IN CLASS EXAM 4 NOTES
Developmental Psychology – the study of behavior from conception to death
-
Nature v Nurture Debate
o The contributions of genetics v environment – not either/or some of each
o Twin-study method
▪ Identical twins – one singled fertilized egg splits into two essentially
genetically the same
▪ Fraternal twins – two eggs fertilized; no more similar to each other
than regular siblings
▪ Identical and fraternal twins examined in the same environments
(1) If genetics works, then the identical twins raised separately
will be very similar
o Almost as similar if the twins were raised together
▪ Adoption studies – compare identical twins who were raised together
v those raised apart
(1) Contribution of the environment can be measured by
comparing how similar the twins are if raised together v if
raised apart
o Raised separately and very different – environment
o Raised separately and the same – genetics
(2) Basic personality traits more similar to biological parents
o Nature side
▪ Identical twins raised separately
(1) Genetic influences – “Jim twins”
o Identical twins adopted separately without knowing
there were twins
▪ So similar it was weird
● Voices, looks, names, wives dogs & sons
names were the same
(2) Oscar was raised by mother in Germany as a Catholic Nazi +
Jack raised by father in the Caribbean as a Jewish man
o Once they met similar traits, habits, mannerisms BUT
they never really got along
(3) Almost as similar as they would be if they were raised the
same
o Nurture side
▪ Different experiences in the world
▪ No two siblings truly grow up in the same environment
(1) Oldest v youngest | girls v boys
▪ Rats raised in impoverished environment v raised in an enriched
environment
-
o Interactive influences – the contributions of both genetics and environment
is important
▪ They are not independent of one another
(1) Your genes affect how you are treated in the environment
o Parents tend to treat their identical twins the same
more than fraternal twins
o We don’t know if identical twins are more similar
because they were treated the same or because of
genetics
▪ Very difficult to tease apart nature v nurture
▪ Best way to look at it to look at twins separated
at birth
▪ Three Identical Strangers
(1) Psychologists purposefully split up identical triplets at
adoption and studied them without telling the family that they
were studying twins
o About 15 sets of twins/triplets reunited after women
went to the media
The newborn baby
o Reflexes : automatic responses to stimuli
▪ Rooting: automatically turn their head and open their mouth to start
breastfeeding = v important
▪ Sucking & swallowing = they instinctively know so they can eat milk
▪ Grasping = they grab & yank >> survival mechanism passed down
from primate ancestors (baby monkeys grasping onto their mothers)
▪ stepping = hold a baby off the ground and they will make stepping
motions practicing walking
o around 3 months, we see the biggest changes
▪ things start becoming meaningful
o perceptual abilities
▪ vision is limited but develops quickly
(1) start out blurry
(2) prefer bright colors, things that look like faces
▪ hearing & auditory preference
(1) Babytalk very sensitive and soothing + very good for babies
o Motherese & parentese
(2) Infants are better at hearing the differences between certain
sounds
o Babies can distinguish certain sounds that are not
distinguishable in their native language
▪
Taste & smell
(1) Clear response to pleasant and unpleasant odors and tastes
o Preference paradigm
▪
▪
-
Prefer things that look like faces, etc.
