discussions

these are 12 discussions each one should be a minimum of 75 words, so total 900 words

DISCUSSION 1

What is
emerging adulthood
? What are the biological, psychological, social factors that influence this period of development?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end

.

DISCUSSION 2

Sexual orientation is defined as, “an enduring sexual attraction towards members of either one’s own sex (homosexual orientation), the other sex (heterosexual orientation), or both sexes (bisexual orientation)” (Myers & DeWall, 2019, p. 178).

After studying the scientific evidence in the section on sexual orientation in your textbook (Myers & DeWall, 2019, pages 178 – 183), what is your conclusion/position about the origin (causes) of differing sexual orientations?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end.

DISCUSSION 3

A classmate tells you that he has purchased audiotapes that he listens to through headphones while he sleeps at night that will help him lose weight, stop smoking, and improve his memory. He also tells you he believes in the scientific validity of extrasensory perception (ESP). After studying chapter six, what would you tell him about the scientific evidence relevant to his two claims? Does the scientific evidence support his use of the audiotapes to change himself and his belief in ESP?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end

DISCUSSION 4

Your neighbors say that they don’t believe spanking their children (corporal punishment) or allowing them to watch violent movies and play violent video games does any harm. Respond to the following two questions: 1) According to the scientific evidence in Chapter 7, are your neighbors correct in their assumption about the harmlessness of spanking and exposure to violent media? 2) After your study of Chapter 7, what is your own conclusion/position on the use of corporal punishment with your own children and whether you would restrict your children from viewing violent media (movies, video games, etc.)?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end

DISCUSSION 5

According to the scientific evidence presented in Chapter 8 (and other chapters in the textbook), how likely is it that accurate memories of childhood sexual abuse can be repressed and then recovered?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end.

DISCUSSION 6

What does the scientific evidence presented in Chapter 9 suggest about the relative contributions of
nature
(genetics/biology) and nurture
(environment, social learning) in the origin of human intelligence?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end.

DISCUSSION 7

What does a polygraph machine (commonly referred to as a “lie detector”) actually measure and, following your study of chapter ten, how scientifically valid are they for detecting lies? Does the scientific evidence support the use of polygraph testing?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end

DISCUSSION 8

Does stress directly cause illness? Of the stress reduction strategies described in Chapter 11, which have you tried? Did they help you reduce and/or manage your personal stress?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end.

DISCUSSION 9

What roles do the internet and the various forms of social media play in creating and reinforcing
group polarization
? How might people guard against the
confirmation bias
and
group polarization
?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end.

DISCUSSION 10

Take the free

Big Five Personality Test

. Do you think these results accurately reflect your personality as you see it? Why or why not?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end.

DISCUSSION 11

According to data presented in Chapter 14, do psychological disorders (mental illness) increase the probability that a person suffering with them might act out violently? Can mental health professionals accurately predict who is likely to do harm?

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end.

DISCUSSION 12

If you or a loved one were in need of professional mental health care, what type of mental health professional and what type of treatment would you prefer to receive? Explain your reasons why.

Threads must be a minimum of 75 words in length and contain at least one correctly formatted in-text citation of relevant supportive scientific evidence from the textbook and a correctly formatted full textbook reference at the end.

5/16/2019

1

Learning

Chapter

7

EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY DAVID G. MYERS | C. NATHAN DEWALL

Chapter Overview

• Basic Learning Concepts and Classical
Conditioning

• Operant Conditioning

• Biology, Cognition, and Learning

How Do We Learn? (part 1)

• Learning: Process of acquiring through
experience new and relatively enduring
information or behaviors

• Associative learning: Learning that certain
events occur together. The events may be two
stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a
response and its consequences (as in operant
conditioning).

How Do We Learn? (part 2)

• Stimulus: An event or situation that evokes a response.
• Conditioning: The process of learning associations,

which takes two main forms:
• Classical conditioning: We associate stimuli that we do not

control, and we automatically respond (exhibiting respondent
behaviors).

• Operant conditioning: We associate a response (our
behavior) and its consequence (producing operant behaviors).

• Cognitive learning: The acquisition of mental
information, whether by observing events, by watching
others, or through language.
• Observational learning: A form of cognitive learning that lets

us learn from others’ experiences.

Classical Conditioning (part 1)

• Ivan Pavlov’s early twentieth-century
experiments are psychology’s most famous
research.
• Classical conditioning: Type of learning in which

one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate
events.

• Behaviorism:
• Psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2)

studies behavior without reference to mental processes.

• Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not
with (2).

Classical Conditioning (part 2)

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Classical Conditioning (part 3)

• Neutral stimulus (NS): In classical conditioning, a
stimulus that elicits no response before
conditioning.

• Unconditioned response (UR): In classical
conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring
response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned
stimulus (such as food in the mouth).

• Unconditioned stimulus (US): In classical
conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally—
naturally and automatically—triggers an
unconditioned response.

Classical Conditioning (part 4)

• Conditioned response (CR): In classical
conditioning, a learned response to a previously
neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus.

• Conditioned stimulus (CS): In classical
conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus, that,
after association with an unconditioned stimulus,
comes to trigger a conditioned response.

• For three decades, Pavlov’s research
demonstrated associative learning, exploring five
major conditioning processes: acquisition,
extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization,
and discrimination.

Classical Conditioning (part 5)

• Acquisition
• Initial stage
• When one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned

stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the

conditioned response

• Extinction
• Diminishing of a conditioned response
• Occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned

stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus

• Spontaneous recovery
• Reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished

conditioned response

Idealized Curve of Acquisition, Extinction, and
Spontaneous Recovery

Classical Conditioning (part 6)

•

Generalization

• Tendency, once a response

has been conditioned, for
stimuli similar to the
conditioned stimulus to elicit
similar responses

• Discrimination
• Learned ability to distinguish

between a conditioned
stimulus (which predicts the
unconditioned stimulus) and
other irrelevant stimuli

Generalization

• Pavlov
demonstrated
generalization by
attaching miniature
vibrators to various
parts of a dog’s
body.

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Pavlov’s Legacy

• The consensus among psychologists is that
classical conditioning is a basic form of learning.

• Why should we care that dogs can be conditioned
to the sound of a tone? Many other responses to
many other stimuli can be classically conditioned in
many other organisms.

• Pavlov demonstrated how a learning process can
be studied objectively.

• Classical conditioning is a basic form of learning
that applies to all species.

Applications of Classical Conditioning
(part 1)

• Pavlov’s principles are used to influence human
health and well-being:
• Areas of consciousness
• Motivation
• Emotion
• Health
• Psychological disorders
• Therapy

• Addicts are counseled to avoid stimuli (for example,
people and settings) that may trigger cravings.

• Pairing a particular taste with a drug that influences
immune responses may eventually lead to immune
response from the taste alone.

Applications of Classical Conditioning
(part 2)

• Pavlov’s work provided a basis for Watson’s
ideas that human emotions and behaviors,
though biologically influenced, are mainly a
bundle of conditioned responses.

• Watson applied classical conditioning principles
in his studies of “Little Albert” to demonstrate
how specific fears might be conditioned.

• Watson boasted that he could take any healthy
infant and train the child for any career
specialization, regardless of any inborn traits,
but later admitted to “going beyond his facts.”

Operant Conditioning (part 1)

• Operant conditioning: A type of learning in
which behavior is strengthened if followed by a
reinforcer or diminished if followed by a
punisher.

• Operant behavior: Behavior that operates on
the environment to produce rewarding or
punishing stimuli.

• In contrast, classical conditioning involves
respondent behavior—automatic responses to a
stimulus.

Operant Conditioning (part 2)

• Behavior operates on the environment to
produce rewarding or punishing stimuli.

• Organisms associate their own actions with
consequences.

• Actions followed by reinforcement increase;
those followed by punishments often decrease.

Skinner’s Experiments (part 1)

• B. F. Skinner (1904–1990): Modern
behaviorism’s most influential and controversial
figure
• Expanded on Edward L. Thorndike’s law of effect,

which states that rewarded behavior tends to recur
• Developed behavioral technology that revealed

principles of behavior control
• Designed and used an operant chamber (Skinner

box) for experiments that included a bar (a lever) that
an animal presses (or a key or disc that the animal
pecks) to release a reward of food or water, as well
as a device that records these responses.

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Skinner’s Experiments (part 2) Skinner’s Experiments (part 3)

• By shaping animals’
natural behaviors,
Skinner was able to teach
these animals unnatural
behaviors (such as
teaching pigeons to walk
in a figure 8, play Ping-
Pong, and keep a missile
on course by pecking at a
screen target).

• Reinforcement: Any
event that strengthens the
behavior it follows.

Shaping Behavior

• Everyday behaviors are continually reinforced
and shaped.

• Shaping: Gradually guiding behavior toward
closer and closer approximations of the desired
behavior.

• With the method of successive approximations,
responses that are increasingly closer to the
final desired behavior are rewarded; all other
responses are ignored.

Operant Conditioning: Types of Reinforcers

• Positive reinforcement: Increases behaviors
by presenting positive reinforcers.
• A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when

presented after a response, strengthens the
response.

