Psychology 1A

• Psychological debriefing


  Trauma counselling (48 hours after trauma)
• Psychological debriefing doesn't work
• Treatment


  • Measurement- assess people with standardised measures
  • Comparison - comparison condition to determine whether treatment works
  • Controlling for Bias - randomisation
  • Assessment Bias - blind assessments (placebo effect)
  • Double Blinded Studies - both patients and clinicians do not know treatment given
  • Quality Checks - treatment 'fidelity' checks ensure accuracy
• Classical Conditioning


  Learning that certain environmental stimuli predict harmful events
• Fear Conditioning Models


  • Electric shock invokes fear in rats
• Extinction


  New learning when stimuli repeatedly presented but w/o a negative outcome
• Exposure Therapy


  Extinction learning in humans
• Neurobiological Model of extinction

  MPFC — Amygdala
• Neurobiological Model of PTSD

  MPFC - Amygdala
• Greater MPFC Activation


  Greater exposure therapy
• MPFC


  Initiate extinction and promote fear inhibition
• Reduced MPFC inhibition on amygdala


  Underlies hyperactivity in PTSD
• Glutamate


  Excitatory neurotransmitter linked to emotional learning
• Increased glutamate


  Increased extinction learning
• Increased glutamate prior therapy

  Improved anxiety therapy
• Psychology


  Scientific study of behaviour and mental processes
• Goals of psychology


  • Description of behaviour- observations
  • Prediction allows for specification of conditions - when occurs/ doesn't
  • Explanation identifies causes - why?
  • Facilitating changes in behaviour
• Differences between science and common sense

  • Objective vs. subjective data collection
  • Systematic vs. hit or miss observation
  • Reliance on evidence vs. ignores counterevidence
• Structuralism


  Introspection - Wilhelm Wundt (Leipzig) metaphor of "looking inwards" to examine one's conscious experience of "phenomenology" - FAILED
• Functionalism


  William James focuses of identifying rules by which a task is achieved, Jerry Fodor similar to software algorithm
• Behaviourism


  • Observable behaviour qualifies as scientific
  • Radical Behaviourism - internal states unobservable (not part of scientific psychology)
  • Methodological Behaviourism - internal states linked to observable behaviours
• Psychoanalysis


  Sigmund Freud study of unconscious
• Social Psychology


  The scientific study of how our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the real/imagined presence of other people — mental representations
• Obedience


  Behaviour change produced by the commands of authority
• Zajonc's Model of Social Facilitation

  Mere Presence, Co-Action and Audience Effects: The presence of others increases arousal/ facilitates dominant response tendencies. This improves performance on easy/ well-learned tasks but hinders performance on difficult/ novel tasks
• Social Loafing


  Slack off when individual effort cannot be monitored (Ringelmann effect)
• Conformity


  Copying what others do is an almost universal tendency
• Norm Formation


  • Sherif 1935: autokinetic effect (spontaneous agreement)
  • Jacobs and Campbell 1961: norm maintenance even when all participants are replaced
• Asch Paradigm


  Norms are clear and over 35% conform (know they wrong)
• Repeated Exposure


  Hearing the same opinion 3 times from the same person is almost as effective in inducing conformity as hearing 3 different people voice the same opinion
• Informational Influence


  We conform to others because we believe they have accurate information
• Normative Influence


  We conform to others because we want them to like and accept us
• Groupthink


  Consensus more important than reality + ignore disconfirming information
• Consensual Delusions


  Enduring shared fictional beliefs that survive due to group conformity despite having no discernible support in reality
• Deindividuation


  Riots, crowds, mobs, vandalism: loss of individual responsibility, impulsive, deviant and sometimes violent acts in situations in which people believe they cannot be personally identified - promoted by: anonymity, arousal, diffusion of responsibility
• Compliance techniques


  • Foot-in-the-door technique - start w/ small request than escalate to a larger one
  • Low-balling technique - first obtain agreement, than revise offer for a worse one
  • Door-in-the-face technique - first large request, after refusal reasonable request
• Economic growth driven by consumer demand
• Exploiting unsatisfied search for status and identity


  Selling an image/ identity not product
• Minimal group paradigm


  The power of group identity - mere presence to group identity can promote tribalism and intergroup conflict
• First Impressions


  Based on still photograph shown for a tenth of a second- lasting