They can’t tell us what they think / prefer communicate through
facial expressions
▪ Present two images side by side >> whatever they continue to look at
is the one they prefer
o Habituation and Recovery
▪ Used to estimate when newborns can discriminate between stimuli
▪ Habituation – a child’s attention to a novel stimuli will lessen over
time
(1) Show a newborn a picture of a zebra over time, the baby
gets bored with it
▪ Recovery – when the baby regains interest with the photo of the cow
with the same interest
(1) If the baby cannot discriminate between the cow or zebra,
they will continue to not show interest
Cognitive development
o Piaget
▪ Noticed that children of similar ages made very similar mistakes
▪ Recognize that children have cognitive skills even without the ability
to speak
▪ Believed that as we grow up and develop, we learn schemas
o Schemas – general knowledge base of information ; the way we know the
world to be
▪ Assimilation – incorporating information to fit existing schemas
▪ Accommodation – modifying schemas to fit new information
o Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
▪ As we grow up, we pass through a series of stages distinguished by
ways of thinking
(1) Sensorimotor Stage : birth – 2 years old
o Object permanence : the awareness that an object
continues to exist even after it disappears from sight
o Separation Anxiety : the fear reaction to the absence
of the primary caregiver >> they will not experience
this if they have not developed object permanence
o Self-Recognition : recognize themselves in the mirror
and that they are their own person
▪ Rouge test : place a red dot on the child’s
forehead, put them in front of a mirror
● Either point to the mirror
● Self-recognition : points to the red dot
on themselves, understanding that’s
themselves
(2) Preoperational Stage : 2 years old – 7 years old
-
o Egocentric – unable to adopt the perspective of other
people; don’t understand that others have another
opinion; they believe that everyone knows what
they’re thinking
o Lack of conservation : the idea that the physical
properties of an object will remain the same despite
any superficial change in appearance
(3) Concrete Operational Stage : 7 years old – 12 years old
o Conservation achieved
o Still concrete thinking they can’t really think yet in
terms of abstract ideas
(4) Formal Operational Stage : 12 years and older
o Systematic, logical thinking
o Work with hypotheticals
▪ Critics of Piaget’s theory
(1) We now know that infants actually know more than Piaget
gave them credit for
o Showing infants impossible outcomes (in terms of
math) babies will be startled because they have a
basic understanding of numbers
Language Development
o Developmental sequence
▪ crying babbling words telegraphic speech rich vocabulary
▪ children at any age can understand more than they can produce
themselves
o Developmental theories
▪ Skinner – Nurture
(1) Children learn to speak simply by imitating adults repeat
words / phrases that are reinforced
(2) Operant conditioning + reinforcement
(3) The first born child or youngest child with older siblings will
sometimes develop language faster because they have more
of the attention solely on themselves
▪ Chomsky – Nature
(1) Born with an innate ability to acquire language, make sense of
what we hear, etc. = biological preparedness
(2) Children learn language very quickly + they will produce their
own sentences that they have not heard before
o Can’t be explained by operant conditioning
o Critical period hypothesis
▪ Critical point in life in which you are most receptive to learning
languages
(1) The younger you are the easier it is to learn foreign languages
-
(2) The younger you learn it the better the original/perfect accent
will be
o When you learn it later in life, you will speak the new
language with your own accent
▪ Studies indicate that people who are bilingual have a more developed
theory of mind + better ways of thinking + develop dementia later
than normal + recover better after brain injury
(1) Plasticity of the brain = better + denser
▪ People who learn language past the critical period
(1) Genie discovered when she was 13 years old locked in a
room and tied to a toilet for the majority of her life | she had
very animal-like characteristics + beaten every time she made
noise her muscles were so attrophened she looked like an 8
year old | her father committed suicide after she was
discovered
o Trying to learn language
▪ Able to pick up a few words never able to put
them together in a sentence or coherent way
▪ She communicated in her own form of sign
language
o We don’t know if she was born intellectually disabled
or if she suffered brain damage
▪ She was raised in an impoverished environment
like the rats
▪ She did improve every year which is a sign of
not being born with it
o The mother had been acquitted of all child abuse
charges
▪ The mother sued the researchers
▪ Settlement and returned back to the mother
● Put into foster care system was
beaten after throwing up in one of the
homes >> reverted back to silence in
fear
Social development
o Parent-child relationship
▪ First attachment – intense, exclusive bond with primary caregiver,
highly emotional
▪
Harlow’s Monkeys
(1) Raised monkeys in cages with two substitute wire monkeys
o One of them was made of wires, but had food
o The other was covered with soft cloth
▪
Baby monkeys spent more time with this even
over food
(2) Contact comfort babies prefer human touch
o Styles of Attachment
▪ Secure and insecure attachment evident in strange-stituation test
(1) A mother and a female stranger switch positions just to sit
with the kids watch how the child reacts
o With Mother
▪ Secure : feel confident to explore the room and
play | when mother leaves, sad | when mother
comes back, super happy
▪ Insecure : not super confident, still upset, when
the mother comes back, angry and push the
mother away
o Effects of Neglect
▪ Still face experiment
(1) Demonstrates how a mother’s rejection can affect the
emotional development of the child
o Very few minutes when the mother ignores
▪ Very serious effects : heart rate, stress, etc.
