Chapter 10: Personality

Enduring Issues in Personality

-​ Diversity-Universality: the concept of personality implies that our
behavior differs in significant ways from other people
-​ Person-Situation: behavior partly reflects our personality as
opposed to the situations in which find ourselves

Persona→Personality
●​ Persona- Latin
-​ A mask worm by actors to portray different characters in
theatrical performances
●​ Mask or facade- the identity that a person takes on to fit into or
adapt to the outside world or certain situations

Studying Personality
●​ Personality
-​ An individual’s unique pattern of thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors
-​ Persits over time and across situations
-​ Unique difference- what distinguishes a person from
everyone else
-​ Stable and enduring- these unique differences persist
through time and across situations
●​ Psychologists vary in approach of study
-​ Some set out to identify the most important characteristics
of personality
 -​ Others seek to understand why there are differences in
personality
➢​Some consider:
➢​The family- the most important factor in personality
development
➢​Influences outside the family- the most important
factor in personality

Psychodynamic Theories
-​ Psychodynamic theories: see behavior as product of internal
psychological forces that often operate outside our conscious
awareness
-​ Psychodynamics: study of psychic energy and the way it is
transformed and expressed in behavior

Five Propositions
1.​ Much of mental life is unconscious, as a result, people may behave
in ways that they do not understand
2.​ Mental processes ( such as emotions, motivations, and thoughts)
operate in parallel and thus may lead to conflicting feelings
3.​ Not only do stable personality patterns begin to form in childhood,
but experiences also strongly affect personality development
4.​ Our mental representations of ourselves, of others, and our
relationships tend to guide our interactions with other people
5.​ Personality development involves learning to regulate sexual and
aggressive feelings as well as becoming socially interdependent
rather than dependent
Psychodynamic Theories
➔​Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
-​ Stressed the unconscious- the ideas, thoughts, and feelings
of which we aren’t and can’t normally become aware
-​ Formed basis of psychoanalysis: refers to both Freud’s
theory of personality and the form of therapy he invented
-​ Human behavior is based on unconscious instincts or drives
a.​ Sexual instinct: refers to the craving for pleasure of all
kinds- including but not exclusive to erotic sexuality
b.​ Libido: the energy generated by the sexual instinct
-​ Sexual instinct is the most critical factor in the development of
personality

Freud’s psychodynamic Theory

-​ Personality is formed around three structures
a.​ Id (unconscious)
b.​ Ego( preconscious)
c.​ Superego (middle between preconscious and unconscious)
-​ The job of the ego/self is to balance the
aggressive/pleasure-seeking drives of the id with the moral control
of the superego

One-tenth of our mind is conscious, and the rest of the mind is

unconscious but it does affect our behavior and we are unaware of it.

★​Id
-​ Collection of unconscious urges and desires that continually
seek expression
-​ The only structure present at birth
 -​ Operates according to pleasure principle- tries to obtain
immediate pleasure and avoid pain
-​ Instant gratification
-​ Two ways of obtaining gratification: satisfying impulse
a.​ Reflex action: coughing which immediately relive
unpleasant sensations
b.​ Fantasy/wish fulfillment- a formation of a mental
image of an object or situation that partially satisfies
that instinct and relieves the uncomfortable feeling
-​ Deams and daydream: imagining yourself
responding with a rude retort to a boss who has
been tormenting you
★​Ego
-​ Controls all thinking and reasoning activities
-​ Mediates between environmental demands (reality),
conscience (superego), and instinctual needs (id)
-​ Now often used as a synonym for “self”
-​ Operates partly consciously, partly preconsciously, and partly
unconsciously.
-​ Instead of acting according to the pleasure principle,
operates by the reality principle- tries to delay satisfying the
id’s desires until it can do so safely and successfully- helps
people behave in socially acceptable and constructive ways
a.​ Responsible for preventing the id from getting out of
hand in its expression of its pleasure-seeking impulses
-​ Preconscious- material that is not currently in awareness but can
easily be recalled
★​Superego
-​ Social and parental standards the individuals have
internalized
 a.​ Takes over the task of observing and guiding the ego=
takes over the role of our parents who observed and
guided us as child
-​ Conscience and ego ideal
a.​ Ego ideal- the standard of perfection by which the superego
judges the ego’s action- the standards that one wants to be
-​ Not present at birth, develop as we get older through interaction
with parents society
-​ Works at conscious, preconscious, and unconscious levels
The id, ego, and superego must work in harmony to function effectively.
The needs and functions of the three components of personality
balance each other out effectively in a healthy personality

➔​How personality develops

-​ Focus on how sexual instinct satisfies
-​ Libido becomes focused on various sensitive parts of the
body during sequential stages of development
-​ If a child is deprived of pleasure or allowed too much
gratification from the part of the body that dominates a
certain stage, some sexual energy may remain permanently
toes to that part of the body, instead of moving on in normal
sequence- fixation-a partial or complete halt in an individual’s
psychosexual development
-​ Fixation prevents an individual from a fully integrated
personality: leads to immature forms of sexuality and certain
characteristic personality traits

Psychosexual stages
-​ Oral stage: birth to 18 months
-​ Anal stage: 18 months to 3 ½ years
-​ Phallic stage: 3-5 or 6 years
-​ Latency period: 5 or 6-12 or 13 years
-​ Genital stage: 12 or 13 years-adulthood

​Oral stage
-​ Birth to 18 months
-​ Infants relieve sexual tension by sucking and swallowing
-​ When teeth come in, relief is from chewing and biting
-​ Babies are weaned from the bottle or breast at around 1 year,
and this process can create conflict if not handled properly
by caregivers
-​ Too much oral gratification creates overly optimistic and
dependent adults likely to lack confidence and be gullible
-​ Too little gratification creates pessimistic and hostile adults
likely to be argumentative and sarcastic
​Anal stage
-​ 18 months to 3 ½ years
-​ The primary source of sexual pleasure shifts from the mouth
to the anus
-​ Derived pleasure from holding in and excreting feces
-​ Must learn to regulate pleasure in ways that are acceptable
to the superego
-​ Overly strict toilet training may create self-destructive adults
-​ Others are likely to be obstinate, stingy, and excessively
orderly
-​ Overly lenient training may create messy, unorganized, and
sloppy people
​Phallic stage
-​ 3-5 or 6 years
 -​ Age when children become aware of their bodies and
recognize the difference between boys and girls
-​ Genitals are discovered
-​ Marked attachment to parents of the opposite sex while
jealousy of same-sex parents develops
-​ Boys- Oedipus complex: Oedipus- Greek mythology- a king
who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother
-​ Girls-Electra complex: Electra- Greek mythology- planned an
attack to kill her mother for the murder of her father
-​ The Oedipus of Electra conflict is resolved by identifying with
the parent of the same sex
-​ Fixation leads to vanity and egoism
-​ May also lead to low self-esteem, shyness, worthlessness
​Latency period
-​ 5 or 6-12 or 13 years
-​ End of the phallic stage
-​ Loss of interest in sexual behavior
-​ Children focus on other pursuits such as school, friendships,
hobbies, and sports
-​ Boys play with boys, girls play with girls
-​ Neither sex takes much interest in the other
​Genital stage
-​ 12 or 13 years- adulthood
-​ Begins at puberty
-​ Sexual impulses reawaken
-​ Quest for immediate gratification yields to mature sexuality
-​ Postponed gratification, sense of responsibility, and caring
for others play a part
Criticisms
-​ Too much emphasis on sexuality
-​ Argue female personality develops differently
-​ Male-centered theory sheds little light on female personality
development

Neo-Freudians
-​ Modified Freud's ideas and created new theories about personality
-​ Agreed with Freud that childhood experience matter
-​ Deemphasized sex- focused more on the social environment and
the effect of culture on personality
-​ Carl Jung
-​ Alfred Adler
-​ Karen Horney
-​ Erick Erikson

Jung’s psychodynamic Theory

➔​Carl Jung (1875-1961)
-​ Expanded role of the unconscious
-​ Contended libido represents all life forces, not just
pleasure-seeking
-​ The unconscious is the ego’s source of strength and vitality-
unlike Freud who viewed the id as having to be controlled by
the ego
-​ Unconscious consists of:
a.​ Personal unconscious: includes repressed thoughts,
forgotten experiences, and undeveloped ideas, may
enter the consciousness of their recall is triggered
 b.​ Collective unconscious: inherited and common to all
members of a species- a storehouse of memories that
are shared by all humans and passed from generation
to generation

Carl Jung
According to Carl Jung, we all inherit from our ancestors collective
memories or “thought forms” that people have had in common since the
dawn of human evolution. The image of a mother-like figure with
protective, embracing arms is one such primordial thought form that
stems from the important, nurturing role of women throughout human
history. This thought form is depicted here in this Bulgarian clay figure
of a goddess that dates back some six or seven thousand years.

Jung’s Psychodynamic Theory

-​ Archetypes play special roles in shaping personality
-​ Persona- the public self the mask we wear to represent ourselves
to others- is the shell that grows around the inner self
-​ If the public self predominates the inner self, people lose touch
with their inner feelings, leading to personality maladjustments
-​ Two attitude types
a.​ Extroverts- people who usually focus on social life and the
external world instead of on their internal experience
b.​ Introverts- people who usually focus on their thoughts and
feelings – tend to be unsociable and lack confidence in
dealing with other people
c.​ Everyone possesses some aspects of both attitude types but
one is usually dominant
A balance between extroversion and introversion best served the goal of
self-realization
 -​ Actions on Perceptions
●​ Rational individuals – people who regulate their actions by
thinking and feeling
●​ Irrational individuals – people who base their actions on
perception, whether through the senses (sensation) or
unconscious processes (intuition)
●​ Most people exhibit all four psychological functions –
thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting
●​ One or more functions are usually dominant
●​ Thinking person rational & logical – decides based on facts
●​ A feeling person is sensitive to their surroundings, acts
tactfully, and has a balanced sense of values
●​ Sensing person- relies primarily on surface perception &
rarely uses imagination or deeper understanding
●​ Intuitive person- sees beyond obvious solutions and facts to
consider future possibilities

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

-​ The first criterion, extraversion–introversion, signifies the source
and direction of a person’s energy expression. An extravert’s
source and direction of energy expression is mainly in the external
world, while an introvert has a source of energy mainly in their
internal world.
-​ The second criterion, sensing–intuition, represents the method by
which someone perceives information. Sensing means that a
person mainly believes information he or she receives directly
from the external world. Intuition means that a person believes
mainly in information he or she receives from the internal or
imaginative world.
 -​ The third criterion, Thinking, and feeling, represents how a person
processes information. Thinking means that a person makes a
decision mainly through logic. Feeling means that, as a rule, he or
she makes a decision based on emotion, i.e. based on what they
feel they should do.
-​ The fourth criterion, Judging – Perceiving, reflects how a person
implements the information he or she has processed. Judging
means that a person organizes all of his life events and, as a rule,
sticks to his plans. Perceiving means that he or she is inclined to
improvise and explore alternative options.
-​ All possible permutations of preferences in the 4 dichotomies
above yield 16 different combinations, or personality types,
representing which of the two poles in each of the four
dichotomies dominates in a person, thus defining 16 different
personality types.

