Reading §
Questions §
- Explain how classical and operant conditioning can influence an individual’s behaviour and provide examples.
- Behavioural theorists argue that all or almost all human behaviour, including abnormal behaviour, is learned.
- In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus (the CS) comes to elicit a conditioned response (CR) through its being paired with another stimulus (UCS) that already elicits that reflexive response (UCR).
- In operant conditioning, when a behaviour increases in frequency in response to consistent consequences, reinforcement is said to occur; when the behaviour decreases in frequency as a result of its consequences, this is described as punishment.
- Define schemas and describe how they come to influence an individual’s thoughts, beliefs, information processing, and behaviours.
- Cognitive theorists believe that mental health problems stem from dysfunctional beliefs, attitudes, or ways of thinking.
- Three main levels of cognition are emphasized in cognitive theory: schemas, information processing and intermediate beliefs, and automatic thoughts.
- Schemas, or internal representations of stored information and experiences, influence an individual’s thoughts, beliefs, information processing, feelings, and behaviour.
- Understand how close others (e.g., partners, friends, family) can influence the development and maintenance of mental health disorders through stigma or social support.
- Being stigmatized for having a mental health disorder can cause an individual to experience a decrease in self-esteem and fail to seek treatment for the disorder or the support of close others.
- Reducing the stigma of mental illness is essential so that individuals suffering with mental health issues can feel comfortable reaching out to others and receive the necessary support to overcome their disorders.
- Having high-quality relationships with close others (e.g., partner, friends, family) prevents or reduces the intensity of psychological distress following stressful events, while the absence of such support is a factor in the causal chain leading to dysfunction.
- Identify how gender, race, and poverty influence mental health disorders.
- There are clear differences between male and female rates for several disorders.
- Race and poverty have also been linked to the prevalence of psychiatric disorders.
Lecture §
- Behavioural theories: What did behaviourist believe as cause of abnormal behaviour the 2 major theories and the 3 associative psychologists?
- All environmentalists: assumed that abnormal behaviour was learned
- People play a passive role, directed by events in the environment
- Classical Conditioning: dog experiment by Ivan Pavlov
- Stimulus–stimulus learning: John Watson’s experience with Little Albert
sound + white rate = fear
- Application to the acquisition of phobias (systematic desensitization)
- Account for the development of strong emotions in response to certain specific objects
- Operant Conditioning: which operant conditioning principle involves avoidance?
- Two-factor theory
- Behavioural Theories: What is he major points of social learning theory and the major contributing psychologists
- Cognitive Theories: What are the 3 major theories under the cognitive theories and the associated psychologist
- 3 Principles
- Thinking affects emotion and behaviour
- Thoughts can be monitored and changed
- Altering one’s thoughts, a person will experience desired behavioural and emotional change
- Rational-emotive behaviour therapy by Albert Ellis with the
ABC model
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy by Aaron Beck with the 3 components of Cognitive Model
- Mindfullness: awareness + acceptance
- Acknowledge the role of cognition + emphasize the role of attention
- Humanistic & Existential Theories: How are these theories related to abnormal behaviour therapy?
- These theories are more related to self exploration and finding direction in confused times
- Phenomenological Approach:
- It is through experience that people form their sense of themselves and of the world. However, experience is not the objective observation of external events, but rather the accumulation of perceptions of the world
- Humanistic Views
- Carl Rogers (1902–1987) & Abraham Maslow (1908–1970)
- Rogers: person-centred theory
- Being present in the relationship and focus on the client’s immediate experience
- Maslow: self-actualization Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- When fully satisfied, result in the actualization of the person’s potential
- Existential Views: The development of meaning and the acceptance of responsibility for one’s actions
- Integrative Theories
- System theory
- Whole is more than the sum of its parts
- Causation as the combined effect of multiple factors that are likely to be bidirectional
- Diathesis-Stress Perspective
Mental disorders = predisposition + experience of stressA predisposition will not produce a disorder without a trigger- A predisposition to developing a disorder (the diathesis) interacting with the experience of stress causes mental disorders
- Biological or psychological
- Biopsychosocial Model:
- Brain functions have been shown both to influence and to be influenced by psychological and social processes
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Questions §
- Will treatments still be effective if the individual does not believe in the method of the treatment