PSYC1001 SUMMARY NOTES

Introduction to Psychology
WEEK 1 PRE - LECTURE 1: Clinical Perspectives

Psychology and the Real world

Psychology is based upon ‘scientific methods’ and strict experimental control, forming the
understanding, measuring, and changing psychological aspects of the real world.
 Empirical science: Based on systematic observation and relies on information from
research studies
o Systematic observation: specifications of exact actions and how they’re
recorded to ensure same results under the same circumstances

PTSD
Marked by distressing memories of the event, anxiety and avoidance of reminders.
 E.g War, car accidents and sexual assault
 Affects 10% of survivors

Management of PTSD 
Trauma counselling known as psychological debriefing occurs shortly after trauma exposure
 Involves discussion of experience and emotional response
 Believed as a preventative method

Ineffective due to the lack of:

1. Measurement
 Assessment prior to treatment for standardized measures to determine cause of
distress
 Developed measurement tools 
2. Comparison
 Determines success of treatment by comparing with another condition
 Changes could be due: Time, attention and repeated assessments 
3. Controlling for Bias
 Randomisation
 Independent/blind assessments are needed after treatments
4. Double Blind Studies
 E.g During drug trials patients are unaware of what treatment they receive, and clinicians
are unaware of drugs they prescribe
5. Quality Checks
 Treatment fidelity checks ensure awareness of procedure

Psychological Debriefing
 Ignored all principles leading to inaccuracy and validity of the treatment 
 Currently proven ineffective with controlled trials
Animal models are used to aid understanding of PTSD treatment

What does Psychology say About Trauma Response?

Classical Conditioning: Learning that certain environmental stimuli predict harmful events
CASE EXAMPLE: Animal Model of fear conditioning
 Rat is electrocuted when there is light exposure
 Trauma = Electric shock
 Fear = Rat’s behaviour e.g freezing, increased HR, BP and stress hormones
 Trauma reminder = Light exposure
 Distress = Rat’s fear of light

Extinction: Involves new learning when stimuli is repeatedly exposed without negative
outcome to reinforce stimuli signals safety
 E.g Rat is repeatedly exposed to light without the electrocution
 E.g Firefighter that developed PTSD had poorer extinction learning prior to job
Aids in identifying individuals at risk and leads to better prevention methods

Treatment: Exposure therapy

Extension of animal research aids in understanding of treatment for trauma in humans
 E.g Same brain regions underpinning extinction in rats predict exposure therapy for fear
in humans
 Glutamate (excitatory neurotransmitter) is linked to emotional learning
 Increasing glutamate experimentally prior to extinction trials aids in extinction learning in
rats
This leads to improved therapy for anxiety in humans (glutamate prior to therapy sesh)

Summary
 Psychological principles and research shape policies and practices
 Critical for developing new approaches for disorders
 Essential for testing success of treatment
Introduction to Psychology
WEEK 1 PRE - LECTURE 2: Psychological Perspectives

Psychology is defined as the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes

 Behaviour: Overt actions
 Mental Process: Thoughts, emotions & interaction 
Psychology is:
 Empirical science and is based on systematic observations
 Experimental where you manipulate one variable to observe the effect on another
 Analysis where you examine data to determine conclusions
 Theoretical and is used to generate predictions and summarise existing knowledge
 Public where results are subject to review by others 

Goals of Scientific Psychology

 Description of behaviour through observation
 Predictions
 Explanation in identifying causes of behaviour
 Facilitate changes in behaviour  

Effective Proven Study Methods Lack of Advice on Effective Study methods due to 
1. Self-testing  Conflict of Interest
2. Distributed Practice  Teachers are not well informed

Cases: Milgram’s studies of obedience to authority

 Fake electrocution of individual conducted b participant (in position of power)
 Blind obedience occurs often as people shift responsibility to others
 Estimated no more than 2% of individuals would reach highest voltage of 450v
 Type of individual least likely to obey: Bradley who participates with someone who
refuses to continue with the experiment

Milgrams obedience study and inhumane acts of Nazi soldiers in war indicate that most
people do what authorities tell them to do even when the Ethical Objection Experimental
procedures should not cause emotional harm to subjects.

History of Psychology
William Wundt (Leipzig): introspection (beginning of modern age psychology)
 Examination of one’s own conscious experience: Phenomenology
 Introspection is utilised to examine one’s own conscious experience, however these self-
reports are unreliable (reliability is necessary in the scientific method), this then led to
functionalism
 Process of observing your own mental processing is known as introspection
 Introspection FAILED due to unreliability of self reports (reason for moving on from
introspection to functionalism)

William James: Functionalism

 Emphasises the analysis of psychological processes in terms of function e.g attention
serves to highlight and focus on stimuli
 Functionalism focuses on identifying rules of how particular task is achieved
 Philosopher Fodor argues this could be implemented on any info process system e.g
computer

Behaviourism (successful approach) that Challenged introspection

 Subjective experience is unable to be verified by an objective observer

B.F Skinner and John Watson: RADICAL behaviourism

 Only studies observational behaviour rather than internal states e.g emotions
 Suggested that scientific psychology should not include internal states such as thoughts
and emotions
 Anything that cannot be observed and measured directly is not worth studying
 Belief that the function of a behaviour is much more important than its form

Edward Tolman: METHODOLOGICAL behaviourism

 Only studies internal states that are linked to observation behaviour

Psychoanalysis also Challenged Introspection

 Freud argues ‘many psychological events are unconscious’

WEEKS 1-3: Developmental Psychology

WEEK 1 LECTURE 1: Issues in Developmental Psychology

Known as the social, cognitive, and physical changes that occur over the course of life

1. Nature VS Nurture (Biology vs Experience && Genes vs Environment)

Neither! Development proceeds as an interaction of genetic and environmental factors

2. Early Experience VS Later experience

Critical Periods- certain experiences are crucial for a specific development to emerge
Sensitive Periods - experience is optimal for development 

3. Continuity VS Discontinuity
Continuous 
 Change is gradual, uniform, quantitative and in
amount of skill or behaviour
 E.g Newborn kicking reflex and walking 
      Discontinuous
 Change is abrupt and qualitative, and the
change is in kind of skill or behaviour 
 E.g Baby’s loco motor development from
crawling to walking to running

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Methods of Studying development
1. Longitudinal studies
2. Cross sectional design
 Longitudinal Design Cross-sectional design

Purpose Same participants are observed and Participants from different

tested repeatedly throughout their age groups are studied
development during same time

Advantages/  Measure age-related changes  Measure age-related

measures  Analysis of change within individuals differences
 Draw conclusions about change that  E.g Difference in memory
occurs over time in each individual between 6-month-old vs
person 2 years
 The ability to look at development  Less time consuming and
within an individual over time and draw expensive
conclusions about age-related change  Provides ‘snapshot’ of
age group

Limitations  Time consuming   Cohort effects*

 Expensive  Differences between the
 Participation attrition * group other than age 
 Generational effects *
 E.g New Zealand testing case

*Participation Attrition: Participants dropping out of the study

 Major objectives of study may be compromised 
 Because longitudinal studies are run over a long time, participants often drop out of the
study → must consider if they dropped out for a reason that may influence the data
 E.g A study on depression is conducted and many individuals drop out later on. This
could mean they are depressed thus crucial information from individuals are lost
*Generational Effects: Differences in groups of participants due to varying causes and
experiences from their generation
 Unsure whether the findings can be applied outside the study because society has
changed so much
 E.g A study is conducted on career success and education levels with individuals from
1950. This would be hard to compare with individuals from 2000 (due to access to
education and additional resources are common thus change findings).
*Cohort Effects: Occurs when a variable other than age is able to explain what looks like an
age effect
(characteristics the group have in common may influence results (characteristics vary
overtime due to shared experiences)

E.g A study conducted on the time spent by people using computers on ages 10,20,30,40,50
 50-year-old group (from 1970) spend less time thus computer use decreases with age
 Thus, differences are not age-related differences but rather cohort effect
E.g A researcher is worried that changes in the early education curriculum might account for
the age-related differences in socio-emotional skills that she is seeing in her study of 4-year-
olds, 6-year-olds and 8-year-olds (cohort effect)
Generational effects (longitudinal issue) Cohort effect (cross-sectional issue)

 seen when the results of a study  seen when participants of different

might not be able to be generalised ages might differ in how they
simply because of how long the perform on a test, because of some
longitudinal design took to run other variable, other than age
*Infants are able to discriminate faces from many species better than adults can, observed
through visual paired comparison VPC 
Pascalis experiment: Pascalis et al., (2005) used a longitudinal design to show that 9 month
old infants who had looked at pictures of monkey faces at home between 6-9 months could
discriminate between different monkeys, but infants who had not looked at pictures at home,
could not. Results at end of monkey face training: 9mnth infants looked longer at novel than
familiar monkeys (experience is mechanism driving perceptual narrowing effect)

WEEK 2 LECTURE 2: Genetic Foundations

 Behavioural Genetics refers to how genes and the environment influence specific
aspects of development
 ALL cases environmental factors interact with genes to determine phenotypes

Genes
 Basic units of heredity
 Each gene contains ‘instructions’ for building a specific protein
 A gene is ‘expressed’ if it has been turned on to make its specific protein

 Start off as a single cell ‘Zygote’ (= sperm + egg (23 chromosomes each))
 The same gene has different forms called ‘Alleles’
 We have 2 ‘Alleles’ for every gene
(1 from each parent)
o 2 Alleles are same = homozygous
o 2 Alleles are diff = heterozygous
 Genotype – a genetic blueprint; DNA passed from parents to children
 Phenotype – observable physical or psychological attributes and qualities

Genes Environment 

Biological view of development: Environmental view of development: 

 Development is genetically determined
process of growth that unfolds naturally
over a period
Accordingly
 The environment is not an important
factor on development 
 Environment alone shapes course of
development
Accordingly
 Genes and biology play no restrictions
on how you develop
Role of environment includes
 Experiences in womb
 Support of parents and behaviours
modelled in early developmental years

Gene and Environment Interactions 

Behaviour genetics: Understanding how genetic and environmental factors combine to

produce individual differences in behaviour (phenotype)
 The degree to which variation in a particular trait among individuals is due to genetic
differences among those individuals
 Varies from 0 = no heritability to 1 which is fully heritable
*Genes aren’t static, but interact with environment which ‘turn them on’ to be expressed

E.g. PKU - phenylketonuria is a disorder that doesn't allow metabolism of phneolalolein

 (artificial sweetener in diet coke)  Recessive homozygous gene 
Genes and environment
Uses degree of relatedness (probability of sharing genes among relatives) to work out the
relative contribution of genes and environment to a particular phenotype
 KINSHIP studies (Family, Twins, adoption)

Relation Degree of relatedness

Identical (MZ) twin 1.00
Fraternal (DZ) twin 0.50
Parent / Child 0.50
Sibling 0.50
Grandparent / Grandchild 0.25
Half-Sibling 0.25
First Cousin 0.125

Studies reveal heritability estimates for:

 Physical characteristics (e.g heights) = 80%
 Mental illnesses (e.g Schizophrenia) = 50%
 Developmental disabilities (e.g autism) = 64-%91%
 Intelligence = 50%-80%

Heritability: The degree to which variation in a certain partition among individuals are due
to differences among those individuals 

Heritability is observed through comparing the difference in expression of a particular trait

between monozygotic twins and dizygotic twins.
 Raised in same environment 
 However, have different levels of shared genetics
 Trait is highly heritable then this is expressed in monozygotic twins but not dizygotic
twins

Monozygotic twins (identical) Dizygotic twins (fraternal)

 1 egg fertilized but splits into 2  2 eggs fertilised by 2 different sperm 

 Share 100% of genetic makeup
 E.g. height is 80% heritable and in
monozygotic twins, they will be the
same height as they share the same
gene and are raised in the same
environment
 Share 50% of genetic makeup likewise
with siblings
 They have different genes but are raised
in the same environment and thus the
difference is due to the genetic make-up
 E.g. although height is 80% heritable, in
dizygotic twins, one might be short while
the other is tall (demonstrates that they
have a different gene for the height
phenotype)
Environment and Variability
Environment is important for development as it
influences which genes are expressed
 Environment explains variability of
phenotype despite same genotype
 E.g Gene for depression is present but is
only expressed if there are experiences of
neglect or extreme stress during childhood

Example 1: MAOA gene and childhood maltreatment on conduct disorder

 MAOA gene: metabolises

neurotransmitters in
the brain (low activity
associated w aggression)
 Differentiate children with low
and high activity
in the MAOA gene
 Then looked at G x E interaction
o Maltreatment is a risk factor for antisocial
behaviour but ONLY for individuals with
LOW MAOA activity

Example 2: FADS2 gene and breastfeeding in IQ

 FADS2 gene
o Homozygous (CC or GG)
o Heterozygous (CG)
 Breastfeeding had fatty acids
crucial for
milenation 
 Breastfeeding enhanced IQ but
ONLY in children who are
carriers of the C allele
WEEK 2 LECTURE 3: Prenatal Development

Early Experience VS Later Experience

Prenatal Development:
 Occurs between conception and birth
 Begins in fallopian tube when sperm penetrates egg and forms a zygote
 Takes about 266 days for the one-celled zygote to become a fetus of 200 billion cells

1. Germinal period  2. Embryonic Period 3. Fetal Period 

(14 days) (3rd - 8th week) (9th week - birth 38 weeks)

 Conception to  Formation of major  Organ systems begin to

implantation organs
 Zygote travels to  The blastocyst implants
uterus, divides and in the uterine wall
forms blastocyst  Layers of cells
(16 to 64 cells) differentiate to become
different parts of the
body (organ and limb
formation)
function
 A period of rapid growth
and refinement of organ
and brain systems
 Fetus is more responsive
 Behaviour becomes
increasingly regular and
integrated

Pre-term Birth: Limit of viability is 24 weeks (22-28 weeks) gestation due to 50/50 chance
of survival 

 We throw all our NICU technology at them if there is a 50% chance of survival
 At 23 weeks, almost 75% of babies die, even with the best NICU care

Teratogen:  Any diseases, drugs or other environmental agent that can harm a developing
embryo of fetus (effect depends on dose, duration, and timing / developmental periods)
 Organ systems and brain are particularly susceptible during periods of rapid
development e.g germinal and embryonic period

Fetal alcohol syndrome (occurs with alcohol exposure during embryonic period): facial
deformations to nose and upper lift (cleft)

Characteristic of FAS:
 Smooth philtrum
 Thin upper lip
 Small head circumference
 Upturned nose
 Underdeveloped ears

Avoid the following Teratogen when pregnant

 Drugs (cigarettes, alcohol, illicit drugs)
 Food poisoning dangers (blue cheese, raw fish, rare meat)
 Radiation (nuclear, UV rays, X - rays)
 Thalidomide - produce terrible deformations
 Prescription medicine (antihistamines) and medications that interact with hormones
 Pesticides and steroids
 Excessive Vitamin A
 Exposure to alcohol + Zika Virus causes microcephaly (small head)
 Rubella

WEEK 2 LECTURE 4: Perceptual Development

Critical Period Sensitive period

A time period during development when certain A period of time during which
experiences are crucial for a particular feature or experience is optimal for the
development to emerge. development of a particular
(Features will never develop later on if not acquired) function, but not critical

Examples Examples

Imprinting in birds - Few hours after birth, they tend Walking - Humans raised by dogs
to imprint on a moving object as a safety mechanism may walk on hands and feet.
John Bowlby’s attachment theory states that  However, if taught to walk by a
 Attachment in humans is parallel to imprinting in human, they may also learn to
animals, creating an adaptive bond walk on two feet
 Children who had secure attachment patterns
were more likely to have better relationships and CASE: Romanian Orphanages
seek less attention because they developed Children raised in orphanages
internal working models for positive interactions developed disordered attachment.

