Psychology 101 Study Guide

History/Methodology

The first psychology laboratory was set up in Leipzig, Germany in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt. He's credited as the father of modern psychology and was the first person to call themselves a psychologist. As the field of psychology matured, it developed a range of metholodogies for conceptualizing the human mind.

Early Approaches

The two camps that gained favor in the early days of psychology were structuralists and functionalists.

Structuralists	Functionalists
Thought of consciousness as being composed of various components that combine to produce more complex perception.	Thought to understand consciousness by understanding the way in which consciousness helps people adapt to their environment.
Notable structuralists include: Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener, the founder of the first psychology lab in the United States.	William James is considered the founder of functionalism, but he wouldn't consider himself exclusively a functionalist or a subscriber to any one perspective of psychology.

Modern Approaches

As the years passed, more modern (and I'd say more sensible, or at least more well-rounded) perspectives have gained popular usage. These approaches don't necessarily oppose each other but rather are each more relevant in certain scenarios and areas of study.

Biological Approach	Psychodynamic Approach	Behaviorist Approach	Cognitive Approach	Humanistic Approach
Focuses on the way in which the physical workings of our genes, nervous system, hormones, and neurotransmitters influence our percieved reality.	Focuses on our natural drives and how we respond to society's restrictions upon those drives. Freud's view was that the most important of those urges were the sexual and aggressive urges.	Focuses on studying behavior in the context of learned responses to stimuli. This approach derives from the study of classical and operant conditioning, and behaviorists often work with animals as models for human behavior.	Focuses on people's responses to expectations, thoughts, feelings, etc. Cognitivists focus much of their research on problem solving, memory, and other thought processes.	Focuses on the human desire for growth and the pursuit of self-actualization. Sees humans as basically good and prioritizes positive development.

Research Methods

Because psychology is basically philosophy pretending to be a science, we have to use scientific methodology to keep up the act.

Experiments

• Experiments seek to assess cause-and-effect relationships.
• Experiments have an independent variable or "cause" that is presumed to influence the dependent variable or "effect".
• Studies split test subjects into a control group that isn't subject to the presumed cause and at least one experimental group that is.
• To control for placebo, subjects are usually assigned to groups randomly. Studies where the participants don't know which group they're in are called blind studies and studies where neither the practitioner nor the subject know which group they're in are called double blind.

Correlational Studies

• Correlational studies differ from experiments in that they don't try to control for a variable, instead choosing to study the relationship between multiple uncontrolled variables.
• A positive correlation between variables means that as one variable increases, the other variable also does. A negative correlation means that an increase in one variable decreases the other.
• A correlation coefficient is measured from 0 to 1. The closer the value is to one, the stronger the correlation is. The sign of the correlation indicates whether the correlation is positive or negative.

Surveys

• Surveys ask participants to fill out questionnaires and then use those responses to analyze.

Case Studies

• Study one person in-depth rather than a single trait of a large group.
• Tend not to be very useful for generalizing to larger populations.

Naturalistic Observation

• Study of behavior in the setting in which it naturally occurs.
• Naturalistic studies must take great care to be unobtrusive and not influence the subjects
• Agreement between observers as to what's occuring measures the interrater reliability.

Biology & Behavior

Behavioral neuroscience is the study of how your nervous system interacts with your body and how your behavior is influenced by it.

Neurons

All of your body's senses are transmitted to the brain through nerve cells called neurons. There are several different types of neurons that each have different functions.

• Afferent Neurons - Send information from your body to your brain and spinal cord.
• Efferent Neurons - Send information from your nervous system to your body.
• Association Neurons - Send information between neurons.

The efferent neurons make your body put in effort. The afferent neurons are affected by what your see and feel.

Neuron Anatomy

BruceBlaus, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Neurons consist of various parts including:

• Cell Body - The core that contains structures that sustain the cell.
• Dendrites - Fibers that recieve information from outside the cell.
• Axons - Long fibers that pass information to other cells.
• Myelin Sheath - a fatty protective layer that accelerations transmission of signals.

Signaling Process

When the cell is at its resting potential, the fluid inside an axon contains positively charged ions while the fluid outside the axon is negative. When a neuron recieves a signal, the axon's membrane depolarizes. This triggers an action potential and lets the positive ions in, creating a signal. This process continues between the string of neurons until the information reaches its intended destination. There is then a refractory period where the sodium ions leave the axon until the neuron fires again.

Neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that send messages between neurons. Neurons communicate through synapses across the gap between axons known as the synaptic gap.

These neurotransmitters are stored in vesticles within the axon terminal. After an action potential is triggered, those neurotransmitters may be sent to a receptor where it either breaks down or is absorbed into the neuron through reuptake.

Medications that influence neurotransmitters can either be agonists or antagonists.

• Agonists - Increase the amount of the neurotransmitter either by imitating it or blocking reuptake.
• Antagonists - Decrease the amount of a neurotransmitter by blocking its receptors or inhibiting its release.

Nervous System Subdivisions

The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord. These two are responsible for sending signals back and forth across your whole body. In addition this system, there are various other systems that carry out particular functions.

• Peripheral Nervous System - consists of the neurons that connect the brain and spinal cord to the rest of your body.
• Somatic Nervous System - carries sensory information from your body and communicates sensations like pain or temperature. It also carries the signals that control movement to your muscles.
• Autonomic Nervous System - handles the unconscious function of the of your various organs and glands.
• Sympathetic Nervous System - the part of the autonomic nervous system that readies you for activity. It raises heart rate, stimulates sweat, slows digestion, etc.
• Parasympathetic Nervous System - the part of the autonomic nervous system that makes you restful. It lowers heart rate, slows breathing, and generally does that opposite of the sympathetic system.

Brain Structure

• Brainstem - The oldest area of the brain. It sits where the spinal cord meets the skull and handles autonomous functions like breathing and digestion. It's subdivided into three components from bottom-to-top: the medulla oblongata, pons, and the midbrain.


OpenStax, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

• Thalamus - The region of the brain just above the brainstem. It handles touch, sight, hearing, and taste, but not smell. It acts as a hub that coordinates signals from various parts of the brain.


RAZVAN V. MARINESCU, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

• Reticular Formation - The reticular formation runs through the brainstem and thalamus. It filters stimuli and controls arousal and sleep.


Henry Vandyke Carter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• Cerebellum - is at the base of the brainstem and controls voluntary movement.


Henry Vandyke Carter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• Limbic System - connects the older parts of the brain near the brainstem to the cerebral cortex.


OpenStax College, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

• Hippocampus - Manages memories.


Images are generated by Life Science Databases(LSDB)., CC BY-SA 2.1 JP , via Wikimedia Commons

• Amygdala - controls emotions like fear and anger.


User Washington irving on en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

• Hypothalamus - regulates traits like hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.


OpenStax College, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

• Pituitary Gland - a gland that manages the release of hormones through other glands.


No machine-readable author provided. Jomegat assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

• Cerebral Cortex - Manages motor control, cognition, and sensory functions.


Blausen.com staff (2014). "Medical gallery of Blausen Medical 2014". WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2). DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.010. ISSN 2002-4436., CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

• Frontal Lobes - coordinate movement, speech, and higher-order thinking.


Polygon data were generated by Life Science Databases(LSDB)., CC BY-SA 2.1 JP , via Wikimedia Commons

• Wernicke's Area - a part of the frontal lobe that controls the ability to comprehend speech. People with damage to this area can make sounds, but not use words with meaning.


Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)[2]., CC BY-SA 2.1 JP , via Wikimedia Commons

• Broca's Area - a part of the frontal lobe that controls the ability to make sounds necessary for speech. People with damage to this area can understand speech, but not speak fluidly themselves.


Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)[2]., CC BY-SA 2.1 JP , via Wikimedia Commons

• Parietal Lobes - the area at the top of the head behind the frontal lobes. They manage the sense of touch and coordination of hands and feet.


Gray, vectorized by Mysid, coloured by was_a_bee., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

• Temporal Lobes - the area just above the ears are the temporal lobes. They manage hearing.


Polygon data were generated by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)[2]., CC BY-SA 2.1 JP , via Wikimedia Commons

• Occipital Lobes - the area at the back of the skull that manage vision.


Gray, vectorized by Mysid, colourd by was_a_bee., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sensation/Perception

Sensations are the things that we detect with our senses and send to the brain. Perception is the mental image we create of our environment from those sensations. The study of these sensations is called psychophysics.

