abnormality
Cards (8)
- definition - deviation from social norms
- abnormal behaviours are are ones that we’d not usually expect to occur in a population.
- considers aspects of the culture.
- makes diagnosis of people from other cultures particularly difficult.
- lack of understanding of other cultures would make distinctions difficult under this definition.
- definition - statistical infrequency
- usually based on comparisons with data.
- doesn’t consider the desirability of characteristics.
- if only a small number of people exhibit a behaviour it is considered abnormal.
- characteristics that occur in many people are considered normal.
- definitions - deviation from ideal mental health
- suggests that a direct comparison with a positive view of mental health is necessary.
- is said to set standards that are near impossible for most people to attain.
- people who don’t meet the requirements of a set of criteria are considered abnormal.
- suffers from issues of cultural relativism as some of criteria are thought to be representative of individualist cultures only.
- definition - failure to function adequately
- does consider patient‘s distress but this can be hard to access in a valid way.
- people are judged as to whether they’re able to cope with everyday life.
- can be wrongly labelled.
- EVALUATION - deviation from mental health
- P: is it comprehensive
- N: may be culturally relatively
- N: has an unrealistic high standard for mental health
- EVALUATION - failure to function adequately
- P: recognise the patient perspective
- N: hard to identify when someone is failing to function or just deviating from norms
- N: subjective judgement
- EVALUATION - statistical infrequency
- P: has real life applications
- N: unusual characteristics can also be positive
- N: not everyone unusual benefits from a label
- EVALUATION - deviation from social norms
- N: its not a sole explanation of abnormality
- N: social norms are culturally relative
- N: could lead to human rights abuses