As part of my psychological studies, I have written many seminar papers and consumed a lot of relevant content. The learning process was:
- Study materials. Also, consume additional info regarding the subject from a different source (e.g. YouTube, books)
- Take raw notes
- Iterate on the notes to make more sense/easy to read and grasp, s.t. when I read it in a week (or later) for spaced repetition, it makes sense and I can easily recite
- Construct questions based on notes (ChatGPT can help here) and ask self those questions without looking at the notes
- While studying psychological concepts, try to apply them (e.g. how is X motivated, what is in their procedural/semantic memory, what can we conclude about the person, etc.)
One of the content mediums was YouTube, more concretely, Psychology Crash Course. It contains 40 videos, each with an average duration of 10 minutes. These videos explain some of the fundamental concepts in psychology. In addition to that playlist, I also found the book “Psychology: A Complete Introduction” by Sandi Mann to be good supplementary material.
Our minds are the most complex thing known to us. Maybe our minds are not powerful enough to understand the complex rules that govern them. Initially, psychology was the study of the soul. Evolved to the study of behavior and mental processes. The questions being explored: What is consciousness? What is awareness? What is the self?
Freud is both influential and controversial – his theories help build our views on childhood, personality, dreams, and sexuality. Like most, he developed his ideas by building on the work of others.
Main schools:
- Structuralism tries to understand the structure of consciousness by asking clients to look inwards, though it relied too much on introspection which was very subjective.
- Functionalism focuses on the function of behaviour.
- Psychoanalysis talk therapy and self discovery. Our personalities are shaped by unconscious motives. “Our minds can be driven by something our minds are not aware of” Talk freely about whatever came to mind, to free associate – “the more they talked, the more their symptoms were reduced”
- Behaviorism focuses on the study of observable behavior.
Psychology as a science is all about asking interesting questions and attempting to answer them through all kinds of data-gathering methods.
Example questions
- How has the focus of psychology evolved, and what are some of the main questions it seeks to answer?
- Who is Sigmund Freud, and what are his contributions to psychology?
- What are the main schools of psychology?
- How does psychology – as a science – explore and answer questions about behavior and mental processes?
If we have some idea about some person and it turns out to be right, that reinforces our trust into our intuition. But, intuition isn’t always right. Hindsight bias (I knew it all along).
Scientific method: 1) start with a question/theory – how to ask general questions about a subject (operationalizing); 2) hypothesis (testable prediction); 3) replication is key
Several other methods:
- Case studies focus on one person though run the risk of overgeneralizing since they can’t necessarily be easily replicated.
- Naturalistic observation – watch behaviour in a natural environment.
- Surveys/interviews – asking people to report their opinions and behaviors. How to ask the questions can be tricky, subtle word choices can influence results. Sampling bias is one risk
Once we gathered data, we can make future predictions. Correlation is one way, which explores the relationship between variables (e.g. the less a person sleeps the less energy they have), though keep in mind that correlation is not causation – correlation can predict cause and effect but not prove it.
The experimental method: This method provides a robust framework for understanding causality by manipulating variables and observing their effects on behavior. This method contains the following key concepts:
- Control Group and Experimental Group: The control group receives no experimental manipulation, serving as a baseline, while the experimental group is subjected to the variable under study.
- Independent and Dependent Variables: The independent variable (cause) is manipulated to observe the dependent variable (effect), which measures the outcome of interest.
- By randomly assigning participants to control or experimental groups, researchers reduce bias and enhance the validity of their findings.
Everything psychological is biological.
Biologically, the neuron is the smallest component. It has three basic parts:
- Soma – nucleus, DNA, cell action
- Dendrites – tree-likes, receive messages and gossip from other cells, the listener
- Axon – the talker, long cable-like extension that transmits messages
Neurons transmit signals either when stimulated by sensory input, or by other neurons. The dendrites pick up the signal and activate the neuron’s potential firing impulse that shoots an electrical charge through the axon. The contact points between neurons are called synapses. Synapses almost, but don’t really touch the axon – this is the synaptic gap.
Neurons communicate with “couriers” called neurotransmitters. Similarly, hormones also communicate through chemical signals, though at a different speed (they linger, which is why e.g. it can take some time to cool down after being frightened).
The growth hormone is a hormone that stimulates growth in cells, secreted by the pituitary gland. To really understand this, click here.
#4 Meet Your Master – Getting to Know Your Brain
Different parts of the brain control different aspects of behavior.
The central nervous system is the main command center and makes big decisions. Peripheral nervous system neurons gather information and report back to the CNS. Based on evolution, mammals have different brains – similar to Matryoshka dolls, the biggest one is the most recent evolution of the brain (can predict, think, plan), and the smallest one is the most generic, basic (old brain). The “old brain” helps us coordinate, take in sensory information, breathe, etc. Higher functions are contained in the limbic system: amygdala (memory, fear, aggression), hypothalamus (regulate body temperature, hunger, pleasure, reward), hippocampus (central to learning, memory).
Four lobes (each lobe controls the opposite side of the body):
- Frontal: speaking, planning, judging, abstract thinking, aspects of personality
- Parietal: sense of touch, body position
- Occipital: information from sight
- Temporal: comprehension, sound, speech
Sensation: a bottom-up process where our senses (vision, hearing, smelling) receive and relay outside stimuli. Perception: a top-down process where our brains organize and interpret the information from the sensations.
So right now at this very moment, you’re probably receiving light from your screen through your eyes, which will send the data of that sensation to your brain. Perception meanwhile is your brain telling you that what you’re seeing is a diagram explaining the difference between sensation and perception, which is pretty meta.
Few definitions:
- Absolute threshold of sensation: minimum stimulation needed to register a stimulus 50% of the time
- We need percentages because sometimes we detect stimuli, and sometimes not. It depends not only on the stimuli’ strength but also on our psychological state, alertness, etc.
