Psychology: Unit 14 - Chapter 18

Social Psychology

Social Thinking

Social psychology focuses on three broad topics: how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.

We usually rely on situational attributions, stressing the influence of external events, to explain our own behavior (and often the behavior of those we know well and see in many different contexts). But in explaining the actions of people we do not know well, we often resort to dispositional attributions, assuming they behave as they do because of their personal traits. This fundamental attribution error (overestimating the influence of personal factors and understanding the effect of context) can introduce inaccuracies into judgments we make about others.

Attitudes are positive, negative, or mixed feelings, based on our beliefs, that predispose us to respond on a particular way to objects, people, and events.

Our attitudes are most likely to affect our behavior when social influences are minimal, the attitude is specific to the behavior, and we are very aware of the attitude.

The foot-in-the-door phenomenon describes people's willingness to agree to a large request after having agreed to a related small request. In role-playing studies, such as Philip Zimbardo's prison experiment, people who behaved in certain ways in scripted scenarios have adopted attitudes in keeping with those roles. Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory proposes that we feel uncomfortable when we act in ways that conflict with our feelings and beliefs, and we reduce this discomfort by revising our attitudes to align them more closely with our behavior. In all three instances, attitudes adapt to behavior, rather than drive it.

Social Influence

The chameleon effect is our tendency to unconsciously mimic those around us, as when we yawn, or pick up the mood of a happy or sad person. Automatic mimicry is an ingredient in the ability to empathize with others.

Solomon Asch found that people will conform to a group's judgment even when it is clearly incorrect. Conformity increases when we feel incompetent or insecure, admire the group's status and attractiveness, have made no prior commitment to a response, are being observed by members of the group, come from a culture that strongly encourages respect for a group standards, and are in a group with at least three members, all unanimous in their decision. We may conform either to gain social approval (normative social influence) or because we welcome the information that others provide (informational social influence). We are most open to informational social influence if we are unsure of what is right and being right matters.

In Stanley Milgram's experiments, people torn between obeying an experimenter and responding to another's pleas to stop the shocks usually chose to obey orders, even though obedience supposedly meant harming the other person. People were most likely to obey when the person giving orders was nearby and was perceived as a legitimate authority figure; when the person giving orders was supported by a prestigious institution; when the victim was depersonalized or at a distance; and when no other person modeled defiance by disobeying.

In the conformity studies, randomly chosen ordinary people conformed in spite of their own beliefs. In the obedience studies, randomly chosen ordinary people obeyed instructions to deliver punishment that, if real, would have harmed total strangers. People who resisted instructions did so early; after that, attitudes followed behavior. If we learn from these experiments the underlying processes that can shape our behavior, we may be less susceptible in which we must choose between adhering to our own standards or being responsive to others.

The presence of either observers or co-actors boosts arousal, strengthening our most likely response. This social facilitation tends to increase performance on easy or well-learned tasks but decrease it on difficult or newly learned ones. The presence of others pooling their efforts toward a group goal can decrease performance when social loafing occurs, as some individuals ride free on the efforts of others. Deindividuation, a psychological state in which people become less self-aware and self-restrained, may result when a group experience arouses people and makes them feel anonymous.

Within groups, discussions among like-minded members often produce group polarization, an enhancement of the group's prevailing opinion. This process fosters groupthink, as groups pressure members to conform, suppress dissenting information, and fail to consider alternatives. To prevent groupthink, leaders can welcome a variety of opinions, invite expert's critiques, and assign people to identify possible problems in developing plans.

Social Relations

Prejudice is an attitude composed of beliefs, emotions, and predisposition to action. The beliefs are frequently stereotypes (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized beliefs). The emotions are most often negative, and the action is usually discrimination (unjustifiable negative behavior).

Overt prejudice, such as denying a particular ethnic group the right to vote, is discrimination that explicitly (openly and consciously) express negative beliefs and emotions. Subtle prejudice, such as feeling fearful in the presence of a stranger with a particular ethnic background, is an implicit (often unconscious) expression of negative beliefs and emotions.

One social factor contributing to prejudice is inequality (unequal distribution of money, power, prestige) within a group; in such condition, the “haves” usually develop negative attitudes toward the “have-nots' to justify their more privileged positions. Definitions of social identity (“we” the ingroup versus “they” the outgroup) are another source of prejudice because they promote ingroup bias ( a tendency to favor one's own group) and discrimination.

Troubled times, especially those that remind us of our own mortality, produce feelings of fear and anger. As in-group loyalty and out-group prejudice intensify, people may search for a scapegoat – someone to blame for the troubling event. Such denigrating of despised others can boost in-group members' self-esteem.

We simplify the world around us by creating categories, but when we categorize people, we often stereotype them, overgeneralizing their characteristics and underestimating their differences. We also tend to judge the frequency of events by vivid cases (violence, for example) that come to mind more readily than the long string of less vivid events involving the same group. We may justify people's less-privileged or punished position by the just-world phenomenon, assuming that the world is just and people get what they deserve. Hindsight bias (the tendency to believe, after learning on outcome, that we would have predicted it beforehand) may contribute to this tendency to blame the victim.
Psychology's definition of aggression is “any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm or destroy.' This is more precise than the everyday definition of aggression and includes behavior (such as killing in combat) that might not be included in everyday usage.

Psychologists dismiss the idea that aggression is instinctual and confirm that it results from an interaction between biology and experience. Genes influence aggression, for example by influencing our temperament. Experiments stimulating portions of the brain (such as the amygdala and frontal lobes) demonstrate that the brain has neural systems that facilitate or inhibit aggression. Studies of the effect of hormones (such as testosterone), alcohol (which releases inhibitions), and other substances show that biochemical influences also contribute to aggression.

Biological conditions set the threshold for aggressiveness, but psychological factors trigger aggressive behaviors. Aversive events (such as environmental conditions or social rejections) can create frustration, leading to feelings of anger and hostility. Reinforcement for aggressive behavior (such as gaining a treat from another student by bullying) can establish learned patterns of aggression that are difficult to change. People can also learn aggression and become desensitized to violence by observing models act aggressively in person (watching violence withing the family or neighborhood, for example) or in the media (watching violence or sexual aggression on TV or in movies). Media depictions of violence can trigger aggression in another way: by providing social scripts (culturally sanctioned ways of acting in a given situation).

Violent video games can heighten aggressive behavior by providing social scripts and opportunities to observe modeled aggression and to role-play aggression. Playing these games can increase arousal and feelings of hostility; prime aggressive thoughts and increase aggression; and (in adolescent) lead to increased participations in arguments and lights and falling grades. Virtual reality games may heighten these effects.

Social conflicts are situations in which people perceive their actions, goals or ideas to be incompatible. In social traps, two or more individuals engage in mutually destructive behavior by rationally pursuing their own personal interests without regard for the well-being of other. Helping people to agree on regulations, communicate better, and be more aware of responsibilities toward others can foster cooperation and avoid social traps. People in conflict tend to perceive the worst in each other, producing mirror-images of identical demons. The perceptions can become self-fulfilling prophecies, triggering reactions that confirm the images.

