Chapter 12 - Normality, Mental Health & Mental Illness Flashcards
Descriptive statistics
used for analysing, organising , summarising and describing results
Experimenter Effect
Occurs when there is a change in a participants due to the researchers expectations, biases or actions, rather than to the effect of the IV
Approaches to defining normality
Situational Statistical Socio-cultural Medical Functional Historical
Mental Health
The capacity of an individual to interact with others and the environment in ways that promote subjective wellbeing, optimal development throughout the lifespan and effective use of person’s cognitive, emotional and social abilities
Mental Illness
A psychological disorder that significantly interferes with an individual’s cognitive, emotional and/or social abilities
Categorical Approach
- A yes-or-no approach
- Organises mental disorders inti categories and subcategories based on shares features
- Strength: A higher degree of detail
- Limitation: high degree of overlap between symptoms of various disorders
Dimensional Approach
- Rank of classifies disorders along a continuum via use of questionnaires or standardised inventories
- Strengths: Quantifying information, a richer more detailed description of an individual’s disorder is generated
DSM & ICD-10
Categorical systems for diagnosing and classifying mental disorders based on recognisable symptoms that are precisely described for each disorder
Axis 3 Of DSM
General Medical Conditions
- Provides information about medical conditions that may have caused disorder from Axis 1 & 2
Biopsychosocial Framework
Biological
Physiological based or determined influences, often not under our control, such as genes we inherit and our neurochemistry
Biopsychosocial framework
Psychological
Influence associated with mental processes such as how we think; learn;make decisions; solve problems; perceive our internal and external environments; perceive, understand and experience emotions; manage stress; reconstruct memories; and so on
Biopsychosocial framework
Social
Skills in interacting with others, the range and quality of our interpersonal relationships, and the amount and type of support, available from others when needed
Stress
A state of physiological and psychological arousal produced by internal or external stressors that are perceived by the individual as challenging or exceeding their ability or resources to cope
Stressor
Any person, situation or event that has the potential to produce stress
A stress response
Physiological and psychological changes that occurs when people are confronted by stressor
Fight-flight response
Increased respiration rate
Increased glucose secretion by the liver
Dilation of pupils
HPA axis
Hypothalamus stimulates the nearby pituitary gland
Pituitary gland secretes hormones such at ATCH
ATCH stimulates the adrenal cortex secretes cortisol
Eustress
A positive psychological response to a stressor
Distress
A negative psychological response to a stressor
Lazarus and Folkman’s Transactional Model - Primary Appraisal
Evaluate, or ‘judge’, the significance of the situation.
Irrelevant, benign-positive or stressful
Problem-focused coping
Effort to manage or change the change the cause the cause or source of the stress; that is, the stressor
Emotion-focused coping
Efforts to deal with our emotional response to the stressor
Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model strengths
The transactional model focuses on psychological determinants of the stress response over which we do have control and emphasises the personal nature and individuality of the stress response
Inferential Statistics
Interpreting and giving meaning to the results.
e.g. p-value