o When the mother smiles and gives attention
▪ Heart rate, stress, etc. goes down
▪ Raised with neglect
(1) Long term problems
o Failed to grow properly + thrive
(2) GOOD NEWS : once they are surrounded by loving parents,
the brain will actually change and they will thrive
o Self-control predicting behaviors
▪ Marshmallow effect
(1) Eat this marshmallow now or wait 15 minutes to get two
marshmallows
o Children who are willing to wait for the second
marshmallow
▪ Better social skills, better grades, less substance
abuse, etc.
-
Adolescence
o Between puberty and adulthood harder to pinpoint adulthood
o Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
▪ A woman who had cancer & a pharmacist in her town found a
prescription where if she took it, she lived ; if she didn’t, she died.
(1) The husband couldn’t afford it, so he stole it
(2) Is it morally right or morally wrong?
o Should you steal or should you let the person die?
(3) Didn’t care about the answer he wanted to know your
rationale
o Roswell Gilbert : killed his wife out of mercy killing
because she was in a ton of pain euthanasia
▪ Stage one – preconventional level
(1) Moral dilemmas are resolved in ways that satisfy self-serving
motives
▪ Stage two – conventional level
(1) Moral dilemmas are resolved in ways that reflect the laws of
the land or norms set by parents
▪ Stage three – postconventional level
(1) Most complex
(2) Based on abstract principles such as justice and the value of
life an act is moral if it affirms your own conscience
regardless of legality
o “doctor death” – helped his patients commit suicide;
people suffering for very painful terminal illnesses and
at the end of their lives; turned down people who just
wanted to die
▪ Knew that it was illegal; he felt so strongly that
he was willing to go to prison
▪ He filmed his last assisted suicide and sent it to
60 Minutes because he felt SO strongly about
this
o Some women have been acquitted for killing their
husbands after years of suffering from abuse when
does human compassion take precedence over the law
▪ Laurena Bobbett married to a man who
abused her physically and emotionally,
including rape
● While the husband was asleep, she cut
his dick off with a knife and threw out
his dick of the window of her car
● She was found not guilty due to
temporary insanity
▪ Criticisms
(1) It may be culturally different
(2) Moral behavior is different than moral behavior
o Social development
▪ Erikson’s “identity crisis” describes teenage years
(1) Relationship with parents
-
o A rise in tension
(2) Relationships with peers
o Increased conformity
▪ peer pressure does not have to be negative
(3) Sexuality
o Whether parents like it or not, teenagers are sexually
mature (different than sexually active)
o Problem = teenagers are physically maturing faster,
but mentally not maturing faster
(4) Evolutionary standpoint
o This period in our life is relatively new because today
you go through puberty younger and staying with
parents much later in life
▪ Emerging adulthood
(1) Period between adolescence and adulthood (18-25 years old)
(2) Not fully developed brain, not financially dependent yet, probs
don’t have a family yet, etc.
(3) A limbo period some live away from parents, some live at
home, some are financially dependent, some are financially
independent, etc.
