Schizo; Individual differences; cognitive approach

Question 1

Explaining hallucinations?

Answer 1

• even though hallucinations are experienced by many with schizophrenia, it is estimated that between 2.5 and 4 percent of the general population have experienced hallucinations, most of whom are not diagnosed with a psychiatric problem (claiborn, 2009)
• Anothony Morrison (1998) proposed that triggers, such as sleep deprivation, can cause some indiviuals to ‘hear voices in maladaptive ways. the individuals appraise these voices inappropriately as belonging to the devil, for example. This elicits behaviours such as social withdrawal or self harm.
• The emotions that these behaviours produce, normally sadness and/or shame, reinforce the messages being offered by the critical voices, causing them to be perpetuate in a vicious cycle.

Question 2

Lack of preconscious filters?

Answer 2

• the psychologist Christopher Frith (1979) proposed that the core positive symptoms of schizophrenia could be explained by difficulties in inhibiting pre-conscious content. normally our senses receive a tremendous amount of information from our environment, this information reaches our awareness and we interpret it (this is our pre-conscious).
• The ‘best fit’ of the incoming information gets propelled into our consciousness, allowing us to make sense of the information.
• Frith proposed that in some people the attentional filters are filters that inhibit most of the sensory information from making it out of the preconscious are defective. Frith claims that this leads individuals with schizophrenia to ‘become aware of ambiguous and multiple interpretations of events and find it difficult to select and carry through an appropriate course of action.’

Question 3

Evaluation; supporting research

Answer 3

• Deanna barch et al (1999) compared performance on a stroop test of people with schizophrenia and people without, they found that those with schizophrenia were slower and made more mistakes on the stroop test. they concluded that this was evidence that those with schizophrenia couldn’t filter information as effectively. this supports Frith’s idea that the attentional filters of individuals with schizophrenia are defective.

Question 4

Evaluation; a reductionist account.

Answer 4

• Unlike some cognitive psychologists, frith has offered a causal explanation for the deficits associated with schizophrenia.
• he has proposed that the faulty operation of cognitive mechanisms is due to a disconnection of the functions within the frontal cortex of the brain (decision making and action) and more posterior areas of the brain (perception).
• He has even produced some supportive evidence by detecting changes in cerebral blood flow in the brains of people with schizophrenia when completing cognitive tasks.
• However, some critics suggest that frith is being reductionist because his explanation reduces a complex experience to the functioning of brain circuits.

Question 5

Evaluation; not a comprehensive theory.

Answer 5

• some researchers criticise cognitive explanations as only being able to explain cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia.
• other symptoms of schizophrenia, such as issues with movement, are not explained well by cognitive explanations
• in addition, cognitive explanations are criticised for only describing the cognitive deficits thought to underlie symptoms of schizophrenia.
• in other words, cognitive theories can explain the proximal causes (causes of current symptoms), but not the distal causes (origins of the symptoms).
• this suggests that we should perhaps be cautious about the claims made the cognitive approach as a single explanation for the disorder of schizophrenia.