Freud vs. Jung

-​ Freud emphasized the primacy of sexual instincts, and Jung
stressed rational and spiritual qualities
-​ Freud considered development shaped in childhood, while Jung
thought development comes to fruition only during middle age
-​ Jung traced the roots of human personality back to our ancestral
past
-​ But a person moves constantly toward self-realization- blending
all parts of the personality into a harmonious whole
Adler’s Psychodynamic Theory
➔​Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
-​ Disagreed on the conflict between the selfish id and
morality-based superego
-​ Believed people possess innate positive motives and strive
for personal and social perfection and superiority
-​ Personality develops through compensation – the person’s
effort to overcome imagined or real physical weaknesses
-​ Proposed people seek to overcome feelings of inferiority
-​ Fixation on feelings of inferiority can develop into an
inferiority complex- emotional and social paralysis
a.​ Inferiority complex – a person’s feelings that they lack
worth and do not measure up to the standards of
others or society

Adler vs. Freud

-​ Placed a lot of emphasis on positive, socially constructive goals
and on striving for perfection
a.​ Freud had a pessimistic vision of the selfish person locked
into eternal conflict with society
-​ Freud believed that we are motivated by sexual and aggressive
urges
a.​ Alder believed that feelings of inferiority in childhood are
what drive people to attempt to gain superiority and that this
is the force behind our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors

Horney’s Psychodynamic Theory

➔​Karen Horney (1885-1952)
 a.​ Disagreed with Freud’s analysis of women and his emphasis
on sexual instincts
-​ Freud overemphasizes the sex drive leading to a
distorted picture of human relationships
➔​Environmental and social factors are the most important
influences on personality
-​ Especially the human relationships we experience as children
➔​Believed sexuality does influence the development of personality,
but nonsexual factors play an even larger role- the need for a
sense of basic security and the person’s response to real or
imagined threats
-​ All people share the need to feel loved and nurtured by their
parents regardless of any sexual feelings they might have
about them
➔​Anxiety- an individual’s reaction to real or imagined dangers- is a
powerful motivating source- even stronger than sex
➔​Anxiety experienced in childhood affects adulthood
➔​Normal growth can be blocked by basic anxiety resulting from
needs not being met: childhood experiences of loneliness or
isolation
➔​Horney suggested three styles of coping
1.​ 1st coping style: moving toward people, relies on affiliation
and dependence. These children become dependent on their
parents and other caregivers to receive attention and
affection, which provides relief from anxiety
-​ When these children grow up, they tend to use this
same coping strategy to deal with relationships,
expressing an intense need for love and acceptance
2.​ 2nd coping style, moving against people, relies on aggression
and assertiveness. Children with this coping style find that
 fighting is the best way to deal with an unhappy home
situation, and they deal with their feelings of insecurity by
bullying other children.
-​ As adults, people with this coping style tend to lash out
with hurtful comments and exploit others.
3.​ 3rd coping style, moving away from people, centers on
detachment and isolation. These children handle their
anxiety by withdrawing from the world. They need privacy
and tend to be self-sufficient.
-​ When these children are adults, they continue to avoid
such things as love and friendship, and they also tend
to gravitate toward careers that require little
interaction with others
Karen Horney, a psychotherapist during the first half of the 20th
century, disagreed with Freud’s emphasis on sexual instincts.
She considered environmental and social factors, especially the
relationships we have as children, to be the most important influences
on personality.
Horney disagreed with the Freudian idea that women had penis envy
and were jealous of a man’s biological features. Horney discussed that
the jealousy was more likely culturally based, due to the greater
privileges that males often have, and that differences between men's
and women’s personalities were cultural, not biologically based. Horney
also suggested that men may have womb envy because men cannot
give birth.

Erikson’s Psychodynamic Theory

-​ Erik Erikson
a.​ Socially oriented-view of personality
 b.​ Agreed with Freud’s thinking on sexual development and the
influence of libidinal needs
c.​ Put greater emphasis on the quality of the parent-child
relationship: children will develop a secure sense of identity
only if they feel competent and valuable in their own eyes
and society’s view
d.​ Individuals’s personality develops throughout the lifespan
-​ Freud believed that personality is fixed in early life
-​ Social relationships are important at each stage: Freud
emphasized sex

Erikson vs. Freud

-​ Freud’s stages ended with adolescence; Erikson believed
personality continues to develop and change throughout life
-​ In contrast to Horney, various stages of life present a variety of
different challenges
-​ Success in early challenges supports effective adjustments later
-​ Failure in an early crisis makes later adjustments difficult

A Psychodynamic View of Jaylene Smith

-​ Freud
➢​Not yet effectively resolved Electra complex
●​ Personality characteristics such as insecurity,
introversion, and feelings of inadequacy and
worthlessness often arise from fixation at the phallic
stages of development
●​ Two hypotheses- Jaylene’s relationship with her father
was either: very distant and unsatisfying or unusually
close and gratifying
 ●​ Jaylene, as an adult, has trouble when it comes to
relationships with other men

-​ Erikson
➢​Still struggling with problems from earlier developmental
stages
➢​Stage 6 – Intimacy vs. isolation - Basic trust and sense of
security missing
-​ Her mother subtly communicated her frustration and
dissatisfaction to her children and spent little time on
“nonessential” interaction with them

Evaluating Psychodynamic theories

How do modern psychologists view the contributions and limitations of
the psychodynamic perspective?

Support
-​ Freud’s emphasis on the unconscious fundamentally changed the
way people view themselves and others
-​ Freud’s ideas had a lasting impact on history, literature, and the
arts
Criticism
-​ Freudian theory reflects sexist view of women
-​ Psychoanalysis is not more or less effective than other therapies
based on other theories

Psychodynamic →humanisitc personality theory

-​ Psychodynamic theory: personality grows out of the solution of
unconscious conflict and developmental crises
 -​ Alfred Adler focused on forces that contribute to positive growth
and a move toward personal perfection
-​ Alfred Adler→the first humanistic personality theorist
-​ Humanistic personality recognizes the innate capacity for
self-directed change and transforming personal experiences

Humanistic Personality Traits

Humanistic personality theory

-​ Asserts the fundamental goodness of people and their striving
toward higher levels of functioning
-​ There is more to human existence than dealing with hidden
conflicts
-​ Humans are positively motivated and progress toward higher
levels of functioning
-​ There is potential for growth and change
-​ Each individual is responsible for his or her behavior
-​ There is personal freedom to make decision
​Free will = conscious

Carl Rogers (1902-1987)

-​ Men and women develop personalities in service of positive goals
-​ Every organism is born with certain innate capacities, capabilities,
or potentialities
-​ The primary goal of life is to teach inherent capabilities- to become
the best of whatever each of us is inherently capable of becoming

Roger’s concepts
 -​ Actualizing tendency- the dive of every organism to fulfill its
inborn biological potential and become what it is inherently
capable of becoming
a.​ A plant’s innate tendency to grow (even in poor soil)
b.​ A person’s tendency towards self-actualization
-​ Self-actualizing tendency- the drive of human beings to fulfill their
self-concepts or the image, thoughts, and feelings they have of
themselves- who we are and what we want to do with our lives
a.​ The push toward fulfillment of our inborn capacities and
potentialities
b.​ Someone who thinks of themselves as “intelligent” and
“athletic” will strive to live up to those images of themselves.
-​ Self-concept- our thoughts and feelings about ourselves
a.​ Entails:
b.​ Self-image- how they see themselves: good or bad, beautiful
or ugly
c.​ Self-esteem/self-worth- how much value they place on
themselves
-​ Developed in early childhood and formed from the
interaction of the child with parents
d.​ The ideal self is the person they aspire to be
e.​ Self is divided into two categories
1.​ Ideal self- the person that you would like to be
2.​ Real self- the person that you actually are
3.​ Rogers focused on the idea that we need to achieve
consistency between these tow selves
f. When our thoughts about our real self and ideal self ae vert similar
→ we experience congruence
-​ Higher congruence= greater sense of self-worth and a healthy
productive life
g. When our thoughts about our real self and ideal self are very
dissimilar →we experience incongruence
-​ Incongruence = dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and even mental
health issues
h. Fully functioning person- an individual whose self-concept closely
resembles his or her inborn capacities or potential
-​ Self-directed →they decide for themselves what it is that they wish
to do and to become, even though their choices may not always be
sound ones
i. People tend to become more fully functioning if they are brought up
with unconditional positive regard
-​ Unconditional positive regard- the full acceptance and love of
another person regardless of his or her behavior
j. However, parents and other adults often children conditional positive
regard
-​ Conditional positive regard - acceptance, and love that are
dependent on another’s behaving in certain ways and on fulfilling
certain conditions
-​ Self-esteem and self-worth may heavily depend on meeting
certain standards or expectations
-​ This can lead to incongruence
-​ Self-concept comes to resemble the inborn capacity less and less -
a child’s life deviates from what they are capable of becoming

A Humanistic View of Jaylene Smith

-​ Focus on the discrepancy between Jay’s self-concept and inborn
capacities
a.​ She is intelligent and achievement-oriented but feels that she
doesn’t deserve to be a doctor, and worries about if she will
 ever be truly happy. When she was 13, she was never able to
be herself and really express her feelings
-​ Her dissatisfactions stem from her inability to become what she
“most truly is”

Evaluating Humanistic Theories

-​ Central tenet – the overriding purpose of the human condition is to
realize one’s potential – very difficult to verify scientifically
a.​ Lack of scientific evidence
b.​ However, research conducted by Rogers found that people
whose real selves differed greatly from their ideal selves
were more likely to be unhappy and dissatisfied
-​ Present overly optimistic view of human beings
-​ Fail to consider evil in human nature
-​ Foster's self-centeredness and narcissism
-​ Reflects Western values of individual achievement rather than
universal human potential

Trait Theories

Focuses on the present by describing the way in which

already-developed adult personalities differ from one another

People differ according to the degree to which they possess certain

personality traits such as dependency, anxiety, aggressiveness and
sociability

Personality traits
 ➔​Dimensions or characteristics on which people differ in distinctive
ways
➔​Infer traits from how a person behaves
➔​Approximately 200 stable and enduring traits
➔​Raymond Cattell reduced the number of traits to 16 dimension

The Big Five

Aka five-factor model, consists of five traits of basic dimensions
1.​ Extraversion
2.​ Agreeableness
3.​ Conscientiousness
4.​ Neuroticism/ emotional stability
5.​ Openness to experience/intellect/imagination
Model may have important real-world applications
-​ Especially when it relates to employment
-​ Conscientiousness and agreeableness- predictors of success
-​ Extraversion and consciousness- predictor of performance
involving sales

How stable are the Big Five traits over one’s lifespan?
-​ The Big Five traits are relatively stable over our lifespan with a
tendency for the traits to increase or decrease slightly.
-​ Personality appears to be “essentially fixed by age 30”
-​ Researchers have found that conscientiousness increases through
young adulthood into middle age, as we become better able to
manage our personal relationships and careers.
-​ Agreeableness also increases with age, peaking between 50 to 70
years.
-​ However, neuroticism and extroversion tend to decline slightly
with age
The Big Five
-​ Are the Big Five personality traits universal?
➔​Results from six foreign cultures were virtually identical
➔​Even exist in a number of species besides human
a.​ Gorillas, chimpanzees, rhesus, vervet, monkeys, hyenas,
dogs, cats, and pigs
-​ How might the Big Five be represented in the brain?
➔​May be related to size or volume of specific brain regions
➔​Neuroticism- correlate with the volume of the brain regions
associated with threat, punishment, and negative emotions
➔​Agreeableness- process information related to the
awareness and intentions of other
➔​Extraversion- processing reward information
➔​Conscientistiouness- prefrontal cortex- planning, judgment,
impulse control, and conscious awareness
➔​May be more complex than just size and volume

A Trait View of Jaylene Smith

-​ Infer certain traits from Jay’s behavior
a.​ Determination of persistence
b.​ Personality is high in conscientiousness
c.​ Low in neuroticism and extraversion

Evaluating Trait Theories

Support
-​ Considerable commonsense appeal : Traits are the language that
we commonly use to describe other people, shy, arrogant
-​ Scientifically easier to study compared to self-actualization and
unconscious motives
-​ Well supported by research
Criticism
-​ Primarily descriptive and generally do not explain causes
-​ Dangerous to reduce human complexity to a few traits
-​ Disagreement about whether the five-factor model is the best way
to describe basic traits of personality

Cognitive-Social Learning Theories

-​ Behavior is a product of the person and the situation
-​ Cognitive-social learning theories
a.​ View behavior as product of interaction of cognitions,
learning and past experiences, and immediate environment
b.​ Set of personal standards unique to each of us, growing out
of our life history
c.​ Our behavior is the product of:
-​ Our cognitions – how we think about a situation and
how we view our behavior in that situation
-​ Our learning and past experiences – including
reinforcement, punishment, and modeling
-​ The immediate environment

