) Detachment (low extraversion) Antagonism (low agreeableness) Disinhibition (low conscientiousness) Psychoticism (similar to extreme high end of openness to experience
Dialectical behavioral therapy
Teaches emotional self-control in individual or group settings. Involves examination of past inappropriate emotional reactions and analysis of how similar situations could be handled better.
Major, promising treatment for Borderline PD
Steps of Diagnosing a PD, according to the DSM V
- Is the client’s personality-functioning seriously impaired and to what degree?
- Is one of the six PDs defined in the DSM present?
- Assess the degree to which the client is characterized by each of the five maladaptive traits (The Bad Five)
Criticism of the DSM-IV’s labeling
This version had a label for everything from compulsive gambling to coffee nerves defined as a mental disorder, which threatened to undermine the meaning of the concept altogether
Jackson’s study on longevity and personality
Looked at ratings from subjects’ friends that were collected more than 75 years ago and then looked to see how long each subject lived.
Men who were higher in conscientiousness and openness, and women higher in agreeableness and more emotionally stable tended to live longer
What quality of physical health is associated with high negative emotionality?
Has proven to be linked with both good and poor physical health.
Emotionality affects health by ….
eliciting behaviors that affect levels of stress and affecting the frequency of health-enhancing behaviors
Describe the relationship between conscientiousness and physical health.
High conscientiousness is associated with living longer and having a better quality of life with more positive outcomes. Those who are high in conscientiousness are more likely to engage in health-enhancing behaviors
Judgment Goals
Aiming to validate an attribute in oneself. Can get in the way of actually improving oneself
Ex: The goal of convincing yourself that you are desirable/popular/smart.
Development Goal
Desire to actually improve oneself
Ex: Actually becoming smarter
Entity Theories
Belief that personal qualities are unchangeable, so trying to change them would be pointless. Instead of trying to change them, the beholders just try to convince themselves they have high degree of [desirable trait] or low degree of [undesirable trait] - these are judgment goals!
Incremental theories
Belief that ability and intelligence can be developed and change over time. Trying to do this comprises development goals
In contrast to entity theories.
When is it disadvantageous to be an incremental theorist?
Suppose an incremental theorist and an entity theorist both fail at a task. The incremental theorist will ruminate on the lack of effort that they believe caused them to fail so much that they may not be able to move on to the next task. In contrast, the entity theorist is likely able to move on to the next task because their prior failure was simply due to “lack of ability” - therefore it is unrelated to the next task
