Final-Chapter 14 Part 1

Question 1

What is a psychological disorder?

Answer 1

A psychological disorder is any pattern of behavior that causes people significant distress, causes them to harm others, or harms their ability to function in daily life. It is statistically are and deviant from social norms.

Question 2

What is situational context?

Answer 2

Situational context is the social or environmental setting of a person’s behavior.

Question 3

What is psychopathology?

Answer 3

Psychopathology is the study of abnormal behavior.

Question 3

What is subjective discomfort?

Answer 3

Subjective discomfort is emotional distress or discomfort.

Question 4

What is maladaptive thinking?

Answer 4

Maladaptive thinking or behavior is anything that does not allow a person to function within or adapt to the stresses and everyday demands of life.

Question 5

What is the DSM-5?

Answer 5

The DSM‐5 describes about 250 different psychological disorders. In a given year, about 26.2 percent of American adults over age 18 suffer from a mental disorder. Only about 5.8 percent of people suffer from a severe mental disorder. People are more common to suffer from more than one disorder at a time (45%).

Question 6

What are anxiety disorders?

Answer 6

Anxiety disorder are defined by excessive or unrealistic worry and fearfulness such as in phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorders.

Question 7

Describe anxiety disorders under the description of phobias and social anxiety.

Answer 7

A phobia is an irrational, persistent fear of an object, situation, or social activity. A specific phobia is a fear of objects or specific situations or events. Agoraphobia is fear of being in a place or situation from which escape is difficult or impossible.

Question 8

What is social anxiety disorder?

Answer 8

Social anxiety disorder is the fear of interacting with others or being in social situations that might lead to a negative evaluation.

Question 9

What is a panic attack?

Answer 9

A panic attack does constitute as a anxiety disorder. A panic attack is a sudden fear response in the absence of immediate threat. It is a false alarm or “misfire” of fear system.

Question 10

What is the difference between a panic attack vs. a panic disorder.

Answer 10

Having a panic attack (or even a few) does not mean you have a disorder. A panic disorder involves persistent worry about having additional attacks, worry about the implications of an attack, and/or a significant change in behavior related to the attacks.

Question 11

What is generalized anxiety disorder?

Answer 11

Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by excessive anxieties and worries about a number of events/activities that occurs more days than not for at least 6 months. Can also have physical symptoms (e.g., tension, restlessness, fatigue, sleep problems).

Question 12

What is obsessive-compulsive disorder?

Answer 12

Obsessive‐compulsive disorder (an anxiety disorder) can include both intruding, recurring thoughts (obsessions) that create discomfort relieved by performing a repetitive, ritualistic behavior (compulsion). Some people just have obsessions or compulsions.

Question 13

What is acute stress disorder?

Answer 13

Acute stress disorder (an anxiety disorder) (ASD) is a disorder resulting from exposure to a major, traumatic stressor that lasts up to a month.

Question 14

What is post-truamatic stress disorder?

Answer 14

Posttraumatic stress disorder (an anxiety disorder) (PTSD) is characterized by having the symptoms associated with ASD that last for more than one month. PTSD symptoms include intrusions, avoidance, negative changes in cognition or emotion, and changes in arousal/reactivity.

Question 15

What are the causes of anxiety disorders?

Answer 15

Psychodynamic explanations point to repressed urges and desires that are trying to surface, creating anxiety that is controlled by the abnormal behavior. Behaviorists believe that anxiety disordered behavior is learned through both positive and negative reinforcement. Cognitive psychologists believe that excessive anxiety comes from illogical, irrational thought processes.

Question 16

What are the causes of anxiety disorder?

Answer 16

Anxiety behavior can be caused by irrational thinking (Cognitive).

1. Magnification is the tendency to interpret situations as far more dangerous,harmful, or important than they actually are
2. All‐or‐nothing thinking is the belief that one’s performance must be perfect or the result will be a total failure.
3. Overgeneralization is the interpretation of a single negative event as a never‐ending pattern of defeat and failure.
4. Minimization is the tendency to give little or no importance to one’s successes or positive events and traits.

Question 17

What is major depressive disorder?

Answer 17

Major depressive disorder is a severely depressed mood that comes on suddenly and seems to have no external cause. May include thoughts of death or suicide. Most common of diagnosed disorders of mood and are episodic in nature. Cognitive symptoms of major depressive disorder include feelings of worthlessness, guilty, problems concentrating or making decisions, and thoughts of death or suicide. The affective (emotional) symptoms include a depressed mood and diminished pleasure while somatic symptoms include fatigue and sleep problems.

Question 18

What is bipolar disorder?

Answer 18

Bipolar disorder is characterized by periods of moods that may range from normal to manic, with or without episodes of depression (bipolar I disorder), or spans of normal mood interspersed with episodes of major depression and episodes of hypomania (bipolar II disorder).

Question 19

What is a manic episode?

Answer 19

Manic episodes are characterized by inflated self‐esteem or grandiosity, decreased need for sleep, more talkative than usual, racing thoughts, distractible, increase in goal‐directed activity, and excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for negative consequences.

Question 20

What are some causes of depression and bipolar disorder?

Answer 20

Behavioral theories link depression to learned helplessness. Cognitive theories see depression as the result of distorted, illogical thinking. Biological explanations of mood disorders look at the function of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine systems in the brain which links to some genetic origins.

Question 21

What are the models of abnormality?

Answer 21

The models of abnormality include The Biological Model, Psychological Models, Sociocultural Model, and The Biopsychosocial Model.

Question 22

What does the biological model of abnormality say.

Answer 22

Biological model states psychological disorders have biological or medical causes such as biological changes in the chemical, structural, or genetic systems of the body.

Question 23

What does the psychological model of abnormality say.

Answer 23

Psychodynamic states that repressed urges/conflicts are the cause. Some example of evidence include case Studies (Little Hans).
Cognitive theories state that illogical, irrational thought processes are the cause. The evidence states biases in interpretation of ambiguous information.

Question 24

What does the psychological behavioral model say?

Answer 24

The psychological behavioral model states that classical and operant conditioning may be the cause.
Operant condition example: Touch a doorknob (OCD) cause thoughts about contamination and feelings of disgust leading to washing hands (behavior) and a feeling of relief (negatively reinforces washing hands when you have thoughts about contamination).