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• Demographics of those who seek psychotherapy


  • Women over men
  • Whites over others
  • Richer over poorer
• Efficaciousness of psychotherapy


  • 50% of clients report improvements even before attending first therapy session
  • Little to no difference in effectiveness of a professional vs a non
• Different brands of psychotherapy


  • Behavioral
  • Cognitive-behavioral
  • Humanistic (person-centered)
  • Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic
• Behavioral psychotherapy


  • Focus on specific, observable problem behaviors and the variables that maintain them
  • Behavior change results from the application of basic principles of learning (classical and operant conditioning)
  • Techniques rely on standardized/validated questionnaires and interviews
  • Techniques rely on physiological measures
• Cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy


  • Cognitions are identifiable and measurable
  • Cognitions are key in both healthy and unhealthy psychological functioning
  • Irrational beliefs or thinking can be replaced by more rational and adaptive cognitions
  • The ABCs of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy - How someone feels about an event is determined by his or her beliefs about the event
• Humanistic (person-centered) psychotherapy


  • Emphasize importance of taking responsibility for our lives and living in the present
  • Positive human potential
  • Nondirective: encourages clients to direct the course of their therapy
  • Therapist must be authentic and genuine, express unconditional positive regard, and show emphatic understanding
• Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic psychotherapy


  • Believe that weird behaviors are caused by childhood experiences
  • Aim to increase self awareness through recovering thoughts, feelings, wishes etc.
  • Symptoms will vanish when clients gain insight into unconscious material
  • Techniques include free association, interpretation, dream analysis, resistance, transference, working through
• Psychiatrist


  Have a medical degree and can prescribe medicine and medical treatment
• Psychologist


  Typically hold a Ph.D., Psy.D., or M.A. and focus on psychotherapy, psychological testing, and research
• Systematic desensitization


  1. Pairing relaxation responses with anxiety-inducing situations in a gradual manner

  2. Aims to reduce fear and anxiety by creating a new, relaxed response to the feared stimuli
• Flooding


  1. Skipping right to the most intense level of the phobia

  2. Based on response prevention (prevent clients from engaging in their usual avoidance behaviors)

  3. Virtual reality (VR) is effective in treating OCD, social phobia, PTSD, and agoraphobia
• Token economy


  1. Applied behavior analysis where individuals receive tokens for desired behaviors, which can be exchanged for rewards

  2. Positive reinforcement

  3. Used in schools, prisons, etc.
• Meta-analysis


  Combines results from multiple studies on a specific topic
• Frances Galton's view of intelligence


  • Eminence or expertise is due to hereditary factors
  • People with better senses acquire more knowledge
  • Largely unaccepted today
• Charles Spearman's view of intelligence


  • General intelligence accounts for overall differences in intellect among people
  • Our particular skills are reflected in our specific abilities
  • Described g as "mental energy"
• Howard Gardner's view of intelligence


  • Multiple intelligences - 8 types of intelligences
  • Autistic savants were support for these different types of intelligence
• Role of prefrontal cortex on tasks related to intelligence


  • Planning, decision-making, problem-solving, memory, attention, and flexibility in thinking
• Brain volume


  Weakly but positively correlated with intelligence
• Better predictors of intelligence


  • Relative brain size (encephalization quotient)
  • Size of prefrontal cortex
• When a task becomes automatized

  The brain relies less on prefrontal for conscious control and more on cerebellum/basal g for motor and procedural memory
• Working memory(short term retrieval)


  Fluid intelligence, measured by WAIS or short term memory tests
• IQ scores


  • Average IQ score is 100
  • Standard deviations describe how data are dispersed in a population and give context to large data sets
  • The bell curve uses the standard deviation to show how all scores are dispersed from the average score
• Eugenics movement


  • Early 20th century goal was to improve a population's genetic stock
  • Encourage those with good genes to reproduce & Prevent those with bad genes from reproducing
  • Led to "low IQ" in certain groups being forced to sterilize and immigration laws to prevent those with low IQ from entering country
• Culturally-fair IQ test


  • Non-verbal IQ; Raven's progressive matrices
• Properties of IQ tests


  • IQ tests have predictive validity and are highly reliable (SAT: r = .85/ GRE: r = .86) among all demographics
• Heritability of IQ scores


  Identical twins raised together and identical twins raised apart exhibit a higher correlation between their IQ scores than siblings or fraternal twins raised together
• Gender differences on IQ test


  • Females do better on verbal tasks
  • Males do better on spatial ability tests
• Flynn effect


  • Average IQ of the population has been rising by about 3 points every 10 years
  • Possible reasons: Increased test-taking sophistication, Increased complexity of modern world, Better nutrition, Changes at home and school
• Stereotype threat


  The phenomenon where people are at risk of conforming to negative stereotypes about their social group, leading to underperformance
• Characteristics of creative people


  • Open to experience (new ideas)
  • Highly flexible in their thinking
  • Have a high tolerance for frustration
  • Independent
  • Know when to move on to another idea
• Growth vs. fixed mindset


  • Those that think IQ is fixed tend to take less academic risks, challenging themselves less
  • It is better to attribute accomplishments based on effort rather than innate abilities
• Circadian rhythm


  Our internal biological clock; 24.2 hrs; all of our processes show this rhythmicity
• Free running


  When a person doesn't use alarms to regulate sleep cycle; they go to sleep and wake up later as time goes on
• Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)


  It regulates the circadian rhythm; located in the hypothalamus
• Melatonin


  Regulates the sleep-wake cycle, helping to signal to the body when it's time to sleep and when to wake up
• Stages of sleep


  • Non-REM (stages 1-3)
  • REM (paradoxical sleep)
• Non-REM sleep


  • Stage 1: slower EEG than awake; theta
  • Stage 2: K complexes; large +- deflections; sleep spindles
  • Stage 3: slow wave sleep; delta; restorative (deep sleep); sleep inertia if awakened
• REM sleep


  • Emergent stage 1
  • Loss of body core muscle tone (atonia)
  • Penile erection in males (cerebral blood flow accelerated)
  • Increase as night goes on; vivid dreaming with external stimuli; 80% of awakenings from REM yielded dreams
• REM rebound


  People experience an increase in the amount and intensity of (REM) sleep after a period of REM sleep deprivation
• Lucid dreaming


  Dreams in which certain aspects of wakefulness are maintained during a dream state