AP Psychology/Motivation, Emotion, and Personality

Introduces personality through the lens of behavior and mental processes and how they interact to produce an individual’s personality.

Objectives and Skills

Topics may include:

• Theories of motivation behind human and animal behavior
• Major theories of emotion
• The effects of stress
• Conceptions of personality, including behaviorist, social cognitive, humanistic, and trait theories
• Research and assessments to measure personality

Study Notes

• Consciousness "refers to your individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations, and environment. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-consciousness-2795922
  • Some occur spontaneously: Daydreaming, Drowsiness, Dreaming.
  • Some are physiologically induced: Hallucinations, Orgasm, Food/Oxygen starvation.
  • Some are psychologically induced: Sensory deprivation, Hyponsis, Meditation.

Dual Track Mind

• Conscious "high" track
• Unconscious "low" track

Consciousness sometimes arrives late to the decision making party! New tasks require conscious attention

• Blindsight - Damage to the visual cortex impairs the ability to consciously "see" things; the brain still receives signals from the eyes.

Sleep

Irresistible tempter to whom we inevitability succumb to.

Definitions

• Circadian Rhythms - Occur about every 24 hours (the sleep-wake cycle) [light triggers the suprachiasmatic nucleus to decrease melatonin from the pineal gland in the morning and increase melatonin at night-fall; melatonin is released at night].
• Biological Rhythms - The female menstrual cycle averages 28 days.
• Internal desynchronization - A state when biological rhythms are not in phase with one another. Circadian rhythms are influenced by changes in routines.

Stages

How to measure sleep: About every 90 minutes, we pass through a cycle of 4 distinct sleep stages. EEG [functional]: Electrodes placed on the head and brain waves are measured.

• Non-REM 1 [3rd]: Awake but the eyes are closed, hallucinations occur, jerks and movements, wave: Alpha
• Non-REM 2 [4th]: body prepares for deep sleep, wave: Theta (with sleep spindles)
• Non-REM 3 [5th]: urinates on bed possibility increases by 50%, sleepwalking, deep sleep, night terrors, wave: Delta
• REM [6th]: Good sleep, rapid eye movement, may fall straight into REM if not enough REM sleep [REM-REBOUND] or narcolepsy could happen, wave: Beta [Dreams = Take place during REM sleep as the brain deals with stress: information-processing theory].

Paradoxical sleep is where the brain is awake but the body is "paralyzed". In REM-Rebound is when we go too long without REM sleep and we "rebound" into REM.

Sleep Deprivation

Effects

1. Fatigue and death
2. Poor concentration
3. 71% higher chance of getting depressed
4. Poor immune system
5. Car accidents increase
6. Gain weight

Sleep Disorders

1. Insomnia - Recurring problems with falling/staying asleep.
2. Narcolepsy - Sleep disorder characterized by uncontrollable sleep attacks.
3. Sleep apnea - Blocked airway causes failure to breathe when asleep and repeated awakenings. Associated with obesity and snoring. Treatment is a mask-like device that keeps the airway open.
4. Night terrors - High arousal and appearance of being terrified.
5. Somnambulism - Sleep walking

Psychological Principles' Take

Freud

• Manifest Contect: Storyline
• Latent Content - Symbolic; Unconscious dribes and whims.

Information Processing

• Dreams may help sift, sort and fix a day's experiences in our memories.

Psychological Function

• Dreams provide the sleeping brain with periodic stimulation to develop and preserve neural pathways.

Neural Activation

• Suggests that the brain engages in a lot of random neural activity. Dreams make sense of this activity.

Cognitive Development

• We dream as a part of brain maturation and cognitive development.

Drugs

• Psychoactive Drug - A chemical substance that alters perceptions and mood (effects consciousness) [continued use: tolerance].
• Withdrawal
• Dependence
• Addiction

Depressants

Drugs that reduce neural activity and slow-body functions. They include:

1. Alcohol
2. Barbiturates
3. Opiates

Alcohol

Allows for more binding for the neurotransmitters: Makes GABA (inhibitory) more inhibitory and blocks glutamate (excitatory) receptor sites.

• Why is alcohol a depressant and not a stimulant?

Stimulant: Suppresses part of brain that inhibits behaviour; Long run: Depressant because of its slows down the nervous system.

Alcohol affects motor skills, judgement, and memory. Increases aggressiveness.

Barbiturates

Tranquilizers (depress the nervous system).

• Impairs memory and judgement.

Opiates

Depresses neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety. Mimics the action of endorphins, an example being heroin. A speedball is a stimulant + opiate [fatal].

Stimulants

Drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.

1. Caffeine/Nicotine - Increases autonomic functions to provide energy.
2. Cocaine - Immediate euphoria followed by a crash (dopamine trapped in synapse and binds).
3. Ecstasy - Permanent deflation of mood/memory impairment = Damage to serotonin receptors; kicks out serotonin from the cell and binds to receptors again and again.
4. Ampletamines - Stimulate neural activity: Accelerate body functions, mood changes, etc.
5. Meth - Causes 8+ hours of heightened energy and euphoria - reduces baseline dopamine, making it more addictive by adding more meth each time; it kicks out dopamine from the cell and binds to receptors again and again.

Hallucinogens

Psychedelic drugs that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.

• LSD/acid - Serotonin: Interacts with your brain differently.
• Marijuana/THC - Dopamine is inhibited.

References

← Developmental Psychology

AP Psychology

Clinical Psychology →