The signal detection theory is the idea that our circumstances, experiences, motivations, and expectations influence our ability to notice a certain sensation.

The minimum amount of stimulation required for a person to percieve that stimulus is called the absolute threshold. The smallest difference in stimuli that will change one's perception is called the difference threshold or just noticeable difference.

Weber's Law is the idea that the difference threshold increases proportionally to the strength of sensation. In other words, you need a bigger change to notice a difference in intense sensations.

Sensory Adaptation is the process where we stop noticing stimulation if it doesn't change. When the nerve cells in change of sensing a stimulus sense it for a longer time, they begin to fire less often.

Feature Detectors are cells that respond to very specific features in the environment and feed that information to other cells that parse it in a more complex manner.

Depth Perception is the process by which we determine how far away things in our environment are. This is done using a combination of cues. Some cues are binocular meaning they require both eyes. One such clue is retinal disparity where objects that are further away appear similar in both eyes where closer objects are more different. Monocular cues, however, only need one eye. Linear perspective, for example, uses the distance between parallel lines to determine distance. interposition is where objects that block others appear closer.

During the development of the brain, there are critical periods where the brain develops the skill it uses to percieve the world. If a sense is not used within that critical period, it doesn't develop later on.

Perception can also be bottom-up or top-down. Bottom-up processing is where we uses our senses to conceptualize something, and top down processing is where those perceptions influence what you percieve through your senses.

Sleep

Circadian rhythm is the way in which your body functions are predictable cycles depending on the time of day. Similarly, sleep has various predictable phases. These stages have been separated based on the activity observed in the brain during an EEG scan.

• When the brain is awake and relaxed, it produces slow and regular alpha waves.
• In the first stage of sleep, the brain waves become more erratic. Your heart rate slows down, and you feel drowsiness. This is also the stage where you feel floating or falling sensations. The alpha waves are replaced with relatively slow theta waves.
• The second stage of sleep involves bursts of brain activity known as sleep spindles and k-complexes.
• The third stage of sleep consists of large, slow delta waves.
• The fourth stage of sleep continues the delta waves from stage three, but they become higher amplitude. Stages three and four together are known as slow-wave sleep.
• After stage four, the brain goes back through stages three and two before finally entering REM sleep. REM sleep is the part of sleep where our brain activity as well as our heart rate pick up. This is the stage in which most dreams happen.

Sleep Disorders

Insomnia is a disorder where one struggles to fall asleep to remain asleep. Narcolepsy is a disorder where one suddenly and uncontrollably falls asleep, often directly into REM sleep. Sleep Apnea is a disorder where one intermittently stops being able to breath while asleep and the brain must wake up slightly to get more oxygen.

Dreams

Dreams aren't well-understood, but they are closely studied and interpreted many different ways by different people. Freud saw dreams as a way for the mind to express its unconscious thoughts. These unconscious influences are called the dream's latent content while the actual events that occur in the dream are called its manifest content. Others believe the activation-synthesis theory that dreams are the result of the brain maintaining its neural connections by stimulating them, and the dreams are simply the brain's best interpretation of the random firings of neurons. Others believe the information-processing theory where a dream processes the experiences of the day and stores them as memories. Whatever the function, it seems that the brain needs that REM sleep. When you've been without REM sleep for a while and finally get some, the brain experiences "REM-rebound" or longer periods of REM sleep.

Hypnosis

Hypnosis is not a very well-understood process. People who are hypnotized are relaxed and more suggestable, but they won't usually do anything that they wouldn't already do. One theory is that hypnosis is a form of dissociation. Other say that hypnotized people are fulfilling social expectations obeying the hypnotist.

Psychoactive Substances

Psychoactive substances are anything that alters brain's consciousness when consumed. These generally consist of three types.

• Depressants - slow down bodily and neurological functions. Common depressants include alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates.
• Stimulants - accelerate bodily and neurological functions. Common stimulants include caffeine, many ADHD medications, cocaine, and even sugar.
• Psychedelics - distort perception and sensations. Common psychedelics include LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline, ayahuasca, 2cb and DMT.

