Clinical - Anorexia Flashcards

Question

Clinical Key Question - A03 (What are the implications for society if anorexia is a learned disorder?)

Answer 1

-OPERANT CONDITIONING -Jones and Crawford (2006) assessed the role of teasing and found that overweight girls and underweight boys were most likely to be teased by their peers -Suggesting that through teasing, peers serve to enforce gender-based ideals such as the 'need' for women to be thin and therefore AN may be a learned disorder -SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY -Becker's (2002) Fiji study found that after the introduction of western TV on the island, teens reported much higher rates of dieting and body image concerns. -This suggests social influences on eating disorders are crucially important and careful consideration of media, images young people are exposed to is needed

Answer 2

-Biological Explanation -Although there is widespread exposure to celebrity culture, only a small percentage of the population become anorexic -This therefore suggests that the underlying cause of the disorder is biological and therefore not learned -For example. Kaye et al (2005) used a PET scan to compare dopamine activity in the brains of 10 women recording from AN and 12 healthy controls

Answer 3

-Diagnosis is proposing a cause for a psychological (or medical) problem. -It is followed by a prognosis which is a prediction about how the problem will develop with or without treatment

Answer 4

-DEVIANCE -Behaviours and emotions are viewed as unacceptable because they are rare -A way of deciding whether behaviour is deviant is to consider how unusual it is statistically -Another way is looking at social norms as when people violate social norms, it is seen as abnormal -DYSFUNCTION -When the abnormal behaviour is significantly interfering with everyday tasks and living your life -A person is considered abnormal if they're unable to cope with the demands of everyday life e.g. looking after yourself, holding down a job, maintaining relationships with friends and family -DISTRESS -The view that abnormality involves being unhappy, relating to experiencing negative emotions e.g. anxiety, isolation, confusion and fear -Abnormality is when these negative feelings occur inappropriately or persist longer than they should -DANGER -Consisting of: danger to self and danger to others -If the behaviour in question become dangerous and excessively risky, then a diagnosis may be required

Answer 5

-AIM: -To find out whether mental health professionals could distinguish between those who were genuinely mentally ill and those who were not -PROCEDURE: -Field experiment and ppt observation -12 psychiatric hospitals with 8 'pseudopatients' (5 men, 3 women) chosen via opportunity sampling -Pseudopatients called up various hospitals for an appt and complained of 'hearing voices' (auditory hallucinations) and said they heard the words 'empty, thud and hollow' -7 pseudopatients admitted with diagnosed schizophrenia, 1 admitted with diagnosis of manic depression with psychosis -They acted normally with staff and genuine patients, accepted but didn't take medication given to them and didn't report any more symptoms -Pseudopatients observed and recorded qualitative and quantitative behaviour of staff -A follow-up study took place in another hospital where the staff asked Rosenhan to send more pseudopatients over a 3 month period, claiming they'd definitely notice who was real or fake -Rosenhan didn't send any patients

Answer 6

-FINDINGS: -Quantitative findings is that the pseudopatients were hospitalised between 7 and 52 days (avg 19 days) prior to being discharged -No doctors or nurses questioned their genuineness -In 4/12 hospitals, no staff answered the pseudopatients when they asked questioned -71% of doctors and 88% of nurses ignored the pseudopatient when questioned -Qualitative findings is that 3 'normal' behaviours were misinterpreted as 'abnormal' including note writing being interpreted by as nurse as 'engaging in writing behaviour' as though it was something only a person with a mental illness would do -Another interpreted pacing up and down as a sign of nervousness when the pseudopatient was just bored -Follow up study showed out of 193 cases, 41 of the patients were identified as fake by 1 staff member and 23 suspected fake by a psychiatrist but 0 were actually fake -CONCLUSION: -Mental health professionals can't distinguish between real and fake patients, and they were willing to make a diagnosis based on one fake symptom -'Normal' behaviour was misinterpreted as 'abnormal' to support their idea that the pseudopatients had a mental illness -This suggests the validity of psychiatric diagnoses was low

Answer 7

-High Internal Validity -The doctors and nurses in 12 hospitals were unaware they were being observed by the pseudopatients and therefore it is likely that they treated them in exactly the same way they would have treated any of their real patients -Lack of demand characteristics means the study is very useful in highlighting issues surrounding the difficulty of diagnosing mental disorders -High Ecological Validity -Field experiment based on observations in real psychiatric settings -Study used 12 real hospitals as well as real medical staff and patients -Strength as it means we can be confident that the invalid nature of diagnoses apply to real hospitals, locations and medical teams -However the hospitals were all in USA and the patients were all from the same culture and so the results may only tell us about USA in the early 70's

Answer 8

-Ethnocentric: -A western view on mental health -Conducted in 12 US hospitals and focused on the use of DSM-II manual for diagnosing mental disorders -Weakness as other cultures may not use the DSM-II manual and may not share some westernised symptoms, especially hallucinations -We can't assume the process of diagnosing mental disorders will show similar problems in other cultures and countries -Ethical Issues: -No staff gave permission to take part and they didn't know they were being observed -They may've felt distressed or angry that they were bring used w/o consent -Pseudopatients deliberately deceived hospital staff claiming they heard voices, breaking ethical guidelines, wasting staff time -Weakness as several guidelines today were breached which raises questions into whether the study should've been allowed -The benefits to the field of mental health outweigh the cost of deception and lack of consent -Rosenhan's study has been replicated and has been influential in the way in which psychiatrists treat and diagnose individuals