Abnormal Behavior - Abnormal Psychology - Lecture Slides, Slides of Abnormal Psychology

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Abnormal Behavior

The Concerns of Abnormal Psychology

Describe, Explain, Predict and Control

• Abnormal Psychology: Scientific study aimed at describing,

explaining, predicting, and treating strange or unusual behavior.

• Describe-Systematic observations
  • Psychodiagnosis: Attempt to describe, assess, and systematically draw inferences about psychological disorders.
  • A diagnosis can be nothing more than a label!
  • Labels describe a slice in time, not the changes present in real lives.

Defining Abnormal Behavior

Cultural Considerations in Abnormal Behavior

• Culture: Shared learned behavior transmitted from generation to generation. - Culture is a powerful determinant of how behavior is defined and treated.
• Cultural Universality: Origins, processes, manifestation of disorders are the same across cultures. - If true then diagnosis and treatment same for all
• Cultural Relativism: What is normal/abnormal may vary from culture to culture. - Not only do behaviors vary, but definitions of acceptable change.

Defining Abnormal Behavior

Practical Definitions

• Discomfort: If behaviors

cause the actor pain

(psychological or physical),

then they are abnormal.

 Deviance: Bizarre/unusual behavior

Similar to statistical deviation Very subjective, though sometimes this is pretty straightforward

 Dysfunction: Inability/loss of ability to perform one’s normal roles. Compare performance with requirements for a role Compare performance with potential docsity.com

Defining Abnormal Behavior

Integrated Definitions

• Perhaps the definition of abnormal should come from multiple sources.
• Strupp & Hadley’s (1977) three vantage points for judging mental health: - Society - The individual - The mental health professional
• Wakefield (1992)
  • To label dysfunction we must know natural functioning
  • Definition of dysfunction must come from biology
  • Dysfunction must involve the harm component

Defining Abnormal Behavior

The Frequency and Burden of Mental Disorders

• Prevalence: Percentage of people in a population

with a disorder at a given time.

• Lifetime Prevalence: Total proportion of people in a

population who have ever had a disorder.

• Incidence: Onset or occurrence of a disorder over a

period of time.

The Frequency and Burden of Mental Disorders

Current Research into Epidemiology

• NIMH Study: 29-38% of sample had at least one

disorder.

• Schizophrenia affects 1% of Americans.
• Gender differences seen in different mental

disorders

• Males more likely to have substance abuse problems, women more likely to have depression and anxiety.
• Age differences in onset and prevalence of different

disorders

Rates of Mental Disorders

Historical Perspectives on Abnormal

Behavior

• Prehistoric and ancient beliefs
  • Demonology, treated by trephining or exorcism
• Sympathetic Magic: The belief that by influencing things that are similar to a person or that were once close to that person, one can influence the person.
• Homeopathic Magic: The type of sympathetic magic involving the belief that doing something to the likeness of a person will influence that person.
• Contagious Magic: The type of sympathetic magic which involves the belief that what one does to something that a person once owned or that was close to a person will influence that person.
• Magical beliefs are upheld by occasional “success”
• Bleeding or trepanation used to remove spirits.

Historical Perspectives on Abnormal

Behavior

• Greco-Roman: Naturalistic explanations
  • Naturalistic explanations supplanted supernatural
  • Hippocrates: Brain pathology
    • Mental illness categorized: melancholia, mania, phrenitis
    • More humane treatment
  • Physical health resulted from a balance among the four humors.
  • Galen expanded the notion of the balance of bodily humors to explain personality. docsity.com