Psychology Module 39

Module 39

• Problem-focused coping: Alleviating stress by changing the stressor or interaction with it.
• Emotion-focused coping: Alleviating stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional responses.
• Learned helplessness: Hopelessness and passive resignation learned from repeated aversive events, increasing cortisol and blood pressure.
• Internal locus of control: Belief that one controls their fate.
• External locus of control: Belief that outside forces control one's fate.
• Pet ownership benefits: Increased survival rate after heart attack, lower blood pressure, reduced depression.
• Biofeedback: System recording, amplifying, and feeding back information about physiological responses.
• Aerobic exercise: Sustained exercise increasing heart/lung fitness, alleviating depression and anxiety (e.g., dancing, walking, running).
• Mindfulness meditation: Reflective practice of attending to current experiences nonjudgmentally and acceptingly.

Module 40

• Attribution Theory: Explaining behavior by attributing it to the situation or the person's disposition.
• Fundamental Attribution Error: Tendency to underestimate situational influences and overestimate personal disposition when analyzing others' behavior.

Module 39 - Additional Points

• Cognitive Dissonance: Feeling discomfort due to inconsistent thoughts or actions.
• Conformity: Adjusting behavior or thinking to match group standards (Asch's line study).
• Normative Social Influence: Conforming to gain approval or avoid disapproval.
• Informational Social Influence: Accepting others' opinions as reality.
• Milgram's Obedience Studies: Studies on obedience to authority, involving participants shocking others for wrong answers.
• Factors Increasing Obedience in Milgram's Studies
• Distance of the person being shocked
• Authority of the experimenter (prestige, reliability)

Module 40 - Additional Points

• Definition of conformity: Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to match group standards.

Other Points

• Social facilitation: Improved performance on simple tasks in the presence of others.
• Social loafing: Reduced effort when pooling group efforts.
• Deindividuation: Loss of self-awareness and restraint in a group.
• Groupthink: Decision-making process prioritized harmony over realistic appraisal.
• Psychological Disorders: Issues related to cognition (thinking), emotion regulation, or behavior.
• General Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Excessive worry lasting six or more months.
• Panic attack: Intense, sudden episodes of fear.
• Panic disorder: Recurrent panic attacks.
• Specific phobia: Persistent, irrational fear of a specific object or situation.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Recurring, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions).
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Enduring response to a traumatic event, involving extreme fear or helplessness.
• Somatic symptom disorder: Bodily symptoms without physical cause.
• Illness anxiety disorder: Interpreting normal sensations as symptoms of illness.
• Depressive episode: Significant sadness, loss of interest and other symptoms that last for a significant time.
• Bipolar disorder: Fluctuations between manic and depressive states.
• Mania: Excessive excitement and energy.
• Hypomania: Less severe form of mania.
• Anorexia nervosa: Eating disorder with self-starvation.
• Bulimia nervosa: Eating disorder with cycles of binge eating and compensatory behaviors.
• Binge eating disorder: Recurrent episodes of binge eating without compensatory behavior.
• Dissociative amnesia: Memory loss without a physical cause.
• Dissociative fugue: Dissociative amnesia with a new identity.
• Dissociative identity disorder (DID): Multiple identities or personalities.
• Down syndrome: Genetic condition caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21, leading to intellectual disability.
• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): Neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by communication and social interaction challenges.
• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Cognitive Disorder causing difficulty concentrating and/or hyperactivity.
• Systematic Desensitization: Gradual elimination of anxieties by repeatedly relaxing while facing anxiety-provoking stimuli.
• Cognitive Therapy: Therapy helping people change negative thought patterns and behaviors.