1. Psychological Disorders
Chapter 12
Psychological Disorders

2. Module 12.1: Learning Objectives Normality and Psychopathology
Indicate the magnitude of mental health problems in the U.S. and Canada
Define psychopathology
Describe the following ways of viewing normality: subjective discomfort, statistical abnormality, social nonconformity, situational context, and cultural relativity
Give examples of how race, gender, and social class continue to affect the diagnosis of various disorders
Indicate the two core features of abnormal behavior
Explain how the DSM-IV-TR is used
Define mental disorder
The primary goals outlined in the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major that are met in this module:
Goal 1: Knowledge Base of Psychology- Students will demonstrate familiarity with the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and historical trends in psychology.
Goal 2: Research Methods in Psychology- Students will understand and apply basic research methods in psychology, including research design, data analysis, and interpretation.
Goal 4: Application of Psychology- Students will understand and apply psychological principles to personal, social, and organizational issues.
Goal 5: Values in Psychology- Students will be able to weigh evidence, tolerate ambiguity, act ethically, and reflect other values that are the underpinnings of psychology as a discipline.
Goal 8: Sociocultural and International Awareness- Students will recognize, understand, and respect the complexity of sociocultural and international diversity.
Goal 9: Personal Development- Students will develop insight into their own and others’ behavior and mental processes and apply effective strategies for self-management and self-improvement.

3. Module 12.1: Learning Objectives Normality and Psychopathology (Continued)
Briefly describe each of the following categories of mental disorders: psychotic disorders, organic mental disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, dissociative disorders, personality disorders, sexual and gender identity disorders, and substance related disorders
Define the term neurosis and explain why it was dropped from use
Describe examples of culture-bound syndromes from around the world
List the four general risk factors that contribute to psychopathology
Define insanity and explain how it is established in court
Describe the “medical student’s disease”

4. Defining What Is Normal
Psychopathology:
Scientific study of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders
Subjective Discomfort:
Private feelings of anxiety, depression, or emotional distress
Statistical Abnormality:
Having extreme scores on some dimension, such as intelligence, anxiety, or depression
Social Nonconformity:
Disobeying societal standards for normal conduct; may lead to destructive or self-destructive behavior

5. Defining What Is Normal (Continued)
Situational Context:
Social situation, behavioral setting, or general circumstances in which an action takes place
Is it normal to walk naked around strangers? If you are in a locker room and in the shower area, yes!
Cultural Relativity:
Judgments are made relative to the values of one’s culture

6. FIGURE 12.1 The number of people displaying a personal characteristic may help define what is statistically abnormal.

7. Features of Disordered Behavior
Abnormal behavior has two core features:
Maladaptive Behavior:
Behavior that makes it difficult to function, to adapt to the environment, and to meet everyday demands
Loss of ability to adequately control thoughts, behaviors, or feelings
Mental Disorder:
Significant impairment in psychological functioning

8. Features of Disordered Behavior (Continued)
Psychotic Disorder:
Severe psychiatric disorder characterized by hallucinations and delusions, social withdrawal, and a movement away from reality
Organic Mental Disorder:
Mental or emotional problem caused by brain pathology (e.g., brain injuries or diseases)

9. Classifications of Major Disorders
Mood Disorder:
Disturbances in affect (emotions or moods), like depression or mania
Anxiety Disorder:
Disruptive feelings of fear, apprehension, anxiety, or behavior distortions that are anxiety-related
Somatoform Disorders:
Physical symptoms that mimic disease or injury for which there is no identifiable cause

10. Classifications of Major Disorders (Continued)
Dissociative Disorder:
Temporary amnesia, multiple identity, or depersonalization (like being in a dream world, feeling like a robot, feeling like you are outside of your body)
Personality Disorder:
Deeply ingrained, unhealthy, maladaptive personality patterns

11. Classifications of Major Disorders (Continued)
Sexual and Gender Identity Disorder:
Problems with sexual identity, deviant sexual behavior, or sexual adjustment
Substance Related Disorders:
Abuse or dependence on a mind or mood-altering drug, like alcohol or cocaine
Person cannot stop using the substance and may suffer withdrawal symptoms if they do

12. Neurosis
Archaic term
Once used to refer to excessive anxiety, somatoform, dissociative disorders, and some kinds of depression

