Chapter 2 Flashcards
What are the aims of theories about mental disorders?
- find etiology (cause)
- match treatment
- predict course (prognosis)
- find factors that maintain
What are some different perspectives that theories about mental disorders take?
- nature vs nurture
- single-factor vs interactionist
- different levels of explanation
Which factors might affect a theorist’s perspective?
- bias towards thinking things are in the control of the person (nurture) vs out of their control (nature)
- social belief system (values)
What’s an example of the interaction of genes and environment in a psychological disorder?
a person who has a genetic predisposition for depression can have those genes “activated” by a harsh environment, which therefore makes their depression worse
Describe an example of when a biologically-driven disorder can be affected by environmental influences.
a person with PKU (biology) can be treated by giving him a diet that is low in phenylalanine (environment)
What are the main types of theories?
- biological models
- psychosocial theories
- integrative theories
What are the main types of psychosocial theories?
- behavioural
- cognitive
- psychodynamic
- humanistic
- existential
- socio-cultural
What are the main aspects of behavioural theories?
- focus only on observable behaviour - not about thoughts or feelings
- all behaviour is learned
- through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, or social learning
What are the main types of learning?
- classical conditioning
- operant conditioning
- social learning
How does classical conditioning work?
Pavlov’s dog
1. when dog sees food (unconditioned stimulus) he automatically drools (unconditioned response)
2. ring a bell (neutral stimulus) every time you give food (unconditioned stimulus)
3. now, even if you take the food (unconditioned stimulus) away, the reflex will still happen when you ring the bell neutral stimulus
4. now the bell is the conditioned stimulus and drooling is the conditioned response
How does operant conditioning work?
Skinner’s mice
1. when the organism does something good, he gets a reward (“positive reinforcement”)
2. so he repeats the behaviour to get the reward
How does social learning work?
- when someone observes someone else
- he repeats what he sees
- so he learns the behaviour
What do theories do?
- summarize knowledge
- make predictions
What makes a good theory?
- clear
- specific
- falsifiable - says how it could be disproven
- parsimonious - simplest explanation for all the data
- internally consistent - parts of theory do not conflict with each other
- supported by evidence from experiments
- helps people
What are the two main neurotransmitters and what do they do?
- serotonin - inhibits behaviour
- dopamine - seeking pleasure
Which systems do biological models normally focus on?
- nervous systems
- endocrine system
Which parts of the brain are there and what do they do?
- forebrain - consciousness (thoughts, memories, emotions, speech)
- midbrain - arousal (sleep-wake, attention)
- hindbrain - basic functions (digestion, heartbeat, breathing)
How is the nervous system sub-divided?
- central nervous system and peripheral nervous system
- peripheral: somatic and autonomic
- autonomic: sympathetic and parasympathetic
What do the different parts of the nervous system do?
central - consciousness
peripheral - unconscious
somatic - voluntary movement of muscles
autonomic - regulates things that keep you alive (heartbeat and breathing)
parasympathetic - “rest and digest” or “feed and breed”
sympathetic - “fight or flight”
What role does the autonomic nervous system play in anxiety disorders?
give the sense of “panic” like there is danger because the body is doing what it normally does when there is danger
How does the endocrine system work?
- glands secrete hormones into the blood
- hormones go around the body and to the cells
- activate receptors on the cells around the body
What role does the endocrine system play in anxiety disorders?
- hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis
- causes release of cortisol
- cortisol causes fight-or-flight responses
What are the main aspects of psychodynamic theories?
- unconscious mind
- childhood development
- what happens to you as a child causes you to have desires that you don’t know about that motivate you
- defence mechanisms
What are the structures of personality and the levels of consciousness they operate at?
- id - unconscious
- ego - conscious and preconscious
- superego - cuts across all three