Adulthood + Old Age
o Biological changes
▪ Basic strengths (muscles, heart rate, speed of reflexes, etc.) start to
decrease as early as 30s and 40s
(1) Exception to the rule – older athletes
o Usually depends on their current physical activity
rather than how old they are
o State of mind
o Cognitive changes
▪ Intelligence
(1) Fluid intelligence
o The ability to reason quickly and abstractly, sold logic
problems
o Decreases as we age
o Usually younger people are faster, but older adults will
provide wiser solutions or if you take away time
constraints they will work just as fast
(2) Crystalized intelligence
o The accumulation of knowledge
o Remains stable or increase as we age
(3) Memory and forgetting
o Normal for memory to decline as we age
▪ Long term can be fine, but short term memory
sux
o Problems with prospective memory (reminders for
future action)
▪ Can be dangerous especially with medications 
forget to take it or forget that they have taken
it and take it again
(4) Alzheimer’s Disease
o As human life expectancy increases, so is the
prevalence of Alzheimer’s
o Deterioration of neurons than produce acetylcholine 
medications that work by boosting the levels + much
more complex
▪ Slow down the process
▪ No cure + no prevention
o Affects people very differently especially in early
stages (hard to diagnose because hard to discriminate
between just normal memory problems or dementia)
▪ Forgetting words | personality changes |
problems with judgement | anterograde and
retrograde amnesia | stop recognizing their
loved ones or confuse their loved ones with
another person
o Language ability today might predict if you are likely to
get Alzheimer’s in the future
▪ Genetics, smoking, etc. contribute
▪ Group of nuns when entered the convent they
wrote an essay on why they wanted to be a nun
● Scored on complexity, etc.
● 60 years later
o The nuns who scored low on
those markers were more likely
to develop Alzheimer’s
● Does Alzheimer’s start in your 20s ??
Do your skills help prevent ???
▪ Other experiments have been conducted with
the same results
Psychological Disorders
- Abnormal behavior
(1) Deviant behavior; statistically abnormal; atypical
(2) Maladaptive interferes with daily life, causes individual harm, poses a danger
to other people
(3) Personally distressing to the individual
o Technically only one of them is needed, but most cases have 2 or all 3
o Normal and abnormal behavior is on a continuum
-
-
Biological perspective
o Medical perspective physiological explanation; oversupply or undersupply;
medical abnormality; caused by genetics
▪ Children put up for adoption whose biological parents had a disorder
then there is an increased risk; hereditary components
o Biopsychosocial perspective Environmental component; obtained by life
experiences
▪ Especially for people who are genetically vulnerable affected by
nature v. nuture
o Social and cultural circumstances
▪ “hearing voices”
(1) Some cultures consider this to be normal >> hearing the
voices of their recently passed loved one
▪ Culture bound syndromes : disorders primarily seen in one culture or
another
(1) Eating Disorders
o Primarily seen in middle and upper class women in
westernized societies
o These are incredibly rare in other cultures
(2) Koro (an anxiety disorder)
o The irrational fear that your penis will shrink inside
your body and they will die
o Primarily in men in southeast Asia
Diagnosis : the process of grouping and naming mental disorders
o Psychological assessment :
▪ Interviews : collection of data between psychologist + patient
▪ objective tests : usually multiple choice, testing compared to average
▪ projective tests (unstructured)
(1) Rorschach Inkblot Test
▪ neuropsychological tests : measure organic things
o DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
▪ manual where every disorder is listed with symptoms, onset, etc.
▪ Are we truly discovering more disorders or are we just becoming
more sensitive?
▪
Concerns with DSM
(1) Over diagnosis : when new disorders first come out, there are
usually a massive amount of people being diagnosed
o ADHD : large amount of children diagnosed more
kids diagnosed with spring/summer birthdays; they’re
just younger than those who they are compared ==
problem is that it is a disservice to those who actually
do have it
o Some disorders are classified as disorders when should
they be
▪ PMS is a disorder??
