Psychology Flashcards
Avoidance conditioning
Conditioning involved in the aetiology of agoraphobia and obsessional rituals
4 Areas impaired in psychometric testing in amnesic syndrome
Anterograde memory
New learning
Immediate memory
Delayed recall
What is the type of conditioning when the bell is continued until the salivation appears?
Forward conditioning
Incubation
Increase in the strength of the response following brief but repeated exposure to the stimulus
When carried out in imagination, immediate exposure to elements at the top of the hierarchy without any gradation of anxiety- inducing stimuli is termed as….
Implosion
A parrot was given a new cage. When the parrot touch a lever in the cage, it received an electric shock. It did not touch the lever again. The learning process that has occurred here is…
Punishment
Raven’s progressive matrices
Measure of non verbal intelligence
Used in assessment of general cognitive abilities in children and adults
Of all the sensory systems, the system least developed at birth is…
Sight
Visual acuity at birth is 20/300
4 Types of Marlow’s deficiency needs
Physiological
Safety
Love and belonging
Esteem
Basic building block or unit of intelligent behaviour is known as…
Schema
George has a history of anxiety disorder. On visiting a church, he developed a sense of familiarity because his stored memories were brought into consciousness. This phenomenon is called…
Recognition
If the conditioned stimulus ends prior to the application of unconditioned stimulus it is called…
Trace conditioning
Test for pre-morbid intelligence
National adult reading test
Gestalts five principles of perception
Proximity Closure Similarity Continuity Symmetry
The memories closest to a disruptive event are most vulnerable to loss is known as…
Ribot’s hypothesis
A form of prejudice in which negative verbal remarks against a person, group, or community, are made but not addressed directly to the subject.
Antilocution
Three components of prejudice in Allport’s concept of prejudice
- Cognitive component - stereotypes
- Affective component - hostility
- Behavioural component - which according to Allport can be: anti-locution, avoidance, discrimination. Physical attack or extermination in terms of increasing severity
The attributional bias hypothesised to contribute to persecutory delusions via…
External attribution for negative events
Groupthink
The practice of thinking or making decisions as a group, resulting typically in unchallenged, poor-quality decision-making.
Stratregies to reduce groupthink
Encouraging open debate
Acknowledging the presence of groupthink
Seeking external opinion
Splitting the group into smaller units for discussion
Holding last chance meetings to encourage challenges and reserving leader’s opinions until after the groups discussion has been completed
Mowrer’s primary drives (definition and 3 examples)
Physiological urge or need
E.g. hunger, thirst, need for sex
Come and go
Mowrer’s secondary drives (definition and 2 examples)
Acquired non- physiological urge
E.g. Achievement, affiliation (e.g. money, play)
Continuous
Cognitive dissonance
Aversive psychological state when there is a discrepancy between actions and attitudes
What type of influence is considered to be a factor of social influence when a group makes a polarised decision
Normative influence
Normative influence
People have a need not to appear off or ‘stick out’ as a sore thumb, so we say yes to what others say
Tension between racial groups rising when the economic conditions are similar is an example of….
Scapegoating
“Aggression is a consequence of frustration” hypothesis proposed by…
Dollard’s frustration-aggression hypothesis
Theory of mind
An understanding that other people possess mental states that involve ideas and views of the world that are different from our own
Absent in ASD
Age that children develop theory of mind
4 years
Effect of ambiguous tasks of conformity
Ambiguous tasks tend to lead to more conformity as people may feel less certain of their own ideas
Persuasive leadership style
Ability to motivate and enthuse the group to pursue the goal
The classic studies by Milgram explain the concept of…
Obedience
Phi phenomenon
Optical illusion (Max Wertheimer, 1912), based on the principle that the human eye is capable of perceiving movement from pieces of information, such as repetition (flickering) of images. Principle behind motion pictures
Who coined the term cognitive dissonance
Festinger (1957)
Instrumental aggression
Carried out for the purpose of achieving a particular goal e.g. kidnapping for ransom
Often planned and not impulsive
Hostile aggression
Motivated by need to expressive negative feelings, such as anger
Fundamental Attribution Error
Attributing others mistakes to their personal dispositions
Allows a sense of predictability to be developed about the other person.
It is more pronounced if the attributed behaviour is negative and undesirable.
