PSYC 2740 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Novelty Seeking, Trait Theory, Mood Disorder

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2740
• Professor: Stephen Lewis

Document Summary

Specific conditions or stimuli (audience) psychological response (anxiety) behaviour (avoiding) Theoretical bridge can be tested by seeing what things will cause physiological response. Electrodermal activity provides measures of sympathetic nervous system activity (also known as skin conductance) Sweat glands are connected directly to the autonomic nervous system. Activity can be measured electrically under ones skin by using electrodes to measure sweat concentrations. People scoring high in anxiety and neuroticism tend to have chronic activation of sympathetic nervous system. Emotional reactivity: intensity and persistence of emotion in response to stimuli. Thought to be elevated among those who self-injure. Induced stress in 2 groups measure skin conductance: those with a history of self-injury and those with no history of self-injury. Task: matching game with failure feedback (even if correct) Goal: determine how long people stay in game and tolerate distress from negative feedback. Findings: history of self-injury had higher skin conductance and more negative emotional reactivity to stress.