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• What is abnormality? (define)


  Showing behaviour that is different from the majority of people.
• What are the 4 definitions of abnormality?

  Statistical deviation

  Deviation from social norms

  Failure to function adequately

  Deviation from ideal mental health

  
  

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• What is statistical deviation? And when is this approach of defining abnormality useful?

  Occurs when an individual has a less common characteristic, for example being more depressed or less intelligent than most of the population.

  Useful when dealing with characteristics that can be measured - e.g, intelligence.
• What is deviation from social norms? And what is an example of this?

  Concerns behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviour in a community, culture, or society.

  Social norms are specific to the culture we live in.

  Antisocial personality disorder is a key example - don't conform to social/moral standards.
• What is failure to function adequately? And what are the 3 signs?

  Occurs when someone is unable to cope with ordinary demands of day-to-day living.

  Signs:

  • Individual no longer conforms to standard interpersonal rules - e.g, maintaining eye contact and respecting personal space

  • Individual experiences severe personal distress

  • Individual's behaviour becomes irrational or dangerous to themselves or others.
• What is deviation from ideal mental health? What is the list of criteria for this, and who came up with it?

  Occurs when someone does not meet a set of criteria for good mental health.

  Marie Jahoda (1958) came up with criteria for good mental health:

  • Have no symptoms of distress

  • Rational and can perceive ourselves accurately

  • Self-actualise (reach our potential)

  • Can cope with stress

  • Realistic view of the world

  • Independent of other people

  • Can successfully work, love, and enjoy our leisure
• What is a phobia?


  An irrational fear of an object or situation.
• What are the 3 behavioural characteristics of phobias? (explain each one)

  Panic- caused by the presence of the phobic stimulus. Involves a range of behaviours - crying, screaming, running away

  Avoidance- unless the sufferer is making a conscious effort to face their fear, they tend to go to a lot of effort to avoid coming into contact with the phobic stimulus.

  Endurance- sufferer remains in the presence of the phobic stimulus but continues to experience high levels of anxiety.
• What are the 2 emotional characteristics of phobias?

  Anxiety- an unpleasant state of high arousal. This prevents the sufferer from relaxing and makes it v. difficult to experience any positive emotion.

  Fear- the immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think about the phobic stimulus

  
  

  Emotional responses are disproportionate, as they go beyond what is reasonable in relation to phobic stimuli.
• What are the 3 cognitive characteristics of phobias?

  Selective attention- hard to focus on anything but the phobic stimulus

  Irrational beliefs- hold irrational beliefs in relation to phobic stimuli.

  Distortion- perception of phobic stimulus may be distorted. e.g, someone with a fear of snakes may see them as alien or aggressive looking.
• What is the behavioural explanation for phobias?

  Two-process model - Mower (1960)
• According to the two-process model of phobias, how is a phobia acquired?

  Association - Classical conditioning

  Watson and Rayner (1920) - Little Albert

  Phobia of bees:

  UCS (sting/pain) → UCR (fear)

  UCS + NS (bee) → UCR

  CS (bee) → CR (fear)
• According to the two-process model of phobias, how is a phobia maintained?

  Maintenance by Operant conditioning.

  - Takes place when our behaviour is rewarded or punished.

  - Increases frequency of behaviour

  - Negative reinforcement: individual avoids a situation that is unpleasant. Results in a desirable consequence, means that the behaviour will be repeated

  - Avoid situation = escape fear and anxiety. Reduction in fear reinforces avoidance behaviour and phobia is maintained.
• What are the two behavioural approaches to treating phobias?

  •Systematic desensitisation

  • Flooding
• What are the three processes involved in systematic desensitisation? (explain each one)

  1) The anxiety hierarchy.List of situations related to phobia that provoke anxiety, arranged from least to most frightening.

  2) Relaxation. Therapist teaches patient to relax - using breathing exercises, mental imaging techniques.

  Reciprocal inhibition: impossible to be afraid and relaxed at same time, so one emotion prevents the other.

  3) Exposure.Patient is exposed to phobic stimulus while in a relaxed state. Takes place across several sessions, starting at the bottom of the hierarchy. Counter-conditioning: break negative association and learn a new response to the phobic stimulus
• How does flooding work?

  Immediate exposure to very frightening situation. Works through extinction: without the option of avoidance behaviour, the patient quickly learns that the phobic stimulus is harmless. Learned response (fear) is extinguished when the CS is encountered without the UCS. CS no longer produces CR.

  One session lasts from 2-3 hours
• What are the 3 behavioural characteristics of depression?

  Activity levels: reduced levels of energy - lethargic. Can have opposite effect: psychomotor agitation. Struggle to relax, pace up and down.

  Disruption to sleep and eating behaviour: May experience insomnia, premature waking, hypersomnia. Appetite may increase/decrease.

  Aggression and self harm: Often irritable, verbally or physically aggressive. Serious knock-on effects. Can lead to physical aggression directed against self.
• What are the 3 emotional characteristics of depression?

  Lowered mood: more pronounced than the daily experience of feeling lethargic and sad. Patients describe selves as worthless and empty

  Anger: frequently experience anger, sometimes extreme. Can be directed at self or others.

  Lowered self-esteem: can be extreme - sense of self loathing.
• What are the 3 cognitive characteristics of depression?

  Poor concentration: unable to stick to a task they usual would be able to do, or find it hard to make decisions that are straightforward.

  Attending to and dwelling on the negative: pay more attention to negative aspects of a situation and ignore the positives. Bias towards recalling unhappy events.

  Absolutist thinking: think that situations are either good or bad (black and white thinking). Situation may be unfortunate, but they perceive it as a disaster.
• What are the two cognitive approaches to explaining depression?