Mirror test (definition and age children pass it)
A test for self-recognition in which the child using its mirror image to touch a dot on it’s nose
18 months
Three types of dissonance-reducing behaviour
- Changing one of the cognitions
- Decreasing perceived importance of the dissonant cognitions
- Changing and/or adding further (justifying) cognitions
Hawthorne Effect
Increased observation may lead to increased productivity in certain tasks
Pygmalian Effect
High expectations lead to improved performance in a given area
(Kakaji has high expectations)
Barnham Effect
Individuals believe that personality descriptions apply specifically to them (more so than to other people), despite the fact that the description is actually filled with information that applies to everyone.
(Barnham horoscopes)
Bystander apathy also known as
Genovese effect
Bystander sponge
Semantic Differential Scale
Visual analogue scale (7 points) with two polarised adjectives at either extremes separated by a line
The subject mark their attitudes between the two
Subject to positional response bias
Positional response bias
Cronbach (1950) defined positional response bias, one type of response set, as selecting one response position on multiple-choice tests significantly more often, regardless of item content.
Recall bias
Systematic error that occurs when participants do not remember previous events or experiences accurately or omit details: the accuracy and volume of memories may be influenced by subsequent events and experiences.
Self-image
The way we think we are like and how we describe ourselves
Self actualisation
The motive to realise one’s full potential
Self efficacy
The belief that we can perform adequately in a given situation
Social Loafing
Presence of others reduces task performance
Ringelmann (1880s), observed tug of war teams, the more people in a team, the less effort made by each member
Drift Effect
Concerning the relationship between mental illness and social class, the argument that illness causes one to have a downward shift in social class.
Stockholm Effect
Psychological condition of a victim who identifies with and empathises with their captor or abuser and their goals.
Hawthorne Effect
The effect on the behavior of individuals of knowing that they are being observed or are taking part in research.
(Exercising in the back of hawthorne view)
Three key factors determining the favourableness of circumstances for leaders
- Leader-member relations (how much they are liked and respected)
- Position power (how much authority)
- Task structure (how structured the task is)
Three leadership styles proposed by Lewin
- Autocratic (authoritarian)
- Democratic
- Laissez-faire
In which type of leadership is productivity higher in, autocratic or laissez-faire?
Laissez-faire
Difference between deontology vs consequentialism higher level principles
Deontology - focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves
Consequentialism - focuses on the consequences of the action and best interests
Utilitarianism
- Theory of morality that advocates actions that foster happiness or pleasure and oppose actions that cause unhappiness or harm.
- Legislated responsibilities of psychiatrists, particularly in relation to issues of public safety, invariably utilitarian in nature and have usually emerged in the context of social and political responses to issues such as public safety especially in relation to forensic patients
Willowbrook Study
- Willowbrook Hepatitis Studies
- 1963-1966
- Willowbrook State School, a New York State Institution for ‘mentally defective persons’
- Studies were designed to gain an understanding of the natural history of infected hepatitis
- Tested the effects of gamma globulin in preventing or ameliorating the disease
- Children were deliberately infected with hepatitis virus (fed food extracts and later injected purer forms)
- Willlowbrook closed due to overcrowding but the hepatitis programme continued
- In some cases, children could only be admitted if they enrolled in the study
‘Refrigerator mother’ is associated with which of the following mental illness
- Autism
- Mothers with autistic children were blamed to be ‘refrigerator mothers’ who were defrosted just enough to produce a baby but remained emotionally cold, inflexible and lacking warmth in the parental relationship.
- This theory has been widely discussed and refuted as no proof exists to support this claim
Which type of life events predict the onset of pure depressive illness?
a. Humiliation
b. Threat
c. Danger
d. Entrapment
e. Loss
Humiliation
Pa-Leng
- Culture bound syndrome
- Pathological fear of cold (frigophobia) and of wind (anemophobia), believed to produce fatigue, impotence, and death
- Fear of a fatal upset in the balance between ying and yang
- Patients may present with cold, clammy hands, tachycardia, dry mouth and other somatic symptoms that trigger panic
- May reference destruction of the soul
(Pa-leng - lenga when you’re freezing)
Koro
- Culture bound syndrome
- Individuals have an overpowering belief that their sex organs are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals.
(Koro my genitals gone?)
Piblokto
- Culture bound syndrome
- Observed primarily in female Inuit and other arctic populations.
- Individuals experience a sudden dissociative period of extreme excitement in which they often tear off clothes, run naked through the snow, scream, throw things, and perform other wild behaviors.
