Abnormal Psychology Exam 1 Chapter 1 Sunday August 23 2015 Chapter 1 1 1 What is abnormal behavior 4 Psychological disorders are part of the human experience touching the life either directly or indirectly of every person As you read about these disorders and the people who suffer with them you will nd that most of these problems are treatable and many are preventable 1 2 the social impact of psychological disorders 5 Psychological disorders are often viewed very differently than physical illness injury People who suffer from psychological disorders often lose friends and suffer from a stigma associated with having a psychological disorder even after they ve been cured We hope that you realize our discussion is not about disorders but about the people with these disorders 1 3 de ning abnormality 6 Clinical Signi cance behavior involves a measurable degree of impairment Diagnostic validity diagnosis predicts future behavior and responses to treatment Behavior is associated with signi cant distress and or disability in important realms of life politics or sexuality Individuals behavior cannot be de ned as socially deviant in the ways of religion Psychological disorder must fact a dysfunction within the individual it cannot be de ned as con icts between an individual and society 1 4 what causes abnormal behavior 7 Biological Causes Genetic and environmental in uences on physical functioning sometimes a biological predisposition Inherited factors that affect nervous system brain damage exposure to harmful environmental stimuli Psychological Causes 1 Disturbances in thoughts and feelings Learning experiences maladaptive thought patterns and dif culties coping with stress Sunday August 23 2015 Sociocultural Causes In uences from close friends and or family institutions policies or a certain country or of the world Discrimination Stigma A label that causes certain people to be regarded as different defective and set apart from mainstream members of society Biopsychosocial perspective Biopsychosocial A model in which the interaction of biological psychological and sociocultural factors is seen as in uencing the development of the individual Depending on the disorder one cause may dominate another Life experiences can affect the outcome of disorders i e loving caregivers adequate health care and early life successes decrease vulnerability Inadequate health care risky behavior such as drugs and dysfunctional relationships can increase vulnerability 1 5 prominent themes in abnormal psychology throughout history 9 Spiritual explanations regard abnormal behavior as the product of possession by evil or demonic spirits 9 Humanitarian explanations view psychological disorders as the result of cruelty stress or poor living conditions 10 Scienti c explanations look for causes that we can objectively measure such as biological alterations faulty learning processes or emotional stressors 12 1 6 Research Methods in Abnormal Psychology 14 The Scienti c Method objectivity is key Researchers must always be open to alternative explanations that could account for their ndings Proposes hypothesis Conducts a study Collects and analyzes data Communicate results through scienti c journals publications 2 Sunday August 23 2015 1 7 Experimental Design 14 The variable that the investigator manipulates is the Independent Variable the meaning that the investigator controls it The variable whose level is adjusted or controlled by the experimenter The investigator sets up conditions that re ect different levels of the independent variable the experimental or treatment group the group that receives the treatment and the control group the group that receives no treatment or a different treatment The researchers then compare the groups on the dependent variable which is the variable that they observe The variable whose value is the outcome of the experimenter s manipulation of the independent variable Studies that investigate differences among groups not determined by random assignment are known as quasi experimental I e Depression cannot be an independent variable because the investigator can never control it it cannot be manipulated It is common practice in studies evaluating therapy effectiveness to have a placebo condition in which participants revise a treatment similar to the experimental treatment but lacking the key feature of the treatment of interest 15 Condition in an experiment in which participants receive a treatment similar to the experimental treatment but lacking the key feature of the treatment of interest The best way to eliminate demand characteristics is to use a double blind method which shields both investigator and participant from knowing either the study s purpose or the nature of the patient s treatment 15 An experimental procedure in which neither the person giving the treatment nor the person receiving the treatment knows whether the participants is in the experimental or control group 1 8 Correlational Design 15 We express correlational statistic in terms of a number between 1 and 1 Positive numbers represent positive corrections meaning that as scores on one variable increase scores on the second variable increase 3 Sunday August 23 2015 One aspect of depression is that it causes sleep disturbances you would expect that scores on a measure of sleep depression positively correlates with scores on a measure of sleep disturbances Conversely negative correlations indicate that as saucers on one variable increase saucers on the second variable decrease A negative correlation is the relationship between depression and self esteem The more depressed people are the lower their scores are on a measure of self esteem Just because there is correlation between two variables it does not mean that one causes the other 16 1 9 Types of Research Studies 17 Survey Investigators use a survey to gather information from a sample of people representative of a particular population A research tool used to gather information from a sample of people considered representative of a particular population in which participants are asked to answer questions about the topic of concern The incidence of a disorder is the frequency of new cases of a disorder within a given time period people tend to report data in terms of one month six months and one year The frequency of new cases within a given time period The prevalence of a disorder refers to the number of people who have ever had the disorder over a speci ed period