- Sensory adaptation – when senses adjust to the experiencing of the constant stimulation
- Difference threshold – the smallest change in a sensory stimulus that a person can detect (the minimum amount something needs to change for someone to notice)
- Weber’s Law – we perceive differences on a logarithmic, not linear scale.
For visual processing, the brain works simultaneously on calculating form, depth, motion, color.
Different parts have different sensitivity – our hands are extremely sensitive. Sound waves travel through air and our ears register this signal and pass it through the brain for processing. Our tongue has thousands of taste buds and each of them reads food molecules (sweet, salty, sour, bitter) and reports back to the brain.
Synesthesia: relating one sense impression to another sense (e.g. kitten tasting like candy cane)
How we feel about a smell and our perception of it is often tangled up in our experiences with that scent
Sense of touch is a combination of skin sensations like pressure, pain, cold, warm. Sense of touch provides the personal kinesthesis – the way the body senses its own movement and position – it’s what the cops are testing drunk people for when they ask to touch their noses with their eyes closed. The partner sense is the vestibular sense which monitors the head’s position and balance.
Our perception is heavily influenced by a perceptual set (factors of how we perceive the environment) such as our expectations, experiences, moods (emotions), motivations, context, and cultural norms. Perception gives meaning. The duck/rabbit illusion is illustrated to demonstrate this.
Figure-ground relationship: organization of the visual field into objects (figured) that stand out from their surroundings (ground). Faces or vases illusion is given as an example. The concept applies to other forms as well, such as sound (focusing on a particular sound and ignoring background noise).
Perceptive rules of grouping: proximity (we group nearby things together), continuity (perceiving smooth/continuous patterns), and closure (filling the gaps in our mind to create whole objects).
Depth perception: seeing objects in 3D even though images that strike the retina are 2D. We look with both eyes (binocular cues) and get “two images” which e.g. help judge distance. The closer the object, the greater the distance between the two images (retinal disparity – cue for perceiving depth).
We use motion perception to infer the speed and direction of a moving object –
shrinking objects are retreating, enlarging objects are approaching.
Perceptual constancy allows us to continue to recognize an object regardless of its distance, view angle, motion, form.
Consciousness (an axiom) is hard to define, but loosely it is our awareness of ourselves and our environment. States of consciousness: waking, sleeping, dreaming, etc.
Most of what we knew was based on clinical observation, but nowadays with technology, we can see some of the brain’s structures and activity. Cognitive neuroscience is the study of how brain activity is linked to mental processes.
Dual processing – information is simultaneously processed on separate conscious (deliberate mind) and non-conscious tracks (automatic mind).
Our senses get overloaded by around 11 million bits of information each second. Selective attention is the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. Inattentional blindness (misdirection). E.g. magicians prey on change blindness – a psychological phenomenon in which we fail to notice changes in the environment.
#9 To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
When we sleep our perception remains slightly active. Sleep allows our neurons and cells to repair and rest. Sleep supports growth – it is when our pituitary glands release growth hormones. It also has a mental function, improving memory and creativity.
An electroencephalograph (EEG) machine measures the brain’s electrical activity. This is how the sleep stages were discovered:
- REM (rapid eye movement): sleep stage during which vivid dreams occur
- NREM-1 (non-rapid eye movement): the brain slows down
- NREM-2: definitely asleep but can be easily awakened
- NREM-3: slow rolling delta waves
- Full REM sleep
The sleep cycle repeats itself every 90 minutes, transitioning through the stages.
Sleep deprivation is a predictor for depression, or insomnia (problem falling/staying asleep). Sleep apnea is a disorder that causes the sleeper to temporarily stop breathing.
We may dream about something that we were unaware of during the time we were awake (see dual processing from the previous chapter). Oneirology – the study of dreams, a mix of neuroscience and psychology. Several theories:
- Freud proposed our dreams offer us wish fulfillment – dreams are suppressed symbolic versions of whatever inner conflict there is
- Information processing theory: our dreams help us sort out and process the day’s events and fix them into our memories
- Physiological function theory (similar to cognitive development): the brain gets stimulated, helping expand neural connections
- Dreams are accidental side-effects: the brain’s attempt to weave a story out of a bunch of random sights, emotions, memories
The brain has many different “gears” (states). Hypnosis is one: a calm, trance-like state during which one has heightened concentration and focus, and more open to suggestion. Unlike popular opinion, hypnosis can’t make you act totally against your will. Clinicians guide patients to a very relaxed (voluntarily) state and further guide them through a series of positive thoughts/suggestions.
Just because we observe a phenomenon doesn’t mean that we have a clue about its mechanisms of actions, or whether it works the way we think it works.
Psychoactive drugs are chemical substances that alter mood and perception. They go right to the brain’s synapses, mimicking the functions of neurotransmitters. The user’s expectations play a big part in the effect. Three general categories: depressants (alcohol, tranquilizers, slow down body activity), stimulants (coffee, nicotine, speed up body function), and hallucinogens (aka psychedelics, distort perceptions).
A placebo is anything that seems to be a “real” medical treatment but isn’t. It could be a pill, a shot, or some other type of “fake” treatment.
Tolerance: the diminishing effect of regular use of a substance.
Associative learning – when a subject links certain events, behaviors or stimuli together in the process of conditioning.
In classical conditioning, the subject learns to associate a previously insignificant stimulus with a stimulus, causing a conditioned response:
- Cause: A neutral stimulus (something that does not naturally cause a reaction) is associated with an unconditioned stimulus (something that naturally causes a reaction).
- Effect: After a certain number of differences, the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus and begins to elicit the unconditioned stimulus response, even when the unconditioned stimulus is not present.
There are different schedules in which the conditioned and the unconditioned stimulus can be paired. There is also higher-order conditioning (e.g. pairing more things).