- Often followed by seizure and coma lasting up to 12 hours
(Piblokto - block toe - toes on block of ice - taking clothes off)
Susto
- Culture bound syndrome
- Primarily among Latin American cultures.
- Chronic somatic suffering stemming from emotional trauma or from witnessing traumatic experiences lived by others
(Susto - somatic suffering in Latin america)
Windingo
- Culture bound syndrome
- Occurs among northern Algonquin Indians living in Canada and the northeastern United States.
- Delusions of becoming possessed by a flesh-eating monster (the windigo) and is manifested in symptoms including depression, violence, a compulsive desire for human flesh, and sometimes actual cannibalism.
(windingo the flesh eating monster)
Enculturation
Culture being learnt through contact with family, friends, classmates, teachers and the media
This happens to everyone irrespective of migration
Assimilation
Partial adaptation of a new culture (seen in immigrants or refugees) without giving up one’s culture of origin completely
Changing Minds Campaign
- RCPsych 5 year campaign
- 1998-2003
- Aimed to promote positive images of mental illness, challenge misrepresentations and discriminations, encourage patient advocacy and educate the public about the real nature and treatability of mental disorder
Who described the concept of the sick role?
Talcott Parsons (American Sociologist)
Does an individual want to get better when they assume the sick role?
Yes
Illness behaviour
Any behaviour undertaken by an individual who feels ill to relieve that experience
What genetic change did Caspi demonstrate influences an individual’s response to stressful life events in terms of later depression
Serotonin transporter polymophisms
Who developed the four prima facie ethical principles and what does prima facie mean?
- Beauchamp and Childress
- Low level principle
- The principle is binding unless it conflicts with another moral principle - if it does we have to choose between them
What are the four prima facie ethical principles?
- Respect for autonomy
- Beneficence
- Non-maleficence
- Justice.
Life events and difficulties scale
- Brown & Harris
- Life events are graded according to their inherent means of the events to the individual concerned, i.e. contextual rating of social adversity
- Holmes and Rahe social adjustment scale
- Developed in 1967 by psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe.
- They decided to study the links between stress and illness.
- They examined the medical records of more than 5,000 patients, and focused specifically on 43 common life events.
- They asked people which of these events (called Life Change Units, or LCUs) they’d experienced in the previous two years.
- That allowed Holmes and Rahe to work out the relative “weights” of different types of stress.
- It also showed them the point at which someone’s combined stress load was likely to put them at risk.
Impact of Event Scale
- An easy-to-administer questionnaire used to evaluate the degree of distress a patient feels in response to trauma.
- It provides a structured way for a patient to communicate distress when she or he may not have the words to do so.
What is the strongest risk factor for depression
Personal or family history
What declaration describes the code of ethical recommendations used currently to guide clinical research worldwide
Helsinki declaration
What are the four major recurring themes behind stigma of mental illness according to Hayward and Bright?
- Dangerousness
- Attribution to responsibility
- Poor prognosis
- Disruption of social interaction
What are the four chief characteristics of the sick role?
- The sick person is freed or excepted from carrying out normal social roles
- People who are sick are not directly responsible for their disease
- It is necessary that a sick person tries to get well
- The sick person must seek competent help and co-operate with medical care to get well.
Who proposed ‘Insanity sometimes is the sane response to an insane society
- R.D Laing
- Prominent anti-psychiatrist
- Wrote ‘The Divided Self’
Amok
- A syndrome first reported in the Malay people, usually male, consisting of a period of brooding followed by a sudden outburst of indiscriminate murderous frenzy, sometimes provoked by an insult, jealousy or sense of desperation.
- The person who runs amok may also die in a form of murder-suicide
Define paternalism
The interference with people’s liberties or autonomy with an argument that this is done ‘for their own good’
Who are the three pioneers of the anti-psychiatry movement?
- R.D Laing
- Thomas Szasz
- Foucault
In clinical psychiatric population, which of the following disorders is more common in higher social classes?
a. Autism
b. Anorexia nervosa
c. Bulimia nervosa
d. ADHD
e. Schizophrenia
Anorexia Nervosa
Which is the following risk factor is likely to be causative in a young man diagnosed with schizophrenia?
a. Having lost his mother before the age of 14
b. Being a migrant
c. Living alone
d. Alcohol use
e. HLADR2 gene
Being a migrant
one of the strongest known risk factors for schizophrenia
Camberwell Family Interview
Semi-structured interview carried out with relatives of patients with schizophrenia
What is the Nuremberg Code?
