Psychology Flashcards
MMSE
Cognitive screening. Disadvantages include can’t detect minor impairment, doesn’t test frontal lobe, sensitive to age/education/SES.
CAMCOG
Cambridge Cognitive Exam.
Cognitive screening.
Part of the CAMDEX assessment (Cambridge exam for mental disorders of the elderly).
Wechsler’s Adult Intelligence Scale
IQ test which includes verbal IQ (vocab, similarities, arithmetic, digit span, information, comprehension) and performance IQ (picture completion, digit symbol coding, block design, matrix reasoning, picture arrangement).
Ravens Progressive Matrices
Test of visuospatial function (culture-free) and general non-verbal intelligence (parietal lobe). Involves tests of logical thinking.
National Adult Reading Test (NART)
Premorbid IQ.
Involves reading a list of progressively more difficult words.
Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test
Memory test, which detects impairment in everyday memory functioning and can be used to monitor changes following treatment of memory issues.
Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test
Test of visuospatial memory and visuospatial constructional ability. Involves being asked to copy a complex figure and then draw it from memory.
Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
Test of frontal lobe executive function and set-shifting.
Involves being asked to match a set of cards without being told how, but with feedback on if matches are correct.
Stroop Test
Test of frontal lobe. Attentional conflict and measure of disinhibition and set shifting.
Involves reading colour words by saying the colour of the font, not the word.
Stanford Binet
Intelligence test
Benton Revised Visual Retention Test
Assesses visual perception, visual memory and visuoconstructive abilities. Used for diagnosis of brain damange and dysfunction.
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
Self-report measure of personality and mental state. Includes 9 validity scales to assess for lying, faking, defensiveness, etc. True/False questionnaire.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Projective test of personality. Most common test in forensic assessment. Can also be used to diagnose underlying thought disorder/psychosis in patient who is guarded.
Thematic Apperception Test
Projective test of personality.
Person has to explain what is happening in ambiguous scenes.
Paired Associate Learning Test
Verbal memory
Involves learning to pair two objects in memory.
Trail Making Test
Test of visuospatial and perceptuomotor speed, visual attention and task-switching.
Involves connecting 25 dots as fast as possible while maintaining accuracy.
Halstead-Reitan Battery
Test to assess for brain injury (etiology, type, localisation, lateralisation).
Digit Span
Rapid bedside test of working memory.
Projection
Primitive defence mechanism - unwanted feelings are attributed to someone else.
Acting out
Primitive defence mechanism - person enacts difficult past experiences rather than tolerating them, eg, tantrums, self-harm.
Splitting
Primitive defence mechanism - individuals with BPD divide themselves into good and bad parts, then project these onto others.
Projective identification
Primitive defence mechanism - the split and projected part is taken in by the other person, who is affected and may react. They may start to identify with these beliefs, eg, erotic countertransference.
Idealisation and denigration
Primitive defence mechanism - used to ensure that a person doesn’t have to tolerate ambivalence.
Dissociation
Primitive defence mechanism - occurs in people with trauma hx who remove themselves from reality to avoid contact with painful thoughts/feelings.
Undoing/Magical thinking
Primitive defence mechanism - people with OCD believe doing a certain thing will magically negate an unacceptable thought/wish.
Isolation of affect
Primitive defence mechanism - attempting to avoid a painful thought/feeling by objectifying and emotionally detaching oneself from it.
Reaction formation
Primitive defence mechanism - adopting beliefs/attitudes/feelings contrary to what you really believe.
Identification with the aggressor
Primitive defence mechanism - common in childhood trauma. Person takes on abusive aspects of aggressor.
Displacement
Primitive defence mechanism - channelling a thought/feeling from its actual source to someone/something more acceptable.
Rationalisation
Primitive defence mechanism - justifying thoughts/feelings/actions using logically plausible explanations, even if unrelated.
Conversion
Primitive defence mechanism - emotional distress converted into physical symptoms.
Flight into health
Patient appears to make a spontaneous recovery in therapy when facing addressing particular issues.
Repetition compulsion
Primitive defence mechanism - person repeats a traumatic event over and over, motivated by a desire to return to an earlier state of things.
Sublimation
Mature defence mechanism - redirection of unacceptable instinctual drives into personally and socially acceptable channels.
Altruism
Mature defence mechanism - selflessly acting for others, thereby avoiding the difficulty of attending to one’s own needs.
Anticipation
Mature defence mechanism - realistic planning for future discomfort.
Humour
Mature defence mechanism
Suppression
Mature defence mechanism - conscious decision to delay paying attention to a certain thought to cope with present reality.