Proximity- geographical nearness – promotes attraction, in part because it increases the opportunities for interaction and in part because if the mere exposure effect (repeated exposure to novel stimuli enhances liking ). Physical attractiveness also increases opportunities for interaction. People prefer being with attractive people and perceive them as healthier, happier, and more sensitive, more successful, and more socially skilled. Judgments of attractiveness vary by culture, and as time goes by we find those we care about to be more attractive. Similarity of attitudes and interests greatly increases liking after people make it past the first impression. The reward theory of attraction states that we tend to like people whose behavior is rewarding to us, and we will continue relationships that offer more rewards than costs.

Associating arousal with a desirable person is a key ingredient of passionate love, the intense absorption we cognitively label as love. Passionate love often matures into the deep affectionate attachment of companionate love. This transition is most likely in relationships characterized by equally and intimate self-disclosure.

Altruism is the unselfish regard for the welfare of other. Examples of altruism include helping victims of a natural disaster, given blood, or donating to local food pantries with no expectations of personal reward.

The bystander effect is the tendency, identified by John Darley and Bibb Latane, for any given observer to be less likely to help of others are present. To offer help, a person must notice the incident, interpret it as an emergency, and assume responsibility for offering help. Diffusion of responsibility lowers the likelihood of helping. Odds of helping are highest when the victim is similar to us and appears to need and deserve help, and when we observe other helping, are feeling guilty, are not in a hurry or preoccupied, are in a small town or rural areas, and are in a good mood.

Social exchange theory proposes that our social behaviors – even altruistic, helpful acts – are based on self-interest: maximizing our benefits (which may include our own good feelings) and minimizing our costs. Social norms influence altruistic behaviors by telling us how we should behave. The reciprocity norm is the expectations that we will help those who help us, and the social responsibility norm is the expectation that we will help those who are dependent on us.

Friendly contact between prejudiced people can change attitudes. But social conflict is most likely to be reduced when the circumstances favor cooperation to achieve superordinate goals (especially if subgroups disappear), understanding through communication (sometimes with the help of a third party), and reciprocated conciliatory gestures (such as the GRIT strategy).

If i would have to describe my life in one word, i think i would choose loose. You can image but you will never understand someone's life. You can't feel the same emotion, the same thoughts at these moments that keep cutting the string thinner and thinner. The will to stay sane while there is nothing that has not been insane in your mind. It's fragile and so pure, so human but also so abnormal. I've never asked for you to understand or feel for me in this way that you believe you do. i can see how i've been throwing you into deep sea with nothing to grip as the dust is crawling between your toes. The obsession that i have with the beings around me keep the little strings attached to the last thread that is getting to close to your hot body and the vertical fires that have never spread, but moved in ways that draw me into the borders of the painting that you needed to create.

this is about a week ago of when i wrote it. a rediscovery as i have completely forgotten that i still had it. 

not exactly sure of how i feel about this. i don't think it's done so see it as a draft, maybe. 

Psychology: Unit 13 - Chapter 17

Therapy

Psychotherapy is an emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone suffering from psychological difficulties. The biomedical therapies are prescribed medications or medical procedures that act directly on a patient's nervous system. An eclectic approach to psychotherapy uses techniques from various forms of therapy; psychotherapy integration attempts to combine a selection of assorted techniques into a single, coherent system.

The Psychological Therapies

Psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique of using a patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences, and therapist's interpretations of them, to help the person release previously repressed feelings and gain insight into current conflicts. Clinicians working from the psychoanalytic perspective try to help people gain insight into the unconscious origin of their disorders, work through the accompanying feelings, and take responsibility for their growth.

Psychoanalysts may ask patients to free associate (saying aloud anything that comes to mind) and watch for pauses or diversions that may indicate resistance (the defensive blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material). Analysts may offer patients their interpretation of these instances of resistance, of dreams, and of other behaviors, such as transference (transferring to the therapist the strong feelings harbored against a family member or other significant person). Critics note that traditional psychoanalysis has relied on after-the-fact interpretations and repressed memories, and that it is time-consuming and very costly.

Psychodynamic therapy was influenced by traditional psychoanalysis but is briefer and less expensive. A psychodynamic therapist attempts to focus on and conceptualize a patient's current conflicts and defenses by searching for themes common to many past and present importance relationships, including (but not limited to) childhood experiences and interactions with the therapist. Interpersonal therapy (a brief 12- to 16- session form of psychodynamic therapy) focuses primarily on reliving current symptoms (such as depression) rather than on an intensive interpretation if the origins of unconscious conflicts.

Humanistic therapists focus on clients' present and future experiences, on conscious rather than unconscious thoughts, and on taking responsibility for one's feelings and actions. One of the most famous humanistic therapies was Carl Roger's client-centered therapy. Rogers proposed that therapists' most important contributions are to function as a psychological mirror for the client through active listening, and to provide an environment of unconditional positive regard, characterized by genuineness, acceptance, and empathy. In this growth-fostering environment, Rogers believed, clients would increase their own self-understanding and self-acceptance. \

To help people alleviate current conflict and problems, traditional psychoanalytic therapists attempt to explain the origin of behaviors, and humanistic therapies to promote self-acceptance and self-awareness. Behaviors therapists assume the problem behaviors are the problem, and they attempt to change them through new learning.

Counterconditioning uses classical conditioning techniques to pair new responses with old stimuli that have triggered maladaptive behaviors. Exposure therapies (including systematic desensitization and virtual reality exposure therapy) train people to relax (a response that cannot co-exist with fear) and then to gradually but repeatedly expose them to the things they fear and avoid. Exposure therapies try to substitute a positive response (relaxation) for a negative one (fear). Aversive conditioning uses counterconditioning techniques to pair an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior. Aversive conditioning tries to substitute a negative response (such as nausea) for a positive one (pleasure) to a harmful stimulus (alcohol).

Operant conditioning therapies are based in the principle that voluntary behaviors are strongly influenced by their consequences. Behavior modification procedures thus enforce desired behaviors and withhold reinforcement for, or punish, undesired behaviors. Therapists sometime create token economics, in which people receive tokens for a privilege or treat. Critics object (1) on the practical grounds that these behaviors may disappear when the tokens are discontinued, and (2) on the ethical grounds that it is not right to control other people's behavior. Proponents counter with the arguments that (1) social or intrinsic rewards can replace the tokens and continue to be reinforcing, and (2) reinforcing adaptive behavior is justified because, with or without behavior modification, rewards and punishers will always control people's behavior.

