Sway

Well, besides the final exam, my psychology class is officially over and I have this last blog to do but no chapter in psychology to write about... and I'm unoriginal so I'll just write this blog about the book I had to read for psychology.

The book was called Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. To summarize it, it's a book that uses psychology, behavior, and some economics to answer and explain what exactly it is that causes people to make irrational or illogical decisions.

I thought it was interesting for a while, but probably somewhere around the halfway point, I started to lose interest in it, and the book started to become pretty repetitive.

Although, one example that really stood out to me was one that involved Harvard students and a Harvard professor. At the beginning of each semester, Professor Bazerman holds an auction for a $20 bill. It sounds pretty redundant but this auction is different than the average one. The bids start out at $1 and every next bid has to go up by $1, the reason this auction is different than most, is because both the winner of the auction and the runner up must pay however much their bid was for. The hands go up fast in the beginning but around the $12-$16 mark is where the story becomes interesting. At this point, the students have realized they aren't the only ones with the great idea and this is also where the top 2 bidders get into a heated gridlock. Realizing that if they win, their loss will be less, each person bids and bids and according to the book, Professor Bazerman once sold a $20 for exactly $204. The explanation for this is that "students are pulled by both the momentum of the auction and the looming loss if they back down-a loss that is growing greater by the bid. The two forces, in turn, feed off each other."

Chapter 15

This chapter is about psychological therapies, and although there are various topics in the chapter, this blog will be mainly about psychopharmacology, which is the use of drugs to control or relieve the symptoms of various psychological disorders, and although these drugs are sometimes used alone, they are usually combined with some sort of psychotherapy. The combination of both tends to be the most successful. 

So the question that I'm going to answer is: What are the various types of drugs used to treat psychological disorders? 

There are 2 kinds of antipsychotics and 3 kinds of antidepressants, along with antimanic and antianxiety drugs. 

The antipsychotics are broken up depending on if a typical neuroleptic or an atypical neuroleptic is being treated. For the typical one, drugs like chloropromazine, droperidol, and haloperidol are used. These treat symptoms like delusions and hallucinations. For atypical neuroleptics, drugs like clozapine, risperidone, and aripiprazole are prescribed. These treat the same previous symptoms along with symptoms of psychoses. 

Antidepressants are broken up into MAOIs, Tricyclics, and SSRIs. These are all just different categories for how the various drugs works once consumed. They all treat depression and have possible minor side effects that vary depending on which drug was consumed. 

Antimanics are drugs like lithium and a number of anticonvulsant drugs that are all used to treat manic behavior, such as excessive excitement, energy, elation, or irritability. The side effects include potential for toxic buildup. 

Antianxiety drugs are generally minor tranquilizers and include drugs like alprazolam, lorazepam, and diazepam. These drugs help treat all symptoms of anxiety along with any phobia-related reactions. The down side includes a possible dependence on the drug and a slight sedative effect. 

Chapter 13

This chapter is called "Theories of Personality" so.. there's a good chance that I'll be talking about the different theories of personality.

The questions I'm going to answer are: what is personality and how do the different branches of psychology view personality?

Personality is considered the unique and relatively stable ways that people think, feel, and behave. To understand personality, it is important to note the differences between personality, character, and temperament. Character refers to the value judgments of a person's moral and ethical behavior while temperament involves the enduring characteristics that every person is born with.

To clear up any misconceptions, temperament is based in a person's biology, through genetic influences, prenatal influences, or a combination of those. Also, temperament forms the base upon which someone's larger personality is built.  However, character (along with temperament) is also a vital part in personality.

Now for how the different branches view this subject.

The psychodynamic perspective started with Sigmund Freud's work and his ideas, which have probably been discussed in an earlier blog along with the rest of the different branches' views. Anyway, this focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. Also, this perspective heavily focuses on biology and the biological causes of different personalities.

The behaviorist approach focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior.

The humanistic perspective came about as a reaction to the perspectives mentioned above and emphasizes the role of each specific person's conscious life experiences and choices.

The last perspective is called the trait perspective and is different than the previous ones in the sense that the previous ones wonder about the process of personality while this one is focused on the end result.

Chapter 14

This chapter is overall about the different psychological disorders so instead of talking about everything covered in the chapter, I think I'll answer one question on the disorder known as schizophrenia.

So the question that I'm going to answer is.. What are the main symptoms of schizophrenia?

One common symptom is called a delusion, or a false/untrue belief held by someone that won't accept any proof that they are wrong. Although delusions aren't apparent in every type of schizophrenia, it is the symptom most associated with the disorder. There are four main types of disorders that do associate with schizophrenia and they are: delusions of persecution, delusions of reference, delusions of influence, and delusions of grandeur. The persecution delusions involve a schizophrenic thinking that other people are trying to hurt them in some way. Reference involves a schizophrenic thinking that other people, television characters, books, movies, or anything like that, are specifically talking to them. Influence involves a schizophrenic thinking that they are being controlled by external forces such as the devil or aliens. Grandeur involves them thinking that they are powerful people who are destined to save the world or are on some kind of important mission.

