Evaluate

• There are problems with establishing cause and effect in social drift theory

  Rather than SZ driving people into the lower classes, an alternative theory (social causation) is that being in the lower social classes’ drives people to develop SZ. Factors associated with being at the bottom of society – poverty, living in a deprived area, being more likely to be a victim of crime, more discrimination, feeling excluded – lead to stressors that trigger SZ.
• Physical factors associated with low social classes may be the cause of schizophrenia 


  factors such as complications in pregnancy and childbirth can increase a child’s chances of developing schizophrenia. So can poor diet and nutrition as a child grows up. These are more likely to be issues for lower class families, which may explain why many people with SZ are found in this class.
• Bias in diagnosis

  More people with SZ (schizophrenia) may end up in lower social classes
• Bias in diagnosis

  Psychiatrists and other professionals are more likely to diagnose people from lower classes with SZ
• Psychiatrists and other professionals

  May assume that people from lower classes are more likely to be suggesting from SZ because of everyday stress
• A person from the higher classes


  May just be seen as eccentric if their behaviour is bizarre or unusual
• Psychologists often belong to the higher classes
• Psychologists belonging to the higher classes


  May not relate to working class people enough to understand their problems properly
• There is too much focus on the role of society 


  Critics say that rather than just looking at wider social factors, theories should focus closer to home to look at the family as a cause of SZ. There is evidence that family conflict, domineering parents, or families that express high level so emotion could contribute to the disorder.
• Focusing on the interaction between the suffer and society tends to ignore biological factors involved in SZ 


  even if society makes matters worse by rejecting people with SZ, the fact is that the disorder still needs to start somewhere and there is a lot of evidence that it starts with genes that affect the way the brain works.