• Negative reinforcement: Increases behaviors
by stopping or reducing negative stimuli.
• A negative reinforce is any stimulus that, when

removed after a response, strengthens the response.
(Note that it is not punishment.)

Ways to Increase Behavior

Operant Conditioning Term Description Examples

Positive reinforcement Add a desirable stimulus Pet a dog that comes
when you call it; pay
someone for work done.

Negative reinforcement Remove an aversive
stimulus

Take painkillers to end
pain; fasten seatbelt to
end loud beeping.

Operant Conditioning: Types of Reinforcers

• Primary and conditioned reinforcers
• Primary reinforcer: An unlearned, innately reinforcing

stimulus, such as one that satisfies biological needs

• Conditioned (secondary): A stimulus that gains
power through association with primary reinforcer

• Immediate and delayed reinforcers
• Immediate: Occurs immediately after a behavior

• Delayed: Involves a time delay between the desired
response and delivery of the reward

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Reinforcement Schedules (part 1)

• Reinforcement schedule: A pattern that
defines how often a desired response will be
reinforced

• Continuous reinforcement schedule:
Reinforcing the desired response every time it
occurs

• Partial (intermittent) reinforcement
schedule: Reinforcing a response only part of
the time; results in slower acquisition of a
response but much greater resistance to
extinction than does continuous reinforcement

Reinforcement Schedules (part 2)

• Fixed-ratio schedule: Reinforcing a response
only after a specified number of responses

• Variable-ratio schedule: Reinforcing a
response after an unpredictable number of
responses

• Fixed-interval schedule: Reinforcing a
response only after a specified time has
elapsed

• Variable-interval schedule: Reinforcing a
response at unpredictable time intervals

Intermittent Reinforcement Schedules Reinforcement Schedules (part 3)

Fixed Variable

Ratio Every so many: reinforcement after
every nth behavior, such as buy 10
coffees, get 1 free, or pay workers
per product unit produced

After an unpredictable number:
reinforcement after a random number
of behaviors, as when playing slot
machines or fly fishing

Interval Every so often: reinforcement for
behavior after a fixed time, such as
Tuesday discount prices

Unpredictably often: reinforcement for
behavior after a random amount of time,
as when checking our phone for
a message

Punishment (part 1)

• Punishment administers an undesirable
consequence or withdraws something desirable in
an attempt to decrease the frequency of a behavior
(e.g., a child’s disobedience).

• Positive punishment: Presenting a negative
consequence after an undesired behavior is
exhibited, making that behavior less likely to
happen in the future.

• Negative punishment: Removing a desired
stimulus after a particular undesired behavior is
exhibited, resulting in reducing that behavior in the
future.

Punishment (part 2)

Fixed Variable
Ratio Every so many: reinforcement after
every nth behavior, such as buy 10
coffees, get 1 free, or pay workers
per product unit produced
After an unpredictable number:
reinforcement after a random number
of behaviors, as when playing slot
machines or fly fishing
Interval Every so often: reinforcement for
behavior after a fixed time, such as
Tuesday discount prices
Unpredictably often: reinforcement for
behavior after a random amount of time,
as when checking our phone for
a message

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Four Major Drawbacks of Physical
Punishment

• The punished behavior is suppressed, but not
forgotten. This temporary state may (negatively)
reinforce parents’ punishing behavior.

• Punishment teaches discrimination among
situations—perhaps only selectively decreasing
the undesired behavior.

• Punishment can teach fear.
• Physical punishment may increase aggression

by modeling violence as a way to cope with
problems.

Applications of Operant Conditioning

• At school: Electronic technologies and adaptive
learning software used in teaching and learning
have helped realize Skinner’s goal of individually
paced, customized instruction with immediate
feedback.

• In sports: Behavioral methods are used to shape
behavior in athletic performance.

• At work: Rewards have been successfully used to
increase productivity and skill development.

• At home: Basic rules of shaping are used in
parenting, and to reinforce our own desired
behaviors.

Reinforcing Desired Behaviors and
Extinguishing Undesired Behaviors

• State a realistic goal in measurable terms.

• Decide how, when, and where you will work
toward your goal.

• Monitor how often you engage in your desired
behavior.

• Reinforce the desired behavior.

• Reduce the rewards gradually.

Contrasting Classical and Operant
Conditioning

Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning

Basic idea Learning associations between events we do
not control.

Learning associations between our
behavior and its consequences.

Response Involuntary, automatic. Voluntary, operates on environment.

Acquisition Associating events; NS is paired with US and
becomes CS.

Associating a response with a
consequence (reinforcer or punisher).

Extinction CR decreases when CS is repeatedly
presented alone.

Responding decreases when
reinforcement stops.

Spontaneous
recovery

The reappearance, after a rest period, of an
extinguished CR.

The reappearance, after a rest period,
of an extinguished response.

Generalization The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to
the CS.

Responses learned in one situation
occurring in other, similar situations.

Discrimination Learning to distinguish between a CS and
other stimuli that do not signal a US.

Learning that some responses, but not
others, will be reinforced.

Biology, Cognition, and Learning
Biological Limits on Classical Conditioning
(part 1)

• Biological constraints: Evolved biological
tendencies that predispose animals’ behavior and
learning, making certain behaviors easier to learn
than others.
• Example: Garcia and Koelling’s taste-aversion research

• Animals, including humans, seem biologically
prepared to learn some associations rather than
others.

• Conditioning is stronger when the CS is
ecologically relevant.

• The genetic predisposition to associate a CS with
an US that follows predictably and immediately is
adaptive.

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Biological Limits on Classical Conditioning
(part 2)

• Nature limits species’ capacity for operant
conditioning.

• Biological constraints predispose organisms to
learn associations that are naturally adaptive.

• Instinctive drift occurs as animals revert to
biologically predisposed patterns.

Cognition and Classical Conditioning
(part 1)

• Mental information that guides behavior is
acquired through cognitive learning.

• Animals learn the predictability of an event
(Rescorla & Wagner, 1972).

• The more predictable the association between a
neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus,
the stronger the conditioned response.

• It’s as if the animal learns an expectancy—an
awareness of how likely it is that the US will
occur.

Cognition and Classical Conditioning
(part 2)

• Skinner acknowledged the biological underpinnings
of behavior but has been criticized for discounting
the importance of cognition.

• Evidence of cognitive processes
• Animal response on a fixed-interval reinforcement

schedule
• Development of cognitive maps in rats (latent learning

that becomes evident only when there is an incentive to
demonstrate it)

• Intrinsic motivation: A desire to perform a behavior
effectively for its own sake

• Extrinsic motivation: A desire to perform a behavior to
receive promised rewards or avoid threatened
punishment

Cognition and Classical Conditioning
(part 3)

Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning

Biological influences Natural predispositions constrain
what stimuli and responses can
easily be associated.

Organisms most easily
learn behaviors similar to
their natural behaviors;
unnatural behaviors
instinctively drift back
toward natural ones.

Cognitive influences Organisms develop an
expectation that a CS signals the
arrival of a US.

Organisms develop an
expectation that a response
will be reinforced or
punished; they also exhibit
latent learning, without
reinforcement.

Learning by Observation

• Observational learning: Higher animals,
especially humans, learn without direct
experience by watching and imitating others.

• Albert Bandura is the pioneering researcher of
observational learning
• His Bobo doll experiment showed direct imitation by

children of adult behavior.

• Modeling: The process of observing and
imitating a specific behavior.
• Vicarious reinforcement and vicarious punishment

are experienced by watching models.

The Bobo Doll Experiment

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Mirrors and Imitation in the Brain

• Mirror neurons: Frontal lobe neurons that some
scientists believe fire when a person performs
certain actions or observes another doing so;
provide a neural basis for everyday imitation and
observational learning.

• The brain’s mirroring of another’s action may
enable imitation and empathy.

• In humans, imitation is pervasive: So strong is the
human predisposition to learn from watching adults
that children will overimitate, copying even
irrelevant adult actions.

• The brain response to observing others makes
emotions contagious.

Experienced and Imagined Pain in the Brain

Applications of Observational Learning
(part 1)

• Prosocial effects
• Prosocial modeling of behavior can have prosocial

effects.
• Behavior modeling enhances learning of communication,

sales, and customer service skills in new employees.
• Modeling nonviolent, helpful behavior prompts similar

behavior in others.
• Research across seven countries showed that viewing

prosocial media increased later helping behavior.
• Socially responsive toddlers tend to have a strong

internalized conscience as preschoolers.
• Models are most effective when they include consistent

actions and words.

Applications of Observational Learning
(part 2)

• Antisocial effects
• Abusive parents may have aggressive children.

• Watching TV and videos may teach children:
• Bullying is an effective tool for controlling others.

• Free and easy sex doesn’t have later consequences.

• Men should be tough; women should be gentle.

• The violence-viewing effect is demonstrated when
viewing media violence triggers violent behavior.

• Watching cruelty may foster indifference.

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1

Memory

Chapter

8

EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY DAVID G. MYERS | C. NATHAN DEWALL

Chapter Overview

•

Studying and

Encoding Memories

• Storing and Retrieving Memories

• Forgetting, Memory Construction, and

Improving Memory

Studying and Encoding Memories

• Memory
• Persistence of learning over time through the

encoding, storage, and retrieval of information

• Evidence of memory
• Recalling information

• Recognizing it

• Relearning it more easily on a later attempt

Measuring Retention

• Three measures of memory retention:
• Recall: A measure of memory in which the person

must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-
in-the-blank test.

