Psych Midterm Notes PDF

Social Psychology: Milgram and Zimbardo How is obedience defined? Complying with the demands/orders of an authority figure Milgram’s Definition - the abdication of individual judgment in the face of external pressure Two or more examples of obedience: William Calley - My Lai Massacre...

Social Psychology: Milgram and Zimbardo How is obedience defined? Complying with the demands/orders of an authority figure Milgram’s Definition - the abdication of individual judgment in the face of external pressure Two or more examples of obedience: William Calley - My Lai Massacre ○ Calley commanded his soldiers to kill hundreds of Vietnamese civilians ○ Soldiers obeyed without obstruction - showed the flaws of military authority and dehumanization John Demjanjuk ○ A Russian soldier who was forced to work as a gas chamber operator for a Nazi camp Milgram Study Findings can be applied to help explain how “ordinary” people could be complicit in large-scale atrocities (Holocaust, etc.) Ethics: ○ Psychological harm and informed consent reform ○ Participants have more rights concerning deceptive manipulation and right to withdraw from studies ○ PAIR: (ethical requirements for participants of psychological experimentation) Participant welfare - normal mental health Avoid anxiety Informed consent - participate without force Right of withdrawal - right to leave the experiment The results and interpretations offered for Milgram’s results 65% of participants continued to the maximum shock level (a lot higher than expected) Dispositional Hypothesis - the participants were psychopathic or had authoritarian personalities Diffusion of responsibility - shifted responsibility and consequences to the authority figure ○ Agentic State → less accountability How this research has been evaluated Participants were convinced that their obedience would contribute to a valuable/worthy cause to help society → Rational justification Foot-In-The-Door technique - start with small requests to ask larger requests Socialization and Environment - P’s will act differently under unusual circumstances like the lab and high-pressure situation Stress & Emotion: Disrupts homeostasis What is meant by the biological model of stress? The Response Model: ○ Homeostatic disruption ○ Activation of stress pathways Sympathomedullary pathway HPA ○ Physiological Response Heart, lungs, brain, muscles ○ Adaptation Short-term vs. Maladaptive long-term stress How is stress defined from a biological perspective? Stress - is the non-specific response of the body to any demand made upon it ○ The liver releases more blood cells ○ Stomach shuts down ○ Immune system shuts down ○ High Blood pressure ○ Lungs take in more oxygen ○ The pancreas stops insulin production - regulates ○ Pupils dilate ○ Adrenal glands release hormones How do neurons and hormones signal information in the body? Fight or Flight: ○ Neurons: ○ Chemical messenger ○ Starts stress and transmits info instantaneously Hormones: ○ Chemical messenger - hormones travel at the speed of the bloodstream ○ Keeps stress going ○ Ex. Alessandro Moreschi and Soprano Singers Castrated → cuts off testosterone → keeps boys with the best Soprano voices unchanged into adulthood Couldn’t produce testicular estrogen → indirectly made them grow taller The basic pathways involved in the stress reaction [e.g., the fight-flight response; the sympathomedullary pathway, and the HPA axis] Fight or Flight Endocrine System: a network of glands and organs that produce hormones to regulate the body Neurological Reaction  a. Stage 1: Optic nerve (perceives threat) Hypothalamus Energy to Heart, Lungs, Brain, Muscles (breaks up ATP /adenosine triphosphate/ - splits instant oxygen for the muscles) - supplies oxygen for 3 seconds ○ Other phosphates are split - giving another 10 seconds of oxygen ○ Produces lactic-acid (Glycogen/sugars stored in muscles provide energy) ○ Provides energy for 90 seconds b. Stage 3: sympathomedullary pathway Neurological signal down the spine (sympathetic nervous system) Adrenal medulla releases Adrenaline and Noradrenaline Heart, lungs, brain muscles/sugars into the bloodstream c. Stage 4: HPA Optic nerve → HPA Axis → Heart Lungs Brain Muscles Hormones: a. Cortisol: Suppresses immune system and keeps it suppressed b. Adrenaline and Nor-Adrenaline Suppresses immune system Increases blood pressure Boosts energy and alertness/reaction time Increases oxygen flow HPA Axis a. Hypothalamus (region of the brain) - stressor is perceived and produces CRH b. Pituitary Gland - receives CRH and sends ACTH through the bloodstream c. Adrenal Gland - receives ACTH and releases cortisol Increases glucose availability for energy Suppresses the immune system → focuses energy toward dealing with stressors How do we adapt to stress over time (The General Adaptation Response)? Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: ○ “Stress response is more damaging than the stressor” ○ Zebras experience short-term stress: Once the threat is gone, they return to normal non-stressed ○ Humans take longer to return to homeostasis Sustained cortisol Humans worry about smaller-scale stressors Stress, Emotions, & Coping: Active Disputing - A process of which people challenge their irrational thoughts and beliefs (being hard on yourself)  Self-efficacy - A person’s belief in their ability to succeed (confidence) Catastrophizing Fantasy - Looking at the worst possible scenarios and seeing how your situation compares to it (it could always be worse) Control - A person's ability or perception of their ability to affect themselves, others, or their environment Conscientiousness - A personality trait that describes a person's tendency to be goal-oriented, planful, and self-disciplined Promote Eudaimonic Well Being - Feeling uplifted after helping others Emotional Expressiveness - Self explanatory Exercise - Makes you feel good and stimulated Extraversion - Self explanatory Fake Extraversion - Make a point of putting yourself out there a bit more which would make you more outgoing than you would normally be Growth Mindset - How can I get out of my comfort zone? You need to have a growth mindset if you are going to grow psychologically, even though it is scary and you wouldn’t want to leave your little bubble Practice Hopefulness - Self explanatory Second Wave Coping - Focuses on accepting and managing emotions rather than eliminating stressors, useful for persistent challenges and situations beyond one's control. Support - Self explanatory Sleep Hygiene - Self explanatory Optimism Defensive Optimism - Home in on the positives when facing problems outside of your control (looking on the bright side to for example a past failure) ○ Optimism is a bias to more readily tune into the positives in one’s life, especially when faced with circumstances outside one’s control (defensive optimism) ○ Optimists remember their successes much better than their failures Optimists are biased towards positive outcomes and expectations.They avoid toxic relations and seem to buck the system on social media too (more extroverted) ○ Nun study revealed more optimistic nuns lived an average of over 10 years longer than those who were not as optimistic/positive Evaluation of study: Originally aimed to identify possible antecedent of Alzhimer’s disease Research evidence is mixed on the efficacy of optimist in relation to health One of the ‘Go To’ studies (the Nun study) did not measure the optimism scale, even though it was about optimism Whenever research finds that optimism can lead to improved mood or health, it can also be the other way around where the improved mood/health can cause someone to be more optimistic. It is at least bi-directional Downsides of optimism  If someone overestimates positive outcomes, disappointment is experienced more and success is enjoyed less as it is already expected ○ Pessimists don’t have this problem because they were expecting disappointment and not expecting success 80% of those who are optimists are actually unrealistic optimists Defensive Pessimism - set low expectations to help cope with the anxiety of an upcoming situation Memory Memory is the most researched area of cognitive psychology… why? It has important implications for learning and education. We are our memory If you lose your memory, you lose sense of who you are Key memory structures: Hippocampus (key memory structure) Cortex Cerebellum (packed with neurons [70 billion out of 100 billion] {little brain}) ○ Motor skills are embedded in the cerebellum Henry Molaison Severe epilepsy Had a surgery where surgeons used a metal straw which got inserted behind his eyeball Positioned straw where they thought the emphasis was They took out his hippocampus That day forth he was unable to lay down any new memories He still learned how to play table tennis after this procedure because it is a motor skill and not a memory Over 12000 different experiments exploring memory Clive Wearing He was a polymath He got a cerebral virus, and then a cold sore His hippocampus was landmined with different part of the virus, and his memory became incredibly spotty His memory was entirely short term being only 7s-30s at a time until it is lost again