Social-Cognitive Perspective, which is under Biopsychosocial Approach is the idea that suggests that depression arises partly from self-defeating beliefs and negative explanatory styles. Biopsychological Approach assumes that biology, socio-cultural, and psychological factors combine and interact to produce psychological disorders. And explanatory style is the reason we give ourselves when unavoidable, painful events occur; sometimes we can get through it and other times we can’t. Responding to a situation negatively can play a role in becoming depressed.

As humans, we often reflect on ways to better our experiences but sometimes we are forced to dwell on the past, never learning to fix the problem. According to Frank Pajares, “people with low self-efficacy may believe that things are tougher than they really are, a belief that fosters anxiety, stress, depression, and a narrow vision of how best to solve a problem.”

We all go through hard times, which leads us to the believe that there will never be an end to it, but we quickly get over it because things do indeed get better. While this is true, not everyone can come to this realization and John is one of them. John lost his wife in a car accident about five years ago and since then, he has never been the same. After years of many lows and a complete change of his behavior after the incident, his family came to the realization that he was depressed. John blames himself for the car accident because he was the one driving, but in reality, the car accident was caused by a drunk driver. He also blames himself for whatever bad thing occurs in his life, like losing his job and house. He feels helpless and hopeless and often just sits inside all day, lacking the willpower to do anything. John lost his job because he felt he could not perform well at his job anymore , he felt worthless. Since the death of his wife, John withdrew from his family and close friends, refusing to see them or making an excuse whenever invited to go out with them. Since John lost his job, he could not afford to keep his home. The fact that John’s wife died in a car accident and his inability to fully recover, which caused him to become depressed is known as a negative explanatory style. John never got over the death of his wife and he never accepted that it wasn’t his fault she died, causing him to be depressed. John shows some sign of self-defeating beliefs like the idea that he could not keep his job or perform well if he could not drive well enough to save the life of his wife. John believes that he does not deserve to live and does not believe that things will get better so he attempted several times to end his life. John exercises low self-efficacy since he does not believe things will get better and therefore doesn’t try to get or accept help.

Work Cited

“Self-efficacy Defined.” Self-efficacy Defined. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2014.<http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/eff.html>

Everyone knows the struggle of being in middle school or high school and wanting to be just like your friends. I feel as though this is especially difficult for girls, who find their desire to fit in creep in to every tiny little aspect of their life. Girls will find themselves doing stupid things that they probably don’t even like in order to gain approval of someone they do like.

For me, that stupid thing was eating hummus. And that person was my whole group of friends who decided that eating hummus was trendy. After the boom of the health fad of the early 2000’s where everyone decided eating organic was cool, my friend’s lunch boxes starting popping up with all kinds of new foods. Some stuck with the relatively safe greek yogurt, while others took the trend all the way to tofu. It was decided that our new favorite snack was going to be hummus. We ate it all the time. Every day, without fail, at lunch time our table was covered in little tupperware containers of the chick pea product, with carrots or pretzels to dip in it. At sleepovers, there it was on the table, where my beloved cheese puffs used to sit. During lacrosse season, while we ate hummus as a pre or post practice snack every day, I contracted MRSA from a competitor’s turf. For those of you who have never had MRSA, it’s a skin infection I wouldn’t wish on my worse enemy. The bacteria is resistant to a whole slew of antiobiotics, and takes weeks to cure. It makes your whole body ache, and the surface infection hurts more than I can even explain.

Anyways, this infection became somehow associated with hummus in my mind. Two years later, the trendiness of hummus has worn off. So while I don’t have to be around it all of the time, it has become a staple to several of my friends’ diets. Any time I find myself around hummus, my stomach turns at just the sight. The couple of times I have tried to eat it, the taste has been so appaling that I couldn’t get past the first bite. Taste aversion to this food has entirely ruined the prospect of ever eating it again.

