Ap Psychology Notes

AP Psychology Notes 1
Anxiety Disorder

• group of conditions where the primary symptoms are anxiety or defenses against anxiety
• patient fears something awful will happen to them
• a state of intense apprehension and uneasiness

Phobia

• person experiences sudden episodes of intense dread

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

• a person is continuously tense, apprehensive and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal. constantly tense and feels inadequate

Panic Disorder

• anxiety disorder marked by a minute-long episode of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and chest pain, frightening sensations

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

• persistent unwanted thoughts cause someone to feel the need to engage in a particular action

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

• flashbacks or nightmares following a person's involvement in or observation of an extremely stressful event

Somatoform Disorder

• a person manifests a psychological problem through a physiological symptom
• Hypochondriasis- frequent physical complaints for which doctors are unable to find cause
• Conversion Disorder- report the existence of severe physical problems with no biological reasons

Dissociative Disorder

• include a disruption in the conscious process
• Psychogenic Amnesia
• person cannot remember things with no physiological basiSs for the disruption inventory
• Dissociative Fugue- people with psychogenic amnesia find themselves in an unfamiliar environment
• Dissociative Identity Disorder- used to be known as multiple personality disorder, person has several rather than one integrated personality, people with DID commonly have a history of childhood abuse or trauma

Major Depression

• unhappy for at least 2 weeks with no cause
• depression is the common cold of psychological disorders
• Dysthymic Disorder- suffering from mild depression everyday for at least 2 years
• Seasonal affective Disorders- experience depression during the winter months, based not on temperature but sunlight

Structuralism- first psychological school. Broke down mental processes into the must basic components of conscious experience. Hear? Taste? Smell? Feel? (Introspection)

Wilhelm Wundt- Father of Psychology

Functionalism- Focused less on the how of sensation and perception, but rather on why (William James)

Seven Perspective

1. Neuroscience Perspective- Focus on how the physical body and brain creates our emotions, memories, and sensory experiences
2. Evolutionary Perspective- (Darwinism) behave the way we do because we inherited those behaviors from our ancestor
3. Psycho-dynamic Perspective- (Sigmund Freud) behavior comes from unconscious drives usually from childhood
4. Behavioral Perspective- Focuses on observable behaviors
5. Cognitive Perspective- Focuses on how we think
6. Social-Cultural Perspective- Focus on how your culture affects your behavior
7. Humanistic Perspective- Focuses on positive growth and attempt to seek self-actualization

Abnormal Psychology- A "harmful dysfunction" in which behavior is judge to be a typical, disturbing, maladaptive, and unjustifiable

DSM4- Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, DSM will classify disorders and describe the symptoms, will not explain the causes or possible cures

Neurotic Disorders- Distressing but one can still function in society and not rationally
Psychotic Disorder- loses contact with reality, experiences distorted perceptions

Bipolar Disorder

•  formally manic depressions
• involves periods of depressions and manic episodes
• manic episodes involve feelings of high energy

Personality Disorder

• well established maladaptive ways of behaving that negatively affect people's ability to function
• dominates personality

Antisocial Personality Disorder

• empathy lack
• little regard for other's feelings
• view the world as hostile and look out for themselves

Dependent personality disorder

• rely to much on the attention and help of others

Histrionic personality disorders

• need to be center of attention

Narcissistic personality disorder

• unwarranted sense of self-importance
• thinking that you are the center of the universe

Schizophrenia Disorders
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Symptoms-disorganized thinking, disturbed perceptions, inappropriate emotions and action

1. disorganized thinking- fragmented and bizarre and distorted with false beliefs; breakdown in selective attention
2. Delusions-delusions of persecution, grandeur
3. Disturbed perceptions-hallucinations
4. inappropriate emotions and actions- laugh at inappropriate times, flat effect, senseless, catatonia

Positive Symptoms

• inappropriate symptoms

Negative

Disorganized Schizophrenia- Disorganized speech or behavior, or flat, or inappropriate emotion. imagine the worst

Paranoid Schizophrenia- preoccupation with delusions or hallucination.

Catatonic- Parrot like repeating of another's speech and movements

Undifferentiated Schizophrenia- Many and varied symptoms

Schizophrenia to me seems to be the topic that stuck with me the most because of their loss of control, and sense of reality. I hope that the number of people affected by this disorder reduces to zero. I especially feel for the people who suffer from hearing voices like the video above shows.