Visual monocular deprivation - Blinded a kitten, lack However, if they were removed
of use of visual cortex atrophy will lead to loss of and placed in foster care, they
sight despite having a fully functioning eye were able to compensate for these
 Permanent damage to visual system attachment issues.

CASE: Genie was locked away from an abusive
father since 2yrs old and thus lacked verbal
experience. However, when rescued, she was taught
verbal cues and learnt word but couldn't develop
language.
Thus, demonstrates that later
experiences can make up for early
experience. Providing evidence of
a sensitive period

Perceptual Development

Visual perception - Infant behaviour Visual deprivation - Animal models

 Visual scanning and fixation patterns (e.g
Eye tracking)
 Habituation (e.g Baby sucking and
looking at stimulus)
 Visual preferences (e.g Prefer high
contrast over low)
Babies
 Prefer patterned stimuli over plain stimuli
(the more complex, the better)
 Visual acuity improves in first few months   Their ability to navigate around their
E.g Hubel and Weisel kittens –
experiencing monocular deprivation
 Keeping one eye shut permanently
disrupts their development of
pathways from eye to visual cortex
E.g Carlson et al., (1987) monkeys -
Binocular deprivation
 Raised in the dark for the first few
months (no visual input for both eyes)
  Can see all colours from birth but have environment using visual cues was
difficulty distinguishing if all equally bright permanently damaged

 6-month-old Caucasian babies were only able to discriminate Caucasian and middle
eastern however could not distinguish Chinese
WEEK 3 LECTURE 5: Social and Emotional Development

Attachment in ANIMALS Food or comfort - Rhesus Monkeys (Harry Harlow)

Relationship infants form with
primary caregiver
 Desire for closeness
 Seeks a sense of security
 Exhibit distress when
caregivers are absent
Infant rhesus monkey were raised by inanimate mothers
1. Wire monkey with bottle
2. Soft monkey with no bottle
Finding: Baby monkeys spent most of their time clinging to
soft mother (contact) 
Comfort > Food
 Infant monkeys were motivated by the need for
contact and comfort

Attachment theory - John Bowlby Attachment in HUMANS

 Attachment in humans analogous to  Newborns recognise their mothers’ voice &

imprinting in animals; ‘adaptive bond’
 Attachment figures become a safe
base from which children can explore
the world
 Disruptions to attachment may have
long term impact on emotional and
cognitive development
show preferences for faces over objects
 Babies show a novelty preference for a
face they haven't seen before
 Separation anxiety is first seen in 6-7
months and peaks in early second year
 Develop early in life as the result of
experience with consistent caregiving

Measuring attachment: The child's response when their mother returns is coded
1. Secure attachment (common)
 Welcomes return, seeks closeness, and are comforted
 Developed internal working models for positive interactions
 E.g Little Tara is having lots of fun exploring her aunt’s home while her mum and
aunt are talking. She crawls into other rooms for brief periods and then makes her
way back to her mum. Tara may climb into her mum’s lap for a while, but it isn’t long
until she is off exploring another room

2. Insecure-avoidant attachment
 Unphased by mum leaving, ignores mother on return

3. Insecure-anxious attachment
 Upset on leaving, angry/reject on return, desire closeness but is difficult to sooth
 E.g Raj is upset when his mother leaves him alone to play and is angry when she
comes back to hold him

4. Disorganised attachment
 Behaviour is contradictory e.g approach mother but look away
 Inconsistent disturbed and disturbing
Institutionalisation

Institutionalisation Consequences of deprivation

 High child: caregiver ratio  Psycho-social dwarfism, stunted growth

 Some basic needs (nutrition, clothing)
 Little one to one attention including
infants
 Lack of touch
 Lack of responsiveness
 Intellectual delay
 Behaviour problems
 Inattention and hyperactivity
 Autism-like symptoms
 Disturbances of attachment

Intervention
e.g foster care can ameliorate the effects of deprivation and depends on timing StrD
(stranger at door) task

RESULT of intervention on the Stranger at the Door Task

 Improved children's performance, there was no statistical difference between the foster
care group and the care as usual group

EIG N = 60 (ever institutionalized group)

 CAUG N = 31 care as usual group
 FCG N =29 foster care group

NIG N = 29 never institutionalized group

Dependent variable = % of children who left with the stranger

 Valid measure of indiscriminate behaviour and sensitive to group differences between

institutionalised children and community controls
 Intervention improved children's performances but the CAUG and FCG groups were not
statistically different
WEEK 3 LECTURE 6: Memory and Cognition

Continuous vs Discontinuous Development

Continuous Development Discontinuous Development

Continual change that occurs at a steady Discontinuous development

uniform speed  Qualitative change
 Quantitative change  Children develop in stages with each
 Children are adding to existing stage associated with distinct qualities
skills/knowledge/memories
 Not specific stages E.g Dragonfly
 Development is gradual There are very distinct stages in the
development of a dragonfly.
E.g Starfish Egg  Larva  Pupa  Adult dragonfly
Starfish grows in the same form, just bigger

Piaget's Theory of Development

According to Piaget, children develop in stages and must acquire the skills in each stage
to be able to develop to the next stage. 
 Deemed generalisations as schemas
 Underestimates child’s and overestimates adult’s cognitive development

1. Sensorimotor stage (0-2yrs) 2. Preoperational stage (2-7yrs)

Infant explores the world through   Child uses symbols e.g words and
1. Direct sensory  images to represent objects but
2. Motor contact (visual, hear, touch, taste doesn’t reason logically.
and smell)  Undergo development of language,
 Lack object permanence (understanding memory and imagination
that objects still exist when note seen)  Ability to pretend
 Separation anxiety develops   Egocentric (unable to see the world
 Experience of trial and error from a viewpoint different to their own)
 End of sensorimotor stage is marked by  Conservation develops (Symbolic
the ability to form mental representations thought)
 E.g A child sees a piece of bread go  Animism: belief that inanimate objects
down in a toaster, then turns away (such as toys and teddy bears) have
believing it no longer exists human feelings and intentions
 Child displays object performance  E.g Child wants milk: ‘cup, milk want’

3. Concrete operational stage (7-12) 4. Formal operations stage (12- adult)

Child logically thinks about concrete objects
 Can add/subtract
 Understands conservation: concept of
things remains but other elements are
changed and is based on rational thinking
E.g. Child's ability to identify 2 identical
objects with diff order, place or location
 Less egocentric and develop a sense of
awareness of outside world and events
Adolescent can reason abstractly and
think in a hypothetical manner
 Uses symbols to relate to abstract
concepts
 Able to perform complex reasoning 
 Understand relationship between
actions and consequences
  Struggle with abstract concepts
 Perform reversible mental operations
Recent studies indicate that many people have never developed beyond the stage of
concrete operational thought.
 Many adults are unable to solve problems requiring abstract reasoning skills

Information Processing approach focuses on gradual quantitative advances

Expressive writing: technique that involves writing about thoughts and feelings that arise
from a traumatic or stressful life experience — may help some people cope with the
emotional fallout of such events
 Improve lung function for asthmatic people
 Improve joint health for those with arthritis
 Improve health-related quality of life for the next 4 months

Memory and Cognition

Operant conditioning - Learning paradigm where babies learn their contingencies & reward
Cognition refers to a set of beliefs about an object
 E.g Charlie sees a dog across the road and thinks to himself that dogs are the best pets

Mobile conjugate reinforcement task Train task

Infants learn that their kicks produce movement in an Infants learn that their level
overhead mobile presses produce movement
 If rate of kick increases from baseline until training, they in a train around a track
have learnt the contingencies between their actions
(kicking) and their rewarding consequences (mobile
above their head)

Infants are good at learning contingencies between their actions and the consequences. 
 This study also reveals a more continuous pattern of learning

Cognition sensorimotor
Constructivist approach: Piaget thought that children construct knowledge by mixing their
experiences with their own ideas

Schemas (generalisations)
 Mental structures or models that we create to represent, organise, and interpret our
experience
Assimilation: Fitting reality into existing schemas
Accommodation: Adjusting schemes to fit with reality

Criticism of Piaget's theory

Children are at a particular stage whereby:
 thinking can be domain specific (e.g conservation number earlier than mass and volume)
 theory underestimates infants and young children
o E.g new methods (looking time) show evidence of object permanence much earlier
o E.g dissociations between children’s knowledge and action (card sorting)

Types of emotion
Approach related emotion Avoidance related emotion
  Joy  Disgust
 Anger  fear

WEEK 3-5: Social Psychology

WEEK 3 PRE - LECTURE 1: Social Influence Processes

Human Nature
Human social behaviour is shaped by evolutionary forces; we influence and are influenced
 Many social influence processes are universal and indicate an evolutionary origin:
conformity, obedience, ‘group mind’
 The brain evolved to manage social relationships and coordinate groups
 Need for belonging, status and identity

Forms of Social Influence:

 Mere presence: social facilitation, inhibition
 Conformity
 Obedience
 Compliance
 Group influence

Social facilitation and inhibition

Drive theory: arousal increases dominant responses
 On simple or well-learned tasks, the dominant response is correct  facilitated
 On difficult or novel tasks, the dominant response is incurred  inhibition (impaired)

Social facilitation: Tendency to perform better when we are in the presence of others as we
want to be viewed as our best selves
 Dynamogenic factor theory: the presence of others is a stimulus arousing the competitive
instinct

Social Inhibition: Is a conscious or subconscious avoidance of a situation or social

interaction
 high level of social inhibition, situations are avoided because of the possibility of others
disapproving of their feelings or expressions.

Hawthorne effect: Refers to the simple act of being observed producing a change in the
behaviour of the person being observed (demand characteristic)

Social Loafing: Tendency to reduce workload/effort when working in a group/social situation

 Belief that workload is shared, and individual contribution will not be identified
 Feel a sense of reduced responsibility

2 Main reasons for Social Loafing

Low expectancy Low instrumentality

 Refers to idea that we believe that  Refers to idea that when we work in a
there is little point in working hard as it group, we don't think anyone will
won't contribute to overall outcome recognise our contribution

 Can be reduced by:

o increasing relevance and commitment
 making individual performance identifiable
o
increasing group cohesiveness
o
Conformity
 When we adhere to or adjust our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours to be consistent with
the standards of a group or society
 Almost a universal human characteristic
 Variables that promote conformity
o Insecurity and incompetency
o Admiration of the group
o No prior commitment to any response
o Being observed (absence of anonymity)
 Informational influence is when we conform because we believe they are accurate
 Normative influence is when we conform because we want them to like and accept us

Consequences of Conformity

Positive Negative

 Structure  Tyranny of group opinions

 Predictability  Loss of authentic self
 Behaviour change / group therapy (AA)  Irrational behaviour

 (Extreme Group Influence) Deindividuation: loss of individual responsibility, impulsive,

deviant and sometimes violent acts in situations when they believe they cannot be
personally identified
 Groupthink: a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a
cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to
realistically appraise alternative courses of action
o Consensus is more important than reality
o Ignore disconfirming information
o Suppress dissent (Everyone must think alike)

WEEK 4 PRE - LECTURE 2: Social Influence Processes

Obedience
 Behaviour change produced by the commands of authority
 Differs to conformity as the pressure is explicit and the source is individual
 Variables influencing obedience
o Role proximity (distance) between ‘teacher’ and ‘learner’
 Obedience in everyday life is shown in religious leaders, military and government

Compliance
 When an individual changes their behaviour due to the request of another person
Six basic principles
1. Pretend friendship/liking
2. Obtain commitment/consistency
3. Scarcity
4. Reciprocity
5. Appeal to social validation
6. Appeal to authority
 ‘Foot-in-the-door’ technique: start with small request  escalate to a larger one
 ‘Low-balling’ technique: obtain acceptance, then change offer to a worse one
 ‘Door-in-the-face’ technique: first large request  refusal  smaller request
Group influence
 Cognitive basis of consensual delusions:
o Humans rely on social information (gullibility)
o Preference for simplicity and certainty
 Influence on human behaviour
o Universal individualism: individuals the basic unit of society where all humans
belong to one group, every individual has universal & equal rights
o Group identity: identity groups the basic units, individuals defined by group identity
 Methods of protecting the ‘group mind’
o Intolerance for alternative views
o Control of speech and thought (political correctness)
o Regulating language to change thinking


WEEK 4 LECTURE 1: Social / Person Perception

First Impressions
 First impressions may be enduring for months and even in the face of contradictory
evidence. It is derived from:
o Facial cues (baby facedness, familiarity, fitness, and emotional resemblance)
o Demographic characteristics
o Behaviours (mannerisms and etiquettes)

Attributions
 Refers to judgements made about others and ourselves based on their actions
 Attribution Theory is the process of explaining the causes of peoples’ behaviour
 We credit others’ behaviours to either:
o Internal dispositions
o External situations
o Combination of both

Internal Disposition External situation

Internal dispositional attribution assigns the
cause of behaviour to some internal
characteristic of a person, rather than to
outside forces
 E.g Enduring internal attributions:
personality traits or beliefs
 Contributes to fundamental attribution
error
The process of assigning the cause of
behaviour to some situation or event outside
a person's control rather than to some
internal characteristic
 When we try to explain our own
behaviour, we tend to make external
attributions

Attribution Information
 There are 3 different types of information we consider when making internal /
dispositional or external /situational attributions (Kelley’s Covariation Model) 

1. Consensus 2. Consistency 3. Distinctiveness

Do others regularly behave Does this person regularly Does this person behave
in this way or this situation? behave in this way in this this way in many other
situation? situations?

