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Mrs Moran Psychology > Paper 1: Psychopathology > Flashcards

Paper 1: Psychopathology Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the 4 definitions of psychological abnormality?

A

Deviation from social norms
Failure to function adequately
Statistical infrequency
Deviation from ideal mental health

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2
Q

What are the strengths of deviation from social norms?

A

Can help the individual as well as the wider society. May protect citizens from a dangerous individual. Intervention then may be used to help the individual.
Social norms can be flexible, eg social norms are different for a toddler than for a adult.

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3
Q

What are the weaknesses of deviation from social norms?

A

Social norms are often subjective to the situation. They vary between times and cultures. May just be eccentric rather than psychologically challenged.

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4
Q

Who came up with the failure to function adequately and what was the criteria?

A

Rosenhan and Seligman (1989)
Personal distress (e.g. anxiety, depression, excessive fear)
Maladaptive behaviour (i.e. behaviour that prevents the person achieving goals)
Irrationality
Unpredictability
Discomfort to others

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5
Q

What is a way of measuring the failure to function of an individual?

A

Global Assessment of Functioning scale from 0-100.

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6
Q

What are the strengths of failure to function adequately?

A

Practical and measurable way of quantifying abnormality.
It helps for self-identification of the sufferer.

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7
Q

Weaknesses of the failure to function adequately?

A

Not everyone that is psychologically unbalanced fails to function. Some psychopaths can hide it.
Some people that temporarily can’t function are not always abnormal.
May differ between cultures.

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8
Q

What is the definition of statistical infrequency?

A

Can be plotted on a histogram, must be more than 2 standard deviations from the norm.

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9
Q

What is an example of statistical infrequency?

A

An IQ test, anything above 130 or below 70 is abnormal.

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10
Q

What are the strengths of statistical infrequency?

A

Objective and clear. Doesn’t make any positive or negative judgements. Is a good measure for many psychological disorders.

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11
Q

Weaknesses of statistical infrequency?

A

Doesn’t necessarily mean abnormality or disorder, 140 IQ. Abnormality doesn’t always have to be infrequent, depression is fairly common. Some disorders are difficult to measure objectively.

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12
Q

Who defined the definition of Deviation from Ideal Mental Health?

A

Jahoda 1958

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13
Q

What are the 6 criteria for deviation from ideal mental health?

A

A positive attitude towards oneself, self-actualisation, autonomy, ability to resist stress, an accurate perception of reality, mastery of environment.

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14
Q

Strengths of the deviation from ideal mental health?

A

Very holistic description of the abnormality and therefore a more accurate and effective root to curing it.

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15
Q

Weaknesses of deviation from ideal mental health?

A

Too idealistic, every few people meet all 6 of Jahoda’s criteria.
The criteria is subjective and hard to measure. What is understood by mental health changes between cultures.

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16
Q

What are the characteristics of phobias?

A

Emotional Characteristics: Extreme fear that is irrational.
Behavioural Characteristics: Screaming, crying and running away. #
Cognitive Characteristics: Most recognise their phobias are irrational.

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17
Q

What is the main approach to explaining phobias?

A

The behaviourist approach.

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18
Q

What is the two processes in the behaviourist approach that explain the acquiring of phobias?

A

Acquired through classical and maintained through operant.

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19
Q

Who studied the classical conditioning approach to developing phobias?

A

Watson and Rayner (1920) ‘Little Albert’ was conditioned to be afraid of white rats, and soon anything with white fur.

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20
Q

What is operant conditioning and how does it work with phobias?

A

It’s a response to a behaviour under the person’s control. This can be seen in the avoiding of a potentially stress causing situation, negatively reinforcing the avoidance.

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21
Q

What is the strength of the behaviourist approach to phobias?

A

Supporting evidence such as King et al 1998.

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22
Q

Weaknesses of the behaviourist approach to phobias?

A

There are alternative explanations such as the cognitive explanations which believe their thought processes force them to focus on the most intense parts of their phobias eg teeth of a dog.
No everyone that has an unpleasant experience will develop a phobia.

23
Q

What are the two types of behaviourist treatments of phobias?

A

Systematic Desensitisation. Flooding

24
Q

What is the process of systematic desensitisation?

A

Gradual exposure to the fear stimuli, along with guided relaxation strategies. It could ascend from imagining the phobia, to being in contact with the phobia itself.

25
Q

Where has systematic desensitisation been shown to work?

A

Jones 1924, Peter who had a phobia of white rats was able to be cured through exposure to a white rabbit.

26
Q

What is the thought process behind the Flooding method?

A

That extreme anxiety cannot be maintained indefinitely.

27
Q

What is an example of a successful case of flooding?

A

Wolpe 1969, solved a girl’s phobia of cars by driving her around for 4 hours.

28
Q

Weaknesses of the flooding approach to phobias?

A

Could be seen as unethical due to causing stress.
Higher dropout rate than systematic desensitisation.
Isn’t suitable for people with social phobias due to the cognitive aspect of it.
Symptom substitution may replace the phobia.

29
Q

Evaluation of Systematic Desensitisation?

A

It is suitable for patients with learning difficulties.
Doesn’t cause the same trauma as flooding and has lower quitting rates.
Can be self-administered so cheaper.
Gilroy et al followed up 42 patients and a control group (that had relaxation without exposure). At 3 and 33 months, the 42 patients had less anxiety than the control group.

30
Q

What are the 3 characteristics of depression and some descriptions of each?

A

Emotional (feelings of sadness and hopelessness. as well as low enthusiasm and self-worth), behavioural (low energy, reduced activity, reduced social interaction) and cognitive (irrational negative thoughts).