Expectancies, Self-Efficacy, and Locus of Control

-​ Albert Bandura
a.​ Situation evaluated according to certain internal expectancies
which affects behavior
b.​ Experience-based expectancies create unique performance
standards by which own behavior judged
c.​ Expectancy that efforts will be successful called self-efficacy
-​ Expectancies: In Bandura’s view, what a person anticipates in a
situation or as a result of behaving in certain ways.
-​ Performance standards: In Bandura’s theory, standards that people
develop to rate the adequacy of their own behavior in a variety of
situations.
-​ Self-efficacy: According to Bandura, the expectancy that one’s
efforts will be successful. Your level of confidence in your own
abilities
-​ Compare the personalities of someone who has high self efficacy
to someone who has low self-efficacy.
-​ People who have high self-efficacy believe that their efforts
matter: They perceive their goals as being within reach; have a
positive view of challenges, seeing them as tasks to be mastered;
develop a deep interest in and strong commitment to the activities
in which they are involved; and quickly recover from setbacks.
-​ People with low self-efficacy believe their efforts have little or no
effect, and that outcomes are beyond their control: They avoid
challenging tasks because they doubt their abilities to be
successful; tend to focus on failure and negative outcomes; and
lose confidence in their abilities if they experience setbacks.
-​ Julian Rotter
a.​ Locus of control is especially prevalent expectancy by which
people evaluate situations : An expectancy about whether
reinforcement is under internal or external control. Our
beliefs about the power we have over our lives
b.​ Internal locus of control - People who are convinced they can
control their own fate. They believe that through hard work,
skill, and training, they can find reinforcements and avoid
punishments.
 c.​ External locus of control - People who not believe they
control their fate. Instead, they are convinced that chance,
luck, and the behavior of others determine their destiny and
that they are helpless to change the course of their lives.
-​ Bandura and Rotter
a.​ Tried to combine personal variables with situational variables
b.​ Believe expectancies become part of the explanatory style,
which greatly influences behavior
-​ Pessimistic explanatory style- negatively affects
physical health, academic and career achievement
-​ Positive explanatory style – serves as a “protective”
factor enhancing an individual's experience of
well-being
- How consistent are we
Although underlying personality is relatively stable, behavior is likely to
be inconsistent from one situation to another.
-​ Our actions are influenced by the people around us and by the way
we think we are supposed to behave in a given situation

A Cognitive-Social Learning View of Jaylene Smith

-​ In the face of high performance standards, understandable she
might harbor feelings of low self-efficacy, pessimism, insecurity,
and uncertainty
-​ At least some personality aspects were formed by watching her
parents and brothers
Evaluating Cognitive-Social Learning Theories
Support
-​ Key concepts can be defined and studied scientifically
-​ Can help explain why people behave inconsistently
-​ Spawned useful therapies: Treating depression
Personality Assessment
Personality testing is often used:
-​ To screen employment applicants
-​ Job training
-​ In criminal cases
-​ Custody battles
-​ To assess psychological disorders

How do psychologists measure personality?

-​ Testing personality is much like testing intelligence: Trying to
measure some intangible and invisible
-​ Good test = reliable and valid
a.​ Reliable – dependable and consistent results
b.​ Valid – measure what it claims to measure
-​ Testing difficulties
a.​ Want typical behavior, not best behavior
b.​ Confounding measurement variables: Fatigue, Desire to
impress the examiner, and Fear of being tested

Four basic tools for measuring personality

-​ Personal interview
-​ Direct observation of behavior
-​ Objective tests
-​ Projective tests
The personal interview
-​ Conversation with a purpose
-​ Purpose = to obtain information from the purpose being
interviewed
-​ Used in a clinical setting to: Learn why someone is seeking
treatment. Help diagnose the person’s problem.
 -​ Unstructured vs. Structured
-​ Unstructured
a.​ The interviewer asks questions about any material that
comes up and asks follow-up questions, questions whenever
appropriate.
b.​ Allow the interviewer the freedom to ask questions about
different topics that may arise.
-​ Structured
a.​ relied on for systematic research
b.​ The order and content of questions are fixed; the interviewer
must adhere to a set format.
c.​ Elicit information on sensitive topics that might not come up
otherwise.

Direct Observation
-​ The observation of a person’s actions in everyday situations over a
long period
-​ Allows view of how situation and environment influence behavior
-​ Provides information on range of behaviors
-​ Behavior watched firsthand
-​ Reduces bias; still may be misinterpretation
-​ Expensive and time-consuming
-​ Observers' presence may cause change in behavior

Objective Tests
-​ Administered and scored in standard way
-​ Does not depend on the skills of an interviewer or an observer
-​ Most widely used tools for assessing personality
-​ Two serious drawbacks
 a.​ Rely entirely on self-report – people must know themselves
well, be objective about themselves
b.​ Familiarity with the test format – if a person took the test
before, the familiarity may affect the responses
-​ Sixteen Personality Factor questionnaire
a.​ Developed by Cattell
b.​ Objective personality test that provides scores on the 16
traits he identified
-​ NEO-PI-R
a.​ Developed by Costa and McCrae
b.​ An objective personality test designed to assess the Big Five
personality traits
-​ Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
a.​ Developed as an aid in diagnosing psychiatric disorders
b.​ The most widely used objective personality test, originally
intended for psychiatric diagnosis

Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

Factor Low Score High Score

Warmth Reserved, detached Outgoing, supportive

Intellect Concrete, thinker Analytical

Emotional stability Moody, irritable Stable, calm

Aggressiveness Docile, submissive Controlling, dominant

Liveliness Somber, prudent Adventurous,

spontaneous

Dutifulness Unreliable Conscientious

Social assertiveness Shy, restrained Uninhibited, bold

Sensitivity Tough-minded Sensitive, caring

Paranoid Trusting Suspicious

Abstractness Conventional Imagining

Introversion Open, straightforward Private, shrewd

Anxiety Confident Apprehensive

Openmindedness Closeminded, Curious, experimental

traditional

Independence Outgoing, social Self-sufficient

Perfectionism Disorganized, casual Organized, precise

Tension Relaxed Stressed

Responses are scored to produce a clinical profile composed of 10

scales: hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviance
(social deviance), masculinity versus femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia
(obsessive/compulsive qualities), schizophrenia, hypomania, and social
introversion.

Projective Tests
-​ Consists of simple ambiguous stimuli explained by the test taker
-​ Test offers no clues regarding “best way” to interpret the material
-​ Test taker looks at a meaningless graphic image or a vague picture
and the test taker explains what the material means
-​ Test taker is encouraged to project their feelings, impulses and
desires into the cards – by telling a story, interpreting an image or
completing a sentence
 -​ Several advantages
a.​ Flexible
b.​ Can be taken in relaxed atmosphere
c.​ Responses less likely to be fake
d.​ May uncover unconscious thoughts and fantasies
-​ Accuracy and usefulness depends on skill of examiner in eliciting
and interpreting response

Types of Projective Tests

-​ Rorschach test
a.​ A projective test composed of ambiguous inkblots
b.​ The way people interpret the blots is thought to reveal
aspects of their personality
-​ Thematic Apperception Test
a.​ A projective test composed of ambiguous pictures about
which a person is asked to write a complete story
b.​ Consist of 20 cards picturing one or more human figures in
ambiguous situations
c.​ Test takers are shown the pictures and asked to write a
complete story about each picture
-​ Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB)
a.​ Test includes 40 incomplete sentences that people are asked
to complete as quickly as possible
b.​ Responses will reveal desires, fears, and struggles

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

The photo on the left is a sample item from the TAT. The photo on the
right is a person taking the TAT. The person pictured is making up a
story to explain the scene in the painting. The examiner then interprets
and evaluates the person’s story for what it reveals about her
personality.

Chapter 14: Social Psychology

Social Psychology: Scientific study of ways in which thoughts, feelings,

and behaviors of one individual are influenced by the real, imagined, or
inferred behavior or characteristics of other people

Enduring Issues in Social Psychology

-​ Person-Situation: the extent to which a particular behavior reflects
personal characteristics versus situational ones
-​ Diversity-Universality: the extent to which there are differences in
social behavior among people in different cultures
-​ Mind-Body: the influence of the neuroscience movement

Social Cognition
Social neuroscience: application of brain imaging and other neuroscience
methods to social psychology
Social cognition
-​ Knowledge and understanding concerning the social world and the
people in ot, including oneself
-​ Collection and assessment of information about other people to
form first impressions and try to understand their behavior, and to
determine our level of attraction to them
-​ Three aspects:
 a.​ Forming impressions
b.​ Attribution
c.​ Interpersonal attraction

Forming Impressions:
-​ “You’ll never get a second chance to make a great first impression”
-​ How do we form first impressions of people?
-​ It takes about 100 msec or 1/10 of a second for an observer to
from a durable first impression
-​ Schemata
a.​ Schema: an orgnaized set of beliefs and expectations based
on past experience that is presumed to apply to all members
of that category
b.​ Schemata, the plural of schema, influence the information
we notice and remember. They also help us flesh out our
impressions as we peg people into categories
c.​ When we first meet someone, we notice a number of things
about that person, we used the things we noticed to fit the
person into a category. Based on past experience
-​ Primacy effect- the fact that early information about someone
weighs more heavily than later information in influencing one’s
impression of that person
a.​ Humans are “cognitive misers”
-​ Once we form an impression about someone, we tend
not to exert the mental effort to chnage it
a.​ Even if the impression was formed by jumping to
conclusions or through prejudice
b.​ Schemara and primacy effect demonstrate this
-​ Schemata can help us create the behavuor we expect from other
people
-​ Self-fulfilling prophecy- the process in which a person’s
expectation about another elicits behavior from the second person
that confirms the expectation.
a.​ The Pygmalion Effect - high expectations induce
improvements in performance in a certain field
b.​ “When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to
act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to
occur.” (Rosenthal and Babad, 1985)

-​ Schemate and stereotypes shape our impressions of others

-​ Stereotypes
a.​ Set of characteristics presumed to be shared by all members
of a social category
b.​ Type of schema that is simplistic, very strongly held and not
necessary based on firstthand experience
c.​ Can involve almost any distinguishing personal attribute:
-​ Age
-​ Sex
-​ Reace
-​ Occupation
-​ Place of residence
-​ Memberships in a certain group
d.​ When our first impression of a person is governed by a
stereotype, we tend to infer things about that person solely
on the basis of some key distinguishing feature and to ignore
facts that are inconsistent with the stereotype, no matter
how apparent they are
Attribution
How do we decide why people act as they do?
Explaining behavior
We attribute the the behavior to some cause
Social interaction is filled with occasions that invite us to make
judgements about the causes of behaviors
-​ Attribution theory- the theory that addresses the question of how
people make judgments about the causes of behavior
-​ Fritz Heider
-​ Behavior is attributed to either an internal causes or an external
cause but not bother
a.​ Internal attribution- a personal factor
b.​ External attribution- a situational factor
-​ Classmate’s lateness,
-​ Internal (Dispositional) Attribution – his laziness – a
personal factor
-​ External (Situational) Attribution – traffic congestion – a
situational factor

Three kinds of information about behavior

-​ Distinctiveness
a.​ How usual or unusual a particular action or behavior is
b.​ Does a particular occur as a frequent events, or its it an
unusual occurrence?
c.​ If a behavior occurs only when a particular event occurs, we
tend to attribute the behavior to that event
-​ Consistency
a.​ Whether an action or behavior is occurring for the first time
or is it is repeated or regular event
 b.​ Does the same event always evoke the same action or
behavior?
c.​ If the behavior is the same whenever the presumed cause of
the behavior if present, we tend to attribute the behavior to
that event
-​ Consensus
a.​ Does the same event cause different people to respond with
the same action or behavior?
b.​ If a person behaves the same way as other people behaves in
a situation, we tend to attribute the behavior to that event

High Distinctiveness + High Consistency + High Consensus = behavior is

attributed to external factors and not to internal factors

Biases
The causal attributions we make are often vulnerable to biases
-​ Fundamental Attribution error- the tendency of people to
overemphasize personal causes for other people’s behavior
-​ We do not give others the “benefit of the doubt,” and rather
assume that their actions (particularly their inappropriate or
negative actions) are caused by internal/personal factors rather
than external/situational factors
-​ Actor-observer bias- tendency to explain the behavior of others as
caused by internal factors, while attributing one’s own behavior to
external forces
-​ The actor observer bias is the phenomenon of attributing other
people’s behavior to internal factors (fundamnetal attribution
error) while attributing our own behvaior to situational forces
 -​ As actors of behavior, we have more information available to
explain our own behavior, however, as observers, we have less
information available
The causal attributions we make are often vulnerable to biases
-​ Defensive attribution: the tendency to attribute our successes to
our efforts or qualities and our failures to external factors
a.​ Self-serving bias: tendency to attribute our successes to our
persoanl/internal attributes while chalking up our failures to
situational/external forces beyond our control
b.​ Just-world hypothesis- attribution error based on the
assumption that bad things happen to bad people and good
things happen to good people
c.​ When misfortune strikes someone, we often jump to the
conclusion that the person deserved it rather than giving full
weight to situational factors that may have been responsible
d.​ People get the outcomes to which they are entitled based on
their actions
Attribution across cultures
-​ Basic principles of attribituon researched in Western cultures not
always applicable to other cultures
-​ Japanese students studying in the USA explainfaliure as lack of
effort (an internal attribution) and attributed their success to the
assistance that they received from other (an external attribution)
-​ The reverse of self-serving bias