Over the years, psychological disorders have risen in fascination because the elicit unexplained physical symptoms, irrational fear, and obsessive or suicidal thoughts. Personally, I have been in recovery for almost 8-9 months now for orthorexia. ☺ This is a subtype of anorexia that encompasses the obsession with eating health; yet, in reality it is a severely limiting diet. It starts out through healthy lifestyle changes but is taken to the extreme when the diet is ultimately limited down to only specific foods, prepared in specific ways. In essence, this mirrors the parallel trait of an over compulsive disorder, which leaves them with unwanted, relentless thoughts and abnormal fixations on food.
This compulsive disorder cripples them with adoption of senseless rituals that cause them simultaneous stress and calming effect. It seems to give them a false sense of control, since they fear their inability to control their own life. They become so compulsive about the types of fruits they consume that their diet becomes restricted to fruits and veggies. Being a dual major in pre-medicine and nutrition, I certainly know that it is close to impossible for the human body to survive on fruits and veggies alone. Thus, orthorexics have unforeseen, drastic losses in weight, and they become severly malnourished. Mentally, they have convinced themselves that they “are fine” and are just being health conscious. However. They are blinded to the severity of the issue at hand, they are blind to the mere fact they are starving themselves.
The thought or presence of food makes them anxious because they feel unworthy of it, especially treats like cookies or birthday cake. They become irritable and defensive if people question their behavior or encourage them to stray from their strict diet. I can relate the feelings we experience to the definition of a panic disorder from lecture because the mere thought of disrupting my perfectionist meal plan causes feelings of terror and chest pains through my body. My entire reflex and muscle system tense up and this strange, intoxicating anger quickly builds up inside as if another personality or alter ego is taking over my body and about to lash out. The mood swings varied between both extremes – thus, no one ever knew how to act around me without setting off the voices in my head
Thus, this reaction makes it hard for orthorexics to be socially inept; especially because their eating habits keep them from going out to lunches or dinners with friends to cater relationships. If they do, all they can think about during the meal is the food or how much time must be spent at the gym to get rid of it all. Essentially, this disease leads to incomprehensible obsessions and irrational fears similar to what other psychological disorders elicit. It is very interesting and scary how the mind works.
Upon my research, I found that this disorder is one of the top deadly psychiatric diagnoses. The mortality rate of 5.86 is dramatically higher than: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.

Alex Banfield

4/9/14

PSYCH 100

Blog Post 3

The Reason I Cannot Drink Diet Coke with Lime

            Taste aversion is a psychology coined term that is fairly self-explanatory. Basically, people and animals are more likely to stray away from eating or drinking items when they get sick after consuming said item. That being said, taste aversion is an incredibly powerful force inside your brain that literally controls how the entire body feels. It is thought that taste aversion is an evolutionary trait that has been taken by humans and animals to keep them safe from consuming poisonous foods or drinks. Farmers have capitalized on taste aversion for hundreds of years to protect their crops. To stop animals from eating the plants they are growing, farmers will spray certain types of poison that will not kill the animal, but will make them very sick after consuming the plant and poison. Then, because of taste aversion, the animal will be terrified to consume or even go near the plants again. Having these facts in mind, let me tell you the reason I cannot drink diet Coke with lime ever again.

I was 15 years old, and had recently taken a liking to diet Coca Cola with lime flavoring. Everyone has had that stage in life where they find a drink or food they really like, and that is all they want for days and sometimes even weeks. Well for me, this beverage was nearly the only thing I drank for about a week straight. Then, it happened. By it, I mean my experience with taste aversion. Almost immediately after eating dinner one night, I remember feeling incredibly sick. My stomach hurt worse than words could describe. To avoid an in detail, disgusting story, I vomited a multitude of times and was practically bed/bathroom ridden for a few days. These instances, however, were different then just regular getting sick to your stomach. Every time I got sick, all I could taste was the diet Coke with lime. Even just seeing the bottle made me sick, so I literally made my parents throw out every bottle of diet Coke with lime we owned!

Of course, it probably wasn’t the beverage that I got sick from, but more likely undercooked food from dinner of just a common stomach bug. That being said, I cannot drink diet Coke with lime to this day. Just thinking about the drink right now is making me queasy to be honest, which is incredible when you think about it. I can tell everyone it wasn’t the diet coke with lime, yet I still feel this strong taste aversion against it. I believe my experience is a great example of taste aversion. The drink I dare to even look at to this day almost definitely did not cause me to get sick, but I cannot make myself go near it again. This truly shows that the effects of taste aversion can be very strong.

As the product of a northeastern prep school, I am used to being under a certain level of stress. Not only did my education instill in me a hard-working, perfectionist mentality but my own personality is such that if I was not busy, running from school to newspaper meetings to sports practice to dance practice, I was bored. Even now that I am in college, I am involved in a number of organizations and enjoy keeping busy while pursuing my passions. By now, I am used to managing my life in this way; however, when the stress has become too much in the past, I experienced a psychological disorder known as panic disorder.

