Barron’s AP Psych Ch 12- Abnormal Psychology – Flashcards

A legal term for those who cannot be held fully responsible for their actions because of a psychological disorder.

A book called "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" that provides a way for psychologists to diagnose their patients. It contains the symptoms of everything currently considered to be a psychological disorder.

An approach to diagnosis based on the belief that many factors affect a person's mental health. Typically when a psychologist meets with a client, the psychological assesses the client on five axes: clinical disorders, personality and development disorders, medical conditions, psychosocial conditions, global assessment of functioning.

One of the six major types of disorders, these share a common symptom of anxiety.

An intense unwarranted fear of a situation or object such as claustrophobia(small spaces) or arachnophobia(spiders)

A fear of open spaces

A fear of situation in which one could embarrass oneself in public, such as when eating in a restaurant or giving a lecture.

A person who suffers from GAD experiences constant, low level anxiety. They constantly feel nervous and out of sorts.

Some with this anxiety disorder suffers from acute episodes of intense anxiety without any apparent provocation. Panic attacks tend to increase in frequency and people often suffer additional anxiety due to anticipating the attacks.

One of the six major types of disorders, these occur when a person manifests a psychological problem through a physiological symptom. In other words, such a person experiences a physical problem in the absence of any physical cause.

A person suffering from this somatoform disorder has frequent physical complaints for which medical doctors are unable to locate the cause. In addition, such a person may believe that minor problems such as headaches or occasional shortness of breath are indicative of severe physical illness even after he is assured by doctors that no evidence of such physiological problems exists.

People suffering from this somatoform disorder will report the existence of a severe physical problem such as paralysis or blindness, and they will in fact, be unable to move their arms or see. However, again, no biological reason for this problem can be identified.

One of the six major types of disorders, these involve a disruption in conscious processes.

This dissociative disorder is when a person cannot remember things and no physiological basis for the disruption in memory can be identified.

People suffering from this dissociative disorder not only experiences psychogenic amnesia, but also fund themselves in unfamiliar environment. For ex. Albert wakes up one day with no memory of who or where he is and no one else in the environment can answer either.

(DID), formerly know as multiple personality disorder, is when a person has several personalities rather than one integrated personality. Some one DID can have any number of personalities. The different personalities can represent many different ages and both sexes. Often, two of the personalities will be the opposite of each other. People with DID commonly have a history of sexual abuse or some other terrible childhood trauma.

One of the six major types of disorders, people with these experience extreme or inappropriate emotions.

This mood or affective disorder, aka unipolar depression, is the most common mood disorder. While we all feel unhappy now and again, most of us do not suffer from major depressive disorder. One key part is the length of the episode. People who are clinically depressed remain unhappy for more than two weeks in the absence of a clear reason. Other common symptoms include loss of appetite, fatigue, change in sleeping patterns, lack of interest in normally enjoyable activites and feelings of worthlessness.

When people experience depression but only during certain times of the year, usually winter when there is less sunlight.

A mood disorder that is similar to major depressive disorder but is generally less intense. A diagnosis of this requires a period of depressed mood lasting at least two years.

This mood disorder involves both depressed and manic episodes.People experience manic episodes in different ways but they usually involve feelings of high energy. While some sufferers feel a heightened sense of confidence and power, others simply feel anxious and irritable.Even though some people feel an inflated sense of well-being during the manic period, they usually engage in excessively risky and poorly thought out behavior.

Aaron Beck, a cognitive thinker believes that depression results from unreasonable negative idea that people have about themselves, their world, and their futures. These three components are the _____________

A social cognitive or cognitive-behavior theory by Martin Seligman. Seligman conducted an experiment in which dogs received shocks. One group of dogs was able to terminate the shock by pressing a button with their nose while the helpless group had no way to stop the shocks. In a second phase of the experiment both groups of dogs were put in a situation where they could easily escape electric shocks by moving to another part of the experimental chamber. While the dogs that were able to stop the shock quickly learned to move to the area where they would not be shocked, the other group of dogs just hunkered down and ignored the shocks. Seligman suggested that due to their lack of ability to control their fate in the first phase of the experiment, these dogs had learned to act helpless. For humans, _________ is when one's prior experiences have caused that person to view himself or herself as unable to control aspects of the future that are controllable.

One of the six major types of disorders, these are probably the most sever and debilitating of the psychological disorders. They tend to strike people as they enter young adulthood. The fundamental symptom of these disorders is disordered, distorted thinking often demonstrated through delusions and/or hallucinations.

the belief that people are out to get you

the belief that you enjoy greater power and influence than you do, that you are the president of the United States or a Nobel prize-winning author

Perceptions in the absence of any sensory stimulation. If I keep thinking I see newspaper headline, "Huang wins Nobel" and hordes of autograph seekers outside my window, I am suffering from _________

A type of schizophrenia in which people suffering from it evidence some odd use of language. They make up their own words or string together a series of nonsense words that rhyme. In addition they often evidence inappropriate effect. For instance they might laugh in response to hearing someone has died. Alternatively they may consistently have essentially no emotional response at all.

A type of schizophrenia in which the key symptom is delusions of persecution.

A type of schizophrenia in which people engage in odd movements. They may remain motionless in strange postures for hours at a time, move jerkily and quickly for no apparent reason or alternate between the two. When motionless, they usually evidence wavy flexibility.

People who have this allow their body to be moved into any alternate shape and will then hold that new pose.

A type of schizophrenia is when people exhibit disordered thinking but no symptoms of one of the other type of schizophrenia.

One of the most popular ideas about the cause of schizophrenia is biological. The basic idea behind it is that high levels of dopamine seem to be associated with schizophrenia.

Muscle tremors and stiffness

A theorized cause of schizophrenia, this model is often applied to schizophrenia but can be applied to many psychological and physical disorders. According to the model, environmental stressors can provide the circumstances under which a biological predisposition for illness can express itself. This theory helps explain why even people with identical genetic makeups, do not always suffer from the same disorders.

One commonly suggested cognitive behavioral cause is the existence of this. It is when person is given contradictory messages. If when growing up, Sally is continually cautioned by her parents against acting promiscuously while they gave her revealing, provocative outfits as gifts, Sally would be experiencing a _______. People who live in environments full of such conflicting messages may develop distorted ways of thinking due to the impossibility of rationally resolving their experiences.

One of the six major types of disorders, these are well-established, maladaptive ways of behaving that negatively affect people's ability to function.

A personality disorder in which people have little regard to other people's feelings. They view the world as a hostile place where people need to look out for themselves. Criminals seem to manifest a high incidence of this.

A personality disorder in which people rely too much on the attention and help of others.

A personality disorder in which people feel persecuted.

A personality disorder in which people see oneself as the center of the universe.

A personality disorder where a person connotes overly dramatic behavior.

A personality disorder where people may be overly concerned with certain thoughts and performing certain behaviors but they will not be debilitated to the same extent that someone with OCD would.

A disorder marked by the sexual attraction to an object, person or activity not usually seen as sexual.

An intense fear of fat and food and a distorted body image. Essentially a form of self-starvation.

A type of disorder that deviates from typical social development. From early on, children who have this disorder seek out less social and emotional contact than do other children. They are slow to develop language skills and are less likely to seek out parental support when distressed.

(ADHD) Children have difficulty paying attention or sitting still.