Psychology Theories

Personality Theories - Part I

Defense Mechanisms:

Denial - Used to describe situation in which people seem to be unable to face reality. By definition, denial is an outright refusal to admit, or recognize, that something has occurred or is currently occurring.

Repression - Acts to keep information out of conscious awareness, but these memories don't go away, they continue to influence behavior.

Displacement - This defense mechanism involves taking out frustrations, feelings and impulses on people or objects that are less threatening.

Sublimation - Allow us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting these behavior into a more acceptable form.

Projection - Involves taking our own unacceptable qualities, or feelings, and ascribing them to other people.

Intellectualization - This one works to reduce anxiety by thinking about events in a clinical way, allowing us to avoid thinking about the stressful, emotional aspect of the situation and instead focus only on the intellectual component.

Rationalization - Involves explaining an unacceptable behavior in a rational manner, avoiding the true reasons of the behavior.

You Reconstruct Your Memories

Here's some theories about psychology:

Try this task — Think back to a particular event that happened at least 5 years ago. Maybe it was a wedding, or a family gathering, or a dinner you went to with friends, or a vacation. Pick one for our purposes here, and remember the event. Remember the people, and where you were and maybe you can remember the weather, or what you were wearing.

Memories as movies? — We tend to experience our memories of events like this as little movie clips that play back in our minds. And because we experience them this way we have a tendency to think that memories are stored in entirety and never change. But that’s not what happens.

Memories are reconstructed — Our memories are actually reconstructed every time we think of them. They aren’t movie clips that are stored in the brain in a certain location like files on a hard drive. They are nerve pathways that are firing anew each time we remember the event. This makes for some interesting effects. For example, the memory can change.

Subsequent events can affect the memory – Other events that occur after the original event can change the memory of the original event. At the original event, you and your cousin were close friends. But later on you have an argument and a falling-out that lasts for years. Your memory of the first event might include your cousin being aloof and cold, even if that is not true. The later experience has changed your memory.

Mixing events — It is easy to start mixing up memories. So that things that happened at two separate events become fused into one. Your cousin was pleasant at one event, and not pleasant at the other, but over time your memories about which is which can become confused.

Filling in of gaps – You will also start to fill in your memory gaps with “made up” sequences of events, but these will seem as real to you as the original event. You can’t remember who else was at the family dinner, but Aunt Jolene is usually present at these events, and so over time your memory of the event will include Aunt Jolene.

Eyewitness testimony – Elizabeth Loftus is one of the earliest psychology researchers to study reconstructive memory. She was studying eyewitness testimonies, and was especially interested in whether language can affect memory.

Bumped, hit, or smashed – In her research Loftus would show a video clip of an automobile accident. Then she would ask a series of questions about the accident. She would change the way she worded the questions, for example, sometimes she would phrase it as: “How fast would you estimate the car was going when it hit the other vehicle”, or “How fast would you estimate the car was going when it smashed the other vehicle.” And she would ask participants in the study if they remembered seeing broken glass.

You can guess — When she used the word smashed the estimated speed was higher than when she used the word hit. And more than twice as many people remembered seeing broken glass if the word smashed was used rather than the word hit.

So what’s the impact? — Since memories are reconstructed, here are some things to keep in mind:
The words you use are important. They can actually affect people’s memories.
You can’t rely on self-reports of past behavior. People will not remember accurately what they or others did or said.
Watch out for how and what you say if you are interviewing people, for example, interviewing users for a usability or user experience study. You can influence their responses with the words you use.
Similarly, take what users say later, when they are remembering using an interface, with a grain of salt. It’s being reconstructed.

And if you’d like to read some of Elizabeth Loftus’ seminal work in the area:

Elizabeth F. Loftus and John C. Palmer, Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13, 585-589 (1974).

Originally published on The W Blog

Getting a Scholarship in Psychology

Nowadays the research area is highly sought for the by the newly masters or with a PhD, or even people still studing.
In order to pay for tuition, books and other expenses, students need to thoroughly explore a variety of funding options. Scholarships are one of the best ways to obtain extra money for college, but students are often unsure about where exactly to find scholarships for which they qualify.
But, how can you get a scholarship in psychology? What kind of requirements must you have in order to fulfill an application?
First step must me looking for information about opening of contests and research scholarships, you may start with  your school's information board, Online databases our with your school's guidance counselor.
Students interested in psychology are often dismayed to find few scholarships targeted directly at psychology majors. However, with a little effort and investigation, you can uncover financial awards that are right for your needs. Don't get discouraged if your school does not offer any scholarships that are specifically for psychology students. Many scholarships are aimed at students pursing a range of majors. The best advice is to cast a wide net. Find as many scholarships as you can and start completing applications.
Here's some places you may take a look at:
Fast web
Psi Chi
APA (American Psychological Association)


Now, about the requirements, they can be quite much, but for most of them you just need a dregree and some experience in the are. Good luck, fellow!

