Psychopathology Flashcards
What is psychopathology?
The scientific study of psychological disorders (mental illnesses)
What are social norms?
The rules that a society (hence social) has about what are acceptable behaviours, values and beliefs.
Who is abnormal according to deviation from social norms?
People who violate (deviate from) explicit or implicit norms (i.e. behave differently from how we would expect them to behave).
What is a strength of the deviation from social norms?
It factors in the desirability of behaviour, which is ignored by other definitions of abnormality. This means that behaviours that are numerically rare (and so statistically abnormal) can be socially acceptable and therefore not abnormal. For instance, being a genius is statistically abnormal but we wouldn’t want to suggest that is an abnormal behaviour in terms of psychopathology. This suggests that social norms can be a more useful definition of abnormality than using statistical norms (statistical infrequency).
What is are 3 weakness of deviation from social norms ?
- lack of temporal validity (homosexuality)
- lack of cultural validity
- can lead to human rights violations
What are the four definitions of abnormality?
- deviation from social norms
- statistical infrequency
- failure to function adequately
- deviation from ideal mental health
What is the definition of failure to function adequately?
This occurs when someone is unable to cope with ordinary demands of day-to-day living. If their behaviour is distressing to themselves or others they are also classed as abnormal.
What is abnormal under statistical infrequency?
Far outside the normal distribution of that statistic, i.e. 2 standard deviations away from average
Strength of statistical infrequency?
- useful for objective clinical assessments
Strength of deviation from social norms?
considers the desirability of behaviour
3 weaknesses of statistical infrequency?
- doesn’t consider the desirability of behaviour
- culturally relative (schizophrenia)
- lack of personal benefit and can damage esteem (low IQ)
strength of failure to function adequately?
tries to include the subjective experience of the individual.
3 weaknesses of failure to function adequately
- can function well but still have abnormal behaviours (Harold Shipman)
- culturally relative (unemployed)
- subjective in defining distressing self and others (Global Assessment of Functioning Scale)
Deviation from ideal mental health summary
Proposed by Jahoda as positive definition for optimal living, and lacking any qualities makes you ‘abnormal’. The more and further you are from characteristics, the more abnormal you are.
Deviation from ideal mental health 6 categories.
- self-attitudes (esteem)
- personal growth and self-actualisation (potential)
- integration (stress)
- autonomy (self-reliant)
- accurate perception of reality (objective view)
- mastery of environment (competent in all situations)
2 strengths of ideal mental health
- comprehensive criteria
- everyone can improve
4 weaknesses of ideal mental health
- difficult to measure
- cultural relativism (individualist vs collectivist)
- everyone is abnormal
- temporal validity (perceptions of relaity
Research support for classical conditioning two-process model of phobias
Little Albert US of loud noise into CS of white rat where he showed CR of crying and crawling away. generalisation to other white furry objects like santa beard
Study supporting systematic desensitisation
42 patients who had been treated for a spider phobia in three 45 minute sessions of systematic desensitisation. A control group was treated by relaxation without exposure. At three months and 33 months after the treatment, the systematic desensitisation group were less fearful than the control group
What are the 3 steps of Beck’s Negative triad?
- Faulty information processing
- Negative self schema
- Negative triad (views of the world, the future and the self)
These lead a person to interpret their experiences in a negative way so make them more vulnerable to depression.
What Ellis ABC model?
Activating event (A) triggers an irrational Belief (B) which in turn produces a Consequence (C)
3 emotional characteristics of depression
Anger
Sadness
Low self-esteem
3 cognitive characteristics of depression
concentration difficulties
absolutist thinking
dwelling on the negative
3 behavioural characteristics of depression
changes to sleep (oversleeping or insomnia)
changing to eating (over or under)
aggression/harm to self or others
Research support for classical and operant conditioning two-process model of phobias
Di Gallo: 20% of people experiencing traumatic car accidents developed a phobia of travelling cars, especially of travelling at speed. Classical conditioning: the car becomes associated with the crash. Operant consitioning (negative reinforcement): They then tended to make avoidance responses involving staying at home rather than making car journeys to see friends. This made the phobia resistant to extinction.
In people with OCD, which two areas of the brain function differently?
Caudate nucleus
Orbital frontal cortex (OFC)
