Cognitive Explanations for sch: Individual Differences 1

• Cognitive approach


  Attempts to explain schizophrenia in terms of malfunctions in the cognitive systems, such as perception, attention, and memory
• The cognitive explanation is unable to offer one explanation for all the symptoms of schizophrenia, but it does offer different theories that explain some of the key positive and negative symptoms
• Hallucination


  Perceptions that are unreal and can manifest in many forms, the most common type being auditory hallucinations (hearing voices or sounds that are not real)
• Morrison's explanation of auditory hallucinations

  1. Maladaptive thinking triggered by events like sleep deprivation causes individuals to hear voices in a distorted way, such as believing a critical inner voice is the devil

  2. These negative voices can lead to behaviors like self-harm and social withdrawal
• Eleanor Logden's explanation of auditory hallucinations

  The voices might reflect the individual's own thoughts
• Frith's explanation of schizophrenia

  1. Breakdown in the thought filtering process, causing difficulty in filtering out irrelevant information

  2. This leads to environmental stimuli being misinterpreted as significant

  3. Causes disorganized thoughts and speech, potentially explaining hallucinations and delusions

  4. Cognitive deficits are caused by abnormalities in certain areas of the brain involved in memory like the prefrontal cortex
• Beck's explanation of negative symptoms of schizophrenia

  1. Schizophrenics hold negative beliefs about themselves, their performance, and their ability to feel pleasure

  2. These dysfunctional thoughts and negative mental filters lead to a negative view of the future, explaining negative symptoms of schizophrenia like alogia and avolition
• The cognitive explanation is not a comprehensive theory since it is only able to explain the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia like disordered thinking, whilst there are other symptoms such as issues with movement which cannot be explained using cognitive explanations
• The cognitive explanations do not always explain the origins of these symptoms and therefore can only explain current symptoms of schizophrenia
• Cognitive explanations need to be combined with a wider theory that considers other factors like genes or early life factors, as well as the effect of dopamine on the cognitive system
• Cognitive explanation of schizophrenia

  • Supported by evidence like Barch et al's Stroop test findings
  • Criticized for being too reductionist by reducing a complex experience down to brain functions