AO1

• Family dysfunction - high levels of interpersonal conflict and dysfunctional family relationships can lead to schizophrenia.
• Family dysfunction - created by the schizophrenogenic mother, mixed messages according to the double bind theory, insecure attachment and high levels of expressed emotion.
• Schizophrenogenic mother: cold, rejecting and controlling which creates a family climate of tension and secrecy, leading to distrust that later develops into paranoid delusions
• Double bind: suggests children who frequently receive contradictory info from parents are likely to develop schizo as messages prevent development of internal coherence construction
• Insecure attachment: Berry et al found adults with ia to primary caregiver more likely to develop as it could have been caused by caregiver who is inconsistent in their responses when child is in need 
• Expressed emotion: families who persistently exhibit criticism, hostility and exert a negative influence especially upon recovering schizophrenics. Linzen says high levels of ee are a key factor in increasing relapse rates in patients
• Cognitive - assumes it is based on inability to process thoughts 
• Attention deficit theory proposed by Firth suggests schizo is due to faulty attention system, unable to filter preconscious thoughts and gives too much significance to info that would usually be filtered therefore overloading the mind (hallucinations) which could lead to dysfunctional thought processing showing it isn’t an effect but not necessarily a cause
• Metarepresentation is the cognitive ability to differentiate between our own actions and the actions of others, allowing us insight into the intentions and emotions as others, as well as maintaining a realistic/functional view of our own goals and intentions.
• Dysfunctions in metarepresentation have been associated with auditory hallucinations, and specifically thought insertion, due to the inability to differentiate between our own thoughts and that of others. This may lead to paranoid delusions due to the contents of inserting others' thoughts into the mind of the patient.
• Central control is the cognitive ability to carry out a deliberate action whilst suppressing an automatic response, and is often measured using the Stroop Test. This test involves identifying the colour of each word, where there is often a discrepancy e.g. the word 'brown' written in a yellow font. Therefore, the automatic response of reading the word must be suppressed, to allow for identification of the font colour.
• People with SZ often have dysfunctional central control abilities, and so often suffer from derailment because they cannot suppress the automatic associations that each new word in a sentence brings, and so begin to talk off-topic.
• Cognitive deficits - sufferers experience problems with attention, communication and information overload
• Cognitive biases - sufferers think in irrational ways, often attributed to paranoia and positive symptoms
• Cognitive strategies - maladaptive strategies are used to try and cope with the schizophrenic symptoms, which are usually negative