Normality Flashcards
What are the 6 types of normality according to Gross 1995?
socio-cultural functional historical situational --> all context dependent
medical
statistical
–> maladaptive focus
What is socio-cultural normality?
What is cohort normality?
- characteristic patterns of normal behaviour and beliefs
- cohort normality = what is normal for people who share similar experiences
In what areas of social norms is cultural relativism?
child rearing diet and nutrition living with chronic illness and disability caring reactions to adverse events consulting behaviour
What is functional normality?
- Can an individual function i the roles the have developed around her?
- Functional normality depends on context: success as a doctor or teacher may not indicate success as a parent, leading to abnormal behaviour
Give examples of historical normality?
- smoking
- others peoples urine –> toothpaste
- hysteria, wanding uterus
What is situational normality?
Give an example
- normal behaviours are constructed according to environment
- nakedness may be valued in a Finnish Sauna, but would get you arrested in a GP waiting room
What is medical normality?
- normality is an expected state
- normal and abnormal
- abnormalities is crucial in establishing the ‘sick role’
- there are normal ranges
- medical normality is not only assigned to conditions, systems and processes but also to beliefs and attributions
- deviation from expected behaviours or attitudes results in diagnoses of medical illnesses
What is statistical normality?
- normality as typicality or an expression of central tendency (mean, median, mode)
- normal distribution of characteristics
Give examples of the use of normal distribution in medical practice
birth weight sperm count serum cholesterol blood pressure growing and adult heights
How are norms maintained?
- ritual/routine
- mores
- law
Can deviation from from the norm be positive?
- flexibility and progress
- new patterns of thinking
- evolutionary engine
- adaptive-maladaptive
What are the definitions of social norms and conformity?
- ‘yielding to group pressure’
- ‘a change in behaviour as a result of real or imagined group pressure’
- ‘a tendency for people to adopt the behaviour, attitudes and values of a reference group’
Pereceptions of what is normal behaviour influence self concept to a profound degree.
Give examples
- in early adolescence
- drinking behaviour
- sexual behaviour
What are the two important aspects of maladaptation.?
Self maladaptation
- internal focus
- inability to reach own goals even if they appear fine e.g. depression
Social maladaptation
- problems projected externally, behaviour impacts others
- easier to identify
What is the literal definition of abnormality?
away from the normal
What is normal functioning on the psychological level?
How does modern psychiatry define normality?
- no clear agreement
- modern psychiatry attempts to define abnormality by looking at observable behaviours rather than by attempting to understand how someone thinks
How does normality influence healthcare?
- patients and clinicians views on normality may be radically different
- socio-cultural normality influences beliefs and behaviours
- norms change over time
- perceptions of normality may lead to patients pushing for medicalisation
- Statistical abnormality refers only to….., not ……..
- mental abnormalities are often diagnosed using …………. ……., not …….
- infrequency, not context
- descriptive lists, not context
Discuss perceived vs actual norms
- perceptions of what normal behaviour is, influence self concept to a profound degree
- e.g. drinking behaviour in early adolescence
- misperceived social norms challenge individuals to confprmt o their perception rather than actuality
