Depression- Biological Explanations
Discuss biological explanation of depression. (25 marks) In order for depression to be diagnosed the person needs to show at least five of these symptoms everyday for a minimum of two weeks. These clinical characteristics for depression can be emotional symptoms; this can involve sadness, melancholy, self-involvement, guilt and even thoughts of suicide. Another characteristic could be a lack of motivation including passivity, loss of interest and energy. The person could also have cognitive problems such as thoughts of hopelessness, pessimism and lack of self-esteem. Finally there can be somatic symptoms such as loss or increase of appetite and weight, and sleep disturbances. Depression is a mood disorder which can have different variations; Unipolar disorder is most common and most severe form of depression and bipolar disorder is where the condition occurs in episodes of depression, periods of normality and periods of mania. This can be caused genetics which can predispose the individual to the disorder. Furthermore we would expect to find that relatives have similar chances of developing the disorder. Evidence from this can come from twin studies; MZ twins share 100% of their genes whereas DZ twins only have 50%. If genes are to be a facto in depression we would expect a higher number of MZ twins to share the disorder. One study based on nearly 200 pairs of twins found
Personality in Sports
Task One Personality Personality is a mixture of a person's traits and characteristics which make them different from everyone else. Sports performers personalities' may widely vary or be very similar. When describing their personality, just listing characteristics is not always 100% accurate. This is because their characteristics may be different when not playing sports. For example, Eric Cantona may only be aggressive when on the football pitch and not in his everyday life. Because of this, Hollander then designed a structure of personality which was split into 3 layers: . Psychological core - true beliefs and values 2. Typical responses - normal response to a situation. 3. Role-related behaviour - response is affected by the social environment the person is in. These can also be shown on a diagram like this: Social Environment Structure of personality example - Theo Walcott. CHARACTERISTICS PSYCHOLOGICAL CORE TYPICAL RESPONSES ROLE-RELATED BEHAVIOUR Humble Quiet Motivated Committed Focussed Competitive Driven Fearless Another way in which sports psychologists differentiate between sports personalities is with the trait approach. Two psychologists, Cattell and Eyesnck, discovered that there are two types of traits: - Primary or source traits - genetic/inherited - Secondary or surface traits - influenced by learning and experiences. Eyesnck said
Describe and evaluate research into the stages of sleep
Describe and evaluate research into the stages of sleep To talk about a concept, we must first be clear on its definition. Psychologists describe sleep as an altered state of consciousness. It is a resting state in which an individual becomes relatively quiescent and relatively unaware of the environment. During sleep, which is in part a period of rest and relaxation, most physiological functions such as body temperature, blood pressure, and rate of breathing and heartbeat decrease. The amount of sleep needed depends on both the individual and the environment. With the invention of the "Electroencephalogram" or an "EEG" as it is more commonly known has made it possible to monitor the brain's electrical activity. The EEG picks up and records electrical activity through electrodes attached to the scalp. The reading of a waking person is clearly different than that of a sleeping person. The EEG pattern of our brain during waking periods is very rapid, irregular and low on voltage. This means that many neurons are firing at different intervals and at different times, with different strengths too. This type of irregular electrical activity in the brain during wakefulness is called beta waves or beta activity. When we are relaxed, sitting in the sofa watching T.V. without any mental arousal, the EEG records a waveform called alpha waves or alpha activity, slower than beta
With reference to alternative research findings, critically assess Aschs study into conformity
With reference to alternative research findings, critically assess Asch's study into conformity A study that criticises Asch is by William & Sogon (1984) who claimed that the group Asch created did not reflect all groups found in society. They found that majority influence was significantly greater among friends than among strangers. Therefore Asch failed to realise that he could have obtained much stranger majority influence if he had replaced groups of strangers with an in0group of friends of the genuine participants & consequently this limits Asch findings to only groups of strangers & as a result lacks generalisability to other populations. And to support this Abrams et al (1990) argued that 1st year psychology participants would show more conformity if the other group members were perceived as belonging to an in group (other 1st yr psychology students) than if they were perceived as belonging to an out group (history students). Eagli & Carli (1981) criticise Asch study for being gender biased. They claim that in Western societies a masculine bias exists & as a consequence women show higher levels of conformity than men in the Asch study. They also found that in feminist societies, women actually show less conformity than men. This criticises Ash because he ignored complex gender characteristics that would have affected his results. Also David & Turner (1996) criticise
Outline one theory of the function of sleep.
Outline one theory of the function of sleep. There are two main theories in psychology offered to explain the function of sleep. One is called the ecological or evolutionary theory. The basis of this theory is that the reason why all animals sleep is because sleep serves some adaptive function. The notion of adaptiveness comes from the theory of evolution. The idea is that any behaviour that has continued in an animal's gene pool is because it must have been naturally selected because it, in some way, has helped promote the survival and reproduction of an animal possessing that characteristic. An important consideration, when thinking about the function of sleep, is to distinguish between different kinds of sleep: core sleep and other sleep. The two most important kinds of core sleep are slow wave sleep and REM sleep. It is possible that each serves a different adaptive purpose. One of the key criticisms made, in relation to evolutionary theories of sleep, is that many of them suggest that animals sleep in order to waste time. Whereas the restoration view is that sleep is not wasting time but offers the opportunity for key functions to take place. A second criticism is that evolutionary theories may not be suitable for explaining human sleep. Sleep may have been adaptive during the environment of evolutionary adaptation but this hasn't been true for a long time and one
Evaluation of Freud's little Hans study.
