Psychology Facts.

I started this blog because of a love of psychology. I promise to give the most accurate facts and quotes as I can find. Check out my website: psychtruths.com

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SOURCE: x

Also- If you’re wondering why those numbers don’t seem to add up, remember that mental disorders almost never travel alone. If a person has one, they are very likely to have another. This is known as “comorbidity” and is the reason that those statistics may seem strange. There is a lot of overlap between disorders.

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Ever wondered where emotions came from? Or where hormone responses originated?

The Limbic System, located in various places near the center of the brain, controls hormone secretion, hormone responses, and emotions. The Limbic System consists of several structures all with their own specific functions.

The structures are:

Amygdala- Controls emotional responses, fear, and plays a part in memories and hormonal secretions.

Hippocampus- Moves memories from short term memory to long term memory, retrieves memories from long term memory, also helps with spatial reasoning.

Hypothalamus- Controls mood, temperature, hunger, and sleep cycles. Contains the glands responsible for regulating hormone processes throughout the body. 

Thalamus- Serves as a switchboard for sensory input as it comes into the brain, sending it to the appropriate place when it is received. It also plays a role in attention.

FUN FACT: Abnormalities in the Limbic System have been linked to several disorders, most notably psychopathy.

SOURCES

x, x, x, x

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Piaget’s Developmental Stages

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a psychologist who was interested in cognitive development, and particularly the development of thoughts and intelligence. His interest was sparked as he worked at the Binet Institute, translating intelligence test questions into French. The different answers of younger children to adults caused him to wonder how children think. He performed the first systematic study on cognitive development, from which he was able to develop his own theories.

These stages do not occur at a definite age, and can occur slightly differently for each child, hence age ranges. However, they do always occur in this order, since each stage builds off the abilities learned in the previous stage. 

Sensorimotor: This stage happens between birth and about 2 years of age. During this stage, the infant is using their five senses to explore the world and learn about the objects around them. During this period, an important ability is learned: the ability to understand that an object still exists when it is not in sight. This is known as object permanence.

Preoperational: This stage happens between about 2 and 6 years of age. During this stage, the child is developing the ability to think, though this is limited to thinking about themselves. The child is also learning language during this period, which allows thoughts in that language and also allows more self expression.

Concrete Operational: This stage happens between about 6 and 11 years of age. During this stage, the child is learning logic and how to apply it. The child learns how to interpret situations in a rational, objective way. At this point in development, thoughts are still fairly limited to personal experiences and senses.

Formal Operational: This stage begins at about 11 years of age and extends into adulthood. During this stage, abstract thought and reasoning develop. As the child turns into an adolescent and then adult, they are able to reason analytically, without emotion, and can begin to apply this reasoning to experiences which have not happened to them. 

Concepts central to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development:

Cognitive Equilibrium: A “mental balance”, where there are no new ideas to adapt to and cognition has reached a point of comfortable understanding.

Assimilation: A new experience disrupts the equilibrium and is then incorporated into old structures of thought.

Accommodation: A new experience disrupts the equilibrium and the old structures of thought are changed to allow for it.

Piaget’s Theory is not the only theory regarding cognitive development, and is not necessarily the most accurate. There are many other theories and there have been many studies since Piaget’s initial one regarding how cognitive functions come to be.

SOURCES:

 The Developing Person Through Childhood and Adolescence, Ninth Edition

Psychology.About.Com

SimplyPsychology.Org

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Follow the Psychology Truths Twitter @truthspsych!

I will post links to the latest posts, cool pictures, and even sneak peaks!

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Memory is a strange and intricate process. Part of memory is what is known as sensory memory, a short impression of a perceived stimulus, i.e. a short “memory” of what the thing you looked at, heard, felt, etc. was like. Shown here are some facts about two types of sensory memory: iconic and echoic memory.

-Psychology Truths

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Psychology Podcast

I have recently started listening to a psychology podcast, and I find it informative and interesting.

It's called Psychology In Everyday Life: The Psych Files.

I recommend checking it out if you'd like more info and resources on psychology.

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For whatever reason this drawing has always really stuck with me and comes to mind whenever I think of Freud's concept of the id, ego, and superego. I thought I would share it with all of you so you too can think of it. (I obtained it from http://shiningstranger.wordpress.com/tag/superego/ but I do not know if this person is the artist)

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I love psychology too, but why are your posts so negative?? There're positive facts too. :)

I wasn’t meaning to be negative! I just find mental disorders fascinating!No worries, I plan to convey as much psychological information as possible, no matter positive or negative. Just the facts. :)

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The lobes of the brain, courtesy of Wikipedia (that was the place I found the most informative graphics, although I know some discredit this site).