Cognitive therapy attempts to teach people to think in more adaptive ways, on the assumption that thoughts intervene between an event and our emotional reactions to it. Cognitive behavior therapy attempts to teach people to think in more adaptive ways but also to practice their new ways of thinking in everyday life. In Aaron Beck's cognitive therapy for depression, therapists try to change self-defeating thinking by training clients to look at themselves in new, more positive ways. In stress inoculation training, another form of cognitive therapy, people with depression learn to dispute their negative thoughts and to restructure their thinking in stressful situations. Depressed people also work to establish to attribution style of nondepressed people (taking credit for good events and not taking blame for, or overgeneralized from, bad events).

In groups normally consisting of 6 to 9 people, therapists may be less involved with each member, but the (on average) 90-minute session can help more people and cost less per person than individual therapy would. Clients may benefit from knowing other have similar problems and from getting feedback and reassurance. Most forms of therapy can be adapted to a group setting. Family therapy views a family as an interactive system and attempts to help members discover the roles they play and to learn to communicate more openly and directly. Millions of people participate in self-help and support groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

Evaluating Psychotherapies

Clients judge psychotherapy to be effective for three reason: They tend to enter therapy in crisis, they need to believe their time and expenses justified, and they try to find something positive to say when asked to evaluate their therapist. But research has not generally upheld clients' estimates of therapy's effectiveness.

Clients enter therapy when they are unhappy, leave it when they are less unhappy, and stay in touch only if satisfied with the treatment they received. So clinicians are mostly aware of other therapists' failures, not their own. Both the placebo effect (the belief a treatment will work) and regression toward the mean (the tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back toward the mean) contribute to clients' and clinicians' misperceptions of the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

Outcome studies are randomized clinical trials in which people on a waiting lists receive therapy or no therapy. Statistical digests (meta-analyses) of hundreds of these studies reveal that (1) people who remain untreated often improve, but (2) those who receive psychotherapy are more likely to improve, and (3) people who receive psychological treatment spend less time and money later seeking other medical treatment, compared with their counterparts and waiting lists.

Meta-analyses indicate that no one type of therapy is most effective overall, nor is there any connection between effectiveness and a therapist's training, experience, supervision, or licensing. Some therapies are particularly well-suited to specific disorders, such as cognitive, interpersonal, and behavior therapies for depression; cognitive, exposure, and stress-inoculation therapies for anxiety; cognitive-behavior therapy for bulimia; behavior modification for bed wetting; and behavior conditioning therapies for phobias, compulsions, and sexual disorders. The more specific the problem, the greater the chances for effective treatment. Debate continues over the extent to which clinical practice should be based on scientific evidence or intuitive responses.

In EMDR therapy, a therapist attempts to unlock and reprocess previously frozen traumatic memories by waving a finger in front of the eyes of a person imagining traumatic scenes. EMDR has not held up under scientific testing, and its modest successes may be attributable to the placebo effect. In people with seasonable affective disorder, a form of depression linked to periods of decreased sunlight, light exposure therapy (exposure to daily timed doses of light that mimics outdoor light) has been proven effective by scientific research.

All types of psychotherapy seem to offer new hope for demoralized people, a fresh perspective, and an empathetic, trusting, caring relationship. The therapeutic alliance – the emotional bond between therapist and client – is an important part of effective therapy and may help explain why some paraprofessionals can be as helpful as professional psychotherapists.

Psychotherapists may differ from each other and from clients in personal beliefs, values, and cultural background. Such differences can be affect the formation of a bond between therapist and client. People searching for a therapist should have preliminary consultations with two or three to gain an understanding of the therapists' values, credentials, and fees, and to find someone with whom they feel comfortable.

The Biomedical Therapies

Psychopharmacology is the study of drugs effects on mind and behavior. Since the 1950s, drug therapy has been used extensively to treat psychological disorders. Double-blind studies, in which neither the medical staff nor the patient knows whether the patient is taking the real drug or a placebo, eliminate the bias that can result from Clinicians' and patients' expectations of improvement.

The antipsychotic drugs dampen responsiveness to irrelevant stimuli, and they have been used effectively to treat schizophrenia accompanied by positive symptoms (the presence of hallucinations and delusions). Dosage varies from person to person. The first-generation antipsychotic drugs, which block D2 (dopamine) receptors, can produce tardive dyskinesia, (involuntary movements of facial muscles, the tongue, and arms and legs). The second-generation of antipsychotics, which target D1 receptors, can affect metabolism, increasing the risk of obesity and diabetes.

The antianxiety drugs depress central nervous system activity. They are often used in combination with psychotherapy for treatment of anxiety disorders. Antianxiety drugs can be psychologically and physically addictive.

Antidepressant drugs increase the availability of norepinephrine or serotonin, which elevate arousal and mood. Antidepressant like Prozac, which block the reuptake of serotonin, are known as selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors (SSRIs). Dual-action antidepressant block the reuptake or absorption of both norepinephrine and serotonin, but they have a greater risk of side effects. Antidepressants are used to treat depression (often in combination with cognitive therapy) and the anxiety disorders. Antidepressants begin to influence neurotransmitter system almost immediately, but their full psychological effects may not appear until weeks later. The suicide risk for those taking these drugs may have been overestimated.

A few drugs, such as lithium for bipolar disorder, have proven very effective in stabilizing moods. Researchers do not yet understand how these medications work.

ECT is a biomedical therapy in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain if an anesthetized patient. Although controversial, ECT remains an effective, last-resort treatment for many people with severe depression (it is ineffective in treating other disorders) who have not responded to drug therapy. How ECT works is unknown. Depression has also been alleviate by some implanted devices that stimulate parts of the brain or the vagus nerve sending signals to the limbic system. Following early reports of success, large clinical trials are under way to study repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). In this painless procedure, pulses of magnetic energy sent through the skull to the surface of the cortex stimulate or dampen activity in various areas of the brain.

Lobotomy was a crude procedure in which surgical instruments inserted through a patient's eye sockets were used to sever connections running to the frontal lobes of the brain. The intent was to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients, but instead it usually created lethargy and an impulsive personality. This surgery disappeared in the 1050s, when its harmful effects became known and new and effective drug treatments were introduced. Today, neurosurgeons rarely perform brain surgery to treat psychological disorders. Even when MRI-guided precision surgery is considered for exceptional, life-threatening conditions, it is a treatment of last resort because its effects are irreversible.

Preventing Psychological Disorder

Advocates of preventive mental health argue that many psychological disorder could be prevented. Their aim is to change oppressive, esteem-destroying environments into more benevolent, nurturing environments that foster individual growth and self-confidence.

Silence in Distance

art secret project: Film photo

I have to say that i felt good about this when i was done and saw it first but everyone made me feel awful about it. Oh well it has meaning to me and i guess that's what matters. but still, i  wish i could change my project now..
well irl people can just ruin things..

