Chapter 14: Social Psychology

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Chapter 14 Social Psychology

• Michael L. Farris
• Psychology 101

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Did you know that

• Revealing too much about yourself when first
  meeting someone can convey a negative impression?
  (Nevid, p.482)
• People tend to believe that attractive people
  have more desirable personality traits than
  unattractive people? (Nevid, p.492)
• At least thirty-eight people in a quiet urban
  neighborhood heard the screams of a woman who was
  viciously attacked by a knife-wielding assailant
  but did nothing? (Nevid, p.494)
• Most people who participated in a famous but
  controversial study administered what they
  believed to be painful and dangerous electric
  shocks to other people when instructed to do so
  by the experimenter? (Nevid, p.507)

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Why First Impressions Count So Much

• Personal disclosure We generally form more
  favorable impressions of people who are willing
  to disclose personal information about
  themselves, but revealing too much too soon can
  lead to a negative impression.
• People who disclose too much about themselves in
  the first stages of a social relationship tend to
  be perceived as less secure, less mature, and
  more poorly adjusted than those who are more
  restrained regarding what they say about
  themselves.
• Cultural differences also come into play in
  determining how much disclosure is deemed
  acceptable. People in East Asian societies, such
  as China and Japan, tend to disclose less about
  themselves than people in the West.
• Nevid, p.482.

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Why Early Impressions are Hard to Break

• An impression is a type of social schema, a
  mental image or representation we use to
  understand our social environment.
• We filter information about others through these
  schemas.
• One reason that first impressions tend to be
  long-lasting is that we filter new information
  about people through the earlier impressions or
  social schemas we formed about them. So if
  someone about whom we hold a favorable impression
  (schema) does something to upset us, were more
  likely to look for extenuating factors that
  explain the persons behavior (He must be having
  a bad day) than to alter our existing
  impression.
• On the other hand, when we hold a negative
  impression of someone, were more likely to
  ignore or explain away any positive information
  we receive about that person.
• Nevid, p.483.

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

• Self-fulfilling prophecy An expectation that
  helps bring about the outcome that is expected.
  For example If you form an impression of someone
  as being unfriendly, this belief can become a
  type of self-fulfilling prophecy if it leads you
  to be defensive and hostile when dealing with
  this person, and they respond to you in an
  unfriendly way.
• Teachers who expect students to do poorly may
  convey their lower expectations to their
  students. Expecting less of themselves, the
  students may apply less than their best efforts,
  leading them to under-perform, just as the
  teacher expected.
• Nevid, p.484.

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Attributions

• An attribution is an assumption about the causes
  of behavior or events. When interpreting our
  social world, seek to understand the underlying
  causes of events we observe. We tend to explain
  these events by attributing them to either
  dispositional causes (internal) or situational
  causes (external).
• Dispositional causes are internal factors, such
  as internal traits, needs, or personal choices of
  the person (actor).
• Situational causes are external or environmental
  factors, such as pressures or demands imposed
  upon the actor.
• Why is the pizza guy late?
• Nevid, p.484.

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Attributions

• The fundamental attribution error is a term that
  social psychologists use to describe the tendency
  to attribute behavior to internal causes, such as
  traits like intelligence or laziness, without
  regard to the situational influences that may be
  involved.
• People tend to overlook the situational
  influences when explaining other peoples
  behavior. If the pizza guy is late and you are
  waiting, you are more likely to assume that he is
  lazy or unmotivated (theoretically). If you ARE
  the pizza guy and youre late, you are more
  likely to blame external factors, like traffic or
  the weather. This tendency to blame outside
  factors for our own misfortunes, yet blame the
  person when it happens to someone else is called
  the actor-observer effect.
• Nevid, p.484.

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Attributes

• A specific type of attributional bias occurring
  in performance situations is the self-serving
  bias.
• This is the tendency to attribute personal
  successes to internal or dispositional causes and
  personal failures to external or situational
  causes.
• In other words, people tend to take credit for
  their successes but to disclaim responsibility
  for their failures.
• If you achieve a good grade on an exam, you are
  likely to attribute it to your ability or talent
  (an internal attribution).
• Yet you are likely to attribute (blame) a poor
  grade to an external cause beyond your control,
  such as too little time to study or unfair
  questions on the exam.
• Self-serving biases serve to enhance our
  self-esteem.
• Nevid, p.485.

