Behaviourist Theory & Personality (Khan Academy)

Behaviourist Theory  The **behaviourist theory** says personality is the result of learned behavior patterns based on a person's environment -- it's **deterministic**, in that people begin as blank states and the environment completely determines their behavior/personalities. Do not take though...

Behaviourist Theory  The **behaviourist theory** says personality is the result of learned behavior patterns based on a person's environment -- it's **deterministic**, in that people begin as blank states and the environment completely determines their behavior/personalities. Do not take thoughts and feelings into account. Environment à BEHAVIOR  Focuses on **observable** and measurable behaviour, rather than mental/emotional. o The psychoanalytic theory would be the most opposite of this theory (focuses on mental behaviour).  1. **Skinner** -- strict **behaviourist**, associated with concept of **operant conditioning**. Uses rewards/punishment to increase/decrease behaviour, respectively.  2. **Pavlov** -- associated with **classical conditioning**, ex. Pavlov dog experiment. Places a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to trigger an involuntary response. Ex. ringing a bell in presence of food causes dog to start salivating. o People have consistent behaviour patterns because we have specific response tendencies, but these can change, and that's why our personality develops over our entire lifespan. Constantly evolving and changing.  What connects the observable (behavioral) to mental approach (psychoanalytic) approach? The **cognitive theory**, a bridge between classic behaviourism and other theories like psychoanalytic. Because cognitive theory treats thinking as a behaviour, and has a lot in common with behaviour theory (Albert Bandura comb) Trait Theory  A **personality** trait is a stable predisposition towards a certain behavior. Straightforward way to describe personality -- puts it in **patterns of behavior**. Description of traits instead of explaining them.  **Surface traits** are evident from a person's behavior, while **source traits** are factors underlying human personality (fewer and more abstract).  What is a trait? A relatively **stable characteristic** of a person that causes individuals to **consistently** behave in certain ways. Combination and interaction of traits forms the personality.  Myers Briggs Personality Test -- Carl Jung - 4 letters that characterize you in one of 16 personality types. There are a set of traits/behaviors based on these! o **ESTJ**: extraversion (E), sensing (S), thinking (T), judgment (J)- (Acronym: **E**ast **ST**. **J**ohns High school) o **INFP**: introversion (I), intuition (N), feeling (F), perception (P) (Acronym: **I N**eed the **F**eeling of **P**ain)  1) Gordon **Allport** -- all of us have different traits. Came up with list of 4500 different descriptive words for traits. From those he was able to come up with 3 basic categories of traits: **cardinal traits**, **central traits,** and **secondary traits**. Individuals have a subset of traits from a universal set of possible traits. 152 o **Cardinal** traits are characteristics that direct most of person's activities -- the dominant trait that influence all of our behaviours, including secondary and central traits. o **Central** trait - Less dominant than cardinal. ex. honesty, sociability, shyness. o **Secondary** trait -- preferences or attitude. Ex. love for modern art, reluctance to eat meat. o *Acronym: **A Cardinal named Allport Can Sing (Central, Cardinal, Secondary)*** **.**  2) Raymond **Cattell** -- Proposed we all *had 16 essential personality traits* that represent basic dimensions of personality. Turned this into the 16 personality factor questionnaire (**16 PF)**. (Acronym: 16 Cattell)  3) Hans **Eysenck** -- We all poses all traits which we express to different degrees. (Allport said we have diff unique subsets, while Eysenck says we all have them but just express them in different degrees) o Eysenck says we have *3 major dimensions of personality*, which encompass all traits we all possess, but the degrees to which we individually express them are different. We all express varying degress of neuroticism and extraversion, but we all don't necessarily have psychoticism. These 3 are: o **Psychoticism** -degree to which reality is distorted. o **extroversion** (vs. introversion) -- degree of sociability o **neuroticism** -emotional stability § We do not all necessarily have psychoticism. o Use acronym: PEN (Eysenck's PEN)  4) **5 Factor Model (Big 5 Personality Traits)** -- found in all people of all populations. o **Openness** - independent vs. conforming, imagining vs. practical), o **Conscientiousness** - careful vs. careless, disciplined vs. impulse, organized or not o **Extroversion** -- talkative or quiet, fun loving or sober o **Agreeableness** - kind vs. cold, appreciative vs. unfriendly o **Neuroticism** - stable vs. tense, calm vs anxious, secure vs. insecure o Use acronym **OCEAN**  Cattell, Eysenck, and Big 5 all use **factor analysis** -- a statistical method that categorizes and determines major categories of traits. Allport's theory did not, he used different methods. o Factor Analysis: Reduces variable and detects structure between variables. We get a final classification of personality after the factor