Psychological Explanations Flashcards
Outline schizophrenogenic mother explanation for schizophrenia
- Mother is cold, rejecting and controlling
- Tends to create a family environment of tension + secrecy
- Father said to take on passive role
How does schizophrenogenic mother theory link to SZ symptoms?
Leads to distrust, later develops into paranoid delusions and ultimately SZ
Outline double bind theory
- Child may be regularly trapped in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing
- Recieve conflicting messages on what is wrong/right —> too fearful to ask
- Punished with withdrawal of love
How does double bind theory link to SZ symptoms?
Leads them to learn that world is confusing + dangerous; causes disorganised thinking and delusions
Outline expressed emotion explanation of SZ
Level of negative emotions expressed to SZ patient:
~ verbal criticism (even violence)
~ hostility (anger + rejection)
~ emotional over involvement (self-sacrifice)
How does expressed emotion theory link to SZ symptoms?
Can trigger onset of SZ in someone vulnerable; mostly describes how this leads to relapse in SZ patients
Give strength for family dysfunction explanations of SZ
+ Real world application —> helps avoid dysfunctional families; also leads to treatments such as CBT or family therapy
Give issues of family dysfunction explanations of SZ
Alpha bias —> SZ mother explanation exaggerated differences in men and women
Socially sensitive —> places pressure on parents, creates additional stress on parents of SZ children and may cause discrimination
Environmental reductionism —> ignores biological factors (genes, hyper/hypodopaminergia, ventral striatum); not everyone w SZ had dysfunctional family + vice versa
Cultural bias —> different parenting noms in different cultures, labels families as dysfunctional
Retrospective data —> reduces validity , may have inaccurate recall or distorted memories
Outline central control explanation of SZ
Central control errors = inability to suppress automatic thoughts/actions whilst performing deliberate actions
How does central control explanation link to SZ symptoms?
Leads to derailment of thought + disorganised speech/derailment of speech
Outline metarepresentation error explanation of SZ
Metarepresentation errors = disruption in ability to recognise our own thoughts/actions as being caused by ourselves rather than someone else
How do metarepresentation errors link to SZ symptoms ?
Being unable to recognise thoughts as our own may explain auditory hallucinations and thought insertion (common delusion)
Give strength for cognitive explanations of SZ
Research support —> Stirling found SZs performed poorly on range of cognitive tasks such as the stroop test; unable to suppress automatic thought
Give limitations of cognitive explanations for SZ
Incomplete explanations —> can explain current symptoms but not the actual origin of these
Bi-directional ambiguity —> uncertain whether biological factors cause cognitive factors or vice versa; makes both explanations less valid
Reductionist —> ignores biological/environmental factors, may be an oversimplified explanation