Evaluate the little Hans study Strengths of the little Hans study are that they support the usefulness of case studies and have the ability to reveal and treat the origins of abnormal behaviour. In fact some forms of psychotherapy rely on building up a long and detailed case history as an aid to understanding and then helping the client. Case studies like that of little Hans are able to produce very in-depth qualitative data. In fact Freud argued that it was the special and intimate relationship between Hans and his father that displayed such progress of the analysis However, this case study only relates to little Hans as one individual and therefore there is a danger in generalising the findings to the population. There is no way of assessing how typical little Hans was and whether or not his situation can be generalised as the study could have been unique between Freud, Hans's father and little Hans. As well as this, Hans's father and mother were supporters of Freud's ideas thus they may have been raising little Hans in relation to Freud's theories so when it came to giving evidence of little Hans's phobia they did so in relation to Frauds' theories. Freud himself did not regularly meet little Hans as he only met him on one or two occasions, so Freud was only interpreting what Hans's father was interpreting of little Hans so it lacks a lot of objectivity. The little
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk explores the theme of masculinity through clever characterisation, exploration of conformity and anarchy and through unusual language.
Fight Club "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk explores the theme of masculinity through clever characterisation, exploration of conformity and anarchy and through unusual language. The traditional role of man was as the head of the family unit. Looking after and providing for his wife and children in the hunter-gatherer role. What if a man has no wife and children? What is his role? What if the man comes from a broken family where he had no father? How is he supposed to live a good male life if he has no good example to follow? These are some of the issues that Chuck Palahniuk confronts on the theme of masculinity in "Fight Club". In this essay I will explore the author's use of characterisation, conformity, anarchy and interesting and unusual language in support of this main theme. The characterisation of the main figure is executed particularly well. The characters of Joe and Tyler are cleverly interwoven throughout the novel until the reader's realisation that they are both actually the same person. There are a lot of hints in the novel, which suggest this up until it is actually revealed. Several times the narrator, Joe, says, "I know this because Tyler knows this." This could be taken as meaning that they are very close friends and tell each other everything or that they are both the same person. The author also refers to the idea of multiple personalities
Critically Discuss the Contribution of Different Sociological Approaches to Mental HealthMental illness is very much a common occurrence within society, with one in four people experiencing some
Critically Discuss the Contribution of Different Sociological Approaches to Mental Health Mental illness is very much a common occurrence within society, with one in four people experiencing some kind of mental health problem, and one in six will have depression at some point in their life. Mental illness is a disturbance of thought, feelings or actions that do not conform to normal behaviour within a society, these disturbances or abnormal behaviour characterize the illness. According to the Mental Health Foundation, there are over eighty-three known mental health problems ranging from depression to schizophrenia. Mental illness is not the result of personal weakness or lack of character. It can affect people of any age, race, religion or income. The first approach to mental illness is that it is a form of social control. Some of the most famous sociologists of the anti-psychiatry groups are Szasz and Scheff (1968), whose arguments were strengthened by the work of Erving Goffman (1961). These sociologists worked together and criticised mental illness as being biochemical imbalances or that it was a product of social learning and conditioning, or even a product of unconscious psycho sexual developmental problems, arguing that the phenomenon was not something that existed within an individual but rather that it was a social judgement or label imposed upon behaviour which
Compare and contrast two of the main approaches to personality psychology
Compare and contrast two of the main approaches to personality psychology Psychology of personality is a difficult concept to define and quantify, therefore most personality theories, however different they may be in other respects, share the basic assumption, that personality is a particular pattern of behaviour and thinking, that prevails across time and situations and differentiates one person from another. Most theories attempting to explain personality represent part of the classic psychological Nature verse Nurture debate. In other words, is personality "inherited", or developed through our interactions with the environment. In addition, we shall compare and contrast two of the main approaches to personality psychology by concentrating on Psychoanalytical Theory (Freud) and Social Learning Theory (Bandura). By looking at the Psychodynamic approach, developed by Freud, we can argue that it emphasizes the interplay of unconscious psychological processes in determining human thought, feelings, and behaviours. The basis of this approach is that psychological factors play a major role in determining behaviour and shaping personality. Freud argued that personality is composed of three major systems the id, the ego, and the superego. The id (biological part of personality) is present at birth and consists of inherited instincts and all psychological energies. The id
Psychology Revision Notes - list of major experiments
Sub-sections Characteristics of STM and LTM Summary of a study on encoding in STM and LTM Baddeley- Participants were divided into four groups which were acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar and semantically dissimilar. Participants were presented with the list a total of 4 times and each time was interrupted to try to prevent rehearsing. They were then presented with a 20-minute interval task and afterwards were asked to recall their list. Semantically dissimilar words were recalled the most telling us that encoding in LTM is semantic. Summary of study on capacity of STM and LTM Summary of study on duration of STM Peterson & Peterson- Showed PPs a list of nonsense trigrams and asked them to count back from 400 in 3 second intervals for a duration ranging from 3 to 18 seconds. Found that duration of STM was 18-30 seconds maximum. Summary of study on duration of LTM Bahrick- 400 participants aged between 17 and 74 were tested using different methods including free-recall tests, photo-recognition test, name recognition tests and photo-name matching test. PPs performed less well on free recall tests (30% after 48 years) but were much better in the photo-name test (90% after 60 years). Models of memory Description of the multi-store model of memory, plus evaluation inc. research Atkinson & Shiffrin- Multi-Store Model which