 Extent to which others  Extent to which the  Extent to which the

react to the same person in question person in question
stimulus or event in the reacts to the stimulus or responds in the same
same way as the person event in the same way manner to different
that we are considering on different occasions stimuli or events
 Example Internal External
Alison smokes a cigarette when she goes out Dispositional Situational
for a meal with her friend.  attribution attribution

CONSENSUS low high

  If her friend smokes, her behaviour is high
in consensus.
  If only Alison smokes, it is low.

CONSISTENCY high high

 If Alison only smokes when she is out with
friends, consistency is high.  
 If she only smokes on one special
occasion, consistency is low.

DISTINCTIVENESS low high

 If Alison only smokes when she is out with
friends, her behaviour is high in
distinctiveness.
  If she smokes at any time or place,
distinctiveness is low.

Attributional errors
Correspondence bias occurs when people infer their dispositions from situationally induced
behaviours (tendency to draw inferences about a person’s unique dispositions that can be
entirely explained by the situations in which they occur)

Situation Behavioural Behaviour Attribution

Perception expectation perception

People lack People have People have an People lack the

awareness of the inappropriate inaccurate motivation of capacity
individual’s expectations for how an perception of the to correct for the trait
objective and individuals will behave in individual’s inferences that may
subjective situation such a situation behaviour have arisen

Existence of correspondence bias

 Dispositional attributions are economical
 Committing the correspondence bias is not likely to have drastically bad outcomes
 Dispositional attribution satisfy the need for control (to understand/predict the world)
Stereotypes

Stereotypes (thoughts) Prejudice (feelings) Discrimination (behaviour)

Generalisation about a group of Hostile or negative Unjustified negative or

people in which identical
characteristics are assigned to
all members of the group
regardless of variation  that group
 Race, Gender, Religion, Age
 Religion
 Uni attended
 Sexual orientation
 Political beliefs
 Career choices
feelings towards a group harmful action toward a
of people based solely member of a group, simply
on their membership in because of their
membership in that group
E.g Prejudice against E.g Police brutality against
POC. Security dislikes Black people racial
black people at stores. discrimination

Stereotypes and attributions

 Due to correspondence bias, we usually blame internal characteristics rather than the
situation when attributing the behaviour of stereotyped individuals
 Attributional processes can also lead us to maintain our stereotypes when confronted
with stereotype inconsistent behaviour
 E.g Stereotype that women are better parents than men
NOT IN LEC >> Types of Attributional Errors
1. The fundamental attribution errors
 The fundamental attribution error refers to the tendency to overestimate dispositional
causes and underestimate situational factors when judging the behaviour of others
 E.g. after losing their soccer match on a rainy day, the coach reprimands his players,
saying that it was their combined lack of effort that prevented them from progressing to
the grand final
o In this case, the coach overestimated the lack of effort within the players and
underestimated the non-optimal weather conditions that may have inhibited their
performance
2. Self-serving bias
 Occurs when we explain our successes on the basis of dispositional factors and
blame our failures to situational factors
 Such biased attributions are seen as preserving or increasing self-esteem
3. Self-effacing bias
 The tendency to downplay our successes by attributing them to external causes to
blame ourselves for our failures
4. Actor observer discrepancy
 Tendency to attribute one's own actions to external causes 
 While attributing other people's behaviours to internal causes
 Chris fails to make the soccer team and complains that the system is rigged. His
mate Peter also fails to make the soccer team, which Chris attributes to him not
being good enough

Self-fulling Prophecies
 Occurs when our beliefs and expectations create reality by influencing our own or others’
behaviour
 Pygmalion effect
o Person A believes that person B has a particular characteristic
o Person B may begin to behave in accordance with that characteristic

WEEK 4 LECTURE 2: Attitude

Attitude
 An attitude is the tendency to think, feel or act positively or negatively towards objects in
our environment
 Affective states: emotional effect (joy, sadness, excitement)
 Behaviour: action (skipping, cuddling)
 Cognition: conclusion (positive,
negative)
ABC Model of attitudes
 It's a framework that assumes your beliefs about a specific event affect how you react to
that event
 Attitudes will guide our behaviour when:
o The attitude is specifically relevant to the behaviour
o When outside influences are minimal (free from social pressure)
o When we are very aware of the attitude

Cognitive Dissonance theory

 When behaviours are inconsistent with affective attitudes and cognitive attitudes, this
leads to tension “cognitive dissonance”
 To reduce dissonance, we can:
o Change our behaviour and attitude
 The amount of dissonance is determined by situational factors (reward, reason)

WEEK 5 LECTURE 3: Prosocial Behaviour

Prosocial Behaviour
 Voluntary actions that are intended to help or benefit an individual / group of individuals

3 Major Concepts of Prosocial Behaviour 

Obedience Compliance Conformity

When we change our When an individual changes
behaviour following their behaviour due to the
the command of an request of another person
authority figure or  Occurs to an implicit
structure. request
 Creates social  Common in asking for
structure favours
 Behaviour change  Witnessed in sales
induced by explicit techniques
commands of
authority E.g After you finish your shift,
a colleague begs you to help
E.g After you finish share their workload.
your shift, your You may accept their request
manager assigns you to
more tasks.  Ease tension
You obey because  Satisfy party
 Strong power
dynamic Robert Cialdini: 6 basic
 Fear principles
 Desire to please 1. Pretend friending/liking
2. Obtain
commitment/consistency
3. Scarcity
4. Reciprocity
5. Appeal to social validation
6. Appeal to authority
Group processes
Act of matching attitudes, beliefs,
and behaviours to group norms
 Occurs to implicit group
standards and dynamics
Conformity is high when:
 We admire the group
 Feel insecure
 More than 3 members
 Lack of anonymity
Low conformity
A group of people at a party
decide to do illicit drugs but you
decline and proceed to leave.
You don't conform because
 You are anonymous as you
won't see them again
 You don’t admire the group
High Conformity
You are at a party for a
celebration with a close group of
friends and they proceed to do
illicit drugs. You join because
 You feel insecure
 You admire the group
1. Social interference
 Any actions that conflict with, obstruct, hamper, or undermine the activities and
experiences of others
 The reduction of productivity that occurs when individuals work in the presence of
others
2. Deindividuation
 Phenomenon in which people engage in seemingly impulsive, deviant, and
sometimes violent acts in situations in which they believe they cannot be personally
identified (e.g., in groups and crowds and on the Internet)
3. Social Loafing
 Phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a
group than when working alone
 Main reasons for groups with low productivity
 E.g Beatrice finds that one person working alone can scoop about 100kg of corn
kernels per minute. When these people work in groups, each person’s output drops
to about 80kg per minute
4. Group polarisation
 Phenomenon when “members of a deliberating group move toward a more extreme
point in whatever direction is indicated by the members' pre deliberation tendency
 Leads to changing attitudes among individuals within the group

Compliance Techniques 

Foot-in-the-door Door-in-the-face Low-Balling

1. Requesting for a small 1. Asking for a big favour 1. Agreement 

favour 2. Rejection 2. Suddenly rejecting
2. Agreement 3. Then changing request to agreement
3. Then changing request a small favour (original 3. Then making a larger
to a bigger favour goal) request

Kitty Genovese: By-stander effect

 When the presence of others inhibits helping
 Diffusion of responsibility: As the number of people present increases, individuals feel
less personal responsibility and help becomes less likely

Emergency Intervention: Decision Tree (Latane & Darley, 1973) 

1. Notice the emergency (people in a hurry often won't notice emergency)
 Hurry Manipulation
o Low: “It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready, you might as well head on over”
o Medium: “The assistant is ready for you, so please go right over”
o High: “They were expecting you a few minutes ago… The assistant should be
waiting for you so you’d better hurry”
2. Interpret as emergency (ambiguity of situation, people may often look to others)
 “Are others responding as if it’s an emergency?”
3. Assume responsibility (bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility)
 Bystander effect
 Diffusion of responsibility: each bystander’s sense of responsibility to help decreases
as the number of witnesses increases
 Most likely under conditions of anonymity and when it’s difficult to tell what others
have done
4. Know what to do (expertise)
 Bystanders are more likely to offer direct help when they feel competent to perform
the actions required
5. Decide to help (weigh costs of helping vs not helping)
 Benefits of helping:
o Risk to person in need
o Warm glow of helping
o Enhanced reputation VS not helping Personal risk
 Costs of helping:
o Personal risk
o Legal concerns (liability)

A failure at any step will lead to inaction (i.e., not helping).

How to get help when Who is likely to Who is likely to receive help?
you need it help?

1. Counteract ambiguity  1.Person factors  1.Low Responsibility

  Make it clear that you
need help  others who appear less
2. Reduce diffusion of
responsibility
  Single people out by
pointing out distinct
characteristics (what
they’re wearing or hair
style)
 Empathetic  People are more likely to help
2.Cultural factors responsible for their situation
 Religious faith
 More useful in
minor
emergencies than
planned helping
(volunteering)

2.Similarity
 Likeness breeds liking and liking
elicits helping

How to increase help?

Media Education
 Video games:  Students were randomly
o Prosocial: Super Mario Sunshine selected to watch a bystander
o Antisocial: Crash Twin Sanity psychology lecture
o Control: Tetris  A student fainted and it was
recorded that students that
 Music watched the lecture were more
o Prosocial: “Heal the World”
likely to help
o Control: “On the Line”
WEEK 5 LECTURE 4: Attraction

Attraction
 Attractiveness judgements are relative and vary across time and culture
o E.g Asia beauty standards: Fair skin, thin figure and light makeup 
o E.g Western beauty standards: Tan skin, curvy figure, heavy makeup

1. Symmetry 2. Pupil dilation

 Non-Symmetrical features can indicate  Only universal beauty feature

odd genes or environmental stressors  Pupils dilate when we are interested
 Symmetrical faces are perceived as and contract when disinterested
attractive than asymmetrical   However other factors such as low light
 Composite faces are found to be more causes and threat cause pupil dilation
attractive than individual faces

Women Men

 Signs of arousal e.g red lips and  Signs of maturity and dominance
flushed  o Large jaw, luscious lips, prominent
 Neotenous features e.g full lips, round brow and facial hair
mouth and big eyes)  Height > 175cm
 V shape torso

Arousal / DRIVE Theory (inverted U theory)

Females generally prefer male characteristics associated with higher levels of social status
and financial resources. Males generally prefer female characteristics associated with
physical attractiveness and good health.
Influences on Human Attraction
1. Physical attractiveness
 Gatekeeper of interpersonal attraction
 Men's physical attractiveness to partner
was correlated with agreeableness
 Women's physical attractiveness to
partner was correlated with sport activity
3. Similarity
 Similarity wins over complementarity
 Similar attitudes, beliefs, interests, age,
religion, ethnicity, education,
intelligence, behaviour and economic
status probed high attraction
 The similarity-liking effect
 The matching hypothesis: People pair
up with those who are similar in physical
attractiveness
 Desire attractive partners but avoid
those that are ‘out of our league’
5. Affect
Affect may have either a:
 Direct effect on attraction
 Associated effect on attraction
o When meeting someone either
good/bad/mixed feelings arise
determining our level of liking
 Direct Effect of Affect
o Tendency to favour those that make
us feel good  levels
 Associated Effect of Affect
o Positive emotion is due to
something else associated with a
person
o Person is not responsible but is
related to emotion E.g Familiar
scents, laughter
2. Arousal
 Schachter and Singer: Experience of
emotion arises in part from our
awareness of our body's arousal
 Arousal + label (cognitive interpretation)
= emotion
 ‘Love at First Fright
o Attractiveness ratings of the same
photos after a rollercoaster ride
were higher when rating was made
after the ride 
 The Bridge Experiment
o Female interviews that approached
male on suspension bridges had
high levels of calls 
4. Proximity
 Closer proximity = high attraction
 Dorm building friends at MIT in 1950s
Next door neighbours were likely to be
closer friends than opposite ends of the
hallways
 2012 Swedish study revealed that
closer proximity = increasing
friendships 
 Marriage licenses analysis 1930’s
revealed that distance correlated with
fewer marriages
6. Self- disclosure
 Sharing of personal info is crucial in
development and maintenance of a
relationship
 Findings for self-disclosure
o People that engage in intimate
discourse tend to be more liked
than those that disclose at lower
o People disclose more to those they
initially like
o People like others as a result of
having disclosed to them
Mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968)
 People develop favourable feelings to people/objects once they are familiar with them
 What is unfamiliar is potentially dangerous and met with negative feelings
 If nothing negative happens after repeated exposure to the unfamiliar stimulus, negative
feelings decrease and positive feelings increase
 Any stimulus: nonsense syllables, musical selections, geometric figures, human faces,
foreign words, or the letter of our own name

Triangular Theory of Love (Robert Sternberg 1988)

 3 Components of love
1. Intimacy: feelings of attachment, closeness, connectedness and bondedness
2. Passion: the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction and sexual desire
3. Commitment:
o Short term - the decision to care for the other
o Long term - the commitment to maintain the relationship

Components of love combine to form 8 types of love

1. Non-Love 2. Infatuation

 No components  Passion only

 E.g acquaintances  E.g Love at first sight

3. Liking 4. Empty love

 Intimacy only  Commitment only

 E.g close friendships bestfriends  E.g stagnant relationships

5. Fatuous Love 6. Romantic Love

 Passion + commitment  Passion + intimacy

 E.g whirlwind romance: Rapid  E.g Summer relationship: Spending more
blossoming love that is fast paced time than usual and reveal true selves

7. Companionate love 8. Consummate love

 Intimacy + commitment  ALL 3 intimacy, passion and commitment

 E.g family member, platonic life partner  Lover is also best friend
WEEK 5-7: Emotion and Motivation
WEEK 5 LECTURE 1: Motivation

Motivation
Psychologists use motivation as an intervening variable to find the unity beneath the
apparent diversity of many human behaviours.