• Recognition: A measure of memory in which the
person identifies items previously learned, as on a
multiple-choice test.

• Relearning: A measure of memory that assesses
the amount of time saved when learning material
again.

Ebbinghaus’ Retention Curve

• Ebbinghaus found that
the more times he
practiced a list of
nonsense syllables on
day 1, the less time he
required to relearn it on
day 2. Speed of
relearning is one measure
of memory retention
(Baddeley, 1982).

• Tests of recognition and
of time spent relearning
demonstrate that we
remember more than we
can recall.

Memory Models (part 1)

• Psychologists use memory models to think and
communicate about memory.
• Information-processing model

• Compares human memory to computer operations

• Involves three processes: encoding, storage, and
retrieval

• Connectionism information-processing model
• Focuses on multitrack, parallel processing—the processing

of many aspects of a problem simultaneously

• Views memories as products of interconnected neural
networks

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Memory Models (part 2)

• Three processing stages in the classic
Atkinson-Shiffrin (1968) model:
1. We record to-be-remembered information as a

fleeting sensory memory, the immediate, very brief
recording of sensory information.

2. We then process information into short-term
memory (activated memory that holds a few items
briefly), where we encode it through rehearsal.

3. Finally, information moves into long-term memory,
the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of
the memory system of knowledge, skills, and
experiences, for later retrieval.

A Modified Three-Stage Processing Model
of Memory

Memory Models (part 3)

• Working memory
• Stresses the active processing occurring in the

second memory stage

• Is a newer understanding of short-term memory that
adds conscious, active processing of incoming
auditory and visual-spatial information, and of
information retrieved from long-term memory

• In Baddeley’s (2002) model, this focused processing
is handled by a central executive.

Encoding Memories

• Dual-Track Memory: Effortful Versus Automatic
Processing
• Explicit memory (declarative memory): Memory of

facts and experiences that one can consciously know
and “declare.” We encode explicit memories through
conscious effortful processing.

• Implicit memory (nondeclarative memory):
Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned
associations independent of conscious recollection.
We encode implicit memories through automatic
processing, without our awareness.

Automatic Processing and Implicit Memories
(part 1)

• Implicit memories include procedural memory
for automatic skills and classically conditioned
associations among stimuli

• Information is automatically processed about:
• Space

• Time

• Frequency

Automatic Processing and Implicit Memories
(part 2)

• Automatic processing happens effortlessly.

• With experience and practice, learned skills
such as reading and driving become automatic.

• Many skills are developed this way.

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Effortful Processing and Explicit Memories

• Sensory memory
• Sensory memory feeds

our active working
memory, recording
momentary images of
scenes or echoes of
sounds.

• Two types of sensory
memory are iconic
memory and echoic
memory.

Sensory Memory

• Sensory memory:
First stage in forming
explicit memories

• Iconic memory:
Picture-image memory
of visual stimuli lasting
no more than a few
tenths of a second

• Echoic memory:
Sound memory of
auditory stimuli; can be
recalled within 3 or 4
seconds

Short-Term Memory Capacity

• Short-term memory holds a few items briefly (such
as the seven digits of a phone number while
dialing) before the information is stored or
forgotten.

• George Miller (1956) proposed the magical number
7: People can store about seven bits of information
(give or take two).

• Baddeley and colleagues (1975) have confirmed
that without distraction, we can recall about seven
digits or about six letters or five words.

• Capacity varies by age and distractions at the time
of memory tasks.

Effortful Processing Strategies

• Chunking: Organization of items into familiar,
manageable units; often occurs automatically.

• Mnemonics: Memory aids, especially
techniques that use vivid imagery and
organizational devices.
• The peg-word system harnesses our superior visual-

imagery skill.

• Hierarchies: Organization of items into a few
broad categories that are divided and
subdivided into narrower concepts and facts.

Distributed Practice

• Spacing effect: Encoding is more effective when it is
spread over time.
• Distributed practice produces better long-term retention than is

achieved through massed study or practice.
• Massed practice produces speedy short-term learning and

feelings of confidence, but leads to quick forgetting.
• Testing effect:

• Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading,
information.

• Repeated self-testing (using the Retrieve It and Testing Effect
questions in this text, for example) does more than assess
learning: It improves it.

• Practice may not make perfect, but smart practice—
occasional rehearsal with self-testing—makes for
lasting memories.

Levels of Processing

• Verbal information is processed at different
levels, which affects long-term retention.
• Shallow processing encodes on a very basic level

(a word’s letters) or on a more intermediate level (a
word’s sound).

• Deep processing encodes semantically, based on
word meaning.

• The deeper (more meaningful) the processing,
the better our retention.

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Making Material Personally Meaningful

• New information is processed easily when it is
meaningful or related to our experience.

• Ebbinghaus estimated that learning meaningful
material requires one-tenth of the effort compared
with learning nonsense material.

• We have especially good recall for information we
can relate to ourselves—a tendency referred to as
the self-reference effect.

• The amount of information remembered depends
both on the time spent in learning it and on your
making it meaningful for deep processing.

Memory Storage

• Our capacity for
storing long-term
memories is
essentially limitless.

• This is contrary to the
belief that we can add
more items only if we
discard old ones.

Retaining Information in the Brain (part 1)

• Despite the brain’s vast storage capacity, we do
not store information as libraries store their
books, in single, precise locations.

• Instead, brain networks encode, store, and
retrieve the information that forms our complex
memories. That is, the brain distributes the
components of a memory across a network of
locations in the brain.

• Some of the brain cells that fired when we
experienced something fire again when we
recall it.

Retaining Information in the Brain (part 2)

• We have two conscious memory systems:
• Semantic memory: Explicit memory of facts and general

knowledge

• Episodic memory: Explicit memory of personally
experienced events.

• Hippocampus: A neural center located in the limbic
system, which registers and temporarily holds
elements of explicit memories before moving them
to other brain regions for long-term storage

• Memory consolidation: Neural storage of long-
term memories

Explicit-Memory System: The Hippocampus

• Explicit memories
for facts and
episodes are
processed in the
hippocampus
(orange structures)
and fed to other
brain regions for
storage.

Implicit Memory System: Cerebellum and
Basal Ganglia

• The cerebellum plays an important role in forming
and storing implicit memories created by classical
conditioning.

• The basal ganglia—deep brain structures involved
in motor movement—facilitate formation of our
procedural memories for skills.

• Infantile amnesia
• Conscious memory of the first three years is blank.
• Command of language and a well-developed

hippocampus is needed for such memory.
• The hippocampus is one of the last brain structures to

mature.

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The Amygdala, Emotions, and Memory

• Excitement or stress triggers hormone production
and provokes the amygdala (two emotion-
processing clusters in the limbic system) to engage
memory.

• Emotions often persist with or without conscious
awareness.

• Emotional arousal causes an outpouring of stress
hormones; the hormones lead to activity in the
brain’s memory-forming areas.

• Flashbulb memories—clear memories of
emotionally significant moments or events—occur
via emotion-triggered hormonal changes and
rehearsal.

Key Memory Structures in the Brain

Synaptic Changes

• Long-term potentiation (LTP)
• Increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid

stimulation

• After LTP, the brain will not erase memories

• Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory

• Kandel and Schwartz (1982):
• Observed synaptic changes during learning in the

neurons of the California sea slug, Aplysia.

• Pinpointed changes in sea slugs’ neural connections:
With learning, more serotonin is released and cell
efficiency is increased.

Aplysia

• Aplysia, the
California sea slug,
which neuroscientist
Eric Kandel studied
for 45 years, has
increased our
understanding of
the neural basis of
learning and
memory.

Doubled Receptor Sites Our Two Memory Systems

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Memory Retrieval: Retrieval Cues

• Memories are held in storage by a web of
associations.

• Retrieval cues serve as anchor points for pathways
to memory suspended in this web.

• When you encode into memory the name of the
person sitting next to you in class, you associate it
with other bits of information about your
surroundings, mood, seating position, and so on.

• The best retrieval cues come from associations
formed at the time a memory is encoded.

• Priming: Activation, often unconsciously, of
particular associations in memory.

Retrieval Cues (part 1)

Priming
• After seeing or

hearing rabbit, we are
later more likely to
spell the spoken word
hair/hare as h-a-r-e
(Bower, 1986).

• Associations
unconsciously
activate related
associations.

Retrieval Cues (part 2)

• Context-dependent memory
• Recall of specific information improves when the

contexts present at encoding and retrieval are the
same.

• Cues and contexts specific to a particular memory
will be most effective in helping recall.

Retrieval Cues (part 3)

• State-dependent memory
• Emotions that accompany good or bad events

become retrieval cues.

• Mood-congruent memory: The tendency to recall
experiences that are consistent with one’s current
good or bad mood.

• Passions are exaggerated:
• In a bad mood, we may read someone’s look as a glare and

feel even worse.

• In a good mood, we may encode the same look as interest
and feel even better.

The Serial Position Effect Why Do We Forget?

• William James (1890): “If we remembered
everything, we should on most occasions be as ill
off as if we remembered nothing.”