analysis. Observational Learning: Bobo Doll Experiment and Social Cognitive Theory  Observational learning (aka social learning/vicarious learning) is learned through watching and imitating others -- such as **modeling** actions of another. o **Mirror neurons** found that support this. o *Aggression is environmentally learnt and mass-media can have an performance* *effect (performance is situationally dependent depending on If the actor is* *rewarded or punished)* 153  **Social Cognitive Theory** (originally called social learning theory) is theory of behaviour change that emphasizes interactions between people and their environment. Unlike **behaviourism** (where environment controls us entirely), cognition is also important. o Social factors, observational learning, and environmental factors (ex. opinions/attitudes of friends and family) can influence your beliefs.  **Albert Bandora** studied it -- and did the **Bobo Doll Experiment**. Cited when people debate if they should ban violent video games. It's a blow-up doll you can punch. **BOBO** **AL** o Had group of children doing arts and crafts, but in middle of it suddenly man appeared and started hitting this inflatable Bob doll. Also screaming "kick it, hit it, etc". Did for 10 minutes straight. Some children observed the behavior, others weren't fazed. o Then man left, and researchers gave kids an impossible puzzle to solve to frustrate the children. Researchers brought into the room Researched how the kids reacted to frustration. Many children would come up to the doll and hit it, and ones hitting it were yelling kick it, hit it -- the same words as the man whom they learned the behavior from. Revealed that kids can observe and learn from it. o Why people use this to argue to ban violent games and movies. o But learning behavior vs. performing it is different. Many of the kids were aggressive to the doll, others weren't aggressive. So how come some kids different? Did the other kids learn the behavior? o Did second experiment, set up TV that showed a bobo doll and someone being aggressive to it. But difference here was video showed afterwards that person was punished. Some of the kids again walked up to bobo doll and hit it. What about kids that didn't? § Researchers bribed kids, offered them stickers/juice if they imitate behavior. Kids were able to imitate the aggressive behavior. Concept called **learning-performance distinction** -- learning a behaviour and performing it are 2 different things. § Not performing it doesn't mean you didn't learn it!  Am I motivated to learn something? o **Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory - A**ttention, **M**emory, **I**mitation, **M**otivation. Acronym: "**AM I Motivated?"** o Ex. Want to teach you to draw a star. In order to learn it, need a long enough attention span, the memory to remember it, and be able to imitate it. Question is, are you motivated enough to do it? If you are, you do the action (draw the star). Defense Mechanisms  **Defence Mechanisms:** -ways to protect ourselves -- a psychological shield against anxiety or discomfort of unconscious psychological processes. A way to protect 154 ourselves when we have to deal with unconscious wants, feelings, desires, and impulses.  Classified into four categories: Pathological mechanisms, immature, neurotic, and mature.  **Pathological Defence Mechanisms** - distort reality o **Denial** -- person pretends something hasn't happened. Most important defence mechanism. (acronym: PATHOLOGICAL liar/denier) § **Ex**; if someone has breast cancer, they just deny the fact that they do.  **Immature Defence Mechanisms:** o **Projection** -- throw your attributes to someone else -- like accusing another person of being jealous when you are the one being jealous. (acronym: saying PP is immature (Projection and Passive Aggression) § Can cause **projective identification** -- that person targeted with projection can starting believing, feeling, having thoughts of the attributes that were projected to them Ex. The person now actually feels jealous and the person can believe "I am a jealous person" o **Passive Aggression** -- aggressively doing something for someone and failing to do it or doing it slowly. Passive way to express your anger.  **Neurotic Defence Mechanisms:** o (acronym: 3RID) o **Intellectualization** -- taking intellectual aspects and detaching to the emotional aspects of the situation. Separating emotion from ideas o **Rationalization** -- making yourself believe you were not on fault -- avoids blame to oneself. Can have false logic or false reasoning. o **Regression** -- acting like a baby in some situations ex. throwing temper tantrum, start whining. o **Repression** -- unconscious process where thoughts pushed down to unconscious o **Displacement** -- person anger at someone but displaces it to someone else (a safer target). § Ex: mother who is mad at her husband gets mad at her child o **Reaction Formation** -- unconscious feelings that make person to complete opposite. § Ex. A mother who bears an unwanted child, for example, may react to her feelings of guilt for not wanting the child by becoming extremely solicitous and overprotective to convince both the child and herself that she is a good mother. § Ex: a person who doesn't like immigrants might start to volunteer at an immigration center  **Mature** o Acronym: Mature HASS o **Humor** -- expressing humor/jokes to be truthful and alleviate feelings but make them socially acceptable. 