It wasn’t until sometime in high school that I realized these periods of intense anxiety weren’t normal. For me, it usually was triggered by excessive anxiety about current environmental stimuli or something I feared would occur in the future. For example, my type-A personality type caused me to develop a minor phobia of sicknesses, especially debilitating illness that could set me back in school or prevent me from attending important extracurricular activities or social events about which I was excited.

When I’m especially anxious (especially during stressful life periods, such as college application time), an innocuous rumble in my gut could trigger anxiety. As my sympathetic nervous system kicked in, I would feel physically ill and my heart would race. Sometimes I’d go from feeling cold one moment to really hot the next. I often would feel a desire to leave areas where I was surrounded by others and I preferred being outside in the fresh air, where I could better calm down and control my stress.

After having my first recognized panic attack, I did found it can create a vicious cycle. If I’m nervous, my fear of my nerves triggering another attack further increases my anxiety. Luckily, my attacks are not regular occurrences and have not disrupted my life. However, they are still scary experiences when they do occur and I feel for those who have more disruptive psychological issues that regularly disrupt their lives.

I was born in Philadelphia and raised in a suburb only about thirty-five minutes away from the city.  So, as you may have guessed, I absolutely love everything that is “Philly,” like cheesesteaks, soft pretzels, and Tastykakes.  However, I still experience a horrible taste aversion to this day from a Philly classic that I absolutely despise: cream cheese.  Taste aversion is a hatred of foods if they become sick afterwards.  Sometimes people are unaware the reason why they dislike a certain food is because they have a subconscious taste aversion to it.  Others are consciously aware of the reason why they hate a certain food because it had made them sick on a previous occasion.  Even if this specific food was not the actual reason you got sick, you still link the food to the illness and then stay away from that food in order to stay healthy.  As we learned in class, a study was done with wolves and sheep which tried to prevent the wolves from hunting the sheep.  After concluding that poison is what would make the wolves sick, researchers coated the sheep’s wool with poison.  When the wolves tried to kill the sheep, they tasted the poison.  The wolves associated the taste with getting sick, and they no longer hunted the sheep.

My taste aversion experience happened when I was young.  I was introduced to cream cheese as a child, so naturally it was my “go-to” spread whenever I was eating a bagel.  One day, my dad brought home a bunch of bagels for my family for breakfast.  He brought out the cream cheese, but he had also bought strawberry flavored cream cheese for us to try.  I was excited to try the new cream cheese, so I took some and lathered my bagel in the spread.  After eating the bagel I started feeling a little bit nauseous.  About ten minutes later I sprinted to the bathroom and I got sick. I ended up being sick for three days.  After this awful experience I will never eat strawberry cream cheese, and I am still a little hesitant to even try strawberry flavored foods or snacks.  I blame my hatred of strawberry flavoring and cream cheese in general to my taste aversion.  Whenever I even see foods like this, I cringe and I get the chills.  I had a bad experience being sick, so in order to prevent that from ever happening again, I still refuse to eat anything that reminds me of cream cheese or strawberry flavoring since I associate them with getting sick.

Operant conditioning, as explained in class, is when an association is made between behaviors and the events that follow as a result. These behaviors produce consequences, which range from bad, neutral, to good.  By using operant conditioning, one can teach or “train” someone or something to perform a task.  After learning about this type of conditioning in class, I realized that I demonstrated this when I trained my dog.

As the trainer, I used shaping and positive reinforcement to train my dog to ring a bell on the door to let us know that he needed to be let out to do his businesss.  During “potty-training” my dog, I chose to not use punishment. Instead of punishing him when he had an accident in the house, I instead used positive reinforcement.  I had a bell hung low enough on the door so that he could reach it with his nose.  My final goal was for him to be able to ring it before he had an accident in the house.  If he had an accident in the house, I would simply coax him over to the bell, tap his nose against it, and let him outside.  Then, I started “shaping” him. At first, he started to just walk over to the door but did not get the point of ringing the bell.  Every time he would go to the door, I would give him a treat.  Then, following that, I would tap his nose against the bell and give him another treat before I let him out.  This demonstrates successive approximations.  After a few of these treat rewards, he began ringing the bell before he had an accident in the house.  I gave him a treat every time and then let him out.  By using positive reinforcement, and presenting treats as a positive stimuli, his behavior went up. Even after he learned and I stopped giving him treats, his behavior continued.  This may be because he later found the power in the bell and how he could use it to his advantage to be let out or get attention at any time he wished.  Now, he not only rings the bell to be let out to do his business, but also to be let out for enjoyment.