Learning

Learning is traditionally divided into non-associative learning and associative learning. Non-associative learning is when repetition of a stimulus results in a change in one's response to that stimulus. When a person's reaction to a stimulus lessens in response to its repetition, that's known as habituation. The opposite process where one becomes more sensitive to the stimulus is known as sensitization. Associative learning occurs when the brain makes a connection between two stimuli or a stimuli and a response. The former is known as classical conditioning and is associated with Ivan Pavlov's famous Pavlov's dog experiment. The latter form of associative learning is known as operant conditioning and is associated with B.F. Skinner and his experiments with putting rats in "Skinner boxes".

Classical Conditioning

When people or any other animal learn via classical conditioning, they learn to associate an unconditioned stimulus and its unconditioned response with another stimulus. After successful classical conditioning, that stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus and provokes the conditioned response in the learner. In the case of Pavlov's experiment, the smell of meat is the unconditioned stimulus and salivating was the unconditioned response. By associating the ringing of a bell with the smell of meat, that bell became a conditioned stimulus that provokes the conditioned response of salivating. If a behavior learned in this manner stops being reinforced, it's unlearned in a process called extinction.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning, contrasting with classical conditioning, creates an association between a behavior and a particular response. Rather than connecting a naturally-occurring response to another stimulus, it simply associates a behavior with a response that follows it. Two types of this form of conditioning are reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is anything that increases a desired behavior and punishment is anything that decreases an undesirable behavior. Reinforcement is split into positive reinforcement where an enjoyable stimulus is given in response to a desired behavior, and negative reinforcement involves removing a negative stimulus in response to a desired behavior. Punishment is not divided in this way although "negative punishment" is sometimes called cost-response training.

In addition to the varying types of reinforcement/punishment, the effect of these methods also changes depending on when the consequence occurs. These time intervals are known as reinforcement schedules. A ratio schedule is when the number of occurrences of a behavior determines the number of times the consequence occurs. An interval schedule is when the reinforcement is provided at set intervals. These two schedules can also be fixed or variable. Behaviors learned in this manner also risk extinction, but the behavior simply returns to the baseline level it was at prior to the conditioning rather than disappearing completely.

Cognition

Cognition is the set of mental processes that power perception and problem solving. One method by which people problem solve and make decisions is through heuristics: mental rules that allow you to estimate likelihood based on other experiences. One such heuristic is the availability heuristic where we estimate the likelihood of an event based on how readily we can remember a similar event occurring. Another is the representative heuristic where we estimate something about a future event by comparing how representative it is of/how similar it is to another event. Eg. we decide how much we want to see a movie based on how similar it appears to be to movies that you've previously enjoyed. Neither of these processes perfectly predict the outcome, but they certainly provide better odds than guessing at random. These processes are subject to mistakes such as confirmation bias where people are more likely to notice factors that support their pre-existing perspective.

Speech

Speech is a form of cognition that solves the problem of communication: how do I get an idea from my brain into another. To do this, we use structural rules in the form of grammar. Some of these rules are semantics: the rules by which we map morphemes (words and sounds) to their meanings and syntax: the rules by which we combine and transform morphemes.

During the brain's development, there are various stages that people go through when developing their ability to speak. The earliest stage is known as the babbling stage and it typically begins between 4 and 6 months of age. They practice making the sounds that they hear others around them using for speech, and therefore develop the ability to form the sounds that will eventually make up their native language. They also develop the ability to recognize sounds as not being part of their language, and therefore they produce those sounds less often.

Following the babbling stage, babies reach the one-word stage. This occurs at about 1 year of age and is when the baby begins using simple words to communicate their needs, desires, or thoughts. They cannot yet make use of more complex grammar rules and structure sentences, but they know the meaning of words and use them in conjunction with gestures. This gesturing is known as telegraphic speech and is also typical of the third stage of speech development: the two-word stage. During the two-word stage, children primarily use simple noun-verb or adjective-noun sentences such as "dada help" or "mama pretty".

Behaviorists like Skinner attempt to explain language acquistion in terms of operant conditioning where babies learn to speak because they learn that producing the right sound can result in them getting their needs met, however, this view is reductive and doesn't account for the incredibly speed at which children learn to speak or the ways in which children bend the rules of language in ways that they have never had modelled to them. Other theories include that children use their brain's capacity for statistical analysis to figure out the context in which words should be used; or Noam Chomsky's theory that the brain has a universal "language acquistion device" that drives us to comprehend and make use of langauge in similar ways across all cultures.