Individualistic Culture Collectivisitc Culture

Achievement oriented Relationship oriented

Focus on autonomy Focus on group autonomy

 Dispositional perspective Situational perspective

Independent Interdependent

Analytic thinking style Holistic thinking style

Interpersonal Attraction
Do “birds of a feather flock together”, or do “opposites attract”?
What determines that two people will like each other when they meet?
Proximity
-​ How close two people live to each other
-​ Usually most important factor in determining attraction
-​ More likely and more frequent interaction
-​ More interaction increases likelihood of attraction
-​ Repeated exposure enhances familiarity
-​ Familiarity leads to liking
-​ The more people interact with each other, the more likely they are
to become attracted to each other

Physical Attrativeness
-​ Cross-cultural, cross-ethnic agreement suggests possibility of
universal standard of beauty
-​ Influences conclusions reached about person’s character
a.​ Assume they are more intelligent, interesting, happy, kind,
sensitive, moral, and successful than people who are not
perceived as attractive
b.​ They are also thought to make better spouses and to be
more sexually responsive
 c.​ Women are more likely to evaluate the risk of having
unprotected sex with an attractive partner as being lower
than with an unattractive partner
d.​ People are more likely to vote for a physically attractive
candidate in politics
-​ Tend to like attractive people more than less attractive people
-​ Tend to give attractive people the benefit of the doubt
a.​ Likely to give them a second chance
-​ Men place higher value on attractiveness when selecting a mate
for long-term relationship

Impersonal Attraction
●​ Similarity
-​ Similarity appears to be a powerful atractant, and the more
similar two individuals are, the more likely they will be
attracted
-​ Usually choose friends and partner who are close to own
level of attractiveness
-​ Similar in attitudes, interests, values, backgrounds, and
beliefs
-​ People overwhelnigly prefer to associate with those similar
to themselves
-​ Can be attracted to complimentary characteristics
a.​ A person who likes to care for and fuss over others
could be compatible with a mte who enjoys receiving
such attention
●​ Intimacy
-​ Quality of genuine closeness and trust in another person
-​ Become closer and stay closer through a continueing
reciprocal pattern of trying to know each other
 -​ Intimate communication based on gradual self-disclosure
a.​ At the beginning, you talk about “safe” superficial topics
like the weather, sports, or shared activities
b.​ As you get to know each other better over time,
conversation progresses to more personal subjects like
your personal experiences, memories, hopes and fears,
goals and failures
-​ Self-disclosure only possible with trust

Attitudes

Attitude
-​ Relatively stable organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavior
tendencies directed toward something or someone- the attitude
object
-​ Our evaluation (positive or negative) of a person, an idea, or an
object
a.​ People, political policies, product in the supermarket
-​ Influence our behavior
-​ Social psychologists want to know how attitudes are forms and
how they can be changed
Attitudes are composed of evaluative beliefs, feelings about the attitude
object, and behavioral tendencies toward that object

The Nature of Attitudes

●​ Three major components (Tricomponenet model of attitudes- ABC)
-​ Affective (I feel)
a.​ Feelings about that object
b.​ Feelings encompass love, hate, like, dislike, and similar
sentiments
 -​ Behavioral (I do)
a.​ Behavior tendencies toward that object
b.​ Behavior tendencies refer to our inclinations to act in certain
ways toward the object- to approach it, avoid it, and so on
-​ Cognition (I believe)
a.​ Evaluative beliefs about an object
b.​ Beliefs include facts, opinions, and our general knowledge
●​ Political Candidate
-​ Attitude towards them includes
a.​ Affective (I feel): Feelings about the candidate- like/dislike,
trust/mistrust
b.​ Behavioral (I do): We are inclined to behave in certain ways
toward the candidate- to vote for or against them
c.​ Cognition (I believe): Beliefs about the candidate’s
qualifications and positions on crucial issues and our
expectations about how the candidate will vote on those
issues
●​ Recycling
-​ Positive attitude towards recycling includes
a.​ Affective (I feel): it makes me feel good to recycle
b.​ Behavioral (I do): you recycle as often as possible
c.​ Cognition (I believe): recycling is good for the
environment

Attitudes And Behavior

●​ Relationship between attitudes and behavior
-​ Not always straightforward
-​ For some people, attitudes predict behavior better than for
others
 -​ People who rate highly on self-monitoring are especially
likely to override their attitudes to behave in accordance with
other’s expectations
-​ Self-Monitioring
a.​ The tendency for an individual to observe the situation
for cues about how to react
b.​ High self-monitoring: These individuals are willing to
shed their own tendencies or beliefs to act in
accordance with the expectations of their surroundings
-​ Someone who is somewhat timid in social
situations and often looks at their classmates to
determine what they are doing before proceeding
with an activity, especially if it is controversial
c.​ Low self-monitor: These individuals will be less likely to
act in a way that is consistent with their social setting,
particularly of those expectations are at odds with
personal beliefs or attitudes
-​ Someone who is fairly independent, and rarely
takes into account what others are doing in a
situation before carrying out his own behavior,
even if it might be controversial

Prejudice and Discrimination

Attitudes can be negative or confrontational

Prejudice
-​ Attitude- not an action
-​ Unfair, intolerant, or unfavorable view of a group of people
 -​ Stan is a white student who grew up in Alabama and is soon
entering the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is aware that many
of his classmates will be Black and assumes that they will dislike
him and ostracize him.
a.​ Stan’s belief structures represent a prejudiced attitude
b.​ What if Stan treated his classmates differently because of
his attitude?
-​ Discrimination

Discrimination
-​ Behavior- an action
-​ Unfair act or series of acts directed against an entire group of
people or individual members of that group
-​ Tobias operates a bakery and specializes in wedding cakes. He
actively discourages same-sex couples from coming in and always
gives them the highest prices if they insist on ordering a cake from
him.
a.​ Tobias is actively behaving in a way that unfairly singles out
a specific group of people
b.​ Attitude toward the same-sex couple = prejudice
c.​ Unfair treatment = discrimination

Prejudicial beliefs
-​ Virtually always negative stereotypes
-​ Ultimate attribution error- Tendency for a person with stereotypes
beliefs about a particular group of people to make stereotype
internal attributions for their shortcomings ( they lack ability or
 motivation) and external attributions for their successes ( they
were given special advantages).
-​ Usually marked by strong emotions, such as dislike, fear, hatred, or
loathing
-​ Corresponding negative behavioral tendencies such as avoidance,
hostility, and criticism

Sources of Prejudice
-​ Frustration-aggression theory
a.​ The theory is that, under certain circumstances, people who
are frustrated in their goals turn their anger away from the
proper, powerful target and toward another, less powerful
target that is safer to attack
b.​ Scapegoats- One who is unjustly blamed and punished for
problems he or she did not cause
-​ Being upset because refugees are coming in and taking
over jobs
-​ Displaced anger at one situation (the loss of jobs and
increased unemployment) onto a convenient target
(those who have recently immigrated to the town)

-​ Authoritarian personality
a.​ A personality pattern characterized by rigid conventionality,
exaggerated respect for authority, and hostility toward those
who defy society’s norms
b.​ They are cynical about human nature, fearing, suspecting,
and rejecting all groups other than those to which they
belong
c.​ Prejudice is only one expression of their suspicious,
mistrusting views
-​ Cognitive source
-​ May originate in an attempt to conform
-​ If we associate with people who express prejudices, we are more
likely to go along with their ideas than to resist them
-​ The pressures of social conformity help to explain why children
quickly absorb the prejudices of their parents and playmates long
before they have formed their own beliefs and opinions on the
basis of experience
a.​ In-group- Any group of people who feels a sense of solidarity
and exclusivity in relation to nonmembers
b.​ Out-group- A group of people who are outside this boundary
and are viewed as competitors, enemies, or different and
unworthy of respect
c.​ In-group bias- Members see themselves not just as different,
but also as superior to members of out-groups
d.​ In extreme cases, members of an in-group may see
members of an out-group as less than human and feel
hatred that may lead to violence, civil war, and even genocide
-​ Racism
➔​Prejudice and discrimination directed at a particular racial
group
➔​Belief that members of certain racial or ethnic groups are
innately inferior
➔​Racists believe that intelligence, industry, morality, and other
valued traits are biologically determined and therefore
cannot be changed
➔​In one survey of 1,000 Americans shortly after Hurricane
Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, 66% of African Americans said
that the government’s response would have been faster if
most victims had been White; only 26% of White Americans
 agreed. Only 19% of African Americans, compared to 41% of
White Americans, felt that the federal government’s
response was good or excellent. When asked about people
who “took things from businesses and homes” during the
flooding, 57% of African Americans said they were ordinary
people trying to survive; only 38% of White Americans
agreed.

Strategies for Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination

➔​Recategorization
-​ Expand schema of a particular group to create superordinate
categories that can reduce stereotypes and prejudice
-​ Viewing people from different races or genders as sharing
similar qualities
-​ Both Catholics and Protestants tend to view themselves as
Christians rather than as separate competing groups
➔​Controlled processing
-​ Train selves to be more “mindful” of those who differ from us
-​ To reduce children’s prejudice toward people with disabilities,
children could be shown slides of handicapped people and be
asked to imagine how difficult it might be for such individuals
to open a door or drive a car
➔​Improving group contact
-​ Reduce prejudice and tensions by bringing groups together
-​ 1954 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas, which mandated that public
schools become racially integrated
-​ Only works of certain conditions are met
a.​ The group members must have equal status
 b.​ The people involved need to have one-on-one contact
with members of the other group
c.​ The members of the two groups must cooperate rather
than compete
d.​ The social norms should encourage intergroup contact

Changing Attitudes

What factors encourage someone to change an attitude?

The process of Persuasion

-​ Step 1
-​ Seize and retain the audience’s attention
-​ To be persuaded, must pay attention to the message, comprehend
it, and accept it as convincing
-​ Example: advertisements- Ads that arouse emotions can be
memorable and thus persuasive
-​ Step 2 & 3 – comprehending and then accepting the message – are
influenced by both the message itself and the way in which it is
presented
-​ The Communication Model
-​ 4 key elements to achieve these goals
a.​ Source - Author or communicator who appeals to the
audience to accept the message. Credibility makes a big
difference, at least initially, especially if we are not inclined to
pay attention to the message
-​ We are more likely to change our attitude about the oil
industry’s antipollution efforts if we hear the
information from an impartial commission appointed
 to study the situation than if the president of a major
refining company tells us about them
b.​ Message - Messages are generally more successful when
they present both sides of an argument and when they
present novel arguments rather than when they rehash old
standbys, heard many times before
c.​ Medium of communication - Written documentation is best
suited to making people understand complex arguments,
whereas videotapes or live presentations are more effective
with an audience that already grasps the gist of an argument
d.​ Characteristics of the audience - Attitudes are most resistant
to change if (1) the audience has a strong commitment to its
present attitudes, (2) those attitudes are shared by others,
and (3) the attitudes were instilled during early childhood by
a pivotal group such as the family

The Communication Model of Persuasion

For an ad to affect our behavior, it must first attract our attention. This
one also generates fear, which can sometimes be effective.

