#14078 - Introduction To Psychology - Psychology

Introduction to psychology- Lecture one

Human beings

• Biological organsisms- whose behaviour is controlled by neural systems; endocrine systems and is a product of evolution

• As players in a social setting: influenced by people around them and is determined by culture they find themselves in

• As processors of information: experience emotion

Recall is reconstructive in nature

• Loftus and Palmer 1974 – subjects view a video of two car accidents; asked what speed were the cars travelling when the collided/smashed

  • Results: Smashed leads to higher speed estimates; false memory of glass on road

Non-adherence with medical advice

• Ley 1997: Approx. 50% patients comply with medical advice but figure can drop as low as 10%

• Major cause of poor treatment outcome

  • Christensen + Moran 1998 – caused half of deaths with renal failure

• Haynes et al 1996: Improving compliance to existing treatments can be more effective than improving treatment itself

• Causes of non adherence

  • Patient’s beliefs clash with treatment

    • Some think that hypertension is seen as acute/chronic disorder; so treatment is more effective in chronic disorder believers. Important to elicit patient beliefs during consultation before giving advice

  • Forgetting advice in GP consultation- on average around 50% but can be higher even a few minutes after consultation

• Improving memory

  • Put information first and last- more likely to be remembered – this is known as the SERIAL POSITION RECALL EFFECT (Give people whole series of words and ask them to recall them, good memory for 1^st and last words)

  • Organise information into meaningful groups

    • What is wrong with you; benefits of treatment; side effects; when and what to do

    • This gives a better overall memory as people remember first and last within each group

  • Restruct information to what patient can process

  • Repeat and otherwise emphasise key information

  • Use simple words and short sentences

  • Be specific – E.g walk 20 mins/day rather than exercise more- greater behavioural compliance

  • Be calm

Medically unexplained symptoms

• Katon et al 1998: Over 40% of GP visits related to physical symptoms for which no organic cause can be identified

• Explained by multiple psychological processes that can generate perceived somatic problems

  • Mechanism 1: Concern about illness focus attention on relevant part of the body (automatic process) perceived symptoms

    • % errors Hear beat perception- Ehlers and Breur 1992

    • Most of the people who had cardiac concerns had misperception in heart beat and most of them didn’t go onto develop cardiovascular disease

  • Mechanism 2: Concern about illness check all is working perceived symptoms

• Treating people with medically unexplained symptoms

  • Appropriate physical tests followed by reassurance that there is nothing wrong helps many but if reassurance is not working, then it may be making the problem worse

  • Rather than trying to emphasise the negative physical tests, try to identify positive evidence for psychological explanation but don’t assume phsychological evidence

Pyschological debriefing

• Detailed discussion of event and expression of emotions prevent long term problems

• Until recently it was given to victims of civilian traumas and to military personnel;...