Memory

Memory is another major facet of cognition that allows for the previously mentioned ones by storing the words that we use for speech and the experiences that we use for heuristic problem-solving. Memory can be divided into three main forms.

• Sensory Memory - the memory that stores the information that is currently being detected by your senses and used to form your perception of the present moment.
• Short-Term/Working Memory - the memory that stores information that is currently relevant for solving problems/making decisions, but is then discarded once it's no longer useful.
• Long-Term Memory - the memory that stores information for longer periods.

In addition to different forms of memory, there are also various processes we use to process information and manage how it's stored in memory. These strategies are known as mnemonic strategies. One example is chunking where you group information to aid recall: combining words into acronymns (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Eerie, Superior -> HOMES) or storing sets of numbers as one representative number (2, 0, 5, 0, 0 -> the postal code 20500). Another method is rehearsal where information is repeated to strengthen its presence in your memory.

Intelligence

Intelligence can be thought of as how well one solves problems. Major questions in the study of intelligence include how and why people differ in their problem-solving ability, what form(s) intelligence takes, and how these abilities can be measured and used to predict other factors.

The earliest general intelligence test was developed in 1905 by Alfred Binet. These tests were developed based on the subjects taught in French schools and compared the test-taker's score to that of the average score for a certain age. If a person scores the same on the test as an average 13-year-old, for example, their mental age was consdiered to be 13. This was modified by German psychologist William Stern who created the IQ (intelligence quotient) measure. This test has developed over the period since its inception into the modern IQ test.

After the development of the standardized intelligence test, the idea that intelligence could be represented as a single figure was called into question. Today, intelligence is split into many separate components. The ability to interact well with others, for example, is considered an aspect of interpersonal intelligence whereas the ability to do math well is considered an aspect of analytical intelligence.

The primary debate in explaining variance in intelligence is the question of nature vs. nurture. To what degree intelligence is something inherent that you're born with, and to what degree the environment you develop in influences your intelligence. It's generally accepted that both have some influence on problem-solving ability, but the question is the degree of influence each has and what the nature of this interaction is.

Emotion

Emotions are the way that we feel in response to our environment and drives for us to solve our needs. Some emotions are basic, primal emotions, such as fear, love, joy, sadness, etc. Fear, for example, helps us survive making us avoid situations that make us scared. All emotions are either these basic emotions, combinations of those emotions, or more complex, learned feelings. Emotions also illicit a physiological response, such as a change in heart rate, a behavioral expression, the way that one acts in response to feeling an emotion, and a conscious experience of the feeling.

There are multiple theories that seek to explain the way we feel. One example, the Cannon-Bard Theory states that a stimulus that causes an emotion is sent simultaneously to the sympathetic nervous system that drives arousal and the central nervous system that processes the emotion itself. Another theory is the James-Lange Theory which states that the stimulus causes some sort of physiological arousal in the body which then causes the emotion itself. A third theory is the Two-Factor Theory which states that the way we label physiological arousal characterizes the emotion. This is consistent with the idea of excitation transfer where people who are physically aroused by some means, such as exercise, are more likely to respond angrily when insulted than those at a physiological "rest".

Motivation

Motivation is the process that directs our behavior and how we use our time. Motivation is both the thing that activates a behavior and directs it toward a desire or need. Different factors drive motivation. Some motivating factors are innate/biological: hunger, thirst, desire to reproduce. Others are social: relationships, achievements, self-image, etc.

Hunger

Hunger is the drive that pushes us to get the food that contains sugars and other nutrients that our bodies need to function. One influence on our perception of hungeris the level of glucose in our bloodstream. We tend to feel hungry when glucose levels are low and not when they're high. High glucose levels trigger the release of insulin which converts the glucose into fat and stores it outside of the bloodstream. Whether the sensation of hunger is provoked by the low glucose itself, the high levels of insulin, or the combination of the two is unclear.

One part of the brain which influences one's hunger level is the ventromedial hypothalamus, the lower-middle part of the hypothalamus. Activity in the ventromedial hypothalamus suppresses hunger. If it malfunctions, one cannot regulate hunger and will eat even if full. The lateral hypothalamus, or the sides of the hypothalamus, on the other hand, stimulate hunger. Stimulation to the lateral hypothalamus makes one feel hungry, and a malfunctioning lateral hypothalamus can make even starving animals not eat.