(2) Reliability
o One patient who visits two different doctors what
are the chances they get diagnosed the same condition
▪ SAME = reliable
▪ DIFFERENT = unreliable
o With every edition, it is becoming more reliable
(3) possible bias
o there are gender differences + maybe overlooked
▪ women are more likely to suffer from chronic
depression
▪ men are more likely to be diagnosed with an
antisocial personality disorder
(4) effects of labeling
o affect the way people are received
o a number of researchers went to multiple
psychologists and faked being schizophrenic, so when
they were sent to the inpatient hospital, they lost all of
their symptoms, but were still labeled as schizophrenic
o not as clear; there is wiggle room
-
Anxiety and Anxiety Related Disorders
o Generalized Anxiety Disorder – persistent feeling of free-floating anxiety
▪ Highly sensitive to criticism, can’t make decisions, dwells on past
mistakes, worries constantly, inability to relax
▪ Not linked to any specific source don’t know why they are anxious
▪ Symptoms tend to decrease as we age
o Panic Disorder – frequent, sudden, intense rushes of anxiety
▪ Your first panic attack feels like a heart attack
▪
Agoraphobia may develop as a consequence because they get so
afraid to have a panic attack in public
o Social Anxiety Disorder
▪ Intense fear of being in a situation that has public scrutiny
▪ Some cases it is so debilitating that they will stay home
o Specific phobia – anxious, irrational reaction to an object or event, leading to
avoidance
▪ Much more predictable compared to panic attacks
▪ Fine line between true phobia and fears
▪ Depending on what you’re afraid of, that is what determines how it
affects your life
(1) How avoidable the fear is
▪ Causes
(1) Learned through classical conditioning
o Bad experience with airplane fear of planes
(2) Learned through observational learning (watching other
people react)
o First demonstrated through monkeys and snakes
(3) Genetically + evolutionarily make sense to have some fears
o When you actually can be killed or hurt
(4) Some phobias that have absolutely no cause
o Examples : brontiphobia (dogs afraid of
thunderstorms) | homilophobia (fear of sermons)
o Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) -- intrusive thoughts and rituals
▪ Obsessions : intrusions into consciousness of persistent, often
disturbing thoughts
▪ Compulsions – actions that person feels need to be carried out
repeatedly
(1) If you don’t carry this out, extreme anxiety
(2) Don’t enjoy the behaviors
▪ Every one of us may have some normal compulsive behavior those
are just weird quirky behavior
(1) True OCD : incredibly disruptive to one’s life; literally
controlling every aspect
o Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
▪ Anxiety disorder that occurs after intense psychological trauma
(1) Assault, rape, natural disaster, war usually worse if man
made
o US military give stress training before they get
deployed + place mental health professionals are
stationed around the world to help reduce
▪ Feel as if they are constantly reliving
(1) Heightened sensitivity to noise, dreams, irritability
-
(2) If the symptoms last longer than a one month period
▪ In a threatening situation, the amygdala signals to release adrenaline
and cortisol
(1) When the threat is gone, your brain is supposed to stop this
production
(2) With PTSD, the brain doesn’t stop the production typically
with smaller hippocampus than normal (form new memories)
[is the stress damaging the hippocampus or if you naturally
have a smaller hippocampus are you predisposed]
Mood Disorders
o Major Depressive Disorder
▪ Symptoms : deep despair, loss of interests, fatigue, feelings of
worthlessness, insomnia/hypersomnia, weight loss/gain, lowers
immune system
▪ Women are more likely maybe because of hormones | how we
display / handle our emotions | women are more likely to go get help
▪ Biological factors
(1) lower than normal levels of norepinephrine and serotonin
(2) Less activity in left frontal cortex
(3) genetics
▪ Social cognitive factors
(1) Learned helplessness : an expectation of lack of control
o Depression seemingly inescapable trauma >> apathy,
pessimism
(2) Depressive explanatory style : a tendency to attribute bad
events to factors that are internal rather than external
o View the world in a bleak way
o The opposite of self-serving bias
(3) Mood congruent memory : sad people think of sad things – a
vicious downward spiral
o The way people act when they are depressed make
others treat them negatively which pushes them
deeper into the hole
o Bipolar Disorder – fluctuations between mania and depression
