S - Biological Approach Flashcards
What does this approach argue about schziophrenia?
It runs in families
A lot of evidence suggests it could be genetic - schizophrenia is inherited
What did family studies find?
Likelihood of someone developing schizophrenia is 1:100, increased to 13:1000 when a parent has it
Why are twin studies used/what do they look at?
Used to investigate a possible genetic basis of schizophrenia
Look for concordance rates between MZ (100%) twins and DZ (50%) twins
What do adoption studies test?
Whether the environment or genetics can cause schizophrenia
What is a problem with Gottesman’s family study/all family studies?
Family studies data is often gained retrospectively (comparing with people already diagnosed) and so may not be accurate as diagnosis is unreliable
It is impossible to separate genes and upbringing as relatives share the same environment - lessens support for biological explanation
What was a problem with Gottesman and Shields’ study?
There is not 100% concordance for MZ twins which you would expect if genes were the only factors as they have identical genes
Could be due to environmental factors if twins are brought up the same way
What is a problem of Tienari’s findings?
When the data was re-examined by Wahlberg, it was found that the high risk children did worse if they were adopted into a family with poor communication and hence there still seems to be an interaction between genes and the environment
