determinants of psychopathology

• Determinants of psychopathology include biological, psychological, socio-cultural, and consider predisposing and precipitating factors.
• Biological determinants of behavior can be predisposing or precipitating factors.
• Genetic factors in psychopathology are hereditary.
• Huntington’s disease is a progressive disease transmitted through a dominant gene and is directly transferred from a parent to a child.
• Symptoms of Huntington’s disease include chorea, which are abnormal contractions of large groups of muscles that appear like dancing, and dementia, which is intellectual deterioration.
• Social norms and policies that stigmatize and marginalize groups are risk factors for mental health problems.
• The upheaval and disintegration of societies due to war, famine, and natural disaster are potent risk factors for mental health problems.
• Socio-cultural perspectives suggest that we need to look beyond the individual or even the family to the larger society to understand people’s problems.
• Societies may influence the types of psychopathology their members show by having implicit or explicit rules about what types of abnormal behavior are acceptable.
• Socio-economic disadvantage is a risk factor for a wide range of mental health problems.
• Biological deprivation in psychopathology can be caused by factors such as nutrition, minerals, vitamins, lack of sleep, and body constitutions.
• Obnoxious agents in psychopathology include toxic chemicals like lead poisoning or carbon monoxide poisoning, psychoactive drugs like alcohol or methametamine, and accidents that damage the brain or lead to brain injury.
• Conversion disorders are a somatoform disorder, where eyes can experience conversion blindness when eyes are weak and the person is subjected to a traumatic event, and ears can experience conversion deafness when there is no biological source of deafness.
• Biochemical factors in psychopathology can be related to neurotransmitters.
• Humanistic Perspective assumes that humans have an innate capacity for goodness and for living a full life, and that humanistic theorists recognize that we often are not aware of the forces shaping our behavior and that the environment can play a strong role in our happiness or unhappiness.
• The role of the endocrine system involves hormones, the Pituitary Gland and Hypothalamus, and is exemplified by Kleptomania, Ablutomania, Thanatomania, Ego-dystonic, Ego-syntonic, Depression, and Psychodynamic theories.
• Cognitive Perspective suggests that thoughts or beliefs shape our behaviors and the emotions we experience, including causal attribution, specific answers to “why” questions, global assumptions, and broad beliefs.
• People often experience conflict because of differences between their true self — the ideal self they wish to be — and the self they feel they ought to be to please others, which can lead to emotional distress, unhealthy behaviors, and even loss of touch with reality.
• Psychological Perspective includes Behavioral Perspective, Cognitive Perspective, and Psychodynamic Perspective.
• Arithmomania is an uncontrollable urge to count, involving the frontal lobe (prefrontal cortex).
• Behavioral Perspective influences of punishments and reinforcements in producing behavior, including Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, Modeling, and Observational Learning.
• The dopamine hypothesis suggests that lower dopamine level in the brain is associated with parkinson’s disease, while high levels are associated with schizophrenia.
• Norepinephrine is associated with depression.
• Stress is a predisposing factor in psychopathology.
• Frustration can be a predisposing factor in psychopathology, and can be personal (personal inadequacies) or environmental.
• Over-use of defense mechanisms can lead to defense mechanisms being symptoms of psychopathology.
• Cause of abnormal behavior can be disordered motivation which refers to excessive negative motivation, guilt that leads to depression then to suicide, or excessively weak or strong motivation.
• Pathological gambling is a condition where a person becomes addicted to gambling.
• Psychological symptoms may be the consequence of malfunctioning in neurotransmitter systems; psychological experiences also may cause changes in neurotransmitter system functioning.
• The amount of a neurotransmitter available in the synapse can be affected by two processes.
• Sociocultural determinants of behavior can be poverty/unemployment, war, racial discrimination, rural-urban setting, or residential mobility.
• Psychological Deprivation refers to the lack of attention, affection, and can be caused by parental rejection, abandonment, or need for achievement, prestige and recognition.
• Neurobiological perspective of behavior refers to the nervous system controlling our behavior, as seen in Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) where the GABA System is less functioning.
• Sour graping, sweet lemoning, rat are examples of procrastination, predestination, and sympathism.
• Isolation is a defense mechanism where an idea is isolated from affect, so as not to feel guilty.
• OCD is a condition where a person experiences compulsive washing of hands, known as ablutomania.
• Role of receptors on the dendrites is crucial as a few receptors or not sensitive enough, the neuron will not be able to make adequate use of the neurotransmitter available in the synapse, while too many receptors or oversensitive, the neuron may be overexposed to the neurotransmitter that is in the synapse.
• Brain dysfunction can be caused by biochemical imbalance, genetic abnormalities, or the result of injury.
• Perspectives in explaining the cause of abnormal behavior can be biological, psychological, or socio-cultural.
• Rationalization is a defense mechanism where one gives justification for one’s unacceptable reality to make it acceptable.