Operant conditioning involves learning in which the consequences of a behavior lead to an increase or decrease in the likelihood of that behavior. This type of learning is based on “reward and punishment”, where the rewarded response is reinforced and the punished behavior tends to be extinguished.
- Reinforcement: The process of strengthening the desired behavior (reward).
- Positive Reinforcement: Add something good = more of the behavior.
- Reinforcers can be primary (satisfaction of primary motives such as food, water, warmth) or secondary (monetary reward).
- Timing and consistency of reinforcement are key to effectiveness.
- Negative Reinforcement: Remove something bad = more of the behavior.
- Punishment: Add something bad or remove something good = less of the behavior.
- Shaping: Reinforcing all responses that lead to the desired behavior.
- For example, rewarding a child for showing interest in other children, if the goal is to make the child more social.
Thorndike’s Law of Effect: any behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be stopped.
Learning: the process of acquiring (through experience) new information or behavior. What we learn also shapes our attitudes, e.g. it may cause a relatively lasting change in behavior.
Learning is more than just associating a response with consequence (classical/operant conditioning), there’s thinking happening, too. Social-cognitive learning: Learning can occur through observing (observational learning) and imitating someone else’s behavior (modeling). Cognition (thoughts, perspectives, expectations) is important for learning, as is social context.
Latent learning – learning without even knowing it. E.g. developing a cognitive map (mental representation for coordination)
Associations that help us thrive or survive can be learned more easily. Not all associations are learned equally (e.g. a bird can be easily taught how to draw an X with pecking).
Mirror neurons: fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. Implies a strong connection between observation, imitation and learning.
“Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery, it is the sincerest form of learning.”. A powerful lesson on who you choose to spend time with and how you choose to act.
Memory – learning that has persisted over time – information is stored and (in many cases) can be recalled. Memories are accessed through recall (retrieval of information from the past), recognition (only identifying previously learned items), and relearning (refreshing, reinforcing old information). For example, school tests are designed to size up how we store information in these ways. Memory storage:
- External events ->
- Sensory memory or buffer (where sensations are filtered, e.g. phone numbers, shopping lists, rehearsal) -encoding>
- Working/short-term memory -encoding>
- Working memory: Conscious, active processing of incoming information, and information retrieved from long-term memory. Involves both explicit (conscious, effortful work) and implicit processes.
- Long-term memory (may cycle with 3)
- Can be procedural (learn to ride a bike), episodic (tied to specific episodes in life), declarative (explicitly stored)
Encoding (transforming sensory input to stored information) can be visual, acoustic, or semantical (meaning).
The mind can only hold 4-7 distinct items in the short-term memory. It either decays or gets stored in the long-term memory. Memory tricks that can help remember things: mnemonics (e.g. acronyms), chunking (organizing items into familiar, manageable units, associating). It also depends on whether we do shallow (surface-level) or deep processing (semantically, meaning), how much we’re “into” learning, how much relevant is it to us, etc.
False memories are memories that didn’t actually happen.
Mood congruence theory suggests that we remember events that match our current mood.
Our memory makes us who we are – the chain that connects our past to the present. Memories are stored differently (e.g. personal, factual).
#14 Remembering and Forgetting
Memories are unlike computer memories, more like spider-web interconnected associations that link all sorts of different things, that can serve as retrieval cues. The more conscious or unconscious (priming) cues we build the better we can backtrace a memory.
Memories can be context-dependent, state-dependent, mood-dependent. Our states and emotions can also serve as retrieval cues.
Serial position effect: the tendency to recall best the last and first items in a list. The first items were likely rehearsed more.
Forgetfulness can happen if we fail to encode it (what we fail to notice), fail to retrieve it (tip-of-the-tongue, retrieval cues can help here), or when the storage decays. The rate at which we tend to forget plateaus (exponential)
In a way, we’re all sort of perpetually re-writing our pasts.
Misinformation effect: Misleading information can get incorporated into a memory and twist the truth. E.g. in an experiment, participants who heard “smashed” reported much higher speeds in a car accident film more often than those who didn’t – the word “smash” altered the memories.
Source misattribution: forgetting or misrecalling the source of a memory.
Memory is both a reconstruction and a reproduction of past events.
#15 Cognition: How Your Mind Can Amaze and Betray You
Cognition involves knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and learning.
Concepts are a mental grouping of similar objects, ideas, and people. These are what allow us to make sense of the world, they simplify and speed up our thinking – e.g. the concept of a fish. But they also cause prejudices. Concepts are organized by forming prototypes – mental images of certain things.
- Algorithmic thinking (methodical step-by-step procedure)
- Heuristics (mental shortcuts, simple strategies)
- Trial and error (takes a lot of time)
- A sudden burst of insights (can’t always rely on it, and sometimes it may be incorrect)
- Viewing problems from different perspectives.
Our mental set predisposes how we think, just as how our perceptual set predisposes how we perceive. Several things to be mindful of:
- Confirmation bias: We often look at and favor evidence that confirms our ideas.
- Availability bias: a mental shortcut relying on imagined examples rather than factual information
- Our thinking can also be swayed by framing – people decide between options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations.
Language: a set of spoken, written, or signed words and the way we combine them to communicate meaning. Phonemes are distinctive units of sounds, like “a”, “ch”, etc. Morphemes are the smallest unit that make meaning, consisting of phonemes – e.g. “speech” is consisted of “s”, “p”, “ee”, “ch” (с-п-и-ч).
Kanzi was the first ape who demonstrated that language can be acquired through observation.
Receptive language: the ability to understand what’s being said to us and about us.
Expressive/productive language: how we use words to express ourselves.
Development stages:
- Ages 1-2: one-word stage, mostly speak in one word
- 18 months: learning new word per day (rather than per week)
- Age 2: two-word stage. Telegraphic speech “go car”, using mostly nouns and verbs
- After that, the kid uses more complex sentences
Skinner argued that a kid learns to associate words with meaning largely due to reinforcement. Chomsky instead proposed that humans are born with an innate ability to acquire language.