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Cognitive Dissonance

• According to cognitive dissonance theory,
  inconsistencies between attitudes and behavior
  lead to a state of dissonance, or emotional
  discomfort. People are motivated to reconcile
  discrepancies between their behavior and their
  cognitions.
• For example, smokers who believe that smoking
  causes cancer but continue to smoke may reduce
  cognitive dissonance by altering their behavior
  (quitting smoking), altering their belief
  (adopting the belief that smoking isnt really
  all that harmful), or using a form of
  rationalization to explain away the inconsistency
  (cancer doesnt run in my family).
• Perhaps the most common way of reducing
  dissonance is not to change either beliefs or
  behavior, but simply to ignore inconsistencies
  until they fade away (Ill worry about my
  smoking when I get older).
• Nevid, p.487.

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Persuasion

• Nevid, p.488

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Sleep

• Each one of us will spend about 25 years of life
  asleep.
• Contrary to common belief, people are not totally
  unresponsive during sleep!
• Studies show that you are more likely to awaken
  if you hear your own name spoken, instead of
  another.
• A sleeping mother may ignore a jet thundering
  overhead, but wake at the slightest whimper of
  her child. P.127.

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Sleep

• Some people can even do simple tasks while asleep
  (like attend class)!
• Just Kidding
• In one experiment, people learned to avoid an
  electric shock by touching a switch after a tone
  sounded.
• Eventually, they could do it without waking.
• This is much like the basic survival skill of
  turning off your alarm clock without waking.
• Of course, sleep does impose some limitations.
  There is no evidence that you can learn math, a
  foreign language, or other complex skills while
  asleep, especially when the snooze takes place in
  class (Coon, p.228).

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The Need for Sleep

• Sleep is an innate biological rhythm (natural
  bodily cycle), so it can never be entirely
  sidestepped (Coon, p.228).
• Sleep will give way temporarily, especially
  during times of great danger. However, there are
  limits to how long humans can go without
  sleeping.
• A rare disease that prevents sleep always ends
  the same way The patient falls into a stupor,
  followed by coma, followed by death (Oliwenstein,
  1993).

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Microsleeps

• In various studies, animals have been placed on
  moving treadmills over pools of water. This is
  not a good way to get to sleep. Even so, sleep
  always wins.
• The animals soon begin to drift into repeated
  microsleeps (a brief shift in brain activity to
  patterns normally recorded during sleep).
• When you drive, remember that a microsleep can
  lead to a macro accident. Even a driver whose
  eyes are open can be asleep for a few seconds.
  Roughly 2 out of every 100 highway crashes are
  caused by sleepiness (Coon, p. 228).
• If you are struggling to stay awake while
  driving, you should stop, quit fighting it, and
  take a short nap. Tests show that coffee helps,
  too.

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Sleep Deprivation

• How long can a person go without sleep?
• With few exceptions, 4 days or more without sleep
  becomes intolerable, but longer sleepless periods
  are possible.
• The world record is held by Randy Gardner, who at
  age 17 went 268 hours (11 days) without sleep.
• Surprisingly, Randy needed only 14 hours of sleep
  to recover.
• It is not necessary to completely replace lost
  sleep. As Randy found, most symptoms of sleep
  deprivation (sleep loss) are reversed by a single
  nights rest.

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Effects of Sleep Loss

• What are the costs of sleep loss? Age and
  personality make a big difference (Coon, p.228).
  Randy Gardner remained clear-headed to the end of
  his vigil. DJ Peter Tripps behavior became
  quite bizarre (remember the coat of fuzzy
  worms?).
• In general, people show little impairment on
  complex mental tasks after 2 or 3 days without
  sleep. But most do decline in their ability to
  pay attention. Staying alert and following
  simple routines becomes very difficult.
• As sleep expert Wilse Webb says, Its not your
  thinking or memory that goes, its your will to
  continue you would prefer to be asleep.
• For a driver, pilot, or machine operator, this
  may be enough to spell disaster.

