Failure to function adequately

• A person may be considered abnormal if they can no longer cope with everyday life and so they fail to function adequately. We may decide that someone is no longer adequately functioning when they are unable to maintain basic standards of hygiene, feed themselves, or dress themselves or if they struggle to hold down a job and maintain relationships with others
• Rosenhan and Seligman (1989) proposed signs to determine when someone is not coping these include:

  • No longer conforming to standard interpersonal rules (e.g maintaining eye contact and respecting personal space)
  • Experiencing severe personal distress
  • Behaviour that is irrational or dangerous to themselves or others
• Someone will be diagnosed with intellectual disability disorder if they have a very low IQ and also have difficulties with everyday activities, they fail to function adequately
• AO3

  Who judges?

  The patient themselves may be struggling with functioning which causes them distress, in this way they are the ones that identify the issue and get help

  However, the patient may alternatively be unaware of not being able to function/they aren't coping, so they do not realise they are acting abnormally.

  This limits this definition of abnormality as the judgement of if someone fails to function adequately depends on who is making the decision - it is subjective
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  The behaviour may be functional 


  Some dysfunctional behaviour may be adaptive and functional for the individual.

  • For example, some mental disorders such as depression may lead to an individual receiving extra attention. This attention is rewarding and functional for them.
  • Also, transvestism is considered dysfunctional to some people in society, however, is perfectly functional for the individual.

  This definition fails to define between functional and dysfunctional, meaning the definition is incomplete
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  Subjective experience recognised

  This definition recognises the subjective experience of each individual

  It allows us to view a mental disorder from the point of view 🪟 of the person experiencing it. In addition, failure to function, is relatively easy to objectively judge and recognise as we can list behaviours (e.g. can dress self, can prepare meals) and objectively judge abnormality

  This definition is strong 💪 in the fact it has sensitivity and practicality
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  Cultural relativism

  Defining whether someone fails to function adequately is relative to cultures.

  Definitions of failing to function adequately are based on cultural ideas on how one should live.

  The failure to function definition is likely to result in different diagnosis when applied to people in different cultures as the standard from one culture is used to measure another.

  For example, someone who is lower class may be more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder as their lifestyles are different to the dominant culture

  The model is limited by its cultural relativism