Broca’s area (left frontal lobe) is involved with the production of speech. Wernicke’s area (left temporal lobe) is about comprehending language.
Thinking and language are both separate and entwined.
Linguistic Relativity hypothesis: language determines the way people think.
Freudian slip: an unintentional error in speech or action that is believed to reveal subconscious thoughts or feelings
Non-verbal communication can be visual cues, tone, pitch, etc. It is thought that a message contains up to 2/3 non-verbal info. Encoding: generating emotional expressions. Decoding: interpreting them.
The most powerful psychological forces are hunger, thirst, desire to be a part of a family, or human community. Motivation is the need or desire to do something, whether that need is biological, social, or emotional. Main theories that play a role in motivation:
- Evolutionary perspective – Instincts: complex, unlearned behaviors that have a fixed pattern.
- Drive-reduction theory: We’re motivated to maintain a balance between stimulation and relaxation
- Physiological need/drive compels us to reduce that need. This helps maintain the body’s homeostasis (biological balance).
- While these needs push us, incentives (positive/negative stimuli that entice/repel us) pull us.
- E.g. when we’re hungry and want a burrito we’re both pushed by our hunger (homeostasis) and pulled by the burrito (incentive).
- However, sometimes we fast (for a higher purpose) or overeat.
- Optimal arousal expands on drive-reduction theory. We want to hit the ideal level of arousal that balances focus and efficiency without causing stress or boredom.
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Physiological < safety < belongingness and love < esteem < self-actualization < self-transcendence
- This pyramid isn’t necessarily linear – people often switch back and forth between different levels.
People can also be motivated by sex, whether it happens internally (hormones), or externally (ads, magazines). Forming a family is also a big part of it. Sex can be a motivator, though not a need.
Hunger and how we treat food are shaped by psychology, mood, and culture. Minnesota starvation experiment showed that severe calorie restriction leads to significant physical and psychological problems, such as extreme weight loss, weakness, irritability, and obsession with food.
Content theories attempt to explain specific things that motivate people in different situation (e.g. Expectancy Theory – a person will be motivated if they are capable of doing something, there are rewards associated and they care about the reward). Process theories try to identify relationships among variables that make up motivation – how motivation is initiated and sustained (e.g. Maslow – a satisfied need no longer motivates behavior, progressing through pyramid).
Both our genetics and our environment affect and influence our development and learning. Developmental psychology studies our physical, cognitive, social, and emotional changes.
Maturation: biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively not influenced by experience.
Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development states that humans go through different stages of cognitive development. The main question is “how does knowledge grow?”. He proposed that we create schemas (similar to concepts) – mental frameworks that help interpret information. We constantly strive for cognitive equilibrium, a harmony between our thought processes and environment.
- We assimilate new experiences by interpreting them into our existing schemas. For example, if a toddler has seen a deer but never a horse, they will try to fit that schema.
- With more interactions, the toddler will accommodate (or adjust, grow) their schema.
Four stages per Piaget:
- Sensorimotor stage (ages 0-2): touching, grabbing, looking, hearing. A major achievement of this stage is object permanence – objects exist even though we don’t see them.
- Preoperational stage (ages 2-6): egocentrism (kids think it’s all about themselves). Major achievements:
- Animism (e.g. toys have feelings)
- Conservation (500ml is same as 500ml regardless of the container)
- Reversibility (mentally reversing a process)
- Centration (tendency to fixate on a problem/object)
- Theory of mind (ability to understand other people’s feelings, thoughts, perceptions), predicting behavior
- Concrete operational (ages 6-12): think logically about concrete events that were experienced, become able to see beyond just one aspect of object or problem
- Formal operational (12+): abstract thinking, problem-solving, hypothetical questions
Criticism: oversimplification, and sometimes stages can happen way earlier. Also, it is a continuous process rather than fixed steps.
Vygotsky’s development theory: learning takes place as a result of a child’s interactions with his environment. Zones of Proximal Development: the gap between what a child can do alone (current level) and what they need assistance with to accomplish (potential level).
Parten stages of play: Psychology: as children become older, improving their communication skills, and as opportunities for peer interaction become more frequent, the non-social (solitary and parallel) types of play become less common and the social (associative and cooperative) types of play more common.
Attachment: a crucial emotional bond that forms between an infant and their primary caregiver. Touch is an important part of attachment as we can learn a lot from it: hug, slap, pat on the back. Babies rely on touch a lot, it is how they feel security and trust.
Harlow’s monkey experiment highlighted the need for comfort and emotional security over basic physical needs like food. Baby monkeys were given a choice between a wire “mother” with food and a soft, cloth-covered “mother” without food. The monkeys preferred the soft “mother”. This demonstrated that contact and touch are vital to attachment and emotional well-being.
Imprinting – the process in which certain animals form attachments during a critical period early in life. Babies don’t imprint, but rather they form emotional attachments, and not all attachments are created equal.
Strange situation experiment – infants were observed in a room with their caregiver, a stranger, and alone, experiencing separations and reunions. The experiment identified different attachment styles:
- Secure – can happily explore, minor freakout when the caregiver is not nearby
- Insecure-ambivalent – afraid of the stranger, cried more, explored less, major freakout when the caregiver is not nearby
- Insecure-avoidant – fine with the stranger, indifferent, didn’t cling to caregiver, showed little interest upon caregiver’s return
Young kids exposed to extended abuse, trauma, neglect are at a higher risk for psychological disorders as adults.
One of the biggest achievements in childhood is achieving a positive sense of self. Self-concept: understanding/evaluation of who we are. The authoritative parenting model can help instill this in kids:
- Authoritarian: rules with consequences, expects to be followed “because I said so!”
