SZ: Psychological Explanations Flashcards
Cognitive explanations
Propose abnormalities in cognitive function are a key component of SZ.
Dysfunctional though processing
Cognitive habits or beleifs that cause the individual to evaluate information inappropriately.
Family dysfunction
The presence of problems within a family that contribute to relapse rates in recoering SZ, including lack of warmth between parents and child, dysfunctional communication patterns and parental overprotection.
What did Bateson suggest?
The double bind theory.
What is the double bind theory?
Children who frequently recieve contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop SZ.
How does the double bind theory suggest SZ symptoms can be caused?
- Child receives contradictory messages from parent.
- Ability to respond is incapacitated by contradictions as one message invalidates the other.
- Prevent the development of internally coherent construction of reality.
- Overtime this manifests as SZ symptoms, eg. flattened affect and withdrawal.
Apart from the double bind theory, what is another family variable associated with SZ?
Expressed emotion
Expressed emotions (EE)
A family communication style in which members of the family of a psychiatric patient talk about the patient in a critical or hostile manner or in a way that indicatees emotional over-involvement or over-concern with the patient or their behaviour.
How might EE levels affect SZ patients?
- High EE relatives talk more and listen less.
- High levels of EE are most likely to influence relapse rates.
- Patients returning to high EE families are 4 times more likely to relapse than a patient whose family is low in EE.
What does EE research suggest about SZ patients?
SZ patients have a lower tolerance for intense environmental stimuli, particularly intense emotional comments and interactions with family members.
What are the cognitive explanations of delusions?
- Critical characteristic is degree to which the individual perceives themself as the central component in events - egocentric bias.
- Manifests in tendency to relate irrelevant events to themselves - so arrive at false conclusions.
What are the cognitive explanations of hallucinations for hallucination-prone individuals?
- Hallucinating individuals are hypervigilant and so have a higher expectancy for the occurance of a voice.
- Find it harder to distinguish between imagery and sensory stimulus and so produce an auditory image - eg. the idea ‘what do people think of me’ can manifest as an auditory image ‘he is not a good person’.
More likely to misattribute the source of self-generated auditory experience to an external source.
Why can auditory errors in SZ patients not be corrected by dsconfirming evidence?
SZ patients do not go through the same processes of reality testing (eg. checking external sources) that others do.
What are the evaluation points for family dysfunction?
- Family relations - importance.
- Double bind theory.
Write a PEEL paragraph discussing the family relationships in relation to family dysfunction and SZ:
P - Importance of family relationships in SZ development can be seen in Tienari’s adoption study.
E - Those adopted children who had SZ biological parents were more likley to become ill than those with non-SZ biological parents.
E - However, this difference only emerged in situations where the adopted family was rated as disturbed.
L - Shows that genetic vulnerability alone was not sufficient for SZ development = diathesis-stress model.