Mr. FPOT Frontal Cortex ○ Involves control ○ Redirects our focus, concentration, attention ○ Alcohol has the biggest effect on the frontal cortex  ○ Lots to do with emotion Peripheral Cortex Occipital Lobe Temporal Lobe One way to deal with epilepsy is to sever the corpus callosum Results in split brain syndrome ○ Imagine you look at a dot fixated in front of you where there is an image tom the left and the right of the dot (let’s say a pan on the left and the car on the right) ○ What image is on the right? ○ Normally the information from the right visual cortex will travel to the left hemisphere of the brain where the language sensor is normally stored ○ Now, they can’t say what was on the right “I don’t know” ○ They would be able to draw what they saw, but until they look at it with both eyes, they would not be able to say what it is The Modal Model or Multi-store Model of Memory Sensory memory (look at a bright light, look away, after image of bright light) (the after-image the eye would see) ○ Duration is less than a second ○ Codes through the sense organ ○ Capacity is very limited Don’t have to worry about too much Short Term Memory George Miller’s (7+/-2) 7 +/-2 is the average capacity of short term memory (bits of information you can generally remember in a short term recall The duration of short term memory is up to 30 seconds Encoded primarily through acoustics Alan Baddeley He challenged Miller’s 7+/-2 It depends on the length of the item you have to remember He thinks it’s better to think of short term memory as a strand of audio tape If words have more syllables, they take a larger span of that audio tape, which takes up more space in one’s short term memory Ellis’ Welsh School Study ○ The school which taught math in English did better when compared to the schools teaching in Welsh because the words and numbers take less time to say, taking up less of the audio tape allowing for greater capacity of memory Long Term Memory Duration is unlimited (so long as no neurological damage) Capacity is unlimited (so long as no neurological damage)  People do not have memories until the age of 2 because of how that part of the brain is not fully formed yet Encoded primarily through semantics and visualization ○ Concrete words like house, table, car, etc… can be memorized easier when compared to abstract words like love, emotion, realize… because of how it gets encoded twice It gets encoded twice because you first understand the meaning of the word, and then you understand the visualization The abstract words only get encoded once because of how you cannot visualize them ○ Participants were asked to find either meaning words or rhyming words for a set of words, and then recall the set of words only from those meaning or rhyming words. The meaning words were recalled easier because it was encoded using semantics, while the rhyming words were through acoustics Working Memory Model (Baddeley and Hitch 1974) Articulatory Loop ○ Phonological Loop ○ Wernicke’s Area ○ Inner Voice Visuo-spatial Scratch Pad ○ Inner Eye Primary Acoustic Store ○ Broca’s Area ○ Inner Ear Count the number of windows in your house… ○ Inner ear hears the command and relays it to the Central Executive (frontal cortex) ○ Central Executive tells the inner eye to walk around the inside or outside of the house ○ While you are walking around, you are using your inner voice to count up all the windows ○ Relay that number back to the Central Executive (frontal cortex) after you are done counting Levels of Processing model (Craik and Lockhart 1972) Craik and Lockhart ○ Found that participants could recall more animal words than rhyming words because animal words are encoded semantically while rhyming words are encoded acoustically ○ More non-target animal words were remembered compared to the non-target rhyming words because in order to exclude a word from the animal category, you have to process it semantically ○ This study tests both implicit and explicit memory ○ Implicit memory Unintentional memory which is irrelevant ○ Explicit Memory Intentional memory which is what you are trying to remember and is relevant  Take the word HOUSE for example Structural Phonemic Semantic Is the word written Does the word Is it something people in capital letters? rhyme with mouse? can live in? —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->>> Shallow Memory Deep/Elaborate Tyler’s Anagram Study Role of cognitive effort Challenge to the deep processing model (semantics) Take the anagrams “TORDCO” and “DOCTRO” ○ Both anagrams spell out the word “DOCTOR”, but the first one took more effort to