Psychopathology-paper 1 Flashcards
Define deviation from social norms.
Abnormal behaviour classified is classified in this way when any behaviour goes against societal expectations.
Describe emotional characteristics of depression.
5 symptoms are required for a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, these include intense sadness and often worthlessness. Sometimes there are also reports of anger.
Describe cognitive characteristics of depression.
Negative thoughts cause the negative emotions associated with depression. These thoughts are irrational and often include negative expectations and thoughts of worthlessness.
Describe behavioural characteristics of depression.
Either increased or reduced levels of activity, agitation, restlessness. Appetite is also often affected.
How are phobias initiated through classical conditioning?
A neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (that causes fear) so this stimulus then turns into a conditioned stimulus that produces a conditioned response - fear.
Describe systematic desensitisation.
Attempts to replace the association with fear and the stimulus, with an association of relaxation and the phobic stimulus. Patients will be exposed to scenarios the progressively cause more anxiety on than their last stage in their hierarchy.
What is meant by statistical infrequency?
Indicated that a disorder is abnormal if more than 2 standard deviations away from a normally distributed bell curve.
Explain a strength of statistical infrequency.
Statistical infrequency is almost always used in clinical diagnosis of mental health disorders compared to the normal value. This is used to test for the severity of a disorder.
Explain a weakness of statistical infrequency.
Statistical infrequency makes the automatic presumption that any abnormal characteristics are bad, but they are not.