13. Cultural Maladies Amok:
Men from Malaysia, Laos, Philippines, and Polynesia who feel they have been insulted will brood then erupt violently
Susto:
Insomnia, irritability, phobias, and an increase in sweating and heart rate affecting Latin Americans who are frightened by a black magic curse
Ghost Sickness:
American Indians who become preoccupied with death and the deceased
Symptoms include bad dreams, confusion, feelings of futility, and a sense of suffocation

14. Cultural Maladies (Continued)
Koro:
A fear of the genitals receding into the body experienced by people in southern and eastern Asia
Zar:
When spirits posses an individual resulting in shouting, laughing, weeping, or singing
Seen in North Africa and Middle East
Dhat:
In Indian society, dhat is the fear of the loss of semen during nocturnal emissions

15. General Risk Factors for Contracting Mental Illness
Social Conditions:
Poverty, homelessness, overcrowding, stressful living conditions
Family Factors:
Parents who are immature, mentally ill, abusive, or criminal
Poor child discipline
Severe marital or relationship problems

16. General Risk Factors for Contracting Mental Illness (Continued)
Psychological Factors:
Stress, learning disorders, and low intelligence
Biological Factors:
Genetic defects or inherited vulnerabilities
Poor prenatal care, head injuries, exposure to toxins, chronic physical illness, or disability

17. Insanity
A legal term referring to an inability to manage one’s affairs or to be aware of the consequences of one’s actions

18. Expert Witness
Person recognized by a court of law as being qualified to give expert testimony on a specific topic
May be psychologist, psychiatrist, and so on
Insanity is established by testimony from an expert witness

19. Module 12.2: Learning Objectives Personality Disorders and Anxiety-Based Disorders
Describe the ten different types of personality disorders and include an in-depth discussion of the distinctive characteristics and causes of the antisocial personality
Define anxiety and describe the characteristics of anxiety-related disorders
Explain why the term nervous breakdown has no formal meaning and how it may be related to adjustment disorders
Describe an adjustment disorder, including its characteristics, causes, treatment, and how it differs from anxiety disorders
Describe the following anxiety disorders: generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder (without agoraphobia), panic disorder (with agoraphobia), agoraphobia (without panic), specific phobia, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, acute stress disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder
The primary goals outlined in the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major that are met in this module:
Goal 1: Knowledge Base of Psychology- Students will demonstrate familiarity with the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and historical trends in psychology.
Goal 4: Application of Psychology- Students will understand and apply psychological principles to personal, social, and organizational issues.
Goal 5: Values in Psychology- Students will be able to weigh evidence, tolerate ambiguity, act ethically, and reflect other values that are the underpinnings of psychology as a discipline.
Goal 9: Personal Development- Students will develop insight into their own and others’ behavior and mental processes and apply effective strategies for self-management and self-improvement.

20. Module 12.2: Learning Objectives Personality Disorders and Anxiety-Based Disorders (Continued)
Discuss the following dissociative disorders: dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, and dissociative identity disorder
Discuss the following somatoform disorders: hypochondriasis, somatization disorder, pain disorder, and conversion disorder, including “glove anesthesia
Describe the related disorders known as Munchausen syndrome and Munchausen by proxy
Define the term comorbid
Describe the heritability of anxiety-based disorders
Explain how each of the major perspectives in psychology view the causes of anxiety disorders: psychodynamic, humanistic (Rogers) existential, behavioral, including the terms avoidance learning and anxiety reduction hypothesis, and the cognitive view

21. Personality Disorders
Patterns usually begin during adolescence or childhood
Deeply rooted
Span many years

22. Personality Disorders: Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD)
Definition:
A person who lacks a conscience
Typically emotionally shallow, impulsive, selfish, and manipulative toward others
Oftentimes called psychopaths or sociopaths

23. APD Characteristics
Many are delinquents or criminals, but many are NOT crazed murderers as displayed on television
Create a good first impression and are often charming
Cheat their way through life
May be blind to signs of disgust in others
Tend to be thrill-seekers

24. APD: Causes and Treatments
Possible Causes:
Childhood history of emotional deprivation, neglect, and physical abuse
Underarousal of the brain
Very difficult to effectively treat
Will likely lie, charm, and manipulate their way through therapy

25. Anxiety-Based Disorders
Feelings of apprehension, dread, or uneasiness
Adjustment Disorders:
When ongoing stressors within the range of normal experience cause emotional disturbance and push people beyond their ability to effectively cope

26. More on Anxiety-Based Disorders
Usually suffer sleep disturbances, irritability, and depression
Examples of Stresses:
Grief reactions, lengthy physical illness, unemployment

