module 2 Flashcards
(61 cards)
1
Q
genetics as a biological influence
A
- behaviour, personality, intelligence are polygenic and all of which are influenced by environment
- specific genes/small groups of genes are associated with certain psychological disorders
- genetic factors account for less than 50% of the variability in most psychological disorders
2
Q
p factor study
A
- longitudinal study lasting 20 years, followed 1000 NZ, between 18-38, and continually assessed them and their mental disorders
- 3 factor model fit the data:
1. internalizing vulnerability to depression and anxiety
2. externalizing vulnerability to antisocial and substance use disorders
3. a thought disorder vulnerability for symptoms of psychosis
3
Q
p factor psychopathology
A
can account for the presence or absence of psychiatric symptoms and can give you information about someone’s predisposition for developing all psychopathology
4
Q
high p
A
- worse score of severity and duration of disorder and comorbidity and impairment functioning
- more likely to develop a psychological disorder, have multiple, etc
- not purely genetic but some aspects in your environment can raise or elevate your p factor
5
Q
diathesis
A
- innate predisposition, meaning you are already at risk of developing a disorder
- e.g. biological, sociocultural and psychological factors
6
Q
stressors
A
- triggers the onset of the disorder
- individuals that have a higher diathesis, require less of a stressor and vice versa
7
Q
diathesis-stress model
A
discusses how psychological disorders can be caused by both nature and nurture
8
Q
gene-environment model (bio influence)
A
- genetic vulnerabilities increase probability of experiencing stressful life events that can trigger a disorder
- genes that predispose you to alcoholism can also predispose you seek out certain environments and situations that trigger the onset of a disorder
9
Q
epigenetics and “inheritance” or behaviour (bio influence)
A
- genes appear to be turned on or off by cellular material located on or around the genome
- stress, nutrition, and other factors can affect this epigenome, which gets passed down through generations
- environmental manipulations can override these inherited tendencies towards undesirable behaviours or emotional reactions
- mice & cherry blossom study
10
Q
neuroscience as a biological influence
A
- central nervous system (CNS)
- peripheral nervous system (PNS)
- automatic nervous system (ANS)
11
Q
CNS as a bio influence
A
- brain and spinal cord
- processes information received from all senses and reacts accordingly
- the brain uses 100 billion neurons and neurons involved in psychopathology
12
Q
PNS as a bio influence
A
- somatic nervous system: muscles and voluntary movement; under conscious control
- autonomic nervous system: involuntary bodily functions like heart rate, respiration
- sympathetic nervous system: mobilizes your body to respond to a threat, stress or danger (high HR)
- parasympathetic nervous system: calms you down (low HR)
13
Q
the brain as a bio influence
A
- hindbrain: involved in basic involuntary actions/keeps you alive
- midbrain: where sensory input happens
- forebrain: everything above the midbrain
14
Q
thalamus
A
involved in emotion regulation and behaviors
14
Q
the limbic system as a bio influence
A
- plays a large role in psychopathology, impulse control, emotion regulation and basic drives (sex, hunger)
- contains: thalamus hypothalamus, amygdala and hippocampus
15
Q
hypothalamus
A
four f’s:
1. fighting
2. fleeing
3. feeding
4. mating
16
Q
amygdala
A
agression, sex drive, and detection of threats
17
Q
hippocampus
A
memory
18
Q
neurotransmitters as bio influences
A
- agonist: mimic and/or increase the effects of a NT
- antagonist: inhibit or block the effects of a NT
- reuptake inhibitor: blocks the NT from returning to the axon = pooling in synaptic cleft
19
Q
2 types of NT’s
A
amino acids and monoamines
20
Q
amino acids
A
- glutamate: excitatory, possible link to schizophrenia
- gama aminobutyric acid (GABA): inhibitory, reduces anxiety, aggression
21
Q
monoamines
A
- norepinephrine: fight-or-flight
- serotonin: modd, appetite, sleep, memory
- dopamine: reward & motor control, addictions, exploratory behaviour, pleasure-seeking
22
Q
psychosocial influences - brain structure and function treatment strategy
A
- target either brain or environment and we will be able to determine the cause of the disorder
- effect of treatment does not imply a/the cause but can imply clues
23
Q
psychosocial influences - therapy and brain activity
A
- what’s the best treatment for circuitry, therapy, surgery or drugs?
