Psychology Flashcards
Define Learning.
- a process by which experience produces a relatively enduring change in an organism’s behavior or capabilities
Name the 4 basic learning processes.
- non-associative learning – response to repeated stimuli
- classical conditioning – Learning what events signal
- operant conditioning - Learning one thing leads to another
- observational learning – Learning from others
Define Habituation.
- a decrease in the strength of a response to a repeated stimulus
Define Sensitisation.
- an increase in the strength of response to a repeated stimulus
Define Unconditioned Stimulus and Conditioned Stimulus.
- UCS: a stimulus that elicits a reflexive or innate response (the UCR) without prior learning
- CS: a stimulus that, through association with a UCS, comes to elicit a conditioned response similar to the original UCR
Define Unconditioned Response and Conditioned Response.
- UCR: a reflexive or innate response that is elicited by a stimulus (the UCS) without prior learning
- CR: a response elicited by a conditioned stimulus -> occurs in some people on chemotherapy -> some people will have symptoms even before the drugs are taken
Define Stimulus Discrimination.
- the ability to respond differently to various stimuli -> e.g. a fear of dogs might only include certain breeds
How are phobias formed and maintained?
- traumatic injection -> pain/fear
- trauma (UCS) and needle (CS) -> fear response (UCR)
- clinic setting (CS) -> fear response (CR)
- avoid injections -> fear is reduced -> tendency to avoid is reinforced
What is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?
- a response followed by a satisfying consequence will be more likely to occur
- a response followed by an aversive consequence will become less likely to occur
What is operant conditioning?
- behaviour is learned and maintained by its consequences
What is the expectancy-value principle?
- potential for a behaviour to occur in any specific situation is a function of the expectancy that the behaviour will lead to a particular outcome and the value of that outcome
What is the Health Beliefs Model?
Describe the Theory of Planned Behaviour.
- only predicts 25% of behaviour change
What is the Transtheortical Model?
How many models are combined in the Behaviour Change Wheel?
- 19 -> hence argueably the most accurate
What are the aspects of social psychology?
- Social Thinking: how we think about our social world
- Social Influence: how other people influence our behaviour
- Social Relations: how we relate toward other people
What is cognitive dissonance?
- feeling of discomfort due to holding two opposing opinions -> being a smoker and knowing it causes cancer
How can dissonance be resolved?
- change in behaviour
- acquire ne information
- reduce the importance of the cognition
What is framing?
o refers to whether a message emphasises the benefits or losses of that behaviour
- when we want people to take up behaviours aimed at DETECTION of health problems/illness loss-framed messages may be more effective
- when we want people to take up behaviours aimed at promoting PREVENTION BEHAVIOURS gain-framed messages may be more effective
Define social loafing.
- tendency for people to expend less individual effort when working in a group than when working alone
What is the 5-step bystander decision process?
- Notice the event
- Decide if the event is really an emergency -> social comparison: look to see how others are responding
- Assuming responsibility to intervene -> diffusion of Responsibility: believing that someone else will help
- Self-efficacy in dealing with the situation
- Decision to help (based on cost-benefit analysis e.g. danger)
How can helping behaviour be increase?
o reducing restraints on helping -> reduce ambiguity, increase responsibility and enhance concern for self image
o socialise altruism -> teaching moral inclusion, modelling helping behaviour, attributing helpful behaviour to altruistic motives and education about barriers to helping
What factors influence obedience?
- remoteness of the victim
- closeness and legitimacy of the authority figure
- diffusion of responsibility -> obedience increases when someone else does the dirty work
- not personal characteristics
Define groupthink.
- the tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they are striving to seek agreement
- can be due to stress, outside input, derective leader or high cohesiveness
Define group polarisation.
- the tendency of people to make decisions that are more extreme when they are in a group as opposed to a decision made alone or independently
What are the 3 leadership styles?
o autocratic or authoritarian style
- decision-making powers are centralized in the leader, as with dictator leaders
- do not entertain any suggestions or initiatives from subordinates
- LEADER DOMINATED leadership
o participative or democratic style
- favours decision-making by the group, such as leader gives instruction after consulting the group
- can win the co-operation of their group and can motivate them effectively and positively
- LEADER and EMPLOYEE leadership
o laissez-faire or “free rein” style
- free-rein leader does not lead, but leaves the group entirely to itself as shown
- such a leader allows maximum freedom to subordinates
- EMPLOYEE DOMINATED leadership
Define medical error.
o the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (i.e., error of execution) or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (i.e. error of planning)
- for example: incorrect diagnosis, failure to employ indicated tests, error in the performance of an operation, procedure, or test, error in the dose or method of using a drug
What are the 2 systems of decision making?
- system 1 -> hot system, that allows us to make decisions very quickly -> very reflexive, and allows us to respond to situations urgently
- system 2 -> much more of a reflective system, which takes a bit longer -> involves more weighing up of probabilities and calculations -> good for precision, but not for fast decision-making
Define confirmatory bias.
- the tendency to search for or seek, interpret, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses, often leading to errors
What is sunk cost fallacy?
- sunk costs are any costs (not necessarily financial) that have been spent on a project that are irretrievable ranging including anything from money spent building a house to expensive drugs used to treat a patient with a rare disease -> rRationally the only factor affecting future action should be the future costs/benefit ratio but humans do not always act rationally and often the more we have invested in the past the more we are prepared to invest in a problem in the future, this is known as the Sunk Cost Fallacy
What is the availability heuristic?
