Abnormality AO1

Question 1

Statistical Infrequency

Answer 1

Abnormality is defined as those behaviour that are extremely rare, i.e any behaviour that is found in very few people is regarded abnormal.

Eg intellect disability disorder. IQ less than 70 is consider abnormal. 95/6% of the population have an IQ of 70-130

Question 2

Deviation from social norms

Answer 2

Abnormal behaviour is seen as deviation from unstated rules l about how ‘ought’ to behave. Anything that violates these rules are considered abnormal

Eg. Homosexuality was considered to be ‘abnormal’ and was regarded a mental disorder. it was also against the law in the UK (but not nowadays).

Question 3

Strength of Deviation from social norms

AO3

Answer 3

Deviation from social norms does distinguish between desirable and undesirable behaviours which is not achieved with the statistical infrequency definition.

Question 4

Limitations of Deviation from social norms

Answer 4

Judgements on deviance are often related to the context of a behaviour. Eg. a person one a beach wearing a swim suit is regarded as normal, whereas the same outfit in a classroom or at a formal gathering would be regarded as abnormal and possibly an indication of a mental disorder

This means that social deviance on its own cannot offer a complete definition of abnormality as it is inevitably related to both context and degree

Question 5

Strengths of statistical infrequency

Answer 5

Sometimes it is appropriate - eg intellectual disability is defined as an IQ which is more then two SDs bellow the mean.

This suggests that statistical infrequency is only one of a number of tools

Question 6

A limitation of Statistical infrequency

Answer 6

There as many abnormal behaviours that are actually quite desirable. eg. someone with an IQ over 150 bus this is abnormality is desirable not undesirable.

Therefore, using statistical infrequency to define abnormality means that we are unable to distinguish between destínale and undesirable behaviours