155 o **Sublimation** -- channeling negative to positive energy. Ex. Violent energy, instead of expressing violence you become a boxer. Transform into socially acceptable behaviors. o **Suppression** -- *conscious* thought get pushed to unconscious but can access thoughts at a later time. o **Altruism** -- in service of others -- we feel fulfilled and gain pleasure/satisfaction. Freud -- Death Drive, Reality Principle, and Pleasure Principle  **Freud outlined the pleasure principles and the reality principle**  **Pleasure Principle:** As a young child (or if you are immature) you want to immediately feel pleasure to avoid suffering. Not willing to compromise. o **Ex.** I want the candy now  **Reality Principle:** When we become mature, you need to sacrifice short term reward and replace it with long term gratification. Not always going to get what you want and the outside world might tolerate your behavior. You have to play by the roles of the real world and might have to compromise. "Play your role in the real world" o **Ex.** taking candy may get you in trouble.  Both Reality and pleasure principle fill the task of gratification. With reality principle you might have to wait for gratification (may be a delay).  We have several **drives:** intrinsic, universal feelings we all have towards varying things.  Examples of drives: o **Eros Drives**: **Life Drive.** Like health, safety, sex. Comes with love, cooperation, collaboration. Working with others to promote your and others wellbeing o **Thantos: Death Drive**. Self-Destructive/Harmful to Others. Comes with Fear, anger (inward or outward), hate. Psychological Disorders Mental Disorders  **Mental disorders**- disorders of the mind. Mental Illness, psychological/psychiatric illness. Abnormalities of the mind that cause distress or disability. Sometimes can shorten someone's lifespan (suicide or other negative effects) o **Definition of Distress**: Distress is a negative type of stress that builds over time and is bad for your body. It happens when you perceive a situation to be threatening to you some way (physically or emotionally) and your body becomes primed to respond to the threat. o **Eustress** is a positive type of stress that happens when you perceive a situation as challenging, but motivating. Eustress is usually enjoyable! o **Neustress** is a neutral type of stress. Neustress happens when you are exposed to something stressful, but it doesn't actively or directly affect you. For example, news about a natural disaster on the other side of the world may be very 156 stressful, but your body doesn't perceive that stress as good or bad for you so you aren't affected.  Major public health problem, affects the higher functions of the brain including cognition, emotion, or consciousness, mood, and **behaviour**.  **Biomedical** vs. **biopsychosocial models**. o **Biomedical** = focuses on biological, physical abnormalities. § Ex. Abnormalities of cell of the brain that might cause disorders or having abnormal pattern of connections b/w cells of the brain o **BioPsychoSocial** = also considers abnormalities and might be useful for cause or classification of mental disorder but also includes psychological and cultural/social factors that might be useful for cause or classification of mental disorder.  Difficult to categorize mental disorders because there are no brain tests/scans/blood tests. Diagnosis is made clinically by symptoms and signs, time course, risk factors, and epidemiology.  2 classification systems: ICD-10 and DSM-5. Similar but not the same. o **ICD-10** is International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision. System from the WHO (World Health Organization).. 11 top level categories o **DSM-5** is Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, from the American Psychiatric Association (APA).20 top level categories.  According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), each year in the USA about 25% will meet criteria for 1 mental disorder, and 6% will have a serious mental illness that causes severe disability/distress. Some people have more than 1 mental disorder at a time. Categories of Mental Disorders  Types of mental disorders -- enormous \#, many with overlapping features.  Not due to use of medication, drugs, other medical conditions, etc. Also cultural differences. In these cases it will be attributed to the specific cause.  Usually causes **distress/disability**. Key point because person who's unusual/eccentric /weird is not mentally ill/not somebody who has a psychological disorder.  