- Permissive: caves to the child’s demands and doesn’t have a lot of control over the child’s behavior
- Authoritative: sweet spot: balance between the two above – demanding but explain the reason for the rules and are loving and responsive.
Kohlberg’s stages of morality: preconventional (avoiding punishment, seeking personal gain), conventional (social expectations, roles, maintaining relationships, obeying laws), and postconventional (social contracts, individual rights, universal ethical principles)
Adolescence – the transition from childhood to adulthood.
Identity – sense of self.
The Breakfast Club: Kids feel pressure to maintain their image in a group because belonging to a group gives a sense of security, but none of them is satisfied with their identity.
Erik Erikson’s 8 stage model:
- Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy from birth to 18 months)
- Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Toddler years from 18 months to three years)
- Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool years from three to five)
- Stage 4: Competence vs. Inferiority (Middle school years from six to 11)
- Stage 5: Identity vs. Confusion (Teen years from 12 to 18)
- Classic teenage struggle the confusion/conflict between roleplay and identity
- Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young adult years from 18 to 40)
- Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle age from 40 to 65)
- Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair (Older adulthood from 65 onwards)
This model is not perfect (e.g. Mick Jagger “stuck” in his 20s) but it can give us an idea. Regardless, there are physical (e.g. weaker muscles), cognitive (e.g. crystallized intelligence over fluid intelligence), and social changes with each stage.
What makes us who we are?
Personality: distinctive and enduring characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving.
Klecksography – pictures out of inkblots. When a person is presented with an ambiguous image the mind will work hard to attach meaning. Rorschach drew them inspired by C.J.’s associations – tried to access patients’ unconscious minds by asking them to interpret the drawings to see how they projected their personal associations to the shapes.
Unconscious – a vast reservoir of often unacceptable and frequently hard-to-tolerate thoughts/feelings/desires/memories.
Few personality perspectives:
- Psychoanalytic perspective: id (infants)/ego (getting id what it wants in a reasonable way)/superego (internalized ideals). Battleground for the conflict between desires and unconscious. Ego uses defense mechanisms to protect itself – e.g. regression, repression, rationalization, etc. These defense mechanisms are tied with the personality.
- Jung’s collective unconscious theory: unconscious is more than just sexual repressions.
- Adler’s inferiority complex: Much of the adult behaviour is linked to childhood struggles with feeling inferior
- Humanistic perspective believes in the potential for personal growth. Maslow’s pyramid. Rather than only focusing on troubled patients, Maslow looked at healthy/creative types to discover the common thread of self-actualization.
- Rogers’ person-centered perspective – we are all “good eggs” as long as we’re nurtured in a growth-promoting environment: genuineness (transparency, openness), acceptance (not afraid to make mistakes), empathy
Main question: Who, or what, is the self?
People have been characterizing one another for a long time (chinese earth/water/fire/air, Freud id/ego/superego, etc.)
Trait theory: defining personal characteristics through lasting patterns of behaviours.
Sometimes you need to look at motives in the present, not in the past, to describe behavior
Personality: fundamental traits, personal characteristics, and conscious motives. Derived from the Latin word persona – a theatrical mask worn by performers.
OCEAN spectrum:
- Openness: e.g. conforming vs independent, preferring routine vs variety
- Conscientiousness: e.g. impulsive vs disciplined
- Extraversion: e.g. reserved vs sociable
- Neuroticism: e.g. calm vs anxious
- Agreeableness: e.g. ruthless uncooperative vs soft-hearted helpful
Personality traits predict average behavior better than in a specific condition.
Social Cognitive Perspective: The interactions between traits and social context.
Reciprocal determinism: People choose their environments based on their personalities, and these environments further reinforce the personality.
Personal control: the extent to which one has control over their environment.
Thematic apperception test: Evocative, ambiguous questions/images, up to the testee to interpret and provide an answer which in turn may reveal parts of their personality.
Humanistic theory: main focus on the closer the actual and the ideal, the better.
Another idea is to think of the self as a set of possible selves.
#23 Controversy of Intelligence
Intelligence: the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new experiences. Assessing it can be tricky – intelligence tests are complicated/controversial.
G-Factor: one comprehensive general intelligence factor. Seven clusters per Psychometrics: spatial ability, verbal comprehension, word fluency, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory. These back up the G-factor idea, however, reducing intelligence to a single number is problematic.
Fluid intelligence is the ability to think logically and to solve problems in new situations without the need for previous or learned knowledge. Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use learned skills, knowledge and experience.
Per Gaardner: musical, numerical, linguistic, naturalistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial, kinesthetic abilities. Sternberg agrees but reduces them to three: analytical (problem solving), creative (adapting to new situations), and practical (everyday tasks). These also support the G-factor idea.
Creativity can be the trickiest to quantify. It can be further divided into:
- Expertise (base of knowledge)
- Imaginative thinking (see things in new ways, recognize patterns make connections)
- Venturesome personality (new experiences, risks)
- Intrinsic motivation
- Creative environment
Emotional intelligence: the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.
Stern created the IQ test based on Binet-Simon’s work. IQ = mental age / chronological age x 100
The Flynn Effect refers to the substantial increase in average scores on intelligence tests over time all over the world.
Cognitive tests fall into two categories: achievement (assess what a person learned) and aptitude (predict the ability to learn something new). Each test must hit three important marks: it has to be standardized (15 or 50 questions should give similar signal), reliable (yields consistent results), and valid (measure/predict what it is supposed to do).
Both environment and genetics influence our intelligence.
Testing bias: differential validity of test scores for groups. E.g., who was the famous American president? What’s a milkshake? Risk of bias falls both onto the test taker and also the one who administers it (expectations, etc.)
Emotion: a mind and a body’s integrated response to a stimulus. They involve physiological arousal (e.g. heart pounding), expressive behaviours (quickening pace), conscious experience (is there a werewolf behind me?). Emotions play an important role in how we think and behave.