  • Beck's cognitive theory of depression

  • Ellis's ABC model
• What is Beck's cognitive theory of depression? What are the three aspects of this theory?

  Cognitive approach explaining why some people are more vulnerable to depression than others.

  3 parts to this cognitive vulnerability:

  •Faulty information processing: focus on negative aspects of situation and ignore positives. Blow small problems out of proportion

  •Negative self-schemas: schema is a 'package' of ideas and info developed through experience. Self-schema contains info about ourselves. Use schemas to interpret world - negative self-schema = negative interpretation of self

  •The negative triad: Person develops dysfunctional view of themselves because of 3 types of negative thinking that occur automatically.
• What are the 3 elements of Beck's negative triad?

  •Negative view of the world: creates impression that there is no hope.

  •Negative view of future: reduces hopefulness and enhances depression

  •Negative view of the self: enhances existing depressive feelings because they confirm existing emotions of low self-esteem.
• What is Ellis's ABC theory?

  ABC modelexplains how irrational thoughts affect our behaviour and emotional state:

  A-Activating event. Get depressed when we experience negative events (activating events). These trigger irrational beliefs

  B-Beliefs. Ellis identified a range of irrational beliefs:

  • 'Musturbation': belief that we must always succeed or achieve perfection

  • 'I-can't-stand-it-itis': belief that it is disaster when something doesn't go smoothly

  • 'Utopianism': Belief that life is always meant to be fair.

  C-Consequences. When an activating event triggers an irrational belief there are emotional and behavioural consequences. Consequence = depression :(
• What is the cognitive approach to treating depression?

  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - CBT.
• What are the 4 steps of CBT?

  1)Therapist creates rapport with patient

  2)Identifies faulty thinking

  3)Therapist gets patient to understand formula:

  Faulty thinking → Faulty emotions → Behaviour

  4)Challenge faulty thinking
• Explain Beck's cognitive therapy. (idea behind it? how are thoughts challenged?)

  Idea behind it is to identify automatic thoughts about the world, self and future (negative triad).

  Once identified, thoughts challenged directly. Gets patients to test reality of negative beliefs. E.g, get patient to record times when people are nice to them - if they later say that no-one likes them, therapist can show why they are wrong.
• Explain Ellis's cognitive therapy. (central idea? how are thoughts challenged?)

  Extends ABC model to ABCDE model: D = dispute, E = effect

  Central idea is to identify and dispute irrational thoughts.

  Challenging involves vigorous argument. Intended effect is to change irrational belief and break link between negative life events and depression.
• What are the 2 behavioural characteristics of OCD?

  Compulsions- two elements:

  • Compulsions are repetitive: OCD sufferers feel compelled to repeat a behaviour

  • Compulsions reduce anxiety: performed in an attempt to manage anxiety cause by obsessions

  Avoidance- attempt to reduce anxiety by avoiding situations that trigger it.
• What are the 3 emotional characteristics of OCD?

  Anxiety and distress: obsessive thoughts are unpleasant and frightening, can be overwhelming

  Accompanying depression: compulsive behaviour brings temporary relief from this

  Guilt and disgust: directed at self or something external
• What are the 3 cognitive characteristics of OCD?

  Obsessive thoughts: unpleasant thoughts that recur over and over

  Cognitive strategies: deal with obsessions. Help manage anxiety

  Insight into excessive anxiety: aware that obsessions and compulsions are not rational
• What are the two biological explanations for OCD?

  • Genetic explanations

  • Neural explanations
• What did Lewis (1936) find out about OCD?


  Likely has a genetic component - runs in families.

  Lewis (1936), found that, of his OCD patients:

  • 37% had parents with OCD

  • 21% had siblings with OCD

  - likely genetic vulnerability to developing OCD that is inherited.
• What are the genetic explanations of OCD? (3 aspects)

  Candidate genes: researchers identified candidate genes which create vulnerability for OCD. Associated w. development of serotonin.

  
  

  OCD is polygenic: not caused by a single gene. Several involved. Taylor (2013) analysed findings and found evidence that 230 different genes may be involved in OCD.

  
  

  Different types of OCD: origin has different causes and it could be that different types of OCD are a result of particular genetic variations.
• What are the neural explanations of OCD? (2 explanations)

  The role of serotonin: if a person has low levels of serotonin then normal transmissions of mood relevant info does not take place.

  Affects mood and mental processes. Some OCD is caused by reduced amount of serotonin in the brain.

  
  

  Structural brain abnormalities: some cases of OCD are associated with impaired decision making - associated w. abnormal functioning in the frontal lobe (part of brain responsible for logical thinking and decisions).

  Observed in PET scans - overactive frontal lobe/abnormal functioning (reduced blood flow, electrical activity increased/decreased, level of neurotransmitters).
• What is the biological approach to treating OCD?

  Drug therapy
• What is the main drug used to treat OCD?

  SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibition)
• What is serotonin? How does it work in the synapse?

  Neurotransmitter released by certain neurons in the brain

  • Released by presynaptic neurons

  • Travels across synapse to receptor sites

  • Stimulates postsynaptic neuron - continues as electrical signal.

  • Serotonin is then re-absorbed by the pre-synaptic neuron - broken down and re-used.
• How do SSRIs work?

  • Prevent the re-absorption and breakdown of serotonin in the synapse,

  • This increases its levels

  • Therefore, the serotonin continues to stimulate the postsynaptic neuron.

  • Compensates for low levels of serotonin in people with OCD - a result of more serotonin being absorbed than made.
• What is an alternative to SSRIs when treating OCD?


  SNRIs (serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors). Helps treat symptoms of anxiety as well as depression.