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Effects of Sleep Loss

• It is not necessary to completely go without
  sleep to feel the effects of sleep loss.
• One third of all adults and most college students
  get too little sleep every night.
• Even this partial sleep deprivation leaves many
  people exhausted, groggy, and unproductive by
  midday.
• Just one hour of lost sleep can affect mood,
  memory, and the ability to pay attention (Coon,
  p.229).

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Determining Your Optimal Sleep Needs

• How can I tell how much sleep I really need?
• Pick a day when you feel rested. Then sleep that
  night until you wake the next morning without an
  alarm clock.
• If you feel rested when you wake up, thats your
  natural sleep need.
• If youre sleeping fewer hours than you need, you
  are building up a sleep debt every day.

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Sleep Deprivation Psychosis

• Severe sleep loss sometimes causes a temporary
  sleep deprivation psychosis like DJ Peter Tripp
  suffered.
• Confusion, disorientation, delusions, and
  hallucinations are typical of this reaction.
• Hallucinations may be visual, like Tripps coat
  of furry worms, or tactile, such as feeling
  cobwebs on the face.
• Fortunately, such crazy behavior is not common.
• Hallucinations and delusions rarely appear before
  60 hours of wakefulness.
• The most typical reactions to sleep loss are
  trembling hands, drooping eyelids, inattention,
  staring, increased pain sensitivity, and general
  discomfort.

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Circadian Rhythms

• Circa (about) diem (a day).
• Circadian rhythms (p.129) are cyclical changes in
  body functions and arousal that vary on a 24 hour
  schedule.
• Every 24 hours your body undergoes a marked cycle
  of changes called circadian rhythms.
• During the day, large changes take place in body
  temperature, blood pressure, amino acid levels,
  hormones, and other bodily processes.

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Circadian Rhythms

• These changes peak sometime each day. For
  example, output of the hormone adrenaline, which
  causes general arousal, is 3 to 5 times greater
  during the day.
• Most people are more energetic, alert, and in a
  better mood at the high point of their circadian
  rhythms.
• Differences in such peaks are so basic that when
  a day person rooms with a night person, both
  tend to give their relationship a negative rating
  (p.229). This is easy to understand what could
  be worse than having someone bouncing around
  cheerily when youre half asleep, or the reverse?
• Rhythms of sleep and waking are so steady that
  they continue for many days, even when clocks and
  light-dark cycles are removed.
• However, under such conditions, humans eventually
  shift to a sleep-waking cycle that averages 25
  hours, not 24. This suggests that external time
  markers, especially light and dark, help tie our
  sleep rhythms to a normal 24 hour day.
  Otherwise, many of us would drift into our own
  unusual sleep cycles.

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Circadian Rhythms

• Core body temperature is a good indicator of a
  persons circadian rhythms (p. 129).
• Most people reach a low point 2-3 hours before
  their normal waking time.
• Both the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear
  power plant accidents occurred around 4 A.M.
  Might circadian rhythms have played a role in
  human error?
• Rapid travel to a different time zone, shift
  work, depression, and illness can throw sleep and
  waking patterns out of synchronization with the
  bodys core rhythm. Mismatches of this kind are
  very disruptive.

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Sleep Patterns

• What is the normal range of sleep?
• A few individuals can get by on only an hour or
  so of sleep a night, and feel perfectly fine.
  However, this is rare.
• Only 8 of the population are short sleepers,
  averaging 5 hours of sleep or less per night.
• On the other end of the scale we find long
  sleepers, who doze 9 hours or more and tend to be
  daytime worriers.
• The majority of us sleep on a familiar 7 to 8
  hour per night schedule.
• Urging everyone to sleep 8 hours would be like
  advising everyone to wear medium size shoes.
  Some need more or less sleep than the average
  person.

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Shift Work and Jet Lag

• Jet Lag (p.129) Disturbed body rhythms caused by
  rapid travel to a different time zone.
• Basically, the peaks and valleys of a travelers
  circadian rhythms are out of phase with the sun
  and clocks.
• Shift work has much the same effect as jet lag,
  causing fatigue, irritability, upset stomach,
  nervousness, depression, and a loss of mental
  agility.
• For major time zone shifts (5 hours or more), it
  can take from several days to 2 weeks to
  resynchronize.