Main theories:
- James–Lange Theory of Emotion: emotion occurs as a direct result of the physiological changes produced by the autonomic nervous system in our bodies
- Cannon–Bard Theory of Emotion: rather than the physical reactions coming first and then producing the emotion, the two processes happen simultaneously
- Two-Factor Theory of Emotion: emotion is determined by both physiological arousal and a cognitive interpretation of that arousal.
Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to the point of perception The two-dimensional model of emotion represents emotions along two primary axes: arousal (intensity) and valence (negativity). By plotting emotions on these two dimensions, we can visualize how different emotions relate to each other.
The Spillover Effect (Adrenaline Study): our emotional experiences rely on us noticing physical changes in our bodies and giving them an appropriate emotional label.
Top-down vs bottom-up cognitive processing of emotions: slower high-road cortex route allows thinking about feeling, quick low-road shortcut allows instant emotional reaction.
The Wobbly Bridge Study: shows why colleagues at work who have been through some emotional experience together (such as beating a tight deadline or winning a big contract) can end up in a romance – they misinterpret the emotions they are feeling as love.
Facial Expression Universality Theory posits that certain facial expressions are universally recognized across all human cultures as conveying the same basic emotions. However, recent research shows that there are “dialects”.
Right degree/sweet spot of arousal for a specific situation.
#26 Emotion, Stress and Health
An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral or expressive response.
Emotions affect our minds and bodies. The facial feedback hypothesis states that emotions help us both express and regulate emotions. Introverts are better at interpreting feelings, extroverts at expressing. The basic emotions are: joy, surprise, anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, shame, fear, guilt, interest, and possibly pride.
In psychology, stress is a feeling of emotional strain and pressure. Stress is a type of psychological pain. The brain-gut relationship explains how stress causes digestive issues. People characterised by optimism, love, happiness, and positive feelings, often live longer. Negative feelings can be caused by lifestyle/behavioural factors, societal factors, or biological factors.
Feel your emotions, appreciate them, but don’t let them run your life.
Physiological and psychological aspects.
Masters and Johnson research: a sexual response cycle involves four stages: excitement (e.g. blood rushing), plateau (pulse, blood pressure, breathing keep increasing), orgasm (muscles contract, breathing pulse rate hit peak), and resolution. Criticized for its rigid linear setup, doesn’t consider cultural attitudes, psychological, or relationship factors.
Hormones: chemical messengers that travel through the bloodstream and regulate physiological and behavioral activities. Sex hormones: biological sex characteristics and activate sexual behavior.
But we also need our psychological stimuli to get us going. There are social-cultural influences, external stimuli (movies, ads), internal stimuli (imagination, memory).
The Rosenhan pseudo-patient experiment demonstrated the unreliability of psychiatric diagnoses by having healthy individuals admitted to psychiatric hospitals after feigning symptoms, where they were subsequently diagnosed with mental disorders and treated as patients.
How do we define/diagnose/classify disorders? At what point does sad become depressed? Quirky -> obsessive-compulsive? Energetic -> hyperactive?
There are misconceptions and destructive stigma associated with psychological disorders.
Psychological disorder: deviant (different from the rest of the cultural context), distressful (subjective feeling that something is wrong), and dysfunctional patterns (impairment) of thoughts, feelings, behaviours.
Psychological disorders have physiological causes that can be diagnosed on the basis of symptoms, treated, and sometimes cured. The Biopsychosocial approach accounts for biological, social-cultural and psychological influences.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is a standard used by practically everybody, but not without its flaws. DSM might inadvertently promote the over- or misdiagnosis of certain behaviors. Slapping patients with labels we’re making them vulnerable to judgment and preconceptions. Definitions are powerful and things can get tricky very fast.
Anxiety disorders are characterized not only by anxiety but also by dysfunctional behaviours that reduce that anxiety
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: unwanted repetitive thoughts which become obsessions, sometimes accompanied by actions which become compulsions. Driven by fear which is itself obsessive (generating negative after negative thoughts)
Being neat, orderly and fastidious does not make you OCD. Talking extremes here.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: continually tense and apprehensive, experiencing unfocused, negative and out-of-control feelings.
Feeling occasionally is common enough but feeling it consistently for over six months (length required for diagnosis) is not.
Panic disorder: panic attacks sudden episodes of intense dread/fear that come without warning. There’s genetic predisposition but persistent stress can also cause it. Common trigger is the fear of having another panic attack.
Phobias: persistent irrational fears of specific objects, activities or situations. This can lead to avoidance behavior.
Social anxiety disorder: anxiety related to interacting/being seen by others.
Learning perspective can help explain the source of our anxiety:
- Conditioning – e.g. anxiety can be solidified by reinforcement
- Stimulus generalization: when an organism responds to a new, similar stimulus in the same way it responds to a previously conditioned stimulus.
- Observational learning – e.g. we can acquire anxiety by observing others
- Cognition – e.g. how we interpret/perceive situations
Biological perspective: the more wary our ancestors who had the sense to stay away from cliff or hissing snakes were more likely to survive another day and pass that down to the genes.
#30 Depressive and Bipolar Disorders
Mania – hyperactive optimistic mood
High/low mood – in between a rich and imaginative life
Mood – long-term emotional states (unlike emotions), more subjective
Depression disorders and bipolar disorders. E.g. sadness is temporary but if it spirals for a long period then it can be considered a disorder.
Most of us will experience some kind of traumatic event. Usually, the stress caused by these events fades (post-traumatic growth) but for some, it may linger.
Psychology helps patients ask themselves how to reconnect with their past lives and move forward.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a psychological disorder triggered by experiencing or witnessing traumatic events. Symptoms include:
- Intrusive memories – flashbacks, nightmares.
