Unit 7 Flashcards

Question

External Sexual Stimuli

Answer 1

- Individuals of all genders (but not all individuals) become aroused when they see, hear, or read erotic material. - Response to erotic stimuli lessens, or habituates, with repeated exposure. - Sexually explicit materials can have adverse effects. - Depictions of women liking being sexually coerced. - Viewing images of extremely attractive individuals results in lessened evaluations of their own partners.

Answer 2

Launched the first major systematic effort in learning about human sexual behavior in the late 1930s. - Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948). - Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). Survey, rather than an observation of behavior, that included an overrepresentation of college students, urban dwellers, and people in the Northeast.

Answer 3

When one twin identified as gay, the likelihood of the other twin being gay was higher than in the general population.

Answer 4

The size of the anterior hypothalamus is smaller (LeVay, 1991) and anterior commissure is larger (Allen & Gorski, 1992) in gay men.

Answer 5

Exposure to particular hormones in the prenatal environment have been shown to impact sexual orientation.

Answer 6

- Described sexual respose cycle based on data from over 10,000 filmed sexual cycles (with participants either having sex or masterbating) in the 1960s. - Pioneered treatment of sexual dysfunction. - Described the power of female sexuality. - The fact that women did not need a man to orgasm. - The capability for multiple orgasms growing in intensity.

Answer 7

The four stages of sexual responding described by Masters & Johnson - excitement, plateau, orgasm, & resolution.

Answer 8

- Genital areas become engorged with blood. - Vagina expands & secretes lubricant, nipples may enlarge.

Answer 9

- Breathing, pulse, & blood pressure rates continue to increase. - Penis becomes fully engorged with sperm filled liquid at the tip. - Vaginal secretion continues to increase.

Answer 10

- Muscle contractions all over the body. Further increases in breathing, pulse rates (70 bpm to 115 bpm), & blood pressure. - Uterus positions to receive sperm and draw sperm further inward. - Pleasurable feelings of sexual release are the same based on descriptions & brain imaging.

Answer 11

Return to unaroused state as accumulated blood is released. Refractory period - Resting period after orgasm, during which a male cannot achieve another orgasm. Females have a much shorter refractory period allowing them to have multiple orgasms in a row.

Answer 12

A problem that consistently impairs sexual arousal or functioning.

Answer 13

Experience sexual arousal directed in unusual ways (exhibitionism, fetishism).

Answer 14

Erectile dysfunction - unable to have or maintain an erection Premature ejaculation Female orgasmic disorder - distress over infrequently or never experiencing orgasms.

Answer 15

Our need to belong; Seeking to affiliate with others, form close relationships, and even become strongly attached to certain people in enduring ways.

Answer 16

- Evolutionary Benefits. - Acclimation Benefits. - Physiological Benefits. - Emotional Benefits. - The Influence of Needing to Belong. - The Pain of Being Shut Out.

Answer 17

Cooperation enhances human survival. - Our ancestors were better hunters when they worked together. - Specialization in trades and jobs leads to greater production & more leisure time.

Answer 18

Immigrants more “successful” when able to join an existing community. - The 2nd immigrant family has an easier adjustment than the first.

Answer 19

- Feelings of love activate brain reward and safety systems. - Love is a natural painkiller.

Answer 20

- It is helpful to process good and bad emotions with others. - In a study, the happiest university students had “rich and satisfying close relationships”

Answer 21

- Spend a considerable amount of time thinking about actual and hoped-for relationships. - Our need for affiliation results in our conforming to group standards.

Answer 22

- Social isolation increases psychological disorder and physical illness risk. - Constant disruption and lack of strong relationships for foster children can result in negative developmental consequences. - Ostracism: Social exclusion, often used as a tool of control. - Examples - exile, imprisonment, solitary confinement. - Ostracism elicits increased activity in brain areas that also activate in response to physical pain. - Tylenol and advil can lessen social as well as physical pain.