 The force / urge that moves an organism to behave as they do but may not result in
behaviour
o Intensity e.g 1 to 10 or strength of the urge
o Partially voluntary: often possess 2+ conflicting motivation
o Self-control may require choosing long term goal over short term goal
o Can be conscious or unconscious and may be difficult to vocalise
o Subject to rationalization
o Motivation is related to emotion as it is the force behind motivation

Theories of Motivation: Evolutionary Approach

Charles Darwin: Origin of species by means of natural selection and survival of the fittest
1. Instincts: Unlearned responses to stimuli that are universal throughout a species
2. Adaptive: Assume that organisms are motivated to engage in behaviours that help them
to pass on their genes for reproductive success
 Emotional expression is important as it communicates information to other people

 Instincts: unlearned responses to stimuli that are universal throughout a species

 Adaptive: assumes that organisms are motivated to engage in behaviours that help them
to pass on their genes (reproductive success)

Theory of Evolution
Humans possess a high degree of flexibility of behaviour to ensure evolutionary success
 Evolutionary success
 Adaptive tasks:
o Mating/Parenting
o Nutrition
o Social relations

Evolutionary Psychology
 Adaptations – inherited; expression depends on environmental conditions
 By-products – not adaptive
o Whiteness of bones doesn’t solve evolutionary problems
 Exaptation – feature now enhances fitness for one function (flying) was originally
adapted for different function (warmth)
 Spandrels – incidental by-product that become functional adaptation

Human instincts
 Instinct is the tendency to act in a specific way and much behaviour is instinctive
 Complex unlearned response to characteristic stimulus
 Experience can modify instinctive behaviour
 Instincts include rivalry, curiosity, sympathy and jealousy
 An activity instinctive is naturally provoked by the presence of specific sorts of outward
facts (outward fact – releasing stimulus, naturally – act must not have come about as
result learning)
Ethology
 The study of behaviour in natural setting
 Identify action patterns of species and causes of action patterns
 Evolution, development, function of behaviour
 Instinctive behaviours exist because they have or had adaptive value for the species

Behaviour as Viewed by Ethology

 Action specific energy – in the perceiving animal
 Key stimuli – releaser, sign stimulus (environment)
 Innate releasing mechanism – brain mechanism that detects key stimulus
 Fixed action pattern – instinctive behavioural sequence that is indivisible and runs to
completion
 E.g. Kelp Gull chicks peck at red spit (key stimulus) on the mothers’ beak to stimulate
regurgitating reflex

Key Stimuli and Innate releasing mechanisms

 Adaptive behaviours
 Socially adaptive behaviours
 Monkeys and recognition of facial expressions chimpanzees (good) and rhesus (okay)

Preparedness Theory
 Innate association between stimulus and response
 Seligman: phobias often involve evolutionary threats
 Explains why we develop phobias for snakes & lightning much more easily than
automobiles & electrical outlets

 David innately has a fear of snakes due to the threat they posed to his ancestors
biologically, which has been passed onto him genetically
 David fears venomous snakes due to biological threat they pose

Preparedness Hypothesis
Humans carry an innate biology tendency, acquired through natural selection to respond
quickly and automatically to stimuli that posed a survival threat to our ancestors

Preparedness theory tested in Results of Preparedness Experiment

conditioning experiments

 Acquisition - present photo followed by
electric shock
 Extinction - present photo without
electric shock and recorded skin
conductance (sweat gland activity)
 Longer extinction time for angry faces
than happy faces even when photo is
subliminal
 Longer extinction time for outgroup
neutral faces than ingroup neutral faces
Theories of Motivation: Behaviourist/Drive Reduction theory
 Explains the stages involved in the motivation
to meet basic needs
 Lack of homeostasis: deviation from our
individual physiological baselines
o Homeostasis: the body’s tendency to
maintain a steady state (equilibrium)
 Biological need: a deprivation that energises a
drive to eliminate the deprivation
 Drive: internal state of tension that arises
which pushes you towards motivation
 Motivation to act: direct response to drive

Promises and Problems of Drive Theory

 Lots of motivation due to drives
 Not all motivation is due to deprivation
 Primary (thirst and hunger)
 Secondary / learned drivers motivate (money)
 External incentives / rewards motivate (attractive people, desserts)

Biological – Neo-Behaviourist Theory

Jeffrey Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory was first proposed in 1970 

Gray’s BAS (Behavioural Gray’s FFS (Fight Gray’s BIS (Behavioural

Approach System) Flight Freeze system) inhibition system)

 ‘Let’s go for it” system
 Sensitive to appetitive
(natural desire) stimuli
 Associated with approach
and anticipatory pleasure
motivation
 Personality: optimism,
reward responsiveness and
sensation seeking
 Behaviours: impulsiveness
and risk taking
 E.g. Enzo has decided to
study diligently this term in
order to achieve a HD
 “Get me out of here”  Associated with actions
system that inhibit certain
 Sensitive to aversive behaviours
(dislike) or fearful  Activation of this
stimuli system can resolve
 Associated with conflict from other
defensive avoidance systems
(fear, escape, panic)  Sensitive to goal
 Personality: Fear conflict (approach
proneness and avoidance)
anxiety  Associated with
 Behaviour: avoidance rumination (constant
and prone sad thoughts), risk
assessment and
anxiety

Gray’s Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory

 Explains motivation on a biological basis but within a broader

framework than the drive reduction theory
 3 systems work together to regulate behaviour
 Situations can influence the relative activation of each
system
 Everyone has all 3 (differs in strength)
 Behavioural and neuroscientific
 Approach motivation Avoidance motivation

 The impulse to move toward a stimulus  The impulse to move away from a
 E.g Desire, interest, anger stimulus
 E.g Fear, disgust

Intrinsic Motivation Extrinsic Motivation

 Based upon internal rewards  Based upon external rewards

 E.g Becoming 1st place that would be   E.g receiving money or punishment
achieving personal goal

Positive motivation Negative motivation

 Optimistic feelings and attitudes  Pessimistic feelings and attitudes

 E.g receiving food or money  E.g Punishment or doing extra work

WEEK 7 LECTURE 2: Motivation

Psychosocial Theories
1. The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
2. Self-determination theory

Psychosocial Motives
Henry Murray:
 Motives are largely unconscious (behaviours gives clues to motivation)
 Need – recurrent concern for goal state
 Co-creator of TAT (thematic apperception test), a tool designed to measure the
psychosocial needs that drive and explain motivation

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Need for Power Need for achievement Need for affiliation

 Relates to the desire to  Relates to the need to  Relates to the need

impact other people
through strong, forceful
actions
 Controlling, influencing,
helping or impressing
others
 E.g Nelson Mandela had
socio-political power and
used it to highlight social
issues to achieve peace
and equality
People high in the need for
power: effective leaders
accomplish something to develop
difficult (rapid, meaningful
independent) connections
 This needs to overcome  Associated with
obstacles with high positive feelings
standard and excel about groups/people
oneself / rival  Associated with
 Basic need is to do well, performing friendly
succeed and achieve and nurturing acts
accomplishment in life
People high in the need for People high in the need
achievement: hard workers, for affiliation: good team
people who excel at players, good friends
challenging tasks and romantic partners
Measurement of needs
 Needs cannot be measured by real report
o People are not aware of their needs (unconscious movies)
o Self-reports do not correlate with TAT needs
 Self-reports of needs likely reflect values or conscious motives
o TAT need for each predicts long term entrepreneurial success and other long term
unconstrained behavioural trends
 Needs can be traits of states
o Situation can increase a person’s need for achievement, power or affiliation
o First identified as states, not traits

Self Determination Theory - 3 basic organismic needs

 Organismic needs exist in every human are innate
 Growth needs are not triggered by deficits but the desire to become a better person
 Human perspective, that separates the needs of humans from those animals

Competence Relatedness Autonomy

Need for self-efficacy, Need for warm relations with Need for self-control and
mastery and others, need to belong, pain determination (usually
achievement due to ostracism independent and self-reliant)

 Intrinsic Motivation:
o Based on internal rewards and hence arises from within the individual
o Motivated to engage in something because you find it inherently interesting
 Extrinsic Motivation:
o Based on external rewards and hence arises from outside the individual
o Motivated to engage in something because you expect to receive an incentive

 Rewarding an intrinsically motivated behaviour:

o Reduces future freely chosen performance of the behaviour
o Reduces quality of behaviours that require complex mental operations
o Reduces creativity

Regulating Motivation
 Self-regulation is the process by which an organism controls behaviour in order to
pursue other objectives
 Situations that require self-regulation include conflict between motivates and may involve
conscious goals

Resisting Temptation
 Delay of Gratification
o Putting off pleasurable experience for a future payoff
o Difficult because immediate rewards tend to be valued more than delayed rewards
 How to resist temptation
o Hot emotion or cool cognition
o Reducing motivational characteristics (remove reward out of sight)
o Internal distraction (focusing attention away from reward)
o External distraction (other interest objects nearby)
o Imagery (cool characteristics of the reward)

Factors in Goal success (Promoting self-regulation)

 Specific Goals
 Moderately challenging
 Both long term purpose and short-term steps
 Behavioural intentions – “When ___ happens, I will do ___”
 Monitoring progress (check in everyday)
 Public commitment (make it public; with friends)

Sexual Motivation
 Evolutionary perspective: Sexual behaviours were shaped by natural selection
o Humans are motivated to engages in behaviours that increases reproductive
success for our ancestors
 Reproductive success – passing genes on to the next generation in such a way that they
too can pass the genes on
o Strategies include:
 Large number of offspring, low investment (fish, amphibians)
 Small number of offspring, high investment (birds, mammals)

Bonding
 Sex often causes an intense emotional bond
 Neurotransmitters - endorphins and oxytocin are released

Human cultures restrict sexual behaviour

 Human cultures restrict sexual behaviour
o All social groups have rules regarding sexuality
 Hierarchical societies tend to restrict the sexual behaviour of women and low-
status men
 Egalitarian societies tend to be more permissive towards sexuality
o Humans can have intense moral (or disgust) reactions to sexual behaviour that
violates their values

Effects of Sexual Behaviour

 Highly related to values and morals
 Intensely affects emotions and relationships
 Physical health (improves cardiovascular functioning but can cause STI, pregnancy)
Gender Differences
Male sexuality:
 Stronger, more specific sex drive
 Report more frequent arousal, sexual fantasies, masturbation, use of pornography
 Report more frequent infidelity, difficult staying faithful
 More permissive attitude towards sex

Female sexuality:
 Sexual behaviour more changeable and more concealed
 More open to bisexual behaviour
 Physical arousal to a wider variety of stimuli
 Reported arousal does not correspond to physical arousal
 Under-report sexual experiences

Gender Differences in sexual behaviour

 Biological
o Testosterone levels
o Concealed (female) vs obvious (male) physical responses may explain arousal
report differences
 Evolutionary – sexual selection
 Social role (cultures are more concerned with controlling female sexuality)

Origins of Sexual Orientation

 Homosexual behaviour is common in non-human animals
 In some cultures, homosexual behaviour is not associated with a person’s identity
 Estimates of non-heterosexual orientation range from 2% - 10% in humans
 Appears to be multiply caused
 APA removed homosexuality from DSM in 1973/1987, but WHO only did it in 1992

Sexual Orientation is related to

 Genetics 
 Corpus callosum (larger in gay men)
 Prenatal hormones (higher in women)
 Social factors (gender non-conforming behaviour in childhood)

Human sexual response pattern

1. Excitement / desire
2. Arousal
3. Plateau
4. Orgasm
5. Resolution - Men undergo a
refractory period following orgasm
(unable to ejaculate). However there
is no refractory period in women
(multiple orgasm)

 Not always linear, can stop at any

point
 Roughly similar for men and women
 Women’s responses take longer on
average
WEEK 7 LECTURE 3: Emotion

Emotion
 Emotion is often defined as a complex state of feeling that results in physical and
psychological changes that influence thought and behaviour
 Emotion consists of neural circuits (that are at least partially dedicated), response
systems, and a feeling state / process that motivates and organises cognition and action
o Emotion also provides information to the person experiencing it and may include
antecedent cognitive appraisals and ongoing cognition including an interpretation of
its feeling state, expressions or social communicative signals
o Emotion may motivate approach or avoidant behaviour, exercise control / regulation
of responses and be social or relational in nature.
 Emotion is a psychological state that can involve changes in physiology, conscious
experience, motivation, and behavioural expression

 Emotions are experienced as positive or negative in valence

o Positive emotions (joy, contentment, calm)
o Negative emotions (fear, anger, disgust, sadness, boredom)

Emotion and Motivation

 Emotions are associated with different motivational directions
o Approach related emotions (anger, joy, desire)
o Avoidance related emotions (fear, disgust)

Dimensional circumplex model of emotion

Valence Arousal

Positive: Joy, contentment, calm High: Fear, anger, joy

Negative: Fear, anger, disgust and sadness Low: Contentment, calm, sadness

Emotions Impacts Emotions function to

 Temporary (moods last longer)  Increase, decrease or regulate

 Alters thought process
 Positive or negative
 Triggers an action tendency to act
 Exert control and regulates responses
 May motivate approach/avoidance
behaviour
arousal
 Direct perception and attention
 Influence learning and memory
 Organise and motivate behaviour
 Communication with others

Feelings: Subjective experience associated with emotion

Mood: Emotional state that is general and extended in time
Categories of the Theories of Emotion

Physiological Theories Neurological Theories Cognitive Theories

Suggest that responses Propose that activities within Suggest that thoughts and
within the body are the brain are responsible for mental activities are
responsible for emotions. emotional responses. responsible in forming
emotions.

Theories of Emotion 
1. Charles Darwin Evolutionary Theory of Emotion 
2. James Lange Theory of Emotion
3. Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion
4. Schachter-Singer or Two Factor Theory of Emotion
5. Cognitive Appraisal Theory
6. Facial Feedback Hypothesis Theory of Emotion

Charles Darwin - Evolutionary Theory of Emotion

Proposed that: emotions evolved as they were adaptive and enabled humans and animals
to survive and reproduce
 Emotions exist as adaptive role 
o E.g Love and affection lead to reproduction 
o E.g Fear compel flight or fight for survival 

James Lange - Physiological Theory of Emotion

Stimulus  Physiological Arousal  Emotion

Suggests that: Seeking an external stimulus leads to a physiological reaction (body

responds to the environment and the individual’s perception is emotional feeling)
 Interpretation of physical reaction dictates emotional reaction
 The sensation of bodily changes is a necessary condition – part of emotion

Hypothetical situation: Approached by a tiger in the woods (external stimulus) causes

adrenaline rush and shaking (physical reaction). James Lange theory proposes that you
are frightened due to shaking and adrenaline rush, rather than trembling due to fear.

