Presentation on an overview of different topic areas in psychology for PSY 126 with Dr. Eisenhard.

1. A Brief Look at Major Topics in
the Field of Psychology
Matthew L. Eisenhard, Psy.D.
Psychology for Business & Industry

2. 1. Neuropsychology
• Studies the structure and function of the brain as it
relates to psychological processes and human behaviors.
• Neuropsychologists typically work in the following types
of occupations:
▫ Research (universities, laboratories, research institutions)
▫ Clinical (assessing or treating patients with
neuropsychological problems)
▫ Forensic (assessments done for the legal system)
▫ Industry (consulting on neuropsychological
knowledge as applied to product design or
management of pharmaceutical clinical-trials
research for drugs which impact the Central
Nervous System)

4. Autonomic Nervous System
• Responsible for the body’s reactions to perceived
emergencies
▫ Can be actual or perceived (i.e. anxiety disorders)
• Sympathetic
▫ “Fight”
▫ Produces rapid physiological response to perceived
emergencies or threats
• Parasympathetic
▫ “Flight”
▫ Maintains normal bodily functions and conserves
body’s physical resources

6. Major Parts of the Brain

7. Forebrain: Cerebral Cortex
• 4 Lobes

8. Forebrain: Limbic System
• Involved in
emotion,
motivation,
learning, and
memory

9. Neurons

10. 2. Sensation & Perception
• Sensation – Process of detecting a physical stimulus; such as light,
sound, heat, or pressure
▫ How info gets to the brain
▫ 6 Primary Senses: Vision, Hearing, Smell, Touch, Taste, and Pain
• Perception – Process of integrating, organizing, and interpreting
sensations
▫ How our brains process and use that info in a meaningful way

11. Basic Principles of Sensation
• All senses involve common processes
▫ Sensory receptors – Specialized cells that
respond to a specific form of sensory
stimulation
▫ Transduction – Process by which physical
energy is converted into a coded neural
signal to be used by the brain
• Stimuli must be strong enough to be detected
▫ Absolute Threshold – Smallest possible strength
of a stimulus that can be detected half the time
▫ Difference Threshold (Just Noticeable
Difference)– Smallest possible difference
between two stimuli that can be detected half the
time

12. Basic Principles of Sensation
• Psychological experience of sensation is relative
▫ Sensory adaptation – Decline in sensitivity to a
constant stimulus
▫ Weber’s Law – The size of the JND will vary
depending on its relation to the strength of the original
stimulus
• Subliminal Perception – Detection of stimuli below the
threshold of conscious awareness
• Mere exposure effect – Repeated exposure to a stimulus
increases that person’s preference for that stimulus.

13. Basic Principles of Perception
• The process of integrating, organizing, and interpreting
sensory information.
• Bottom-Up Processing – Emphasizes the importance of
sensory receptors in detecting the basic features of a
stimulus in the process of recognizing a whole pattern;
from the parts to the whole
▫ Data driven processing
• Top-Down Processing – Emphasizes the importance of
the observer’s knowledge, expectations, and other
cognitive processes in arriving at meaningful
perceptions; from the whole to the parts
▫ Conceptually driven processing

14. 3. Cognitive Psychology
• Study of mental processes, including
▫ Memory
▫ Learning
▫ Attention
▫ Language use
▫ Problem solving
▫ Thinking
▫ Creativity
• Cognitive psychologists typically work in
academia, conducting research.

15. Stage Model of Memory
Long-term
Memory
Working or
Short-term
Memory
Sensory
Input
Sensory
Memory
Attention
Encoding
Retrieval
Maintenance Rehearsal

18. Improving Memory
• Space your study sessions
• Sleep on it to consolidate memories
• Focus your attention
• Commit the necessary time
• Organize the info
• Elaborate on the material
• Use visual imagery
• Explain it to a friend
• Reduce interference with a topic
• Counteract the serial position effect
• Use contextual cues to jog memories
• Use a mnemonic device for remembering lists
• Forget the ginkgo biloba

19. Learning
• A process that produces a relatively enduring
change in behavior or knowledge as a result of
past experience
• Conditioning – Process of learning associations
between environmental events and behavioral
responses
▫ Classical conditioning
▫ Operant conditioning
▫ Observational Learning

