Andrew Hoff’s Psychology Notes Three 1

Treating Psychological Disorders

I. Early Approaches to treating abnormal behavior

a. Trephination
i. Holes drilled in head
b. Spinning Chair
c. Tranquilizing chair
i. Deprive subject of any stimulation
d. mental hospitals (Boliver)
i. like a warehouse not like a hospital, no one on one therapy, too
expensive

II. Psychotherapy
a. An interpersonal intervention designed to reduce the symptoms and/or
causes associated with behavioral and emotional disorders.
b. Fairly normal people
c. 2 Major Categories
i. Insight therapies

III. Insight therapies

a. Humanistic Therapies

i. Person-Centered Therapy (Carl Rogers)

1. Genuineness
2. Provide opportunity for growth
3. Unconditional positive reguard
4. Reflecting feelings, no interpretation
5. “mm-hmm” therapist
6. Most therapies today have a rogerian element to them
7. Can’t say anything wrong

ii. Gestalt Therapy (Fritz Perls)

1. Therapist sets example for openness
2. Congruence between verbal and non-verbal behavior
(talking with body language much older than speaking)
3. Role play
4. Liked same type of clients as Freud
5. Gestalt literally means the whole
6. Gestalt is putting it all back together
7. Why isn’t your whole personality organized together?
(body language may make you appear unintelligent)

iii. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

1. Rational-Emotive therapy (Albert Ellis)
a. liked the same type of clients as Freud)
b. Veridical
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i. Beliefs not mapped correctly to reality

c. Basis problem: People have irrational thoughts
(beliefs) about their problems
d. A-B-C (irrational belief makes you behave
wrongly)
i. Activating
ii. Belief
iii. Consequence
e. the therapy was so negative that it was said that
when you got out of the room you felt like you were
in a much better place
f. If we change the belief, we can change what follows
it.
g. The therapist is like an auto mechanic. You are
wrong, here is what is broken, here is how you fix it

iv. Behavioral Approach

1. Reducing abnormal behavior means not reinforcing it or
punishing it, while reinforcing the desired behavior.
2. Focus on changing overt behavior, create new more
acceptable behavior
3. Best for raising kids
4. A-B-C
a. Antecedent
b. Behavior
c. consequences
5. Problem with internalization
a. example: disorganized schizophrenic putting
together coherent sentence when mental hospital
worker gets angry by saying “I’m supposed to act
this way.”
b. Mute guy moving head, then lips to get gum.
Finally says gum and talks after ten years.
6. Their clients have more serious problems
7. Theory
a. abnormal behaviors are learned
b. principles of learning can be used to change
behavior
8. Some techniques
a. operant conditioning
b. assertiveness training
c. systematic desensitization (hierarchy of fears)
(Joseph Wolpe)
i. Premise
1. You cannot be fearful and relaxed at
the same time.
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2. relaxation training
3. hierarchy of fear-producing stimulis
4. use of hypnosis (for something like
storms)
5. principle of extinction
6. classical conditioning
7. Flooding is when you don’t work
down the hierarchy but just jump in
the deep end.
a. Relax
b. Therapist describes fear
producing stimuli in great
detai
c. While relaxed, person
imagines this stimuli
d. Person is gradually exposed
to stronger stimuli while
remaining relaxed
8. Dealt with phobics

v. Aversion therapy
1. Applying a negative consequence to some behavior that
you want to get rid of
a. (putting bad taste on fingers so you stop biting
nails)
2. good for treating bad habits
a. Token Economies
i. Providing rewards for desired behavior
ii. Effective in institutional settings
iii. problems of maintainance
iv. tokens = secondary reinforcers
v. problem
1. behavior does not stick when they
are released
b. Social Learning Approaches
i. Self monitoring
1. example: observe eating behavior
2. increase self awareness
ii. self reinforcement
1. self praise for desired behavior
2. reward strengthens desired behavior
3. stop smoking by seeing how long
you can go without one
iii. covert rehearsal
1. mentally practice behavior
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2. behavior strengthened without direct