Examples:
 Try to be happy by walking around and smiling all day  actually makes you happier
 Dry mouth, sweaty hands, fast heartbeat  experiences fear
Cannon-Bard - Physiological Theory (disputes James Lange theory)

Suggest that: 
1. Individuals experience physiological reactions linked to emotions without feeling
emotions (e.g. heart races due to working out, rather than excitement or fear)

2. Emotional responses occur too rapidly to be products of physical states (e.g. feeling
paranoia / fear prior to experiencing physical symptoms of adrenaline rush)

3. Physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously, yet

independently (all emotions have the same physio)
 Emotions result when thalamus sends a message to the brain in response to stimulus
resulting in a physiological reaction
 Meanwhile receive signals triggering emotional experience
If you lost all physiological and behavioural feedback of your body, this theory is least
affected with an individual’s ability to experience emotion.

Cannons’ Criticisms on James-Lange theory

 Bodily responses are not necessary
 Responses are the same for all emotions
 Insensitive internal organs and feedback
 Responses are too slow to cause feeling
 Artificial inducement of arousal doesn’t cause feeling

Schachter-Singer Theory - Two factor Theory of Emotion, Cognitive theory

Arousal  Interpret External Cues  Label Emotion (cognitive labelling)

(Physiological arousal, Cognitive appraisal, Emotional labelling)

Suggest that: Physiological arousal occurs first, then individual identifies reasons for
arousal to be able to experience emotion

According to this model, you have the physical experience, but it is how you appraise this
feeling in relation to the environment that leads you to determine your emotion

 Likewise to James Lange Theory: Emotions inferred are based on physiological

responses (NOTE: Critical factor being presence of cognitive interpretation)
 Likewise to Cannon-Bard Theory: Similar physiological responses can produce varying
emotions (e.g sweating during exam  anxiety but on a date will be due to arousal)
Example: whether you attribute shaky hands and fast heartbeat to caffeine or being
concerned about exams affects his emotional experience.

Schachter and Singer 1962 Results

 Injected vitamin  Ignorant and misinformed showed more than

supplements (epinephrine
or placebo)
 Left alone with stooges that
had emotional reactions
 Observed activity and
emotional feelings and behaviour than informed of
side effects of epinephrine
 Placebo did not differ from ignorant
 Control for ignorant: parse out those who were self-
informed
 reported emotion  Differences emerged

Richard Lazarus Cognitive- Appraisal Theory of Emotion

Suggests that: 
1. The sequence of events must involve a stimulus first
2. followed by thought 
3. then leading to simultaneous experience of physiological response + emotion.

 Fight or Flight response

o E.g encountering a tiger in the woods, you will believe you are in danger, leading
to emotion  fear & physiological response  adrenaline rush

Facial Feedback Hypothesis Theory of Emotion

Suggests that: Facial expressions are connected to experiencing emotions 

 Changes in facial muscle contraction correlate to emotionsƒhor

o E.g Forcefully smiling at a social function will result in having a better time than if
they had frowned
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are two key figures in humanistic psychology.
Excitation Transfer
1. When arousal occurs, it takes time to decay. 
2. During decay, a person may incorrectly identify the source of arousal and thus transfer
arousal to another source. 
3. Misattribution of arousal to an incorrect source.
 Transfer occurs when persons are less aware of arousal

Research
 Emotional facial expressions cause subjective experience of emotions
 Facial expressions are innate but are maintained by operant shaping
o Operant shaping: modifies behaviour by reinforcing what reaches the target behav)
 Cognitive interpretation of bodily responses adds to emotional experience
 The most basic emotions probably occur directly within the brain
 The many shades of emotions probably arise from attributions and categorisation
 The brain can generate emotional experience independent of physiological arousal

 Heart rate was more accelerated with anger, fear, and sadness than with disgust and
surprise
 Happiness accelerated heart rate more than surprise
 Skin conductance (measure of sweat gland activity) – fear and disgust were larger than
happy and surprise
 Finger temperature (measure of blood in fingers) – anger was greater than fear

 Higher quality voluntary facial configurations associate with stronger autonomic

differences
 Self-reported emotion not necessary for autonomic differences

Emotion: Cognitive interpretations

The primacy debate
1. Lazarus: Appraisals (thoughts) determine feelings
 It’s not the situation that affects our emotions, it’s our interpretation of the situation
2. Zajonc: Emotional experience may occur before appraisal

Emotion and the Brain

Amygdala:
 Fear system - 2 pathways
 Direct pathway is fast but not detailed
Facial Feedback Hypothesis – Larid
 Facial expression can influence emotions
 Supports the James-Lange theory of emotions (body’s response influences experience)
 Supports Primacy of Emotion (Zajonc)
o Facial expressions influence emotion even when people are unaware that they are
making an emotion expression
 The facial expression of an emotion may produce congruent emotional experience
o E.g posing an angry facial expression may create or intensify the feeling of anger

Results:
 Posing facial expressions of discrete emotions also influenced judgements of other
stimuli
 ‘Smiling’ caused cartoons to be rated as more humorous compared to ‘frowning’
 Influenced physio responses

Emotion: Behavioural factors

 Emotions motivate behaviours
o Instrumental behaviours
o Facial and bodily expressions
 Families of emotions
o Classes of emotion states that share many characteristics in terms of subjective
feelings, behavioural expressions
o May be subtle differences within family / class
o Anger: linguistic exemplar of irritation, rate and fury
Hormones and Emotions in Humans
 Men relatively have more androgens and women have more progestational hormones
 Oxytocin: Involved in affiliation and trust
 Testosterone: Angry aggression and low empathy
 Cortisol: Involved in stress and anxiety
However psychological and physiological variable are interrelated
Emotion: Sociocultural Factors
 Basic emotion expressions are universally recognised and thus innate
 Complex emotions are necessary to be learned more often
 Display rules across cultures

Examples

Josh starts smoking to experience the pleasurable feelings associated with nicotine. This
behaviour is best explained by the incentive theory of motivation. Eventually, however, Josh
becomes physically addicted to nicotine and now he needs the drug to reduce the cravings
he feels. Josh's behaviour is now best explained by drive reduction theory.

Incentive theory of motivation:

When people are pulled toward behaviours that lead to rewards and push away from actions
that might lead to negative consequences.

Samuel is well fed and owns his own home. According to Maslow, this information suggests
that Samuel's current motivation should be focused primarily on constructing stable
relationships with other people.

The addition to James' peripheral theory that the Schachter-Singer theory provides is the
interpretation of the bodily responses.

The fact that seeing a pizza commercial on television may make you hungry, even though
you didn't feel hungry a few minutes ago, seems to indicate that hunger is partially learned.

The fact that people all over the world seem to associate a smile with positive emotions
provides support for the innate aspects of the expression of emotion. On the other hand, the
diversity of types of smiles supports the social aspects of the expression of emotion.

Geoff, a basketball player for City High School, sinks 30 straight free throws during practice.
However, during the critical game of the season, with the score tied and 20 seconds left to
play, Geoff misses three consecutive free throws. Geoff’s behaviour can be best explained
by arousal theory.
WEEK 7-9: Personality
WEEK 7 LECTURE 1: Freud

The Principles of Psychodynamic Approaches to Personality

 Freud was one of the first people to study the differences in peoples’ personalities
 Basis of theory: Problems of the mind are due to conflicts of the unconscious
 Focused on childhood experiences and sexuality
 Freudian Concepts
o The unconscious ‘a dark river journey’
o Talking curse ‘classic Freudian’
o Rorshach test ‘a bat’; ‘father killing mother with a hypodermic needle’

Hysteria: Early Psychoanalytic Theory

1. Source of problems stems from the unconscious
2. The mind is a place of conflict (human nature is intrinsically bad)
3. Emphasis on childhood experiences (childhood trauma)
4. Emphasis on sexuality (heterosexual, homosexual, sexual desires or fantasies)

Freud's 3 Models
1. Topographic Model (hydraulic model)

Conscious: What you pay attention to (contains

thoughts & perceptions of the world)

Preconscious: Stuff that isn’t actively recalled

(contains memories and stored knowledge of
the world and your experiences in it)

Unconscious: repressed by a sensor and

(contains fears, desires, selfish thoughts and
immoral urges)

Dreams are unconscious level issues that

bypass the sensor to become translated into
preconscious level (occurs during sleep)
 Manifest content are what dreams
directly appear to be
 Latent content is what the manifest
content dream truly represents

Freudian Slips: Saying one thing when you meant something else
E.g. “Shall we take a breast now?” (combined break and rest into breast)
2. Structural Model (conceptual entities – not real)

ID (“es”)   Pleasure principle

 Immediate gratification
 Operates by “primary process”
o Sex / Eros (responsible for libido, drive to create)
o Death / Thanatos (responsible for aggression, to kill, destroy)
 Neglects reality
 Function - innate

EGO (“ich”)  Reality principle - evolved from ID and gets what one wants with rules
 State of consciousness that is concerned with reality
Middle  When EGO is unable to repress the desires of ID, it employs defence
ground mechanisms (projection, reaction formation and displacement)
 Operates via ‘secondary process’

SUPER EGO  Socialised self

(“Über-ich”)  Internalised standards and moral values
 Internalised parental and cultural values
 Conscience and guilt
 If too much control is gained by Super Ego, then the level of guilt rises
 Function - learned

Ego is the state of consciousness that is concerned with reality. When the ego is unable to
repress the desires of ID, defence mechanisms are employed

Projection Reaction formation Displacement

 Attributing an  Converting a socially  Occurs when you

unconscious unacceptable impulse into its satisfy an impulse on
behaviour to others opposite (goes beyond denial) a substitute object
to disguise it  Conscious behaviours are  Person redirects a
 Protects self-esteem adopted to overcompensate for negative emotion
by normalising bad the anxiety a person feels from its original
traits regarding their socially immoral source to a less
unconscious thoughts threatening recipient
E.g Saying others binge  Protects self-esteem for
drink when stressed. unresolved impulse at an E.g. scapegoating
Thus, projects coping unconscious level whereby someone is
mechanism upon others picked on for an
to normalise it  E.g Homophobic people having a unrelated impulse
heightened reaction to gay
pornography 
3. Genetic / Developmental Model
 Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
o Sexuality centred on the mouth, anus and genitals
o Fixation = staying in 1 stage too long (bad and has consequences)
o If psychosexual stages are unresolved, the person will be unconsciously
preoccupied with the idea of pleasure

Age Name Pleasure Source Conflict / Effect of Fixation

0-2 Oral Sucking, swallowing, and Conflict that child must figure out:
biting Weaning from mother’s breast

Effect of fixation: passive

dependence or excessive smoking
or eating

2-4  Anal Defecating or retaining Conflict: Toilet training, self-control

faeces Effect of fixation:
Anal retentive:
 Obsessiveness and neatness
Anal Expulsive:
 Reckless and disorganised

4-5 Phallic Genitals Oedipus complex (boys)

 Boys fear no penis
 Castration anxiety (fear of
losing penis)
 Aware of masculinity 
 Switch love object to mother
and despise father
 However, trail in fathers’
footsteps
Electra complex (girls)
 Penis envy (desire to have
penis)
 Girls notice they lack penis
 Aware of femininity
 Switch love object to father and
despise mother

6-puberty Latency Sexual urges are sublimated There is usually no fixation

into sports and hobbies however, if so:
 Sexual immaturity and
Same sex friends help dissatisfaction
avoid sexual feelings

Puberty Genital Physical changes reawaken Conflict: Learning social rules of

Onward repressed needs romantic relationships

Direct sexual feelings Effect of fixation:

towards others lead to  Sexual problems
sexual gratification.  Unsatisfactory romantic
relationships
Critique of Psychoanalysis
 Freud’s account of motivation rests on 2 instincts (sex and death)
o Are these plausible instincts?
o Is two enough?
 Inference issues (wild over-confident judgements, unreliable and data is ambiguous)
 Psychoanalytic theory is based on soft evidence
o Data isn’t publicly available
o Objectivity is compromised
o Interpersonal expectancies
 Evidence is not observable 

What do the data support? What don’t the data

support

 Unconscious mental processes can influence behaviour  Most aspects of

 Conflict between unconscious and conscious processes psychoanalytic theory
 Insight into unconscious racism 

Core concepts of Psychoanalytic Theory

 Early development is important (behaviours and fixations)
 Deeply rooted motives
 Body as source of pleasure and shame
 Personal conflicts within ourselves (conscious vs unconscious)
 Self-mystery (we don’t always know why we act in certain ways)
 Importance of unconscious

Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study

Researchers from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study found that the:
 Combination of a particular genetic predisposition (increased chance of developing
disease based on genetic variations) and stress during adolescence, increases
participants' risk for developing depression in adulthood
 Generational effect: Critics might question the relevance of the results, given that the
kind of stressors experienced by today's youth differ so much from the kinds of stressors
experienced by the participants in the 1980s

Results found from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Study

 Breastfeeding enhanced IQ in children who are carriers of the C allele
WEEK 8 LECTURE 2: Behaviourism

Behaviourist Approaches to Personality

 Personality is observable and measurable 
 Behaviorist movement was a reaction against psychology's focus on unmeasurable
phenomena (e.g. Freud’s unconscious and Wundt’s introspection)
 Malleable nature (people are born with no innate abilities, drive or motivations)

An individual's personality is the sum-total of all their experiences and nothing else

1. Stimulus response contingencies (classical conditioning)
2. Reinforcement contingencies (operant / instrumental conditioning)

Moderate Behaviourism
 Contents of organism are important in explaining behaviour
 Moderate behaviourists will use terms describing activities inside the organism
o Habits, motives, drive, expectancies, and thoughts

Radical Behaviourism (Skinner, Watson et al. 1920’s and 30’s)

 Contents of organism are NOT important in explaining behaviour
 3 elements of radical behaviourism: Stimulus, Response, Reinforcement / Punishment

Classical Conditioning Operant / Instrumental Conditioning

 Stimulus response contingencies Reinforcement contingencies (increasing the

frequency or probability of behaviour by
presenting / removing stimulus following the
behaviour)
 Positive reinforcement = adding
appetitive stimulus
o e.g press lever  get food
 Negative reinforcement = removing
aversive stimulus
o e.g. press lever  shock ends