24
baxter et al. (1992)
- treat individuals with OCD with therapy (CBT), or medication (prozac) and scan the brain to see if it had similar or different facts if brain areas
- found effects on the basal ganglia
- when treatment worked, activity in the basal ganglia decreased in both the CBT and prozac groups, and their brains became more similar to those without OCD (control worked)
- determined therapy and medication can change brain circuitry
25
subsequent research on brain circuitry
- normalizing brain circuitry and treatments of depression, social anxiety, and specific phobias
- therapy works equivalent to medication and sometimes use the same neural pathways in the brain
26
placebo effect
- do our expectations affect our brain functioning?
- treating IBS with either no-treatment, sham treatment (acupuncture), or sham + warm therapist (nice, engaging)
- sham treatment produced better results then no treatment, and when adding the warm therapist also improved results more
- warm therapist increased expectancy of having more alleviation of symptoms
- effectiveness of therapy is attributed to placebo
- acceptation is pain which produces effects in the same areas; anticipating pain relief created by place can cause the brain circuits in the brain related to pain relief to turn on
27
psychosocial interactions with brain function
- psychosocial factors can directly affect neurotransmitter activity
- rhesus monkeys and benzodiazepine
- monkeys that had control, became angry and aggressive after being given the drug; the group with no control had a panic response
- had different effects based on psychological backgrounds of monkeys
- the environment your raise din can affect the nerve connections in your brain
28
mowrers two-process theory of anxiety - behavioural influence
1. fears Acquired through Classical conditioning
- Neutral stimulus (NS) that becomes a Conditioned stimulus (CS) that elicits a fear response
2. Fears Maintained through Operant conditioning
- Negative reinforcement
- Reinforcing escape and avoidance behavior response
29
other theories that can explain phobias (behavi. influences)
- evolutionary theory: predisposed to fear certain things more readily turn others
- social learning theory: fears are modelled to us and that is how we develop our fears
30
learned helplessness
when behaviour has no effect on environment, animals give up trying to cope with stress
31
learned helplessness in humans
- a dysfunctional belief that there is no control over their environment whether or not that is true
- individuals need to do it themselves till they can internalize it; being told to change doesnt work
32
learned optimism
- people faced with considerable stress and difficulty tend to show better psychological functioning if they exhibit some upbeat optimistic attitude
- still acknowledging challenging experiences, the fact that it sucks, and the associated emotion but when you process those emotions while maintaining hope and optimism you will show better long-term psychological functioning
33
social influences
- albert bandura & bobo doll experiment
- people learn from observing other people
34
social cognitive theory
- conceptualizes humans as agents that are capable of shaping their environment and self regulation but multiple factor influence on another that determine human behaviour
- interplay of 3 keys factors that work together to influence an individual's behavior:
1. cognitive/personla factors
2. environmental factors
3. behavioural factors
35
evolutionary influences: learning
- biology influences what/how easily we learn
- through evolution we are highly prepared to learn about certain objects/situations
- this knowledge contributed and enabled to the survival of ancestors
- more readily learn to fear snakes/spiders/heights than flowers/rocks
36
cognitive influences - cognitive science
- cognitive science examines how behavioural and cognitive influences affects our learning and adaptations
- we process, store and act upon information, often without awareness
- evolves implicit memory and implicit cognition
37
implicit memory
acts based upon things that have happened in the past which they can't remember the events of
38
implicit cognition
processes that happen in the brain beyond your awareness; unobservable, unconscious processes
39
emotional influences - emotions
tendency to behave a certain way, elicited by an event and a feeling state, accompanied by a characteristic physiological response
39
physiology of fear (emot. influences)
- fight, flight, freeze response
- fear activates the cardiovascular system to respond to a threat
- pupils dilate to improve vision
- increase blood/oxygen to brain to think/respond quicker
40
emotional phenomena (emot. influences)
- emotion vs. affect vs. mood
- emotion: short-lived, temporary states, lasting from few minutes to several hours in response to an event
- affect: momentary emotional tone that accompanies what we say or do (outward expression)
- mood: enduring states of affect or emotionality
41
components of emotion
1. behaviour: emotional behaviour as a means of communication
2. cognition: appraisals of environment determine the emotion experienced
3. physiology: direct connection between these areas and the eyes allow emotion processing to bypass higher cognitive processes
42
emotions and psychopathology (emot. influences)
- emotions can indirectly impact psychopathology
- suppressing emotional responses over time increases sympathetic nervous system activity, this makes it easier to trigger the system/makes it more sensitive