This is also a piece meant for my journalism class.
It's officially 'public'

Bizarre Story

Like Cat and Dog

A beautiful tree standing in the entrance of the waiting place that i have been ordered to attend at 3:00pm. The air is fresh and cool, the last greeting from winter before it decided to linger in some other place far away from here. My eyes are tired from the restless nights that i have spend at my desk with hope of it to dissolve maybe, or just being split into wood for a warm fire that i have wished to use for my freezing hands over the papers that have to be done. Oh, what am i complaining, i'm here and finished my work on time, next to this tree without leaves but endless little sticks pointing at ever thing in this world before they can be covered again by the green of Spring and Summer and multicolor of Autumn. This manager person that told me to be here is late. I don't wonder, really. Those people have a thing with time, everything they work for has value but if it's just about appreciating another thing than that and you can wait a long time. Sometime forever. A door shut and i looked up from my thoughts.

  “Oh hello! I'm sorry for being late, this office was just holding me up for so long. Sometimes you wish you wouldn't be a boss of something so you don't have a million people asking you absurd questions about how to sharpen their pencils. It's tiring, really. But now i'm here and we can talk about this little think you wanted to show me. What is it about?”

I am in wonder. I didn't want to but he doesn't really give me choice. He is the tiniest person i have ever seen. And so round as well, which adds a lot to the reason why he might have been really late.

  “Hello sir. Nice to meet you, and yes indeed i have something to show you. It's a project me and my friend worked on over the winter. It's something to prevent the future from technology and to--”

  “Wait young man, repeat that? Prevent the future from technology? But that's really absurd! No one on earth with some kind of intelligence would even think of preventing such a thing. It's the ultimate thing to survive for us, and maybe it will even teach these idiot in my office how to use a sharpener, eventually.”

   “no, i think you misunderstood me. We want to prevent technology from spreading so that we can save ourselves. Have you never realized how we as humans have developed after this? We became mindless and lazy, dependent and stupid.”

  “You're talking nonsense! Oh why have i come here?! I got told someone wants to meet with us because they had a new idea of how to change things to the better, but that! No, no it's not acceptable. I can't let this go through with developing. I'm sorry sir, but you understood me wrong. I have to leave now, we are not interesting in your new.. something. Have a nice day!”

So he turned on his heels and walked to his car that has been waiting in the parking lot about 4 meters away from the place that I'm standing. A scream of the engine and a furious man returning to his rightful place.

 This is not really how i intended to have my work appreciated. But being honest with myself, i could have expected that and spared myself with preparing a shitload of paper for him to read. Still standing next to this tree, i searched my pockets for a cigarette. The zipper was stuck with a piece of cloth and it prevented me from putting my whole hand into it to get to the ground of my pocket so that i could actually reach the last cigarette before i was about to quit. I have tried often, too often when i think about it but i have read somewhere that with constant trying you could actually succeed. Might have been obesity though. Should have told him that before he left.

Eventually i pressed the cigarette between my two fingers that i was able to put into and pulled it out with care. Having done that i grabbed my lightener from my other pocket where the zipper was working and lit it up. The fire left after some flickering and left me with the smoke of the possible last one i'll have.

I sat down on this stone wall that is protecting this lifeless tree. Could we have been wrong about it? Was this ball of manager right? No, i don't actually think that but that's what you're suppose to think after a failure. I moved my hand to the nice and smooth dirt of the tree and drew pictures in it. A bird, a dog, and a cat. I've never really like dogs actually, but they just seem like such a thing that you draw into dirt with birds and cats. Getting angry at the picture i put my cigarette in it. I regretted that though as i have forgotten that this was the last one that i've had on me.

Ticked off, i got up, said a prayer for this tree and went off to the store to buy another pack. The store was just across the street, which made this easier and i just ran and was there in no time. Getting in i have a weird feeling. Not really bad, more like something is haunting me. I can be very intense if i want to, but that one feels more real. Going to the cashier with a pack of smokes, i keep looking behind me to check for something unusual.

“something bothering you sir?”

“no”

“14.50$ please”

Giving him the money and with a glare from the man exchanging it with the smokes i turn and walk out of the store.

Almost running, i fell over something. With a curse in my mouth i got up and turned to see what i have been falling over. A dog, staring with its brown eyes into mine, standing there as if it has been waiting for me to run around the corner.

A coincidence i tell myself, i spit in front of the dogs feet and turn around again to keep walking home from this horrific last 40 minutes.

honesty

strips of ripped paper hanging from the ceiling but i’ve never realized how broken they all were, how carelessly they have been ripped and put there. you once told me we have secrets to hold just for us, but i can see now how you put me up there with no care or meaning but only to get me out of the way. honesty doesn’t mean you speak your mind at all times, but to tell the truth when you decide to share your thoughts. i’m screaming out for help like a cold engine in winter. i have come and gone but you have been here from the beginning and weren’t supposed to leave. can’t you see me spin the bottle, begging it to stop at you and to hear your voice talking in trust. why can it never stop where you have sat, why does it stop at me and I have to give out my heart because the string can’t attach to the ceiling anymore.

Psychology: Unit 12 - Chapter 16

Psychological Disorders

words of the author: before you read this, can i just say that, just because you feel like you have those symptoms, that doesn't mean that you also have this particular disorder. I'm not saying that it is not possible for you to have it but, as the text below says, anxiety is part of everybody's life. Everybody experiences these feelings from time to time, but please beware the definition of disorder before jumping to conclusions and running to a psychiatrist or get even more depressed as you might already are because you feel like you have an actual disorder. Disorders are not something to joke about and if you have never thought about yourself with any of these disorders, you probably wont get it now just because there are symptoms here and there that could refer to your life. I'm saying this because I want you to read this with a sense of critical thinking and observation for learning and not for a bunch of self-references that will just lead to depression and disrespect for people who actually suffer.

Rejoice your mind instead of destroying it.

-Suntka Rost

Perspectives on Psychological Disorders

Psychologists and psychiatrists consider behavior disordered when it is deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional. The definition of deviant varies with the context and culture. It also varies with time; for example, some children who might have been judged rambunctious a few decades ago are now being diagnosed with attention-deficient hyperactivity disorder.

The medical model assumes that psychological disorders are mental illnesses that can be diagnosed on the basis of their symptoms and cured through therapy, sometimes in a hospital. The biopsychosocial approach assumes that disordered behavior, like other behavior, arises from genetic predisposition and physiological states; inner psychological dynamics; and social-cultural circumstances.

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM – IV), currently describes 400 disorders and their prevalence. The manual defines a structured interview technique that clinicians can use to reach a diagnosis. They answer objective questions, posed at five different levels, or axes, about the individual's observable behaviors. The reliability of the classification is sufficiently high. DSM diagnoses are developed in coordination with International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

Critics of the DSM-IV argue that diagnostic label can stigmatize a person by biasing other's interpretations and perceptions of past and present behaviors and by affecting the ways people react to the labeled person. The benefits of diagnostic labels are that they help mental health professionals communicate with one another about care and therapy, and they establish a common vocabulary for the exchange of ideas among researchers working on causes and treatments of disorders. Most health insurance policies in North America require an ICD diagnosis before they will pay for therapy. One label, “insanity” - used in some legal defenses – raised moral and ethical questions about how a society should treat people who have disorders and have committed crimes.