▪ Bipolar I : very extreme manic episodes for a week or longer; so
severe of episodes they may even require hospitalization; may or may
not have period of major depression
▪ Bipolar II : not severe manic episodes; major depressive episode 
could even misdiagnose to be depression
▪ Genetic contributions + no difference between men and women
▪ Artistic people are more likely to be bipolar
o Dysthymia + Cyclothymia
▪ Dysthymia – lower level depression
▪ Cyclothymia – lower level bipolar
-
Dissociative Disorders
o Amnesia – partial or complete loss of memory
▪ Anterograde – unable to form new memories
▪ Retrograde – inability to recall information just prior to the injury
o Fugue States
▪ Develop complete retrograde amnesia – extremely rare
(1) forget their entire identity
(2) wander away from home / disappear for long periods of time
(3) sometimes creating entirely new identities and make a new
life
▪ their memory will come back, but they have no memory of how they
lived in the fugue state like a blackout
▪ usually occurs after an extremely traumatic event
(1) some people believe they might be faking it
o Dallas man : this father just wandered off one day 
family ended up declaring him dead; 15 years later, he
was discovered as a gay priest in Dallas >>> claimed to
have zero recollection of his previous life
▪ They think he’s faking it because he stole
someone’s social security number
o Agatha Christie : mother passed away + husband had
an outright affair one night she disappeared +
checked herself in at a health spa, using the last name
of the women who he was having an affair
▪ 2 weeks later, her husband came and she
remembered everything
o Man in 2004 : had no idea for 11 years who he was 
he was physically beaten up behind a Burger King
o Dissociative Identity Disorder – formerly known as multiple personality
disorder
▪ The person displays two or more distinct personalities with usually a
dominant personality and other subordinate
(1) One personality is unable to recall what happens during the
other personalities
o Can be different ages, genders, sexual orientation, etc.
(2) More common with women who were repeatedly sexually
abused
o They would repeatedly turn their mind off and
dissociate
o Typically with a smaller hippocampus too much
stress to actually handle
▪ If it even exists, it is extremely rare could be form of PTSD/
schizophrenia / displaying exaggerated aspects of a single personality
(1) Because there’s always a spike in diagnoses when popular in
media
(2) Could be faking it
o Hillside Strangler
▪ Claimed that it wasn’t him murdering everyone
actually faking it
o Harder to fake with different brain wave patterns +
eye glasses prescriptions, different handedness, etc.
-
Schizophrenia
o Psychotic disorder characterized by a loss of contact with reality,
hallucinations, delusions, and bizarre behavior
▪ Common symptoms – either positive (presence) or negative (absence)
(1) Word salad : speech makes no sense no editing of
conversations = positive
(2) Problems blocking out unimportant stimuli no selective
attention – almost sensory overload
(3) Inappropriate emotions sit still for days (catatonia) or highly
animated / expressive = catatonic is negative
(4) Delusions : false beliefs (that you are someone important, you
control the weather, people on the tv talking to them directly,
paranoia, etc.)
(5) Hallucinations : mistaken sensory experience (hear voices that
aren’t there + see people that don’t exist + feel things that
aren’t there) = positive
▪ Medications work best on positive symptoms
▪ Biological factors
(1) Genetic link
(2) Excess of dopamine treatment : block activity of dopamine 
any medication that increases dopamine will intensify
(3) Brain abnormalities large areas filled with cerebral spinal
fluid + thalamus (grand central station) tends to be smaller
than normal
▪ Psychological + Environmental factors
(1) Stress is the important aspect
o When you are exposed to high levels of stress, you are
more likely to develop schizophrenia if you are
genetically predisposed
▪ High functioning schizophrenics exist
(1) A Beautiful Mind (true story)
(2) They will develop techniques to deal with their symptoms +
with medications
(3) Be careful not to underestimate their capabilities
-
Somatoform
o Disorders involving physical symptoms that are psychological in origin (not
medical)
▪ Hypochondriac : chronic exaggerated fear of disease; becoming
alarmed at the slightest body function
(1) They switch and go to many different doctors
(2) Internet leads to increased hypochondriatic symptoms +
diagnosed cases