• It’s surely a blessing that most of us discard the
clutter of useless or out-of-date information—but
our sometimes unpredictable memory can be
frustrating.

• Anterograde amnesia: Inability to form new
memories.

• Retrograde amnesia: Inability to retrieve
information from one’s past.

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When Do We Forget?

• Forgetting can
occur at any
memory stage.

• When we process
information, we
filter, alter, or lose
most of it.

Encoding Failure

• Much of what we sense, we never notice.

• What we fail to encode, we will never
remember.
• Age: Encoding lag is linked to age-related memory

decline.

• Attention: Failure to notice or encode contributes to
memory failure,

Forgetting as Encoding Failure Storage Decay

• Even after encoding something well, we
sometimes later forget it.

• The course of forgetting is initially rapid, but
then levels off with time.

• Physical changes in the brain occur as memory
forms (memory trace).

Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve Retrieval Failure (part 1)

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Retroactive Interference Retrieval Failure (part 2)

• Interference
• Proactive (forward-acting) interference: Prior learning

disrupts recall of new information.
• Retroactive (backward-acting) interference: New learning

disrupts recall of older information.
• Motivated forgetting

• Sigmund Freud argued that we repress painful or
unacceptable memories to protect our self-concept and to
minimize anxiety.

• Today’s researchers think repression rarely, if ever,
occurs.

• Forgetting is more likely when information is neutral, not
emotional; we often have intrusive memories of the very
same traumatic experiences we would most like to forget.

Memory Construction Errors (part 1)

• Memory is not precise. We don’t just retrieve
memories, we reweave them.

• Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham (1994):
“Our memories are flexible and
superimposable, a panoramic blackboard with
an endless supply of chalk and erasers.”

• Reconsolidation: A process in which
previously stored memories, when retrieved,
are potentially altered before being stored
again.

Misinformation and Imagination Effects

• Misinformation effect: Corruption of a memory
by misleading information.

• Even repeatedly imagining fake actions and
events can create false memories.

• Digitally altered photos can produce imagination
inflation—that is, memories of events that
people have not actually experienced.

Memory Construction Memory Construction Errors (part 2)

• Source amnesia (source misattribution):
Attributing to the wrong source an event we
have experienced, heard about, read about, or
imagined.

• Source misattribution, along with the
misinformation effect, is at the heart of many
false memories.

• Déjà vu: That eerie sense that “I’ve
experienced this before.” Cues from the current
situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of
an earlier experience.

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Discerning True and False Memories

• False memories feel like real memories and can be
persistent, but are usually limited to the gist of the
event.

• False memories are often a result of faulty
eyewitness testimony.

• Memory construction helps explain:
• Why dating partners who have fallen in love overestimate

their first impressions of each other.
• Why people asked how they felt 10 years ago about

certain social issues recall attitudes closer to their current
views than to the views they actually reported a decade
earlier.

Children’s Eyewitness Recall

• Studies by Ceci and Bruck (1993, 1995):
• The effect of suggestive interviewing techniques.
• How easily children’s memories can be molded: In

one study, 58 percent of preschoolers produced false
stories about one or more unexperienced events.

• Children can often accurately recall events
when nonleading questions are asked by a
neutral person, in words the children can
understand, and the questions are asked soon
after the event (ideally before children have
talked much to involved adults).

Can Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse Be
Repressed and Then Recovered? (part 1)

• The debate between memory researchers and
some well-meaning therapists focuses on whether
most memories of early childhood abuse are
repressed and can be recovered during therapy
using “memory work” techniques that may involve
“guided imagery,” leading questions, hypnosis, or
dream analysis.

• Two tragedies of child abuse:
• When people don’t believe abuse survivors
• When innocent people are falsely accused

• There’s a need to find a sensible common ground.

Can Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse Be
Repressed and Then Recovered? (part 2)

• Those committed to protecting abused children and
those committed to protecting wrongly accused
adults have agreed on the following points:
• Sexual abuse happens.
• Injustice happens.
• Forgetting happens.
• Recovered memories are commonplace, but this doesn’t

necessarily mean the unconscious mind repressed them.
• Memories of things happening before age 3 are

unreliable.
• Memories “recovered” under hypnosis or the influence of

drugs are especially unreliable.
• Memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally

upsetting.

Improving Memory

• The SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Retrieve,
Review) study technique used in this book
incorporates several learning strategies:
• Rehearse repeatedly.
• Make the material meaningful.
• Activate retrieval cues.
• Use mnemonic devices.
• Minimize interference.
• Sleep more.
• Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to

find out what you do not yet know.

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1

Thinking, Language, and Intelligence

Chapter 9

EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY DAVID G. MYERS | C. NATHAN DEWALL

Chapter Overview

• Thinking

• Language and Thought

• Intelligence and Its Assessment

• Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence

Thinking (part 1)

• Cognition
• All mental activities associated with thinking, knowing,

remembering, and communicating

• Concept
• Mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or

people
• Simplifies thinking

• Prototype
• Mental image or best example of a category
• Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and

easy method for sorting items into categories

Thinking (part 2)

Thinking (part 3)

• Problem solving: strategies
• Trial and error

• Algorithm: Methodical, logical rule or procedure that
guarantees solving a particular problem

• Heuristic: Simple thinking strategy that often allows
efficient judgments and problem solving

Thinking (part 4)

• Insight
• Sudden realization

of a problem’s
solution

• Contrasts with
strategy-based
solutions

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Thinking (part 5)

• Problem solving: obstacles
• Confirmation bias: Tendency to search for

information that supports our preconceptions and to
ignore or distort contradictory

evidence

• Fixation: Inability to adopt to a fresh perspective

• Mental set: Tendency to approach problems with a
mindset of what has worked previously

Thinking (part 6)

• Forming good (and bad) decisions and
judgments
• Intuition: Effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or

thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning
• Representativeness heuristic

• Estimating likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem
to represent, or match, particular prototypes

• May lead us to ignore other relevant information

• Availability heuristic
• Estimating likelihood of events based on their availability in

memory
• If instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their

vividness), we presume such events are common

Thinking (part 7)

• The fear factor
• Humans fear

• What ancestral history has prepared us to fear

• What cannot be controlled

• What is immediate

• What is most readily available in memory (availability)
heuristic

• We often fear the wrong things!

Thinking (part 8)

• Overconfidence
• Challenging

• Tendency to overestimate accuracy of personal knowledge
and judgments

• Leads to overestimation of future leisure time and income
(planning fallacy)

• Can encourage political views, and lead to inflexibility and
closed-mindedness

• Adaptive
• May boost self-confidence, make difficult decisions more

easily, and seem competent

Thinking (part 9)

• Belief perseverance
• Tendency to cling to beliefs in the face of contrary

evidence

• Often uses motivated reasoning

• Framing
• Presentation of an issue

• Can nudge attitudes and decisions

Thinking (part 10)

• Smart intuition
• Recognition born of

experience
• Usually adaptive,

enabling quick reactions
• Plays a huge role

• Smart thinkers
• Are deliberate and

aware of intuitive
option, but know when
to override it.

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Thinking (part 11)

• Thinking creatively
• Creativity: Ability to produce new and valuable ideas

• Convergent thinking: Narrowing the available
problem solutions to determine the single best
solution

• Divergent thinking: Expanding the number of
possible problem solutions; creative thinking that
diverges in different directions

Thinking (part 12)

• Components of
creativity (Sternberg
and colleagues)
• Expertise

• Imaginative thinking
skills

• Venturesome
personality

• Intrinsic motivation

• Creative environment

• Strategies for
boosting the
creative process
• Allow incubation time

• Set aside time for the
mind to roam freely

• Experience other
cultures and ways of
thinking

Do Other Species Share Our Cognitive
Skills?

• Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and
birds, have neural networks that generate
consciousness (Low et al.)
• Using concepts and numbers
• Displaying insight
• Transmitting culture
• Other cognitive skills

Language and Thought (part 1)

• Language structure
• Language

• Phoneme

• Morpheme

• Grammar

• Semantics

• Syntax

Language and Thought (part 2)

• Language acquisition and development
• Chomsky

• Unlearned human trait

• Universal grammar

• Ibbotson and Tomasello (and others)
• World languages are more structurally diverse than the

universal grammar system

• Grammar is learned from the distinct patterns heard

Language and Thought (part 3)

• Brought together as if
on a desert island
(actually a school),
Nicaragua’s young deaf
children over time drew
upon sign gestures
from home to create
their own Nicaraguan
Sign Language,
complete with words
and intricate grammar.

• What does this tell us
about language?

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Language and Thought (part 4)

• Receptive language
• Recognition of

differences in
speech sounds

• Preference for face–
sound match

Language and Thought (part 5)

• Productive language
• Babbling stage

• One-word stage

• Two-word stage

• Telegraphic speech

Language and Thought (part 6)

Month (approximate) Stage

4 Babbles many speech sounds (“ah-goo”)

10 Babbling resembles household language (“ma-ma”)

12 One-word speech (“Kitty!”)

24 Two-word speech (“Get ball.”)

24+ Rapid development into complete sentences

Language and Thought (part 7)

• Critical periods
• Language development follows a sequence

• Childhood represents a sensitive period for
mastering certain language aspects

• The ability to master any language is lost around age
7, if exposure to spoken or signed language does not
occur

• Prelingually deaf children born to hearing–
nonsigning parents typically become linguistically
stunted

Language and Thought (part 8)

Our Ability to Learn a New Language Diminishes with Age

Language and Thought (part 9)

• The brain and language
• The brain divides mental functions into subfunctions

to process language; parallel processing occurs.