Anxiety Disorders and Dissociative Disorders

Anxiety is part of our everyday experience. It is classified as a psychological disorder only when it becomes distressing or persistent or is characterized by maladaptive behaviors intended to reduce it.

People with generalized anxiety disorder (two-thirds of whom are women) feel persistently and uncontrollably tense and apprehensive and are in a state of automatic nervous system arousal. They are unable to identify, or avoid, the cause of these feelings. People with panic disorder experience periodic minutes-long episodes of intense dread, which may include feelings of terror, chest pains, choking, or other frightening sensations in panic disorder are more extreme and may cause people to avoid situations where they have had panic attacks.

Phobias differ form normal fears in their extremity and their potential effect on behavior. People with a phobia experience such persistent and irrational fears that they may be incapacitated by their attempts to avoid a specific object, animal, or situation.

Persistent and repetitive thoughts and actions that characterize obsessive-compulsive disorder interfere with everyday living and cause the person distress. The obsession (the repetitive thought) may, for example, be a concern with dirt, germs, or toxin, be excessive hand washing, bathing, or some other form of grooming.

Four or more weeks of haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and sleep problems are symptoms of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The symptoms appear following some traumatic event or events the individual witnessed or experienced but could not control. Some people are more resilient than other. On average, only about 10 percent of women and 20 percent of men react to trauma by developing PTSD at some pint in their lifetime. For those who survive the trauma, the experience can lead to a period of growth.

Those working from the learning perspective view anxiety disorders as a product of fear conditioning, stimulus generalization, reinforcement of fearful behaviors, and observational learning of others' fear. Those working from the biological perspective consider the role that fears of life-threatening animals, objects, or situations played in natural selection and evolution; the genetic inheritance of a high level of emotional reactivity; and abnormal responses in the brain's fear circuits.

Dissociative disorders are conditions in which conscious awareness seems to become separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feeling. The most famous dissociative disorder is dissociative identity disorder, commonly known as multiple personality disorder. Critics note that this diagnosis increased dramatically in the late twentieth century, that it is not found in many countries and is very rare in other, and that it may reflect role-playing by people who are very open to therapists' suggestions. Some view this disorder as a manifestation of feelings of anxiety, or as a response learned when behaviors are reinforced by reductions in feelings of anxiety.

Mood Disorders

Mood disorders are characterized by emotional extremes. A person with major depressive disorder experiences two or more weeks of seriously depressed moods and feelings of worthlessness, takes little interest in most activities, and derives little pleasure from them. These feelings are not cause by drugs or a medical condition. Although less disabling, dysthymic disorder is marked by two years of chronic low energy and poor self-esteem. People with bipolar disorder alternate between depression and mania, a hyperactive and wildly optimistic impulsive state. Major depressive disorder is much more common than is bipolar disorder.

An acceptable theory of depression must account for the many behavioral and cognitive changes that accompany depression; its widespread occurrence; women's greater susceptibility to the disorder; the tendency of depressive episodes to self-terminate; the link between stressful events and the onset of depression; and the increasing rates and earlier onset of depression.

The biological perspective on depression focuses on genetic influence, in part though linkage analysis and association studies. Researchers working from this perspective also study abnormalities in brain structure and function, including those found in neurotransmitter systems. Their work has shown that as predisposition to depression does run in some families, that activity in the left frontal lobes is slowed during depression, and that stress-related damage to the hippocampus increases the risk of depression. Despair drives some people to suicide, and the risk is greatest when their energy returns as the depression begins to lift.

The social-cognitive perspective has drawn attention to the power of self-defeating beliefs (arising in part from learned helplessness), and negative explanatory styles that view bad events as stable, global, and internally cause. Critics note that these characteristics may coincide with depression but not caused it. The cycle of depression consists of (1) negative stressful events (2) interpretation through a pessimistic explanatory style, creating a (3) hopeless depressed state, which (4) hampers the way the person thinks and acts, fueling more negative stressful events, such as rejection.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a group of disorders that typically strike during late adolescence, affect men very slightly more than women, and seem to occur in all cultures. Symptoms of schizophrenia are disorganized and delusional thinking (which may stem from a breakdown of selective attention), disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions and actions. Delusions are false beliefs; hallucinations are sensory experiences without sensory stimulation.

The subtypes of schizophrenia are paranoid (preoccupation with delusions or hallucinations, often of persecution or grandiosity), disorganized (disorganized speech or behavior, or flat affect or inappropriate emotions), catatonic (immobility, extreme negativism, and/or parrotlike repetition of another's speech or movements), undifferentiated (varies symptoms), and residual (withdrawal following hallucinations and delusions). Chronic (or process) schizophrenia emerges gradually, is often associated with negative symptom (absence of appropriate behaviors), and carries a low chance of recovery. Acute (or reactive) schizophrenia develops rapidly (often in response to stress) in a previously well-adjusted person, may be associated with positive symptoms (presence of inappropriate behaviors), and carries a greater chance of recovery.

People with schizophrenia have increased receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine, which may intensify the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Research is under way on a possible link between negative symptoms and impaired glutamate activity. Brain abnormalities associated with schizophrenia include enlarged, fluid-filled cerebral cavities and corresponding decreases in the cortex. Brain scans reveal abnormal activities in the frontal lobes, thalamus, and amygdala. Malfunctions in multiple brain regions and their connections apparently interact to produce the symptoms of schizophrenia. Research support is mounting for the causal effects of a virus suffered in mid-pregnancy.

The odds of developing schizophrenia are approximately 1 in 100 in the general population; 1 in 10 if a family member has it; and 1 in 2 if an identical twin has the disorder. Adoption studies show that an adopted child's chances of developing the disorder are greater if the biological parents have schizophrenia, but not if the adopted parents have it. But 50 percent of those whose identical twin has schizophrenia do not develop the condition themselves, demonstrating that genetics is not the sole cause of this disorder.

No environmental event can by itself trigger schizophrenia, though some things may trigger the disorder in those genetically predisposed to it. Research has identified some early warning signs of schizophrenia, including a mother whose schizophrenia was severe and long-lasting; birth complications; separation from parents; short attention span and poor muscle coordination; disruptive or withdrawn behavior; emotional unpredictability; and poor peer relations and solo play.

Personality Disorder

Personality Disorders are inflexible and enduring patterns of behaviors that impair social functioning. The main component of the first cluster is anxiety; of the second cluster, eccentric behaviors; of the third cluster, dramatic or impulsive behaviors. Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by a lack of conscience and, sometimes, aggressive and ruthless behavior. Brain scans of some murderers with this disorder have shown reduced activity in the frontal lobes, an area of control for impulsive, aggressive behavior. There is no gene for antisocial personality disorder, though genetic predisposition may interact with environmental influences to produce it.

