Abnormality

• Definitions of abnormality include:

  • Deviation from social norms
  • Failure to function adequately
  • Statistical infrequency
  • Deviation from ideal mental health
• Statistical infrequency definition states that abnormal behaviour is very rare in the population, measured by comparing behaviours or traits to the rest of the population
• For example, low IQ is when someone's intelligence is two standard deviations from the average, with only 2.28% of the population having low IQ
• Failure to function adequately is the inability to cope with daily life, including maladaptive behavior, personal anguish, observer discomfort, irrationality, unpredictability, and unconventionality
• Deviation from social norms refers to behaviors that deviate from unwritten social expectations, which may differ across cultures and contexts
• Marie Jahoda's six features of ideal mental health are:

  • Environmental mastery
  • Autonomy
  • Resisting stress
  • Self-actualization
  • Positive attitude towards oneself
  • Accurate perception of reality
• a strength to using statistical infrequency to define abnormality is that those induviduals who were assessed as being abnormal have been evaluated objectively, which is better than other definitions which depend on the subjective opinion of a clinical
• Not all statistically infrequent traits are negative. This definition would include high IQ, but whilst this is statistically rare it is also highly desirable
• Some psychopathologies such as depression and anxiety are quite common. NHS found that 17% of adults surveyed in England met the criteria for a common mental health disorder (CMD) in 2014. So the statistical infrequency definition of abnormality does not match with society’s high incidence of mental health disorders.
• Maladaptive behaviour is when individuals behave in ways that are against their long-term interests (i.e: self-harm or unhealthy eating patterns).
• Personal anguish is the suffering from anxiety and distress because of their inability to cope.
• Observer discomfort is when the person’s behaviour causes distress to the people around them (i.e: poor personal hygiene or not respecting personal space)
• Irrationality and unpredictability is behaviour that is hard to understand and/or seems uncontrolled
• Unconventionality are behaviours that go against normal expectations of society
• The main signs of if someone if failing to function adaqeutly are:

  • when a person no longer conforms to the standard interpersonal rules for example maintaining eye contact
  • when a person experiences severe personal distress
  • when a persons behaviour becomes irrational or dangerous to themselves and others
• FFA means that deciding whether an individual is coping or not is a subjective judgement that is affected by the opinions of the observer, so two observers may not rate a person in the same way (potential low inter-rater reliability).
• Some abnormal behaviour is not linked to an inability to cope or intense distress. It is thought that there are many psychopaths that may be more able to function in certain roles in society.
• Not all maladaptive behaviour is an indication of mental illness. For example, smoking and poor diet are seen as against a person’s long-term interests in their personal health, but neither of these behaviours are assumed to constitute mental illness.
• FFA does respect and recognises the patient’s own lived experiences and perspective, which statistical infrequency and deviation from social norms cannot really address.
• a strength of the deviation from social norms' definition of abnormality is that it respects cultural differences by not imposing a set definition of abnormality (avoids western ethnocentrism that would cause other cultures to be viewed as abnormal)
• a strength of the deviation from social norms' definition of abnormality is that it is a clear definition of what is and is not abnormal whilst also taking context into consideration.
• Can create problems for people living in a culture that is different from their culture of origin. For example Cochrane suggests that the there is 7x higher diagnosis rate of schizophrenia for people from Afro-caribbean heritage living in the UK compared to those native to the UK living in the UK or those native to the Caribbean who are living there. Fernando considers this to be a “category failure” that has occurred due to western definitions of mental illness being applied onto non-western cultures, specifically how hallucinations and religious experiences are interpreted.
• Marie Jahoda (1958) uses humanist principles in defining six features of ideal mental health, suggesting that deviation from these features would indicate abnormality. The more criteria someone fails to meet the more abnormal they are.
• criteria are culturally biased to reflect an ethnocentric western viewpoint on what ideal mental health is. This could be an example of an imposed ethic. For example, many cultures place less value on the autonomy and personal freedom found in Western cultures, seeing playing a social role as more important.
• It is very difficult to achieve all of these criteria at the same time, so most people would be judged as failing to achieve ideal mental health, and would therefore be classed as abnormal.
• deviation from the ideal mental health definition provides a positive holistic approach to diagnosis that identifies areas for personal development.