Another factor that influences hunger is weight. Everyone has an individual set point that their body wants to weigh. If you're below this point, your body becomes hungry more and burns fewer calories. If you're above this point, your body lessens your hunger and burns more calories.

In addition to biological factors, psychological and cultural/social influences also affect how one eats. Eating disorders such as bulimia, where one intentially throws up food they've eaten to reduce caloric intake, and anorexia, where one avoids eating to keep weight down, tend to stem from the desire to be thinner to meet societal pressures and standards of beauty.

Finally, hunger is triggered by different stimuli for different people. Externals are those who use external factors like the smell of food or the time of day to manage their eating, whereas internals use internal factors like hunger to manage eating. Externals are much more likely to diet and worry about their weight.

Development

The study of development analyzes the stages that people go through as their brain develops and they experience life.

Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Piaget's theory of cognitive development analyzes the stages which children go through as their brain and problem-solving ability develop. Piaget conceptualizes this development as four stages: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational. The sensorimotor stage consists of the first two years of life where a baby develops object permanence and learns how to interact with its environment based on sensory information. The pre-operational stage is the period from 2-6 years of age where the child understands object permanence and uses language/symbolic thought, but don't understand conservation (the idea that some quantitative aspects of objects remain the same despite a change in appearance) and are highly egocentric as they can't comprehend other peoples' perspectives. The concrete operational stage is typical between the ages of 6-12. During this stage, a child develops conservation and learns how to make better use of logical rules to solve concrete problems. Finally, the formal operational stage is typically defined as 12-years-old and beyond, and it's characterized by the development of abstract, hypothetical thought.

According to Piaget, children's perception of their environment is driven by disequilibrium. Children form a conception of the world, and when they see something that clashes with that understanding, they adapt and learn to make that experience fit into their conception. The ideas that children have about their environment are called schemes. Fitting an experience into an existing scheme is called assimilation whereas expanding your scheme to fit a new experience that clashes with it is called accommodation.

Erikson's Theory of Psycho-Social Development

In addition to the development of one's problem-solving abilities, people also develop in their morality and social skills. One theory that deals with this process is Erikson's Theory of Psycho-Social Development. His theory posits that conflict is necessary for change. As people go through life, they go through eight crises that characterize a stage of moral development. The earlier crises center on the conflict between initiative and guilt. Children have desires and needs that they are learning how to meet as well as abilities that they're learning how to use. As they develop their initiative, they become more able to make and execute plans. When that initiative clashes with the desires of those around them, they instill guilt in the child. How the child resolves the conflict between initiative and guilt is the driving factor behind the early years of their development. In the later stages, the crises center on internal conflicts. Initiative and guilt are replaced by generativity, the desire to make positive use of their wisdom, experience, etc, and stagnation, where one focuses on taking care of their own deteriorating faculties.

Erikson's Stages of Psycho-Social Development

• Trust vs. Mistrust - this first stage occurs in the first year of the baby's life. They learn from their environment, such as their family, whether others can be trusted. Can they depend on others or do they have to rely upon themselves.
• Autonomy vs. Doubt - this second stage occurs between the ages of 1 and 3. The child realizes that they have free will and has to figure out how they're able/allowed to make use of it.
• Initiative vs. Guilt - this third stage occurs between the ages of 3 and 5. The child begins to develop more of a personality and the ability to set goals. They then have to determine whether that's encouraged.
• Industry vs. Inferiority - this fourth stage occurs between the ages of 6 and 11. The child's ability to reason expands and they like to accomplish things. Whether they're praised for this or discouraged influences their relationship to success.
• Identity vs. Role - this fifth stage occurs between the ages of 12 and 18. The child has developed an identity at this point and has to process how that identity corresponds to roles and expectations that are forced upon them.
• Intimacy vs. Isolation - this sixth stage occurs between the ages of 18 and 35. The person is now an adult and form new relationships. The crises centers on whether they're willing/able to share themselves with others or whether they keep to themselves.
• Generativity vs. Stagnation - this seventh stage occurs between the ages of 36 and 55. The person has finished their young adulthood and, if they had a family, their kids are now likely out of the house. The person then must determine how to fill their time.
• Integrity vs. Dispair - this eigth stage occurs after the age of 55. The person is now approaching the end of their life and they must look back on their past experiences. Are they satisfied with how they lived? How do they use their remaining time? Are they afraid of the end or do they accept their fate?