• Damage to any of several cortical areas can produce
aphasia.

• Damage to left frontal lobe (Broca’s area): Can sing
familiar songs and comprehend speech; struggle with
speech production

• Damage to left temporal lobe (Wernicke’s area): Can
speak only meaningless words; unable to understand
speech of others

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Language and Thought (part 10) Language and Thought (part 11)

• Do other species have language?
• Some animals display basic language processing

• Gardner and Gardner (Washoe) (1960s)

• Savage-Rumbaugh and colleagues (Kanzi) (1993; 2009)

• Skeptics
• Simple, ape vocabularies are limited

• Learning may be mimicry, not language

• Perceptual sets are not clearly seen

• Rules of syntax are not evident

Language and Thought (part 12)

• Linguistic determinism
• Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the

way we think

• Linguistic relativism
• Language has influence on the way we think

• Words define mental categories

• Perceived differences grow and change with different
assigned names (colors)

• Different personality profiles may exist in bilingual
individuals; bilingual advantage

Language and Thought (part 13)

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 1)

• What is intelligence?
• Intelligence: Ability to learn from experience, solve

problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new
situations

• General intelligence (g): According to Spearman
and others, underlies all mental abilities and is
therefore measured by every task on an intelligence
test

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 2)

• Theories of multiple intelligence
• Gardner’s multiple intelligences

• Eight (later nine) relatively independent intelligences

• Intelligence domains include multiple abilities that come in
various configurations

• Savant syndrome

• Sternberg’s three intelligences
• Analytical (academic problem-solving) intelligence

• Creative intelligence

• Practical intelligence

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Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 3) Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 4)

• Criticisms of multiple intelligence theories
• Factor analysis confirms the existence of the general

intelligence factor (g)

• Extremely high cognitive-ability scores predict
exceptional achievements

• Expert performance and the 10-year rule

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 5)

• Emotional Intelligence
• Critical part of social intelligence

• Includes four abilities
• Perceiving emotions

• Understanding emotions

• Managing emotions

• Using emotions

• Gardner includes interpersonal and
intrapersonal intelligence

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 6)

Theory Summary Strengths Other Considerations

Spearman’s general
intelligence (g)

A basic intelligence predicts
our abilities in varied academic
areas.

Different abilities, such as verbal
and spatial, do have some tendency
to correlate.

Human abilities are
too diverse to be
encapsulated by a single
general intelligence
factor.

Gardner’s multiple
intelligences

Our abilities are best classified
into eight or nine independent
intelligences, which include a
broad range of skills beyond
traditional school smarts.

Intelligence is more than just verbal
and mathematical skills. Other
abilities are equally important to our
human adaptability.

Should all our abilities be
considered
intelligences? Shouldn’t
some be called less vital
talents?

Sternberg’s triarchic
theory

Our intelligence is best classified
into three areas that predict real-
world success: analytical,
creative, and practical.

These three domains can be reliably
measured.

These three domains
may be less independent
than
Sternberg thought and
may actually share an
underlying g factor.

Emotional intelligence Social intelligence is an
important indicator of life
success. Emotional intelligence is
a key aspect, consisting of
perceiving, understanding,
managing, and using emotions.

These four components predict
social success and emotional well-
being.

Does this stretch the
concept of intelligence
too far?

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 7)

• Assessing intelligence
• Intelligence tests: Assess mental aptitudes and

compare them with those of others, using numerical
scores

• Achievement tests: Intended to reflect what is
learned

• Aptitude tests: Intended to predict ability to learn
some new skill

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 8)

• What do intelligence tests take?
• Binet: Predicting school achievement

• Same course of intellectual development; rate differs

• Mental age

• Terman: Measuring innate intelligence
• Numerical measure of intelligence (Standard–Binet);

relative to average performance

• Intelligence quotient (IQ)

10
8 100 125

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Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 9)

• What do intelligence tests take?
• Wechsler: Tests separate strengths

• Yields overall intelligence score and separate scores for verbal
comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and
processing speed

• Versions
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISCI); preschool

version
• 2008 WAIS subsets

• Similarities
• Vocabulary
• Block design
• Letter–number sequencing

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 10)

• Three tests of a
“good” test
• Standardized

• Normal curve

• Reliable
• Split-half

• Test-retest

• Correlation

• Valid
• Predictive validity

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 11)

• Extremes of intelligence
• Low extreme (Intellectual disability)

• Apparent before age 1

8

• Criteria for diagnosis
• Intelligence test score indicating performance in lowest 3

percent of general population, or about 70 or below

• Difficulty adapting to normal demands of independent living
• Conceptual

• Social

• Practical

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 12)

• Extremes of intelligence
• High extreme

• Terman’s high-scoring children; IQ over 135; high levels of
education attained

• Lubinski’s high math SAT scores at age 13; top 1 percent;
1650 patents by age 50

• Kell and others high verbal aptitude 13-year-old; professors
or doctorates at age 38

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 13)

• Intelligence across the life span
• Before age 3: Modest prediction of future aptitudes

from casual observation and intelligence tests

• By age 4: Intelligence tests begin to predict
adolescent and adult score

• By ages 11 to 70: Impressive stability, independent
of life circumstances

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 14)

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Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 15)

• Why do children and adults who are more
intelligent tend to live healthier and longer
lives?
• Intelligence facilitates more education, better jobs,

and a healthier environment.
• Intelligence encourages healthy living: less smoking,

better diet, more exercise.
• Prenatal events or early childhood illnesses can

influence both intelligence and health.
• A “well-wired body,” as evidenced by fast reaction

speeds, may foster both intelligence and longevity.

Thinking Critically About Cross-Sectional
and Longitudinal Studies

• Researchers using the cross-sectional method
study different groups at one time. They have
found that mental ability declines with age.

• Researchers using the longitudinal method
study and restudy the same group at different
times in their life span. They have found that
intelligence remains stable, and on some tests it
even increases.

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 16)

• Aging and Intelligence
• Cohort

• Crystallized intelligence

• Fluid intelligence

Intelligence and Its Assessment (part 17)

Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence (part 1)

• Heredity and intelligence
• Heritability: Portion of variation among people in

group that is attributed to genes

• Heritability of intelligence: Varies from study to study

Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence (part 2)

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Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence (part 3)

• Environment and intelligence
• Several studies suggest that a shared environment

exerts a modest influence on intelligence test scores.
• Adoption from poverty into middle-class homes

• Adoption of mistreated or neglected children

• Intelligence scores of “virtual twins”

• Genetic influences become more apparent as life
experience is accumulated.

Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence (part 4)

Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence (part 5)

• Gene–environment interactions
• Epigenetics: Microbiology study of nature–nurture

nexus

• Genes shape experiences that can shape us in
positive and negative ways

• Severe deprivation and brain development

• Impact of early intervention

• Growth mindset
• Focus on learning and growing; belief that intelligence is

changeable

• Ability + opportunity + motivation = success

Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence (part 6)

• Group differences in intelligence test scores
• Gender similarities and differences

• Men estimate own intelligence as higher than do women
• Actual differences are minor; influence may be related to

social expectations and opportunities

• During school
• Girls outpace boys in spelling, verbal fluency, and locating

objects; increased sensitivity to emotions, touch, taste, and
color

• Boys outperform girls on complex math problems, spatial
ability tests; more low and high extremes

• Little gender difference in math computation and overall
math

Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence (part 7)

• Racial and ethnic similarities and differences:
Scientifically agreed-upon facts
• Racial and ethnic groups IQ test score differences

• High-scoring people (and groups) are more likely to
attain higher education and income levels

• Group differences provide little basis for judging
individuals

• Might racial and ethnic gaps be environmental?

