Study Guide for Exam—Psychology 1101

Study Guide—Test #4

Social Psychology

• Be familiar with Asch’s experiments on conformity.
• Understand what compliance is and some of the methods that are used to obtain compliance.
• Know what obedience is and what Milgram demonstrated in his experiments on obedience.
• When is social facilitation most likely to occur in a group, and what is social loafing in a group?
• Know what defines the ingroup and outgroup.
• What characteristics tend to lead to interpersonal attraction?
• Understand what the Fundamental Attribution Error is and how it affects our explanations for the behavior of others.
• What is cognitive dissonance and what are some of the ways we attempt to deal with it when we experience it?
• Know the basic design, purpose, and outcome of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment.

Psychological Disorders

• What defines behavior as disordered?  How do we define maladaptive behavior?
• Understand the biological model (medical model) and also understand the perspective on mental illness taken by most mental health workers (the interactive perspective, that mental illness is not simply a medical condition but an interaction of genetic, social, and psychological factors).
• What is the DSM-IV and what is it used for?
• Be able to explain the biological/genetic factors that may be involved in the development of anxiety disorders, major depressive disorder, and schizophrenia.
• Know the basic symptoms of the following mental disorders and be able to recognize a description of someone who might be diagnosed with that disorder:
  • Generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, panic disorder (and the often associated agoraphobia), obsessive-compulsive disorder, and PTSD.
  • Major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and bipolar disorder
  • Schizophrenia (including the differences among the sub-types of schizophrenia)

Psychological Therapies

·       Be familiar with some basics of psychoanalytic psychotherapy: free association, dreams, and transference.

·       Know the basics of Rogers’ person-centered therapy: unconditional positive regard, empathy, and genuineness.

·       Review therapeutic techniques derived from operant and classical conditioning, such as systematic desensitization, exposure therapies, and token economies.

Return to 1101 Homepage