Psychological explanations for schizophrenia: Cognitive

Question 1

What do cognitive explanations blame schizophrenia on ?

Answer 1

Dysfunctional thought processing

Question 2

What is meta representation ?

Answer 2

• Frith
• The cognitive ability to reflect on our own thoughts and behaviour
• In schizophrenia it could lead to the misinterpretation of our own action and those of others
• e.g. hallucinations and delusions
• affects positive symptoms

Question 3

What is central control ?

Answer 3

• ability to suppress the automatic response to perform deliberate ones
• In sz, speech poverty occurs due to the inability to suppress automatic thoughts and speech triggered by thoughts
• leads to the derailment of thoughts and sentences
• affects negative symptoms

Question 4

What is a strength of cognitive explanations of schizophrenia ?

Answer 4

Supporting evidence
- supporting faulty control centre
- Stirling = compared 30 schizophrenia patients with 30 control on the stoop tests
- the test was about identifying the colour of a word that spelt a different colour
- sz patients took twice as long to complete
- supports the idea that they can’t suppress automatic thoughts because most schizophrenia patients read the words

Question 5

What is a limitation of the cognitive explanations of schizophrenia ?

Answer 5

Proximal
- only focuses on what is happening now (faulty cognition)
- fails to explain initial origins
- need more research to understand the causes of dysfunctional thought processes
- only a partial explanation