Abnormal Psychology Test: Chapter 1-4 – Flashcards

Abnormal behavior, thoughts and emotions must deviate from what society considers to be normal and proper functioning.

Abnormal behavior, ideas, or emotions usually have to cause distress before they can be considered abnormal.

Places such emphasis on society's role that he finds the whole concept of mental illness to be invalid, a myth. The deviance that society calls abnormal are simply 'problems.'

Attributes both the physical and mental disorders to natural causes. The 'humor theory' of disease. Restore the balance of the humors by diet, exercise, therapeutic bleeding (500 BC- 400 AD). When bodily fluids are out of balance, the brain is out of balance.

The methods of Pinel & Tuke were called moral treatment because they emphasized moral guidance and respectful techniques. The person most responsible for the early spread of moral treatment in the U.S. was Benjamin Rush (1745-1813). Patients with psychological problems were increasingly perceived as potentially productive human beings whose mental functioning had broken down under stress. They were considered deserving of individual care, including discussions of their problems, useful activities, work, companionship, & quiet. Eventually, each state was made responsible for developing effective public mental hospitals, or state hospitals, all of which intended to provide moral treatment. By the end of the 19th century moral treatment began to decline.

The chief physician at the La Bicetre an asylum for male patients in Paris. The first site of asylum reform (1745-1826) argues that patients were sick people whose illnesses should be treated with sympathy and kindness rather than chains and beatings.

He was an eminent German researcher (1856-1926) that published an influential textbook arguing that physical factors such as fatigue, are responsible for mental dysfunction. Also developed the first system for classifying abnormal behaviors.

The variable in an experiment that is manipulated to determine whether it has an effect on another variable.

The variable is an experiment that is expected to change as the independent variable is manipulated.

confounds are variables other than the independent variable that may also be affecting the dependent variable. To guard against these, researchers include 3 important features in experiments: control group, random assignment, and blind design.

1. Lack validity or accuracy. 2. Interviewers can make mistakes in judgments that slant the information gathered. 3. Rely heavily on first impressions. 4. Tend to hold interviewer biases, etc. 5. Lack reliability. 6. Different clinicians can obtain different answers and different conclusions.

an extensive list of clinical syndromes that typically cause significant impairment. (Anxiety disorders and Mood disorders)

long-standing problems that are frequently overlooked in the presence of the disorders on Axis 1. 2 groups: Mental Retardation and Personality Disorders.

1. Promotes prejudice and scapegoating. 2. Promote over inclusive thinking (false negative or false positive) 3. Leads to circular thinking. 4. Can act as self-fulfilling prophecies 5. Serves as an excuse for some persons.

a basic set of assumptions that shapes and organizes inquiry by influencing what questions are asked about phenomena, what information is considered legitimate, and how the information is interpretated. To understand how a clinician thinks, explains, or treats a specific set of symptoms, we must know his preferred model of abnormal functioning.

according to psychoanalytic theory, strategies developed by the ego to control unacceptable id impulses and to avoid or reduce the anxiety they arouse.

the principle causes of mental disorders are psychological. The behavioral model says all behavior develop in accordance with learning 3 types of human learning: 1, classical conditioning, 2, operant conditioning, 3, modeling. It emphasizes behavior and the ways in which it is learned.

Illogical thinking, according to cognitive theories, illogical ways of thinking that may lead to self defeating conclusions and psychological problems. Irrational thinking-? I can't find this one☹

All persons have freedom to face up to the demands of existence and to give meaning to their lives by taking responsibility for their lives. Psychopathology is the result of hiding from responsibility, or being forced to do so by modern social, political, economic, or scientific forces.

Psychotropic medications-drugs that primarily affect the brain and reduce various symptoms of mental dysfunctioning. -included first antipsychotic drugs -deinstitutionalization came about them from this -finding ways to treat abnormality -when thorazine came out

(I couldnt find anything on this, if you guys have anything let me know and ill add it in. )

Constant change and increases in societal dangers and adaptive frustrations establishes a climate conductive to anxiety disorders.

The father of psychiatry in the United States. He developed the state hospital system and also bled to death George Washington. The person most responsible for the early spread of moral treatment in the U.S. was Benjamin Rush (1745-1813).

The Rosenhahn Study was when Rosenhahn got his friends admitted to a mental hospital and saw the affects of labeling, because some of his normal friends could not get back out of the hospital b/c their every move was being watched and criticed to carefully.

"A predisposed tendency." According to this theory, people must first have a biological, psychological, or sociocultural predisposition to develop a disorder and must then be subjected to episodes of severe stress.

