ch 3

• Typical behaviour


  An activity that is consistent with how an individual usually behaves
• Atypical behaviour


  An activity that is unusual or unnatural according to how an individual usually behaves
• Psychological criteria (in relation to typicality)


  Standards against which a judgement can be made about a person's behaviour and abilities
• Psychological criteria for categorising behaviour

  • Cultural perspectives
  • Social norms
  • Statistical rarity
  • Personal distress
  • Maladaptive behaviour
• Cultural perspectives


  The influence of society and community on one's thoughts
• Social norms


  Society's unofficial rules and expectations regarding how individuals should act
• Statistical rarity


  Something that lies outside the range of statistical normality and is also unusual enough to be considered significant
• Personal distress


  An aversive and often self-oriented emotional reaction
• Maladaptive behaviour


  An action that impairs an individual's ability to meet the changing demands of their everyday life
• Maladaptive and atypical are not synonyms but rather concepts that relate to each other
• Maladaptive behaviours involve acting in a way that hinders one's ability to adjust to their environment and function effectively, whereas atypical behaviours involve acting in a way that is unusual or different for them
• If an individual begins exhibiting maladaptive behaviour, it can indicate that they are also behaving atypically as they are not acting as they usually would
• An individual acting atypically does not always mean that they are engaging in maladaptive behaviour
• All criteria have their strengths and limitations, and it is crucial to evaluate these so that you are providing the best categorisation possible
• Personal distress


  Can be used as an indicator when cultural, social, and statistical measures are not applicable or appropriate
• Social norms


  Acts as a baseline to compare behaviours to, allowing relatively easy identification of atypicality
• Statistical rarity


  Provides an objective perspective, allowing for a more accurate way to categorise behaviours as typical or atypical
• Statistical rarity


  • Not all statistical rarities are damaging or negative
  • Can be difficult to understand and apply to an abstract concept, such as behaviour, possibly leading to a miscategorisation
• Maladaptive behaviour


  Enables the consideration of the consequences of behaviour
• Maladaptive behaviour


  • What is considered maladaptive is subjective and can change depending on who is judging the behaviour
• Typicality is focused on behaviours that are usual for an individual
• Behaviour that is typical for you is not always typical for everyone else
• Psychological criteria used to categorise behaviours

  • Culture
  • Social norms
  • Statistics
  • Personal distress
  • Maladaptive behaviour
• Emotions you might feel if in personal distress

  • Scared
  • Anxious
  • Guilty
• Evaluating criteria for categorising behaviour

  Awareness of the usefulness and limitations of using criteria so that you are able to effectively categorise behaviour
• Lucy Fyles views her agoraphobia as 'atypical'
• Cultural perspectives were the least likely used to categorise Lucy Fyles' behaviour
• Maladaptive behaviours are a useful psychological criterion to apply to behaviour because knowing that a seemingly maladaptive behaviour may actually be adaptive in a specific context, allows for more accurate categorisation
• Students who scored more than 50 out of 60 would be considered atypical as this result is a statistical rarity because only 1 person in the class got this score
• Scoring between 30-40 out of 60 would be categorised as typical as it lies within the average range of students' results
• Limitation of using statistical rarities to categorise behaviours

  • It can be difficult to understand and apply to an abstract concept, such as behaviour
• Atypical behaviour is when someone behaves in a way that is unusual for them
• Psychological criteria most commonly used to categorise behaviour

  • Social norms
  • Cultural perspectives
  • Statistical rarity
  • Personal distress
  • Maladaptive behaviour
• Cultural perspectives


  Enable different cultural contexts to be taken into account
• Social norms


  Act as a baseline to compare behaviours to, allowing relatively easy identification of atypicality
• Tanya's behaviour would be considered typical as she was acting as she usually would
• Geetu's behaviour would be considered atypical as she was acting differently from how she usually would
• The school counsellor may have told Daniel's host family to not worry about his tea-drinking habits because it was typical behaviour in his culture, even though it was atypical in the Australian context
• Psychological criteria used to categorise Rohan's behaviour

  • Cultural perspectives
  • Statistical rarity
• Anant's behaviour as a toddler would be attributed to environmental factors as he didn't get much attention or affection from his parents