Punishment (decreasing the frequency or

 Systematic desensitisation for dog
phobia by practicing relaxation
response
 Aversion therapy for smoking (putting
nauseating substance on cigarette to
stop unhealthy behaviour
probability of behaviour by presenting /
removing a stimulus following the behaviour)
 Positive punishment = presenting an
aversive stimulus
o e.g cheat on exam  fail the course
 Negative punishment = removing an
appetitive stimulus
o e.g break rules  can’t use phone
Schedules of reinforcement based on effort
 Variable Ratio - response is reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses
o E.g. Checking social media 100 times a day (gambling, lottery are rewards of VR)
o Variable ratio - how long does it take for you to stop checking social media?
 Fixed Ratio - response is reinforced after a specified number of responses
 Fixed Interval – response is rewarded only after a specified time has passed
 Variable Interval – response is rewarded after an unpredictable amount of time has
passed

WEEK 8 LECTURE 3: Humanistic Perspectives

Humanistic Approaches to Personality Psychology

 Also known as the phenomenological or existential approach
 Focuses on human experiences and how this forms the person they are
 Shares the idea that humans begin as good people, however it is your ability to access
and secure basic needs + the way that you’re treated that forms who you have become
 Personality is the expression of the actualising tendency as it unfolds in each person
unique perceived reality

The humanistic approach to behaviour focuses on personal growth

 Behaviourism is associated with observing outward behaviour, whereas humanistic
approaches focus on seeing personal growth

2 Major Humanistic Approaches

 Carl Rogers theory
 Abrahams Maslow's theory
 Focus on phenomenology - “The study of conscious experience as it exists for the
person, without any attempt to reduce, divide or compartmentalise it in any way”
 Believe in Free Will
 Believe meaning is important
 Emphasise the uniqueness of each individual
 Personal growth
 Enjoying the ‘here and now'
 Humanists are optimistic about human nature and personality change in the future

Effects of Culture on Personality

 Can distort inherent goodness
 Our culture values materialism and people who have money
o Hence, we learn to believe that pursuing and obtaining wealth will make us happy

Criticisms
 Concepts are too vague to be scientific
1. Carl Rogers Theory of Personality
 States that all humans have an actualising tendency

Elements of Rogers’ Theory

 Actualising tendency
o Built-in motivation to develop its potentials to the
fullest extent possible
 Organismic valuing process
o Subconscious guide that attracts people to
growth-producing experiences and away from
growth-inhibiting experiences
 Positive regard
o Experiencing love, affection, attention,
nurturance
 Positive self-regard
o Self-esteem, self-worth, a positive self-image
o Achieved through parental unconditional positive
regard
 Conditional positive regard
o E.g. Damien is rewarded with chocolate and a
hug from his dad after he wins a race

 Materialist cultural influences can increase the discrepancy between our real & ideal self

Self-concept
 Is an important aspect of personality because as it stems from our own experience and
approval of others
 A child’s self-concept develops as she receives positive regard from parents and
teachers, has congruent experience and feels good about what they are doing
o Congruence – a state in which a person’s ideal self and actual experience are
consistent or very similar
The fully functioning person:
1. Openness to experience
 Receptive to the objective and subjective happenings of life
 Expanded consciousness
 Able to tolerate ambiguity

2. Existential living
 Living fully in each moment (mindfulness of breathing and emotions)
 Happiness = taking personal responsibility for finding meaning and enjoyment in our
ongoing experiences (we can accomplish this through ‘flow’)
o Flow = activity is challenging and requires skill  attention is absorbed by the
activity  activity has clear goals  there is clear feedback  one can concentrate
only on task at hand  one achieves a sense of personal control  one loses self-
consciousness  one loses a sense of time

3. Organismic trusting
 Allowing ourselves to be guided by the organismic valuing process

4. Experiential freedom
 Feeling of freedom with choices

5. Creativity
 Creative Adapting to new situations
 Creative expression

2. Abraham Maslow’s Theory

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

1. Physiological Needs
 Need for basics (water, food, air)
 ‘Prepotent’ needs
 One function of civilisation is to satisfy these needs to focus on higher ones

2. Safety needs
 Needs for safety, order, security, health, employment
 Focused on after physiological needs are met
 Seen in some mental disorders (OCD, Anxiety, Dependent Personality Disorders)

3. Belongingness and love needs

 Need for affiliation, friends, supportive family, group identification, intimate relationships
 This level and upwards are often not satisfied even in affluent countries
 Need to receive and to give love

4. Esteem needs
 Need to be held in high regard by self and others
 Comes from mastery, achievement, adequacy, feelings of competence, confidence, and
independence
 Ideally this need is met by the deserve respect of others

5. Self-actualisation needs
 Maslow estimated that only 10% of the population satisfies these needs
 A person must actualise (make real) what exists inside them as a potential
 Most other theorists wouldn’t see this as a need

Specific needs of self-actualised people Characteristics of self-actualised people

 Truth  Efficient perception of reality
 Goodness  Acceptance
 Beauty,  Spontaneity
 Unity, wholeness, and transcendence of  Problem-centred
opposites  Need for privacy
 Aliveness  Autonomy
 Uniqueness  Sense of awe
 Perfection and necessity  Peak experiences
 Completion  Human kinship
 Justice and order  Humility and respect
 Simplicity  Interpersonal relationships
 Richness  Ethics and values
 Effortlessness  Discrimination between means & ends
 Playfulness  Sense of humour
 Self-sufficiency  Creativity
 Meaningfulness  Resistance to enculturation
 Resolution of dichotomies

 A self-actualised person understands the similarities & differences between each theory
 A self-actualised person experiences the self fully

 Only basic needs are afforded by money

 However deeper needs cannot be bought but rather sought though oneself

Exceptions to the hierarchy

 Esteem taking precedence over love
o People who ignore or ruins relationships in order to achieve
 Individuals that simply give up deeper needs after having basic needs met
o E.g psychopaths abandon love due to either deprivation or abundance

The Humanistic Formula for Happiness: Need Satisfaction

 Self-determination theory is a modern humanistic theory of motivation and personality
 Self-determination theory proposes three universal needs –
o Autonomy (independence and self-reliance)
o Relatedness (connectedness with physical and spiritual world)
o Competence (confidence, self-esteem and faith)

Humanism’s lasting Impact Criticisms of Humanist approach

 Positive psychology  Free will vs determinism

o Self-determination theory
 Client centred therapy
 Promoting job satisfaction by
fulfilling higher needs
 Child rearing
o Unconditional positive regard
o Can free will be studied scientifically?
 Poorly defined concepts Vague
 Some unscientific methods
o Selection of ‘self-actualised’ people based
on his intuition
 Humanistic therapy may not work for severe
mental disorders such as psychopathy
WEEK 8 LECTURE 4: Genes and Traits

Trait perspectives: Early history and Theories

 Galen classified an individual's personality based on the 4 body humours (liquids)
o Sanguine (blood)
o Choleric (yellow bile)
o Melancholic (black bile – doesn’t exist in the body)
o Phlegmatic (phlegm)

 Phrenology – the study of the conformation of the skull as indicative of mental faculties
and personality traits

 Sheldon’s body types (1940)

o Endomorphy (overweight)
 Sociable
 Jolly
 Loves food
o Mesomorphy
 aggressive
o Ectomorphy (skinny)
 Introverted
 Studious

The BIG 5 Supertraits (Costa & McCrae; Digman; Goldberg)

 States that personality can be reduced to 5 broad trait dimensions
 More than 50+ yrs of evidence supporting the 5-factor model
 Crosses culture and language
 May be present in animals
 The Big 5 Personality Test was the primary research instrument, but was used with two
different sets of instructions
Trait Theories of personality
 Suggest that all people have genetic predispositions to a range of traits, with either a
high or low spectrum
 A combination of these traits composes one’s personality 

Does the Big 5 Predict Behaviour?

Agreeableness

 Related to how well you interact with other people

 People who are high in this trait are more agreeable and tend to be seen as kind
 More empathetic parents (Clark et al., 2000)
 Less revenge seeking (McCullough & Hoyt, 2002)
 Greater control of negative emotions (Tobin et al., 2000)
 Less ‘poaching’ of romantic partners (Schmitt & Buss, 2001)
 High level = sociable and perceived as kind

Extraversion

 Someone that is high in this trait enjoys being around other people and often
draws energy from the presence of others
 Greater prominence in groups (Anderson et al., 2001)
 Greater peer acceptance in adolescents (Jensen-Campbell et al., 2002)
 Firm handshake (Chaplin et al., 2000)
 Less cooperative (Koole, et al., 2001)
 More satisfied with life (Schimmack et al., 2004)
 Having a refined appearance

Conscientiousness

 Associated with being neat and organised

 Tendency to be well planned and follow rules
 Likely to ban household smoking (Hampson et al., 2000)
 Avoid unsafe sex (Trobst et al., 2002)
 Responsive parenting (Clark et al., 2000)
 Live longer (Christensen et al., 2002; Friedman et al., 1995)

Neuroticism (emotional stability)

 Associated with anxiety and nervous energy

 Less satisfied with life (Schimmack et al., 2004)
 Increased anxiety and depression (Trull & Sher, 1994)
 Troubled relationship with parents (Belsky et al., 2003)
 Lower status among men only (Anderson et al., 2001)
 Poor romantic relationship quality (Karney & Bradbury, 1995)

Openness

 Open to new experiences

 People that are high in this trait are willing to seek out or try new experiences
 Desire artistic expression (Roberts & Robins, 2000)
 Devalue traditional marriage (Roberts & Robins, 2000)
 More arrests (Clower & Bothwell, 2001)
Suggest that Traits are
 Stable and long lasting
 General and occur in diverse situations
 Each person has his or her own set of traits that form unique pattern of personality

Criticism of the BIG 5 Supertraits

 More traits may be present 
 Limited int traits
 Controversial due to humanistic outlooks

Accurate statements
 Those who watch more films with smoking are more likely to try smoking themselves
 Pharmacological treatment for alcoholics can induce nausea
 Obesity is clinically defined by the BMI scale

The Genetics of Personality

Nature and Nurture

 We genetically inherit physical traits from our parents, but we also inherit personality
traits, intelligence, and preferences
o E.g Player gene Allele 334 - men who carried 1+ copies of this gene experienced
marital crisis and lacked permanent attachment to partners
o E.g Thrill seeker gene - the need to explore and is highly heritable
 Reconceptualisation of debate
o Nature (genes) prepares us for nurture (environment)
o Language example
o Genes predisposing to emotional reactivity + warm, accepting parenting versus
hostile parenting

Genes and Environmental Interactionism

 Genes  Life path, modified by environmental encounters
o E.g. MAOA ‘aggression gene’ (warrior gene)
o But relationship between MAOA and aggressive behaviour is strongest for those
who had experienced childhood abuse

How do we discover if certain traits are genetically influenced?

 Francis Galton’s Twin Studies 1869
o Emphasis on heritability
o Proposed that ‘eminence’ runs
in families
o Racist and sexist
 Debate on nature vs nurture
o Monozygotic twins genetic
makeup 100%
o Dizygotic twins 50% genetic
makeup
o Heritability estimate (variance
due to genetics)
o Adoption: found that 15-50% of
variance in personality
characteristics is genetically influenced
Public Policy Implications

Social Darwinism ‘Survival of the Societies / Culture Compete of Survival

Fittest”

 Misinterpretation - ‘weak shouldn’t  Immigration laws were limited to

survive’
 Focus was shifted to groups rather than
individuals
 Extremist views that believed if you
were not able to survive back then, then
you should not be alive currently
Northern and Western Europe
 Biased testing (IQ test in English to
prevent Chinese from coming in) 
 Preservation and purification of the gene
pool of the ‘elite’ (eugenics)

Eugenics
 Encourage reproduction among genetically ‘advantaged’
 Lower reproduction among genetically disadvantaged (abortions and sterilisation)
 US sterilized individuals that were mentally ill 
 Australia (stolen generations)

Genocide in the name of Eugenics

 Ethnic or religious ‘cleansing’
o Nazi Germany (Jews, homosexuals, mental / physical disabilities)
o Iraq (Sunni vs Shia vs Kurds)
o Rwanda (Tutsi vs Hutu - referred to them as ‘cockroaches’)
o Darfus (Janjaweed romantic Arab tribes killing and raping Darfuri & Sudanese)
o Armernian Genocide

Eugenics Currently: The Case of IQ

 Minnesota Twin Studies
o Identical twins reared apart (r = .76) or together (r = .86) have higher IQ
concordance than biological siblings (r = .47)
 Meta-analysis showed that heritability accounted for 48% of IQ
 2009 Hard PhD thesis Richwine
o Only immigrants with highest IQ should be let in and that Hispanics were destined
to lesser intellect 
 The bell curve book revealed
o Asian Americans 0.33 SD’s higher than white Americans
o Whist Americans 1.58 SD’s higher than African Americans
o Therefore, IQ - Asian Americans > White Americans > African Americans
 Intelligence varies with
o SES (going low to high SES increases IQ 1SD
 Black children adopted by Whites has equal IQ to Whites
o Education
 2.7 IQ point average for each year of schooling
 5 IQ point decrease for each year of delay
WEEK 9 LECTURE 5 Genetic and Trait Approaches to Personality

Genetic and Trait Approaches to Personality

Psychodynamic Theory Behaviourists and Trait perspectives

Humanists

 Traits are fully formed as a  Change is possible  Interactionism: genes

child due to childhood throughout life interact with environment
rearing practices

Trait Stability (“Set Like Plaster?” Hypothesis)

 All personality traits (BIG 5 Supertraits) stop changing by age 30 (Costa & Macrae, 1997)
 Personality was changeable even in old age (Aldwin & Levenson, 1994)

Additional processes of “Set Like Plaster?” Hypothesis

1. Environment channels our personality 
 Many life changes occur prior to 30 (fewer after 30)

2. People select environments based on personality

 Extraverts structure their lives around opportunities to socialise
 Conscientious people seek demanding careers
 Dominant people are put in leadership positions

3. Self-perceptions of personality before crystallized with age (Glenn, 1980)

 The ‘executive personality’ (Neugarten, 1968)
 Attitudes and behaviours shape each other

4. Genes

5. Some traits might increase consistency

 Low openness
 High conscientiousness
Interactionist Perspectives
 People choose social environments (friendships, activities) to match their personality
 May lead to personality stability

Fast-paced vs Slow-paced Nations

 Robert Levine’s research
o Observed how fast locals walked in 31 nations
o Recorded accuracy of clocks at banks
o Observed how long it took to buy a stamp at a post office

o Fastest nations – Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Japan & Italy

o Slowest – Syria, El Salvador, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico
o Fast countries are colder, higher GDP, more smokers and death from heart disease

