Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Organizations

PSYC 100 Answer sheet for Multiple Choice
1 _D
2 _B
3 _B
4_C
5_C
6_B
7_B
8_B
9_D
10_A

11_B
12_A
13_D
14_B
15_D

16_B
17_D
18_D
19_A
20_C

21_D
22_D

23_B
24_B
25_C
26_D
27_D
28_C
29_B

30_D
31_C
32_D
33_B
34_B
35_A
36_B
37_D
38_C
39_B
40_D

Describe what is meant by a personality disorder. Discuss several issues complicating the diagnosis of personality disorders.

Personality disorder is a condition in which an individual manifests significant difference from the average person, in terms of how one perceives, thinks, relates, or feels about others. Usually, the disorder depicts itself in various ways, some in which the individual feels overwhelmed by negative feelings including anxiety, distress, angers, and worthlessness (Stangor, 2009). Additionally, one might avoid other people and get engulfed with feelings of emptiness, and disconnectedness.

Apart from the above symptoms, a victim of personality disorder may also have difficulties managing trying situations without the possibility of harming oneself; the victim also has real difficulty maintaining relationships, and ultimately loses contact with people.

Currently, there are several diagnostic problems associated with the personality disorder. For instance, the current DSM diagnostic system uses a categorical approach against a dimensional approach to carry out the diagnosis; it does not account for the relative significance of the individual symptoms, and the kind of description given to each system is adversely broad; and the DSM has also manifested a high degree of co-occurrence of the second axis personality disorders with one another, as well as the first axis mental disorders.

Briefly describe the nature and the objectives of community mental health services. Distinguish among primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention programs. Provide a concrete example of each.

Mental health services are usually geared towards patients with mental disorders and related illnesses. Their primary goal is to help people with mental illnesses to lead productive lifestyles, and also to promote mental health through advocacy, service, and education (Hall et al, 2013). In this regard, mental health services are meant to be based on sound knowledge of therapies as well as of individualized needs of patients and family members. Another objective asserts that services would always incorporate the participation of the patient and family members, and these services would be based respect consumer dignity and secrecy.

The primary prevention program usually targets at preventing healthy people from experiencing or developing a disease through provision of good nutrition, education, immunization, and control of potential health hazards. An example of this level of prevention is where practitioners conduct awareness trainings on the importance of the seatbelt and helmets. Secondary prevention comes in after an illness or an adverse risk factor has been diagnosed. Here, the primary goal is to bring a ceasefire to the ongoing risk, or substantially slow its spread especially in its earliest stages. An example is where people are urged to take low-dose aspirin daily to prevent a second stroke or heart attack.

Lastly, the tertiary prevention level focuses on helping people who have been diagnosed with a health condition or risk to manage such problems, especially when they are long-term such as diabetes (Hall et al, 2013). An example is the stroke rehabilitation program to which people diagnosed with such a condition are usually subjected.

Choose a behavior that you would like to modify or change using the principles of operant conditioning. Be sure to use and explain the following terms: operant conditioning, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, schedules of reinforcement, shaping, and extinction.

Operant conditioning can be used in almost all life aspects to impart the required change. In this case, the behavior of students talking and laughing in class inappropriately is subjected to the process of operant conditioning in order to correct the condition. In this case, it is appropriate for a teacher to apply both positive and negative reinforcement (Starling, Branson, Cody, & McGreevy, 2013).

Positive reinforcement refers to the use of reinforcing stimuli following a certain behavior in order to increase the likelihood of a behavior occurring in the future. Thus, when students talk when they are asked a question by the teacher, the latter would reward or give a positive comment. On the other hand, negative reinforcement involves using an aversive stimulus to stop a negative behavior. For instance, the teacher would decide to punish the person found talking without permission.

In the administering of the different kinds of reinforcement, the teacher would create a definite schedule for the reinforcement, so that uniform results are achieved with regards to the shaping of the students behaviors. Punishment refers to is an imposition of an undesirable act upon an individual or a group of people following a behavior that is considered to be deviant. When the schedules of reinforcement are followed strictly, the overall result of the operant conditioning would lead to the extinction of the undesirable behavior (Starling et al, 2013).

David’s history teacher asked him why many German people complied with Hitler’s orders to systematically slaughter a large number of innocent Jews. David suggested that the atrocities were committed because the Germans had become unusually cruel, sadistic people with abnormal and twisted personalities. Use your knowledge of the fundamental attribution error and Milgram’s research on obedience to highlight the weaknesses of David’s explanation.