Transference
Feelings/attitudes a patient has towards a significant person are redirected onto the therapist.
Countertransference
Redirection of the therapist’s feelings toward the patient.
Persecutory spiral
Escalating and destructive interaction in which both patient and therapist feel persecuted. Can occur due to rigid and authoritarian attitude by therapist.
Twinship transference
A form of narcissistic transference, where patient experiences the therapist as having very similar characteristics to themself, which enhances their experience of being understood/valued.
Arbitrary inference
Cognitive distortion - conclusions in absence of evidence.
Overgeneralisation
Cognitive distortion - conclusion formed on basis of one incident.
Selective abstraction
Cognitive distortion - abstracts from whole situation and focuses on single incident.
Personalisation
Cognitive distortion - relating external events to oneself.
Magnification/Minimisation
Cognitive distortion - errors in evaluation.
Dichotomous thinking
Cognitive distortion - all-or-nothing / black-or-white thinking.
Flooding
Behavioural therapy concept. Exposing patient to phobic object in a non-graded manner with no attempt to reduce anxiety beforehand. Can be in vivo or in imagination. Studies show little difference between this and systematic desensitisation.
Systematic Desensitisation
Behavioural therapy concept. Based on social learning principles. Three stages:
1. Progressive relaxation
2. Desensitisation hierarchy (progressive anxiety-inducing situations)
3. Graded exposure to phobic items while patient relaxes to inhibit anxiety
Occurs through classical conditioning (new calm response to stimulus) and reciprocal inhibition.
Contact Desensitisation
Behavioural therapy concept. Combines modelling and guided participation. Teacher models desired behaviour and guides patient through. Based on extinction. Used in phobias.
Modelling
Live modelling + gradual practice = participant modelling. Used in assertiveness and social skills training.
Extinction
Behavioural therapy concept. Process of removing the reinforcers that normally follow a response to slowly change behaviour.
Sensory Memory
Allows comparison of stimulus with long-term memory to assign significance.
Auditory or visual.
Fade/loss time ~0.5s.
Short-term Memory
= primary/working memory.
Item entering short-term memory is lost in ~18s unless rehersal/repetition.
Conscious of store contents, capacity of 7 +/- 2 items but can increase by chunking.
Affected by primacy, latency, serial position.
Long-term Memory
= secondary memory.
Coding is mainly visual, semantic, acoustic.
Includes:
- Declarative memory (explicit) = lexical, episodic, semantic.
- Procedural memory (implicit) = motor skills, perceptual skills, intuitive cognitive skills.
- Perceptual representation system (PRS) = perceptual identification of objects and perceptual planning.
Continuous reinforcement
Reinforcer delivered every time a particular response occurs.
Partial/intermittent reinforcement
Reinforcement only occurs some of the time.
There is a partial reinforcement extinction effect (behaviour learned through partial reinforcement, especially if variable, is very resistant to extinction).
Involved in superstitions.
Fixed ratio schedules
Form of partial reinforcement.
Reinforcement follows fixed number of responses.
Variable ratio schedules
Form of partial reinforcement.
Variable number of responses between responses.
More likely to produce emotional outbursts during learning phase, less likely during the extinction phase.
Fixed interval schedule
Form of partial reinforcement.
Reinforcement occurs after a fixed time period regardless of number of responses.
Variable interval schedule
Form of partial reinforcement.
Reinforcement occurs after a variable time period, regardless of number of responses.
Brixton Test
Test of executive function.
Involves rule detection and rule following task.
Hayling Test
Test of executive function.
Involves two parts - sentence completion, and response suppression.
Gestalt psychology
Developed in response to structuralism.
The Gestalt psychologists recognised that individual items/thoughts need to be examined together. This was because they understood that individual items interact and add complexity to the overall picture.
Important figures: Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Köhler.
Laws: symmetry and order, similarity, proximity, continuity, closure, common fate.
Structuralism
Founded by Wundt.
Followers of structuralism thought that the best way to understand the mind was to break thoughts down into their most basic components and then create laws regarding how they are connected.
Phi phenomenon
= rapid sequences of perceptual events, such as rows of flashing lights, create the illusion of motion even when there is none, eg, motion pictures.
Created by Wurtheimer (of Gestalt theory).
Trait Theory
Created by Allport
Level 1: Cardinal traits - so pervasive that most of the persons behaviour and activities can be traced to this particular trait. Only few people possess a cardinal trait but for the ones who do, this trait may be the ruling of their personality. Such traits are usually evident to most people who know the individual.
