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.