experience
3. does work

I. Medical Therapies
a. Electroconvulsive shock
i. Used in treatment of depression
ii. Shock you, you have seizure
iii. You wake up and feel less depressed
iv. Drugs replaced this treatment for the most part
v. Discovered when they found that epileptics felt better after having
a seizure
b. Psychosurgery
i. Frontal lobotomy
1. cut brain connection and leave it in
ii. frontal labectomy
1. take out brain parts
iii. largely replaced by drugs today
c. Drug therapies
i. Antidepressants
1. prozac
2. Zoloft
3. change brain chemistry
4. they mess with chemical that gets rid of serotonin.
ii. minor tranquililzers
1. valium
2. Librium
iii. major tranquilizers (neuroleptics) (schizophrenics)
1. thorazine
a. cleaned out mental hospitals as long as they stayed
on meds
b. does something with dopamine
c. causes brain damage through long term use, you
end up drooling on yourself
iv. lithium
1. bi-polar
2. doesn’t cure just masks symptoms
v. Drugs don’t fix anything. They normalize behavior. They mask
symptoms.

I. Group Therapies (psychotherapy)

a. Several theoretical approaches
b. Basic notion: People who have problems with interpersonal relationships
can best work through their problems in group settings.
c. NOT THERAPIES
i. Sensitivity training
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ii. Encounter groups

iii. Support groups
d. Anger management group thereapy usually does not work because they
normally do not want to go.
e. People with anxiety disorders benefit from group therapy. Anti-Socials
don’t.

vi. Psychoanalysis (Freud)

1. dealt with depressions and phobias
2. liked patients who were curious, intelligent, and knew they
had a problem and wanted to fix it
3. emphasis on the past
4. emphasis on unconscious determinants
5. dream interpretation
6. free association (couch) (patient can’t see therapist)
7. “Freudian Slips”
8. Catharsis (Emotional moment when you put it all together
and realize why you had problem) (once you get here all
you need is a solution)
9. therapist interprets

Psychological Assessment

B= f (r)

This is one area of psychology that will continue to affect your life.

I. Standards for Good Tests

a. Validity
i. Does a test measure what it purports to measure?
b. reliability
i. consistency
ii. does a test have consistency
iii. a valid test must be reliable
iv. a reliable test does not have to be valid
v. Tests for reliability
1. test-retest
2. split half
3. alternate forms (form m, form f)
c. standardization test
i. standardization (normative) sample: the group of people on whom
the test is developed and the norms created (Are these kids like
yours? Does test generalize other groups?)
d. Test bias
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i. Not when one group scores better than another group, it’s bias if a
test predicts less well for one group (differential validity)

I. Intelligence (General Mental Ability) G

a. Ability to understand and adapt to the environment, that results from a
combination of both inherited characteristics and educational experiences
b. The ability to grasp and reason correctly with abstractions (concepts) and
solve problems
c. The ability to learn, to learn quickly, and to use that knowledge to make
effective decisions
d. Approaches to understanding intelligence
i. Physical structure
ii. Speed of learning
iii. Method of processing
1. Dunker’s Candle
iv. Finding the problem

I. Intelligence Tests
a. History
i. Francis Galton
1. saw g ran in families
2. Hereditary Genius 1889
3. “eugenics”
ii. Cattell (1890)
1. “mental tests”
iii. Binet (1895)
1. First G test
2. Binet scale
3. Paris
4. Age Scale (the greater the number right the higher the
child’s mental age)
iv. Binet-Simon Age Scale
1. 30 items
2. standardized on 50 children, aged 3-11
3. reasoning, judgment, memory, verbal comprehension,
arithmetic (if you could only choose one, vocab is the best)
v. Terman
1. 1916
2. 90 items
3. introduced IQ
vi. Terman and Merrill 1937
1. Stanford-Binet (Developed at Stanford)
2. Forms C and M
3. 3184 children, 1 ½ - 18 (all whites)

IQ
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(Stern)
Intelligence Quotient

Mental Age/Chronological Age * 100

An IQ of 100 is average

This formula is not used anymore.

IQ Scores are distributed along a bell curve

Half aboe, Half below

Is there only one intelligence?

Pearson thought there was one “g” factor. Thurston thought there 9 primary mental
abilities. Guilford thought there may be 120 types of intelligence.