We'll go through DSM-5 o 20 top-level categories. There is an "other" category for each as well. o 1. **Neurodevelopmental Disorders** -- involve distress/disability due to abnormality in development of nervous system. Includes intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders, and ADHD. § Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by a variety of issues related to social and communication abilities, and first symptoms of the disorder typically include delayed language development and unusual communication patterns. § Specific Learning Disabilities: All specific types removed from DSM V  The specific learning disorder dyslexia (reading difficulty) is characterized by problems with accurate or fluent word 157 recognition, poor decoding, and poor spelling abilities. (Not Included in DSMV)  Dyscalculia -- mathematics learning disorder. Removed  Dysgraphia -- writing disorder -- removed. § Developmental coordination disorder is characterized by difficulties in acquiring and coordinating motor movements. o 2. **Neurocognitive Disorders** -- Loss of cognitive/other functions of the brain after nervous system has developed. Big categories within this, one is delirium (reversible episode of cognitive/higher brain problems, many causes -- drugs/abnormalities in blood/infections). Dementia and its milder versions are usually irreversible and progressive (usually caused by Alzheimer's disease or stroke). o 3. **Sleep-wake Disorders** result in distress/disability from sleep-related issues. Include insomnia and breathing-related sleep disorders, abnormal behaviors during sleep. o 4**. Anxiety Disorders** -- distress/disability from abnormal worry/fear. Some are specific to certain stimuli like phobias, while others are not specific to certain stimuli, including *generalized anxiety disorder*. Panic disorder involves panic attacks (intense anxiety) § Social anxiety disorder a false cognition leads to a fear of humiliation, embarrassment, rejection, negative evaluation, or rejection by others.  Selective mutism is an anxiety disorder characterized by difficulty speaking in social situations, but the individual is developmentally normative in terms of their language and communication ability. § General Anxiety Disorder: Individuals with generalized anxiety disorder experience excessive and persistent worry or anxiety regarding many different spheres of life that cause distress, impairment, or maladaptive behavior. o 5. **Depressive Disorders** -- distress/disability from abnormally negative mood. Mood refers to long-term emotional state. (Mood is not emotion, mood is more long term and not necessarily related to events). Mood is also subjective experience person has of their experience. § **Mood** (how someone feels such as sad) becomes **affect** (how mood is displayed to others - person crying). Hopelessness, loss of enjoyment in activities. High risk of suicide. o 6. **Bipolar and Related Disorders** -- abnormal negative mood, but these may have periods of abnormally positive mood called mania § Mania is characterized by little sleep, talking quickly, making bad decisions due to impaired judgement, making bad decisions based on bad assessment of risk or abilities of a task. Can leads to social/legal problems. o 7. **Schizophrenia Spectrum and other Psychotic Disorders** - involves distress/disability from *psychosis*. Psychosis involves delusions (fixed false beliefs 158 not explainable by experiences/culture ex. Ones thoughts are controlled by someone else or "I have superpowers"), hallucinations (sensory perceptions without any stimuli ex. Hearing voices w/o stimuli). With psychosis *disorganized* *thinking* can occur and negative symptoms (decreased emotional expression, decreased motivation, decreased social behavior). Schizophrenia has many of these features while other psychosis disorders have some. o 8. **Trauma/Stressor-Related Disorders** - distress/disability form occurs after stressful/traumatic events. Leads to mood, emotional, and behavioral abnormalities. § Ex: Post-traumatic stress disorder, common after wars, or other traumatic experiences (natural disasters/rape) o 9. **Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders** -- distress/disability form the abnormal use of substances that affect mental function. Include alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, hallucinogens, inhalants, opioids, sedatives, hypnotics, anxiolytics, stimulants, tobacco, others. Can cause mood abnormalities, anxiety symptoms, or psychosis. Also includes gambling, o 10. **Personality Disorders** -- distress/disability related to personality. Involves long-term mental and behavioural features that are characteristic of a person, huge spectrum of personality types considered acceptable from a culture. Personality disorders involve ones outside those accepted of societal norms. Cluster A odd/eccentric (weird), Cluster B intense emotional/relationship problems (wild), Cluster C is anxious/avoidant/obsessive (worried) o 11. **Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders** -- distress/disability from behaviors that are unacceptably disruptive or impulsive for someone's culture. Inability to control inappropriate behaviours o 12. **Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders** -- distress/disability from obsessions or compulsions. § **Obsessions** -- thoughts that occur involuntarily, often unwelcome. Occur repeatedly. § **Compulsions** are activities that one must do and are often related to an obsession. § Ex. obsession with hands being dirty, compulsion to wash them many times a day. o 13. **Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders** - Distress/disability from symptoms similar to those that may occur to illness unrelated to mental disorder, but of psychological origin with or without having a general medical condition at the same time. § Example is someone that has abdominal pain, caused by psychological disorders such as stress without any physical signs. o 14. **Feeding and Eating Disorders** -- distress/disability from behavioural abnormalities related to food, § ex. Anorexia nervosa (takes in insufficient amounts of food), bulimia nervosa (binge eating then purging (induced vomiting)). 