Another symptom is disturbance of speech such as made up words, repeated words/sentences, and sentences that don't make any sense but consist of only rhyming words. Overall speech and thought also seem to be interrupted often, and thoughts generally aren't relatively logical.

People with schizophrenia may also have hallucinations or false sensory perceptions, such as seeing people or hearing voices that aren't actually there. Although, hallucinations don't necessarily have to be related to sight or hearing, but those 2 senses are the most common to be affected.

There is also something called the flat effect that happens, this is a condition in which the person shows little/no emotion or experience certain emotions at the wrong time.

Lack of attention and organization are symptoms as well.

Chapter 12

This chapter is called "Social Psychology" which is defined as "the scientific study of a how a person's thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the real, imagined, or implied presence of others.

So the question that I'm going to answer is, What is compliance and what are the 4 common ways to gain compliance?

Compliance is when someone changes their behavior resulting from other people directing or asking for the change. Also, there is a difference between compliance and obedience in the sense that obedience includes a figure of authority (asking for the change) while compliance doesn't involve anyone with real authority.

There are 4 common techniques for gaining compliance. The first is called the foot-in-the-door technique and this is when someone asks for a small commitment and then asking for a bigger commitment once the first one was achieved. For example, your neighbor could ask you to watch their house for the weekend and you agree thinking that it isn't a large task. If your neighbor wanted to take advantage of this technique, they would then ask for something larger such as the watering of their plants.


The second technique is called the door-in-the-face technique and this is just the opposite of the foot-in-the-door technique except that the first (and larger) request gets denied. Back to the example, if your neighbor wanted to use this technique, they would ask for something that might be considered too much, such as watching their kids for the weekend. Once denied, your neighbor would ask for something considered smaller such as watering plants.

The third technique is called the lowball technique. This is when a commitment is gained, the the cost of committing is raised. For your neighbor to use this, they could ask you to water their plants. You agree thinking it is an easy task but you come to figure out that they have 300 plants throughout their house.

The last technique is called the that's-not-all technique, the best example of this is any of the one million infomercials on TV; they claim to give you more than they originally "planned" to.

Chapter 11

Well, Chapter 11 is called "Stress and Health."

The question is: What are some ways in which people cope with stress?

Everyone deals with stress differently but there are some common methods. One type of coping is to work on eliminating or changing the stressor (whatever is causing the stress) itself. This is known as problem-focused coping. For example, a student might have a problem understanding what a certain professor is teaching. To solve this through problem-focused coping, that student could talk to the professor after class, ask fellow students, get a tutor, etc.


Problem-focused coping is just one method, another is called emotion-focused coping. This can be used simultaneously with problem-focused coping to better deal with controllable stress events. Emotion-focused coping involves changing the way someone feels toward a certain stressor. This is effective because it reduces the emotional impact of something, thus making it easier to deal with. Relating back to that professor example, someone could solve it through emotion-focused coping by talking about it with a friend, become more calm/confident/etc., and then handle it in a more direct manner.  One advantage to emotion-focused coping is that in can be utilized during uncontrollable stressor as well. For example, someone using this method could view a stressor as challenge rather than a threat. This changes their emotional view on the stressor and makes dealing with it easier.

Along with the focused coping methods, people also use mediation, or a series of mental exercises that result in  refocused attention along with a "trance-like state of consciousness." There are two types of mediation. One is called concentration mediation. This is the most widely known of the two. The goal of this type is to focus the mind on something unchanging, like a heart beat, so that the mind can forget daily hassles and so the body can relax. The second type, receptive mediation, involves "becoming aware of everything in immediate conscious experience." In other words, it's the experience people have when they are overawed at an ocean's edge, a starry night, etc. It doesn't specifically have to be in a natural setting such as those but those moments are examples of attention being focused outward, which is what receptive mediation tries to achieve.

Chapter 10

The title of our next chapter is "Sexuality and Gender."

So the question is "How do men and women differ in thinking, behavior, and personality?"

Research has shown that women score higher on tests that involve verbal abilities, and men score higher on tests about mathematical and spatial skills. A different study also showed that, when listening, women use both hemisphere of the brain while men only use the left hemisphere. This suggests that women pay attention to the tone and emotion of statements as well as the general content. Early explanations of these differences involved physical reasoning that basically said the different sexes have different brains, but more recent research strongly suggests that psychological and social issues are more responsible for these differences. To be more specific, the supposed differences in mathematical abilities are believed to be caused by a lack of effort or a lack of confidence on the women's part. Fortunately, now that society views the two genders as equal, these various differences are starting to diminish.


The differences that are normally thought of between men/women interacting with others are the result of stereotyped thinking. So this makes it difficult to show differences that aren't stressed in the social environments that all men/women grow up in. Generally, men are taught to hold in their emotions, be strong, be manly, don't cry, etc, while women are encouraged to be open with feelings, and whatever other stereotypes you can think of. Anyway, the point is, society makes it hard to point out real differences.

According to research, men tend to talk to each other about current events, sports, and other events. This has been called a "report" style of communication that involves switching topics frequently with attempts to dominate the conversation by certain members of a group. Women tend to use a "relate" style of communication, which involves revealing information about themselves and showing concern/sympathy. Women also tend to interrupt each other less and allow everyone to participate in conversation.