27. Anxiety-Based Disorders
Anxiety Disorders:
When distress seems greatly out of proportion to the situation at hand
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD):
Duration of at least six months of chronic, unrealistic, or excessive anxiety
Worries about work, relationships, ability, or impending disaster

28. Panic Disorder (without Agoraphobia)
A chronic state of anxiety with brief moments of sudden, intense, unexpected panic (panic attack)
Panic Attack:
Feels like one is having a heart attack, going to die, or is going insane
Symptoms include vertigo, chest pain, choking, fear of losing control

29. Panic Disorder: Symptoms
PLAY VIDEO

30. Panic Disorder (with Agoraphobia)
Panic attacks and sudden anxiety still occur, but with agoraphobia

31. Agoraphobia Characteristics
Intense, irrational fear that a panic attack will occur in a public place or in an unfamiliar situation
Intense fear of leaving the house or entering unfamiliar situations
Can be very crippling
Literally means fear of open places or market (agora)

32. Agoraphobia (without Panic Disorder)
Fear that something extremely embarrassing will happen away from home or in an unfamiliar situation

33. Specific Phobias
Irrational, persistent fears; anxiety; and avoidance that focus on specific objects, activities, or situations
People with phobias realize that their fears are unreasonable and excessive, but they cannot control them

34. Social Phobia
Intense, irrational fear of being observed, evaluated, humiliated, or embarrassed by others in social situations
Examples: shyness, not eating or speaking in public

35. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Extreme preoccupation with certain thoughts and compulsive performance of certain behaviors

36. Obsession
Recurring images or thoughts that a person cannot prevent
Cause anxiety and extreme discomfort
Enter into consciousness against the person’s will
Most common:
Being dirty, wondering if you performed an action (turned off the stove), or violence (hit by a car)

37. Compulsion
Irrational acts that person feels compelled to repeat against his/her will
Help to control anxiety created by obsessions
Checkers and cleaners

38. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
PLAY VIDEO

39. Stress Disorders
Occur when stresses outside range of normal human experience cause major emotional disturbance
Symptoms:
Reliving traumatic event repeatedly, avoiding stimuli associated with the event, and numbing of emotions

40. Acute Stress Disorder
Psychological disturbance, lasting up to one month following stresses from a traumatic event , that would produce anxiety in anyone who experienced them

41. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Lasts more than one month after the traumatic event has occurred; may last for years
Typically associated with combat and violent crimes (rape, assault, etc.)
Example: the “war” in Iraq

42. Dissociative Disorders
Dissociative Amnesia:
Inability to recall one’s name, address, or past
Dissociative Fugue:
Sudden travel away from home and confusion about personal identity

43. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
Person has two or more distinct, separate identities or personality traits
Previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder
“Sybil” or “The Three Faces of Eve” are good examples
Often begins with horrific childhood experiences (e.g., abuse, molestation, etc.)
Therapy often makes use of hypnosis
Goal: Integrate and fuse identities into single, balanced personality

44. Somatoform Disorders: Hypochondriasis
Person is preoccupied with having a serious illness or disease
Interpret normal sensations and bodily signs as proof that they have a terrible disease
No organic cause can be found

45. Somatoform Disorders: Somatization Disorder
Person expresses anxieties through numerous physical complaints
Many doctors are consulted but no organic or physical causes are found

46. Somatoform Disorders: Pain Disorder
Pain that has no identifiable organic, physical cause
Appears to have psychological origin

47. Somatoform Disorders: Conversion Disorder
Severe emotional conflicts are “converted” into physical symptoms or a physical disability
Caused by anxiety or emotional distress but not by physical causes

48. FIGURE 12.4 (left) “Glove” anesthesia is a conversion reaction involving loss of feeling in areas of the hand that would be covered by a glove (a). If the anesthesia were physically caused, it would follow the pattern shown in (b). (right) To test for organic paralysis of the arm, an examiner can suddenly extend the arm, stretching the muscles. A conversion reaction is indicated if the arm pulls back involuntarily. (Adapted from Weintraub, 1983.)

49. Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
When a person fakes the medical problems of someone in his or her care

50. Theoretical Causes of Anxiety Disorders
Psychodynamic Approach
Humanistic-Existential Approach
Behavioral Approach
Cognitive Approach

51. Theoretical Causes of Anxiety Disorders: Psychodynamic
Freud: anxiety caused by conflicts among id, ego, and superego

52. Some of Freud’s Concepts Regarding Anxiety
Forbidden id impulses for sex or aggression are trying to break into consciousness and thus influence behavior
Person fears doing something crazy or forbidden
Superego creates guilt in response to these impulses
Ego gets overwhelmed and uses defense mechanisms to cope

53. Theoretical Causes of Anxiety Disorders: Humanistic
Unrealistic self-image conflicts with real self-image
Emphasize subjective experience, human problems, and personal potentials
Existentialism focuses on elemental problems of existence, such as death, meaning, choice, and responsibility

54. Theoretical Causes of Anxiety Disorders: Behavioral
Anxiety symptoms and behaviors are learned, like everything else
Conditioned emotional responses that generalize to new situations
Avoidance Learning:
When making a particular response delays or prevents the onset of a painful or unpleasant stimulus

55. Theoretical Causes of Anxiety Disorders: Behavioral (Continued)
Anxiety Reduction Hypothesis:
When reward of immediate relief from anxiety perpetuates self-defeating avoidance behaviors

56. Theoretical Causes of Anxiety Disorders: Cognitive
When distorted thinking causes people to magnify ordinary threats and failures, leading to anxiety and distress

57. Module 12.3: Learning Objectives Psychosis, Delusional Disorders, and Schizophrenia
Discuss the major features of psychotic disorders, including the different types of delusions and hallucinations
List the warning signs of psychotic disorders and major mood disorders
Describe the various types of organic psychoses, including poisonings and dementia
List the main feature of delusional disorders
Describe the five types of delusional disorders, including the most common delusional disorder, paranoid psychosis and explain how it differs from schizophrenia
Discuss schizophrenia, including its frequency, symptoms, and the problems with selective attention
The primary goals outlined in the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major that are met in this module:
Goal 1: Knowledge Base of Psychology- Students will demonstrate familiarity with the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and historical trends in psychology.
Goal 4: Application of Psychology- Students will understand and apply psychological principles to personal, social, and organizational issues.
Goal 5: Values in Psychology- Students will be able to weigh evidence, tolerate ambiguity, act ethically, and reflect other values that are the underpinnings of psychology as a discipline.
Goal 9: Personal Development- Students will develop insight into their own and others’ behavior and mental processes and apply effective strategies for self-management and self-improvement.

58. Module 12.3: Learning Objectives Psychosis, Delusional Disorders, and Schizophrenia (Continued)
List and describe the four major subtypes of schizophrenia,
Explain the general relationship between psychosis and violence
Discuss the following causes of schizophrenia: the environment, including the prenatal environment, birth complications, early psychological trauma, disturbed family environment, and deviant communication patterns; heredity, including inherited potential and genetic mutations; brain chemistry, including the roles of dopamine and glutamate; and brain structure and activity, including information gained through CT, MRI, and PET scans
Explain the stress-vulnerability model

59. Psychosis and Hallucinations
Psychosis: loss of contact with shared views of reality
Delusions and hallucinations are core features of psychosis
Delusions:
False beliefs that individuals insist are true, regardless of overwhelming evidence against them

60. Hallucinations
Imaginary sensations, such as seeing, hearing, or smelling things that do not exist in the real world
Most common psychotic hallucination is hearing voices
Note that olfactory hallucinations sometimes occur with seizure disorder (epilepsy)

61. Some More Psychotic Symptoms
Flat Affect:
Lack of emotional responsiveness; face is frozen in blank expression
Disturbed Verbal Communication:
Garbled and chaotic speech
Word salad
Personality Disintegration:
Uncoordinated thoughts, actions, and emotions

63. Other Psychotic Disorders
Organic Psychosis:
Psychosis caused by brain injury or disease
Dementia:
Most common organic psychosis; serious mental impairment in old age caused by brain deterioration
Archaically known as senility
Common Causes:
Circulatory problems, repeated strokes, and shrinkage and atrophy of the brain

64. Alzheimer’s Disease
Symptoms include impaired memory, confusion, and progressive loss of mental abilities
Ronald Reagan was perhaps the most famous Alzheimer’s victim

65. Delusional Disorders
Marked by presence of deeply held false beliefs (delusions)
May involve delusions of grandeur, persecution, jealousy, or eroticism
Experiences could really occur!
Paranoid Psychosis: most common delusional disorder
Centers on delusions of persecution

66. Schizophrenia
Psychotic disorder characterized by hallucinations, delusions, apathy, thinking abnormalities, and “split” between thoughts and emotions
Does NOT refer to having split or multiple personalities