20. Classical Conditioning
• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) – Natural stimulus that
reflexively elicits a response without the need for prior
learning
• Unconditioned response (UCR) – Unlearned, reflexive
response that is elicited by an unconditioned stimulus
• Conditioned stimulus (CS) – Formerly neutral stimulus
that acquires the capacity to elicit a reflexive response
• Conditioned response (CR) – Learned, reflexive
response to a conditioned stimulus

22. Operant Conditioning
• B.F. Skinner
• Basic learning process that involves changing the
probability that response will be repeated by
manipulating the consequences of that response
Operant – An actively emitted behavior that operates on the
environment to produce consequences
• Reinforcement – Occurrence of a stimulus or event
following a response that increases the likelihood of that
response being repeated
▫ Reinforcing stimulus is something desirable,
satisfying, or pleasant

23. Reinforcement
• Positive Reinforcement – A response is followed by the addition of a
reinforcing stimulus, increasing the likelihood that the response will
be repeated in similar situations in the future
▫ *Something ADDED
• Negative Reinforcement – A response results in the removal of, or
avoidance of, or escape from an aversive stimulus, increasing the
likelihood the response will be repeated in similar situations in the
future
▫ *Something SUBTRACTED

24. Punishment
• Presentation of a stimulus or event following a behavior that
acts to decrease the likelihood of the behavior’s being repeated
• Positive Punishment – Punishment by application; Behavior
is followed by the presentation or addition of an aversive
stimulus
▫ Time-out for misbehavior
• Negative Punishment – Punishment by removal; Behavior
followed by the removal or subtraction of a reinforcing
stimulus
▫ Loss of some privilege, possession, or other desirable object
or activity
▫ Taking away a toy for misbehavior

25. Observational Learning
• Learning that occurs through observing the
actions of others
▫ Occurs indirectly, watching then imitating
▫ Mirror neurons – Activates both when an
action is performed and when the same action
is perceived
• Albert Bandura’s “Bobo doll” experiment
▫ Expectation of reinforcement affects the
performance of what is learned

26. Modeling/Imitation
• 4 Factors for it to occur
1. Must pay attention to other’s behavior
2. Must remember other’s behavior
3. Able to transform representation into
actions you are capable of reproducing
4. Must be motivation to perform the
behavior
• Most likely to occur when…
▫ Performed by a model who is attractive
and who has high status or is a
dominant member of the viewer’s social
group
▫ Model is rewarded for his/her behavior
▫ Model is not punished for his/her
actions

27. 4. Developmental Psychology
• Study of how people change physically, mentally,
and socially throughout the lifespan.
▫ Includes the entire lifespan and aging process:
infants, children, adolescents, adults, and the
elderly.
• Gradual development vs. stage-like
development?
• Born with inmate mental structures vs. learning
through experience with the world?
• Social context effects on development?

28. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive
Development
• Jean Piaget (1952, 1972)
• Children actively try to make sense
of the environment
• Develop schemas about the world
▫ Assimilation – Process of taking new information
or a new experience and fitting it into an already
existing schema
▫ Accommodation – Process by which existing
schemas are changed or new schemas are created
in order to fit new information

29. Piaget’s Theory
• Children progress through 4 distinct stages
• At each new stage, a child’s thinking is
qualitatively different from that of the previous
stage – each new stage represents a fundamental
shift in how the child thinks and understands the
world
▫ Sensorimotor: Birth to 2 yrs.
▫ Preoperational: 2 to 7 yrs.
▫ Concrete Operational: 7 to 11 yrs.
▫ Formal Operational: Adolescence to adulthood

31. Erikson’s Theory of
Psychosocial Development
• Erik Erikson (1968)
• 8 Stages: Each associated with a particular psychosocial
conflict that can be resolved in either a positive or
negative way
▫ Trust vs. Mistrust
▫ Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
▫ Initiative vs. Guilt
▫ Industry vs. Inferiority
▫ Identity vs. Role Confusion
▫ Intimacy vs. Isolation
▫ Generativity vs. Stagnation
▫ Ego Integrity vs. Despair

33. Death and Dying
• Anxiety about death peaks in middle adulthood,
then declines in late adulthood
• Kubler-Ross (1969) stages of dying
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
• Not universally proven

34. 5. Personality Psychology
• An individual’s unique and relatively consistent
pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving
▫ Personality Theory – Attempts to describe and
explain similarities and differences in people’s
patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving
▫ How people are similar, different, and why each
individual is unique
▫ Attempt to explain
the whole person

35. Psychoanalytic Perspective
• Sigmund Freud
• Psychoanalysis – Emphasizes unconscious determinant
of behavior, sexual and aggressive instinctual drives, and
the enduring effects of early childhood experiences on
later personality development
▫ Both an approach to therapy and a personality theory
• Free Association – Technique in which the patient
spontaneously reports all thoughts, feelings, and mental
images as they come to mind
▫ Free association exercise: For 5 minutes, write down
everything that comes to mind. Do not block any
disturbing thoughts but rather let them out.