Changing Attitudes

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

-​ Exists when a person has two contradictory cognitions, or beliefs,
at the same time
-​ Sometimes changing attitude is the easiest way to reduce the
discomfort of dissonance
-​ Other ways to reduce cognitive dissonance
a.​ Increase the number of consonant elements
 -​ Increase the thoughts that are consistent with one
another
b.​ Reduce the importance of one or both dissonant cognitions

Social Influence

Social influence is the process by which others individually or

collectively affect one’s perceptions, attitudes, and actions

Cultural is a major source of social influence

➔​Day-to-day cultural influences
➢​Dictates how you dress- A Saudi woman covers her face
before venturing outside her home; a North American
woman freely displays her face, arms, and legs; and women
in some other societies roam completely naked
➢​Dictates what you eat- and what you do not eat- Americans
do not eat dog meat, the Chinese eat no cheese, and the
Hindus refuse to eat beef. Culture further guides how you
eat: with a fork, chopsticks, or your bare hands
➢​Amount of personal space - Latin Americans, French people,
and Arabs get closer to one another in most face-to-face
interactions than do Americans, British, or Swedes

Cultural Influences
-​ Culture influences us through formal instruction
a.​ Parents reminding us that certain actions are considered
“normal” or the “right way” to behave
-​ We learn cultural lessons through modeling and imitation
 a.​ Acceptance of cultural truisms- Beliefs that most members
of a society accept as self-evidently true
b.​ Norms- A shared idea or expectation about how to behave
-​ Cultural assimilator- a technique for understanding other cultures
a.​ Strategy for perceiving norms and values of another group
b.​ Teaches by example and explanation
1.​ Why do a Japanese grade school class members
silently follow their teacher single file through a park
on a lovely spring day?
Japanese children are raised to value the needs and
feelings of others over their own selfish concerns.
c. Cultural assimilators encourage us to remain open-minded about
others’ norms and values by challenging such cultural truisms as “Our
way is the right way.”

Conformity
-​ Voluntarily yielding to social norms, even at the expense of one’s
preferences
-​ Accepting cultural norms is not the same as conformity
-​ Solomon Asch’s experiment on conformity in group situations
a.​ Under some circumstances, people will conform to group
pressures even if it forces them to deny obvious physical
evidence
b.​ Subjects conformed to group opinion about 33% of the time
-​ The Asch effect is the influence of the group majority on an
individual’s judgment
-​ Two sets of factors influence the likelihood of conformity
➔​Characteristics of the situation
●​ Size the group: the likelihood of conformity increased
with group size until four confederates were present
 ●​ Degree of unanimity
a.​ If just one confederate broke the perfect
agreement of the majority by giving the correct
answer, conformity among participants fell from
an average of 35% to about 25%
b.​ The “ally” eases the pressure to conform even if
the ally doesn’t share the person’s viewpoint
➔​Characteristics of the person
●​ Attraction to group
-​ Greater attraction to the group = greater chance of
conforming
●​ Expectation of future interaction
-​ Greater the chance of interacting with the members of
the group in the future = greater chance of conforming
●​ Low status within group
-​ Relatively low status = greater chance of conforming
●​ Lack of acceptance by other in the group
-​ Greater the lack of acceptance in the group = greater
chance of conforming
➔​The fear of rejection by the group motivates conformity

Compliance
-​ Change of behavior in response to an explicit request from another
person or group
-​ Techniques for inducing compliances:
a.​ Foot-in-the-door effect
➔​Once people have granted a small request, they are
more likely to comply with a larger one.
-​ Residence were asked to place a large, ugly sign
reading “Drive carefully” in front yards. Only 17%
 agreed. Other residences were then asked to sign
a petition for more safe driving laws. When the
same residents were asked to place the sign in
the yard, 55% agreed.
-​ People who are fundraising often secure a small
donation from prospective donors. They then
increase their request and attempt to get you to
donate more during the next fundraiser.

b.​ Lowball procedure

➔​First induce a person to agree to do something for a
comparatively low cost, then raise the cost of
compliance
-​ The car dealer persuades the costumer to buy car
by reducing price of car. Costumer agrees to buy
car. The dealer shifts the terms of the sale. Car
now cost more.
-​ Harlow recently agreed to be a scout leader for
her daughter’s group. When she agreed, she was
told the group met twice a month. However, she
was not told that there were additional meetings
of the organization in the off weeks amongst the
troop leaders, as well as mandatory camping
excursions.

c.​ Door-in-the-face effect

➔​Person who has refused to comply with one request
may be more likely to comply with a second.
 -​ Students were asked to counsel delinquent
youths at a detention center for 2 years. Nearly
everyone declined. Asked students to supervise
children during a trip to the zoo, students agreed
-​ Jim’s son’s homeroom teacher knows that he is a
stay-at-home dad. She asks him to be the
volunteer lunch monitor for the year, to which Jim
refuses. She then asks if he might chaperone a
trip to the state house

Obediences
-​ Change of behavior in response to a command from another
person, typically an authority figure
a.​ Compliance + direct order from someone in authority
-​ Why do people willingly obey an authority figure, even if doing do
means violating their own principles?
a.​ Follows a shift in self-perception (people see themselves as
the agents of another person’s wishes) where they have
relinquished control of their actions
The willingness of prison guards to obey the commands of authority,
even when doing so may have violated their own principles, contributed
to the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib Prison during the Iraq War.

Milgram’s Study
Milgram found that 65% of people obeyed the orders of an authority
figure

Stanford Prison Experiment

A situation has a powerful influence on human behavior for those in
power and those without power Zimbardo argued that adopting the role
of either a prisoner or a guard can lead to hijinks in a simulated prison

Replicating the Milgram Experiment

In 2006, Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University replicated—with a few
key changes—Milgram’s basic experiment.

Burger wanted to test whether people would remain as willing to obey

an authority figure today as they were in the 1960s

Social Action
Do we behave differently when other people are present?

Deindividuation
-​ Loss of personal sense of responsibility in a group
a.​ Individual control of their behaviors or identity
b.​ People respond not as individuals but as anonymous parts of
a larger group
c.​ The more anonymous people feel in a group, the less
responsible they feel as individuals
-​ People act differently in the presence of others from the way they
would if they were alone
-​ Examples of deindividuation
a.​ Mob behavior
b.​ Snowball effect: Persuader convinces a few people, those
few convince others, who convince still others, and the group
becomes an unthinking mob
Helping Behavior
What factors make us more inclined to help a person in
Need?

-​ Instances of cooperation and mutual assistance as abundant as

human conflict and hostility
-​ Altruistic behavior - Helping behavior that is not linked to personal
gain/reward
a.​ Donating money/time to charity
-​ Helping behavior is influenced by two sets of factors:
➔​Situational – the presence of other people
a.​ Bystander effect - The tendency for an individual’s
helpfulness in an emergency to decrease as the
number of passive bystanders increases
b.​ In 1964, in Queens, New York, a 19-year-old woman
named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a person with a
knife near the back entrance to her apartment building
and again in the hallway inside her apartment building.
When the attack occurred, she screamed for help
numerous times and eventually died from her stab
wounds. This story became famous because reportedly
numerous residents in the apartment building heard
her cries for help and did nothing—neither helping her
nor summoning the police—though these have facts
been disputed.
c.​ Diffusion of responsibility reduces the likelihood that
any one person will feel responsibility for helping
because the responsibility to help is spread throughout
the group
 ➔​Individual
a.​ Empathy – the capacity to understand another person’s
perspective, to feel what he or she feels
b.​ Mood – a person who is in a good mood is more likely to help
another in need compared to someone who is in a neutral or
bad mood.

Groups and Decision Making

How is making a decision in a group different from making
a decision on your own?
-​ Many people trust group decisions more than those made by
individuals
-​ Dynamics of social interaction within groups sometimes conspire
to make group decisions less sound than those of an individual
-​ Polarization in Group Decision Making
a.​ Risky shift - Greater willingness of a group than an individual to
take substantial risks
b.​ Polarization - Shift in attitudes by members of a group toward
more extreme positions than the ones held before group
discussion
-​ The effectiveness of Groups
➔​Groups more effective under certain circumstances
➔​Success depends on task and skills of group members
-​ Groups are more successful if the requirements of the
task match the skills of the group members
➔​Ways in which members interact
-​ High status individuals tend to exert more influence in
groups but if they do not possess the best
problem-solving skills, group decisions may suffer
 ➔​Group size
-​ Large groups make it more likely that it include
someone who has the skills needed to solve a difficult
problem
-​ Large groups make it hard to coordinate activities
a.​ Social loafing - The tendency of group members
to exert less individual effort on the assumption
that others in the group will do the work
➔​Cohesiveness of group
-​ Groupthink - A process that occurs when the members
of a group like one another, have similar goals and are
isolated, leading them to ignore alternatives and not
criticize group consensus. It is more important to
maintain group cohesiveness than to consider the facts
more realistically.

Leadership
What makes a great leader?
-​ Leaders important to the effectiveness of a group
-​ Great-Person theory
a.​ The theory that leadership is a result of personal qualities
and traits that qualify one to lead others
b.​ Would have been leaders no matter where they existed in
history
c.​ George Washington, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela
d.​ Ignores social and economic factors
-​ Right-place-at-the-right-time theory
a.​ Leadership emerges when the right person is in the right
place at the right time.
 b.​ Martin Luther King Jr. – if it was 30 years prior, he may not
have been as successful as he was

Leadership Theory
One theory of leadership holds that the particularly effective leader is
the right person in the right place at the right time. For the American
civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. was such a leader.

Contingency theory
-​ There is more to leadership than the great-person theory or the
right-place-at-the-right-time theory
-​ The leader’s traits, certain aspects of the situation in which the
group finds itself, and the response of the group and the leader to
each other are all important considerations
-​ Personal Characteristics are important to the success of a leader:
a.​ Task-oriented or relationship oriented
-​ Task-oriented: Concerned with doing the task well—even
at the expense of worsening relationships among group
members.
-​ Relationship-oriented: Concerned with maintaining
group cohesiveness and harmony.
➔​Transactional view of leadership
➔​WICS
➔​Wisdom, intelligence, and creativity, synthesized
-​ Systems approach to leadership
a.​ Sternberg’s theory of effective leadership stresses
certain essential traits necessary for effective
leadership: wisdom, intelligence, and creativity,
synthesized.
b.​ Wisdom to balance the interests of everyone involved
 c.​ Intelligence to evaluate and implement ideas
d.​ Creativity is necessary to devise new ideas
e.​ Efforts to train new leaders should focus on ways to
produce individuals who embody these traits and learn
effective ways to synthesize them
➔​Women in Leadership Positions
-​ Effectively combined traditionally “masculine” task-oriented
traits with “feminine” relationship-oriented assets
-​ Tend to have a more democratic, collaborative, and
interpersonally oriented style of managing
-​ Leadership styles are generally more effective

Chapter 12: Physiological Disorders

Enduring Issues in Phychological Disorders

Mind–Body: What is the relationship between genetics,

neurotransmitters, and behavior disorders?

Person–Situation: Many psychological disorders arise because a

vulnerable person encounters a particularly stressful environment

Diversity–Universality: Think about the answer to “What is normal?” and

how the answer has changed over time and differs across cultures
Stability–Change: Is a young person with a psychological disorder likely
to suffer from it later in life and/or will a well-adjusted young person be
immune to psychological disorders later in life?
Perspective on Psychological Disorders

-​ A Psychological disorder is a condition characterized by abnormal

thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
-​ Psychopathology is the study of psychological disorders, including
their symptoms, causes, and treatment.

How does a Mental Health Professional Define a Psychological

Disorders?
-​ Three perspectives on how to define a psychological disorders
a.​ Society- main standard of abnormality is behavior that fails
to confirm to prevailing ideas about theta is socially expected
of people
b.​ Individuals- main criterion is weather that beahavior fosters a
sense of unhappiness and lack of well-being
c.​ Mental health professionals- assess abnormaility chefly by
looking for
-​ Maladaptive personality traits
-​ Psychological discomfort regarding a particular
behavior
-​ Evidence that the behavior is preventing the person
from functioning well in life

➔​Identifying behavior as abnormal matter of degree

-​ The person who claims to hear the voices of demons exhibit
behaviors
 -​ The loneliness and longing for home a freshman experiences
during her first semester of college
➔​Line between normal and abnormal is arbitrary
Historical Views Of Psychological Disorders
-​ Thousands of years ago: Mysterious behaviors attributed to
supernatural powers, madness was sign of spirit possession
-​ 18th century: Emotionally disturbed thought to be witch ir
possessed by the devil
-​ Late middle ages:
a.​ Public and private asylums extablsied
b.​ Inmates were chained down and deprived of food, light, or air
in oder to “cure” them
-​ 19th and 20th centuries: Three influential yet conflicting models of
abnormal behavior
Conditions in most 19th-century mental hospitals were deplorable.
Patients were often kept in chains in unsanitary conditions and exposed
to questionable abusive treatments. Philippe Pinel in France, and later
Dorothea Dix in the United States, championed the movement to
improve conditions in mental hospitals.