 Cluster 1: Friendly and Conventional Region

o Low in openness, high in extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness
 Cluster 2: Relaxed & Creative Region
o High in openness, low in neuroticism
 Cluster 3: Temperamental and Unhibited Region
o High in neuroticism, low in conscientiousness and agreeableness

Determining Personality Traits from Minimal Information

 Chaplin et al. (2000): 112 participants had their hand shaken twice by 4 coders (2 men
and 2 women) who trained for one month
o Firm shakers had a complete grip, strong and vigorous, shake longer and include eye
contact (more likely to be male)
o Firm shakers are more extraverted, less neurotic, high in openness (only women) and
liked more by the coders
o Weak shakers are more introverted, more neurotic and unexpressive

 Borkenau’s walking research

o Conscientiousness: formal dress was the only indicator
o Extraversion: refined appearance, friendly expression, extensive smiling, relaxed
walking, swinging arms, loud and powerful voice
o Agreeableness: soft facial contours, friendly expression
o Openness and neuroticism couldn’t be judged
 People are pretty good (but not great) at determining other peoples’ personality from
minimal information such as basic physical movements
 It is thus possible to put forward a “best impression” of yourself
 Behavioural residue
o Remnants of personality-induced behaviours
o Conscientiousness  organised belongings  clean workspace (residue)
 Identity claims
o Remind us and others of who we are
o Extraversion  liking people  photos of self with friends

 The “Office Space” Study by Gosling et al., (2002)

o 5 office locations in a big US city
o Administered the BFI (self & peer reports)
o 8 raters examined each office on 43 aspects and the BFI for the office inhabitant
(observer rating)

Meta-analysis
 Collection of analysis of all
studies to formulate
answer
 Agreeableness is associated
with altruism, sympathy and
moralism aligning with
actions of charity and
trustworthy
o Altruistic behaviour e.g.
Informing the
Environmental
Protection Agency that your company is dumping toxic waste into a local river, even
though it will jeopardise your job
WEEK 9-10: Health Psychology
WEEK 10 LECTURE 1: Health Psychology
 Health psychology studies Health Behaviours, Stress and Coping & Illness

Health Belief Model

 Determines how an individual chooses a particular health behaviour
 Behaviour chosen is determined by any threats you perceive from the perceive from the
behaviour and expectations for behaviour

Perceived Susceptibility Perceived Benefits

Refers to whether you believe that you are
susceptible to a negative outcome
 E.g Probability of getting cancer from
smoking
 Will be fine = low susceptibility
 Will get cancer = high susceptibility
Refers to how beneficial you think a
behaviour is
 E.g Going on a diet
 High benefit = high expectation
 Low benefit = low expectation

Perceived Seriousness Perceived Barriers

Refers to how serious you think the threat is Refers to any barriers you believe that
 E.g Drunk driving  might oppose behaviour
 A minor scratch = low seriousness  E.g Gym 4 times a week (cost, time)
 Death = high seriousness  Expensive + time consuming = low
expectation
 Otherwise, worth it = high expectation

Perceived Threat Outcome Expectation

Criteria consists of:
 Believe in susceptibility
 High seriousness of threat
Static behaviour
 Either does not believe in susceptibility
 Or low seriousness
Refers to expectation of behavioural
change, how worth it 
 High outcome expectation = likely to
implement behaviour
 Low outcome expectation = unlikely to
change behaviour

Likelihood of Action

Influenced by perceived threats and Likely to choose behaviour based on high

outcome expectation sus & seriousness, high benefits & low
barrier
Theory of Planned behaviour
 Explains and predicts how someone makes a decision about a healthy behaviour
 3 factors that influence a change of behaviour includes:
o Attitude
o Subjective norms
o perceived behavioural control

Attitude toward Behaviour

Personal beliefs and thoughts
 E.g Attitude to drugs
 Poor attitude = Drugs aren't harmful
 Good attitude = Drugs are harmful

Subjective Norms
Normal values dictated by social group
 E.g All friends do drugs
 Doing drugs would be normalised
 Not participating = outcast or alienated

Perceived behavioural control

Refers to level of control you believe you have over changing your behaviour
 E.g Unsuccessful attempts to quit smoking = low perceived behavioural control

Behavioural Intention Actual Outcome

Refers to actual intention to change
behaviour
 Critical element
 Must have desire/motivation
Influenced by
 Attitude towards behaviour
 Subjective norms
 Perceived behavioural control
E.g DO you intend to quit drugs?
 May not actually intend to do so and
thus won't end up quitting
Refers to whether there is an actual change in
behaviour
Influenced by
 Behavioural intention (attitude towards
behaviour and subjective norms)
 Perceived behavioural control
Likely to change behaviour
 Good attitude
 Change aligns with social norms
 High perceived behavioural control

Implementation Intentions (my ‘+1’)

 Translating intention to action
 Develop a specific plan about what, where and when
Health-Compromising Behaviours
 Unhealthy behaviours are difficult to change, thus focus on prevention

EXAMPLE: Obesity
 BMI 30+ (kg/m^2)

Health Consequences of Obesity

 Stroke
 Blood vessel damage (arteriosclerosis)
 Heart attack or heart failure
 Kidney failure

Causes of Obesity
 Energy balance between:
o Weight gain: energy consumer in food and beverages
o Weight loss: energy expended for basal needs, activity and to process and digest food

Reducing Obesity
 Change behaviour (not lose weight)
o Be aware
o Eat healthier
o Exercise
o Shifting the energy balance

EXAMPLE: Smoking
 Leading (preventable) cause of death in Australia

Effects of smoking
Negative Positive
 Cancer (lung, throat etc.)  Stress reduction
 Coronary heart disease  Positive mood
 Lowered life expectancy  Socialising
 Stinks  Weight control
 Social stigma

Causes of Smoking
 Advertisements
 Smoking in movies

Quitting Smoking
 Nicotine replacement products
 Therapy and behavioural training
 Long term success is only 25%

EXAMPLE: Alcohol
 Costs of consumption are estimated at $36 billion per year in Australia
 70,000 victims of alcohol-related assault
 Every day, 1 person dies and 4,500 people are sent to hospital due to someone else’s
alcohol use

Treatment of Alcohol Use

 Spontaneous remission (less than 20% of problem drinkers)
 Detoxification programmes and pharmacological treatments
 Psychological or supportive treatments
WEEK 10 LECTURE 2: Health Psychology – Stress and Illness

 Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity
 Stress is “when an individual is faced with a situation that places demands on them, but
for which the individual does not have the necessary resources to manage these
demands” (Lazarus and Folkman 1984)

Stress Response of the Body

 BRAIN: Amygdala perceives danger and sends a distress signal to hypothalamus
 ENDOCRINE SYSTEM: Hypothalamus sends a signal telling our adrenal glands to
release the stress hormone adrenaline and cortisol
o Hypothalamus sends a signal to body to conserve resources by slowing the process
of reproductive hormones (fertility problems)
 CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM: Hormones increase heart rate
o Blood rushing to areas needing it most in an emergency
o Increased blood pressure which increases risk of stroke and heart attack
 MUSCULOSKELETAL SYSTEM: constricts blood vessels and diverts more oxygen to
muscles (more capacity to take action)
o Muscles tense up and cannot relax (bodyaches)
 RESPIRATORY SYSTEM: stress response makes us breath faster, so our blood gets
oxygenated more quickly
o Can trigger asthma attacks and cause difficulty breathing
 DIGESTIVE SYSTEM: liver produces extra blood sugar to give boost in energy
o Body can’t keep up with extra blood sugar levels and thus can lead to diabetes
 IMMUNE SYSTEM: boosts our immune system which helps our body fight infections
o Reduce immune system and body’s response to invaders, take longer to recover

How does Stress Cause Illness?

 Health behaviours and Physiological activation

Types of Stress
 Acute – short-term, clear beginning and end
 Chronic – long-term, prolonged and no clear end
 Major life stressors
o Death of family or friends, imprisonment, divorce etc.
 Daily hassles
o Arguing with partner, getting stuck in traffic etc.
NOT IN LEC

Psychosomatic Illness
 When people have physical symptoms of a
disease despite having no biological causes

Invisible Illness
Occurs when people are experiencing diseases and
illness but lack symptoms
 Often leads to a lack of social awareness
 Increases in psychological illness due to distress
 Do not have a sickness/social component
 E.g Chronic Pain: Biological condition may cause
symptoms which you experience but can’t be
seen (other people cannot see pain and won't
understand that you are unwell

Disease - Biological Illness - Psychological  Sickness - Social

Diseases is the physical Illness is the psychological Sickness is the social

element of being unwell
 Refers to pathological
symptoms outside of
normal biological
function
Disease and poor physical
health are important
aspects of health
 However, disease
alone, doesn't make
you unwell
E.g Recent contraction of a
virus but may not be
experiencing physical
symptoms yet
 Thus, considered well
as they do not feel sick
yet
component of being unwell
 Subjective experience of
being unwell
 Differs between
individuals
E.g Becoming distressed
after being diagnosed with
asthma   Others may perceive you
 Psychological
experience of having
asthma is considered to
be an illness
*May also experience illness
in absence of disease”
 E.g psychosomatic
illness
element of being unwell
 Refers to the impact that
being unwell has on your
friendships, relationships,
jobs etc
 Disease and illness may
prevent you from working
or socialising
differently 
E.g Diagnosed with covid-19
and undergoing quarantine 
 Lack of socialisation 
 Loneliness
WEEK 10 LECTURE 3: Health Psychology – Stress and Illness

Stress and Coping

 Stress is interpreting major events of hassles as threatening (don’t have the resources to
manage them)
o Acute: short term clear beginning and end
o Chronic: long term prolonged no clear end 

 Coping refers to the attempts to eliminate stressor or

at least minimise the impacts of stress
o Adaptive response: short term
o Less adaptive: long term (chronic stress)

Transactional Model of Stress and Coping

 Explains the different stages of appraisal that people
go through after they experience a stressor and then
discusses different coping mechanisms for
overcoming the stress
 With coping strategies, stress can be reappraised to
be resolved

Primary Appraisal

 Primary appraisal phase is when after experiencing a stressor, they begin to interpret
the threat level of the stressor
 This is when an individual tries to determine whether the stressor is positive, irrelevant
or dangerous
 E.g Diagnosed with peanut allergy
o The primary appraisal would determine that there is a dangerous threat that is
lifelong and unpredictable
o Danger interpretation = enter secondary appraisal

Secondary Appraisal

 Secondary appraisal phase involved figuring out availability of resource to deal / treat
the threat
 If you have sufficient resources to deal with the problem, people can implement these
and you do not develop any stress
 If you have insufficient resources, people will develop a stress reaction to the threat

 E.g Avoidance of peanuts + epi pen and moral support and social awareness
o For insufficient resources, stress will remain

 E.g Working in peanut factory, loss of jobs and lack of access to medical & social
support
o Require coping strategies
 Coping Strategies

 Coping phase presents types of strategies to deal with ‘stressor’.

 Aims to manage:
o Cause of stress
o Perception of stress
o Deal with stress

Problem Focused Coping Emotion Focused Coping

 Deals directly with source of stress or  Managing emotional reaction to threat

threat or illness
o Try to reduce, remove, avoid threat o Used when people feel they can’t
o Most effective when stressor is directly reduce or avoid threat
‘controllable’ o Applicable when threat can’t be
o Not always possible controlled

 E.g Peanut allergy PFC  Strategies include:

o Avoid contact o Denying the problem
o Inform others o Physical avoidance of reminders
o Access epi-pen o Distancing (not thinking about it)
o Positive reframing (optimism)
o Stress management tools
o Seeking social support
o Acceptance
o Exercising self-control over
situation
o Use of humour

Improving coping and reducing stress

Problem = lack of control Problem = inhibiting emotions

 Breathing meditation  Expressive writing and illness
 Progressive muscle relaxation o Write about the most stressful or
 Guided imagery traumatic experiences of your life
 Biofeedback o Chronic asthma and rheumatoid
 Mindfulness practices arthritis patients
 Aim at removing the stressors that can be o Write for 20 minutes a day on 3
changed and reducing stress responses consecutive days
to the remaining stressors

Pathway = Physiological Activation

 E.g Mindfulness in arthritis
o Control (usual care)
o Mindfulness-based stress reduction
o Intervention + follow ups
 Results
o Improvement in joints
o Lower pain and stiffness
o Improved quality of life
 Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome - ARE

Alarm Resistance Exhaustion

 Sudden shock  Body attempts to  Energy resources

 Fight or flight
 Stress hormones
 Sympathetic nervous
system
 Adaptive response to
ACUTE stress
counteract physiological depleted
changes from alarm  Body no longer equipped
stage to fight stress
 Parasympathetic  Unable to cope
nervous system  Damage to organ or
immune systems
 Depression, anxiety

Important determinant of one's response to stress - biological variables

 Underestimate the role in psychological factors in stress

Criticism to Model
 Underestimates the role of psychological factors in stress

Prochaska’s Model
Precontemplation: people don’t take action in the
near future (6 months) as they are unaware that
their behaviour is problematic
Contemplation: people intend to start the healthy
behaviour in the near future as they recognise that
their behaviour is problematic
Preparation: people are ready to take action within
the next 30 days, they start taking small steps
Action: people have recently changed their
behaviour and intend to keep moving forward w
Maintenance: people have sustained their behaviour change for a while and intend to
maintain the behaviour change

WEEK 10: Cultural Psychology

WEEK 10 LECTURE 1: Introduction; Culture; Cultural Dimensions

What is Culture?
 NOT a thing or place or territory
 IS dynamic and fluid
 Essential as a framework for understanding ourselves and our social world

 Set of shared meanings, values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours (of a particular group)
often transmitted across generations
 Influences the way we think and feel about ourselves and others
 Includes artefacts e.g symbols, art and clothing as well as language and values

 Learned consciously and unconsciously

 Developed and reinforced through rituals, history, cuisine, religion, clothing, government
structures, laws, family structure, formal education, etc.

