cognitive factors

• Cognitive explanations of mental disorders propose that abnormabnormalities in cognitive finction are a key component of schizophrenia
• The cognitive approach studies mental processes such as:

  • Attention
  • Perception
  • Memory
• The cognitive explanation suggests that symptoms of schizophrenia are caused by dysfunctional mental processes such as dysfunctional reasoning and dysfunctional attention
• Dysfunctional mental processes cause delusions

  • Due to dysfunctional attention, participants tend to overfocus on irrelevant details and coincidences
  • This makes the coincidences feel more important than they really are
  • When the participant tries to explain why all these coincidences are happening their explanation is irrational because of their dysfunctional reasoning, causing a delusion of belief.
• 2 types of dysfunctional reasoning

  • Jumping to conclusion biassed
  • Persecution bias