A set of ethical research principles for human experimentation created by the court in U.S. v Brandt, one of the Subsequent Nuremberg trials that were held after the Second World War.
What are the six conditions laid out in the Nuremburg Code?
- Voluntary consent is given
- Research is intended for common good of the society
- Avoidance of unnecessary pain and suffering is guaranteed for the subjects
- Subject has liberty to withdraw at any point
- Qualified researchers undertake research
- Scientist must terminate a study if more harm is being caused that expected to the subjects
In what disorder is there an overrepresentation of higher social class seen in brothers and children of the patients? What research showed this?
Bipolar Disorder
Tsuchiya et al 2004
- Danish study
- Showed that higher social class of parents together with longer paternal education history and larger possession of wealth increased the risk of bipolar disorder in the offspring
It is speculated that bipolar genes may offer some survival benefits such as excessive creativity or productivity which uplifts the families to higher status
Melting post model
- Describes nations with increasing immigration trend
- These nations are formed by an assortment of immigrant cultures resulting in a hybrid sociocultural unit
- Similar to forming an alloy with new properties
- The melting together of several cultures produces a new culture with greater strengths and advantages
Who proposed the concept of the schizophrenic mother?
Fromm-Reichmann
How are schizophrenic mothers described by Fromm-Reichmann?
- Rejecting
- Impervious to the feelings of others
- Rigid in moralism concerning sex
- Had a significant fear of intimacy
Who is regarded as the ‘Father of Sociology’
Emile Durkheim, French Journalist
Formally established the study of sociology
Who developed the idea of primary and secondary deviance to explain social labelling?
Edwin Lemert
Primary Deviance
Any general deviance before the person is labeled as deviant
Secondary Deviance
Any action that takes place after primary deviance as a reaction to the institutions and the labelling.
According to WHO, how many women and girls are reported to have been amputated in the genital area worldwide?
100-140 milllion
What fraction of individuals who were maltreated would subject their children to mistreatment?
1/3
How many more times likely are children with disabilities to be maltreated compared to without disabilities?
1.7
Are girls or boys at a greater risk of serious injury and emotional neglect?
Boys
According to Holmes-Rahe social readjustment scale, after the death of one’s spouse (100 units worth), what is second on the list and what is the score?
Divorce
73 units
What are the four vulnerability factors for depression according to the Brown and Harris Study (1978)?
- Absence of a close confiding relationship
- Loss of the mother before age 11
- Lack of employment outside the home
- Having 3 or more children under 15 living at home
What is a total institution and who coined the term?
- Goffmann (1961, Asylums)
- whose character is symbolized by the barrier to social intercourse with the outside’. Total institutions share the following characteristics:
1. All aspects of life are conducted in the same premises and under the same unitary authority.
2. Each member’s daily activities are carried on in the immediate proximity of a large batch of others, who are also required to do the same set of activities.
3. All parts of a single day’s activities are strictly scheduled with one leading into the next.
4. The different enforced activities are based on a single plan whose purpose is the fulfilment of the proposed official (or statutory) aims of the institution.
What is Courtesy stigma who coined the term?
- Goffmann (1963)
- The stigmatisation an unaffected person experiences due to their relationship with a person who bears a stigma
Who is particularly vulnerable to courtesy stigma?
Parents of children with psychiatric conditions
Brain Fag
- Culture Bound Syndrome
- West Africa 1960 among students
- Has been shown to occur very widely in African students in western educational systems south of the sahara.
- Seen predominantly in male students
- Vague somatic symptoms (lethargy, insomnia, palpitations), depression, difficulty concentrating
(African student brain fog)
Dhat
- Culture Bound Syndrome
- South Asia (including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) in which male patients report that they suffer from premature ejaculation or impotence, and believe that they are passing semen in their urine.
(Dhat semen is in my urine)
Latah
- Culture-bound syndrome
- Malaysia and Indonesia.
- Respond to minimal stimuli with exaggerated startles, often exclaiming normally inhibited sexually denotative words.
- Sometimes Latahs after being startled obey the commands or imitate the actions of persons about them
(La-tiny stimuli startles)
Taijin kyofusho
- Culture bound syndrome
- Japan
- Fear of losing good will of other due to imagined shortcomings of oneself.