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Shift Work and Jet Lag

• Adaptation to jet lag is slowest when you stay
  indoors (in a hotel room, for instance), where
  you can continue to sleep and eat on home time.
• Getting outdoors, where you must sleep, eat, and
  socialize on the new schedule tends to speed
  adaptation.
• A 5 hour dose of bright sunlight early each day
  in a new time zone is particularly helpful. The
  same principle can be applied to shift work. In
  this case, workers should be bathed in bright
  light during their first few night shifts on a
  new schedule.
• The direction of travel also affects adaptation.
  If you fly west, adapting is relatively easy,
  taking an average of 4 to 5 days. If you fly
  east, adapting takes 50 longer, or more. Why?
• When you fly east, the un rises earlier than what
  you are used to. When you fly west, the sun
  comes up later. Getting up at 7 A.M. in New York
  will be like getting up at 4 A.M. in Los Angeles.

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Preadaptation

• Preadaptation (Coon, p.231) Matching
  sleep-waking cycles to a new time schedule before
  an anticipated change in circadian rhythms.
  Before traveling, for instance, you should go to
  sleep 1 hour earlier (or later) each day until
  your sleep cycle matches the time at your
  destination.
• If you are unable to do that, it helps to fly
  early in the day when you fly east. When you fly
  west, it is better to fly late. (Remember, the E
  in east matches the E in early).
• Most college students have burned the midnight
  oil at one time or another, especially for final
  exams.
• However, it is wise to remember that any major
  deviation from your regular schedule will
  probably cost more than it is worth.

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Melatonin

• Often, you can accomplish as much during 1 hour
  in the morning as you could have in 3 hours of
  work after midnight. The 2 hour difference in
  efficiency might as well be spent sleeping.
• If you feel you must depart from your normal
  schedule, do it gradually over a period of days.
  
• In general, if you can anticipate an upcoming
  body rhythm change (when traveling, before finals
  week, or when doing shift work), it is best to
  adapt yourself to your new schedule beforehand.
• Melatonin (p.129) A hormone released by the
  pineal gland in response to daily cycles to light
  and dark. It is normally produced at night, and
  is suppressed during daylight.

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Melatonin Resetting the Bodys Clock

• Melatonin has a strong impact on the timing of
  body rhythms and sleep cycles. As far as the
  brain is concerned, its bedtime when melatonin
  levels rise.
• To reset the bodys clock in a new time zone, a
  small amount of melatonin can be taken about an
  hour before bedtime. This dose is continued for
  as many days as necessary to ease jet lag.
• The same treatment can be used for rotating work
  shifts, too.

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Stages of Sleep The Nightly Roller Coaster Ride

• Sleep patterns can be measured with an
  electroencephalograph (EEG) or brain wave
  machine.
• The brain gives off tiny electrical signals that
  can be amplified and recorded.
• Beta Waves (pgs.130,132) Small, fast brain waves
  associated with being awake and alert.
• Immediately before sleep, the pattern shifts to
  larger and slower waves called Alpha Waves
  (large, slow brain waves associated with
  relaxation and falling asleep).
• Alpha waves also occur when a person is relaxed
  and thoughts are allowed to drift.
• As the eyes close, breathing becomes slow and
  regular, pulse rate slows, and body temperature
  drops. Soon after, four separate sleep stages
  can be identified, based on a combination of
  brain-wave patterns and behavioral changes.

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The Four Stages of Sleep Stage 1

• Stage 1 As you lose consciousness and enter
  light sleep, your heart rate slows even more. In
  stage 1 sleep, the EEG is made up mainly of
  small, irregular waves with some alpha.
• Persons awakened at this stage may or may not say
  they were asleep.
• Breathing becomes more irregular.
• The muscles of your body relax. This may trigger
  a reflex muscle contraction throughout the body
  called a hypnic jerk.
• This is quite normal, so have no fear about
  admitting to your friends that you fell asleep
  with a hypnic jerk.

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The Four Stages of Sleep Stage 2

• Stage 2 As sleep deepens, body temperature drops
  further.
• Also, the EEG begins to include sleep spindles
  (Coon, p.233), which are short bursts of
  distinctive brain-wave activity that indicate a
  person is asleep.
• Spindles seem to mark the true boundary of sleep.
  Within 4 minutes after spindles appear, most
  people who are awakened say they were asleep.

