Final Exam Study Guide for Psychology

- What is creativity?

• The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.
• It has to be deemed creative by other people.
• Important aspect of our culture.

- Ernest Hemingway: American Novelist (Pulitzer & Nobel Prize). Suffered from depression (would drink so much that he would get concussions, and if you have too many concussions then you'll get depression). Was institutionalized (electroshock therapy). Committed suicide in 1961 (shotgun).

- Tennessee Williams: American Playwright. Institutionalized (suffered from depression, into drugs & alcohol).

- Leo Tolstoy: Russian Writer (wrote War & Peace: over 1,000 pages). Suffered from depression (A Confession: outlines fact that he feels miserable, no point in life, Christianity to heal).

- Sylvia Plath: American Writer. Poet (Confessional Poetry Movement). Suffered from depression. Was institutionalized. Committed suicide in 1963 (fumes of oven). 

- Jackson Pollock: American Painter (abstract). Was institutionalized (problem with drinking). Died in carwreck when drunk. 

- Vincent van Gogh: Dutch Painter (A Starry Night). Suffered from emotional problems. Was institutionalized. Cut off his ear and committed suicide in 1890.

- Kurt Cobain: American musician & singer/songwriter. Struggled with depression. Committed suicide in 1994.

- Antoni Gaudi: Spanish Architect (enormous cathedral). Didn't suffer from mental illness.

- Albert Einstein: German-born physicist (genius). Didn't suffer from mental illness. 

- Paul McCartney: English musician & singer/songwriter (The Beatles). Doesn't/didn't suffer from mental illness. 

- Steve Jobs: American Business Person (Apple products). Didn't suffer from mental illness. 

-- This link between creativity & psychological disorders is deeply embedded in western culture that we tend to think all artistic people are a little "nuts". 

- What type of personality traits go together?

- In Western culture, we have implicit personality theories about artists. (creative, intense, temperamental, bizarre, and unconventional lifestyle, won't get married, sit around all day)

-Andy Warhol: American Painter.

- Grouping Variable: Western culture (Canadians) & Eastern culture (Chinese) participants.

• All participants read same description of an artistic type (intense, moody, imaginative...)

- Dependent Variable: # of words the participants generated that are congruent with the artistic personality type (unreliable, emotional...)

- Western culture had more # of words related, so Western culture has the schema of an artist type (people that are artistic are crazy)

-BUT, the question we're most interested in: Is mental illness related to creativity? 

- American Clinical Psychologist

- Suffers from bipolar & has written about her experiences. 

- Books:

• An Unquiet Mind: autobiobiographical.
• Touched With Fire: case studies of people creative & psychological disorders. Problem with study is that it was only 30 participants.

- Big advocate for lithium: pharmaceutical for mania.

- Bigger Study: 1 million Swedish participants.

- Creative (scientists, artists, professors...) vs. Non-creative (accountants...) occupations

• Outcome: Creative occupations have a decrease in likelihood of schizophrenia, depression, alcohol abuse, and anxiety disorder.
• One exception: higher prevalence of bipolar

- Authors vs. Non-authors

• Outcome: People who write are likely to have an increase in schizophrenia, depression, bipolar, anxiety disorders, alcohol abuse, and suicide.

- United States

- 202 general psychology students as participants

- Measured symptoms of anxiety and depression.

- Measured Creativity using the brick task

- There was no link: More depression-less creative.

- The effects of mania and hypomania on cognition

- Divergent (contradictory) thinking, quick thinking, and positive mood. 

- American Social Psychologist

- Has explored the relationship between thought speed and cognition. 

Study:

• Independent Variable: Fast vs.Slow (statements come on screen really fast or really slow and ask the readers to read them out loud.
• Dependent Variables: Positive Mood, Creativity, and Energy.
• Conclusion: People thinking faster have a positive mood. 