David’s explanation manifests obvious bias and errors that are highlighted in psychological studies, especially according to the fundamental attribution error and Milgram’s theory on Obedience. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency that people manifest to overestimate the effect of personality or disposition, and underestimate the impact of the current situation in explaining the pattern of a social behavior (Gawronski, 2004). It usually emerges strongly when people try to explain the behavior of others. According to this error, David is an unmistakable victim, trying to attribute the aggressive and inhuman behavior of Hitler’s subjects to the directive of their leader, rather than alluding it to the country’s situation at that time. It is more logical to explain that the Germans were responding to the heat of the moment and going on a retaliatory attack instead of making it look like they were being obedient to Hitler’s orders.

On the other hand, Milgram’s experiment reveals shocking results regarding people’s obedience to an authoritative order or declaration (Stangor, 2009). Usually, people carry out heinous crimes simply in the name of following orders. It is not easy to determine the logic of such deeds, but all human beings manifest a very high tendency to follow orders from authoritative figures regardless of their nature (Gawronski, 2004).

These two schools of thought reveal that David was wrong in blankly claiming that the Germans had become inconsiderate, cruel, and sadistic people to commit such heinous acts. The pattern of obedience to authority shows an unmistakable positive response to orders that may be considered demeaning and largely inhuman.

Imagine that you were involved in a legal case in which an eyewitness claimed that he has seen a person commit a crime. Based on your knowledge about memory and cognition, discuss some of the problems of eyewitness accounts.

Eyewitness testimony is a legal term that refers to an account given by people that have witnessed an event occurring. Although juries pay very close attention to such accounts, there are several problems associated with it. Particularly, research has identified that it can be affected by different psychological factors including reconstructive memory, anxiety/stress, leading questions, and weapon focus (Clifford & Scott, 1978).

Anxiety is usually associated with crimes or violence in real life. When an individual witnesses a violent scenario, the events of that occurrence rarely escape from their memory. The only weakness of this correlation is that the proximity of a witness to the scene of violent crime affects the accuracy of information or eye-witness account given a few periods later. Secondly, reconstructive memory theory suggests that memory of human beings does not work like a typical tape recorder; but people store information differently from how it is presented. It therefore means that information undergoes reconstruction or distortion such that eyewitness accounts are not entirely reliable (Clifford & Scott, 1978).

Moreover, a witness can entirely focus on a weapon used in a violent crime at the expense of other finer details of the crime. Thus, in such crimes that involve the use of weapons, cognition of eyewitnesses is biased and affected.

Choose one person from the following list whom you feel played an important role in the history of psychology: Freud, Pavlov, Skinner, Maslow, or Piaget. Describe what that person did, the approximate time that this person lived, what makes their contribution important, and criticisms of their work or theoretical position.

Abraham Maslow is a renowned researcher or psychologist who invented the popular ‘Hierarchy of Needs’. This pyramid has been used in various aspects of life to explain the pattern of motivation for individuals to seek higher status in life. He posits that human actions are motivated by the need to achieve certain needs, presented from the most basic to the most luxurious. Maslow proposed five levels of needs including physiological, security, social, esteem, and self-actualizing needs. Once an individual achieves one level, there is a greater motivation to achieve the next (Hoffman, 2008).

Maslow lived for approximately 62 years, having been born in 1908 and dying in mid-1970. He stressed the importance of centering on the positive qualities of people. His work has greatly impacted all segments of life since it spans across all fields that need motivation to succeed.

However, Maslow’s ideas have faced strong criticisms for their obvious lack of scientific backing and rigor. American empiricists referred to him as “too soft”. Lately, Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and Christina Sommers, a social critic have downplayed his work for lack of empirical backing. They assert that Maslow’s ideas have fallen out of fashion and can no longer be applicable in the current academic world of psychology (Hoffman, 2008). The Hierarchy of Needs has been said to manifest cultural bias, being more aligned to western ideologies and values.

References

Clifford, B.R. and Scott, J. (1978). Individual and situational factors in eyewitness memory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 63, 352-359.

Gawronski, Bertram (2004). “Theory-based bias correction in dispositional inference: The fundamental attribution error is dead, long live the correspondence bias”. European Review of Social Psychology 15 (1): 183–217.

Hall, C. L., Newell, K., Taylor, J., Sayal, K., Swift, K. D., & Hollis, C. (2013). ‘Mind the gap’ – mapping services for young people with ADHD transitioning from child to adult mental health services. BMC Psychiatry, 13(1), 1-8

Hoffman, E (2008). “Abraham Maslow: A Biographer’s Reflection”. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48(4), 439-443. Retrieved December 4, 2011.

Kernberg, O. F., & Yeomans, F. E. (2013). Borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder: Practical differential diagnosis. Bulletin Of The Menninger Clinic, 77(1), 1-22.

Stangor C. (2009). Introduction to Psychology. Publisher: Flat World Knowledge, L.L.C.

Starling, M. J., Branson, N., Cody, D., & McGreevy, P. D. (2013). Conceptualising the Impact of Arousal and Affective State on Training Outcomes of Operant Conditioning. Animals (2076-2615), 3(2), 300-317.