unscramble ○ If each of these were presented to different participants and asked to recall the word later, the one with the harder anagram would be more likely to recall the word as more effort was invested into unscrambling the word Context and Memory Context refers to the cues that are present during learning ○ If these cues are present during recall, it would most likely help in retrieval ○ Has a lot to do with the environment you learned something in If you learned something in an environment, you are more likely to be able to recall that information in that same environment as opposed to somewhere else Explored in a seminal study by Godden and Baddeley (1975) ○ Learn on land recall on land; learn on water recall on water; learn on land recall on water; learn on water recall on land ○ Learned on land and recalled on land is the average number of words recalled ○ Learned on water and recalled on water was slightly lower than that average ○ The other two where you learn and recall in different environments see a large drop in how well participants were able to recall Context can also be called a schema ○ Imagine half of the participants looked at sentences, but the other side of the room had to remember the image and the same sentences that went along with the image The participants that had the image were able to recall the sentences better because the image made the sentences more meaningful Freud - Sense or Nonsense? Id, Ego and Superego Most of what shapes our behavior is out of awareness, in the unconscious Only a sliver of our mind is what we’re aware of Think of the mind like a boiling pot  ○ The bubbles coming up from the unconscious which are repressed memories and impulse desires ○ The Ego is the “manager” which is patrolling the borders of the unconscious mind and is trying to decide if it is strong enough to deal with the impulses Uses defense mechanisms Projection onto something else Repression just keeps pushing away the problems Denial - protect the ego of things it doesn’t want to confront Rationalization - tries justifying actions, even if clearly wrong Reaction Formation - Act the opposite of how you feel to maybe start to actually feel that way Id - constructive and destructive drives (entirely in the unconscious) ○ Ultimate constructive act is to reproduce ○ Anything where the individual is being creative, productive, achieving goals, etc… ○ Children are pure id for the first 18 months of life ○ Also includes desire to be aggressive, self destructive, etc… Ego and Superego develop through psychosexual stages ○ Ego is your frontal cortex/central cortex, it is your command center basically that makes the decisions in the middle of id and superego ○ Superego is your moral compass The Psycho-sexual Stages You can get stuck at any one of these stages which is called a fixation Oral ○ Psyche/Personality Component: id ○ Zone: mouth All the demands are made through the mouth as there are not any real actions that can be taken at that young an age ○ Age; 18 months - 2 years ○ Principle: pleasure Anal ○ Psyche/Personality Component: ego ○ Zone: anus This is when they first start potty training and get a sense of reality and self-control Children exhibit control through language and motor skills as well ○ Age: 18 months - 3 years ○ Principle: reality Phallic ○ Psyche/Personality Component: superego ○ Zone: genitals Experiences emotions that are in the unconscious and they are opposing each other Complex: conflicting feelings in the unconscious  Oedipus complex Boy unconsciously wants sex with mom. Dad is a rival and fears he’ll punish him by castration. Identifies with dad to avoid punishment and spend more time with mom Boy doesn’t want ‘“sex” but wants monopoly on her affections Others who want her affections are rivals Child think his feelings are inappropriate and that he may be punished for having them (castration is the metaphor) Acts like dad to win his approval and win more time with mom Electra Complex Anger towards mom - sees herself as a castrated male, suffers “penis envy”, substitutes the desire for a penis for desire for a baby and with that in mind, she takes her father as a love object It’s not “penis envy” but it is “status envy” She tries to get this status but is told off, so does what she can without being told off (ex. hanging on mom’s apron strings) ○ Age: 3-5 years ○ Principle: morality Latency ○ Zone: none ○ Age: 5-12 years/puberty ○ A period of reduced sexuality in a child's development that occurs between the end of the phallic stage and the onset of puberty Gential ○ Zone: genitals ○ Age: puberty onwards