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The Four Stages of Sleep Stage 3

• In stage 3, a new brain wave called delta
  (p.130-132) begins to appear.
• Delta waves are very large and slow brain waves
  that occur in deeper sleep (stages 3 and 4).
• The presence of delta waves signals deeper sleep
  and a further loss of consciousness.

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The Four Stages of Sleep Stage 4

• Stage 4 Deep Sleep (the deepest level of normal
  sleep) is reached after about an hour.
• In stage 4, brain waves become almost pure delta
  (large and slow), and the sleeper is in a state
  of oblivion.
• If you make a loud noise during stage 4 sleep,
  the sleeper will awaken in confusion and may not
  remember the noise.
• After spending some time in stage 4, sleepers
  return through stages 3 and 2 to stage 1.
  Further shifts between deeper and lighter sleep
  occur throughout the night.

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Rapid Eye Movement (REM)

• REM or Rapid Eye Movement (p.131) Swift eye
  movements during sleep, strongly associated with
  dreaming.
• About 85 of the time, people awakened during REM
  sleep report vivid dreams.
• In addition to rapid eye movements, REM sleep is
  marked by a return to fast, irregular EEG
  patterns similar to stage 1 sleep.
• REM sleep is easy to observe in pets, such as
  dogs and cats. Watch for eye and facial
  movements and for irregular breathing.
• You can forget about your pet iguana, though.
  Reptiles show no signs of REM sleep. Theyre
  LIVIN the dream, baby!

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What is the purpose of REM Sleep?

• Early in life, dreaming may stimulate the
  developing brain.
• Newborn babies spend a hearty 8 or 9 hours a day
  in REM sleep. Thats about 50 of their total
  sleep time.
• In adulthood, REM sleep increases after learning,
  so it may help restore brain chemicals needed for
  learning and memory.
• Dreams may prevent sensory deprivation during
  sleep and aid the processing of emotional events.
• REM sleep also seems to help sort and integrate
  memories formed during the day (p.131).
• Speaking very loosely, it is as if the dreaming
  brain reviews messages left during the day, in
  order to decide which are worth keeping.
• Although we have much to learn, it is clear that
  REM sleep and dreaming are valuable for keeping
  the brain in good working order.

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REM Sleep Deprivation

• How important is dream sleep? Is it essential
  for normal functioning?
• To answer these questions, researcher William
  Dement awakened volunteers each time they entered
  REM sleep.
• He was punched in the face repeatedly.
• Just kidding.
• Soon, it seemed that their need to dream was
  growing more urgent.
• By the fifth night, many had to be awakened 20 or
  30 times to prevent REM sleep.

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REM Sleep Deprivation

• When the volunteers were finally allowed to sleep
  undisturbed, they dreamed extra amounts. This
  effect, called a REM Rebound, explains why
  alcoholics often have horrible nightmares after
  they quit drinking.
• Alcohol suppresses REM sleep and sets up a
  powerful rebound when it is withdrawn.
• It is worth remembering that while alcohol and
  other depressant drugs may help a person get to
  sleep, they greatly reduce the quality of sleep.
• Dements volunteers complained of memory lapses,
  poor concentration, and daytime anxiety. For a
  while, it looked like people deprived of REM
  sleep might go crazy. But this is now known as
  the REM myth.
• Later experiments showed that missing any sleep
  stage can cause a rebound for that stage. In
  general, daytime disturbances are related to the
  total amount of sleep lost, not to the type of
  sleep lost.

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NREM SLEEP Somnambulism

• NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep (p.131)
  Sleep characteristic of stages 2, 3, and 4.
• Somnambulism (sleepwalking) and sleeptalking
  occur in NREM sleep, stages 3 and 4.
• Being deeply asleep probably explains why
  sleeptalking makes little sense and why
  sleepwalkers are confused and remember little
  when they are awakened.