I. The Wechsler Scale

a. Provides 3 IQ Scores
i. Performance
1. In right brain
2. picture arrangement
3. object assembly
4. picture completion
5. digit symbol
6. block design
ii. Verbal
1. information
2. comprehension
3. arithmetic
4. digit span
5. similarities
6. vocabulary
7. In left brain
iii. Overall
iv. 1 test giver for each tester = expensive
v. Psychologists like this one because it gives lots of numbers and
you can see where problem areas are
vi. If more than 10 points separate verbal and performance, person
may have perceptual handicap or learning disability.
vii. Binet is verbal loaded
viii. Wechsler’s Tests
1. Wechsler-Bellevue Test (1939)
2. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) (1955) (WAIS
III) 1999
 Andrew Hoff’s Psychology Notes Three 8

3. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) (1949)

WISC-IV) (2003)
4. Wechsler Preschool Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI)
b. The scale provides several subtests in each of the two areas

I. Group Intelligence Testing

a. WWI
b. Arthur Otis
c. Army Alpha = for readers
d. Army Beta = for non-readers (show pics and answer questions about
them)
e. Took in high school to get IQ
f. Advantages
i. Less expensive
ii. Many tested at once
g. disadvantages
i. less valid and reliable

Intelligence: Nature vs. Nurture

National tragedy: Depriving children of the tools to use their “cranial capacity.”
Poor schools
Un-parenting
Reduces demand for excellence
Excuses for non-performance
Subsistence-level maintenance
Television
Drugs and alcohol

Heritability of intel
Correlation between IQ Scores *developed cognitive ability genes and env. stuff
Reared Together Reared Apart

Identical Twins .86 Identical twins .72

Fraternal Twins .62 Fraternal Twins
Siblings .41 Siblings .24
Parents and children .35 Parents and children .31
Unrelated children .25 unrelated children .00

I. Social Psychology
a. The study of the individual’s influence on the group the group’s influence
on the individual.
b. Similar to sociology and cultural anthropology except focus is on the
individual
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Attitude

Behavioral
Affective, evaluation
Cognitive (intention to act in specific
(likes, dislikes, feelings, ways)
(beliefs, information)
emotions)

Belief – thinking
Feeling – emotional
Action – behavioral

I. Attitudes toward women

a. Restricting women’s opportunity to provide value hurts everyone

I. Attributions: Kelly’s Attribuitional Error

a. Two Explanations of Causality
i. Dispositional
1. behavior reflection on person character’s
ii. situational
1. outside event caused behavior

I. Social Prejudice
a. Negative attitudes that are held about some identifiable group that are
largely based on generalizations, faulty, and incomplete information
b. They are typically reinforced on a variable (ie. Hard to extinguish)
schedule
Prejudice
YES NO
African American denied job African American denied job because
because owner is prejudiced non-prejudiced owner fears loss of
Yes white customers
 Andrew Hoff’s Psychology Notes Three 10

African American is given job to African American give job because he

No attract African American is best suited for it
customers

Discrimination

Is discrimination on nonvalid or valid criteria?

Discrimination is denying or hiring someone based on relevant criteria.

I. Causes of Social Prejudice

a. Social (economic) factors
i. Two can’t live as cheaply as one
ii. When the wolf comes to the door, the dove flies out the window.
iii. Chinese building railroads. When done they needed jobs.
Americans prevented more Chinese from immigrating.
b. Personality Factors
i. Authoritarianism
1. Theodor Adomo
2. Why did people follow Hitler?
3. “Authoritarian personality”
4. F-scale (F=fascism)
5. Traits
a. Authoritarian submission (they want someone
above them) (they want a father figure)
b. Authoritarian aggression (they like people below
them that they can push around) (displaced
aggression)
c. Hard-core cynicism
d. Preoccupation with power
e. Anti-introspective attitude
f. Strong need for consistency (between attitudes and
behaviors) (way they controlled, need to match up)
c. Conformity
i. Doing something without being told (Compliance is doing
something when asked. Obedience is doing something when told.)
ii. Conformity is learned and reinforced and some genetic factor too.
iii. You can conform to a point that it is bad for you.
iv. Solomon Asch’s Conformity Studies
1. Subjects put in a group of confederates and asked to make
judgments about line lengths.
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v. People use conformity to control, its all in the votes

vi. It keeps people in voting blocks
vii. One way of doing this is making them mad. If they are mad, they
don’t think and stay in group. Mad people lose in the end. They are
used to elect officials and then ignored.

I. Cognitive Dissonance
a. An adversive state that arises when an individual is aware of a conflict
between his/her belief about something and knowledge that he/she
performed a contradictory behavior.
b. “Smoking causes cancer and heart disease. I smoke”
c. Because dissonance is an aversive state there is a need to resolve it.
Unfortunately, resolution usually takes the form of shifting the attitudes
toward the behavior.
d. New gang members having to commit a crime. If they were against crime
initially, they won’t be afterwards. They don’t do it day 1 though. They
ease into it. Authoritarians tend to do it more.

