Abnormal Behavior and Mental Disorders Chapter 1 Defining Abnormality Personal Distress o Not based on morality based on suffering Depression anxiety o Subjective experience of suffering distress o Limitations Limited to people who do not realize own suffering or what they do to others Antisocial Ruthless criminals not compassionate Could be unaware of distress Can be distressed simply due to situation Death is okay to grieve Could have disorder but not distressed Statistical Deviance o Eating more meals than others but you typically do eat that many meals o Statistical norms Relative frequency of self vs society o Deviations from norm considered abnormal Mental disorders defined by experiences most people don t have o Limits Does not specify how unusual 3 times a month is ok but 4 times a month is too much Gender identity disorder 1 in 30 000 depression 1 of 20 women mood disorders 1 of 5 Does not consider harmful vs not bad Frequency distribution bell curve Super athletic Are both bad o Low iq bad but high is not o High and low anxiety both bad Social Non Conformity o Violates moral standards o Observer discomfort o Situational cultural context o Limits Value judgment Teacher abuse ok or not ok Mental Illness Natural concept o No clear cut boundaries o Defined by general features but does not need all concepts Sorta like a category o Vegetables have leaves ex peppers Central vs peripheral culture o Schizo vs narcissistic personality disorder Do not have tangible evidence o Sad or depressed But a heart attack is a heart attack Processes responsible for mental disorders not found Thomas Szasz 1960 o Myth of Mental Illness Does not exist Convenient label for bullying The behavior is due to abnormal environments Suffer from problems in living David Ausubel 1961 o Tangible undesirable entity o Gross deviation from a designated range of desirable behavioral variability Jerome Wakefield 1992 2010 o Harmful dysfunction Disruptions of thought feeling communication perception and motivation o Mental disorder only if failure of internal mechanism to perform natural bio on psychological function Causes harm to person being judged Takes into account culture o Recognizes not all dysfunction leads to disorder o Limits Assumes we know natural functions and dysfunctions DSM IV TR Mildly or severely harmful Mental illness is a social construction o Does not exist in nature o Value judgment affects our choice of definition o Consider situation Normal to water lawn but not while raining Symptoms patient signs professional o Thoughts feelings behaviors that indicate mental disorder depressed strange beliefs arguing frequency o Group of symptoms co occurring that have common etiology Syndrome Consider duration Consider impairment Bible of psychology Incorporates o Defines mental disorder used by APA o Present Distress anxiety o Disability cannot work o Risk in suffering death pain loss of freedom Exclusion Culture o Political religious sexual minorities deviant behavior o Cultural sanctioned people grieving over death o Individual vs society conflicts Emerson o All definitions are culturally embedded Shared values beliefs and practices of a group of people Dysfunctions that are socially disvalued are disorders o Wakefield o Zeitgeist spirit of the times Drapetomania out Black slaves running away Homosexuality out Ancient Greece used to be okay with gays Pathological gambling in o Not static Etic outsider Continues to influence prevalence of a disorder o Emphasize universe among humans from out of culture of interest Slovakia judging Americans o Western social scientists impose standards o Ethnocentric Belief in superiority of one s ethnic group U S A thinks they are better Emic insider o Examines behavior within culture o Must understand cultural norms and cultural meaning of subtle behaviors o Less ethnocentric have more thorough understanding Problem Suppression Facilitation Model o Culture suppress punishment o Culture facilitates modeling reinforcement Adult Distress Threshold Model o Culture determines adult thresholds for different types of child problems No mental disorder is considered entirely because of cultural or social Psychotic disorders less influenced by cultural factors than non psychotic o Schizo vs bulimia Symptoms differ across culture Epidemiology Study of frequency and distribution of disorder o How many have it o Gender more likely o Sex differences via social expectations biology o More than one disorder at the same time o Number of new cases that occur Comorbidity Incidence Prevalence Lifetime o Number of active cases old and new present in a population at a time o Total number of people in a population who have ever been affected Summary of Epidemiological Findings o Lifetime prevalence of any mental disorder diagnosis o Most common is major depressive disorder 46 17 20 6 o 22 of disorders considered severe Mood disorders more likely to be rated as sever than anxiety o 56 of people in survey comorbidity lifetime standards o 1 year prevalence of any mental disorder diagnosis o 1 year prevalence rate of any addictive diagnosis o 9 with mental diagnosis experience functional impairment o 5 have severe mental diagnosis Only 5 receive disability o Most common in specific phobia 8 3 Major depression 7 1 o In children Most common anxiety 13 And behavioral 10 3 o Race and ethnicity Gender o Differences EXIST Similar rates in US for Social Economic States Discrepancies in using services and quality of services Internationally Culture exerts influence on prevalence of many diagnoses Depression vs substance abuse Mood anxiety eating disorder in women more likely to seek help Substance abuse and antisocial men Women more likely to us mental health services Review 1 Questions What are the four ways of defining abnormal What are the limitations of each What is Thomas Szazs take on mental illness How does Jerome Wakefield define mental illness What is cultural relativity and what is the difference between etic and emic perspectives of cultural relativity Name and briefly describe two causal models of cultural influence Define the following terms Symptom Syndrome Comorbidity Epidemiology Incidence Prevalence and Lifetime Prevalence What do epidemiology findings show regarding gender differences for prevalence of disorders Chapter 1 Symptom Syndrome Epidemiology Incidence Prevalence Comorbidity Ways of defining abnormal behavior Harmful dysfunction Chapter 2 Theories and Treatments 4