- Avoidance – avoiding reminders of the trauma.
- Physiological arousal – anxiety, irritability, sleep disturbances.
- Negative changes in emotions/beliefs – guilt, fear, emotional numbness.
Trauma often leads to substance abuse as a coping mechanism. Risk factors include genetic predispositions, environmental factors, and previous trauma, which may influence how one copes with new traumatic events.
Post-Traumatic Growth – Positive psychological change can result from trauma, as seen in J.R.R. Tolkien’s transformation of his war experiences into powerful literature.
Addiction & Dependencies involve compulsive behaviors (e.g., drug use, gambling) that interfere with daily life. Addiction can be both physical (withdrawal symptoms) and psychological (relief from negative emotions). Effective treatment often requires addressing both addiction and the underlying psychological issues simultaneously.
#32 Schizophrenia & Dissociative Disorders
Schizophrenia is a chronic and often misunderstood psychological disorder characterized by:
- Disorganized thinking – fragmented speech, difficulty with selective attention.
- Delusions – false beliefs (grandeur, paranoia, etc.).
- Hallucinations – sensory experiences without real stimuli (auditory being the most common).
- Incongruent emotions/behaviors – inappropriate responses (laughing at sad events, etc.).
Physiological aspects include:
- Brain abnormalities – extra dopamine receptors, abnormal activity in thalamus and amygdala.
- Diathesis-stress model – combination of genetic vulnerability and environmental stressors.
Dissociative Disorders involve disruptions in conscious awareness and identity, with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) being the most infamous. DID features multiple distinct identities as a coping mechanism for stress or trauma.
The Sybil case – a high-profile but fraudulent DID case (maybe Shirley just wanted more attention), highlighting the debate over the legitimacy of dissociative disorders.
Some people question if Dissociative Identity Disorder is an actual disorder at all.
#33 Eating and Body Dysmorphic Disorders
Eating disorders are psychological illnesses:
- Anorexia (starvation diet, spiraling) restriction consisting of ultra-low calories
- Binge-eating – eating too much followed by emotional distress (lack of control, guilt)
- Bulimia (alternate between binge-eating and [purging (vomiting/laxative) or fasting])
Predictive indicators of a person’s feeling:
- Low self-worth
- Need to be perfect
- Falling short of expectations
- Concerned about others’ expectations
- Looking upon others (Beyonce, etc.)
Body dysmorphic disorder – psychological illness where the person obsesses with their physical flaws (minor or imagined), staring in the mirror for hours and feeling shame. Shares some traits with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Serotonin, dopamine, and genetics can be some of the causes.
Ego-dystonic problems – people who have them are aware of them and tend to be distressed by their symptoms
Ego-syntonic problems – a person is not aware that they have a problem
Personality disorder – psychological disorders marked by behavioral patterns that impair social and other functioning (whether the sufferer is aware or not)
Three clusters:
- Cluster A odd/eccentric: paranoid (distrust others), schizoid (few emotional responses), schizotypal
- Cluster B dramatic/emotional/impulsive: antisocial, borderline, histrionic (acting a part to get attention), narcissistic (selfish grandiose sense of self-importance)
- Cluster C: avoidant (lack of confidence, avoid taking risks), dependent (fear of abandonment), obsessive-compulsive
There are a lot of overlaps – e.g. narcissistic traits resemble histrionic ones.
PDNOS – Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Disorders can be identified, but figuring out the details can be messy.
The dimensional model has two axes: (schizoid, antisocial) and (psychotic, neurotic). Finding where a person ranks in terms of the disorders.
Borderline Personality Disorder – a complicated set of learned behaviors and emotional responses to traumatic environments. Learn to use dysfunctional ways to get their needs met. E.g. get love by self-cutting.
Antisocial Personality Disorder – a person exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members
#35 Getting Help – Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy – involves a therapist using a range of techniques to help a client overcome troubles, gain insight, and achieve personal growth.
Different techniques work for different people/troubles. Major therapies:
- Psychoanalysis – Freud. access repressed feelings, memories, and unconscious thoughts by using free association and dream analysis. The therapist picks up on cues that the client appears resistive.
- Free association: the client talks freely to the therapist without rationalizing
- Projection: projecting internal feelings or motives by ascribing them to other
- Resistance: holding a mental block against remembering or accepting some events or ideas
- Psychodynamic – unconscious internal forces, early relationships, early childhood experiences. Shorter than psychoanalysis.
- Existential-humanistic – People’s inherent capacity for making rational choices, achieving self-acceptance, and attaining their maximum potential. s/patients/clients/ focus on growth. Active listening, overcoming existential fears, accessing “genuine self”. By focusing on the present, “say more about the feelings you’re having right now, in this moment”. Emphasizes on the things that are avoided.
- Gestalt: develop awareness of thoughts, feelings, ideas, beliefs. Techniques: role-play (either the therapist or the client), empty chair (interact with imagined person sitting on the chair)
- Behavioural – Problem behavior is the issue. Elimination of unwanted behavior by replacing it through new learning and conditioning. Exposure (face fear by exposing to real/imagined scenario), systematic desensitization (gradual exposure to a feared stimulus), aversive conditioning (involves pairing an unpleasant stimulus), token economies (positive reinforcement, tokens that can be exchanged for privileges), modeling.
- Cognitive – Teach people new, more adaptive ways of thinking. Focuses on what people think rather than what they do. Socratic questioning method – challenge thinking on the way, helps client reexamine. Changing what we say to ourselves is a very effective way to cope with anxieties.
- Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy = Behavioural + Cognitive
- Human givens: we will be happier if we are more aware of and more sensitive to our innate needs and resources.
- Solution focused brief therapy: work on developing solutions with the therapist, requires far less sessions than other therapies.
- The miracle question: help the client see a clear picture of how a future would look like where the problem is solved (or doesn’t exist)
Integrative therapies use the best elements from all therapies.
