Psych Notes

States of Consciousness Consciousness awareness of oneself and the environment
5 components of consciousness:
1 Taking in information from the world (sensation)
2 Recognition of this information (perception)
3 Make decisions about this information that just occurred
4 Respond to these inputs and this information
5 Notice consequences of actions and feelings Example: black ice on the road
1 Noticing visually the shine on the road; getting auditory stimulation through the news radio
2 Perceived this to be black ice; hearing that the road is icy and there are accidents everywhere
3 Decided to take not one road because there was an accident; knowing that the back roads will be icier but will at least be moving
4 Chose to go very slowly
5 Noticed when went too fast, the ( ) brakes came on; feeling stressed because of the dangers Levels of Awareness
Higher level: using controlled processes such as focused concentration
Lower level: automatic cognitive processes such as daydreaming while drying your hair or driving when it is not traffic-y
Altered states: you are physically conscious but your mental state is altered such as when you are drunk, high or hypnotized
Subconscious: you are conscious but not awake so sleeping and dreaming
No awareness: Freud's notion of the unconscious; there are elements of our life that we cannot get in touch with; it is debatable is someone in a coma would be in this level or in the subconscious level Daydreaming state of altered conscious that occurs effortlessly
Typically occurs when you'd rather be doing something else; offers escape from reality
Types of daydreamers:
Anxious people have fleeting, loosely connected daydreams related to worries
Achievement-oriented people have daydreams that focus on accomplishments, fear of failure, guilt. This is probably what most people are. Spent a lot of time worried because you have that fear of failure and if you blow off something, you have a feeling of guilt.
Happy daydreamers concoct pleasant fantasies, plans, and solve problems. This can be used what they are going to be done this upcoming weekend or how they are going to solve problems
About 4% of the population tends to be fantasy prone. They construct elaborate fantasies that they become very involved in. For the people do this, they are the ones who are most easily hypnotized and can enter into a trance. They are also the people who when they are reading a book, for example, they would not hear you call their name.
Why do we daydream?
Some people say that it is valueless and it is a waste of time because they are not dealing with their problems. Escapists; non-direct way of dealing with the world
It is a way for people to deal with uncomfortable feelings and gives us a safer way to deal with things that we normally couldn’t deal with
Example: you find that your significant other is cheating on you; you are not going to murder the person your s.o. is cheating on you with, but you can have a daydream about all of the bad things that are going to happen to that person
"Down time" that allows us to process information we missed earlier
Example: you are in a lecture and you look down at your pants and see a stain on them or a scratch on your hand that you missed earlier Sleep
The human body has different biological rhythms. There are nine dimensions of temperament, and one of those is rhythmicity.
Biological rhythms: Our bodies have biological rhythms and we are people who generally get hungry at the same time every day, we get tired at a certain time, we go to the bathroom at roughly the same time every day. We have rhythms throughout the day, that we do might not even realize
Circadian rhythms: once about every 24 hours. Experiments were done in order to see individual's true circadian rhythms.
Example: In order to study people, they are put in isolation rooms. They asked for mainly graduate and law students who were asked to