67. Schizophrenia: Distortion of Reality
PLAY VIDEO

68. The Four Subtypes of Schizophrenia
Disorganized Type:
Incoherence, grossly disorganized behavior, bizarre thinking, and flat or inappropriate emotions
Catatonic Type:
Marked by stupor, rigidity, unresponsiveness, posturing, mutism, and sometimes agitated, purposeless behavior

69. The Four Subtypes of Schizophrenia
Paranoid Type:
Preoccupation with delusions
Also involves auditory hallucinations that are related to a single theme, especially grandeur or persecution
Undifferentiated Type:
Any type of schizophrenia that does not have paranoid, catatonic, or disorganized features or symptoms

70. Causes of Schizophrenia
Environment:
In utero exposure to the flu
Malnutrition during pregnancy
Complications during birth
Psychological Trauma:
Psychological injury or shock, often caused by violence, abuse, or neglect
Disturbed Family Environment:
Stressful or unhealthy family relationships, communication patterns, and emotional atmosphere
Heredity

71. Biochemical Causes of Schizophrenia
Biochemical Abnormality:
Disturbance in brain’s chemical systems or in the brain’s neurotransmitters
Dopamine:
Neurotransmitter involved with emotions and muscle movement
Works in limbic system
Dopamine overactivity in brain may be related to schizophrenia

72. FIGURE 12.7 Lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia is associated with how closely a person is genetically related to a schizophrenic person. A shared environment also increases the risk. (Estimates from Lenzenweger & Gottesman, 1994.)

73. FIGURE 12.8 Dopamine normally crosses the synapse between two neurons, activating the second cell. Antipsychotic drugs bind to the same receptor sites as dopamine does, blocking its action. In people suffering from schizophrenia, a reduction in dopamine activity can quiet a person’s agitation and psychotic symptoms.

74. FIGURE Various combinations of vulnerability and stress may produce psychological problems. The top bar shows low vulnerability and low stress. The result? No problem. The same is true of the next bar down, where low vulnerability is combined with moderate stress. Even high vulnerability (third bar) may not lead to problems if stress levels remain low. However, when high vulnerability combines with moderate or high stress (bottom two bars) the person “crosses the line” and suffers from psychopathology.

75. Schizophrenic Brain
Computed Tomography (CT) Scan:
Computer enhanced X-ray of brain or body
Images revealed schizophrenic brains have shrunk

76. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Scan
Computer enhanced three-dimensional image of brain or body
Based on magnetic field
MRIs show schizophrenic brains as having enlarged ventricles

77. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Scan
Computer-generated color image of brain activity
Radioactive sugar solution is injected into a vein, eventually reaching the brain
Activity is abnormally low in frontal lobes of schizophrenics

78. Implications
Stress-Vulnerability Hypothesis:
Combination of environmental stress and inherited susceptibility cause psychoses

79. Module 12.4: Learning Objectives Mood Disorders
Discuss mood disorders, including the following: the incidence, the two general types, characteristics of the moderate mood disorders of dysthymic and cyclothymic disorders, the characteristics of the three major mood disorders: major depression, bipolar I and bipolar II, and how major mood disorders differ from moderate mood disorders, including the definition of the term endogenous
Discuss the following causes of depression: brain chemicals, psychoanalytic theory, behavioral theory, cognitive theory, the social and environmental stresses that cause women to experience depression more than men, including postpartum depression, the role of heredity, and the time or season of the year, including the cause, symptoms, and treatment of seasonal affective disorder
The primary goals outlined in the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major that are met in this module:
Goal 1: Knowledge Base of Psychology- Students will demonstrate familiarity with the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and historical trends in psychology.
Goal 4: Application of Psychology- Students will understand and apply psychological principles to personal, social, and organizational issues.
Goal 5: Values in Psychology- Students will be able to weigh evidence, tolerate ambiguity, act ethically, and reflect other values that are the underpinnings of psychology as a discipline.
Goal 9: Personal Development- Students will develop insight into their own and others’ behavior and mental processes and apply effective strategies for self-management and self-improvement.