159 o 15. **Elimination Disorders** -- distress/disability from urination/defecation at inappropriate times or places. § Ex. Urinary accidents o 16. **Dissociative Disorders** -- distress/disability from abnormalities of identity or memory. § Ex: Multiple personalities, people who have lost memories for part of their lives. o 17. **Sexual Dysfunctions** -- distress/disability from abnormalities in or performance of sexual activity. o 18. **Gender Dysphoria --** distress/disability caused by person identifying as a different gender than society represents them as. Must cause distress/disability. o 19. **Paraphilic Disorders --** distress/disability from having sexual arousal to unusual stimuli for a person's culture. Must cause distress/disability or if causes harm to another person, particularly people or a child who does not have decision making capacity for proper consent. o 20. **Other Disorders** -- distress/disability from any person that appears to have a mental disorder causing distress/disability but doesn't fit into other categories. Rare. Schizophrenia  Disorder of the brain but it has nothing to do with multiple personalities  Combination of genetics and environmental (experience in the womb, childhood experiences) cause abnormalities in the brain.  These abnormalities in the brain can be picked up by abnormal brain scans and neurotransmitters (high dopamine). Antipsychotic medicines reduce dopamine.  None of the tests actually diagnose schizophrenia and is diagnosed by a clinical interview (history, hearing from the patient/family, and observing patient) o Why do we observe the patient? It causes changes in the patient's *behavior*. § The behavioral change can be changes in the way they **think** or **act**.  Differences in the way they think: abnormal beliefs (delusions), see/hear things (hallucinations)  Differences in the way they act: isolate themselves socially, disorganized, flat affect (lack emotion) § Lots of changes that are different  1% of people have Schizophrenia. Equal in males and females. Affects those who are 16- 30 years old. Males are affected at a younger age than females.  **Prodrome**: period of time before schizophrenia before symptoms are actually present. o Deterioration in person's behavior and functioning. Some of the signs of schizophrenia and one starts to go downhill. § Schoolwork suffers or work can suffer § Relationships might suffer (paranoia or suspiciousness towards other people) 160 § Delusional ideas (people are working against me), start to act differently o Prodrome leads to schizophrenia  Schizophrenia people have a higher risk of suicide, being homeless, and being in prison or in jail.  Schizophrenia disorder recap: Brain disorder that is neurodevelopmental -- combination of genetics and the environments. Can notice difference in brain scans but diagnosed via clinical interview. Affects how people act and preceded by a prodrome period. Decrease in functioning. Social repercussions of schizophrenia - stops people in engaging in society, high risk of suicide, incarceration (risk being in jail), homelessness  **Haloperidol** is an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia. Biological Basis of Schizophrenia  Common long term mental disorder that causes a large amount of distress and disability.  ***Prototype** of psychotic category of disorders.* Protoype of psychosis -- specific abnormalities in cognition and perceptions of reality -- hallucinations, delusions. o **Positive symptom: Hallucinations**-sensory perceptions w/o stimuli like hearing or seeing not there. Hallucinations are sounds or other sensations experienced as real when they exist only in the person\'s mind. While hallucinations can involve any of the five senses, auditory hallucinations (e.g. hearing voices or some other sound) are most common in schizophrenia. Visual hallucinations are also relatively common. Research suggests that auditory hallucinations occur when people misinterpret their own inner self-talk as coming from an outside source. o **Positive symptom: Delusions-** false fixed beliefs not explainable by a person's culture. A delusion is a firmly-held idea that a person has despite clear and obvious evidence that it isn't true. Delusions are extremely common in schizophrenia, occurring in more than 90% of those who have the disorder. Often, these delusions involve illogical or bizarre ideas or fantasies. Common schizophrenic delusions include: § **Delusions of persecution** -- Belief that others, often a vague "they," are out to get him or her. These persecutory delusions often involve bizarre ideas and plots (e.g. "Martians are trying to poison me with radioactive particles delivered through my tap water"). § **Delusions of reference** -- A neutral environmental event is believed to have a special and personal meaning. For example, a person with schizophrenia might believe a billboard or a person on TV is sending a message meant specifically for them. § **Delusions of grandeur** -- Belief that one is a famous or important figure, such as Jesus Christ or Napolean. Alternately, delusions of grandeur may involve the belief that one has unusual powers that no one else has (e.g. the ability to fly).