Psychological explanations

Question 1

What does the family dysfunction theory see as the cause of schizophrenia?

Answer 1

Maladaptive relationships and communication patterns within families are a source of stress which can in turn cause/influence the development of schizophrenia

Question 2

What are the three dysfunctional characteristics that parents of schizophrenics have?

Answer 2

1: High levels of interpersonal conflict (arguments)
2: Difficulty communicating with each other
3: Being excessively critical and controlling of their children

Question 3

Who coined the term “double bind”?

Answer 3

Bateson et al.

Question 4

What is the “double bind”?

Answer 4

The contradictory situations children could be placed in by parents where a verbal message is given but opposite behaviour is exhibited

Question 5

Other than the double bind, what is another feature of the family dysfunction explanation?

Answer 5

Expressed emotion

Question 6

What is expressed emotion?

Answer 6

Families who persistently exhibit criticism and hostility exert a negative influence, especially on recovering schizophrenics

Question 7

What did Tienari et al. find?

Answer 7

The level of schizophrenia in the adopted children of biological mothers with schizophrenia into a healthy family was 5.8% compared to 36.8% for children raised in dysfunctional families

Question 8

What do cognitive theories focus on?

Answer 8

Maladaptive thought processes

Question 9

Who proposed a cognitive model of schizophrenia and what did it combine?

Answer 9

Beck and Rector; Neurobiological, environmental, behavioural and cognitive factors

Question 10

What do brain abnormalities increase?

Answer 10

The likelihood of being exposed to stressful situations

Question 11

What are the three types of cognitive deficits schizophrenics experience?

Answer 11

Attention, communication and information overload

Question 12

According to the cognitive explanation, why do delusions occur?

Answer 12

Active cognitive biases

Question 13

How does the cognitive explanation explain hallucinations?

Answer 13

As being attributed to biased information processing

Question 14

How are cognitive deficits referred to?

Answer 14

Alien control symptoms

Question 15

What are alien control symptoms?

Answer 15

Sufferers believe external people and forces are influencing their thoughts and behaviour

Question 16

Why are negative symptoms of schizophrenia thought to occur according to the cognitive explanation?

Answer 16

Due to the use of cognitive strategies to control the high levels of mental stimulation being experienced

Question 17

What did Takahashi find?

Answer 17

Compared electrical brain energy in schizophrenics and non-sufferers exposed to auditory tones, finding that the ability to detect changes in the tone was severely restricted in schizophrenics, which may explain the cognitive deficits, delusions and hallucinations experienced by sufferers; changes in the tone of someone’s speech conveys complex and important information concerning emotion and content

Question 18

Who was Takahashi’s sample?

Answer 18

Male schizophrenics

Question 19

What is metacognition?

Answer 19

The cognitive monitoring of one’s own thought processes, including the ability to detect errors in cognitive processing, such as cognitive distortions and thinking about feelings and the behavioural reactions triggered by thoughts and feelings

Question 20

What does metacognition dysfunction result in?

Answer 20

Dysfunctional thought processes

Question 21

What does dysfunctional thought processing affect?

Answer 21

Executive functioning (higher thinking)

Question 22

Dysfunctional thought processing can lead to impairments in…

Answer 22

• Goal-directed behaviour
• Attention
• Memory
• Cognitive flexibility
• Self-monitoring
• Inhibition of inappropriate responses
• Physical motor control of the body

Question 23

What did Lysaker et al. find and what study did they use to find it?

Answer 23

Used a correlational study to assess the metacognitive function of male schizophrenics and found that symptoms were linked to an inability to have awareness of one’s thoughts and feelings as well as other people’s

Question 24

Who used the Hayling Sentence Completion Test and what did they find?

Answer 24

Joshua et al.; schizophrenics had slower response times and slower repression of inappropriate responses, indicative of impaired executive functioning

Question 25

What do Garety et al. believe?

Answer 25

Schizophrenia is best understood by linking different explanations, both biological and psychological, with cognitive explanations being the vital link in the chain

Question 26

What is the schizophrenogenic mother? What research supports and doesn’t support the theory?

Answer 26

Mothers who are overly dominant in the home, particularly in relation to the child, and express opposing parenting styles, e.g. affectionate one minute harsh at another (thematic apperception test)

Herman and Jones found that high-risk families had an overly dominant mother figure
Wild, Shapiro and Goldenberg found the opposite, with fathers being the most dominant figure in high-risk families (20 Qs study)