- Social anxiety, tremulousness, self-consciousness and a sense of physical defect or deformity are seen
- These can develop into anthropophobia (fear of people) or a severe form of anxiety
(Fuuu - smell)
What are the three groups of families experiencing acculturative change?
- Traditional
- Transitional
- Bicultural
Features of Traditional families experiencing acculturative change
- Use their native tongues rather than English
- Live in ethnic enclaves
- Avoid interactions with majority cultural institutions
- Maintain pre-immigration values and behaviours
Features of Transitional families experiencing acculturative change
- Greater fluency in the language of the host culture
- Children who become familiar with values and social behaviours of the dominant majority population through attendance at school and school-related activities
Features of Bicultural families experiencing acculturative change
- High degree of language fluency in their native languages as well as English
- Economic stability
- Residence in multiethnic settings
- Appears to be more adaptive and associated with minimal acculturation stress
Acculturation
Assimilation to a different culture, typically the dominant one.
Charaka’s four C’s of ethical principles
- Confidentiality
- Caring practice
- Continuous professional development
- Compassion
Charaka’s six qualities every physician should possess
- Required learning
- Rationality
- Scientific knowledge
- Memory
- Devotion to the patient’s cause
- Regular practice
Betrayal Funnel
- Goffmann
- People we trust most – family and friends – conspire against us when we are unwell, reporting our actions to doctors and mental health professionals (called the ‘circuit of agents’) who run the decision-making process.
Role Stripping
- Goffmann
- The institutionalization process begins with a series of assaults on the recruit’s self.
- The process of stripping inmates of their identity involves such initiation rituals as trading personal clothes and belongings for hospital issue
Mortification
- Goffmann
- Mortification procedures that consist of a series of assaults on the inmate’s self-image.
- At the end of mortification one becomes a ‘full member’ of the institution.
- Private, personal activities go on public display; he must request permission for even the most minor activities that were purely volitional on the “outside,” such as smoking, shaving, or going to the toilet.
- This is termed as civil death.
Privilege system
- Goffman
- The patient is then inserted into the lowest rung of an all- embracing privilege system.
- This system is based on the house rules.
- The privileges are usually reductions in the institution’s control over the patient’s life.
- Freedom is a token of reward.
Stages of the Moral Career
Goffman also described the ‘moral career’ of a mentally ill patient i.e. the process whereby a person with social ties, friends, and family in the community is institutionalized and converted into an inmate whose world is limited to his immediate hospital ambience (Peele et al. 1977).
- Betrayal Funnel
- Role Stripping
- Mortification
- Privilege system
Institutional neurosis
- Russell Barton (1976)
- Characterized by apathy, lack of initiative, loss of interest and submissiveness.
- Causes: loss of contact with the outside world, enforced idleness, brutality and authoritativeness of staff, loss of friends and personal possessions, poor ward atmosphere and loss of prospects outside the institution.
Biopsychosocial model (what is it and who proposed it)
- Proposed by George Engel
- Systems theory-based explanation of disease models
- Widely used in aetiological formulations in psychiatric practice, highlighting the prominence of social factors in the practice of psychiatry.
Impact of Time to Change Campaign
- 2009 - 2019
- Increase in mental health knowledge in around 10% of people
- Moderate positive effect on attitudes in around 13% of people
- Small decrease in the level of desire for social distancing from mentally distressed people in around 12% on people
A cat bit a young child when she attempted to feed it. After than, the girl remains afraid of approaching the animal. Describe the learning theory
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning explains some of the fear acquisitions seen during a child’s development
Reciprocal Inhibition
- Wolpe
- If stimulus with desired response and stimulus with the undesired response are presented together repeatedly, then the incompatibility leads to a reduction in frequency of the undesired response.
- This is used in relaxation therapy for anxiety and in systematic desensitisation.
Shaping
- a.k.a. successive approximation
- Form of operant conditioning where a desirable behaviour pattern is learnt by the successive reinforcement of behaviours closer to the desired one.
- Shaping is used when the target behaviour is yet to appear (i.e. it is novel and does not exist already).
Chaining
- Reinforcing a series of related behaviours, each of which provides the cue for the next to obtain a reinforcer.
- Chaining is used when the target behaviour is already notable in some form but not in the fully formed sequence.