Answer 23

The housing of an adult or juvenile with minimal to rare meaningful contact with other individuals. Those in solitary confinement often experience sensory deprivation and are offered few or no educational, vocational, or rehabilitative programs. Isolation; administrative, protective, or disciplinary segregation; permanent lockdown; maximum security; supermax; security housing; special housing; intensive management; and restrictive housing units.

Answer 24

1. The Not So Good - Early internet users spent less time with friends. - Lonely people tend to spend greater-than-average time online. - Narcissists, self-important, self-focused, and self-promoting people, are especially active on social media sites. 2. The Potentially Problematic - Virtual interaction results in less inhibited communication (more sharing, more harsh or abusive language). 3. The Beneficial - The Internet allows us to connect with communities we otherwise would not have had access to in our local communities.

Answer 25

- Freud believed psychological disorders were the result of unconscious (repressed) fears and conflicts. - He called his approach to mental health treatment as well as his theory which explained human behavior and personality, psychoanalysis. - He used the “talking cure” to treat disorders by making the unconscious, conscious.

Answer 26

- Unconscious - according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. - Freud believed that we repress these unacceptable things into our unconscious. - Without our awareness these repressed ideas powerfully influence us and cause both disordered behavior and shape our personalities.

Answer 27

- On the surface is consciousness, which consists of those thoughts that are the focus of our attention now, and this is seen as the tip of the iceberg. - The preconscious consists of all which can be retrieved from memory. - Like an iceberg, the most important part of the mind (the unconscious) is the part you cannot see. - The id, ego, and superego (what Freud called “the psychic apparatus”) are not physical areas within the brain, but hypothetical conceptualizations of important mental functions.

Answer 28

- Id - a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. - Operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification - Ego - the largely conscious "executive" part of personality that mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. - Operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. - Superego - the part of personality that represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations.

Answer 29

Freud’s beliefs: - Develops during childhood. - Psychosexual stages: - The childhood stages of development that during which, according to Freud, the id’s pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous (pleasurable) zones. - Problems moving from one stage to the next lie at the heart of adult personality - Fixation - a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage in which conflicts were unresolved.

Answer 30

Oral (0 - 18 months) - Pleasure centers on the mouth - sucking, biting, chewing. Conflict - Weaned from breastfeeding/bottle. Resolution - Leads to comfort & trust. Fixation (personality types) Oral optimists (over-indulged) - Weaned too late. - Gullible, manipulative & prone to admiration). Oral pessimists (deprived) - Weaned too early. - Suspicious, passive, prone to envy.

Answer 31

Anal (18 - 36 months) - Pleasure focuses on the bowel & bladder elimination. Conflict - Coping with demands for control through potty training. Resolution - Leads to competence & productivity. Fixation (personality types) Anal-expulsive - Inconsistent toilet training. - Generous, untidy, chaotic. Anal-retentive - Early or harsh toilet training. - Stingy, meticulous, obsessed with order, punctuality, & precision.

Answer 32

Phallic (3 - 6) - Pleasure zone is the genitals. Conflict - Coping with inestuous sexual feelings. Resolution: Identification - The process which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos. Boys in the Phallic Stage Oedipus Complex: - According to Freud, a boy’s sexual desire toward his mother & feeling of jealousy & hatred for the rival father. Castration Anxiety - The boy fears that his father will find out about his feelings and will damage his genital organ. (Little boy realizes that he has a penis and that he’s a man. Realized his mom is a woman & has a vagina. Boy wants to sexually possess his mom. Realizes his dad does sexually possess his mom. Boy becomes jealous of his rival father. Develops castration anxiety. Resolved by the boy realizing he can’t sexually possess his mom so he learns to be like his dad. Superego forms as what is right for me to do, especially as a man. Kernel of truth. This age is big for gender typing. Kids learn boys & girls things. Learn the relationship between genitals & sex. Identification occurs, but without the complex first because same gender parents are some of the most important same gender models. Mechanism for it happening is social learning & operant conditioning).