 Internal & external to ourselves (influence behaviour as individuals and groups)

 Guides thoughts and feelings as well as interactions
 Aid in orienting ourselves to complex world (know origins and predict behaviour)
 Fundamental part of our belief system and worldview
 Constructs our identity

 Cultural responsivity – being willing to learn about another culture so that one can
interact in a more respectful way (pre-requisite is active listening)

 Cultural blindness is defined as an individual’s inability to understand how certain

behaviours may be perceived differently by people of other cultures

 Cultural appropriation refers to taking cultural artefacts or intellectual property from one
culture, but the use of it is harmful and damaging to the original culture
Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory

The Microsystem
 The things that have direct contact with the child in their immediate environment
 Relationships in microsystems are bi-directional (influence each other’s beliefs/actions)
 Interactions in microsystems are crucial for fostering and supporting child’s development
 E.g. parents, siblings, teachers, and school peers

The Mesosystem
 The mesosystem is where a person’s individual microsystems don’t function
independently but are interconnected and assert influence upon one another
 A system of microsystems
 Encompasses the interactions between the child’s microsystems

The Exosystem
 Incorporates other formal and informal social structures which don’t themselves contain
the child but indirectly influence children through microsystems
 E.g. neighbourhood, mass media, parent’s workplaces and friends

The Macrosystem
 Focuses on how cultural elements affect a child’s development (socioeconomic, status,
wealth, poverty and ethnicity)
 Doesn’t refer to the specific environments of a developing child but the already
established society and culture the child is developing in

The Chronosystem
 Consists of all the environmental changes that occur over the lifetime which influence
development (major life transitions and historical events)
 E.g. starting school, divorce of parents, moving to a new house
Dimensions of Culture (Hofstede)
 Individualism / Collectivism
o The extent to which people are motivated to act as individuals / members of a group
 Individualism:
o Emphasises the autonomy of the individual (preference for independence)
o Values self-reliance, competitiveness, autonomy and uniqueness
o Is seen as a dominant cultural attribute of ‘Western countries’
 Collectivism:
o Emphasises the interrelatedness of all members of society and their collective
endeavours (preference to act as a group)
o Values conformity and interdependence
o Is seen as a dominant cultural attribute in many ‘Asian countries’

Variable Individualist Collectivist

Personal identity Separate from others Connected to others
Major goals Self-defined, unique, realise Defined by others, belong,
personal potential, compete meet obligations to others

Criteria for self-esteem Ability to express unique Ability to restrain self and be
aspects of self part of a social unit

Sources of success / failure Success comes from Success is due to help from
personal effort, failure is others, failure is due to
caused by external factors personal faults

Major frame of reference Personal attitudes, traits Family, work groups

and goals

 Power Distance:
o How much people are prepared to bear differences in wealth and power
 Uncertainty Avoidance:
o The ways in which people and groups cope with or tolerate uncertainty
o Low tolerance = exert more rules to control future and discourage change
 Masculinity / Femininity:
o The extent to which characteristics of the stereotype of males (providers, wealth,
competitors and strong) dominates the feminine characteristics (caring/nurturing)
o Tension between ‘quality of life’ of each gender
 Long term / Short term Orientation:
o The extent to which a culture values a long-term vs short-term view of the future
o Reflected in whether a culture places an emphasis on fulfilling current needs vs
sacrificing current needs for long-term gains
o Short term orientation – respect for tradition and fulfilling social obligations
 Indulgence / Restraint:
o The extent of (lack of) control of desires and impulses
o Refers to how a culture typically responds to needs / wants (physical, emotional) by
fulfilling these or delaying action upon them

Criticisms to Hofstede’s Ideas

 The dimensions were reflective of the period in which he developed them (1960s to 70s)
 Research participants (IBM employees) were not representative of national population
 Self-report – many cultural aspects outside of awareness
 Assumes culture is static
 Too broad and lacks predictive power
Alternatives to Hofstede’s Ideas
 Loose cultures:
o Have weak social norms and a high tolerance of deviant behaviour
 Tight cultures:
o Have strong social norms and a low tolerance of deviant behaviour

WEEK 10 LECTURE 2: Culture & Identity; Culture & Health

Culture and Identity

 Enculturation is the:
o process of learning and understanding the values & norms of the culture you live in
o process is both conscious and unconscious
 Cultural socialisation is:
o The transmission of culture, learning about your heritage and who you belong to
 Ethnic identity is:
o How a person views themselves / viewed by others as belonging to an ethnic group
 Racial identity is:
o A set of features or characteristics that are shared by a specific group

(NOT IN LEC)
Psychosocial Aspects

Berry Typology of Adaptation and Acculturation 1997

 He proposed 4 processes whereby an individual
changes when another culture comes to dominate
their own

 Evolutionary theory of culture believed that

solitude can be dangerous which leads to mutually
supportive behaviour

Cultural Clusters 4 factors

1. Proneness to change
2. population size
3. Proximity
4. persuasiveness

Assimilation Integration

Embracing novel culture to reject own culture Adopting novel culture whilst retaining
(doesn’t retain their cultural identity but has a connection and continuity with original
positive relationship to society) culture

Marginalisation Separation/segregation

Individual is rejected by both novel and old An individual maintains original culture
culture. practices to the exclusion of a novel
culture

Assimilation is a two-way process, and the majority culture is changed as well as the
minority culture. Acculturation occurs when the minority culture changes but is still able to
retain unique cultural markers.
Models of Ethnic Identity

Phinney’s 1989 Ethnic Identity Development Stage Model

Unexamined Exploration Achievement

 Has not given much thought to  Actively engages in  Commitment to (and

their ethnic identity and may learning about resolves) their ethnic
identify with the dominant culture ethnicity identity and stability
(lack of introspection)  Greater
understanding

Helm’s (1994) White Racial Identity Development Model (lacks evidence)

Contact Disintegration

 Concerning importance of race  ‘Whiteness’ is acknowledged

 Unaware of racial group membership  Awareness of racial moral dilemmas

Reintegration Pseudo Independence

 Displaced anger / hostility towards  ‘White guilt’ 

people of colour  Belief that racism is perpetrated by
‘bad whites’

Immersion and Emersion Autonomy

 Search to define a non-racist white  Racial humanism

identity  Internally defined non-racist identity

Psychology, Culture and Health

 Cultural psychology refers to how people understand and make sense of their own
culture from within
 Cross-cultural psychology compares and contrasts cultural dimensions

General Orientations (Psychological Approaches)

 Absolutism – assumption that all psychological phenomena are the same in all cultures
 Universalism – culture affects the display of constructs, but inherently basic
psychological processes are the same
o Tries to understand the role of culture through comparisons
 Relativism – human behaviour can only be understood within a cultural context; you
cannot compare cultural groups

Importance of Culture to Health

 In order to tackle health at a global level, we must consider the role and impact of
culture, including systemic/structural aspects of culture that disadvantaged groups

Models of health Social Emotional Well Being SEWB framework

 1. Biomedical health model in  Mental health and wellbeing principles and practice
Western Culture  Holistic context that encompasses mental, physical,
2. Link between mental, cultural and spiritual health
physical and natural
environment in Asian
cultures
3. Aboriginal Australian and
Māori populations use more
holistic frameworks

Does ‘Normal’ Cross Cultures?

 Some evidence supports the idea that psychopathology is cross-culturally absolute,
however the cultural expression may be difference
 We do see culture-bound syndromes across the world though

(NOT IN LEC)
Health psychologists work with targeted or broad 
 Targeted 
o Assist with intervention programs
o Face to face with clients or assist health professional with strategies
 Broad
o Design public health programs to tackle problem behaviours (sunsmart or speeding
“no one thinks big of you” campaign)
o Conducts research (why do people binge drink and how can this be reduced?)

WEEK 10 LECTURE 3: Cultural Contact and its Consequences

Cultural Contact
 Culture shock - a clash between what you are familiar with from your country of origin
and a new country
 Acculturation – getting to know and understand other cultures to the point where the
cultures that are in contact, change (behaviour and beliefs change)

Consequences of Cultural Contact

Positive Negative

 Cultural competence  Genocide

(exposure to cultural
awareness, sensitivity
and safety training)
 Multiculturalism  
o The intentional and purposeful attempt to eliminate
people belonging to other cultural or ethnic groups
(Nazi Germany, Rwanda)
Moral exclusion (asylum seekers and refugees)
o Positioning people or groups outside our scope of
justice so we can treat them unfairly and with
impunity (asylum seekers, refugees)

Issues with Cultural Contact

 Interactions between cultures can be negatively impacted by beliefs/biases held through
dealing with unfamiliar people 

Racism Ethnocentrism Xenophobia

Ideas that suggest particular Interpretation of the Fear or hatred of strangers

people possess inherent world and all / foreigners based on
characteristics/behaviours that occurrences through the stereotypes of other
make them superior/inferior to lens of own ethnic or cultures different from their
other groups cultural origins own

Prejudice Discrimination

A positive/negative attitude towards an entire Unjustifiable differential treatment of

group of people various groups; the behavioural
 Involves stereotyped beliefs, negative component of prejudice
feelings and a predisposition to  Driven by prejudice
discriminatory action  E.g denying a particular rights that
 Internal process other groups enjoy based on the group
 Reflects underlying beliefs of unfamiliar
people

Stereotypes
 A false assumption that all members of a group share the same characteristics
 A generalised belief about the characteristics of a group of people
 Forming stereotypes is a normal psychological process in reaction to bombardment of
new information
 Stereotypes may help us to make sense of the world in which we live, BUT may lead to
three distortions of reality:
1. Stereotypes accentuate group differences
2. Stereotypes create selective thinking (confirmation bias)
o One only sees what reinforces the stereotype and rejects perceptions that don’t fit
3. Stereotypes assume homogeneity in other groups
o Thinks all members are the same (whilst recognising heterogeneity in own group)

WEEK 10: Jane Elliot’s Australian Eye Video

https://search-informit-org.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/doi/10.3316/edutv.35466

MAIN IDEA: Conducted an exercise in discrimination based on eye colour so the people can
better understand the racism in their society

EXPERIMENT METHOD: The blue-eyed children were set apart from the children with
brown / green eyes. Elliott pulled out green construction paper armbands and asked each of
the blue-eyed kids to wear one. "The brown-eyed people are the better people in this room,"
Elliott began. "They are cleaner, and they are smarter."

RESULTS:
 Slower kids with brown eyes had transformed themselves into confident leaders of the
class
 Withdrawn brown-eyed kids were suddenly outgoing, some beaming with the widest
smiles she had ever seen on them
 A smart blue-eyed girl who had never had problems with multiplication tables started
making mistakes. She slumped. At recess, three brown-eyed girls ganged up on her

QUESTIONS:
Did she enjoy what she was doing?
 No, it wasn’t easy for her in this situation to act that way (it’s easy for most white folks on
a daily basis to do this)

Why was she doing it?

 To increase awareness of racism in Australia

How did you feel while watching it?

 Uncomfortable

What was the most important thing you learned?

 Understanding the differences in experiences of people from different cultures
 How a change in power and position changes the character and feelings of individuals

What concepts from mainstream social psychology are relevant for understanding the
material in this video?
 Conformity, obedience, compliance
 Group influence
 Stereotypes

Other methods for increasing awareness, knowledge or skills?

WEEK 10 LECTURE 4: Cultural Contact; Psychological Literacy & Graduate
Capabilities; Research Methods; Resources

Cultural Contact / Transitions: Culture Shock

Culture Shock
 Culture shock – feeling of disorientation and anxiety that occurs as people from one
culture encounter and adapt to the practices, rules and expectations of another culture
 Different languages, norms, social structures

4 stages of culture shock

1. Honeymoon 2. Disenchantment

Initial euphoria and excitement Disillusionment and hostility towards new culture as
values and habits conflict with local attitudes and beliefs

3. Beginning resolution 4. Effective functioning 

Understanding of new culture Adjustment as individual learns how to fit into the new
grows; increase adaptability cultural environment

Reducing Prejudice; Increasing Cultural Responsivity

1. Contact hypothesis
2. Challenging false beliefs
3. Fostering empathy
4. Fostering collective guilt
5. Consciously trying not to label / stereotype people
6. Tackling unconscious bias
7. Working to decrease systemic racism
8. Tools such as active listening

Cultural Psychology Within Context of Psychological and Global Literacy

Psychological literacy Global literacy Cultural responsivity

The capacity to adaptively Understanding of global Being willing to learn

and intentionally apply interrelatedness, and the about another culture, so
psychological science to capacity to live, work and that one can interact in a
meet personal, professional, contribute positively as a more respectful way with
and societal needs member of global communities people of that culture
Where Psychological Principles are Applied

Level 3: Applying psychological principals in local,

national or global contexts in a way that reflects an
awareness of global issues (leadership role)

Level 2: Application of psychological principles in a

way that is adaptive for one’s local community

Level 1: Application of psychological principles

adaptively to oneself and one’s immediate set of family
and friends

Cultural Competence
 Knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary for effective intercultural interactions
within diverse social, cultural and organisational contexts
 Is a dynamic and continuous process
 Requires self-knowledge and ongoing critical reflection
 Cultural competence / responsivity is foundational to global literacy / citizenship
o Active listening is foundational to cultural competence / responsivity

Active Listening
 We give our total and undivided attention to another person
 We show that person that we care about what they think and feel
Tools
 Reflecting
o A verbal response to the speaker’s emotion
o Helps respondent feel understood
 Paraphrasing
o Choosing the most important details said by the speaker and reflecting in own words
o Helps convey understanding, encourages elaboration, and allows you to check
accuracy of your perceptions
 Summarising
o Pulling together and restating key parts of what is being communicated
o Helps you to identify key ideas in what is being said

Cultural and Cross-Cultural Research Methods

 Cross-Cultural researchers explore and understand the similarities and differences
between cultures by undertaking primarily comparative research
 Cultural researchers believe that cultures can only be understood within their own frame

Frames of Reference

Etic (Cross-Cultural researcher) Emic (Cultural researcher)

Seek to understand by examining the Seek to understand the subjective experience

culture as an outsider looking in of people in particular cultural context 
 Goals
 Test the generalisability (and limits) of psychological constructs (cognition, emotion
and personality)
 Assess the relative similarities and differences between different cultural groups 
 Foster collaboration and search for shared understanding between psychologists of
different cultural backgrounds
 Promote the internationalisation of cultural research and cultural exchange 
 Challenge the monoculturalism of psychology derived from the dominance of North
American psychology

Criticism
 Treats culture as an independent variable (as if participants were randomly assigned to
cultural groups)
 Involves university students who are not representative of the population (although this
depends on the variable of interest)
 Ethical questions (assumptions of nature of intelligence; power implications of findings)

Importance of Cross-Cultural Psychology

 Australia is a highly multicultural society
 Need to provide services to individuals from a wide range of cultures
 Need to be aware of cultural differences to function as a united society
 Understanding how culture leads to both differences and similarities in behaviour is
necessary for reducing prejudices and increasing group harmony