-​ Models of abnormal behavior

a.​ Biological model
b.​ Psychoanalytic model
c.​ Cognitive-behavioral model

The Biological Model

-​ View that psychological disorders have biochemical or
physiological basis
-​ Psychological disorders caused by physiological malfunctions
from hereditary factors
 -​ Support growing with advancement in neuroscience
a.​ Neuroimaging techniques - enabled researchers to pinpoint
regions of the brain involved in such disorders as
schizophrenia and antisocial personality
b.​ Neurochemists and neuropharmacology - neurochemists
have spawned advances in neuropharmacology leading to
the development of promising new psychoactive drugs by
unraveling the complex chemical interactions that take place
at the synapse
c.​ Behavior genetics - increasing our understanding of the role
of specific genes in the development of complex disorders
such as schizophrenia and autistic spectrum disorder.
-​ Considerations
a.​ No neuroimaging technique can clearly and definitively
differentiate between various mental disorders
b.​ Most drugs only control, rather than cure, abnormal behavior
c.​ Advances in the identification of underlying neurological
structures may interfere with psychological causes

The psychoanalytic Model

-​ View that psychological disorders result from unconscious internal
conflicts
-​ Developed by Freud and followers in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries
-​ Behavior disorders symbolic expressions of unconscious conflicts
that can be traced to childhood
-​ Effective problem resolution must include awareness that the
source lies in childhood and infancy

The Cognitive-Behavorial Model

 -​ Psychological disorders result from learning maladaptive ways of
thinking and behaving
-​ Grew from 20th century learning and cognition research

The Diathesis-Stress Model and Systems Theory

-​ Why do some people with a family history of a psychological
disorder develop the disorder, whereas other family members do
not?
-​ Diathesis-Stress Model: View that people biologically predisposed
to a mental disorder will tend to exhibit that disorder when
particularly affected by stress
-​ Systems approach, or biopsychosocial model
a.​ View that biological, psychological, and social risk factors
combine to produce psychological disorders
b.​ Emotional problems are “lifestyle diseases” that result from
several risk factors that influence one another

Diathesis-Stress Model
-​ Why does stress affect some people and leave others unaffected?
-​ Diathesis – Biological predisposition
a.​ Diathesis-Stress Model:
➔​some people are more vulnerable to stress-related
diseases
➔​due to either genetic weakness
➔​or biochemical imbalance that predisposes them to
diseases
-​ The Diathesis-Stress Model assumes two factors produce mental
disorders:
1.​ The person has a predisposition (diathesis) to the diseases
-​ Can be biochemical
 -​ Abuse or maltreatment during childhood could also
create vulnerabilities to disorders
2.​ The person experiences some sort of stress

The Prevalence of Psychological Disorders

-​ How common are mental disorders?
-​ Prevalence
a.​ Refers to frequency with which a given disorder occurs at a
given time
b.​ If there were 100 cases of depression in a paopulation of
1,000, the prevalence of depression would be 10%
-​ Incidence
a.​ Refers to numbers of new cases that arises in a given period
b.​ If there were 10 new cases of depression in a population of
1,000 in a single year, the incidence would be 1% per years
-​ Mental disorders are that leading cause a disability in the U.S. for
people aged 15-44

Mental Illness and the Law

-​ Is there a difference between “insanity” and “mental illness”?
-​ Insanity
a.​ Legal term, not psychological one
b.​ Typically applied to defendants who lacked substantial
capacity to appreciate the criminality of their actions (to
know right from wrong) or to conform to the requirements
of the law (to control their behavior)
c.​ Defendant must be evaluated for competency to stand trial:
Is the person able to understand the charges against him or
her and to participate in a defense in court?
 -​ A mental ill person is responsible for his or her crimes unless he
or she is determined to be insane

The effects of Stigma on a Diagnosis of Mental Illness

-​ Diagnosing a mental illness often has a negative impact by
fostering stigma
-​ Social stigma: Characterized by prejudice, discrimination, and social
rejection directed toward people with diagnosed mental illness
-​ Self-Stigma
a.​ Involves the internalization of the perception of
discrimination by the patient
b.​ Often leads to sharme, low self-esteem, and reduced
subjective quality of life
c.​ Decrease in likelihood of positive treatment outcomes
-​ Stigmatizing attitudes may directly affect
a.​ Relationships
b.​ Opportunities for employment
c.​ Admission to select colleges
-​ Stigma is widespread
-​ The negative attitudes toward people with mental illness are
prevalent even among people who are knowledgeable about
mental illness, including many health care providers and people
who have a family member with mental illness
-​ Media portrayal of mental illness often perpetuates negative
stereotypes
-​ Steps to reducing effects of stigma
a.​ People must be made aware that social stigma exists and
that it does significant harm
b.​ Individuals, including those in the media, must strive to
change hurtful attitudes, words, and actions
 c.​ Mental health professionals must recognize the negative
impact of self-stigma on wellbeing and treatment outcomes

Classifying Abnormal Behavior

-​ Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM
-​ Describe and classify the various kinds of psychological disorders
-​ DSM-5
a.​ Fifth edition of DSM
b.​ Provides complete list of mental disorders, with each
category defined in terms of significant behavior patterns
c.​ Has made diagnosis more reliable
d.​ Most widely used for classification of psychological disorders

Psychological Disorders

Mood disorders
-​ Disturbances in mood or prolonged emotional state
-​ Depressive disorders
a.​ Characterized by overwhelming feelings of sadness, lack of
interest in activities, and perhaps excessive guilt or feelings
of worthlessness
b.​ Major depressive disorder - A depressive disorder
characterized by an episode of intense sadness, depressed
mood, or marked loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all
activities.
c.​ Persistent depressive disorder - A depressive disorder where
the symptoms are generally less severe than for major
depressive disorder, but are present most days and persist
for at least 2 years
-​ Suicide
a.​ In U.S., approximately one suicide occurs every 13 minutes
b.​ 10th leading cause of death
c.​ Outnumber homicides by five to three
d.​ Higher among Whites than minorities
e.​ More women attempt, but more men succeed: Men tend to
choose violent and lethal means, such as guns
f.​ Rates rising among adolescents and young adults
-​ Dangerous myths about suicide
a.​ Someone who talks about committing suicide will never do it:
Most people who kill themselves have talked about it. Such
comments should always be taken seriously
b.​ Someone who has tried suicide and failed is not serious
about it: Any suicide attempt means that the person is
deeply troubled and needs help immediately. A suicidal
person will try again, picking a more deadly method the
second or third time around
c.​ Only people who are life’s losers—those who have failed in
their careers and in their personal lives—commit suicide:
Many people who kill themselves have prestigious jobs,
conventional families, and a good income. Physicians, for
example, have a suicide rate several times higher than that
for the general population; in this case, the tendency to
suicide may be related to their work stresses
-​ Bipolar and Related Disorders
a.​ Less common than depression
b.​ Manic episodes - Characterized by euphoric states, extreme
physical activity, excessive talkativeness, distractedness, and
sometimes grandiosity
 c.​ Bipolar disorder - A mood disorder in which periods of mania
and depression may alternate, sometimes with periods of
normal mood intervening

Mood Disorder

-​ Causes of the mood disorders

➔​Biological factors
●​ Genetic factors can play an important role in the
development of depression and bioploar disorder
●​ Variation on 22nd chromosomme that appears to
increase an individual’s susceptibility to bipolar disorder
by infleucing the balance of certain neurotransmitters
in the brain
●​ Daithesis leaves some people particularly vulnerable to
certain stress hormones. Adverse or traumatic
experiences early in life can result in high levels of
those stress hormones, which in turn increases the
likelihood of a mood disorder later in life
➔​Psychological factors
●​ Cognitive distortions- Illogical and maladaptive responses to
early negative life events that lead to feelings of
incompetence and unworthiness that are reactivated
whenever a new situation arises that resembles the original
events
➔​Social factors
●​ Difficulties in interpersonal relationships
Anxiety Disorders
-​ Anxiety disorders: Disorders in which anxiety is a characterisitc
feature or the avoidance of anxiety seems to motivate abnormal
behavior
-​ Specific phobias- Anxiety diosrder characterized by an intense,
paralyzing fear of something
a.​ Social anxiety disorder - Anxiety disorders characterized by
excessive, inappropriate fears connected with social
situations or performances in front of other people
b.​ Agoraphobia - An anxiety disorder that involves multiple,
intense fears of crowds, public places, and other situations
that require separation from a source of security such as the
home
-​ Panic disorders - An anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent
panic attacks in which the person suddenly experiences intense
fear or terror without any reasonable cause
a.​ Generalized anxiety disorder - An anxiety disorder
characterized by prolonged vague but intense fears that are
not attached to any particular object or circumstance
-​ Anxiety-related disorders
a.​ Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD - An anxiety-related
disorder in which a person feels driven to think disturbing
thoughts or to perform senseless rituals.
Obsessions - involuntary thoughts or ideas that keep
recurring despite the person’s attempts to stop
themCompulsions - repetitive, ritualistic behaviors that a
person feels compelled to perform
b.​ Body dysmorphic disorder - A somatoform disorder in which
a person becomes so preoccupied with his or her imagined
ugliness that normal life is impossible
Causes of anxiety disorders
-​ Learning
-​ Evolutionary biological predisposition
-​ Heredity
-​ Internal psychological conflicts

Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders

-​ Psychosomatic illness - A real physical illness that is largely
caused by psychological factors such as stress and anxiety
-​ Somatic symptom and related disorders - Disorders in which there
is an apparent physical illness for which there is no organic basis
-​ Somatic symptom disorder - Disorder characterized by recurrent
vague somatic complaints without a physical cause
-​ Conversion disorders - Disorders in which a dramatic specific
disability has no physical cause but instead seems related to
psychological problems
-​ Illness anxiety disorder - Disorder in which a person interprets
insignificant symptoms as signs of serious illness in the absence
of any organic evidence of such illness
-​ Dissociative disorders
a.​ Disorders in which some aspect of the personality seems
separated from the rest
b.​ Among the most puzzling forms of mental disorders
c.​ Dissociative amnesia
d.​ Dissociative fugue
e.​ Dissociative identity disorder
f.​ Depersonalization/derealization disorder
-​ Dissociative amnesia - A disorder characterized by loss of memory
for past events without organic cause
 -​ Dissociative fugue - A symptom of dissociative amnesia that
involves flight from home and the assumption of a new identity
with amnesia for past identity and events
-​ Dissociative identity disorder - Disorder characterized by the
separation of the personality into two or more distinct
personalities (also called multiple personality disorder).
a.​ Origins not understood
b.​ Posttraumatic theory- develops as a response to childhood
abuse
c.​ Social-cognitive theory- media attention accounts for
increase in this disorder in recent years
-​ Depersonalization/derealization disorder - A dissociative disorder
whose essential feature is that the person suddenly feels changed
or different in a strange way
The uniquely different personalities displayed by people with
dissociative identity disorder often emerge at different time and under
different circumstances. Some of the personalities know about the
others and may speak positively or negatively about them, while others
may be unaware that they reside in a body with other personalities.