Genetic and Environmental Influences on
Intelligence (part 8)

• Are intelligence tests
biased?
• Depends on which

definition of bias is used
• Scientific meaning based

on test validity

• Everyday language
considers fairness or
unfairness of a test

• Test-taker expectations
• Stereotype threat

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Motivation and Emotion

Chapter 10

EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY DAVID G. MYERS | C. NATHAN DEWALL

Chapter Overview

• Basic Motivational
Concepts, Affiliation,
and Achievement

• Hunger

• Theories and
Physiology of Emotion

• Expressing and
Experiencing Emotion

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 1)

• Motivational concepts
• Instinct theory (evolutionary theory): Genetically

predisposed behaviors

• Drive-reduction theory: Response to inner pushes
and pulls

• Arousal theory: Finding the right stimulation level

• Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Priority of
some needs over others

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 2)

• Instincts and evolutionary theory
• Instinct

• Complex behavior throughout species

• Unlearned fixed patterns

• Assumption: evolutionary psychology
• Genes predispose some species-typical behaviors

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 3)

• Drive-reduction theory
• Physiological needs create

an aroused, motivated state
(incentive)

• When physiological needs
increase, so does the
psychological drive to reduce
those needs (homeostasis)

• Pushed by need to reduce
drives; pulled by incentives

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 4)

• Arousal theory
• Some motivated behaviors can increase—rather

than decrease—arousal

• Human motivation aims to find optimal arousal
levels, not to eliminate arousal

• Yerkes-Dodson law states that moderate arousal
leads to optimal performance

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Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 5)

• Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs
• Begins at the base with physiological needs that

must first be satisfied …

• Before people can fulfill their higher-level safety
needs …

• Then their psychological needs

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 6)

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 7)

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 8)

• The need to belong: affiliation need
• Central human motivation to build relationships and

feel part of a group
• Enhances survival

• Colors thoughts and emotions

• Related to health, performance, and self-esteem

• Thwarts loneliness and social isolation

• Self-determination theory
• Competence

• Autonomy

• Relatedness

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 9)

• Being shut out
• Ostracism (social exclusion) threatens the need to

belong and causes pain

• Social media ostracism causes similar pain

• Pain
• Focuses and motivates corrective action

• Positive and negative remedies

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 10)

• Mobile networks and social media
• Provide information and supportive connections

among friends and family

• Activate reward centers in the brain

• Function as a matchmaker

• Predict longer life when used in moderation

• Enable comparisons that can create envy and
depression

• Support narcissistic tendencies

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Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 11)

• Strategies for maintaining balance and
focus
• Monitor time

• Monitor feelings

• Hide from incessantly posting online friends when
necessary

• Check phone and email less often when studying

• Refocus and take a nature walk

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 12)

• Achievement motivation
• Desire for significant accomplishment, for mastery of

skills or ideas, for control, and for attaining a high
standard

• High-motivation achievers
• Accomplish more; greater financial success;

healthier social relationships and emotional well-
being

• Demonstrate persistence, self-discipline, grit, and
intrinsic motivation

Basic Motivational Concepts,
Affiliation, and Achievement (part 13)

• Research-based strategies for achieving
goals
• Set concrete goals

• Share goals with friends or family

• Develop an implementation plan

• Create short-term rewards that support long-term
goals

• Monitor and record progress

• Create a supportive environment

• Transform difficult behavior into habit

Hunger (part 1)

Hunger (part 2)

• Physiology of hunger
• Body chemistry and the brain

• Glucose

• Set point

• Basal metabolic rate

The Hypothalamus

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The Appetite Hormones Hunger (part 3)

• Psychology of
hunger
• Hunger: Involves

body chemistry,
brain activity, and
memory of time of
last meal

• Taste preferences:
Influenced by body
cues and
environmental
factors

Hunger (part 4)

• Situational influences on eating
• Arousing appetite

• Friends and food

• Serving size

• Selection

• Nudging nutrition

Hunger (part 5)

• Effects of obesity
• Physical health risks
• Increased depression
• Bullying

• Physiology factors
• Storing fat was adaptive
• Set point and metabolism matter
• Genes influence us

• Environmental factors
• Sleep loss
• Social influences
• Food and activity levels

Hunger (part 6)

• Weight loss strategies
• Begin when motivated and self-disciplined
• Exercise and sleep adequately
• Minimize exposure to tempting food cues
• Limit variety and eat healthy foods
• Reduce portions
• Don’t starve and stuff
• Decide what you will eat before eating with others
• Chart progress online
• Connect to a support group
• Remember: Most people occasionally lapse!

Theories and Physiology of Emotion (part 1)

• Emotion: arousal, behavior, and cognition
• Components of emotion

• Bodily arousal

• Expressive behaviors

• Conscious experience

How do these three pieces fit together
to explain emotion?

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Theories and Physiology of Emotion (part 2)

• James-Lange theory
• Arousal comes before emotion

• Arises from awareness of specific bodily responses to
emotion-arousing stimuli

• Cannon-Bard theory
• Arousal and emotion occur simultaneously

• Emotion-arousing stimuli trigger bodily responses and
simultaneous subjective experience

• Schachter-Singer two-factor theory
• General arousal + conscious cognitive label = emotion

• Spillover effect

Theories and Physiology of Emotion (part 3)

• Zajonc-LeDoux theory
• Some embodied

responses happen
instantly, without
conscious appraisal

• Acutely sensitive radar
for emotionally significant
information

• Lazarus
• Cognitive appraisal

defines emotion,
sometimes without
awareness

• Cognitive low road

Two Pathways for Emotions

Theories and Physiology of Emotion (part 4) Theories and Physiology of Emotion (part 5)

• Embodied emotion
• Basic emotions

• Most emotion scientists: Anger, fear, disgust, sadness,
happiness

• Izard: Joy, interest–excitement, surprise, sadness, anger,
disgust, contempt, fear, shame, guilt

• Tracy and colleagues: Added pride, love

Are these emotions biologically distinct?

Theories and Physiology of Emotion (part 6) Emotional Arousal

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Theories and Physiology of Emotion (part 7)

• Physiology of emotions
• Different emotions can share common biological

signatures

• A single brain region can serve as the seat of
different emotions

• Insula

• Some emotions have distinct brain circuits

Theories and Physiology of Emotion (part 8)

• Lie detection
• Polygraphs measure emotion-linked autonomic

arousal
• Changes in breathing, heart rate, and perspiration

• About one-third of the time, polygraph test results are just
wrong

• The Concealed Information Test is more effective

Expressing and Experiencing Emotion
(part 1)

• Detecting emotions in others
• The brain detects subtle expressions in reading

nonverbal cues and nonverbal threats

• Facial muscles reveal emotional signs

• Deceit is difficult to discern

Expressing and Experiencing Emotion
(part 2)

• Gender, emotion, and
nonverbal behavior
• Women generally

surpass men
• Reading emotional cues
• Emotional literacy
• Emotional

responsiveness and
expressiveness

• Expressing empathy
• Experiencing emotional

events more deeply
• Remembering these

better

Male or Female?
Expressing and Experiencing Emotion
(part 3)

• Culture and emotion
• Signs across cultures

• Crying when distressed; shaking head when defiant;
smiling when happy

• Facial muscles speak universal language; the degree
varies among and within cultures

• Gestures
• Meanings vary from culture to culture

• Facial expressions
• Some nonverbal accents provide cultural cues

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Culture and Emotion Remember!

Like most psychological events, emotion is best
understood not only as a biological and cognitive

phenomenon, but also as a social-cultural
phenomenon.

Expressing and Experiencing Emotion
(part 4)

• The effects of facial expressions
• Facial expression communicate, amplify, and

regulate emotion

• Facial feedback effect
• Tendency of facial muscle states to trigger

corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or
happiness

• Behavior feedback effect
• Tendency of behavior to influence our own and

others’ thoughts, feelings, and actions

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Stress, Health, and
Human Flourishing

Chapter 11

EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY DAVID G. MYERS | C. NATHAN DEWALL

Chapter Overview

• Stress and Illness

• Health and Happiness

Stress and Illness (part 1)

• Stress: Some basic concepts
• Process of appraising and responding to a

threatening or challenging event
• Stressor

• Stress reaction

• Positive effects
• Short-lived or perceived as challenge

• Immune system mobilization; motivation; resilience

• Negative effects
• Extreme or prolonged stress

• Risky decision making and unhealthy behaviors

Stress and Illness (part 2)

Stress and Illness (part 3)

• Stressors
• Catastrophes

• Large-scale disasters

• Acculturative stress

• Significant life changes
• Life transitions

• Cluster of crises

• Daily hassles
• Compounded by prejudice and life circumstances

• Psychological and physical consequences

Stress and Illness (part 4)

• Stress response system
• Cannon

• Stress response is part of a unified mind–body system

• Fight-or-flight adaptive response

• Selye
• General adaptation syndrome (GAS)

• Phase 1: Alarm reaction

• Phase 2: Resistance

• Phase 3: Exhaustion

• Human body copes well with temporary stress but may be
damaged by prolonged stress

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Stress and Illness (part 5)

• Due to the ongoing conflict, Syria’s White
Helmets (volunteer rescuers) are perpetually in
“alarm reaction” mode, rushing to pull victims
from the rubble after each fresh attack. As their
resistance is depleted, they risk exhaustion.

