PYB100 Flashcards
Pathogenic vs Salutogenic
Pathogenic: towards ill health
Salutogenic: towards better health
Eustress vs distress
Eustress: helpful, productive stress (normal amounts of stress)
Distress: abnormal stress amounts, Acute (short term from minor daily situations) and chronic (long term)
General Adaptation Syndrome
Alarm Reaction Stage: Stressor sensed by the cortex sends a signal to hypothalamus to begin the activation of the sympathetic nervous system (adrenaline and cortisol hormone production)
Resistance: The parasympathetic nervous system is activated to lower adrenaline and cortisol production (HOWEVER, if stressors remain the body will continue to produce cortisol until the stress hormone resources gradually deplete)
Exhaustion: The body is exhausted and has no more stress hormone production capacity. Leads to anxiety and depression due to lack of energy to fight
HPA Axis
Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis: Stressor detected by cortex, signal is sent to hypothalamus. Hypothalamus prompts pituitary gland to release Adrenocorticotropic hormones. ACT hormones flow into bloodstream and reach adrenal gland. Adrenal gland activates sympathetic nervous system by producing adrenaline and cortisol
Primary appraisal vs Secondary appraisal
Primary appraisal: Cognitive identification of the stressor as threatening or not. Social cognitive theory states that individual beliefs determine our behaviour/perception of whether stressor is threatening or not. This influences how we perceive stressors and respond to them, with either demandingness, awfulising, low-frustration tolerance, and depreciation thoughts.
Secondary appraisal: Our reaction to deal with stressor. Either through Confrontive coping (taking risks to deal with it), Planful Problem Solving, Escape-Avoidance, or seeking help
Personality
Enduring patterns of thought, behaviour, motivation, feelings through different situations
Psychodynamic theories about personality
Focussing on motives, aka motives are the main determinants of our personality
Freud’s theory of personality
Freud’s Drive model
Freud’s Developmental model
Freud’s structural model
Freud’s defence mechanisms
Freud’s theory of personality (topographic model)
Conscious: thoughts, motives and feelings we are aware of.
Preconscious: motives, thoughts, memories not currently in our awareness, but accessible if we are prompted to do so (we can pull these into our conscious)
Unconscious: not available to our awareness. Can influence our behaviour without us being aware of it (eg. trauma)
Compromise Formation: There can be conflict between these levels (eg. trauma from your unconscious is grating with your conscious goal of going somewhere). Therefore, compromise can be formed between the two clashing motives
Freud’s drive model
Aggressive drive: physical, verbal, passive
Sexual (libido) drive: dopamine pursuing
Freud’s developmental model
Oral: sucking, biting for pleasure
Fixation: dependency issues
Anal: Establishment of bladder control
Fixation: Control issues, stubbornness, orderliness
Phallic: Gender identification with parents, establishing conscience
Latency: Sublimation of sexual and aggressive impulses
Genital: Maturing relationships
Freud’s structural model
Id: pleasure-seeking (aggressive and sexual drive)
Superego: moral conscience
Ego: balance between the two, compromise
Freud’s defence mechanisms
Repression: avoiding association with stressor and placing it in unconscious to maintain security
Regression: reverting to childlike/familiar behaviours to bring back security and comfort
Displacement: Choosing conflict against a less challenging target will alleviate the stressful task of directly dealing with the more intimidating source of stress
Sublimation: channelling negative energy into a productive outcome
Reaction Formation: By expressing the opposite behaviour to their impulses, an individual can reduce stress associated with confronting something and expressing their true feelings against it
Projection: individuals who suspect faults within themselves will blame others for possessing those faults, to avoid tainting their own self-esteem and prevent obtaining awareness of their own faults
Rationalization: By justifying your actions, you can maintain a positive self-image which helps you avoid confrontation and stress generated from your flaws
Assessing unconscious patterns
Rorschach Inkblot test: ambiguous inkblot paintings, responses identify motives, feelings of people
Thematic apperception test: creating a storyline based on the ambiguous picture presented, reveals motives, past life experiences of people
Psychodynamic theories: Evaluation
Contributions: Unconscious aspect of personality, childhood experiences, conflict and compromise
Limitations: Not enough scientific evidence, too much emphasis on drive model
Cognitive-Social model
Central idea: our personality is shaped by experiences but also thoughts during those experiences (environmental-nurture aspect of personality shaping)
Personal value: is it of value to me?