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Psychology Website

This seems like an informative site filled with lots of information about personality disorders.

http://medicalcontroversy.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/a-brief-and-informal-guide-to-personality-disorders/

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Cluster A 

Cluster B

Cluster C 

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Personality disorders, some background

I have posted on Anti-social Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder. 

These three disorders all fall under the same classification of mental disorders in two ways. 

Firstly, and most obviously, they are all personality disorders. 

Secondly, they all fall under the "Cluster B" classification of Personality disorders. 

There are three "clusters" of personality disorders.

Cluster A: the "odd, bizarre, eccentric" disorders. This includes:

Paranoid Personality Disorder

Schizoid Personality Disorder

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Cluster B: The "dramatic, erratic, emotional" disorders. This includes:

Anti-Social Personality Disorder

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder

Histrionic Personality Disorder

Cluster C: The "anxious, fearful" disorders. This includes:

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Dependent Personality Disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

There is certain diagnostic criteria that must be met before being diagnosed with a personality disorder. The person cannot simply be strange or erratic. The behaviors must deviate from social/cultural norms and also be unchangeable. The behaviors must be affecting the person's life, personal relationships, work, etc. The behaviors must be present consistently over time with an onset in adolescence or early adulthood. 

If these criteria are met, then the person will most likely be diagnosed with one of the 10 personality disorders listed above, and which disorder they are diagnosed with depends of course on other symptoms they display. 

SOURCES

Perhaps not the best sources, but they did have useful information and quoted the DSM. 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/the-10-personality-disorders

http://psychology.about.com/od/personalitydisorders/a/personalitydis.htm

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Good Reads on Borderline Personality Disorder

The Borderline Personality Disorder Survival Guide, Alexander Lawrence Chapman, Kim L. Gratz 

I Hate You- Don't Leave Me, Jerold Jay Kreisman, Hal Straus

Stop Walking On Eggshells, Paul T. Mason, Randi Kreger

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Borderline Personality Disorder

Diagnostic Criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) from the DSM-IV are: 

"

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. This is called "splitting."

Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).

Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior. 

Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). 

Chronic feelings of emptiness. 

Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). 

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms."

Statistics: About 2% of the general population is estimated to have this disorder, and it is much higher among clinical populations with Personality Disorders (30-60%) and among psychiatric inpatients (20%) and psychiatric outpatients (10%).

People with this disorder are very clingy in their relationships with other people and become attached very early (the first or second meeting, even). However, because they are plagued by the irrational fear of rejection and abandonment, they will push people away at any, real or imagined, hint of the other person leaving them or loving them too little. This causes the characteristic instability in relationships.

Causes of  this disorder are like that of any mental disorder: Nature via Nurture. When a child has the appropriate heritability and environmental factors, it will cause the disorder. 

SOURCES

As always I tried to find the best of sources which gave information directly from the DSM. 

http://allpsych.com/disorders/personality/borderline.html

http://bpdresourcecenter.org/DSM-IV.html

http://www.borderlinepersonalitytoday.com/main/dsmiv.htm

http://www.borderlinepersonalitydisorder.com/understading-bpd/a-bpd-brief/

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Some good reads on Narcissistic personality disorder

The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Wiley

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (poems), Kent Daniel Glowinski

(I'm very sorry, but I don't know as many narcissism books as I do psychopathy books. I simply googled them though and I'm sure libraries have plenty of other interesting titles on this topic)

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Etymology of "Narcissism"

The terms "narcissism" and "narcissistic" come from the Greek myth of Narcissus. 

Narcissus was loved by many nymphs and would be with them for a while then reject them and break their hearts. He did this to every nymph that loved him. 

Soon the gods grew tired of this and cursed Narcissus. They cursed him to know how all the nymphs he had scorned felt: the sting of unrequited love. They cursed him to fall in love with someone who could never love him back. 

As he wandered one day Narcissus came to a pool of water. In the water he saw the most beautiful water nymph he had ever seen. He bent to kiss the beautiful nymph and the nymph seemed to return the gesture. Seeing this, Narcissus reached into the water to pull the nymph to him. But his arms disturbed the water and his nymph disappeared. But when the water calmed, his love reappeared. 

“Why, beautiful being, do you shun me? Surely my face is not one to repel you. The nymphs love me, and you yourself look not indifferent upon me. When I stretch forth my arms you do the same; and you smile upon me and answer my beckonings with the like.”

He reached into the water again, and again his love disappeared. He became frightened to touch the water and instead lay by the pool and stared at the lovely water nymph. 

Narcissus had fallen in love with his own reflection. 

He cried, frustrated that he was not loved by this beautiful water nymph. He died of grief, and in the place where his body lay a beautiful flower grew, the Narcissus flower. 

*SOURCE* 

http://www.echo.me.uk/legend.htm