• Gender differences in coping strategies
• Earlier death

• Tend-and-befriend response

• Withdrawal

Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome

Stress and Illness (part 6)

• Stress and vulnerability to disease
• Health psychology: Subfield of psychology that

provides psychology’s contribution to behavioral
medicine

• Psychoneuroimmunology: Study of how
psychological, neural, and endocrine processes
together affect the immune system and resulting
health

Stress and Illness (part 7)

• Psychological states have physiological effects

• Stress can reduce the ability to fight disease
• Trigger immune suppression

• Delay surgical wound healing

• Increase vulnerability to colds

• Hasten disease course

• Stress does not cause illness, but it does alter
immune functioning that reduces the ability to
resist infection

Stress and Health Stress and Illness (part 8)

• Cancer
• Stress does not create

cancer cells

• Heart disease
• Coronary heart

disease
• Type A personality
• Type B personality

• Inflammation
• Blood vessel

inflammation

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Does Stress Cause Illness? Stress and Illness (part 9)

• Anger management
• Individualist cultures

• Venting rage

• Catharsis (emotional release)
• Fails to cleanse rage

• Can magnify anger (behavior feedback research)

• Backfire potential

• Anger management strategies
• Wait

• Find healthy distraction or support

• Distance yourself

Health and Happiness (part 1)

• Coping with stress
• Coping: Alleviating stress using emotional,

cognitive, or behavioral methods

• Problem-focused coping: Attempting to alleviate
stress directly—by changing the stressor or the way
we interact with that stressor

• Emotion-focused coping: Attempting to alleviate
stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and by
attending to emotional needs related to our stress
reaction

Health and

Happiness (part 2)

• Coping with stress
• Perceived loss of control

• Losing personal control provokes stress hormone output

• Rising stress hormone levels related to blood pressure
increase and immune response decreases

• Learned helplessness

Health and

Happiness (part 3)

• Coping with stress
• External locus of control

• Chance or outside forces
control fate

• Posttraumatic stress
symptoms

• Internal locus of control
• People control their own fate

• Free will, willpower, and self-
control

Health and

Happiness (part 4)

• Building self-control
• Self-control

• Ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification
for longer-term rewards

• Predicts good health, higher income, and better school
performance

• Strengthening self-control: Practice in overcoming
unwanted urges

• Depleting self-control: Depletion effect

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Health and

Happiness (part 5)

• Explanatory style: Optimism versus pessimism
• Optimists

• Expect to have more control, to cope better with stressful
events, and to enjoy better health

• Optimism tends to run in families

• Optimistic students
• Tend to get better grades

• Respond to setbacks with more productive strategies

Health and

Happiness (part 6)

• Social support
• Feeling liked and

encouraged by intimate
friends and family

• Promotes happiness and
health

• Social isolation
• Leads to higher loneliness

and risk of death equivalent
to smoking

Health and Happiness (part 7)

• Research-based findings about the health
benefits of social support
• Calms and reduces blood pressure and stress

hormones

• Fosters stronger immune functioning

• Provides an opportunity to confide painful feelings

Health and Happiness (part 8)

• Reducing stress
• Aerobic exercise: Sustained, oxygen-consuming

exertion that increases heart and lung fitness

• Benefits of exercise
• Adds to quality of life (moderate)

• Helps fight heart disease and reduce heart attack risk

• Predictor of life satisfaction

• Reduces depression and anxiety

Health and Happiness (part 9) Health and Happiness (part 10)

• Reducing stress
• Biofeedback

• Recording, amplifying, and feeding back information about
subtle physiological responses (many of which are
controlled by the autonomic nervous system)

• Works best on tension headaches

• Relaxation
• Helps alleviate headaches, hypertension, anxiety, and

insomnia

• Lowers stress

• Promotes better wound healing

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Health and Happiness (part 11)

Recurrent Heart Attacks and Lifestyle Modification

Health and Happiness (part 12)

• Reducing stress
• Meditation

• Reduces suffering

• Improves awareness, insight, and compassion

• Mindfulness meditation
• Relaxation and silent attendance to inner space; monitored

breathing

• Linked with lessened anxiety and depression, as well as
improved sleep, interpersonal relationships, and immune
system functioning

Health and Happiness (part 13)

• What happens in the brain as mindfulness is
practiced?
• Correlational and experimental studies offer three

explanations
• Mindfulness strengthens connections among regions in our

brain

• Mindfulness activates brain regions associated with more
reflective awareness

• Mindfulness calms brain activation in emotional situations

Health and Happiness (part 14)

• Faith communities
and health
• Faith factor

• Religiously active
people tend to live
longer than inactive
people

• Women are more
religiously active
than men and outlive
them

Health and Happiness (part 15) Happiness (part 1)

• Positive psychology (Seligman)
• Feel-good, do-good phenomenon

• Subjective well-being

• Core features
• Good life that engages one’s skills; meaningful life

that extends beyond self

• Positive traits that focus on exploring and enhancing
a wide range of behaviors

• Positive groups, communities, and cultures

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Happiness (part 2)

• What affects well-being?
• Emotional ups and downs of

days and within-days
rebound

• Rebounding from worse
events takes longer; even
tragedy is not permanently
depressing

• Duration of emotions is
overestimated; resiliency is
underestimated

Happiness (part 3)

• Wealth and well-being
• People in rich countries are happier than people

in poorer countries
• The power to increase happiness is strongest at lower

incomes

• Once enough money for comfort and security is attained,
accruing more money matters less

• Economic growth in affluent countries has provided no
apparent boost to people’s morale or social well-being

Happiness (part 4)

• Happiness is relative:
Adaptation and
comparison
• Happiness is relative to our

own experience
• Adaptation-level phenomenon

• Happiness is relative to the
success of others

• Relative deprivation

Happiness (part 5)

Researchers Have Found That Happy People
Tend to

However, Happiness Seems Not Much Related to
Other Factors, Such as

Have high self-esteem (in individualist countries). Age.

Be optimistic, outgoing, and agreeable. Gender (women are more often depressed, but also
more often joyful).

Have close, positive, and lasting relationships. Physical attractiveness.

Have work and leisure that engage their skills.

Have an active religious faith (especially in more
religious cultures).

Sleep well and exercise.

Happiness (part 6)

Which suggestions can you provide for a happier
life? What did the text suggest?

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1

Psychological Disorders

Chapter 1

4

EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY DAVID G. MYERS | C. NATHAN DEWALL

Chapter Overview

• Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders

• Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD

• Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

• Schizophrenia and Other Disorders

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 1)

• Psychological

disorders

• Syndrome marked by a clinically significant

disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion
regulation, or behavior (APA, 2013)

• Dysfunctional or maladaptive

• Often accompanied by distress

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 2)

• Understanding psychological disorders
• Medical model

• Hospitals replaced asylums

• Mental illness are diagnosed on the basis of symptoms,
treated through therapy, and cured

• Genetically influenced brain structure and biochemical
abnormalities contribute to mental illness

• Biopsychosocial approach
• Psychology studies how biological, psychological, and

social-cultural factors interact to produce specific
psychological disorders

• Vulnerability-stress model; epigenetics

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 3)

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 4)

• Classifying disorders and labeling people
• Classification aims to predict a disorder’s future

course, suggest appropriate treatment, and prompt
research

• American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

• World Health Organization’s International
Classification of Diseases (ICD)

• U.S. National Institute of Mental Health’s Research
Domain Criteria (RDoC)

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Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 5)

• DSM-5 changes
• Autism and Asperger’s syndrome = autism spectrum

disorder (ASD)

• Mental retardation = intellectual disability

• Hoarding disorder and binge-eating disorder added

• DSM-5 criticisms
• Wider net pathologizes everyday life; too broad

• Subjective diagnostic labels

• Biasing power of labels

Thinking Critically About ADHD
Normal High Energy or Disordered Behavior

• Why is there controversy over ADHD?
• Diagnosis
• Symptoms
• Skeptics’ versus supporters’ views
• Causes
• Treatment

• Bottom line
• Extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity can derail

social, academic, and work achievements
• These symptoms can be treated with medication and other

therapies
• The debate continues over whether normal high energy is too

often diagnosed as a psychiatric disorder, and whether there is
a cost to the long-term use of stimulant drugs in treating ADHD

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 6)

• Risk of harm to self and others:
Understanding suicide
• Suicide risk increases with anxiety and depression

• Risk increases with rebound of these disorders

• Social suggestions may trigger suicide

• Suicide is often unpredictable

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 7)

• Researchers report different group suicide
rates
• National differences

• Racial differences

• Gender differences

• Trait differences

• Age differences and trends

• Day-of-the-week and seasonal differences

• Gun ownership versus no gun ownership

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 8)

• Helping someone who is talking about
suicide
• Listen and empathize

• Connect the person with campus counseling
resources or crisis text lines

• Protect someone at immediate risk by seeking help

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 9)

• Risk of harm to self and others: Nonsuicidal
self-injury (NSSI)
• More common in adolescence and among females

• Usually painful, but not fatal

• May cut or burn the skin, hit oneself, insert objects
under the nails or skin, or self-administer tattoos

• Tend to experience bullying, harassment, or other
stress

• Often self-critical and struggle with a range of other
problems

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Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 10)

Rates of Nonfatal Self–Injury in the United States

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 11)

• Why do people hurt themselves?
• Find relief from intense negative thoughts through

pain distraction

• Attract attention and possibly get help

• Relieve guilt by punishing themselves

• Get others to change their negative behavior
(bullying, criticism)

• Fit in with a peer group

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 12)

• Do disorders actually increase risk of violence?

• Can clinicians predict who is likely to do harm?

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 13)

• After the 2012
Newtown,
Connecticut, slaughter
of 26 schoolchildren
and adults, and again
following the 2018
Parkland, Florida,
massacre of 17 youths
and adults, people
wondered if such
tragedies couldn’t be
prevented through
mental health
screenings

Basic Concepts of Psychological
Disorders (part 14)

• Reported rates of
psychological
disorders: WHO
study
• Cultures vary in 28

country studies

• Lowest rate =
Nigeria; highest rate
= U.S.

• Immigrant paradox

Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 15)

Psychological Disorder Percentage

Depressive disorders or bipolar disorder 9.3

Phobia of specific object or situation 8.

7

Social anxiety disorder 6.