Rates of Psychological Disorders

Research indicates that about 1 in 6 people has, or has had, a psychological disorder, usually by early adulthood. Poverty is a predictor of mental illness. Conditions and experiences associated with poverty contribute to the development of mental disorders, but the converse is also true. Some mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, can drive people into poverty.

Psychology: Unit 11 - Chapter 15

Personality

Personality

Psychologists define personality as an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting. The early grand theories of personality tries to explain human nature, but current theories tend to focus on specific aspects of personality, such as our traits, uniqueness, sense of personal control, and concept of self.

The Psychoanalytic Perspective

As a physician specializing in nervous disorders, Freud encountered patients whose complaints could not be explained in terms of purely physical causes. His attempt to understand these conditions led to his theory of psychoanalysis, the first comprehensive theory of personality.

Freud compared the human mind to an iceberg because he believed that most of the mind – the unconscious – is hidden from view (as most of an iceberg is hidden below water) because we repress the thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories that create feelings of anxiety. In his view, this repression is never fully successful, and the troublesome thoughts and feelings express themselves in disguised forms unless we retrieve them into conscious awareness and free ourselves from the tensions they create. He sought to analyze these unconscious dynamics through fee association and dream interpretation.

Freud saw personality as the product of a conflict between our biological impulses and our internalized social restraints on these impulses. The players in this conflict are three interacting systems: the id, ego, and the superego. The id, which wants immediate gratification, operated in the unconscious and attempts to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. The superego, our internalized set of ideals, is the voice of our conscience, judging our actions and producing feelings of pride or guilt. Between them is the ego, the largely conscious, reality-oriented executive that attempts to reconcile the impulses of the id with the demands of the superego and those of the external world.

Freud believed that children develop through psychosexual stages – oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital- in which the id is focused in the particular erogenous zone. During the phallic stage, for example, boys may desire their mothers and fear punishment for these feelings from their father – a set of reactions Freud called the Oedipus complex. A person who fails to resolve the conflicts associated with a psychosexual stage may remain locked into, or fixated at, that stage. The person's personality will show the symptoms of this fixation in maladaptive behavior focused on the erogenous zone dominant at that stage.

Freud believed the ego uses defense mechanism to protect itself from anxiety, which arises as a byproduct of the conflict between the competing demands of the id and the superego. The basic defense mechanism, according to Freud, is repression (banished troublesome ideas and feelings onto the unconscious); others include regression (retreating to an infantile stage), reaction formation (transforming unacceptable impulses into their acceptable opposites), projection (attributing one's own unacceptable impulses to others), rationalization (explaining one's behavior in terms of self-justifying motives rather than unacceptable ones), and displacement (focusing sexual or aggressive impulses on someone who is more acceptable than the person who aroused the emotion).

The neo-Freudians accepted Freud's basic ideas (the id-ego-superego structure, the importance of the unconsciousness, the shaping of personality in childhood, and the dynamics of anxiety and the defense mechanism). But they also argued that we have motives other than sex and aggression, and that the ego's conscious control is greater than Freud supposed. Alfred Adler (who coined to term inferiority complex) and Karen Horney (who refuted Freud's view of the inferiority of women) argued that social, not sexual, tensions are critical in personality formation. Carl Jung proposed a human collective unconscious containing memory traces from our species' history.

Contemporary psychodynamic theorists and therapists refute some aspects of Freud's theory, such as the idea that sexual tensions are central to personality formation. They share with Freud the view that much of our mental life is unconscious, that childhood shapes our personality and attachment styles, and that we experience inner conflicts among our wishes, fears, and values.

The Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT) is a series of ambiguous pictures used to elicit a story in which test-takers express their own inner feelings and interests. Users of the Rorschach inkblots, the most widely used projective test, ask people to interpret a series of inkblots, again on the assumption that test takers will reveal hidden feelings. Neither of these test is noted for reliability (consistency of results) or validity (predicting what it's supposed to predict).

Recent research has contradicted many of Freud's basic ideas, including the overriding importance of childhood experiences, degree of parental influence, timing of gender-identity formation, importance of sexuality during childhood, existence of hidden content in dreams, and frequency of repressed memories. Critics note that Freud's ideas are not verifiable by scientific methods, and that his theory offer only after-the-fact explanations. Freud's supporters reply that Freud viewed psychoanalysis as a way to find meaning in our existence, not as a predictive science. Freud drew psychology's attention to the unconscious and to the struggle to cope with anxiety. Although contemporary research fails to support Freud's view of the unconscious mind as a reservoir of repressed thoughts and emotions, findings throughout this text indicate that a vast amount of unconscious information processing occurs without our awareness. Current research does not support the concept of defense mechanisms closely tied to defense of the unconscious. It does support some defenses that protect self-esteem, such a reaction formation, the false-consensus effect (similar to Freud's projection mechanism), and terror management (warding off fears of death by pursuit of self-esteem or faith in one's worldview). Finally, Freud is credited with focusing attention on the conflicts between biological impulses and social restraints. And without question, his cultural impact has been enormous.

The Humanistic Perspective

Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs, ranging from the most basic physiological need to the ultimate need for self-actualization. He believed that after fulfilling other needs (physiological; safety; belongingness and love; self-esteem), people will be motivated to achieve their highest potential. He arrived at his description of a self-actualized person by studying, and summarizing the qualities of, healthy and creative people who had lived exemplary lives. Maslow typifies humanistic psychology's attempt to turn psychology's attention from baser motives and environmental conditioning to the growth potential of healthy people, believed to be basically good.

Like Maslow, Rogers believed that unless thwarted by their environment, people will grow and realize their self-actualizing tendencies. We can promote other's growth toward a deeper self-awareness and a more realistic and positive self-concept by being genuine, accepting, and empathetic. Part of being accepting, he believed, is unconditional positive regard – an attitude of total acceptance toward the other person. In Rogers' view, a central feature of personality is our self-concept, our thoughts and feelings in response to the question “Who am I?”

Some humanistic psychologists assessed personality through questionnaires on which people reported their self-concept, for example, by comparing their actual self with ideal self. Others believed that we could a person's subjective personal experiences only through interviews and intimate conversations.

Humanistic psychology helped to renew psychology's interest in the self. Nevertheless, its critics have complained that humanistic psychology's concepts were vague and subjective, its values individualist and self-centered, and its assumptions naively optimists.

The Trait Perspective

Rather than explain personality in term of childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations, as Freud did, trait researchers have attempted to describe personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns, or predispositions to feel and act. Some psychologists also have attempted to use dominant traits to describe personality “types.”

