Abnormal Psychology:Past and Present

Chapter 1

Tips for Effective Studying

• Establish a quiet place, free of distractions, where you do nothing but study.• Schedule your study time.• Set specific goals each week (reading the text, watching

the videos, reviewing notes, writing out flashcards, utilize the learning curve, taking summative quiz).• Sleeping immediately after you study will help you

retain more of what you have learned.

2

Abnormal Psychology:

Scientific study of abnormal behavior in an effort to describe, predict, explain, and change abnormal patterns of functioning

3

There is no consensus definition

There are some clear elements of abnormality

What Do We Mean by Abnormality? 4

ABNO

RMALIT

Y

What Is Psychological Abnormality?• “The Four Ds”• Deviance• Distress • Dysfunction • Danger

5

The Elusive Nature of Abnormality

• We may be unable to apply our definition consistently.

6

The Elusive Nature of Abnormality

• Society selects criteria for defining abnormality and uses those criteria to judge particular cases

7

Insanity

Legal term• Defendant is/was unable to know right from wrong.• Experiencing a mental disorder at the time of a

crime does not mean that person is insane.

8

Insanity

~2/3rd acquitted by reason of insanity: schizophrenia• vast majority: history of past hospitalization, arrest, or both•~86% are male•~ 65% of cases involve violent crime•~15% of those acquitted are accused specifically of murder

9

Treatment 10

Not all people receive

treatment

Vast majority of treatment is done on outpatient

basis

Inpatient hospitalization typically in psychiatric

units

What Is Treatment?

• Procedure designed to change abnormal behavior into more normal behavior• Requires careful definition

11

What Is Treatment?

Three essential features:1. A sufferer 2. A trained healer3. A series of contacts through which healer tries to

produce certain changes in the sufferer’s emotional state, attitudes, and behavior

12

What Is Treatment?

• Surrounded by conflict and confusion:• Lack of agreement about goals or aims• Lack of agreement about successful outcome• Lack of agreement about failure• Are clinicians seeking to cure? To teach?• Are sufferers patients (ill) or clients (having difficulty)?

13

How Does Culture Affect What Is Considered Abnormal? 14

Cultural factors influence• Presentation of

disorders found worldwide

• Certain forms of highly culture-specific psychopathology

Culture-Specific Disorders 15

Certain forms of psychopathology highly specific to certain cultures

Voo doo

Multicultural PsychologySeeks to understand how culture, race, ethnicity, gender affect behavior/thought and how people of different cultures, races, and genders may differ psychologically

16

17

What Do Clinical Researchers Do?• Research: systematic search for facts through use of

careful observations and investigations• Challenges:• Assessing private thoughts• Monitoring mood changes• Calculating human potential

• Must always ensure rights of research participants, both human and animal, are not violated

18

Sources of Information 19

Case studies

Observational approaches

Case Studies 20

Specific individual described in detail

Subject to bias of author of case study

Low generalizability

Observational Approaches 21

Collecting information without asking participants directly for it

Outward behavior can be observed directly

Forming and Testing Hypotheses 22

Hypo

thes es

Anecdotal accounts and unusual research findings help researchers develop hypotheses

Hypotheses must be tested in well-designed research studies

Sampling and Generalization 23

Who should researchers include in a study?

• Individuals who are similar in their behavioral abnormalities

• Study group should mirror underlying population in all important ways

• Large, randomly selected groups are ideal

Measuring Correlation 24

Correlation coefficient

Positive correlation

Negative correlation

Correlation of zero

Measuring Correlation25

Correlations and Causality 26

Correlation does NOT

mean causation

!

Manipulating Variables: The Experimental Method 27

Independent variable

Dependent variable

The Experimental Method

• Allows researchers to ask questions such as: • “Does a particular therapy relieve the symptoms of a

particular disorder?”• “Does drug X work better than drug Y?”• See table 1-4 for comparisons of correlational and

experimental method

28

29

Experimental research

CAN determine causation!