Operant Conditioning: A process of learning in which behavior that leads to satisfying consequences is likely to be repeated.

most experiments use the scientific method and there are a lot of different types of experiments especially ones with independent and dependent variables, but i couldnt find the exact things that are needed for well-designed experiments.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders in the united states. In any given year, around 18% of the adult population suffer from one or another of the six anxiety disorders identified by DSM-IV-TR, while close to 29% of peope will develop one of the disorders at some point in their lives. Only 1/5 of these people seek treatment.

- experience free floating anxiety and worry about numerous issues/activities. Often the things worried about are mixed and non specific. -"low grade" nearly all of its waking hours. -Twice as many women develop this disorder than men.

Specific Phobia: 8.7%, Social Phobia: 7.1%

State anxiety is being in a state for anxiety for realistic reasons Trait anxiety is being anxious before anyone else would be, a natural tendencies to be anxious

Free floating anxiety is a broader reaction that occurs when the sense of threat is more diffuse/vague

Anxiety is the warning sigh that these defenses may crumble. (in place to protect our self-esteem and integrity)

Many theorist believe that person who easily develop phobias may have biological diathesis, perhaps some defects in the serotonin or GABA systems, that set a back ground for pairing anxiety with a variety of specific stimuli. Persons who develop phobias easily may have a history of being timid, anxious, non assertive, and dependent from childhood as compared to childhood peers. Some children are simply more fearful than others.

A phobia is persistent and unreasonable fear of a particular object, activity or situation.

Agoraphobia is a fear of venturing out into public places where escape might be difficult, and/or help might be un available. (literally: fear of the market place)

If an object, activity, or situation is paired in time with fear, then these stimuli can become associated with an autonomic fear response - a classical conditioning process.

Exposure treatments: systematic desensitization by reciprocal inhibition: wolpe and lazarus flooding: thomas stampfl

A commonly used medicine to provide relief from anxiety

(In syllabus) One of two guiding principles that will help you repeatedly as you take Abnormal The second is "Do not ask "What disease dies this person have?" ask, rather, "What sort of person has this disease?" William Osler, father of modern pathology.

Determination of which one of two or more diseases with similar symptoms is the one from which the patient is suffering.

The Existential Perspective on Generalized Anxiety Disorder: GAD results from the knowledge that there will be a time when one will not be-life is finite. Anxiety may also arise if one realizes life has no meaning.

This is one of the two guiding principles from the syllabus. This statement means that people's personalities can affect how the disease manifests itself. So psychologists have to aware of someone's personality while diagnosing.

The number of new cases of a disorder occurring in a population over a specific period of time.

A false positive is diagnosing someone with the wrong diagnosis, like diagnosing someone being diagnosed with a mental illness when in fact they are normal.

The spiritual model: Abnormal behavior and mental processes may be attributed to the workings of supernatural forces or sin: 1)proximate sin, 2) demons or supernatural agents, 3) the Fall of Man, 4) alienation from God and distorted ideas of God [God images]. (From models handout)

The total number of cases of a disorder occurring in a population over a specific period of time

A determination that a person's problems reflect a particular disorder.

When our brain interprets a situation as dangerous, the hypothalamus activates two important systems. One of these systems is the autonomic nervous system, which has two parts, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. First the sympathetic nervous system is excited and works to quicken our heartbeat and produce the other changes that we experience as fear or anxiety. When the perceived danger passes, the parasympathetic nervous system helps return our heartbeat and other body processes to normal. Together the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems help control our arousal and fear reactions. (pp. 135-136)

Clinical assessment is used to determine how and why a person is behaving abnormally and how that person may be helped. It also enables clinicians to evaluate people's progress after they have been in treatment for a while and decide whether the treatment should be changed. The hundreds of clinical assessment techniques and tools that have been developed fall into three categories: clinical interviews, tests, and observations. To be useful, these tools must be standardized and must have clear reliability and validity. With the assessment data and clinical picture in hand, clinicians are ready to make a diagnosis-that is, a determination that a person's psychological problems constitute a particular disorder. Clinicians diagnose a patient by using a classification system, like the DSM-IV-TR. (pp.67-68, 81-83) There wasn't really a section on interpretation but I'm guessing that all the assessments need to be interpreted and sometimes there can be factors that can affect the results of the assessments, so researchers need to be careful about how they go about interpreting the results. For example, intelligence test results can be affected by low motivation or high anxiety, which have nothing to do with intelligence but still affect the results. (pp. 71-80)