Trait researchers attempt to describe personality by placing individuals at points on several trait dimensions simultaneously. Some have attempted to isolate important dimensions of personality by using factor analysis. Hans Eysenck and Sybil Eysenck proposed that two primary, genetically influenced dimension (extraversion-introversion and emotional stability-instability) will explain normal individual variations. Brain-activity scans do indicate that extraverts and introverts differ in their level of brain arousal. Jerome Kagan believes that heredity, by influencing autonomic nervous system reactivity, also influence temperament and behavioral style, which help define personality.

Personality inventories are questionnaires on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors. The MMPI-2 is the most widely used personality inventory. Items on the MMPI are empirically derived, and the tests are objectively scored. Objectively does not, however, guarantee validity (measuring what is is suppose to measure), and people may answer MMPI questions in ways that are socially appropriate but not truthful.

The Big Five personality factors are conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion. These traits appear to be stable in adulthood, substantially heritable, applicable to all cultures, and good predictors of other personal attributes. Locating an individual on these five dimensions currently offers the most comprehensive picture of personality.

Critics of the trait perspective point out that although people's general traits may persist over time, their specific behavior varies from situation as their inner disposition interacts with a particular environment.

Thus, traits are not good predictors of behavior. Trait theorists reply that despite these variations, a person's average behavior across many different situations tends to be fairly consistent.

Expressive styles – animation, manner of speaking, and gestures – demonstrate how consistent traits can be, despite situational variations in behavior. Observers have been able to judge expressiveness in video snippets as short as 2 seconds long. We have little voluntary control over our expressiveness.

The Social-Cognitive Perspective

Reciprocal determinism is a term applied to the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors. This interaction is central to the social-cognitive perspective, which applies principles of learning (through conditioning and observation) and cognition (our thinking about our situations) to the study of personality. Interactions between individuals and environment occur, for example, when we choose an environment that shapes us, when our personality shapes how we interpret and react to events, and when our personality helps create situations to which we react.

People with an internal locus of control (who believe they control their own destiny) tend to experience higher school achievement, better health, less depression, and greater self-control than those with an external locus of control (who believe forces beyond their control determine their fate). Learned helplessness is an acquired response of hopelessness and passive resignation that animals and humans display after repeated exposure to traumatic events they cannot control. Environments that increase people's feelings of control can boost morale and empower people. Ever-increasing personal freedom, however, in the form of a wealth of consumer choices, can result in a tyranny of choices that can decrease life satisfaction, increase depression, and lead to feelings of paralysis.

An optimistic or pessimistic attributional style – your way of explaining events- can be a window revealing how effective or helpless you feel. Students who express an attitude of hopeful optimism tend to get better grades than those who have a negative attributional style. But excessive optimism can foster feelings of invincibility that expose us to unnecessary risks. Positive psychology, like humanistic psychology, attempts to foster human fulfillment. But it differs form humanistic psychology in its scientific methods. The three goals of positive psychology are studying and fostering positive subjective well-being; positive character; and positive groups, communities, and cultures.

Social-cognitive researchers are interested in how people's behaviors and beliefs affect, and are affected by, their surroundings. They observe people in realistic situations because they have found that the best way to predict someone's behavior in a given situation is to observe that person's behavior pattern in similar situations.

Critics fault the social-cognitive perspective for focusing so much on the situation that it loses sight of the person. They maintain that this perspective slights the importance of unconscious dynamics, emotions, and biologically influenced traits.

Exploring the Self

Psychological research on the self has been accumulating for more than a century. Many psychologists view the self – the organizer of our thoughts, feelings and actions – as a critical part of personality. One recent example of research on the self is the study of the influence of possible selves, the visions of the selves we dream of becoming or fear we may become. Another example is the concept of the spotlight effect, the assumptions that we overestimate the extend to which others notice and evaluate our appearance, performance, and blunders. A third example is the self-reference effect, the ability to better recall information if we relate it to our own person or life.

Abraham Marlow and Carl Rogers argued that a healthy self-image ( high self-esteem) pays dividends in a personally fulfilling and successful life, and some experiments have shown the destructive power of a negative self-image. But other psychologists have proposed an alternative explanation of the link between low self-esteem and personal problems- that self-esteem, low or high, reflects reality, that it is a side effect of one's success or failure in meeting challenges and surmounting difficulties. In this view, the best boost to self-esteem would be helping children meet challenges, not rewarding them despite their failures.

Studies show that under conditions of discrimination or low status, people – often those of color, those with disabilities, and women – maintain their self-esteem by valuing the things at which they excel, by attributing problems to prejudice, and by comparing themselves with people in similar positions.

The self-serving bias (our readiness to perceive ourselves favorably) includes our tendencies (1) to more readily accept responsibility for good deeds and for successes than for bad deeds and failures, and (2) to see ourselves as better than average. Defensive self -esteem is fragile and takes the form of egotism focused in sustaining itself at any cost. Secure self – esteem is less fragile and less dependent on external evaluations.

Psychology: Unit 10 - Chapter 14

Stress and health

Stress and illness

Our behaviors, such as smoking, regular exercise, nutrition, and exposure to prolonged stress, can affect our susceptibility to heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lung disease (currently the four leading causes of death), as well as marking us more vulnerable to high blood pressure, skin rashes, and other illnesses. The field of behavioral medicine is based on the understanding that mind and body interact. Within that field, health psychology studies the ways our attitudes, emotions, behaviors, and personality influence our health, well-being, and risk of disease.

Stress is not an action or a condition; instead, it is the process by which we respond to stressful events (stressors). An important part of that process is our appraisal of an event as threatening, challenging, or unimportant. Our appraisals help determine whether our responds will be healthy feelings of energized and directed arousal, or overwhelming feelings of distress.

Our response to stress is a prime example of mind-body interaction. The first (and faster) track of the stress-response, identified by Walter Cannon, in which the sympathetic nervous system responds to a stressor on several fronts: the inner parts of the adrenal glands pour out epinephrine and norepinephrine, heart and respiration rates increase, blood flows away from digestive organs and toward skeletal muscles, sensations of pain diminish, and the body releases stored sugar and fat. On the slower track of the system, the cerebral cortex, perceiving a stressor, stimulates the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland to trigger the release of glucocorticoid stress hormones, such as cortisol, from the outer part of the adrenals. The three stages of the general adaption syndrome, Hans Selye's concept of the body's response to stress, are alarm (temporary shock state in which the body mobilizes resources), resistance (period of coping with the stressor),and exhaustion (depletion of reserves following prolonged stress).

Large-scale catastrophic events can increase depression and anxiety and cause problems with concentrating and sleeping. Significant personal life events, such as losses (death of a loved one, a divorce, losing a job) or even changes (marriage, leaving home) may leave people vulnerable to disease. But daily habits – the continuing series of small, everyday stressors – are the most significant sources of stress for most people and can damage health (by, for example, raising blood pressure) and well-being.

