flat affect

Examples of flat affect in the following topics:

• Introduction to Schizophrenia and Psychosis

  • Examples include alogia (lack of speech), flat affect (lack of emotional response), anhedonia (inability to experience pleasure), asociality (lack of interest in social contact), avolition (lack of motivation), and apathy (lack of interest).
  • Disorders of mood and affect include affective flattening, which is a reduced intensity of emotional expression and responsiveness that leaves patients indifferent and apathetic.
  • Patients may also exhibit inappropriate affect, such as laughing at a funeral.

• The Endocrine System and Stress

  • Stressors that are uncontrollable, threaten physical integrity, or involve trauma tend to have a high, flat profile of cortisol release (with lower-than-normal levels of cortisol in the morning and higher-than-normal levels in the evening) resulting in a high overall level of daily cortisol release.
  • There is growing evidence that prenatal stress can affect HPA regulation in humans.

• Compliance

  • Compliance affects everyday behavior, especially in social interactions.
  • They flat-out refuse, because it is extremely expensive.

• Specific Effects of Stress: Cancer

  • While psychological stress has not been found to cause cancer, it may affect a person's overall health and ability to cope with cancer.
  • While psychological stress alone has not been proven to cause cancer, prolonged psychological stress may affect a person's overall health and ability to cope with cancer.
  • Evidence from experimental studies suggests that psychological stress can affect a tumor's ability to grow and spread.

• Etiology of Schizophrenia

  • Schizophrenia is a severe neuro-psychiatric disease that affects approximately 1% of the world's population.
  • Some theorists suggest environmental stress associated with lower-class living may affect brain development, triggering the disease in genetically susceptible individuals.
  • The first is the mesolimbic system, which affects areas regulating reward pathways and emotional processes; the second is the mesocortical system, which affects the prefrontal cortex, areas that regulate cognitive processing, and areas involved with motor control.
  • Glutamate has been theorized to exacerbate hyperactivity and hypoactivity in dopamine pathways, affecting both positive and negative symptoms.
  • Finally, the basal ganglia also affect schizophrenia.

• Conscious vs. Unconscious Emotion

  • It has also been suggested that emotions (affect heuristics, feelings and gut-feeling reactions) are often used as shortcuts to process information and influence behavior.
  • The affect infusion model (AIM) is a theoretical model developed by Joseph Forgas in the early 1990s that attempts to explain how emotion and mood interact with one's ability to process information.
  • These automatic responses are one way our emotions affect our behavior.

• The Endocrine System

  • Hormones are chemicals within the endocrine system that affect physiological activity.
  • Epinephrine: also known as adrenaline; comes from the adrenal gland; affects blood pressure and other stress responses.
  • Melatonin: comes from the pineal gland; affects circadian rhythm and sleep cycles.
  • Oxytocin: the "cuddle" hormone; secreted by the pituitary gland; affects breast-feeding, trust between people;
  • Testosterone: produced in sex organs (ovaries, testes) and adrenal glands; sometimes called the "male hormone" (though it is present in both men and women); affects libido, muscle growth.

• Cerebral Hemispheres and Lobes of the Brain

  • The corpus callosum is a wide, flat bundle of neural fibers beneath the cortex that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres and facilitates interhemispheric communication.

• The Link Between Psychology and Health

  • There is some evidence that certain negative mental states, such as depression and anxiety, can directly affect physical immunity through production of stress hormones, such as the catecholamines and glucocorticoids.
  • Negative emotional states may also indirectly affect disease processes through their influence on health behaviors.
  • When illness or accidents befall a person, their entire life is affected.
  • A psychologically healthy individual who gets severely injured, for example, now has many different practical issues to contend with that will in turn affect their psychological well-being.
  • All of these possibilities can affect a person's relationships, self-esteem, stress level, happiness and belief system, all of which have a direct impact on psychological well-being.

• Explaining Mood Disorders

  • Mood disorders (also called affective disorders) characterize a group of psychological disorders where disturbance in the person's mood is thought to be the main underlying feature.
  • While everyone experiences negative mood at some point in their lives, mood disorders affect an individual's capacity to function in daily life.
  • Major depression significantly affects a person's family and personal relationships, work or school life, sleeping and eating habits, and general health.
  • While insomnia affects at least 80% of depressed people, hypersomnia, or oversleeping, can also happen.
  • There is also a common belief that low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin play a central role in the development and course of affective disorders.