- An example is teaching a child to write his name. The shape of individual alphabets is first taught using reinforcers and forward chaining can be used to link each alphabet in the correct order, finally reinforcing the completed name.
Backward chaining
Starts at the end e.g. when making cupcakes, the child is first taught how to sprinkle over a finished cupcake, the next time icing the cake and sprinkling, the next time placing the prepared cake mixture into cupcake wrappers then icing then sprinkling etc.
Difference between shaping and chaining
Shaping is used when the target behaviour does not exist yet, some approximation of the behaviour is reinforced in steps (e.g. rat pressing lever)
(Shape does not exist)
Chaining is used when the target behaviour is already notable in some form but not in the fully formed sequence. (e.g. child writing name)
(Chain exists)
What type of learning is modelling?
Observational
Operant Conditioning
- Learning results from consequences of one’s actions – operations.
- The learning organism actively operates (instrumental) on the environment.
Classic Conditioning
- Learning takes place through repeated temporal association of two events.
- The learning organism is passive, respondent
(i. e. shows an innate, reflexive response such as salivation) but not instrumental (i.e. does not actively operate on its environment).
Insight Learning
- Kohler
- Diametrically opposite to associative learning and views learning as purely cognitive and not based on S-R mechanism - a sudden idea occurs and the solution is learnt.
Latent Learning
- Tolman
- Reinforcement may be necessary for a performance of learned response but not necessary for the learning itself to occur
- He inferred that rats can make cognitive maps of mazes – called place learning - which consists of cognitive expectations as to what comes next.
Discriminative Learning
- Process diametrically opposite to generalization
- Learned responses are made only to specific stimuli and not to other similar stimuli e.g. a child may be afraid of dogs but not all four-legged animals.
Premack’s principle
- a.k.a. Grandma’s rule
- High-frequency behaviour can be used to reinforce low- frequency behaviour e.g. “eat your greens and you can have dessert”.
- An existing high-frequency behaviour (eating dessert) is used to reward low-frequency behaviour (eating greens).
What type of reinforcement is least resistant to exctinction?
Continuous reinforcement
Every behaviour is followed by a reinforcer
What type of reinforcement takes the longest to enstablish?
Intermittent reinforcement
What type of reinforcement leads to highest rate of responding?
Fixed ratio reinforcement
More responses lead to more reinforcement, only short pauses occur after every response. Therefore, FR schedules lead to a higher rate of responding
What type of reinforcement leads to lowest rate of responding?
Fixed interval reinforcement
The organism knows the reinforcement will not be happening some reasonable time
Recognition in memory
Feeling of familiarity that accompanies return of stored material to consciousness
Retrospective falsification
Modifying memory in terms of attitudes and emotions
Jamais vu
- An experience that has been experienced before is not associated with feelings of familiarity.
- Both can occur in normal people, and also can occur in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Broadbent’s early selection filter theory
- Our ability to process information is capacity limited.
- A temporary buffer system receives all information and passes it to a selective filter.
- The selection is based on physical characteristics of the information – one source is selected and
others are rejected. - Processing two different pieces of information will take longer and will be less efficient as
switching takes a substantial period of time.
Dichotic listening
- Refers to feeding one message into the left ear and a different message simultaneously into the right ear.
- Participants have to repeat one of the messages aloud. This process is called Shadowing (first used by Cherry).
- This is a method to study selective attention.
- Divided attention can be tested using a dual-task technique whereby the individual is asked to attend and respond to both or all incoming messages.
Cocktail party effect
- It is a concept related to selective attention.
- It is a term used in early attention research ‘to describe the ability of people to be able to switch their attention rapidly to a non- processed message’.
- The cocktail party effect shows that certain types of stimuli can elicit switching between messages e.g. the physical location of the speaker, the pitch of the voice or the use of familiar stimuli such as the listener’s name. (Lunch-queue effect)
Triesman’s attenuation theory
- Treisman (1964)
- Physical characteristics and semantic relevance (meaning) are used to select one message for full processing while other messages are given partial processing.
James-Lange theory of emotions
- Perception of a stimulus leads to bodily (skeletal and visceral) changes.
- The peripheral responses send feedback to the cortex via thalamus leading to the perception of the emotion.
(James-Lange - Body)
Cannon-Bard theory
- On the perception of a stimulus, thalamus coordinates signals to cortex leading to a conscious experience and simultaneously sends signals to hypothalamus leading to physiological changes.
