Psychological Explanations - Cognitive Explanations , Including Dysfuntional Thought Processing

Question 1

AO1

Answer 1

• cognitive explanations of SZ focus on the role of internal mental processes
• SZ is characterized by disruption to normal thought processing. FRITH ET AL 1992 identified two kinds of dysfunctional thought processing that could trigger some symptoms

Question 2

Metarepresentation

Answer 2

• individuals with SZ have dysfunction in metarepresentation where they lack the ability to recognize what are their own actions/thoughts and what are due to external factors
• this could explain the symptom of auditory hallucinations as an individual may not understand that a voice in their head is their own voice and not somebody else’s. Therefore causing distress in the individual

For example believing that the voice telling you that your friends hate you is a different person rather than yourself

Question 3

Central control

Answer 3

• individuals with SZ lack the ability to suppress their own automatic thoughts and speech. Their thoughts and speech are triggered by other thoughts which can lead to disordered thinking and disorganised speech
• Therefore sufferers with SZ can experience disrupted spoken sentences known as derailment. This is where the individuals speech is disrupted as the spoken words trigger other associations and the person cannot suppress their automatic responses to these.

Question 4

AO3

Answer 4

P - research to support dysfunctional thought processing was conducted by STIRLING ET AL 2006

E - they compared 30 patients with SZ with 18 non patient controls on a range of cognitive tasks such as the stroop test.

E - ppts had to accurately name the in colour of the colour word printed. SZ patients took over twice as long to complete the task as the control group. This supports central control as patients could not sure their automatic response of saying the word rather than the colour.

L - therefore increasing the validity of central control dysfunction as a cognitive explanation of SZ

Question 5

AO3

Answer 5

P - an alternative explanation for SZ is the biological explanation of family dysfunction.

E - this would suggest that SZ is due to hyperdopaminergia where high levels of dopamine in central areas of the brain are associated with auditory hallucinations rather than a dysfunction in thought processing such as a lack of metarepresentation.

L - therefore weakening the cognitive explanation for SZ as it is not the only explanation of SZ that should be considered