- emotions can affect cognitive processes b/c how we feel can affect how we appraise something/situations
43
cultural influences
- culture influences symptoms that individuals can present with
- influence form and content of psychopathology and can vary among cultures social groups
- implicit or explicit rules about what abnormal behaviour is acceptable varies between cultures
44
depression in the west vs. east countries
- different symptoms depending on cultures and differences in how emotions are though of
- looked at 3 key areas and how they varied from west to east:
1. emotions can co-occur
2. emotions change
3. emotions arise from context
45
emotions can co-occur - westerners
- tend to approach the world from an analytical perspective and divide the world into mutually exclusive categories
- westerns view happiness and sadness as opposites and tend to avoid sad feelings at all costs
46
emotions can co-occur - easterners
- open to experiencing contradictory emotions at the same time
- always some sadness in any happy occasion and vice versa
- negative experiences are less threatening
- just because they are sad doesn't mean they can also experience happiness in this time
47
emotions change - westerners
- tend to think of emotions as arising from a stable self
- who they are is stable and relatively unchanging
- if you think of yourself as a happy person, you need to discount any negative experiences an anomalies and not who you are
48
emotions change - easterners
- view emotion as well as the self as constantly changing
- negative experiences are less threatening because they view them as temporary
- any feelings are temporary and the self is constantly changing
49
emotions arise from context - westerners
- western societies tend to view emotions as arising from within themselves; stable view of self is less likely to change and therefore emotions don't depend on context
- emotions depend on themselves and arise from within themselves
50
emotions arise from context - easterners
- see emotions as emerging from the situation they are in
- moods can be changed by altering the context
- align thoughts and behaviours with expectations from social groups or distancing themselves from emotions
- better emotion regulation
- negative experiences are less threatening b/c there is always something you can do ti change or later the context you are in
51
culturally specific disorders
- susto: belief of being the subject of black magic/witchcraft that causes the soul to leave the body to explain misfortune, illness, disorder, etc
- voodoo death: documented reports of individuals dying after being hr subject of voodoo magic
52
culture and gender roles
- gender roles and expectations of how gender are to carry themselves can contribute to different rates of psychological disorders by gender
- differences in coping strategies
- study on masculine vs. feminine traits to see if they are risk factors or protective factors for psychopathology
53
rumination vs. activation (cult. influences & gender)
- ruminate: sit, stew and think about the problem repeatedly, and are more likely to engage in self blame; commonly seen in women
- activation: cope by going out and doing something; commonly seen in men
54
masculine vs feminine traits study
- masculine traits: stand up well, never give up, active , decisive
- feminine traits: warm, tender, gentle, affectionate, sympathetic, understanding
- researchers found masculine traits are associated with less depression amongst men and women
- found being androgynous was most protective of individuals against psychopathology
- individuals low in both masculine and feminine traits were most likely to report highest rates of depression
- individuals that conform to typical gender norms may promote distress and further mental health disorders; specifically depression
55
social influences - social relationships
- individuals that have more connections report less symptoms
- social isolation increases risk of death and is linked to smoking and obesity
- perception of loneliness increase psychopathology
- living in cities is related to the likelihood of developing schizophrenia
- individuals that have pets tend to report less mental health issues
- poverty, SES, and oppression are higher among groups and tend to explain elevated levels of psychopathology
56
stigma associated with mental health issues
- loss of friends and family
- loss of employment opportunities
- loss of assistance from professionals
57
developmental influences
- changes over time; no disorder is static, meaning no disorder is unchanging
- must consider all experiences and influences such as early parenting styles and prenatal experience
- environments impact genes and their ability to “come out”
58
androgen exposure - developemental influences
- discovered androgen exposure (sex hormone)
- 2D4D ratio can cause androgen exposure; generally both sexes have a ratio less then one
- however, men generally have even shorter index finger meaning they have a lower ratio
- a lower ratio is associated with things like autism, ADHD, alcohol use, psychopathy (2D4D ratio can predict psychopathology)
- a higher ratio is associated with depression and anxiety
59
equifinality (dev. influence)
- the same symptoms may be explained by different disorders/behaviors
- multiple paths can lead to the same disorder/symptoms
- e.g. individuals could end up with depression because of a series of bad relationships or genetics of childhood abuse