Answer 33

Phallic (3 - 6) - Pleasure zone is the genitals. Conflict - Coping with inestuous sexual feelings. Resolution: Identification - The process which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos. Girls in the Phallic Stage Electra Complex: - A parallel complex to the Oedipus complex for girls where they have sexual desire towards their father & jealousy & hatred for their mother. Penis Envy - A girl experiences anxiety upon realizing she does not have a penis. (Little girl realizes that he has a vagina and NOT a penis. Has penis envy and is angry with her mother for not giving her a penis. Then, she moves on to sexually possessing her father (if she can’t have her own penis, she wants his). IDENTIFICATION: Resolved by the girl realizing she can’t sexually possess her father so she learns to be like her mother. Superego forms as what is right for me to do, especially as a woman. Freud thought women had weaker superegos. Kernel of truth. This age is big for gender typing. Kids learn boys & girls things. Learn the relationship between genitles & sex. Identification occurs, but without the complex first because same sex parents are some of the most important same-sex gender models. Mechanism for it happening is social learning & operant conditioning).

Answer 34

Failure to resolve the phallic stage results in either... Fails to comply with societal rules - Recklessness, promiscuity, vanity, over-ambitious. Complies with societal rules for fear of punishment - Isolation, self-hatred, chastity.

Answer 35

Latency (6 to puberty) - A phase of dormant sexual feelings Resolution: - Develop social skills, values, and relationships outside the family. Fixation - Immaturity & lack of fulfilling relationships. Genital (puberty on) - Maturation of sexual interests. Resolution - Well adjusted, mature, able to love and be loved.

Answer 36

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego’s protective methods reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. Controlling the id’s sexual & aggressive impulses causes anxiety. Ego to use defense mechanisms to protect from anxiety.

Answer 37

- In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts feelings & memories. - Enables other defense mechanisms.

Answer 38

- Repression. - Denial. - Displacement. - Projection. - Reaction Formation. - Regression. - Rationalization. - Sublimation.

Answer 39

Not accepting the ego-threatening truth.

Answer 40

Redirecting one's feelings toward another person or object

Answer 41

Believing that the feelings one has toward someone else are actually held by the other person and directed at oneself (disguising one's own threatening impulses by attributing them to others). (Basically being an unconscious hypocrite).

Answer 42

Expressing the opposite of how one truly feels.

Answer 43

Returning to an earlier, comforting form of behavior.

Answer 44

Coming up with a beneficial result of an undesirable occurrence (offering self-justifying explanation).

Answer 45

Channeling one's frustration toward a different goal. (Viewed as particularly healthy).

Answer 46

Based on Freud’s conclusions from clinical experience vs research experiments. Retrospective rather than predictive.

Answer 47

Psychoanalysis & Psychoanalytic theories = Freud, not used today. Psychodynamics & Psychodynamic theories = Post-Freud, still used today. (While psychoanalysis is concerned with the unconscious and dreams, psychodynamics is concerned with the human personality and mind as well).

Answer 48

- Free association - a method exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. - Projective tests - a personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one’s inner dynamics. - Thematic apperception test - people express their inner feelings or interests through stories they make up about ambiguous scenes. - Rorschach inkblot test - a series of ten inkblots; seek to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots. - Dream analysis - the interpretation of dreams to determine their underlying meanings.

Answer 49

Believed that social not sexual tensions are important. Adler - Developed idea of birth order theory and inferiority complex. Horney - Childhood anxiety triggers our desire for love & security. - Disagreed with Freud’s view that women have weaker superegos and penis envy. Jung - Collective unconscious - a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history. Erikson

Answer 50

Personality - an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. Self - the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Theories of the self and research on the self were advanced by humanistic psychologists and modern social-cognitive psychologists.

Answer 51

Humanistic psychology - a psychological perspective that emphasizes the growth potential of people. Important theorists: Maslow & Rogers. - Views personality with this focus on ways people strive for self-determination and self-realization.

