Psychopathology - strengths + weaknesses of genetic explanation

Question 1

What is a strength of genetic explanations which involves evidence from twin studies?

Answer 1

• a strength of the genetic explanation of OCD is there there is evidence from twin studies to support it
• as psychologists (Nestadt, 2010) found that 68% of identical twins had OCD compared with 31% of non-identical twins
• this is good supporting evidence for genetic explanations - as it shows a significant difference between those sharing the same genes (MZ twins) and those sharing 50% of their genes (DZ twins)

Question 2

What is another strength of genetic explanations which is involved in development?

Answer 2

• By having a biological explanation in the form of how our genes affect our biology it has led to the development of drug therapy
• this had led to a real life application by enabling sufferers to lead a relatively normal life through medication

Question 3

What is a weakness of genetic explanations that involves environmental factors?

Answer 3

that much evidence exists (Cromer et al 2007) to suggest that environmental factors can cause OCD rather than biological

Question 4

What is another weakness of genetic explanations which involves being little predictive value?

Answer 4

• genetic explanation is also criticised for being of little predictive value and therefore unlikely to ever to be much use
• this is due to the amount of genes involved
• each genetic variation only increases by a fraction the risk of OCD

Question 5

What is another weakness of genetic explanations which involves being little predictive value?

Answer 5

• genetic explanation is also criticised for being of little predictive value and therefore unlikely to ever to be much use
• this is due to the amount of genes involved
• each genetic variation only increases by a fraction the risk of OCD