- The thalamus is considered to be cardinal in the emotional appraisal.
(Cannon-Bard - Thamalus)
Schachter-Singer labelling theory
- On the perception of a stimulus, both physiological changes and a conscious experience of general arousal take place simultaneously.
- This generic arousal is then interpreted to either positive or negative and labelled appropriately according to the situational cues.
This is also called jukebox theory or two-factor theory. - If an appropriate label is not found, by default, negative appreciation of arousal occurs (e.g. ‘dysphoria’ when experiencing boredom).
(Schachter-Singer- Simultaneous SSS)
Lazarus cognitive appraisal theory
- States that appraisal precedes affective reaction – hence affective primacy cannot be supported.
- Cognitive appraisal refers to the immediate, intuitive, personal evaluations of a situation that gives an idea of how the individual subjectively experiences their environment.
- Roseman and Scherer propose eight cognitive appraisal dimensions to distinguish emotional understanding, rather than the traditional two (pleasantness and arousal).
- A third group of theorists suggest that each emotion is categorised by a unique pattern of cognitive appraisals.
Group polarisation
A group discussion process can strengthen average individual inclinations and polarise the group in the direction where most individuals were heading already
Risky Shift
The group can make more risky decisions than what an individual him/herself can.
Groupthink
While making extreme decisions, the desire to agree with other members of a group can override rational judgment applicable in individual decision-making
Conformity
- A process where no explicit requirement is made to do a certain task, but peer influence, and the need for acceptance pushes one to carry out the task.
- e.g. Individual agrees with the group despite holding a different personal view
Pluralistic ignorance
- This refers to members of a crowd looking at each other for signs of distress but remaining calm themselves, leading to misappraisal of the situation being safe leading to lack of intervention.
- Bystander competence is usually not required for intervention except in ambiguous situations where technical help is required e.g. blood at the scene.
Festinger’s deindividuation theory
- People in-group context act uncharacteristically more aggressive as a sense of identity and belongingness and diffusion of responsibility occurs in groups.
- Similarly, uniforms can reduce individuality, promoting expression of aggression (hence its use in Police and military forces).
- But deindividuation does not always cause aggression.
Obedience
- Conditions where the individual is explicitly asked to do a task, and this instruction comes from an authority.
Social Loafing
- Ringelmann’s effect
- It is seen in games such as tug-of-war and in clapping hands after a performance.
- The larger a group is, the less the individual performance - as one thinks the others will do the job
(Loafing off others)
Legitimate Power
Based on the perception that someone has the right to prescribe behaviour due to election or appointment to a position of responsibility
Autocratic Leadership
- Leader’s decision-making occurs without consultation from the others and causes the most discontent.
- It works if no need for input on decision i.e. that motivation would not be affected by not being consulted.
(autocratic - authoritarian)
Coercive Power
The perceived ability to punish those who not conform with your ideas or demands
Referent Power
Through association with others who possess power
Informational Power
Based on controlling the information
Democratic Leadership
- Leader’s decision-making involves others though the decision may ultimately made by the leader having facilitated group discussion and discussed opinions.
- It is a well-regarded process but can be time-consuming.
Reward Power
Based on the perceived ability to give positive consequences or remove negative ones
Expert Power
Based on having distinctive knowledge, expertness, ability or skills
Procedural Memory
- Made of procedural memory for skills and habits, priming, classical conditioning and non- associative learning.
- This cannot be consciously inspected.
- This is not affected by an organic amnesia of hippocampal origin.
Working Memory
- Working memory allows cognitive processes to be performed on data that is briefly stored in short-term memory.
- Increasingly used to describe a large part of what was called as STM in the past.
Anterograde Memory
New learning
Declarative Memory
- Type of long term memory
- Explicit – includes semantic and episodic memory
Episodic Memory
Autobiographical, self-focused, spatio-temporal memory
Infantile Amnesia
The average age of the earliest retrieved memory is 3.5 years. There is a total lack of memories for events occurring during the first few years of life, and there is a variable degree of amnesia for events that occurred in the first 2 to 5 years.
Retrograde Memory
The ability to recall events that occurred or information that was acquired prior to a particular point in time, often the onset of illness or physical damage such as brain injury.
Semantic Memory
Category of long-term memory that involves the recollection of ideas, concepts and facts commonly regarded as general knowledge
