Definitions Of Abnormality - Statistical Infrequency and Deviation From Social Norms

Question 1

How to define abnormality?

Answer 1

• Any relatively visual behaviour or characteristic can be deemed as normal and any behaviour that is different is abnormal

Question 2

What is statistical infrequency?

Answer 2

• Occurs when an individual has a less common characteristic i.e. being more intelligent or depressed than the rest of the population
• It is about numbers

Question 3

What is an example of statistical infrequency?

Answer 3

IQ and intellectual disability disorder:
- Intelligence can be reliably measured, 68% of the population have an IQ between 85-115.

• Only 2% have an IQ lower than 70, they would be diagnosed with intellectual disability disorder.
• Statistical deviation would suggest anyone who scores above or below the average is considered abnormal

Question 4

What is deviation from social norms?

Answer 4

• Concerns behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviour in a community or society
• They are specific to the culture that we live in, few are considered universally abnormal.

Question 5

What is an example of deviation from social norms?

Answer 5

Antisocial personality disorder:

• A person with antisocial personality disorder is impulsive, aggressive and irresponsible.
• One important symptom is an ‘absence of prosocial internal standards associated with failure to conform to lawful or culturally normative ethical behaviour.’
• We make a social judgement that a psychopath is abnormal because they don’t conform to our moral standards. This is considered abnormal in a very wide range of cultures.

Question 6

What is a strength of statistical infreuency?

Answer 6

Real-life application:

• Real-life application in the diagnosis of intellectual disability disorder.
• Therefore there is a place for statistical infrequency in thinking about what are normal and abnormal behaviours and characteristics.
• All assessments of patients with mental disorders include some kind of measurement of how severe their symptoms are as compared to statistical norms. Statistical infrequency is a useful part of clinical assessment.

Question 7

What is a weakness of statistical infrequency?

Answer 7

Unusual characteristics can be positive:

• IQ scores over 130 are just as unusual as those below 70, but we wouldn’t think of super-intelligence as being an undesirable characteristic that needs treatment.
• Just because very few people display certain behaviours does make the behaviour statistically abnormal but doesn’t mean it requires treatment to return to normal.
• This is a limitation of the concept of statistical infrequency and means that it would never be used alone to make a diagnosis.

Question 8

What is a weakness of deviation from social norms?
(1)

Answer 8

Cultural relativism:

• Social norms vary tremendously from one generation to another and from one community to another.
• For example, a person from one cultural group may label someone from another culture as behaving abnormally according to their standards rather than the standards of the person behaving that way.
• Hearing voices is socially acceptable in some cultures but would be seen as a sign of mental abnormality in the UK. This creates problems for people from one culture living within another culture group.

Question 9

What is a weakness of deviation from social norms?
(2)

Answer 9

Cn lead to human rights abusers:

• Too much reliance on deviation from social norms to understand abnormality can also lead to systematic abuse of human rights.
• Historical examples of deviation from social norms (Drapetomania - Black slaves - running away and Nymphomania) show that some diagnoses were there to maintain control over minority ethnic groups and women.
• These classifications seem ridiculous now but only because our social norms have changed. Modern radical psychologists suggest that some of our modern categories of mental disorders are really abuses of people’s rights to be different.