Psychology Flashcards
a subfield of psychology that provides psychology’s contribution to behavioral medicine
health psychology
an interdisciplinary field that integrates behavior and medical knowledge and applies that knowledge to health and disease
behavior medicine
the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging
stress
Selye’s concept of the body’s adaptive response to stress in three stages- alarm, resistance, exhaustion
General Adaptation Syndrome
the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in many developed countries
coronary heart disease
Friedman and Rosenman’s term for competitve, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive and anger-prone people
Type A
Friedman and Rosenman’s term for easygoing, relaxes people
Type B
“mind-body” illness; any stress-related physical illness
psychophysical illness
the two types of white blood cells that are part of the body’s immune system
lymphocytes
sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; may also alleviate depression and anxiety
aerobic exercise
a system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension
biofeedback
unproven health care treatments hot taught widely in medical schools, not used in medical schools, not used in hospitals, and not usually reimbursed by insurance companies
complementary and alternative medicine
an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
personality
in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing
free association
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts
psychoanalysis
according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories
unconscious
contains a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification
Id
operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
ego
represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement and for future aspirations
superego
the childhood stages of development during which the ids pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
psychosexual stages
a boy’s sexual desire toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father
Oedipus complex
the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos
identification
a lingering focus of pleasure seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved
fixation
the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
defense mechanisms
the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thougts, feelings, and memories from consciousness
repression
defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage
regression
ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites
reaction formation
people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
projection
defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions
rationalization
shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person,as when redirecting anger, toward a safer outlet
displacement
a personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics
projective test
a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests thought the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes
TAT
the most widely used projective test, inkblots, seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots
Rorschach inkblot test
Jung’s concept of a shared inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history
collective unconscious
according to Maslow, the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieed; the motivation to fulfill one’s potential
self-actualization
according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person
unconditional positive regard
all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, “who am I?”
self concept
a questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and ehaviors; used to assess selected personality traits
personality inventory
the most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests
MMPI
a test developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups
empirically derived test
views behavior as influenced by the interaction between persons and their social context
socail-cognitive perspective
the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors
reciprocal determinism
our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless
personal control
the perception that chance of outside forces beyond one’s personal control determine one’s fate
external locus of control
the perception that one controls one’s own fate
internal locus of control
the hopelessness and passive resignatiom, an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events
learned helplessness
overestimating others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders
spotlight effect
one’s feelings of high or low self-worth
self-esteem
a readiness to perceive oneself favorably
self-serving bias
giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifiations
individualism
giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining one’s identity accordingly
collectivism
proposes that faith in one’s worldview and the pursuit of self-esteem provide protection against a deeply routed fear of death
terror-management theory