Sexual Dysfunctions
➔​Loss or impairment of the ordinary physical responses of sexual
function for at least six months
➔​Erectile disorder/dysfunction, or ED- The inability of a man to
achieve or maintain an erection
➔​Female sexual interest/arousal disorder - The inability of a woman
to become sexually aroused or to reach orgasm
➔​Sexual desire disorders - Disorders in which the person lacks
sexual interest or has an active distaste for sex
 ➔​Orgasmic disorders - Inability to reach orgasm in a person able to
experience sexual desire and maintain arousal
➔​Premature ejaculation - Inability of man to inhibit orgasm as long
as desired
➔​Genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder - Involuntary muscle
spasms in the outer part of the vagina that make intercourse
impossible

Paraphilic Disorders
-​ Paraphilias: Use of unconventional objects or situations to achieve
sexual arousal
-​ Paraphilic disorder: Paraphilias that cause either stress, harm,
impairment or bring about personal risk

Paraphilic Disorders
-​ Types of paraphilias
a.​ Fetishism - A nonhuman object is the preferred or exclusive
method of achieving sexual excitement.
b.​ Voyeurism - Desire to watch others having sexual relations
or to spy on nude people.
c.​ Exhibitionism - Exposing one’s genitals in public to achieve
sexual arousal.
d.​ Frotteurism - Achieving sexual arousal by touching or
rubbing against a nonconsenting person in public situations.
e.​ Transvestic fetishism - Wearing the clothes of the opposite
sex to achieve sexual gratification.
f.​ Sexual sadism - Obtaining sexual gratification from
humiliating or physically harming a sex partner.
g.​ Sexual masochism - Inability to enjoy sex without
accompanying emotional or physical pain.
Paraphilic Disorders
-​ Pedophilic disorder
➢​One of most serious paraphilic disorders
➢​Desire to have sexual relations with children as the preferred
or exclusive method of achieving sexual excitement
➢​Children are generally under the age of 13
➢​Perpetrators almost invariably men, under 40, and familiar
with their victims
-​ Common explanation for pedophilic disorder
a.​ Poor adjustment to adult sexual role
b.​ Children as sexual objects in response to stress
c.​ Unstable social adjustment
d.​ History of sexual frustration and failure
e.​ Low self-esteem
f.​ Inability to cope with negative emotions
g.​ Tend to perceive themselves as immature
h.​ Dependent, unassertive, lonely, and insecure
i.​ May have structural anomalies in areas of the brain

Gender Dysphoria
-​ Disorder characterized by marked distress associated with the sex
and gender assigned at birth
-​ NOT same as transgender, gender nonconformity, gay, lesbian, or
bisexual, which are not disorders
-​ Causes are not known but likely result of societal pressures and
stereotypes
-​ Individuals often misunderstood leading to social isolation and
discrimination
Personality Disorder
-​ Disorders in which inflexible and maladaptive ways of thinking and
behaving learned early in life cause distress to the person or
conflicts with others
-​ Type
◆​Schizoid personality disorder - Personality disorder in which
a person is withdrawn and lacks feelings for others.
◆​Paranoid personality disorder - Personality disorder in which
the person is inappropriately suspicious and mistrustful of
others.
◆​Dependent personality disorder - Personality disorder in
which the person is unable to make choices and decisions
independently and cannot tolerate being alone.
◆​Avoidant personality disorder - Personality disorder in which
the person’s fears of rejection by others lead to social
isolation.
◆​Narcissistic personality disorder - Personality disorder in
which the person has an exaggerated sense of
self-importance and needs constant admiration.
◆​Borderline personality disorder - Personality disorder
characterized by marked instability in self-image, mood, and
interpersonal relationships.
◆​Antisocial personality disorder - Personality disorder that
involves a pattern of violent, criminal, or unethical and
exploitative behavior and an inability to feel affection for
others.
Personality Disorders
❖​Antisocial personality disorder rates
-​ Gender differences in U.S. adults
-​ Prison inmates
 -​ Not all people with antisocial personality disorder are
convicted criminals
❖​Antisocial personality disorder causes
-​ Combination of biological predisposition
-​ Difficult life experiences
-​ Unhealthy social environment

Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders

-​ Severe disorders in which there are disturbances of thoughts,
communications, and emotions
-​ Lasts for months or even years
-​ Out of touch with reality, or psychotic
-​ Hallucinations - Sensory experiences in the absence of external
stimulation.
-​ Delusions - False beliefs about reality that have no basis in fact.
-​ Causes of schizophrenia
a.​ Genetic component: More than 20 genes have been
implicated as potentially contributing to the development of
schizophrenia
b.​ Faulty regulation of neurotransmitters dopamine and
glutamate in central nervous system
c.​ Pathology in various structures of brain
d.​ Form of early prenatal infection or disturbance
e.​ Environmental factors
f.​ Combination of biological, psychological, and social factors

Neurodevelopemtal Disorders
-​ Some disorders characteristic of children or are first evident in
childhood
 -​ DSM-5 contains long list of disorders usually first diagnosed in
infancy, childhood, or adolescence
-​ Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD
●​ Childhood disorder characterized by inattention,
impulsiveness, and hyperactivity
●​ Children easily distracted, often fidgety and impulsive, and
almost constantly in motion
●​ Boys more than twice as likely to be affected
●​ Present at birth but only becomes problem in school
●​ Cause unknown, but biological factors play important role
●​ Family interaction and social experiences may prevent it
●​ Treated with psychostimulant drugs (increase ability to focus
attention in people with ADHD)
-​ Autistic spectrum disorder
★​Wide range of disorders that emerge during early childhood
characterized by varying degrees of impairment in
communication skills and social functioning
★​Symptoms vary considerably among individuals
★​Typically lasts into adulthood
★​Results almost entirely from biological conditions

Gender and Cultural Differences in Psychological Disorders

Gender differences
-​ Treatment
a.​ More women than men are treated for mental disorders, but
this cannot be taken to mean that more women than men
have mental disorders
 -​ Disorders without strong biological component
a.​ Differences tend to be found for those disorders without a
strong biological component—that is, disorders in which
learning and experience play a more important role
b.​ Men are more likely than women to suffer from substance
abuse and antisocial personality disorder
c.​ Women are more likely to suffer from depression,
agoraphobia, simple phobia, obsessive–compulsive disorder,
and somatization disorder
-​ Marital status and socialization
a.​ Men who are separated, divorced, or who have never married
have a higher incidence of mental disorders than do either
women of the same marital status or married men, but
married women have higher rates than married men.
b.​ The rate of depression among women is twice that of men
Cultural differences
-​ International cultural variability
a.​ Ataque de nervios - literally translated as “attack of
nerves”—is a culturally specific phenomenon that is seen
predominately among Latinos. The symptoms of ataque de
nervios generally include the feeling of being out of control,
which may be accompanied by fainting spells, trembling,
uncontrollable screaming, crying, and in some cases, verbal
or physical aggressiveness. Afterward, many patients do not
recall the attack and quickly return to normal functioning
b.​ Taijin kyofusho - roughly translated as “fear of people”,
involves a morbid fear that one’s body or actions may be
offensive to others. Taijin kyofusho is rarely seen outside of
Japan.
Chapter 13: Therapies

Psychotherapy: Use of psychological techniques to treat personality and

behavior disorder

Enduring Issues in Therapies

-​ Stability-Change: The underlying assumption behind
psychotherapy is the belief that people are capable of changing
-​ Mind-Body: Discussion of biological treatments for psychological
disorders
-​ Diversity-Universality: The challenges therapists face when
treating people from cultures other than their own

Insight Therapies

Insight therapies
-​ Variety of individual psychotherapies
-​ Designed to give people better awareness and understanding of
their feelings, motivations, and actions
-​ Two major insight therapies
a.​ Psychoanalysis
b.​ Client-centered therapy

Psychoanalysis
-​ Focused on revealing unconscious conflicts from the past in order
to solve problems of the present
-​ Designed to bring hidden feelings and motives to conscious
awareness to be dealt with more effectively
-​ Freudian psychoanalysis
a.​ Free association- A psychoanalytic technique that
encourages the person to talk without inhibition about
whatever thoughts or fantasies come to mind
➔​“Stream of unconsciousness” would provide insight into
the person’s unconscious mind
➔​The psychoanalyst is out of slight and mostly silent,
and serves as a “blank screen” onto which the client
projects unconscious thoughts and feelings
➔​The goal is to get the unconscious to reveal itself
verbally
b.​ Transference- The client’s carrying over to the analyst feeling
held toward childhood authority figures
➔​The client test their analyst by talking about
undisclosed desires and fantasies
➔​When the client discovers that the psychoanalyst is not
shocked or disgusted by their revelations, they transfer
to their analyst feelings they have towards authority
figured from their children
➔​Crystal is seeing a psychoanalyst. During the years of
therapy, she comes to see her therapist as a father
figure. She transfers her feelings about her father onto
her therapist, perhaps in an effort to gain the love and
attention she did not receive from her own father.
➔​Positive transference – the client feels good about their
psychoanalyst
➔​Negative transference – the client feels that the analyst
is really disgusted by their revelations or is laughing at
them behind their backs
 a.​ Considered a positive step because it reveals
negative feelings towards authority figured and
resistance to uncovering repressed emotions

c.​ Insight- Awareness of previously unconscious feelings and

memories and how they influence present feelings and
behavior
➔​The psychoanalyst begins to interpret or suggest
alternative meanings for the client’s feelings, memories
and actions. The client can now see how their childhood
experiences have determined how they feel and act

The consulting room where Freud met his clients. Note the
position of Freud’s chair at the head of the couch. In order to
encourage free association, the psychoanalyst has to function as a
blank screen onto which the client can project his or her feelings.
To accomplish this, Freud believed, the psychoanalyst has to stay
out of sight of the client.

Psychoanalysis
-​ A small percentage of people go into traditional
psychoanalysis
-​ Requires great motivation to change
-​ Requires the ability to deal rationally with whatever the
analysis uncovers
-​ Takes a long time- $$$
-​ Requires the verbal and analytic skills necessary to discuss
thoughts and feelings in a detailed way
Client-Centered Therapy/Person-Centered Therapy
-​ Creates a non-judgmental environment and assumes the client a is
a healthy perosn experiencing problems to overcome
-​ Nondirectional form of therapy that calls for unconsitional positive
regard of the client by the therapist with the goal of helping the
client become fully functioning
-​ Insight into current feelings rather than into unconscious wishes
with roots in the past
-​ An example of Humanistic Therapies
a.​ To help people to become fully functioning, to open them up
to all of their experiences and to all of themselves
-​ Developed by Carl Rogers
➔​Responsibility for change placed on the person with problem
(client centered)
➔​Defensivensess, anxiety, and other signs of discomfort stem
from experiences of conditional posoitve regard
➔​Unconditional positive regard from therapist is the crucial
first step toward clients’ self-acceptance
➔​Therapist do not suggest reasons for a client’s feelings or
how they might better handle a difficult situation
➔​Therapist try to reflect back to the client statements that
he/she has made, helping them to identify feelings that have
not articulated
➔​Unconditional positive regard- the full acceptance and love of
another person regardless of his or her behavior
➔​Conditional positive regard- acceptance and love that are
dependent on another’s behaving in certain ways and on
fulfilling certain conditions
Recent Developments
What are some recent developments in insight therapies?
-​ Therapist who is more active and emotionally engagged with
clients than traditional psychoanalysts
-​ Therapists give direct guidance and feedback, commenting rather
than neutral listening
a.​ Traditional insight-oriented therapist were more passive and
detached from clients
-​ Short-term psychodynamic therapy
a.​ Time limited and focused on trying to help clients correct
immediate problems in lives
-​ Virtual therapy
a.​ Connecting with therapist via telephone or cyberspace
●​ Cost effective, easily accessible