80. Module 12.4: Learning Objectives Mood Disorders (Continued)
Describe Rosenhan’s pseudo-patient study and his observations regarding psychiatric labeling
Discuss the dangers of psychiatric labeling, including the social stigma
Give a general description of the treatment and prognosis for various mental disorders

81. Mood Disorders
Major disturbances in emotion or mood, such as depression or mania
Depressive Disorders:
Sadness or despondency are prolonged, exaggerated, or unreasonable
Bipolar Disorders:
Involve both depression, and mania or hypomania

82. Bipolar Disorder: Delusional Thinking
PLAY VIDEO

83. Milder Mood Disorders
Dysthymic Disorder:
Moderate depression that lasts for at least two years
Cyclothymic Disorder:
Moderate manic and depressive behavior that lasts for at least two years

84. Major Mood Disorders
Lasting extremes of mood or emotion and sometimes with psychotic features (hallucinations, delusions)
Major Depressive Disorder:
A mood disorder where the person has suffered one or more intense episodes of depression
One of the more serious mood disorders

85. Major Mood Disorders
Bipolar I Disorder:
People who experience extreme mania and deep depression
Mania:
Excited, hyperactive, energetic, grandiose behavior
Bipolar II Disorder:
Person is mostly depressed, but has had one or more hypomanic episodes
Hypomania is not as severe as mania

86. Endogenous Depression
Depression that seems to be produced from inside the body (perhaps due to chemical imbalances) and NOT from reaction to life events

87. Maternity Blues
Mild depression that lasts for one to two days after childbirth
Marked by crying, fitful sleep, tension, anger, and irritability
Brief and not too severe

88. Postpartum Depression
Moderately severe depression that begins within three months following childbirth
Marked by mood swings, despondency, feelings of inadequacy, and an inability to cope with the new baby
May last from two months to one year
Part of the problem may be hormonal

89. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
Depression that only occurs during fall and winter
May be related to reduced exposure to sunlight
Phototherapy:
Extended exposure to bright light to treat SAD

90. FIGURE Seasonal affective disorder appears to be related to reduced exposure to daylight during the winter. SAD affects 1 to 2 percent of Florida’s population, about 6 percent of the people living in Maryland and New York City, and nearly 10 percent of the residents of New Hampshire and Alaska (Booker & Hellekson, 1992).

91. Module 12.5: Learning Objectives Psychology in Action
Discuss the following aspects of suicide:
factors that affect suicide rates, including sex, ethnicity, age, and marital status
the immediate causes of suicide
warning signs
common characteristics of suicidal thoughts and feelings
how to help someone who is suicidal
crisis intervention
The primary goals outlined in the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major that are met in this module:
Goal 1: Knowledge Base of Psychology- Students will demonstrate familiarity with the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and historical trends in psychology.
Goal 2: Research Methods in Psychology- Students will understand and apply basic research methods in psychology, including research design, data analysis, and interpretation.
Goal 3: Critical Thinking Skills in Psychology- Students will respect and use critical and creative thinking, skeptical inquiry, and, when possible, the scientific approach to solve problems related to behavior and mental processes.
Goal 4: Application of Psychology- Students will understand and apply psychological principles to personal, social, and organizational issues.
Goal 5: Values in Psychology- Students will be able to weigh evidence, tolerate ambiguity, act ethically, and reflect other values that are the underpinnings of psychology as a discipline.
Goal 8: Sociocultural and International Awareness- Students will recognize, understand, and respect the complexity of sociocultural and international diversity.
Goal 9: Personal Development- Students will develop insight into their own and others’ behavior and mental processes and apply effective strategies for self-management and self-improvement.
Goal 10: Career Planning and Development- Students will emerge from the major with realistic ideas about how to implement their psychological knowledge, skills, and values in occupational pursuits on a variety of settings.

92. Factors Affect Suicide Rate
Gender:
Men are more likely to complete suicide, but more women attempt
Ethnicity:
Rates vary from country to country, but Caucasians have higher suicide rates
Native Americans have highest suicide rate in country
Age:
Suicide rates increase with age
Marital Status:
Married individuals have lower suicide rates

93. Suicide: Major Risk Factors
Drug or alcohol abuse
Prior suicide attempt
Depression or other mood disorder
Availability of a firearm
Severe anxiety or panic attacks
Family history of suicidal behavior
Shame, humiliation, failure, or rejection

94. FIGURE In the United States, suicide rates for Caucasians are higher than those for non-Caucasians. Also, older people have higher suicide rates than younger people (CDC, 2003).

95. FIGURE Suicidal behavior usually progresses from suicidal thoughts, to threats, to attempts. A person is unlikely to make an attempt without first making threats. Thus, suicide threats should be taken seriously (Garland & Zigler, 1993).

96. Common Characteristics of Suicidal Thoughts and Feelings (Shneidman)
Escape
Unbearable Psychological Pain:
Emotional pain that the person wishes to escape
Frustrated Psychological Needs:
Such as searching for love, achievement, or security
Constriction of Options:
Feeling helpless and hopeless and deciding that death is the only option left