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Night Terrors Nightmares

• Night Terrors (Coon, p.235) More intense than
  ordinary nightmares. A state of total panic where
  a person may hallucinate frightening dream images
  into the room. Most children outgrow the problem
  by adolescence. (Nevid, p.137)
• Night terrors occur during NREM sleep.
• Since night terrors occur when the body is not
  immobilized, the person may sit up, scream, get
  out of bed, or run around.
• Victims remember little afterward. Other family
  members, however, may remember the incident for
  quite some time!

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Night Terrors Nightmares

• Night terrors are most common in childhood, but
  they continue to plague some adults throughout
  their lives.
• Nightmares (p.137) A bad dream that occurs
  during REM sleep.
• Most people have about 2 nightmares a month.
  Nightmares are much less severe than Night
  Terrors. People are more susceptible to
  nightmares when they are under emotional stress,
  have high fevers, or are suffering from sleep
  deprivation.

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How to Eliminate a Nightmare

• A bad nightmare can be worse than any horror
  movie. You can leave a theater, but often we
  remain trapped in our most terrifying dreams.
• Yet, bad as they may be, most nightmares can be
  banished by following three simple steps
• Write down your nightmare, describing it in
  detail.
• Next, change the dream any way you wish, being
  sure to spell out the details of the new dream.
• The third step is imagery rehearsal (Coon,
  p.235), in which you mentally rehearse the
  changed dream before you fall asleep again.

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How to Eliminate a Nightmare

• Imagery rehearsal may work because it makes
  upsetting dreams familiar while a person is awake
  and feeling safe.
• Or perhaps it mentally reprograms future dream
  content.
• In any case, the technique has proved helpful for
  many people (Krakow et al., 1996).

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Sleep Disturbances Things That go Wrong in the
Night

• Hypersomnia Excessive daytime sleepiness. This
  can result from depression, insomnia, narcolepsy,
  sleep apnea, sleep drunkenness, periodic limb
  movements, drug abuse, and other problems.
• Insomnia Difficulty in getting to sleep or
  staying asleep also, not feeling rested after
  sleeping.
• Narcolepsy Sudden, irresistible, daytime sleep
  attacks that may last anywhere from a few minutes
  to a half hour. Victims may fall asleep while
  standing, talking, or even driving.
• Nightmare Disorder Vivid, recurrent nightmares
  that significantly disturb sleep.
• Periodic Limb Movement Syndrome Muscle twitches
  (primarily affecting the legs) that occur every
  20 to 40 seconds and severely disturb sleep.
• For more information, please refer to Coon p.236
  or Nevid p.136.

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Sleep Disturbances Things That go Wrong in the
Night

• REM behavior disorder A failure of normal muscle
  paralysis, leading to violent actions during REM
  sleep.
• Restless Legs Syndrome An irresistible urge to
  move the legs in order to relieve sensations of
  creeping, tingling, prickling, aching, or
  tension.
• Sleep Apnea During sleep, breathing stops for 20
  seconds or more until the person wakes a little,
  gulps in air, and settles back to sleep this
  cycle may be repeated hundreds of times per
  night.
• Sleep Drunkenness A slow transition to clear
  consciousness after awakening sometimes
  associated with irritable or aggressive behavior.

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Sleep Disturbances Things That go Wrong in the
Night

• Sleep Terror Disorder The repeated occurrence of
  night terrors that significantly disturb sleep
• Sleep-Wake Schedule Disorder A mismatch between
  the sleep-wake schedule demanded by a persons
  bodily rhythm and that demanded by the
  environment.
• Sleepwalking Disorder Repeated incidents of
  leaving bed and walking about while asleep.

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Dream Interpretation

• How meaningful are dreams? Calvin Hall, a noted
  dream expert, collected and analyzed over 10,000
  dreams (Hall et al., 1982).
• Hall found that most dreams reflect everyday
  events.
• The favorite dream setting is usually a familiar
  room in a house.
• Action usually takes place between the dreamer
  and two or three other emotionally important
  people friends, enemies, parents, or employers.
  
• Dream actions are also mostly familiar running,
  jumping, riding, sitting, talking, and watching.
• For more information, please see Coon p. 237 or
  Nevid pgs. 132-134.