31
Q

What are the two cognitive approaches to explaining depression?

A

Ellis’ ABC model and Beck’s negative triad.

32
Q

What are the 3 aspects of the Beck’s negative triad?

A

Negative view about the self, negative view about the world and negative views about the future.

33
Q

What two cognitive processes maintain this triad?

A

Negative schema and cognitive biases. Schema are patterns of thought that can create shortcuts to more complex thought processes. These can reinforce irrational ideas

34
Q

What is the theory behind Ellis’ ABC model?

A

That depression comes from the irrational interpretation of events, not the negative events themselves.

35
Q

What are the ABCs of the model?

A

A- Activating event eg losing a game of chance
B- Belief eg I lost because I’m a failure
C- Consequence eg depression

36
Q

Strengths of the Cognitive explanations to depression?

A

Good practical application to CBT.
Supporting evidence for cognitive explanations Koster et al found patients with depression would focus on negative words more than the control group.

37
Q

Weaknesses of the Cognitive explanation for depression?

A

Alternative approaches to depression:
Biological explanation, Wender et al found adopted children with depression were 8 times more likely to have biological parents with depression.
Behavioural explanation, Lewinsohn argued that successive negative life experiences can cause depression and therefore it is learnt.

Depressive reality, Alloy and Abramson argued depressed people actually had more accurate world views than anyone else.

38
Q

What are the two types of treatments for depression?

A

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy with a sub-section of REBT as well as the expansion of Ellis’ ABCDEF model

39
Q

What is CBT and what is it based off?

A

CBT- Cognitive behavioural therapy is a combination of the cognitive (changing thoughts and beliefs) and behavioural (changing behaviours as a response to those beliefs) approaches. Will teach the patient to identify depressed thought patterns, then will encourage them to view these thoughts as unhelpful. They will then replace these irrational thoughts with better helpful thoughts that will ultimately change mood and therefore behaviour.

40
Q

What does Ellis’ new ABC model mean?

A

ABCDEF model, D= Disputing irrational thought E= Effects of disputing and effective attitude to life F= New feelings that are produced.

41
Q

What did Ellis’ do based on his new extended ABCDEF model?

A

The REBT or Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy in which they encourage a person to view highly of themselves regardless of actions. They’re given homework so they take an active part in their recovery. They also encouraged patients to become more active in general.

42
Q

Strengths of CBT?

A

Ellis’ claimed a 90% success rate for his therapy. Beltman et al also conducted a meta-analysis that found positive support for CBT as an effective treatment.
Support for behavioural activation, Babyak et al found those that exercised had a lower relapse rate.

43
Q

Weaknesses of CBT?

A

Drug treatment is cheaper and requires far less effort from the patient.
Embling (2002) found it was more effective on certain personality types than others. Also found a combination of CBT and drug treatment was more effective than it individually.
Other treatments such as biological.

44
Q

What are the 3 characteristics of OCD?

A

Emotional characteristics: High levels of anxiety and stress in response to obsessive thoughts and inability to control compulsive behaviours.

Behavioural characteristics: Continuous repetition of rituals and behaviours in response to obsessive thoughts. Both the obsessive thoughts and the compulsive behaviours get in the way of everyday functioning, disrupting normal activities such as work and social interaction.

Cognitive characteristics: OCD sufferers will continually repeat thoughts to do with their obsession and cognitive biases mean they have difficulty focusing on anything else. Many OCD sufferers are aware their obsessive thoughts are inappropriate and exaggerated but are unable to control them.

45
Q

What are the two biological explanations of OCD?

A

Genetic and neural problems.

46
Q

Who looked at the genetic components of OCD?

A

Grootheest et al reviewed 70 years worth of twin studies and found it more likely for identical twins to both have OCD than non-identical twins.
Gene analysis in Davis et al found shared genetic traits between OCD sufferers.

47
Q

What are the neural components of OCD?

A

Greater activity in the orbital frontal cortex (Saxena and Rauch). It remains active after performing the action therefore becoming an obsession.

48
Q

What is neurochemistry?

A

Hu et al believed OCD suffers had lower serotonin levels and higher dopamine levels than a control group.

49
Q

What are the strengths of the biological explanations for OCD?

A

Various physical diseases appear to cause OCD which indicates a neural origin. Fallon and Nields found 40% of Lyme disease victims developed OCD.
Twin studies support the genetic explanation, Nestdast found 68% of identical twins shared OCD as opposed to 31% of non-identical twins.

50
Q

What are the weaknesses of the biological explanations for OCD?

A

Not completely a genetic explanation, Grootheest et al found a portion of identical twins that didn’t develop OCD simultaneously.
genetics are only responsible for around 55% in children and 37% n adults.
Alternative explanations such as cognitive, they see the thoughts themselves as the cause of OCD.

51
Q

What is the main treatment of OCD?

A

Drug therapy, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). Also used as an anti-depressant, the SSRI increased serotonin levels which fits into the neural explanation. Can also use anti-psychotics which reduces dopamine uptake, and also fits into the neural explanation. Often combined with CBT to improve the recovery.

52
Q

What are the strengths of the biological treatments of OCD?

A

Evidence to show it reduces symptoms eg Pigott and Seay.
Drugs are cost effective and none disruptive.
Soomro et al found it was more effective than 17 placebos.

53
Q

What are the weaknesses of the biological treatments for OCD?

A

Drugs can have side-effects including nausea and sleep deprivation.
CBT has been shown to be highly effective in improving OCD symptoms.
Questionable evidence due to research being conducted by pharma companies.

Mrs Moran Psychology (8 decks)

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