36. The Unconscious
• Thoughts, feelings, wishes,
and drives that are operating
below the level of conscious
awareness
▫ Often comes to conscious level
in distorted, disguised, or
symbolic forms
▫ Unintentional actions such as
accidents, mistakes,
forgetting, and slips of the
tongue
• Conscious – Thoughts,
feelings, and sensations of
which you are aware of at this
moment
• Preconscious – Information
not currently aware of but can
easily be brought to conscious
awareness

37. Structure of
Personality
• Id – Completely
unconscious, irrational
component that seeks
immediate satisfaction on
instinctual urges and
drives; ruled by pleasure
principle
• Ego – Partly conscious
rational component that
regulates thoughts and
behavior and is most in
touch with the demands of
the external world
• Superego – Partly
conscious, self-evaluative,
moralistic component of
personality formed through
the internalization of
parental and societal rules

38. Humanistic Perspective: Carl Rogers
• Developed theory from clinical experiences
▫ Referred to patients as “clients” reflecting their active and
voluntary participation in therapy
• Actualizing Tendency – Innate drive to maintain and enhance the
human organism
• Most basic human motive
• Self-concept – Set of perceptions and beliefs that you hold about
yourself
▫ People motivated to act in accord with their self-concept
▫ Continually defending against experiences against the self-concept
• Unconditional Positive Regard – Sense that you will be valued and
loved even if you don’t conform to the standards and expectations of
others; unconditional love or acceptance
▫ Conditional Positive Regard as conditional love/acceptance
▫ Leads children to learn to deny or distort his/her genuine feelings

39. Fully functioning person
• Flexible, constantly changing self-concept
• Realistic, open to new experiences, and capable
of changing in response to new experiences
• Experiences congruence: Self consistent with
emotions and experiences
• Rogerian triad: Congruence
(genuineness), Empathy, and
Unconditional Positive Regard

40. Trait Perspective:
Five-Factor Model
• Robert McCrae and Paul Costa Jr.
(1996)
• Traits remarkably stable over time
• Over time, slight declines in
Neuroticism and Openness, increase in
Agreeableness and Conscientiousness,
and stability in Extraversion
• Generally consistent across situations
• Situational influences have effect

41. •Openness to Experience
•Conscientiousness
•Extraversion
•Agreeableness
•Neuroticism
OCEAN

42. Openness to Experience
• Active imagination
• Willingness to consider new ideas
• Divergent thinkers
• Intellectual curiosity
• Unconventional
• Low = Prefer the familiar
rather than seeking out
something new

43. Conscientiousness
• How controlled and self-
disciplined one is
• Organized
• Plan oriented
• Determined
• Low = Apt to be careless, easily distracted from
tasks, and undependable
• People high in this trait typically live longer
(Kern & Friedman, 2008)

44. Extraversion
• Sociable
• Energetic
• Optimistic
• Friendly
• Assertive
• Low = “Reserved rather than unfriendly,
independent rather than followers, even-paced
rather than sluggish” (Costa & McCrae, 1992)
• Extraverts have more friends and spend more time
in social situations (Asendorpf & Wilpers, 1998)

45. Agreeableness
• Helpful
• Trusting
• Sympathetic
• Prefer cooperation over competition
• Low = antagonistic, skeptical, prefer to fight for
interests and beliefs
• Have more pleasant social interactions
(Donnellan, Conger, & Bryant, 2004)
• More willing to help those in need (Graziano et
al, 2007)

46. Neuroticism
• Continuum of emotional stability and
personal adjustment
• Frequently experience emotional distress
▫ Sadness, anger, anxiety, guilt
• Wide swings of emotion
• Low = calm, well adjusted, and not prone
to extreme emotional reactions
• High on trait more upset over daily
stressors (Lahey, 2009)