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Dream Interpretation

• About half of all dreams have sexual elements.
• Dreams of flying, floating, and falling occur
  less frequently.
• Hall also found that if you are dreaming more
  now, you may be enjoying it less.
• Unpleasant emotions such as fear, anger, and
  sadness are more common in dreams than pleasant
  emotions (Coon, p.237).
• Most theorists agree that dreams reflect our
  waking thoughts, fantasies, and emotions. How
  deep should we dig in interpreting dreams?

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Psychodynamic Dream Theory

• Some theorists believe that dreams have deeply
  hidden meanings. Others regard dreams as
  practically meaningless.
• Psychodynamic Theory (p.134) Emphasizes internal
  conflicts, motives, and unconscious forces.
• Freuds book The Interpretation of Dreams in
  1900 first advanced the idea that many dreams are
  based on wish fulfillment (an expression of
  unconscious desires).
• Freud believed that the contents of our dreams
  reflect internal conflicts and unconscious
  motives.
• While many of Freuds ideas are attractive, there
  is evidence against them. For example,
  volunteers in a study of starvation showed no
  particular increase in dreams about food or
  eating.
• Freuds response would probably have been that
  dreams rarely express needs so directly. One of
  Freuds key insights is that ideas in dreams are
  expressed as images or pictures, rather than in
  words.

49
Psychodynamic Dream Theory

• Freud believed that dreams express unconscious
  desires and conflicts as disguised dream symbols
  (images that have deeper symbolic meaning).
• Death might be symbolized as a journey, children
  by small animals, or sexual intercourse by
  horseback riding or dancing.
• Similarly, a woman sexually attracted to her best
  friends husband may dream of stealing her best
  friends wedding ring and placing it on her own
  hand, an indirect symbol of her true desires.

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The Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis

• Scientists Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley have
  a radically different view of dreaming.
• After studying REM sleep in cats, Hobson and
  McCarley believe that dreams are made in this
  way
• During REM sleep, brain cells are activated that
  normally control eye movements, balance, and
  actions. However, messages from the cells are
  blocked from reaching the body, so no movement
  occurs. Nevertheless, the cells continue to tell
  higher brain areas of their activities.
• As it struggles to interpret this information,
  the brain searches through stored memories and
  manufactures a dream. Hobson and McCarley call
  this view of dreaming the Activation-Synthesis
  Hypothesis.
• Hobson explains that the brain is turned on
  (activated) during sleep, and then generates and
  integrates (synthesizes) its own sensory and
  motor information.

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The Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis

• How does the Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis help
  explain dream content? Lets use the classic
  chase dream as an example.
• In such dreams we feel we are running but not
  going anywhere. This occurs because the brain is
  told the body is running, but it gets no feedback
  from the motionless legs.
• To make sense of this information, the brain
  creates a chase drama. Viewed this way, dreams
  have no hidden meanings. They are merely a
  different kind of thinking that occurs during
  sleep.

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The Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis

• This hypothesis seems to account for some dream
  experiences, but it does not explain why dreams
  tend to be more about a persons current concerns
  than other topics.
• Many psychologists continue to believe that
  dreams have deeper meaning.
• If you would like to collect and interpret your
  own dreams, the Applications section (Coon, p.
  260 and Nevid, p.134) offers some suggestions for
  getting started.

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Hypnosis

• Hypnosis (p.139) An altered state of
  consciousness, characterized by a narrowed
  attention and an increased openness to
  suggestion.
• Some psychologists define hypnosis as a blend of
  conformity, relaxation, imagination, obedience,
  suggestion, and role-playing.
• Either way, the point is that hypnosis can be
  explained by normal psychological principles. It
  is not mysterious or magical.

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Hypnotic Susceptibility

• Interest in hypnosis began in the 1700s with
  Franz Mesmer, whose name is the basis for the
  term Mesmerize (to hypnotize).
• EEG records made during hypnosis do not match
  those seen during sleep (p.139). Hypnosis is not
  sleep.
• Can anyone be hypnotized? Hypnotic
  susceptibility (ones capacity for being
  hypnotized) about 8 people out of 10 can be
  hypnotized, but only 4 out of 10 will be good
  hypnotic subjects.

