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)