(3) The boy who cried wolf problem these people might not get
the medical attention they need; when they really do become
sick
▪ Conversion Disorder : temporary loss of a bodily function without
physical basis
(1) Zero medical explanation for why they are experiencing these
symptoms NOT FAKING IT
(2) People becoming paralyzed, becoming blind (like that one
book), hysterical pregnant (they believe they are pregnant)
o Usually after a traumatic event
(3) Sometimes with a lack of concern
(4) What they are experiencing is physiologically impossible
o Glove anesthesia : lose all feeling in their hand, but
they still feel sensation in arm
▪ Impossible : if you lose feeling in hand, you
have to lose sensation in your arm
o Someone who is paralyzed, but they move in their
sleep or when they are hypnotized
▪ Example : Talladega Nights
(5) Controversial in the past, they just categorize a lot of actual
medical things are conversion disorder because they weren’t
medically advanced yet
-
Personality Disorders
o Long term inflexible patterns of behavior with no clear onset treatment is
difficult because they don’t see anything wrong with them
o Borderline Personality : a lack of identity or a pattern of instability in
relationships
▪ insecure, impulsive, emotional = extreme
▪ uncertain in family & career ; lack of a strong sense of self ; very
abrupt moods with black and white thinking ; work hard to avoid
upsetting them ; intense fear of abandonment ; impulsivity
▪ More common in women
o Antisocial Personality : psychopath + sociopath
▪ Lack of regard for other people no empathy at all
▪ If they feel a desire to do something, they will do it extremely
impulsive, can be dangerous ; killing a person is not different than
killing a bug >> no remorse or guilt ; punishment doesn’t really have
an effect | manipulative
▪ Biological explanation : less activity in their frontal cortex | do not
react physiologically to fearful stimuli in a normal way (in fact, they
won’t respond)
▪ Treatment : try to give individuals stimulants >> doesn’t really work |
engaging people in therapy is hard | might improve naturally over the
age of 40-50 (only the impulsive behavior goes down + manipulative
behaviors persist)
▪ More common in men
o Narcissistic Personality : grandiose sense of self importance
▪ Only interested in themselves; they are God’s gift to the world; self
centered; don’t take criticism very well (not great with therapy);
absolutely convinced that there is absolutely nothing wrong with
them
o Obsessive Compulsive Personality : a less severe OCD
▪ Excessively neat; eat the exact same lunch every day for 5 years; read
something in the exact same way; etc.
▪ Only becomes problematic when it interferes with your everyday life
usually only OCD does infiltrate your life, when OCPD is more
regular
-
Disorders of Childhood
o ADHD : children who are highly distractible; can’t sit still; difficulty
concentrating + paying attention; often paired with learning disabilities
▪ Controversial because of the highly increased rate does the child
truly have ADHD or is he/she just exhibiting normal childlike
behaviors less activity in CNS (treatment: stimulants + therapy)
(1) One group assigned to medication + second group assigned to
therapy + third group assigned to both
o Medication = short term was awesome
o Therapy = long term was awesome
o Both = ideal
o Autism Autism Spectrum Disorder :
▪ Symptoms
(1) problems with communication some never develop spoken
language at all; some just speak mindless phrases + words
(2) problems with social interactions avoid people and go into
their own world, loss or addition of body movements (walking
back and forth, etc.), prefer rigidity
(3) problems with intellect some do not test well or do better
on other tests
▪ Spectrum – there are so many different variants of symptoms that it
is put on a spectrum
(1) Asberger’s (no longer exists) : high functioning, often no
cognitive problems even extremely smart, but more social
problems
▪ Diagnosis : usually diagnosed very early (even as early as 3 months) ;
a lot of diagnoses recently
▪ Treatment : there is a biological component (but no treatment for it) /
behavioral therapy is extremely successful (the earlier the better)
Therapy
-
-
-
Any technique in which a therapist uses some sort of psychological therapy to help
an individual
Therapists
o Psychiatrist : a medical doctor who does their residency in psychiatry; can
prescribe medications tend to see people with extreme problems because
of medication
o Clinical psychologist : PhD; tend to treat individuals who suffer from
psychological disorders; cannot write prescriptions (in most places); more
