Psychological Explanations for Schizophrenia

• Family Dysfunction AO3 - Support for family dysfunction


  • Importance of family relationships in the development of SZ can be seen in an adoption study
  • Tienari et al - adopted children with SZ biological parents were more likely to become ill themselves than those children with non-biological parents
  • Difference only emerged in situations where the adopted family was rated as disturbed
  • Genetic vulnerability alone was insufficient
• Family Dysfunction AO3 - Research Support


  • Other evidence to suggest that difficult family relationships in childhood are associated with increased risk of SZ in adulthood
  • Read et al - reviewed studies of child abuse and SZ and concluded that 69% of adult women in patients with a diagnosis of SZ had a history of physical abuse, sexual abuse or both in childhood
  • For men the figure was 59%
  • Berry et al - Adults with insecure attachments to their primary carer are also more likely to have SZ
  • Suggesting that family dysfunction makes people more vulnerable to SZ
• Family Dysfunction AO3 - Lack of validity in research


  • Data may be unreliable
  • Berger’s research was based on recall from schizophrenic patients
  • The patient’s recall may not be reliable because it is retrospective and may be distorted by the symptoms of SZ
  • Suggests that the reports may be inaccurate and lack validity
• What is the main focus of cognitive explanations of schizophrenia (SZ)?

  Role of dysfunctional thought processing
• How is dysfunctional thought processing evident in SZ patients?

  In those displaying positive symptoms like delusions
• What controls the patient's interpretations during the formation of delusions?

  Inadequate information processing
• What is a critical characteristic of delusional thinking?

  Egocentric bias in perceiving oneself in events
• How do patients with delusions relate irrelevant events to themselves?

  They arrive at false conclusions
• What might a patient think if they hear muffled voices?

  They are being criticized
• How do delusions in SZ respond to reality testing?

  They are impervious to reality testing
• What is impaired insight in SZ patients?

  Inability to recognize cognitive distortions
• What do hallucinating individuals focus on excessively?

  Auditory stimuli
• What does Aleman suggest about hallucination-prone individuals?

  They struggle to distinguish imagery from perception
• How can an inner representation of an idea affect perception?

  It can override actual sensory stimuli
• Why is disconfirming evidence ineffective for SZ patients?

  They do not engage in reality testing
• What is metarepresentation?

  Cognitive ability to reflect on thoughts
• What does dysfunction in metarepresentation disrupt?

  Recognition of own actions and thoughts
• How does metarepresentation explain hallucinations of voices?

  It leads to confusion about thought ownership
• What is central control in cognitive processing?

  Ability to suppress automatic responses
• What could disorganized speech in SZ result from?

  Inability to suppress automatic thoughts
• Why do SZ sufferers experience derailment of thoughts?

  Each word triggers automatic associations
• Cognitive Explanations AO3 - Research support for dysfunctional information processing


  • Stirling et al - compared SZ patients to non-SZ patient controls on a range of cognitive tasks in which participants have to name the ink colours of colour words, suppressing the impulse to read the words in order to do this task
  • SZ patients took over twice as long to name the ink colours as the control group.
  • Therefore, this is evidence from a highlighting controlled lab experiment providing strong evidence and subsequently increasing the validity of Firth's cognitive explanation.
• Cognitive Theory AO3 - Support from cognitive therapies


  • As cognitive behavioural therapy can be an effective treatment this indicates that cognitive factors are involved in the disorder
  • The effectiveness of (CBTp) was demonstrated in the NICE review of treatments for SZ
  • This review found consistent evidence that, when compared with treatment by antipsychotic medication, CBTp was more efficient in reducing symptom severity and improving levels of social functioning.
  • This supports the view that faulty cognition has an important causal influence in the development of SZ
• Cognitive Explanations AO3 - An integrated model of SZ


  • Howes and Murray - created the integrated model of SZ which explains this
  • Early vulnerability factors, together with exposure to significant social stressors, sensitises the dopamine system
  • Biased cognitive processing of this increases dopamine activity results in delusions and hallucinations and eventually the development of psychosis
  • This model fits in with more recent research showing that exposure to significant social stressors is associated with an increase in risk of developing SZ