Stress can increase the risk of coronary heart disease. The vital link in this stress-disease path is negative emotions – depression, pessimism, but especially anger. The Friedman-Rosenman study, the first to show the anger-heart-disease link, contrasted Type A personalties (competitive, hard-driving, impatient, and anger-prone) with Type B personalities (easygoing and relaxed). Under stress, Type A people are physiologically more reactive, with an outpouring of hormones that accelerate the buildup of plague on artery walls, leading to high blood pressure and increased risk of strokes and heart attacks.

Psychologists use the term psychophysiological illness to describe stress-related physical illnesses, such as hypertension (high blood pressure) and some headaches. These real illnesses differ from hypochindriasis, or misinterpreting normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease.

The immune system's B lymphocytes (formed on bone marrow) release antibodies that fight bacterial infections. The T lymphocytes (formed in the thymus and lymphatic tissue) fight cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances. Other immune-system agents, the marcophages, ingest harmful invaders, worn-out cells, and other internal debris. Stress does not directly cause disease, but when energy is diverted away from immune system activities and redirected toward the stress-response system, we become more vulnerable to infections and disease.

AIDS is caused by the HIV virus, not by stress. But stress and negative emotions may accelerate the progression from viral infection to actual AIDS. HIV-positive individuals benefit more from drug treatments, but programs to reduce stress do seem to help somewhat.

Stress does not create cancer cells. Researchers disagree on whether stress influences the disease's progression, but they do agree that avoiding stress and maintaining a hopeful and determined attitude cannot reverse the destructive processes under way in advanced cancer.

Researchers have conditioned immune system suppression in laboratory experiments. Encouraged by these results, others are working on ways to condition immune-system enhancement.

Promoting Health

When we use problem-focused coping, we attempt to reduce stress directly by changing the events that trigger stress reactions or by changing the way we react to those events. We tend to use emotion-focused coping (putting distance between ourselves and a stressor, or attending to our own emotional needs) when we believe – rightly or wrongly- that we cannot change a stressful situation.

A perceived lack of control has been associated with higher than normal susceptibility to bacterial infections, cardiovascular disease, and, possibly, a shorter life span due to elevated levels of stress hormones and diminished immune system responses.

Compared with people with a pessimistic explanatory style, optimist tend to feel they have more control over stressors, cope better with stressful events, enjoy better moods, have stronger immune systems, and live longer than pessimists. Laughter (but not sarcasm) may reduce stress and strengthen the immune system.

Supportive family member, marriage partners, close friends, and companionable pets help people cope with stressful events. Social support fosters stronger immune functioning calms the cardiovascular system, and lowers blood pressure.

Stress-managements programs often include aerobic exercise (sustained exercise that increase heart and lung fitness), which raises energy levels, increase self-confidence, lowers tension, and may alleviate depression and anxiety. Studies have linked aerobic exercise to lowered blood pressure, increased arousal, hight levels of neurotransmitters that boost moods (such as norepinephrine, serotonin, and the endorphins), enhanced cognitive abilities, and (in mice) the growth of new brain cells.

Biofeedback techniques have helped people control tension headaches, but simple relaxation exercise have been equally effective in combating hypertension, anxiety, and insomnia, and in lowering rates of recurring heart attacks. Some have searched for relief from stress and illnesses in complementary and alternative medicine. Studies of people while meditating have shown increased left frontal lobe activity and improved immune functioning, compared with their counterparts in control groups.

Regular religious attendance has been a reliable predictor of a longer life span. Researchers trying to determine the cause-effect relationship have isolated three intervening variables: (1) Religiously active people have healthy lifestyles ( smoking and drinking less, for example). (2) Faith communities often function as social support networks and often encourage marriage (which, when happy, is associated with better health and longer life span). (3) Religious attendance – with its accompanying coherent worldview sense of hope for the future, feelings of positive emotions (such as hope and optimism) and decrease feelings of stress and anxiety.

Smoking's allure for teens comes in part from social rewards – identifying with or being accepted by “cool” people. Depending on their genetic inheritance, one in three early smokers will develop a physiological addiction to nicotine, as hard to break as an addiction to heroin or cocaine. By triggering a release of epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, and the opioids, nicotine takes away unpleasant cravings and delivers rewards.

Many approaches offer short-term quitting help for smokers, but long-term rates are less successful. Helpful pointers for quitting include setting a quit date, informing family and friends of the decision, removing all cigarettes, reviewing successful strategies learned in previous attempts, using a nicotine patch or gum, abstaining totally from smoking, abstaining from alcohol, avoiding places where others are likely to smoke, and exercise. Programs that successfully discourage young people from smoking (1) provide information about the effects of smoking; (2) educate young people about the influence of peers, parents, and the media; and (3) use modeling and role playing to train young people in refusal skills. Raising taxes on cigarettes also effectively cuts consumption.

Fat is a concentrated fuel reserve, and a body than can store this reserve can use it during times of famine. But this tendency, which was adaptive for our ancestors who gathered and hunted their foods, is maladaptive for modern humans in a world of easily accessible food. Combines with a lack of exercise, the abundance of high-calorie food has led to high rates of obesity (defined as a body mass index of 30 or more), with increased risks of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, gallstones, arthritis, sleep disorders, and certain types of cancer.

Obesity threatens psychological well-being as well as physical health. Obese people, particularly obese women, encounter weight discrimination when seeking employment (where they encounter bias in hiring, placement, promotion, compensation, discipline, and discharge), searching for a romantic relationship, and interacting with family (bias sometimes extends to those seen with an obese person).

Studies of twins and adopted children indicate that being overweight is at least in part an inherited trait. But genes influence body weight – they don't determine it. For example, some people are genetically predisposed to have more fat cells and larger fat cells than other, but in an obese person, the original fat cells double or triple in size and then divide (or trigger nearby immature fat cells to divide), which is an irreversible environmental effect. Individuals also differ in their resting metabolic rates, but once someone gains weight in the form of fat tissue, less energy is needed to maintain that tissue than is needed to maintain muscle tissue. Environmental factors, such as frequently eating high-calorie foods and living a sedentary life, also matter, as comparisons of similar people from different generations or different locations indicate. Genes mostly determine why one man is heavier than another, but environment mostly determines why the same man is heavier than this grandfather was the the same age.

Participants is structured weight-loss programs do experience a very high rate of failure, but these individual may represent a group at especially high risk (they may have been unable to help themselves before joining the program). Moreover, surveys indicate that 25 to 60 percent of people who were once significantly overweight have successfully lost weight and kept it off for at least one year, and some for five years. Some overweight people, realizing that obesity is not a matter of willpower, choose to accept their chances: Begin a weight-loss program only when feeling motivated and self-disciplined; minimize exposure to tempting food cues; boost energy expenditure through exercise; set realistic and moderate goals; eat healthy foods: space small meals throughout the day; and forgive yourself (rather than giving up) if you have a lapse, remembering that occasional lapses will occur when you are making a lifelong change in eating patterns.