47. 6. Social Psychology
• Branch of psychology that studies how a
person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are
influenced by the presence of other people
and by the social and physical environment
▫ Sense of self – An individual’s unique sense
of identity that has been influenced by
social, cultural, and psychological
experiences: sense of who you are in
relation to other people
▫ Sociology – Systematic study of the
development, structure, interaction, and
collective behavior of organized groups of
social beings

48. Social Cognition
• Mental processes people use to make sense of their social
environment; How we form impressions of other people,
how we interpret the meaning of other people’s behavior,
and how our behavior is affected by our attitudes
▫ Person perception
▫ Social categorization
▫ Implicit personality theory
▫ Attribution
▫ Attitudes
▫ Stereotypes

49. Social Influence
• Study of how behavior is
influenced by the social
environment and by
other people
▫ Conformity
▫ Obedience
▫ Compliance
▫ Social Influence
Techniques
▫ Helping Behaviors

50. Solomon Asch (1955)

51. Asch’s Results
• 12/18 trials
confederates chose
wrong answer
▫ 75% conformed at least once
▫ Participants conformed at 37% of critical trials overall
• Other results
▫ If everyone agrees, you are less likely to disagree
▫ But, if even just one person disagrees (even with a
wrong answer) you are more likely to stick to your
guns and give the correct answer
▫ Collectivist cultures more likely to conform

52. Compliance
• Going along with a request for behavior
• Cialdini’s “Weapons of Influence”
1. Friendship/Liking
 Ex.) Tupperware party
1. Commitment/Consistency
 Related to cognitive dissonance
1. Scarcity
 Rare items seen as more valuable
1. Reciprocity
 Have to do something in return
1. Social Validation
 Wanting to be like others
1. Authority
 Experts know what is best

53. Social Influence Techniques
• Persuasion – Deliberate attempt to influence the attitudes or
behavior of another person in which that person has freedom
of choice
• “Foot In The Door”
▫ Small request followed by larger request
• “Door In The Face”
▫ Large, improbable request followed by a smaller request
• “That’s Not All”
▫ Based on reciprocity norm
• “Low Ball” “Bait and Switch” “Four Walls”
▫ Based on consistency/commitment

54. 7. Abnormal Psychology
• Study of universal patterns
of behavior, emotion, and
thought; which may or may
not be a precipitator for the
development of a mental
illness.
▫ Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental
Disorders, 5th
Edition

55. Prevalence of Disorders
• National Comorbidity Survey Replication (Kessler et al.,
2005)
▫ 1 of 4 Americans (26%) experienced symptoms of a disorder
in past 12 months
▫ High degree of comorbidity – people diagnosed with 1
disorder are likely to be diagnosed with another distinct
disorder
▫ 1 of 2 adults (46%) have experienced symptoms of some
disorder in their lifetime
▫ Only 59% of individuals with symptoms received treatment
 Lack of insurance
 Low income
 Rural areas
 Lack of knowledge/awareness

56. Prevalence of Disorders

57. Anxiety Disorders
• Anxiety – unpleasant emotional state
characterized by physical arousal and
feelings of tension, apprehension, and
worry
▫ Can be adaptive or maladaptive
• Maladaptive anxiety disrupts everyday
activities, moods, and thought processes
▫ Irrational
▫ Uncontrollable
▫ Disruptive
• 1 in 4 people will suffer in U.S. during
lifetime from an anxiety disorder
▫ More women than men

58. Mood Disorders
• Significant and persistent disruptions in mood
or emotions cause impaired cognitive,
behavioral, and physical functioning; aka
affective disorders
▫ Major Depressive Disorder
▫ Dysthymic Disorder
▫ Seasonal Affective Disorder
▫ Bipolar Disorder
▫ Cyclothymic Disorder

59. Schizophrenia
• Ability to function is impaired by severely distorted beliefs,
perceptions, and thought processes
• Positive Symptoms – Reflect excesses or distortions of normal
functioning
1. Delusions – Falsely held belief that persists despite compelling
contradictory evidence
 Delusions of reference – Other people’s behavior and
ordinary events are somehow personally related
 Delusions of grandeur – Person is extremely powerful,
important, or wealthy
 Delusions of persecution – Others are plotting against or
trying to harm the person or someone close
 Delusions of being controlled – Outside forces are trying to
exert control on the individual

60. Schizophrenia
2. Hallucinations – False or
distorted perception that seems
vividly real to the person experiencing it
 May be unable to distinguish delusions from reality
3. Severely disorganized thought processes, speech,
and behavior
 Over-inclusion – Jumping from one idea to another
without any logical flow
 Paralogic thinking – On surface seems logical, but
seriously flawed
 Behavior inappropriate to the situation

