Study Guide for Final Exam
Honors Introduction to Psychology
Spring Semester 2010
Personality
1. Who and what was Sigmund Freud? What personality theory perspective did he
author?
2. What did he assume to be the two primary motives of life?
3. What is glove anesthesia and how did Freud explain it?
4. Describe Freud's model of the personality. How many parts are there? Describe the
id, ego, and superego. How is consciousness represented?
5. Concerning personality development, what characterized each Freudian stage of
development? What happens if a child becomes “fixated” at a given stage?
6. According to Freud, what good comes out of resolving the Oedipus complex?
7. What is the purpose of ego defense mechanisms, and which one underlies all the
others (and why)?
8. Describe regression, reaction formation, projection, rationalization, and displacement.
9. How did Karen Horneye disagree with Freud?
11. What is the overall evaluation of Freud’s theory?
12. When did Humanism become a force in psychology, and why was it called the
“Third Force” or “Third Wave”?
13. What did Carl Rogers believe about human nature; what did he believe was needed
to achieve human potential?
14. What did Carl Rogers believe were the three conditions for conveying unconditional
positive regard?
15. What is self-actualization? (Realization of all of your human potential.)
16. What is our self-concept? Why is it important?
17. What are the primary criticisms of the humanistic perspective?
18. What does the social-cognitive perspective examine? What is its basic principle?
19. Describe reciprocal determinism. What is the most important factor in it?
20. What is self-efficacy, and what heightens it?
21. What is internal vs. external locus of control? Which leads to more independence
and success?
22. Is the social-cognitive perspective based on scientific testing?
Social Behavior
1. Social psychology is the scientific study of what? What is social perception?
2. What is attribution? How can social categorization lead to stereotyping?
3. Is there any such thing as unconscious prejudice?
4. Can the prejudice habit be broken?
5. What is the difference between an internal and an external attribution? What is the
fundamental Attribution Error?
6. What is an attitude? What is the mere exposure effect?
7. What is persuasion? Describe the elaboration likelihood model. What is the
difference between high and low elaboration?
8. Can attitude change occur without comprehension? Compare attitudes formed
through central and peripheral processing.
9. How can our behavior change our attitudes? What is cognitive dissonance and what
are three ways to resolve it?
10. What is social influence? What are two sources of social power and what are three
consequences of exercising it?
11. What is conformity? What are the two types of reasons for conforming? How often
did Solomon Asch find people to conform to a temporary group on a clear and
unambiguous task? How many people conformed at least once? What is significant
about the fact that this happened on an unambiguous task in an experiment? What are
some of the factors that influence it?
12. What is obedience? What is authority? What was Stanley Milgram’s true research
question? What did he tell the participants that his research question was?
How many
shocks were actually administered in the course of the experiment?
13. How many “teachers” (what fraction or percentage) were willing to go to 450 volts?
14. What are the key factors in explaining his results?
Answers: 1) Participants were will and able to absolve themselves of responsibility.
Contributing factors to this were the established mental framework, the context of
scientific research, and the experimenter’s reassurances.
2) The gradual, repetitive escalation of the task.
3) The extent to which teachers were able to distance themselves from the
learner. The greater the distance, the greater the obedience.
4) Another was being able to watch another teacher refuse to go on. This
decreased obedience.
15. Are conformity and obedience bad in and of themselves?
16. What is the key to the decision to help in the bystander effect? (Step 3)
Psychological Disorders
1. What are the three major criteria used to define psychological disorders?
2. What are the differences among the medical, diathesis-stress, and bio-psycho-social
models of mental illness?
3. How does each of the five primary perspectives in psychology describe the cause of
mental disorder?
4. What are two disadvantages of labeling people as mentally disordered?
5. What is the DSM-IV-TR, and who publishes it? What is it used for and what type of
information does it contain? On what are its diagnostic criteria based?
6. What is the chief characteristic of anxiety disorders and about what percentage of the
population will experience one?
7. Describe the five major anxiety disorders (panic, phobic, GAD, OCD, and PTSD. )
You should be able to recognize some common obsessive-compulsive themes.
8. What is the most common mood disorder?
9. You should be able to recognize the physiological, behavioral, and cognitive
symptoms of major depressive disorder?
10. What are the four factors in the cycle of major depression? Does the U.S. have the
highest instance of depression?
11. How does bipolar disorder compare with major depression? What is a manic episode
or mania?
12. What is the major danger with depression? What are some reasons that women may
be diagnosed more often with depression than men?
13. With each new generation the rate of depression is increasing/decreasing and the
disorder is striking earlier/later.
14. What is Dissociative Identity Disorder? What was its former name? Why was it
changed? Why is it sometimes thought of as a therapist-induced symptom pattern?
15. What are the characteristic of schizophrenia? What are delusions? What are
hallucinations? What are the risks of developing schizophrenia?
16. What are personality disorders? Describe the paranoid, histrionic, and narcissistic
personality types. Describe the antisocial personality. What is a physiological
characteristic of this disorder?
Treatment for Psychological Disorders
1. What are the two major categories of therapy for psychological disorders? What are
the three central mental health professions? What are the two specialty areas in
psychology that deal with mental illness?
2. What are psychodynamic therapy and psychoanalysis? From whose theory were
these derived? You should know what free association, resistance, and transference are.
What is the goal of psychoanalysis?
3. Where do the assumptions and techniques of behavior therapy come from?
4. What is counterconditioning and what is systematic desensitization?
5. Why does aversion therapy not work very well?
6. What is the focus of humanistic therapies? What (and whose) is client-centered
therapy?
7. What is the assumption and what is the focus of cognitive therapy?
8. What is REBT? What is CBT? Who are the authors of these therapies? What is the
best kind of therapy for phobias?
9. What is currently the most popular type of therapy?
10. What is group therapy, and what is a self-help group?
11. What type of professional do most people seek when they have a problem?
12. Does research indicate that therapy works? What does outcome research compare?
Why is therapy difficult to evaluate?
13. What are alternative therapies?
14. What are three important elements that are common to all types of psychotherapy?
15. What is one consideration that should always be included in determining patienttherapist match?
Biomedical Therapy
16. What is psychopharmacology?
17. What happened to mental hospitals when psychotherapeutic drugs were introduced?
18. What neurotransmitter is targeted by an antipsychotic drug? What are their effects?
19. What is the chief criticism of the antianxiety drugs?
20. What are the classes of antidepressant drugs? Name two SSRI drugs. What other
disorders are they used for in addition to depression?
21. What is lithium used for? What is ECT supposed to be used for? What is the chief
side effect of ECT?
22. What is psychosurgery? What is a lobotomy? What is the result of a lobotomy for
the patient's behavior?
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