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Hypnotic Susceptibility

• People who are imaginative and prone to fantasy
  are often very hypnotizable. But people who lack
  these traits can also be hypnotized.
• If you are willing to be hypnotized, chances are
  good that you could be. Hypnosis depends more on
  the efforts and abilities of the hypnotized
  person than the skills of the hypnotist.
• Make no mistake People who are hypnotized are
  not merely faking their responses.

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Hypnotic Susceptibility

• Hypnotic susceptibility refers to how easily a
  person can become hypnotized. It can be measured
  by giving suggestions and counting the number to
  which a person responds.
• A typical hypnotic test is the Stanford Hypnotic
  Susceptibility Scale (shown on Coon page 239).
  It lists suggested behaviors (like eye closure
  without forcing, hand lowering, and
  immobilization), along with the criterion of
  passing each task. If a subject voluntarily
  complies, and becomes immobile upon request, or
  closes the eyes as soon as it has been suggested,
  they are deemed good candidates for hypnosis.
• If you were to score high on the scale today, you
  probably would score the same years from now.
  Hypnotizability is very stable over time (Coon
  p.239).

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Inducing Hypnosis

• All hypnotic induction techniques encourage a
• person to
• Focus attention on what is being said.
• Relax and feel tired.
• Let go and accept suggestions easily.
• Use vivid imagination.
• Notice that a person must cooperate to become
  hypnotized. Thats
• why all hypnosis may really be self-hypnosis (or
  autosuggestion).
• From this perspective, hypnotists act as guides.
  They basically
• help another person follow a series of
  suggestions. These, in turn,
• alter sensations, perceptions, thoughts,
  feelings, and behaviors.

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Effects of Hypnosis

• Many abilities have been tested during hypnosis,
  leading to the following conclusions
• Superhuman acts of strength hypnosis has no more
  effect on physical strength than instructions
  that encourage a person to make his or her best
  effort.
• Memory there is some evidence that hypnosis can
  enhance memory. However, it frequently increases
  the number of false memories, as well. For this
  reason, many states now bar people who have been
  hypnotized from testifying in court.
• Amnesia A person told not to remember something
  heard during hypnosis may claim not to remember.
  In some instances, this may be nothing more than
  a deliberate attempt to avoid thinking about
  specific ideas. However, a recent study
  concluded that brief memory loss of this type
  actually does occur.

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Effects of Hypnosis

• Pain relief hypnosis can relieve pain (p.140).
  Therefore, it can be especially useful in
  situations where chemical painkillers cannot be
  used or are ineffective. One such situation is
  control of phantom limb pain (recurring pains
  that amputees sometimes feel coming from the
  missing limb).
• Age regression Given the proper suggestions,
  some hypnotized people appear to regress to
  childhood. However, most theorists now believe
  that age-regressed subjects are only acting out
  a suggested role.

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Effects of Hypnosis

• Sensory Changes Hypnotic suggestions concerning
  sensations are among the most effective. Given
  the proper instructions, a person can be made to
  smell a small bottle of ammonia and respond as if
  it were a wonderful perfume. It is also possible
  to alter color vision, hearing sensitivity, time
  sense, perception of illusions, and many other
  sensory responses.
• Hypnosis is a valuable tool. It can help people
  relax, feel less pain, and make better progress
  in therapy. In general, hypnosis is more
  successful at changing subjective experience than
  it is at modifying behaviors such as smoking or
  overeating. Thus, hypnotic effects are useful,
  but seldom amazing.

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Meditation

• Meditation is one way to elicit the relaxation
  response (the pattern of internal bodily changes
  that occurs during times of relaxation). This
  relaxation response is an innate physiological
  pattern that opposes the bodys fight-or-flight
  mechanisms.
• Meditation takes two major forms
• Concentrative Meditation Attention is given to a
  single focal point, such as a thought, an object,
  or ones own breathing.
• Receptive Meditation Open or expansive in this
  case, attention is widened to embrace a total,
  non-judgmental awareness of the world. An
  example is losing all self-consciousness while
  walking in the wilderness with a quiet and
  receptive mind.
• Receptive meditation is more difficult to attain
  than concentrative meditation.
• Relaxation can be mental as well as physical.
  Meditation may be beneficial for people who find
  it difficult to turn off upsetting thoughts
  when they need to relax. Instructions for simple
  concentrative meditation are found on Coon page
  242.