- For people suffering from psychological disorders, there are many different treatment options (mostly for depression and anxiety):

• Psychoanalysis: Freud was one of the first to use talk therapy.
• Humanistic Therapy: warm, friendly, interested in listening, very positive.
• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: changing people's mindset.
• Biomedical Therapies: pills.

- Carl Rogers (founder)

- The humanistic approach emphasizes:

• Experience in the here and how
• Conscious choice (free will): make conscious choices that affect our life.
• Self-actualization: idea that we are all striving who we are intended/supposed to be.

- Human nature is oriented toward growth, not defense.

- Important techniques:

• Not that important to delve into (look into) the client's childhood.
• Not "patient" but "client"
• Unconditional positive regard: listen to individual and offer support no matter what they've done.
• Active listening

- The goal of the client-centered therapy is to create the right conditions for physical growth. To be accepted for who they are. 

- Exercise and neurochemistry

- Exercise and self-esteem

- Study:

• College women
• Placebo: relaxation like yoga.
• Aerobic-Exercise: sweating, significant effect in decreasing depression.

- An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal. Excessive worry and anxiety without a specific cause. Elevated blood pressure, increased heart rate, muscle tension, sweating, and shaking.

- An anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable, minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations.

- An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation. Sense of endangerment or a fear of harm. 

• Ex: Agoraphobia: fear of being trapped in an inescapable place or situation.

- An anxiety disorder characterized by haunting memories, nighmares, social withrdawal, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience. 

- Psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning.

- Cluster A: Odd or Eccentric Disorders

• Schizoid Personality Disorder: rare, affects more men than women. Detached from others, cold, uninterested, withdrawn.

- Cluster B: Dramatic, Emotional, or Erratic Disorders

• Histrionic Personailty Disorder: excessive but shallow emotions & attention-seeking. Exaggerated symptoms of weakness/illness.

Cluster C: Anxious or Fearful Disorders

• Avoidant Personality Disorder: 1% of adults in U.S. Extreme shyness, sensitive, low self-esteem, avoidant to social situations.

- A personality disorder in which a person (usually male) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even towards friends and family members. Aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist. Difficulty feeling empathy for others. Begin the symptoms during childhood (ex: cruelty to animals).

- Treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth. 

- The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

- A biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.  Most patients are women. Controversial.

- Deviance, Distress, Dysfunction, Danger

- Deviance: different from most people. Standards for deviant behavior vary by context, culture( ex: poligamy), and even over time.

• Homosexuality was deemed a psychological disorder up until 1973.
• Hoarding is not the norm so deviance is met.

- Distress: The deviant behavior leads the person to experience distress (an uncomfortable feeling, or specifically feelings of anxiety and/or depression)

• The people in the hoarding video appear to be ditressed. One guy said he felt buried alive.

- Dysfunction: The deviant and distressful behavior  leads to problems at work and one's ability to enjoy leisure time.

• It seems that at least the leisure of the individuals in the video is somewhat disrupted so the dysfunction is met.

- Danger: is the deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional behavior harmful to other peopl or the individual.

• In the hoarding video, they are not sanitary and can lead to diseases and harm them.

- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders (DSM) is the current authoritative scheme for classifying psychological disorders. It categorizes particular disorers by symptoms, prevalence, course of disorder, insurance purposes (for economic reasons)

- This is the bible of psychologists

A face-to-face encounter between patient and clinician. The purpose is to collect information about the person to put a label on them. 

• Problems
• Lifestyle (drink?, smoke?)
• Relationships (parents, romantic, friends)
• Personal history (relatives who suffer from psychological disorders?)

- Unstructured (go with the flow, why are you here?) vs. Structured (strict set of questions they ask)

- Yes: as indicated by Riskind. Generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.

- No: as indicated by Black. Not much agreement about some psychological disorders. For example: distinguishing one anxiety disorder from another.

• Agoraphobia (fear of going out in public) vs. Social Phobia (fear of socializing with others.

