Psychological Disorders Overview

Psychological Disorders

• Disproportionate and persistent worry is a characteristic of many anxiety disorders.
• Specific phobias involve irrational fears of specific objects.
• Social anxiety disorder manifests as anxiety in social or performance situations.
• Agoraphobia is the fear of places or situations from which escape is difficult.
• Panic disorder involves recurrent attacks of intense fear and sympathetic nervous system activity.
• Major depressive disorder includes at least one major depressive episode.
• Pervasive depressive disorder involves a depressed mood for at least two years.
• Seasonal affective disorder is major depressive disorder with seasonal onset, typically during winter.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by persistent intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions).
• Body dysmorphic disorder involves an unrealistic negative evaluation of one's appearance.
• Dissociative amnesia is the inability to recall past experiences.
• Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder with distortions of reality and disturbances in thought, perception, and behavior. Positive symptoms include hallucinations and delusions; negative symptoms include disturbances of affect and avolition.
• Seven universal emotions are happiness, sadness, contempt, surprise, fear, disgust, and anger.
• Theories of emotion include the James-Lange theory (nervous system arousal then conscious emotion), the Cannon-Bard theory (simultaneous nervous system arousal and conscious emotion), and the Schachter-Singer theory (nervous system arousal and cognitive appraisal leading to conscious emotion).
• Illness anxiety disorder is a preoccupation with having or developing a serious medical condition.
• Conversion disorder involves unexplained symptoms affecting motor or sensory function.
• Personality disorders involve inflexible, maladaptive behavior patterns causing distress or impairment. Cluster A includes paranoid, schizotypal, and schizoid personality disorders; Cluster B includes antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic; Cluster C includes avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.

Social Psychology

• Social facilitation is the improved or worsened performance in the presence of others.
• Deindividuation is the loss of self-awareness in large groups, leading to behavioral changes.
• The bystander effect describes reduced responsiveness to a person in need within a group.
• Peer pressure is social influence impacting individual behavior.
• Interpersonal attraction is shaped by physical, social, and psychological factors.
• Aggression is behavior intended to cause harm or increase social dominance.
• Display rules are unspoken rules governing emotional expression.
• Impression management is the maintenance of a public image.
• The dramaturgical approach views individuals as creating self-images like actors performing roles.
• Social structure and demographics are key components of sociological study.
• Functionalism examines societal component functions and relationships.
• Conflict theory studies the creation and maintenance of power differentials.
• Symbolic interactionism focuses on individual interaction through shared symbols.
• Social constructionism examines how social realities are agreed upon.

Culture and Demographics

• Material culture comprises the physical objects associated with a group.
• Symbolic culture involves the ideas associated with a cultural group.
• Demographics include statistical data on population segments.
• Migration involves the movement of people into (immigration) or out of (emigration) a location.

Biology

• Deoxy sugars have a –H replacing an –OH group in sugars.
• Common disaccharides include sucrose, lactose, and maltose.
• Hybridization is the joining of complementary base pair sequences.
• Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) creates copies of a DNA sequence.
• Agarose gel electrophoresis separates DNA molecules by size.
• Southern blotting detects the presence and quantity of specific DNA strands.
• Heterochromatin is dense, transcriptionally silent DNA.
• Euchromatin is less dense, transcriptionally active DNA.
• DNA polymerase synthesizes new DNA strands 5' to 3', reading the template 3' to 5'.
• Okazaki fragments are synthesized on the lagging strand.
• Primase synthesizes RNA primers for DNA replication.
• Helicase and topoisomerase unwind the DNA double helix.
• RNA polymerase II binds to the TATA box in the promoter region.
• Post-transcriptional modifications include adding a 7-methylguanylate cap to the 5' end and a poly-A tail to the 3' end of hnRNA.
• Diffusion is the movement of a substance from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration.
• Osmosis is the diffusion of water across a selectively permeable membrane.
• Facilitated diffusion uses transport proteins to move solutes across the cell membrane.
• Active transport requires energy (ATP) or a favorable ion gradient.
• Symport and antiport are types of secondary active transport.

Explore a range of psychological disorders in this quiz. From anxiety disorders like agoraphobia to mood disorders such as major depressive disorder, test your knowledge on various mental health conditions. Understand the characteristics and symptoms associated with each disorder.