Antisocial Personality Disorder vs. Psychopathy

Serial Killers is a subject that nowadays appears in every newspaper and in some point in normal conversations. But, what is in fact a serial killer? How can you distinguish it from simple antisocial personality disorder?
A study published by Discovery Investigation had explored this subject, here's what they say about this controversy:

"Mental health professionals use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), developed by the American Psychiatric Association, to understand the illnesses of their patients and how to treat them. The DSM doesn't list serial murder among the 300 known mental disorders catalogued in its pages. It does, however, describe antisocial personality disorder, or ASPD. It's this condition that describes the behavior of many serial killers.
To understand ASPD, it helps to review the DSM criteria used to diagnose it. The most obvious indicator of the disorder is a total disregard for laws and social norms. People with ASPD have a long history of arrests and are often involved in physical fights or assaults. Some are capable of lying, cheating and deceiving so skillfully it is difficult to know when they are telling the truth or lying. They also act impulsively, with little care given to the safety of themselves or others.
To be diagnosed officially with ASPD, a person must be 18 years old, but symptoms generally begin to appear earlier, sometimes in the early teens. Adults with ASPD struggle to stay employed and, as a result, often have financial problems, according to the DSM. The manual also mentions that the disorder occurs more frequently in men than women — about 3 percent versus 1 percent.
Experts describe psychopathy as a more severe form of ASPD. Psychopaths have the antisocial symptoms just mentioned, but they also have additional traits that make them especially difficult to diagnose and treat. Chief among these traits is a lack of remorse or guilt for their actions. They also tend to be highly paranoid and suspicious.
Robert D. Hare of the University of British Columbia, a pioneer in the field, developed a diagnostic tool for psychopathy that measures the same antisocial symptoms as the DSM, but also evaluates interpersonal criteria, such as lack of empathy and shallow emotions. The tool is known as the Hare Psychopathy Checklist — a collection of 20 criteria that measure a person's antisocial behavior, emotional and interpersonal traits, and other factors.
The highest possible score is 40, but someone who scores 30 points is considered a psychopath, according to Kent Kiehl and Joshua Buckholtz, who explored the mind of a psychopath for Scientific American. Interestingly, the average score on the Hare Psychopathy is 4, write Kiehl and Buckholtz. That just means that psychopathy is a continuum, the way many other disorders are. It also means most psychopaths are not violent and are not destined to commit murder. A few, however, fall at the far end of the scale. These violent psychopaths may include serial killers."

So, hey you, be careful! 
 

Personality and Social Behavior by Frederick Rhodewalt

Here's a pretty cool book to read if you're really into psychology and social behavior: Personality and Social Behavior by Frederick Rhodewalt

Take a look at the sinopse:
The study of the relationship between the person and the situation has had a long history in psychology. Many theories of personality are set on an interpersonal stage and many social phenomena are played out differently as the cast of characters change. At times the study of persons and situations has been contentious, however, recent interest in process models of personality and social interaction have focused on the ways people navigate, influence, and are influenced by their social worlds.

Personality and Social Behavior contains a series of essays on topics where a transactional analysis of the person and situation has proved most fruitful. Contributions span the personality and social psychology spectrum and include such topics as new units in personality; neuroscience perspectives on interpersonal personality; social and interpersonal frameworks for understanding the self and self-esteem; and personality process analyses of romantic relationships, prejudice, health, and leadership.

This volume provides essential reading for researchers with an interest in this core topic in social psychology and may also be used as a text on related upper-level courses.

Reading Minds with Body Language Psychology

Here's a new kind of use of psychology: Can body language helps to read minds?

Living with a Mental Disorder

First of all, let's understand what a "mental disorder" is.
According to sources as wikipedia, a mental disorder can be described as a psychological pattern or anomaly, pottentially reflected in behavior, that is normally associated with conditions as distress or disability, and is not considered part of normal development of a person's culture life.
Now everyone must be thinking how does this kind of thing happens, what may triggers it, what are really the causes for this mental disorders? Well, they are very varied and, in some cases unclear and complex, there are several studies across the world about this subject but there's no right and clear answer yet.
These menatal disorders are diagnosed by psychiatrist that provide a medical diagnosis associating several symptoms and signs to particular types of disorders and to wich are prescribed methods of treatment such as psychotherapy, medication or other treatment methods such as electroconvulstive therapy and counseling.
Nowadays, having a mental disorder does not mean you cannot have a normal life, just consult a specialist and get on with your life.