The methods psychologists use to find whether a treatment was successful are: client perceptions (positive bias through therapist-client relationship), clinician perceptions, outcome research (systematically measure which therapies work best)
After outcome research, the next step is meta-analysis: measuring results across multiple trials. Results have shown that psychotherapy is both effective (whether a therapy works in a real-world setting) and efficacious (whether a therapy works better than some other).
There is an issue-treatment mapping, e.g., phobias -> behavior therapy, depressive -> cognitive, behavioral, etc.
Common factors that unite all therapies for effectiveness:
- Instilling hope – things can and will get better
- Getting a new perspective – finding a new way to look at yourself and the world around you
- Genuine empathy (therapist doesn’t judge)
- Trusting, caring relationship
- Clear & positive communication (therapist does active listening, really tries to understand)
Other therapies are pharmacotherapy, electro-shock therapy, etc.
People’s behavior can be either situational (what they do in a situation) or dispositional (part of their personality). The fundamental attribution error is when observers underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the impact on personal disposition (personal characteristics).
“Fake it till you make it”. Darth Vader became who he was through a series of small incremental evil steps.
The Stanford prison experiment (prisoner/cop, fake jail) concludes that people in no time switched their identity to the role of prisoner/cop, based on the situation.
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort when thoughts/beliefs are inconsistent. Since thinking is hard, because of this, most people can turn “evil” and make bad decisions – “makes it easy to switch to the dark side”.
Bystander effect – individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in the presence of other people.
People are usually more aware of their surroundings when they are on their own, perhaps because they think it is considered rude or odd to be gazing around too much when they are with other people. […] Often, a situation is ambiguous, so we look at how others are interpreting it to decide whether it is a genuine emergency.
Hawthorne effect (observer effect) – individuals behave differently when they know they are observed.
Social obedience: Behavior changes due to orders from others. (see Stanford Prison experiment above and Milgram experiment below)
Social compliance: Behavior changes due to requests from others. Explanations involve reciprocity (returning favors), commitment (consistency), social proof (follow the crowd), liking, authority, scarcity (items are more attractive when they are limited) etc.
Social facilitation – Performance changes from being observed. That is, presence of others makes an experienced individual perform better on tasks (even if the presence is imagined). Possible explanations:
- Alertness hypothesis: Uncertainty about others’ actions increases alertness in their presence.
- Challenge and threat hypothesis: Presence of others improves simple task performance but worsens complex tasks due to perceived threat.
- Evaluation apprehension hypothesis: Fear of being evaluated.
- Distraction-conflict hypothesis: Conflict arises between focusing on others and the task, similar to cognitive overload.
- Feedback-loop model: Being observed makes people self-aware, leading them to work harder to match their expected behavior on tasks.
While social facilitation refers to the changes in performance as a mere result of being observed, compliance refers to changes in behaviour as a result of others requesting that change
The Milgram experiment (person who can control the electro-shock dashboard, an authoritative person behind them, and a person receiving the shock) concludes that obedience is highest if perceived as an authoritative figure, especially if they come from a prestigious institute.
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Conformity relates to how we adjust our behavior and thinking to follow the rules in a group. In contrast, minority influence occurs when a smaller group or individual persuades the majority to adopt their views or behaviors, often through consistency, confidence, and persistence.
Asch’s conformity experiment (when asked to pick a matching line, most participants choose the wrong one on purpose, and the individual is likely to believe/follow them) concludes that the individual is more likely to conform to a group if they’re made to feel incompetent or insecure.
There can also be conformity if a person is feeling watched, or adores a group.
Normative social influence is when we comply in order to be liked or belong.
Social loafing is the tendency to do less in a group, especially if there is not individual accountability.
Being part of a crowd can lead to deindividuation (e.g. riots, protests)
Group polarization – us vs them dynamics.
Groupthink – thinking within the group without considering different perspectives, not being open to different opinions.
#39 Prejudice & Discrimination
We all have non-conscious / implicit bias.
Prejudice – prejudgment unjustified, typically negative attitude toward a group. It can be automatic, or non-conscious.
Stereotype – overgeneralized belief about a particular group. E.g. all birds have wings may be ok, but in some cases, overgeneralizations can fail.
Prejudice = attitude, discrimination = behaviour
Dual-process theory: implicit (System 1: fast, automatic, intuitive) and explicit (System 2: slow, deliberate, analytical), both interacting.
Implicit Association Test tries to gauge implicit attitudes/identities/biases. Pressing keys fast is associated with the person’s stereotypic condition.
Self-serving bias: the tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to situational factors
Prejudices can be caused by justifying social inequalities (just-world phenomenon, people get what they deserve), the tendency to favor one’s own group “us vs them” (ingroup-outgroup phenomenon), etc.
Robber’s cave experiment hypothesized the realistic conflict theory – conflict happens when you combine negative prejudices with competition over resources.
Aggression – behavior intended to hurt or destroy something. Can be verbal, emotional, or physical. Comes from a combination of biological factors, environmental factors, and experience. The Frustration-aggression hypothesis is when people become aggressive when they’re blocked from reaching a goal.
Altruism – selfless/self-sacrificing regarding welfare for others. One research shows that people typically help others only if they notice the incident, interpret it as an emergency, and assume responsibility. Few other reasons why people do this:
- Reciprocity norm – we act altruistically because we expect others will do too.
- Social responsibility norm – the expectation that people will help those who are dependent on them.
- Help others mainly out of self-interest, but this is not altruistic as it turns to cost-benefit analysis – Social exchange theory.
Conflict – perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, and ideas. What fuels it is the opposite of altruism – self-interest. A lot of conflicts arise because of Social Trap – a situation in which the conflicting parties, each of whom pursues self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.
Robber’s cave experiment reminds us about the positive power of cooperation and shared goals.
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