Personality

Three branches within the study of personality include the Psychoanalytic Approach, the Socio-Cognitive Approach, and the Humanistic Approach. Psychoanalytic approaches are based on the idea that people's behavior is motivated by unconscious needs and our personalities are determined by the way in which we respond to those unconscious desire. The socio-cognitive approach instead focuses on understanding personality in the context of people's cognition of themselves and their environment. The humanistic approach, finally, posits that each person is basically good and has a unique form of self-actualization that they are trying to reach.

Psychoanalytic Approach

Many psychologists, including Freud, Jung, and Erikson, fall under the psychoanalyst umbrella, but Freud was the first person associated with this approach. His theory includes two fundamental driving needs: sex (in this context meaning any pleasurable bodily function) and aggression. In society, these drives are suppressed in some form from the moment one is born. Personality develops as children navigate meeting these basic needs while also appeasing society or, more specifically, their parents.

Freud's theory conceptualizes the personality that develops under these conditions in three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the basic, biological component of the personality and the one that is most strongly associated to the basic sexual and aggressive needs. The id operates on the pleasure principle: if it feels good, it is good, and you should do it. The ego, on the other hand, is the rational component of our personalities. It operates on the reality principle: do whatever will get your needs met most effectively given your situation/environment. Included in this environment are the rules and beliefs that our society and our family impose on us. These rules become the basis for the superego, the social part of our personality. It operates on the morality principle and commands us to not do immoral things. When these components are in conflict, it creates tension or anxiety and forces us to deal with it in some way. This can take the form of things like phobias, intense fears of objects that, according to Freud's theory, represent deep-seated desires that we can't allow ourselves to have.

Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development.

• Oral Stage - this first stage occurs in the first two years of the baby's life. During this period, most of the baby's pleasure and conflict are centered around the mouth. Children have to deal with teeth coming in and with waiting on parents to feed them. This tension is needed to develop the ego, but it can also be too much or too little. Too little tension will cause the child's ego to remain underdeveloped. Too much tension will cause compulsions that aim to meet their needs or avoid anxiety about not getting those needs meant. These scenarios can result in oral fixation where the individual uses things like chewing gum to meet their oral needs.
• Anal Stage - this second stage occurs between the ages of 2 and 4. This is when the child conflicts with their parents over toilet training. The child may endure tension by having to resist defecating or by sacrificing the pleasure of release by going to the toilet before they feel a need to. As with the oral stage, too much or too little tension can result in a fixation, but these fixations come in two forms. Anal retentive people delay pleasure and need everything to be in order. Anal expulsive people, on the other hand, are pleasure-seaking and impulsive.
• Phallic Stage - this third stage occurs after the age of 4. This stage is defined differently for boys and girls. Boys feel an attraction towards their mom, but their mom has their dad, so the child sees the dad as competition. According to Freud's theory, this provokes castration anxiety where the boy fears that dad will take away his penis.

Humanistic Approach

The humanistic approach sees humans as basically good and prioritizes people being able to express their true nature. One example of this is Carl Rogers' self theory or person-centered theory. He describes the personality in terms of the true self, self-concept, and ideal self. The true self is the person who we generally are; The self-concept is how we think of ourselves; The ideal self is the person we want to be. We feel distress when these personality parts are in conflict, and these issues are resolved through self-actualization. When people, particularly parents, impose conditions of worth on people, they must repress their true self to meet them. Instead, children should be offered unconditional positive regard so they can develop self-esteem.

Social-Cognitive Approach

The social cognitive approach attempts ot understand personality in terms of cognition or the way people think about themselves and the world around them. An important aspect of this approach is the idea of reciprocal determinism or the idea that people's conceptions, behaviors, and environment all interact to determine behavior.

Individual Difference Approach

The individual difference approach focuses on measuring many specific ways people differ rather than creating one overarching model. The Big Five/OCEAN traits: Openness, Conscientousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism; are the most commonly discussed with this model.