Answer 52

Self-concept - all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question “Who am I?” - Our understanding of our self.

Answer 53

Humanistic psychologists assess personality by asking clients to compare their actual self (how they would describe themselves now) to their ideal self (how they would ideally like themselves to be). If the ideal self and actual self are nearly alike, the self-concept is positive. If the ideal self and the actual self are very different, the self-concept is negative. - Actual self may reflect an overly negative view or the ideal self may represent an unachievable goal.

Answer 54

Abraham Maslow, a humanistic psychologist, proposed that we are motivated by a hierarchy of needs. If our physiological needs are met, we become concerned with personal safety, If we achieve a sense of security, we then seek belonging, With our love needs satisfied, we seek self-esteem, Having achieved self-esteem, we ultimately seek self-actualization and self-transcendence. Self-actualization - the process of fulfilling our potential.

Answer 55

Individualism - giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications. - Individualistic cultures include cultures in North America, Western Europe, Australia & New Zealand. Collectivism - giving priority to the goals of one’s group (often one’s extended family or work group) and defining one’s identity accordingly. - Collectivist cultures include cultures in Asia, Central America, South America, and Africa.

Answer 56

The influence of humanistic psychology is central to counseling and educational psychology. Critics claim that humanistic psychology... - Is vague and subjective. - Encourages individualism.

Answer 57

A psychological perspective that views behavior as influenced by the (reciprocal) interaction between people’s traits and their social context. - Reaction to/expansion of behavioral approach to personality development.

Answer 58

Reciprocal Determinism - the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

Answer 59

Social cognitive psychologists separate self-esteem from self-efficacy. - Self-esteem: one’s feelings of high or low self-worth. - Self-efficacy: one’s sense of competence and effectiveness.

Answer 60

This focus on our selves can have consequences for our behavior. - An extreme version of self-focus is narcissism (excessive self-love and self-absorption). Sometimes our self-focused perspective makes us more vulnerable. - Spotlight effect - overestimating others’ noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us). Sometimes our self-focused perspective protects our self-esteem. - Self-serving bias - a readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Answer 61

- Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Theories of Personality. - Trait Theories of Personality. - Humanistic Theories of Personality. - Behaviorism Theories of Personality. - Social Cognitive Theories of Personality.

Answer 62

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

Answer 63

State Temporary, situation based. - Angry, upset, frustrated. (States are like the weather). Trait Enduring, life-long. - Irritable, anger-prone. (Traits are like the climate).

Answer 64

- Is our outward behavior indicative of stable personality traits or situational factors? - In social psychology, this is examined with the fundamental attribution error (the tendency to make dispositional attributions instead of situational attributions for other people's behavior).

Answer 65

Personality Inventories - A questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings & behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits. Empirically (Scientifically) Derived Test - A test developed by testing a pool of items & then selecting those that discriminate between two groups. - Gives personality inventories their validity. Factor Analysis - A statistical procedure used to identify clusters of test-items that tap basic components of a concept. - Trait theorists determine what dimensions to use on their personality inventories based on factor analysis.

Answer 66

Tested their idea that personality varies on two or three dimensions (extraversion/introversion & emotionality).

Answer 67

Validity - the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. Reliability - the extent to which a test yields consistent results.

Answer 68

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) - The most widely researched & clinically used of all personality tests. - Assesses scores on 10 different scales including depressive tendencies, masculinity-femininity, and introversion-extroversion. Big Five Personality Traits - Developed by Paul Costa & Robert McCrae. - Currently psychology’s best approximation of the basic trait dimensions of personality. - Consistent across cultures. - Stable over time. - Heritable. - Influences behavior & language. - OCEAN - Openness (practical or imaginative). - Conscientiousness (disorganized or organized). - Extraversion (reserved or sociable). - Agreeableness (uncooperative or helpful). - Neuroticism (calm or anxious).