I. Naïve Realism
a. Lee Ross
b. Tendancy to see the “other guys” point of view as biased.
c. Showed Israelis a “Palestinian” peace proposal that was really an Israeli
one. They disliked it. They then showed them an “Israeli” peace proposal
that was really a Palestinian one. They liked the Palestinian one.
d. You know you are right reguardless of the facts.
e. Very few people can admit they are wrong.

I. Exploitation
a. Controlling people by providing them with a small immediate reinforcer,
even though they will eventually have to endure a significant punisher.
b. In other words, at the time, they want to do it.
c. Contingency trap
d. You can exploit people because they are easily conformed.

I. Obedience: Influence of the Authority figure

a. Stanley Milgram’s “Shock Studies” (1965)
i. Confederate “learner” pretended to receive shocks
ii. Experimenters told subject to keep increasing voltage until
“learner” learned the task
iii. Most subjects increased the “shock” until the “learner” became
unconscious

b. It’s not hard to get people to kill. It’s hard to get them to be nice.
c. People obey more when you gradually get them to do something. They are
going to shock them a lot early on.
d. Conformity and obedience mix together a lot.
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e. Jonestown Commune.
i. A bunch of conformity and obedience got those people killed.
f. Bosnia
g. Civilization is very thin on people.

I. Tendency to Obey: Some key factors

a. High status authority figure
b. Belief that authority figure will be responsible (take responsibility)
c. Absence of clear cut point for switching to disobedience
d. Gradual nature of many obedience situations

I. Understanding Ethnic Issues and Discrimination

a. James Jones
i. We need to understand the role color plays in intergroup social
relationships.
ii. People pack together by color because it is so easy.

I. Giving power to words and symbols

a. Giving “power” to a word or symbol is giving someone else power over
you.
b. Cracker and honkey never stuck because whites never gave them power.
Blacks told give N word power because they could be controlled.

I. What does it mean to view one’s self as a “victim”?

a. Victims are under the control of consequences
i. (Roter) external vs. internal locus of control
ii. Outside world controls you vs. you are in charge of your own
destiny
iii. “I can’t make gains until I am no longer victimized.”
b. victims are predisposed to separatism
i. reduced interest in advantages of general culture (education)
c. victims don’t hold their people accountable
d. If there is a “hateful other” it wants you to define yourself as a victim with
no control over consequences. It benefits them.

Problem Solving Cycle

 Andrew Hoff’s Psychology Notes Three 13

2. Problem
1. Problem Definition (find
Perception real problem)
(diagnostic)

3. Causal
6. Evaluate Determination
Intervention (real cause of
problem)

4. Select
Alternative
5. Implement
Interventions
intervention
(changes to
make)

People have perceived problem and go directly to solution. That is called solution erring.
How do you get people to be reasonable?

What actually causes what?

Attribution = cause

2 causes for behavior

1. situational – not caused by person or character but a situation causes it

2. dispositional – caused by the person or character

Fundamental Attribution Error –If it’s good and you did it, you assign dispositional
attribute. If it’s bad and you did it, you assign situational attribute. It is just the opposite
when describing someone else.

If you apply wrong cause to human behavior, you will get the wrong solutions.

I. Reducing Prejudice (Getting people not to solution err)

a. What does NOT work
i. Providing correct information
ii. Forced “listening” to the facts
1. “boomerang” effect
a. Makes them more prejudiced
2. social reactants
 Andrew Hoff’s Psychology Notes Three 14

a. where people react in a negative way to what you

are trying to get them to do.
iii. providing contact *
1. it is a start but does not work alone
b. what does work
i. Muzafer Sherif’s Studies (1961)
1. 22 eleven year old boys
2. The eagles and the rattlers
3. in a state park in Oklahoma
ii. Providing contact with:
1. inevitability
a. they will be together
b. there is nothing they can do to change that
2. shared coping
a. make them rely on eachother
3. equal status contact
a. perceived equal status for everyone

People tend to respond to the expectations placed on them. Set high standards and
enforce them.

What it will take?

From: Mad – Sad – Glad – Scared

To: Mad – Sad – Glad – Scared

Changing attributions
- generalizing from poor examples
- venerating poor examples (letting Mike Tyson come here to box when Vegas
wouldn’t let him)
Stop wasting time with antecedents that are not connected with changed consequences

Shaping appropriate behaviors in others