- probabilities are estimated on the basis of how easily and/or vividly they can be called to mind
- individuals typically overestimate the frequency of occurrence of catastrophic, dramatic events
- e.g. surveys show 80% believe that accidents cause more deaths than strokes
- people tend to heavily weigh their judgments toward more recent information
What can be done to improve decision-making?
- education
- feedback
- accountability
- generating alternatives
- consultation
What is represntativeness heuristism?
- subjective probability that a stimulus belongs to a particular class based on how ‘typical’ of that class it appears to be (regardless of base rate probability)
- while often useful in everyday life, it can also result in neglect of relevant base rates and other errors
Define personality.
- the distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that characterise a person’s responses to life situations
What are personality traits?
- relatively stable cognitive, emotional, and behavioural characteristics of people that establish individual identities and distinguish people from others
- a trait is a continuum along which individuals vary, like nervousness or speed of reaction
- traits can’t observed but are inferred from behaviour
What is the Eysenck’s two factor model?
o old model which suggested personality theory has two main factors:
- neuroticism or stability -> tendency to experience negative emotions
- extraversion -> the degree to which a person is outgoing and seeks stimulation
Describe the 5-factor model of personality.
- modern model derived from statistical technique called factor analysis
- OCEAN is the acronym to remember the factors
How much does genetics influence personality?
- 50% genetically determined -> other half is environmental
- found by personality tests between seperated identical twins
Which of the ‘big 5’ personality traits has been most strongly associated with positive health outcomes?
- conscientiousness
- followed by neuroticism
Define intelligence.
- the ability to acquire knowledge, to think and reason effectively, and to deal adaptively with the environment
- important to consider that intelligence is inhibited by how it is measured
What is the equation for IQ?
What is the most commonly used intelligence score in education and clinically?
- Wechsler -> average is 100
What was Garder’s theory of intelligence?
- that there are multiple intelligences -> you may thrive in one and not be able able to do another
- intelligence is dependent on the environment that you are in
What is the clinical problem with IQ scores?
- they are averages
- just because someone scores average on a MOCHA test, for example, doesn’t mean they are okay -> might have lost all marks on memory
- is relative to what the patients baseline is
What is the psychometric approach to intelligence?
o crystallized intelligence -> the ability to apply previously acquired knowledge to current problems -> will commonly improve with age then stabilise
o fluid intelligence -> the ability to deal with novel problem-solving situations for which personal experience does not provide a solution -> shows steady pattern of decline in aging
What factors influence intelligence?
o genetic factors can influence the effects produced by the environment
- ccounts for 1/2 to 2/3 of the variation in IQ
- no single “intelligence gene” identified
o environment can influence how genes express themselves
What is linked to with high levels of foetal testosterone?
- higher levels of foetal testosterone are associated with HIGHER SCORES on the autism quotient
Describe the Self Regulatory Model.
How are long-term condition and mental health linked?
- people with one LTC are 2-3 times more likely to develop depression than the rest of the population -> with three or more conditions its seven times
- having a M/H problem increases the risk of physical ill health
- co-morbid depression doubles the risk of CHD in adults and increases the risk of mortality by 50%
- people with mental health problems such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder die, on average, 16–25 years younger than the general population
What is Kubler-Ross’s Stage Theory on Death and Dying?
- a sequence of 5 reaction that a person afces when dying
1. denial -> an attempt to cushion the impact
2. anger
3. bargaining
4. depression
5. acceptance
Describe the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement.
- you ossilate between the two -> at first it is mainly loss and becomes restoration
When i chronic grief more likely to occur?
- death was sudden or unexpected
- deceased was a child
- was a high level of dependency in the relationship
- bereaved person has a history of psychological problems, poor support and additional stress
Define chronic grief.
- the symptoms of grief persisiting for after 2 years after the bereavement
Define health behaviour
- an activity undertaken by an individual believing himself to be healthy, for the purpose of preventing disease or detecting it at an asymptomatic stage
Name some behaviour change techniques.
- providing information on consequences
- prompting specific goal setting
- prompting barrier identification
- modelling the behaviour
- planning social support
What are the steps involved in choosing behavioural modification techniques/taxonomy?
- behavioural target specification
- behavioural diagnosis
- intervention strategy selection
- implementation strategy selection
- selection of specific BCTs
Describe self-monitoring.
- an individual keeping a record of target behaviours
- additional information recorded can help to identify barriers e.g. mood, weather
- can be time-consuming over the long term
- has a large role in increasing physical activity and healthy eating studied -> most effective technique for food and exercise
Describe motivational interviewing.
- a person-centred counselling style for addressing the common problem of ambivalence about change
Define compliance in the clinical setting.
- the extent to which patients follow doctors’ prescription about medicine taking
Define adherence in the clinical setting.
- the extent to which patients follow through decisions about medicine taking
Define concordance in the clinical setting.
- the extent to which patients are successfully supported both in decision making partnerships about medicines and in their medicines taking
What doe sthe COM-B model say that behaviour is?
o an interaction between:
- capability
- opportunity
- motivation
What are the 2 big brackets of ways to improve medical adherence?
- improve understanding of illness and treatment -> influence patient beliefs about illness
- help patients to plan and organise their treatment -> practical barriers can get in the way