Level 2: Central traits - easily detected characteristics within a person, traits that all people have a certain number of, five to ten on average.
Level 3: Secondary traits - less evident and only manifest in select circumstances.
Operant vs Classical conditioning
In classical conditioning we are looking at responses to stimuli, whereas in operant conditioning we are interested in responses to behaviour. In classical conditioning, the animal behaves as if it has learned to associate a stimulus with a significant event. In operant conditioning, the animal behaves as if it has learned to associate a behaviour with a significant event.
Theories of Aggression
- Psychodynamic (Freud) - aggression arises from a primary instinct called thanatos (death instinct), which aims to cause total destruction and death. There is an opposing instinct called eros (the life instinct). Catharsis occurs when we watch an aggressive act or are involved in a mildly aggressive act.
- Sociobiological / Drive (Lorenz) - Following his study of birds, Lorenz proposed a theory of aggression which shared many of the ideas of evolution. He suggested that aggression is instinctual and occurs in response to biological stimuli and follows predictable rules. He suggested that the aggressive instinct was necessary for survival. His major work (completed in 1963) is titled ‘On Aggression’.
- Cognitive and Learning (Berkowitz / Rotter, Bandura / Anderson)
Bowlby Attachment Theory
- Pre-attachment - Birth to 6 weeks
- Attachment in the making - 6 weeks to 6-8 months
- Clear cut attachment -6-8 months to 18-24 months (separation anxiety)
- Formation of reciprocal attachment - 18-24 months onwards
Id
The Id is the area that contains the instinctive drives. It operates under ‘primary process thinking’, acts according to the ‘pleasure principle’, and is without a sense of time.
Ego
The ego attempts to modify the drives from the Id with external reality. It operates on the ‘reality principle’. It has aspects that are conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. It is home to the defence mechanisms.
Superego
The super ego constantly observes a person and acts as critical agency. Freud claimed it developed from internalised values of a child’s main carers. The ‘ego ideal’ is part of the super ego and represents ideal attitudes and behaviour. It is useful to think of the super ego as the conscience.
Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow introduced this in 1943. It consisted of 5 levels. A person would only become concerned with the needs of a particular level when all the needs of the lower levels had been satisfied.
-Level 5 (most advanced) - Self-actualisation (quest to achieve full potential, e.g. needs for truth and meaning)
-Level 4 - Esteem needs (e.g. Social recognition, personal worth)
-Level 3 - Social needs (e.g. Feelings of love and belonging)
-Level 2 - Safety needs (e.g. Roof over your head, financial security)
-Level 1 (most basic) - Physiological needs (e.g. Air, water)
Ainsworth Attachment Types
- Secure attachment (70%), associated with sensitive and responsive carers. Leads to autonomous attachment in adult.
- Resistant attachment (15%) = intense distress when mother leaves, fears stranger, resists contact on reunion with mum. Associated with inconsistent carers. Leads to preoccupied attachment as adult.
- Avoidant attachment (15%) = no distress, ok with stranger, ignores mum on reunion. Associated with unresponsive carers. Leads to dismissing attachment as adult.
- Disorganised. Leads to unresolved attachment as adult.
Age of stranger & separation anxiety
Stranger anxiety → begins around 8 months.
Separation anxiety → begins around 10 - 18 months and usually diminishes by year three.
Critical period → 6-36 months
Projective personality tests
Designed to assess unconscious material. They present subjects with ambiguous pictures or phrases in an attempt to elicit an unconscious response. These are qualitative tests. Examples include:-
* Rorschach Inkblot
* Thematic Apperception Test
* Draw-A-Person test
* Sentence completion tests
Objective personality tests
Very structured and clear questions and aims. These are quantitative tests.
Examples include:-
* Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
* Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF)
* NEO Personality Inventory
* Esyenck personality test (EPQ)
Defense mechanisms in phobias
Repression
Displacement
Defense mechanisms in OCD
Isolation
Undoing
Reaction formation
Defense mechanisms in BPD and narcissistic PD
Projection
Splitting
Defense mechanisms in agoraphobia
Displacement
Sally-Anne Test
“Sally puts a marble in a basket and leaves the room. While she is gone, Anne removes the marble from the basket and puts it in a box. Sally comes back into the room, and the child is asked, ‘Where will Sally look for her marble?’”
Autistic children name the box, while non-autistic children identified the basket.
Malan’s triangles
Malan’s work focused on the formulation of the client’s difficulties through two ‘triangles’ - the triangle of person and the triangle of conflict.