8

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) 4.1

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 3.

5

Generalized anxiety disorder 3.1

Schizophrenia 1.1

Obsessive-compulsive disorder 1.0

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Basic Concepts of Psychological Disorders
(part 16)

• What increases vulnerability to mental
disorders?
• Wide range of risk and protective factors for mental

disorders

• Predictors of mental health cross ethnic and gender
lines

• First symptoms are experienced by age 24 for
majority of those studied

Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD (part 1)

• Anxiety disorders
• Generalized anxiety disorder

• Person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of
autonomic nervous system arousal

• Panic disorder
• Marked by unpredictable, minutes-long episodes of intense

dread in which person may experience terror and
accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening
sensations; often followed by worry over a possible next
attack

• Phobia
• Anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and

avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation

Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD (part 2) Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD (part 3)

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts

(obsessions), actions (compulsions), or both, that
persistently interfere with everyday life

• Obsessive thoughts are unwanted and seemingly unending

• Compulsive behaviors are responses to those thoughts

• More common among teens and young adults

• Other OCD-related disorders
• Hoarding • Body dysmorphic disorder

• Trichotillomania • Excoriation disorder

Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD (part 4)

• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Characterized by haunting memories, nightmares,

hypervigilance, avoidance of trauma-related stimuli,
social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of
feeling, and/or insomnia

• Lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic
experience

• Greater risk for posttraumatic symptoms with higher
distress

Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD (part 5)

• Understanding anxiety disorders, OCD, and
PTSD
• Psychologists today posit that conditioning, cognition, and

biology are helpful

• Conditioning
• Classical conditioning
• Stimulus generalization
• Reinforcement

• Cognition
• Thoughts and memories
• Interpretations and expectations

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Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD (part 6)

• Understanding anxiety disorders, OCD, and
PTSD
• Biology: Genes

• 17 gene variations are associated with typical anxiety
disorder symptoms; others are specifically associated with
OCD

• Genes regulate neurotransmitter brain levels that heighten
the brain’s alarm center

• Biology: Experience
• Experience affects gene expression; epigenetic marks

Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD (part 7)

• When people were
engaged in a
challenging cognitive
task, those with OCD
showed the most
activity in the anterior
cingulate cortex in the
brain’s frontal area
(Maltby et al., 2005).

Anxiety Disorders, OCD, and PTSD (part 8)

• Understanding anxiety disorders, OCD, and
PTSD
• The brain is changed by experiences

• Traumatic fear-learning experiences can leave tracks
in the brain and create fear tracks

• Brain area over-arousal involves impulse control and
habitual behaviors, especially in the anterior
cingulate cortex

• Natural selection shapes some of behaviors that can
interfere with daily life when taken to an extreme

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 1)

• Terms to learn
• Anxiety

• Depression

• Major depressive disorder

• Bipolar disorder (formerly manic-depressive disorder)

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 2)

• Depression and major depressive disorder
• Depression is the leading cause of disability

worldwide (WHO, 2017b)

• Number-one reason why mental health services are
sought

• May have a seasonal pattern

• DSM-5 classifies several major depressive disorders

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 3)

The DSM-5 classifies major depressive disorder as the presence of at least five
of the following symptoms over a 2-week period of time (minimally including
depressed mood or reduced interest) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

• Depressed mood most of the time

• Dramatically reduced interest or enjoyment in most activities most of the time

• Significant challenges regulating appetite and weight

• Significant challenges regulating sleep

• Physical agitation or lethargy

• Feeling listless or with much less energy

• Feeling worthless, or feeling unwarranted guilt

• Problems in thinking, concentrating, or making decisions

• Thinking repetitively of death and suicide

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Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 4)

• Bipolar disorder
• Person alternates between the hopelessness and

lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of
mania

• Less common but often more dysfunctional than
major depressive disorder

• Potent predictor of suicide
• No gender differences; increased diagnoses among

adolescents
• DSM-5 classification reduced child and adolescent

diagnoses; disruptive mood dysregulation disorder

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 5)

• Creativity and risk for bipolar disorder
• Clusters of genes associated with creativity increase

the risk of developing bipolar disorder

• Risk factors for developing bipolar disorder predict
greater creativity

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 6)

• Any theory of depression must explain at least
the following:
• Behaviors and thoughts change with depression
• Depression is widespread
• Women’s risk of major depressive disorder is roughly

double men’s risk
• Most major depressive episodes end on their own
• Work, marriage, and relationship stress often precede

depression
• Compared with past generations, depression strikes

earlier and affects more people, with the highest rates
among young adults in developed countries

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 7)

• Biological perspective
• Genes and depression

• In major twin studies, one research team estimated the
heritability of major depressive disorder at 40 percent

• Linkage analysis

• The depressed brain
• Brain activity slows during depression and becomes more

active during mania
• Functional connectivity analyses show poor neural

communication that explain why people with depression
struggle with emotion regulation

• Nutritional effects
• A heart-healthy diet reduces risk of developing depression;

alcohol misuse can lead to depression

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 8)

• Using aggregated data from studies of identical and fraternal
twins, researchers estimated the heritability of bipolar disorder,
schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, major depressive disorder, and
generalized anxiety disorder (Bienvenu et al., 2011)

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 9)

• Social-cognitive perspective
• Diet, drugs, stress, and other environmental

influences lay down epigenetic marks/molecular
genetic tags that can turn certain genes on or off

• Life is seen through a lens of low self-esteem that
feeds depression

• Self-defeating beliefs

• Negative explanatory style

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7

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 10)

• Social-cognitive perspective
• Negative thoughts, negative moods, and gender

• Women are twice as vulnerable men to depression
• Rumination; over

thinking

• Explanatory style

• Self-defeating belief and learned helplessness

• Pessimistic explanatory style
• State-dependent memory

• Cultural forces

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 11)

Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar
Disorder (part 12)

• Therapists recognize
this cycle and work to
help depressed people
break out of it
• Changing their negative

thinking

• Turning their attention
outward

• Engaging them in more
pleasant and competent
behavior

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 1)

• Schizophrenia
• Characterized by

delusions, hallucinations,
disorganized speech,
and/or diminished,
inappropriate emotional
expression

• Psychotic disorders
• Group of disorders

marked by irrational
ideas, distorted
perceptions, and a loss
of contact with reality

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 2)

• Signs of schizophrenia
• Disturbed perceptions and beliefs

• Hallucinations; delusions (false beliefs)

• Disorganized speech

• Diminished and inappropriate emotions
• Flat affect; impaired theory of mind

• Inappropriate motor behavior; catatonia

• Onset and development
• Chronic schizophrenia

• Acute schizophrenia

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 3)

• Understanding schizophrenia: Brain
abnormalities
• Dopamine overactivity

• Abnormally low brain activity in frontal lobe,
thalamus, and amygdala

• Abnormal brain anatomy in ventricles and cerebral
tissue; smaller cortex, hippocampus, and corpus
callosum; neural connection loss

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Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 4)

• Understanding schizophrenia: Prenatal
environment and risk
• Risk factors

• Low birth weight; maternal diabetes; older paternal age;
oxygen deprivation during delivery

• Midpregnancy virus infection and fetal brain
development

• Country-specific flu epidemic

• Birth in densely populated areas

• Birth in winter and spring months

• Mother’s flu infection during pregnancy

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 5)

• Schizophrenia is a group of
disorders influenced by
many genes, each with very
small effects

• Lifetime risk of developing
schizophrenia varies with
one’s genetic relatedness to
someone having this
disorder

• Across countries, barely
more than 1 in 10 fraternal
twins, but 5 in 10 identical
twins, share a schizophrenia
diagnosis (Data from
Gottesman, 2001)

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 6)

• Other disorders
• Dissociative disorders

• Controversial, rare disorders in which conscious awareness
becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories,
thoughts, and feelings; fugue state

• Dissociative identity disorder (DID)
• Formerly called multiple personality disorder

• Two or more distinct identities—each with its own voice and
mannerisms—seem to control the person’s behavior

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 7)

• Understanding dissociative identity disorder
• First formal code for the disorder appeared in an

earlier DSM edition

• The current criteria are in DSM-5

• The number of displayed identities increased when
DID was publicized

• Could DID be an extension of normal capacity for identity
shifts?

• What evidence points to DID as a real disorder?

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 8)

• Personality disorders
• Anxiety

• Eccentric or odd behaviors

• Dramatic or impulsive behaviors

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 9)

• Antisocial personality disorder
• Sometimes called sociopathy or psychopathy

• Lower emotional intelligence

• Impulsive behavior; feel and fear little

• Understanding antisocial personality
disorder: Biological factors
• Genetic influences

• Brain structure

• Environmental factors

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Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 10)

• Levels of the stress
hormone adrenaline
were measured in two
groups of 13-year old
Swedish boys. In both
stressful and
nonstressful
situations, those who
would later be
convicted of a crime
as 18- to 26-year-olds
showed relatively low
arousal.

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 11)

• Eating disorders
• Anorexia nervosa

• Bulimia nervosa

• Binge-eating
disorder

Schizophrenia and Other Disorders (part 12)

• Factors influencing eating disorders
• Family environment and characteristics

• Heredity

• Cultural and gender components

• Peer effects

• Media influence