Psychology

Question 1

What is extinction?

Answer 1

When a discontinuation of reinforcement (either positive or negative) eventually eliminates a behavior (ie. if you stop giving treats to the dog for sitting, the dog will eventually stop sitting when she is told to).

Question 2

dissociation defense

Answer 2

temporary, drastic change in personality, memory, consciousness, or motor behavior to avoid emotional stress. extreme forms can result in dissociative identity disorder (ie. split personality)

Question 3

displacement defense

Answer 3

transferring avoided ideas and feelings to some neutral person or object. for example, a mom yells at her child, because her husband yelled at her.

Question 4

fixation

Answer 4

partially remaining at a more childish level of development (ie. men fixating on a sports game).

Question 5

isolation

Answer 5

separating feelings from ideas and events.

ex. describing murder in graphic detail without an emotional response.

Question 6

identification

Answer 6

modeling behavior after another person who is more powerful (though not necessarily admired). ex. abused child identifies with the abuser.

Question 7

projection

Answer 7

attributing an unacceptable internal impuse to an external source- ie. a man who wants another woman thinks his wife is cheating on him.

Question 8

splitting

Answer 8

believing that people are either all good or all bad at different times due to intolerance of ambiguity. common in borderline.

Question 9

altruism

Answer 9

alleviating guilty feelings by unsolicited generosity toward others.