Behavior Therapies

Behavior therapies
-​ Used principles of classical and operant behavior to change
behavior
-​ Based on belief that all behavior, normal and abnormal, is learned
-​ Objective is to teach people new, more satisfying ways of behaving
bases on
a.​ Classical conditioning
b.​ Operant conditioning
c.​ Modeling
-​ No need to know exactly how or why a client learned to behave
abnorammly
Therapies Based on Classical Conditioning
-​ Classical conditioning involves the repeated pairing of a neutral
stimulus with one that evokes a certain reflex response. Eventually
the formerly neutral stimulus alone comes to elicit the same
response
-​ Desensitization
➢​Systematic desensitization - A behavioral technique for
reducing a person’s fear and anxiety by gradually associating
a new response (relaxation) with stimuli that have been
causing the fear and anxiety.
➢​A calm and pleasant state is gradually associated with
increasing levels of anxiety-inducing stimuli. The idea is that
you can’t be nervous and relaxed at the same time.
Therefore, if you can learn to relax when you are facing
environmental stimuli that make you nervous or fearful, you
can eventually eliminate your unwanted fear response
➢​Andre feared flying all his life. He gets the opportunity to go
to Europe for a semester abroad, so he decides to see a
therapist, knowing he will need to fly. The therapist begins by
having Andre list what makes him fearful, and then teaches
him relaxation techniques for various items in the hierarchy.
Andre learns to apply the relaxation techniques, and soon is
considerably more comfortable about flying before his trip.
-​ Extinction - Occurs when the learned, conditioned stimulus is
repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus
following it. Thus, if a person repeatedly imagines a frightening
situation without encountering danger, the associated fear should
gradually decline.
-​ Flooding - Involves full-intensity exposure to a feared stimulus for
a prolonged period of time.
 a.​ An individual was terrified of grasshoppers, and they were
instructed to step into a room with hundreds of the insects
fluttering about in order to overcome their fear
-​ Aversive conditioning - Behavioral therapy techniques aimed at
eliminating undesirable behavior patterns by teaching the person
to associate them with pain and discomfort.
a.​ When a person takes Antabuse and then consumes alcohol,
uncomfortable side effects result including nausea, vomiting,
increased heart rate, heart palpitations, severe headache, and
shortness of breath. Antabuse is repeatedly paired with
alcohol until the client associates alcohol with unpleasant
feelings, which decreases the client’s desire to consume
alcohol. Antabuse creates a conditioned aversion to alcohol
because it replaces the original pleasure response with an
unpleasant one
b.​ A follow-up study of nearly 800 people who completed
alcohol-aversion treatment found that 63% had maintained
continuous abstinence for at least 12 months

Therapies Based on Operant Conditioning

-​ In operant conditioning, a person learns to behave a certain way
because that behavior is reinforced
-​ Behavior contracting
a.​ Client and therapist set behavioral goals and agree on
reinforcements that the client will receive on reaching those
goals
➔​For each day that I smoke fewer than 20 cigarettes, I
will earn 30 minutes of time to go bowling. For each
day that I exceed the goal, I will lose 30 minutes from
the time that I have accumulated
 -​ Token economy
a.​ People earn tokens, or reinforces, for desired behaviors and
exchange them for desired items or privileges
➔​In a mental hospital improved grooming habits might
earn points that can be used to purchase special foods
or weekend passes
-​ Modeling
a.​ Person learns desired behaviors by watching others perform
those behaviors
-​ Albert Bandura
a.​ Helped people overcome snake probia by showing films of
models gradually moving closer to snakes

Cognitive Therapies

Cognitive therapies
-​ Emphasize changing clients’ perceptions of their life situation as a
way of modifying their behavior
-​ If people can change their distorted ideas about themselves and
the world- they can also change their problem behaviors and
make their lives more enjoyable
-​ Three popular forms of cognitive therapy
a.​ Stress-inoculation therapy
b.​ Rational-emotive therapy
c.​ Aron Beck’s cognitive-behaviroal therapy

Stress-Inoculation Therapy
-​ How can self-talk help us deal with difficult situations?
a.​ Trains clients to cope with stressful situations by learning
more useful patterns of self-talk
 b.​ Clients taught to suppress negative, anxiety-evoking
thoughts, and replace them with positive, “coping” thoughts
c.​ Works by turning thought patterns into a vaccine against
stress-induced anxiety
d.​ A student facing anxiety with an exam may think, “Another
test; I’m so nervous. I’m sure I won’t know the answers. If only
I’d studied more. If I don’t get through this course, I’ll never
graduate!”
e.​ “I studied hard, and I know the material well. I looked at the
textbook last night and reviewed my notes. I should be able
to do well. If some questions are hard, they won’t all be, and
even if it’s tough, my whole grade doesn’t depend on just one
test.”

Rational-Emotive Therapy or RET

➔​What rational beliefs do many people hold?
●​ Directive cognitive therapy
●​ Based on the idea that psychological distress is caused by
irrational and self-defeating beliefs
●​ They believe they should be competent at everything, always
treated fairly, quick to find solutions to every problem
●​ When people with irrational beliefs come up against real-life
struggles, they often experience excessive psychological
distress
●​ The therapist’s job is to confront dysfunctional beliefs
Beck’s Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
-​ Short-term therapy that seeks to change dysfunctional ways of
thinking and behaving
-​ One of the most important and promising forms of cognitive
therapy
-​ Depression results from inappropriately self-critical patterns of
thought
a.​ Self-critical people have unrealistic expectations, magnifying
failures, etc.
-​ Less challenging and confrontational than the RET
-​ Help clients examine each dysfunctional thought in a supportive,
but objectively scientific manner
a.​ “Are you sure your whole life will be totally ruined if you
break up with Frank? What is your evidence for that? Didn’t
you once tell me how happy you were before you met him?”
-​ Tries to lead person to more realistic and flexible ways of thinking

Group Therapies

Group therapies
-​ Type of psychotherapy in which clients meet regularly to interact
and help one another achieve insight into their feelings and
behavior
-​ Allows both the client and therapist to see how the person acts
around others
-​ Provides social support. Example: You aren’t only person in the
world with problems
-​ Learn useful behaviors. E.X.: How to disagree without antagonizing
others
 -​ Many kinds of group therapy
-​ Specific goals. E.X. Self-help groups
-​ Open-ended goals
a.​ Family therapy
b.​ Couples therapy
Group therapies offers social support, helping people to feel less alone
with their problems.

Family Therapy
➔​Sees family as at least partly responsible for the individual’s
problems
➔​Seeks to change all family members’ behaviors to the benefit of
the family unit and the troubled individual
➔​If one person in the family is having problem, it is a signal that the
entire family needs assistance
➔​Appropriate for variety of situations
➔​Goals of treatment
a.​ Help mentally healthy family members cope
b.​ Help when individual therapy progress is slowed by family

Couples Therapy
●​ Intended to help troubled partners improve their problems of
communication and interaction
●​ Captured broad range of partners who may seek help
●​ Empathy training
-​ Couple is taught to share inner feelings and to listen to and
understand partner’s feelings before responding
-​ Requires more time be spend listening and less time in
self-defensive rebuttal
 -​ Sometimes use behavioral teacniques
a.​ Helping a couple develop a schedule for exchanging
specific caring actions- helping with chores etc.

Self-Help Groups
-​ Low cost
-​ Mostly small, local gatherings
-​ Shared common problem
-​ Provide mutual support
-​ Can be effective

Effectiveness of Psychotherapy
-​ How much better off is a person who receives psychotherapy than
one who gets no treatment at all?
-​ Effectiveness of psychotherapy
​Improvement rate
Researchers have found that roughly twice as many people
(two-thirds) improve with formal therapy than with no
treatment at all.
​Recovery rate
Many people who do not receive formal therapy get
therapeutic help from friends, clergy, physicians, and
teachers. Thus, the recovery rate for people who receive no
therapeutic help at all is quite possibly even less than
one-third.
​Greatest benefit group
Psychotherapy works best for relatively mild psychological
problems and seems to provide the greatest benefits to
people who really want to change.
Seligman’s Consumer Reports Study Findings
●​ Significant overall improvement after therapy
●​ No difference in overall improvement among the combination of
medication and therapy
●​ No difference was found between forms of therapy
●​ No differences in effectiveness were indicated among therapy
providers, except marriage counselors
●​ Long-term therapy reported more improvement than short-term
therapy

Which type of therapy is best for which disorder?

Are some forms more effective than others?

Why is there no difference in effectiveness?

1.​ All forms of psychotherapy provide people with an explanation for
their problems. Along with this explanation often comes a new
perspective, providing people with specific actions to help them
cope more effectively.
2.​ Most forms of psychotherapy offer people hopeBecause most
people who seek therapy have low self-esteem and feel
demoralized and depressed, hope and the expectation for
improvement increase their feelings of self-worth.
3.​ All major types of psychotherapy engage the client in therapeutic
alliance with the therapist. Although their therapeutic approaches
may differ, effective therapists are warm, empathetic, and caring
people who understand the importance of establishing a strong
emotional bond with their clients that is built on mutual respect
and understanding.
Eclecticism - Psychotherapeutic approach that recognizes the value of a
broad treatment package over a rigid commitment to one particular
form of therapy.

Biological Treatments

Biological treatments
-​ Group of approaches that are sometimes used to treat
psychological disorders in conjunction with, or instead of,
psychotherapy
a.​ Includes medication, electroconvulsive therapy, and
neurosurgery
-​ Reasons for using biological treatments
a.​ Patient too agitated, disoriented, or unresponsive to be
helped by psychotherapy
b.​ Used for disorders with a strong biological component
c.​ The patient is dangerous to themselves and others

Drug Therpies
-​ Medication is frequently and effectively used to treat a number of
psychological disorders
-​ Antipsychotic drugs
●​ Used to treat very severe psychological disorders,
particularly schizophrenia
●​ Sometimes have dramatic effects
●​ Do not cure, only alleviate symptoms such as anxiety,
aggression, psychotic symptoms – hallucinations &
delusions.
●​ Can have a number of undesirable side effects, including
tardive dyskinesia (A permanent disturbance of motor
 control, particularly of the face (uncontrollable smacking of
the lips, for instance), which can be only partially alleviated
with other drugs.)
-​ Antidepressant drugs
●​ Used to combat depression
●​ Monoamine oxidase inhibitors, or MAO inhibitors
●​ Tricyclics
●​ Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs: Prozac,
Paxil, Zoloft
●​ SSRIs have fewer side effects than MAO inhibitors or
tricyclics
●​ Show promise in treating several other disorders
-​ Generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, OCD, social
phobia, PTSD
●​ It doesn’t work for everyone
●​ Side effects include nausea, weight gain, insomnia,
headaches, anxiety, impaired sexual functioning
-​ How do the SSRIs work
Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft belong to a class of drugs
called SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). These drugs
reduce the symptoms of depression by blocking the reabsorption (or
reuptake) of serotonin in the synaptic space between neurons. The
increased availability of serotonin to bind to receptor sites on the
receiving neuron is thought to be responsible for the ability of these
drugs to relieve the symptoms of depression.
-​ Lithium
a.​ Not a drug, but a naturally occurring salt
b.​ Effective in treating bipolar disorder and reducing the
incidence of suicide in bipolar patients
 c.​ May act to stabilize levels of specific neurotransmitters or
alter the receptivity of specific synapses
-​ Other medications
1.​ Psychostimulants- heighten alertness and arousal
Ritalin - ADHD
2.​ Antianxiety medications- quickly produce sense of calm and mild
euphoria, often used to reduce general tension and stress
Valium & Xanax
3.​ Sedatives- produce both calm and drowsiness, used to treat
agitation or to induce sleep

Electroconvulsive Therapy, or ECT

-​ Mild electrical current passed through the brain for a short period,
often producing convulsions and temporary coma
-​ Used to treat severe, prolonged depression that was unresponsive
to other forms of treatment
-​ Effectiveness clearly demonstrated
-​ Fatality rate lower than those taking antidepressants
-​ Serious yet brief side effects
-​ Slightly less effective than the traditional method
-​ Considered “last-resort” treatment
-​ Side effects include disorientation, confusion, and memory
impairment
-​ Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) uses a very low-level
current administered to specific parts of the brain over as much as
a half hour
Neurosurgery
-​ Brain surgery performed to change a person’s behavior and
emotional state
-​ Rarely used today
-​ Prefrontal lobotomy
●​ Frontal lobes of the brain severed from lower brain centers
●​ Often result in permanent, undesirable side effects
-​ Promising experimental procedures
●​ Do not work in many cases
●​ Often undesirable side effects

Institutionalization and Its Alternatives

-​ The treatment of choice for the severely mentally ill for the last
150 years has been hospitalization
-​ Several kinds of hospitals offer care
a.​ General hospitals
b.​ Private hospitals
c.​ Veterans Administration hospitals

Deinstitutionalization
-​ Policy of treating people with severe psychological disorders in the
larger community or in small residential centers, such as halfway
houses, rather than in large public hospitals
-​ Intensified during 1960s and 1970s
-​ Created serious challenges in recent years
➢​Poorly funded community mental health centers, or
none at all
➢​Many not prepared to live in the community
➢​Can become burden to families
➢​Social stigma of mental illness
Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, the policy of deinstitutionalization led
to the release of many individuals, who, without proper follow-up care,
ended up living on the streets. Although not all homeless people are
mentally ill, estimates suggest that nearly 40% of homeless persons
suffer from some type of mental disorder.