PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS AND TREATMENTS
Task 1
CASE STUDY
Task 2
From the behavior displayed by Cathy, it comes out clearly that she is suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Social anxiety disorder has been defined as the fear that surrounds a person on a social situation and when interacting with unfamiliar people to bring an automatic feeling of self-consciousness and judgment. Looking at the case of Cathy as presented, we can conclude that she is a grown up as depicted by her age, 22 years. So the behavior she displays can’t be associated with childhood. From her story, we realize that she drives her own car when going to university, not because of any other reasons but because she fears using the public transport. Since we have not been presented with any case which might have led him to fearing public transport like accidents we conclude that she behaves that way to avoid being in a midst of crowds. This conclusion is however affirmed by her deliberate choice to leave his course of interest (Business studies) in the university because it was crowded. She made this decision to avoid the feeling of anxiety and uncomfortable in the lecture theatres since they would be crowded by students. She rather chooses a less popular course since it would have small number of students.
Task 3
Treatment for Social Anxiety Disorder
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) treatment depends on the victim’s severity as far as physical and emotional symptoms are concerned. The treatment duration also differs with some people responding well to the initial treatments and not requiring more attention, while others require support in the whole of their lives. Both Cognitive behavioral therapy and medication have shown effectiveness in treating SAD (Stein & Stein, 2013). Generally this disorder responds best under a combination of Cognitive behavioral therapy and medication, although therapy alone can be sufficient for some specific SAD Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a choice treatment for social anxiety disorder. Through this therapy, victims learn diverse ways of responding to both feelings and thoughts, and learn how to participate in different behaviors to reduce their fear of people. CBT also assists the victims to learn and exercise the social skills they lack (Stein & Stein, 2013). Unlike the customary talk-therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy is a lively treatment, which entails the use training skills and behavioral tasks. By learning and practicing CBT skills, the victims learn to be their personal therapists, a feature that makes CBT a relatively transitory treatment, usually taking 16 sessions. Under his therapy, there are three techniques used exposure and cognitive restructuring
Exposure: Exposure takes place either via social situation or in-vivo. For the victims having extreme and severe SAD, therapists usually start with the imagined exposure before eventually progressing to in-vivo. The principle underlying exposure therapy is the fact that through practicing and experiencing, a person becomes more comfortable in scenarios that he or she would otherwise shun (Heimberg, 2012).
Cognitive restructuring: Cognitive restructuring targets the cognitive symptoms of Social anxiety disorder like fear of undesirable evaluation by the rest of the people and negative acknowledgment bias. It involves a chain of exercises which are designed to reveal the negative thoughts of the victim, evaluating how valid they are, and constructing alternative thoughts in order to challenge the original ones (Heimberg, 2012).
References
Stein, M. B., & Stein, D. J. (2013). Social anxiety disorder. The Lancet, 371(9618), 1115-1125.
Heimberg, R. G. (2012). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder: current status and future directions. Biological psychiatry, 51(1), 101-108.
EXERCISE 2: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (SOCIAL INFLUENCE, ATTITUDE CHANGE, & PERSUASION)
Task 1
The image link: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/339247784411679984/
Task 2
The common technique of persuasion which has been used in my advert of choice above is that of authority. Considering that most people are aware of the famous Basketballer, Carmelo Anthony who has been used in this advert many would be respect the validity of the advert on the basis of him using it. This is in consideration to the fact that people will always respect the views of others who are assumed to occupy higher ranks of knowledge. People will develop a positive attitude automatically when they realize that someone with higher authority and rank has recommended a particular product to be worthy of use. Like in my case, people may be encouraged to buy under the mentality that Carmelo Anthony has approved Vitaminwater product as worthy to strengthen a person (Tiggemann & McGill, 2014).
The manipulation of this picture has done purposely to persuade customers. Looking at the muscles of Carmelo Anthony, they have been exaggerated to appear strong as they are in reality. This is a convincing factor to the potential customers of how taking this water will improve their body shape. A person who has being yearning to achieve such a body shape will definitely fall into the trap of buying this water and which may not bring about such a difference at the end of it all (Kenrick, Neuberg & Cialdini, 2015).