61. Schizophrenia
• Negative Symptoms – Reflect
defects or deficits in normal
functioning
▫ Flat affect – Person responds
without emotion and facial expressions
▫ Alogia – Greatly reduced production of speech
▫ Avolition – Inability to initiate or persist in even
simplest forms of goal-directed behaviors
 Such as dressing, bathing, or engaging in social
activities

63. Suicide
• 30,000 per year in United States
▫ For every completed, 25 people attempted
• Women 3:1 attempts, Men 4:1 in deaths
▫ Men tend to use more lethal methods
• Leading cause of death for 15-24 year-olds
• Risk Factors
▫ Feelings of hopelessness and isolation
▫ Recent relationship problems or lack of significant relationships
▫ Poor coping and problem-solving skills
▫ Poor impulse control and impaired judgment
▫ Rigid thinking or irrational beliefs
▫ A major psychological disorder
▫ Alcohol or substance abuse
▫ Childhood physical or sexual abuse
▫ Prior self-destructive behavior
▫ Family history or suicide
▫ Presence of firearm in the home

64. Helping to Prevent Suicide
• Actively listen as the person talks and vents
his/her feelings
• Don’t deny or minimize the person’s suicidal
intentions
• Identify other potential
solutions
• Ask to person to delay
his/her decision
• Encourage the person to
seek professional help

65. 8. Clinical Psychology
• An integration of science, theory, and clinical
knowledge for the purpose of understanding,
preventing, and relieving psychologically-based
distress or dysfunction.
• Also, to promote subjective well-being and
personal development.
1. Psychological Assessment
2. Psychotherapy

66. Reasons for Seeking Therapy
1. Psychological Disorders –
Troubling thoughts, feelings or
behaviors that interfere with a
person’s ability to function or
cause psychological discomfort
2. Troubled Relationships –
Parent-child conflicts, unhappy
marriage, etc.
3. Life Transitions – Death of a
loved one, dissolving marriage,
adjusting to retirement, etc.

68. Psychoanalytic Therapy
• Sigmund Freud, early 1900s
• Psychoanalysis – Techniques such as free association,
dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and
transference are used to explore repressed or
unconscious impulses, anxieties, and internal conflicts
▫ Undesirable conflicts and urges are repressed or
pushed into the unconscious
▫ Unconscious conflicts exert influence on behavior,
emotion, and interpersonal dynamics
▫ Understanding and insight into repressed conflicts
leads to recognition and resolution

69. Humanistic Therapy
• Carl Rogers (1951)
• Client-Centered Therapy – Therapist
is nondirective and reflective, and the client directs the
focus of each therapy session
▫ Emphasizes human potential, self-awareness, and
freedom of choice
▫ Clients moving towards self-actualization, the
realization of their unique potentials and talents
▫ Most important factor is an individual’s conscious,
subjective perception of the self
▫ Therapist’s role is to create the conditions that allow
the client to direct the focus of therapy

70. Rogerian Therapeutic Conditions
• Conditions that foster feelings of being psychologically
safe, accepted, and valued
• Promote trust and self-exploration
1. Genuineness – Therapist honestly and openly shares
his/her thoughts and feelings with the client
2. Unconditional Positive Regard – Must value, accept,
and care for the client no matter the problems that are
brought to therapy
▫ Removes fear of evaluation and rejection
3. Empathic Understanding – Reflecting the content and personal
meaning of the feelings being experienced by the client
▫ Active listening is important

71. Behavior Therapy
• Focuses on directly changing maladaptive
behavior patterns by using basic learning
principles and techniques
▫ Also called Behavior Modification
• Basic strategy is that of unlearning maladaptive
behaviors and replacing them with adaptive
behaviors
• Based on principles of classical conditioning,
operant conditioning, and observational learning

72. Cognitive Therapy
• Aaron Beck
• Focuses on changing the client’s unrealistic and
maladaptive beliefs
▫ Identify and change automatic negative thoughts
• Developed to treat depression
• Depressed individuals have a negative view of
the past, present, and future which leads to
development of a negative cognitive bias
▫ Arbitrary inference, selective abstraction,
overgeneralization, magnification and minimization,
personalization