- Thomas Szasz: Academic Psychiatrist

• Mental illness is a myth (the institution of psychology/psychiatry aims to socially control people who are different)
• Mental illness is not real (there are no objective methods for detecting the presence or absence of metal illness)
• Szasz influenced the church of scientology and their anti-psychiatry belief.

David Rosenhan: American Psychologist

The Rosenhan Experiment:

- Most psychologists believe that psychological disorders are real and that the labels are helpful (people with schizophrenia have smaller brains).

-Most clinical psychologists and psychiatrists adhere to the medical model conception of mental disorders (psychological disorders are diseases that have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and in many cases cured).

- Medical Students Disease: A phenomenon where students think they have the diseases they are studying.

Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes:

• Major Depressive Disorders
• Bipolar Disorders

Symptoms in the picture.

Neurotransmitters and depression

• Serotonin: people who suffer from depression have low levels of serotonin. SSRI's are pharmaceuticals that decrease depression

Study: Acute Tryptophan Depletion

• Tryptophan is a precursor of serotonin (amino acids). If high levels of tryptophan then high levels of serotonin.
• Foods with high levels of Tryptophan: eggs, milk, chocolate. 
• Independent Variable: drink containing tryptophan vs. drink that didn't contain tryptophan.
• 5 hour delay
• Dependent Variable: self report measure of elation (being really happy)-depression and energetic-tired.
• Women drinking tryptophan were not depressed but incosistent.
• People who are more depressed eat more chocolate.

- Genes: Under 40% of heritability- major depressive disorder. So much of it is the environment (death, bullying, weather)

- Learned Helplesness: the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.

Martin Seligman (American Psychologist)

• When animals and people feel as though they cannot control the occurence of negative events, people and animals give up.

Study:

• 8 dogs in each group
• Independent Variable: inescapable shock vs. no treatment
• 10 trials in shuttlebox
• Dependent Variable: How many times did the dogs give up?

- The dogs gave up more times with the inescapable shock than with no treatment.

Culture and Depression

• Cultural institutions helps us define what mental illness is
• Can culture lead to mental illness?
• Is American culture making us mentally sick?

Jean Twenge

• Over time, college kids are more and more depressed.
• If you are neurotic, you'll likely suffer from depression.

- Wrote a book called "The Same Society"

-Capitalism is the root of all evil: money can lead to problems.

- Co-creator of the Terror Management Theory

-Says our value system is too high (being thin, rich)

- We're not only harmin ourselves, but also destroying the environment, because we are creating a lot of materials. For example, in China their factories cause rivers to be dead and also if we need new homes we cut down the trees.

- Manic Depression

- A mood disorder in which a person alternated between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania.

• Bipolar I
• Bipolar II

- Stephen Fry: comedian had bipolar disorder. Compared weather to the disorder.

- Characterized by one or more manic episodes, usually accompanied by major depressive episodes.

- Up and down cycle

- More severe

- Person doesn't sleep very much

- At least 1 week.

- Bipolar Light

- Characterized by one or more major depressive episodes accompanied by at least on hypomanic stage.

- At least 4 days. 

- Elevated

- Very talkative

- Work more

- Not as severe

All of these events occured in one week.

- Extremely talkative

• When they went to an academic conference, he was walking up to famous psychologists and talking to them about random things, which was way out of his character. 

- Increase in goal-directed activities

• Bought a guitar and wanted to learn to play it.
• Helped homeless people. Picked them up at 1 a.m.  and cooked them pizza and they watched The Last Sumarai.
• Wrote a lot about how he felt.
• Pursued sexual relationships with friends

- Didn't sleep

• Psychosis (suffering from delusions, creating beliefs, puting together sentences that didn't make sense) starts to kick in.

- You could tell he felt good

-Impulsivity

• Shopping Sprees: spent thousands of dollars.

- A group of severe disorders characterized by disorganized and delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions and behaviors.

- Psychosis: A state in which a person loses contact with reality in key ways.