Behaviour expectancy outcome: what outcome will I get?
Self-efficacy expectancy: am I capable of performing this behaviour?
Competency: am I able to perform this?
Self-regulation: either formulate another action plan, or do the same one over and over
Cognitive social theory: evaluation
Contributions: thought processes shaping personality
Limitations: overemphasis of conscious (rational) side of personality
Trait theories of personality
Eyesenck’s theory
5 factor model
6 factor HEXACO
Dark triad
Eyesenck’s theory
Super traits: general displays of personality
Traits: provide more detail about personality
Habits: behaviours from traits continuing over multiple situations
Behaviour: single situation behaviours
5 factor model
Openness (curiosity, independence)
Conscientiousness (organised, persistent, dependable)
Agreeableness (kindness, compassion)
Neuroticism (impulsiveness, emotionally variable)
Extroversion (outgoing, sociable)
6 factor HEXACO
Honesty/humility
Emotionality
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Openness
Dark triad
Narcissism: Grandiose, a need for admiration, lack of empathy for others (believe they are superior to others, struggle with emotional connections)
Machiavellianism: Manipulativeness, personal gain, self-interest (using others to achieve their goals, unethical behaviour, no morals)
Psychopathy: Impulsivity, emotionally shallow, lack of empathy for others (difficulty with emotional connections, risky behaviour without feeling guilt)
Trait theories: evaluation
Contributions: traits can be measured, assumes individual differences
Limitations: self-reportings, doesn’t explain why traits emerge
Humanistic theories (Roger’s person centred approach)
True self: untainted by interpersonal experiences, the core
False self: tainted by interpersonal experiences, how we understand our worth
Ideal self: what we would like to be
Humanistic theories: evaluation
Contributions: understands human goals
Limitations: can’t make a testable hypothesis, no scientific research
Nature vs nuture
Children have a temperament (inherent personality traits) which develop more through life experiences
Context dependence of personality (interactionism, aggregation)
Contexts/situations are important for explaining personality, different situations arise different behaviours, therefore personality is not predictable across all situations
Interactionism: test personality through combining traits and situations together
Aggregation: considering multiple traits to better map out personality
Theory of Unplanned Behaviour
Attitude: evaluation of behaviour (good or bad)
Subjective norms: what might people think if I do this behaviour?
Perceived Behavioural Control: How easy it is to perform this behaviour?
Persuasion
Elaboration Likelihood Model: Elaboration (how much people think or elaborate on your message)
Central Route: High cognitive energy use, high understanding of message, stronger attitudes generated about topic, high impact on behaviour
Peripheral Route: Low cognitive energy, low understanding of message, weak attitudes and weak behaviours enforced by argument
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Inconsistent thoughts create psychological tension (dissonance), need for consistent cognition achieved by:
Creating new cognitions
Changing the behaviour
Justifying behaviour
Festinger and Carlsmith:
Testing if $20 vs $1 people would feel justified in lying about the task being enjoyable (20$ had sufficient justification for lying and did not face cognitive dissonance)
($1 did not have sufficient justification, they felt guilty (cognitive dissonance) and then began to convince themselves that the test was fun to reduce cognitive dissonance (guilt)
Social cognition: Attribution
Personal attribution: attributing behaviour to personal characteristic
Situational attribution: attributing behaviour to external factors
Attribution gives people a comfortable sense of prediction of our surroundings