lecture 3 & 4 Flashcards
How can psychological distress be used to measure abnormality?
Patient directly shows signs of sadness, fear, distress, etc. limitations: distress is subjective and not always observable, symptoms vary from child to child
How can cultural deviancy be used to measure abnormality?
“abnormal” is what violates society’s standards or rules. limitations that socio-cultural norms can vary.
What is behavioral rigidity?
Repeated and inflexible behavior, thoughts, emotional reactions to stressors. Issue is “flexibility” is hard to define.
What does “harmful dysfunction” involve?
Not based on a deviation from normality, criteria is dysfunction: failure in an internal mechanism to
perform a function for which it was naturally selected
and harm: must be caused as a result of dysfunction, limits or threatens the person, or interferes with health.
How does the DSM-5 define mental disorder?
Considers harmful dysfunction & impairment or distress., uses hybrid classification.
What is a sign vs. symptom?
Sign = overt feature (e.g., weight loss, sluggish movement) Symptom = subject experience (feeling sad, loss of energy or appetite)
What does hybrid classification involve?
Categorical: mutually exclusive disorder
categories (e.g., major depression) based on
essential criteria a person meets
(diagnosed) or does not (no dx).
Prototypical: degree to which one’s
presentation maps onto the ideal picture
(prototype; e.g., “at least 5 symptoms.”)
Flexible approach, allows some variability
Dimensional: distress & impairment fall
on a continuum of severity, mild to severe
What are some of the strengths of the DSM-5 definition of mental disorder?
It is a medical model, Suggests disorders must have an underlying psychobiological dysfunction, Considers that distress or impairment is common, but not always both, considers the individual’s social and cultural context.
What are some of the weaknesses of the DSM-5 definition of mental disorder?
Despite suggestion of underlying psychobiological dysfunction, but we know very little of the specific, and it’s hard to establish cause and effect, additionally, can neglect environmental context. Also, some diagnostic boundaries are unclear.
What is Developmental Psychopathology?
A multidisciplinary approach to understanding child development & emergence of MH problems over time.
Developmental psychopathology considers causes of disorder across what 3 broad levels of analysis?
Biological: genes, brain structure & function, physical health & development Psychological: child’s thoughts, feelings, actions Socio-cultural: family, friends, schools, neighborhoods, ethnicity, culture
what is preformism?
An outdated theory that organisms grow from pre-formed, miniature versions of themselves.
What is Epigenesis (neoformism)?
organisms gradually develop from an undifferentiated mass, by a series of steps & stages…
What is developmental epigenesis?
The way genetic, biological, psychological, socialfamilial, and cultural factors interact with each other across time to shape children’s outcomes.
What is epigenetics?
how cells one’s experience controls how genes are expressed, shaping an individual’s observable characteristics (phenotype), without changing the genetic code (DNA).
What is epigenome?
set of programs within a cell that tell hardware (genes in DNA) what to do and when to do it.
What is equifinality?
children with different developmental histories show similar outcomes.
What is multifinality?
children with similar early experiences show different outcomes
What is adaptive behavior?
develops social, emotional and behavioral competence.
What is maladaptive behavior?
interferes with child competence.
What are risk factors?
factors that interfere with development of competencies, increase odds of disorder.
What are protective factors?
factors that buffer the negative effects of risks.
What is resilience?
the tendency of some children to defy odds, develop social-emotional-behavioral competence despite multiple risk factors.
What are chromosomes?
threadlike structures in the nucleus of our cells, made of protein and DNA
What is a nucleotide?
base pair rung + deoxyribose rope and phosphate rope
What is a gene?
thousands of trinucleotides.
What is mitosis?
cell divides after chromosomes
split in half and duplicate themselves.
What is a genotype?
collection of genes inherited from our parents. Genes don’t determine behavior, they code for proteins, which can affect structure (e.g., of brain) which can predispose us to act a certain way.
What is a phenotype?
observed expression of our genes & environment.
What is diathesis-stress model?
Genetic risk x Environmental stressor → disorder. Interaction.
Diathesis: biological vulnerability/predisposition (genes, brain abnormality) Affects how well one can cope with stress
Stress: impoverished or noxious physical environment, relationship problems, trauma, abuse, neglect
What is behavioral genetics?
Study of relationship between genes & behavior.
• % variance of a trait in a population accounted for by genes
• Doesn’t look at genes directly (that’s molecular genetics).