73. Group Therapy
• One or more therapists
working simultaneously with
a small group of clients
• Most often found in inpatient hospitals
▫ Cost-effective
▫ Therapist can observe client’s interactions with others
▫ Support and encouragement from other group members
▫ Group members provide each other with helpful, practical advice
and serve as models
▫ Try out new behaviors in a safe and supportive environment
• Self-help groups and support groups typically conducted
by nonprofessionals

74. Family and
Couple Therapy
• Based on assumption that the
family is a system and that treats
the family as a unit
• Alter and improve ongoing interactions among family
members
• Family as a dynamic structure in which each member
plays a unique role
• Therapist observes and tries to identify unhealthy
patterns of family interaction and to replace them more
adaptive ways of interacting
• Couple therapies focus on improving communication,
reducing negative communication, and increasing
intimacy

75. 9. Forensic Psychology
• Intersection of clinical psychology and the legal
system.
• Function in the following roles.
▫ Academic researcher
▫ Consultant to law enforcement
▫ Correctional psychologist
▫ Evaluator
▫ Expert witness
▫ Treatment provider
▫ Trial consultant

76. Competency to Stand Trial
• Understanding of charges and appreciation for
possible penalties.
• Factual understanding
▫ What does the judge do? What plea options does a
defendant have? What is evidence?
• Rational understanding
▫ Ability to make well-informed, reasoned decisions
concerning one’s case.
• Appreciation of adversarial nature of legal process
• Capacity to work with an attorney
▫ Not willingness! If so, we’d have a much higher
proportion of individuals found incompetent to stand
trial.

77. Insanity
• A legal term.
• M’Naughten Rule:
▫ “It must be clearly proved that, at the time of the
committing of the act, the party accused was labouring
under such a defect of reason, from disease of the
mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act
he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not
know he was doing what was wrong.”
• Virginia also adds the irresistible impulse rule.
▫ Thought of as the “policeman at the arm” test. Was the
individual so compelled to act that he could not
control the impulse to do so?

79. Civil Commitment
• Civil commitment laws
▫ Legal declaration that determines a person is mentally
disordered and may be hospitalized, even involuntarily
▫ Such laws and definitions of mental illness vary by
state
• General criteria for civil commitment
▫ Person has a mental illness and needs treatment
▫ Person is dangerous to self or others
▫ Grave disability – inability to care for self
• Governmental authority over civil commitment
▫ Police power – health, welfare, and safety of society
▫ Parens patriae – state acts a surrogate parent

80. Civil Commitment
• Initial stages
▫ Person fails to seek help
▫ Others feel that help is needed
▫ Petition is made to a judge on the behalf of the person
▫ Individual must be notified of the commitment
process
• Subsequent stages
▫ Involve normal legal proceedings in most cases
▫ Should a person be committed?
▫ This determination is made by a judge

81. Duty To Warn
• What to do if a client
threatens to harm another
person?
• Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of
California (1974, 1976)
▫ Must warn individual in danger
• Thompson v. County of Alameda (1980)
▫ Threats must be specific
• When in doubt, consult with colleague

82. 10. Health Psychology
• Studies how biological, behavioral, and social factors
influence health, illness, medical treatment, and health-
related behaviors
▫ How to promote health-enhancing behaviors
▫ How people respond to being ill
▫ How people respond in the patient-health practitioner
relationship
▫ Why some people don’t follow medical advice
• Biopsychosocial Model – Belief that health and illness
are determined by the complex interaction of biological,
psychological, and social factors

84. Factors That Influence Health
• Two primary paths
▫ Psychological factors can influence basic
biological processes
▫ Long-standing behavior patterns may put people
at risk for disease
 AIDS is an example of both forms of influence
• Leading causes of death
in the U.S.
▫ 50% are linked to lifestyle
and behavior patterns

86. 11. Positive Psychology and Happiness
• Study of positive emotions and psychological
states, positive individual traits, and the social
institutions that foster positive individuals and
communities
• Martin Seligman
• What makes us happy?

87. Happiness
• Sonja Lyubomirsky

88. The happiest people…
• Devote a great amount of time to their family and friends
• Comfortable expressing gratitude for all they have
• Often the first to offer helping hands to coworkers and
passerbys
• Practice optimism when imagining their futures
• Savor life’s pleasures and try to live in the present
moment
• Make physical exercise a weekly and even daily habit
• Deeply committed to lifelong goals and ambitions
• Have poise and strength in the coping with stresses,
crises, and tragedies