Task 3
From the two approaches which have been used in my advert, it comes out clearly that the advert has utilized the two theories of social psychology; the information manipulation theory and social influence theory (Kenrick, Neuberg & Cialdini, 2015). Through the theory of information manipulation, the body shape of Carmelo Anthony has been exaggerated in terms of how masculine it is to influence those who may be striving to achieve such bodies. On the other hand, social influence theory gets in through the use of Carmelo Anthony, a famous basketballer in the United States of America. As a famous person, his appearance in the advert acts as a motivation of approval for this product.
References
Tiggemann, M., & McGill, B. (2014). The role of social comparison in the effect of magazine advertisements on women’s mood and body dissatisfaction. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23(1), 23-44.
Kenrick, D. T., Neuberg, S. L., & Cialdini, R. B. (2015). Social psychology: Unraveling the mystery. Boston: Pearson.
EXERCISE 3: MOTIVATION
Task 1
Generally, most of the courses offered in the university today, and which have promising future to the learners are hard to pursue because of their high demands in terms of dedication and sacrifice. And without motivational factor some of them would not get students to pursue them because most of the student’s behaviors in college don’t match with the demands of such courses. However, the expectations of such students in future tend to lean more on the side of those courses. Credit to the cognitive approach of motivation because despite of such contradicting factors; those courses still get students and excel at the end of it all. Through this motivation theory, students get to realize that their behavior can be determined by their expectations and enroll to such courses (Deci & Ryan, 2015).
Task 2
Student anatomy can be enhanced by the lecturers by minimizing the evaluation pressure salience and avoiding any form of coercion while in the classroom, also by maximizing the perceptions of the students and allowing them to have voice and make choices in the academic practices whenever they are engaged. Indeed, studies have indicated that the autonomy supported teaching practices results into positive outcomes when it comes to class results (Deci & Ryan, 2015).
On the other hand, students competence in class rooms can be enhanced by the lecturers through the introduction of various learning activities that optimally challenge their abilities, thereby allowing them to test and also expand their abilities in academics. Additionally, it is important for lecturers to provide their students with necessary tools and responses which encourage success and efficacy feelings in their inner self. The core notion is that most of the students tend to engage more lively in the activities they have mastered and can comprehend (Deci & Ryan, 2015).
In addition to autonomy and competence needs of students, SDT suggests that the feeling of satisfaction in strive for relatedness encourages the internalization process of the students. This is because people usually internalize and appreciate their own values and those they feel connected to when they have a sense of belonging. In lecturing, the feeling of relatedness can be linked with the students feeling a genuine love, respect and value from their lecturers (Deci & Ryan, 2015).
Task 3
Chosen area of study: social work
Part A
My friend Festus has been always the last person in our class of 78 students to hand over his assignment to our Psychology lecturer. This has resulted to low aggregate grades of Festus because every time he hands over his assignment late, marks are deducted. Festus has maintained this trend because of procrastination. I would recommend Festus to be doing his class assignments immediately they are assigned (Schunk, Meece & Pintrich, 2012).
Part B
In the few assignments which Festus has been submitting on time, we are always under the supervision of our lecturers. Only in such situations has Festus proved to work on his assignments in the due time. Festus is likely is likely not to comply with my recommendation as he will argue out that he cannot stress himself unless he is under supervision.
According to Hawthorne Effect theory, a theory which was first described by Henry A. Landsberger in the year 1950 after noticing the tendency of people to only work or perform better under supervision, my friend Festus lies under the category of people who were being described by Henry (Wickström & Bendix, 2014).
According to this theory, the victims of the circumstance will only work or perform as expected only if they are under supervision. While I don’t choose to be hovering over my friend Festus any time we are given assignments, I will always let him know that there is an assignment which he should look into from the moment it is assigned in the class (Wickström & Bendix, 2014). Showing him that I care about his grade and overall performance will likely motivate him to be working on his assignments early on before the deadline. I will also encourage him to be giving me feedback on his assignment progress.
References
Schunk, D. H., Meece, J. R., & Pintrich, P. R. (2012). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications. Pearson Higher Ed.
Wickström, G., & Bendix, T. (2014). The” Hawthorne effect”—what did the original Hawthorne studies actually show?. Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health, 363-367.
Deci, E., & Ryan, R. M. (2015). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Springer Science & Business Media.