experience with counseling
o Counseling psychologist : either PhD or Masters; works with individuals with
everyday problems of life
Psychoanalytic Therapy
o Freudian free flowing, seeking insight through interpretations; very
intensive | long and expensive
o Free association : the patient states whatever comes to mind brings
repressed feelings up to the conscious level
o Resistance : indication that an important issue is at hand; a defense
mechanism this is the underlying problem
o Transference : the feelings the patient has towards the people they talk
about will transfer over to the therapist
Behavioral Therapy
o If psychological disorders are learned through experiences, then they can be
unlearned in the same manner = goal is to eliminate the symptoms
o Classical Conditioning techniques
▪ Flooding / Exposure Therapy – exposure to anxiety-provoking
stimulus until extinction takes place
(1) Theoretically should lose the fear it’s extremely intense
▪ Systematic desensitization – relaxation, anxiety hierarchy (list out the
steps of the fear and you relax at each stage until you are fine);
gradual exposure positive feelings that overcome the fears
(1) Example: the little boy with a fear of rabbits being given food
(2) Very effective
(3) Virtual reality helps a lot
▪ Aversive conditioning – pairing aversive reaction with harmful
stimulus (a habit you want to quit)
(1) Example: people trying to quit alcohol create a taste
aversion to it
o Operant Conditioning techniques
▪ Token economy – tokens used like money to condition people for
certain behaviors
(1) Very effective for Autistic children social and self-care skills
-
-
-
Cognitive therapies
o Change beliefs, perceptions, thoughts (very effective with depression) 
change the way you think ; goal = change your belief
▪ Interpreting events the way nondepressed individuals interpret
events and explaining the benefit of doing this
▪ Successful because they get to the root of the problem
Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT)
o Changes the way they think about the conditions and the way they act
o Very widely used because it is extremely successful and attacks all aspects
Biological Treatments
o Drug therapies
▪ Antianxiety drugs : tranquilizing effect : Valium, Xanax
(1) Not really for long term use : highly addictive; dangerous with
alcohol; not really attacking the problem just the symptoms
▪ Antidepressants : increase levels of serotonin / norepinephrine : SSRIs
(1) Depression is exhibited in a number of different
neurochemical ways; use a trial and error method to find
which drug works best
(2) Used for many other conditions in addition to depression
(anxiety, phobias, migraines, chronic pain, etc.)
▪ Mood stabilizers : used for bipolar to stabilize behavior : Lithium
(1) Problem is that patients often complain of feeling nothing
because there are no longer highs or lows; hard to keep
friends on their meds because they do not like that feeling
▪ Antipsychotic drugs : blocking dopamine activity
(1) Reduces symptoms of schizophrenia taking these long term,
patients may develop a condition similar to Parkinson’s
▪ Lifesavers for many people
▪ CONCERNS : overprescribed; problematic because the doctors who
are prescribing are undertrained | placebos can sometimes work just
as well as the actual drug | long term side effects are unknown until
they are actually tested a lot of drugs people take, but we didn’t
know that it would result in ______.
o Electroconvulsive therapy “shock therapy”
▪ Sedated + given a mouth guard
▪ The shock induces a small seizure; the shock produces a surge of
norepinephrine helpful for depression
▪ CONCERNS : retrograde amnesia may occur for either minutes or
even months; this process is also long, so it is very hard = this is a late
resort process
o Psychosurgery
▪ Cingulotomy : cingulum is a bundle of nerve fibers that is believed to
connect the emotional and thought centers of the brain doctors will
go in an destroy this area
(1) Treats very very severe depression or OCD
(2) Success rate : only 60-70% good news: doesn’t have the
serious side effects like a lobotomy
▪ Deep brain stimulation : surgically implanted in the brain in a very
specific location; when turned on, mild electricity will stimulate this
part of the brain
(1) Very successful for treating Parkinson’s
o Transcranial magnetic stimulation
▪ A magnetic coil is held up to the part of the brain that has less activity
and stimulates the area
▪ Doesn’t create a seizure and there isn’t amnesia and noninvasive and
almost harmless no one really knows if the results will pan out