AO3 - Dysfunctional Thought Processing

• Research to support dysfunctional thought processing (central control) was conducted by Stirling et al. They compared 30 patients with schizophrenia with 18 non-patient controls on a range of cognitive tasks such as the Stroop Test. Participants had to accurately name the ink colour of the colour word printed. Schizophrenia patients took over twice as long to complete the task as the control group, as they could not supress their automatic response of saying the word rather than the colour. Thus, supporting central control dysfunction as an explanation of schizophrenia.
• A strength of the cognitive explanation of schizophrenia has practical applications. This is because the principles of the theory, that schizophrenia is caused by delusional thoughts has led to the treatment of cognitive behavioural therapy. This is effective in treating schizophrenia as, patients are helped to identify and challenge their delusional thoughts. This can reduce positive symptoms of schizophrenia such as delusions of control, therefore the cognitive explanation of schizophrenia is an important part of applied psychology as it helps to treat people in the real world.
• An alternative explanation for schizophrenia is the biological explanation or Family Dysfunction. This would suggest that schizophrenia is due to hyperdopaminergia, where high levels of dopamine in central areas of the brain are associated with auditory hallucinations rather than a dysfunction in thought processing, such as a lack of metarepresentation. Therefore, weakening the cognitive explanation for schizophrenia as it is not the only explanation of schizophrenia that should be considered.