Psychology for Cambridge International AS and A Level
This document includes ALL the necessary notes for Psychology and Abnormality module for A2 psychology - CIE A-Level Psychology 9990. It is organized and follows the syllabus. It includes descriptions and useful evaluation points. The descriptions and evaluations are in a compact table format. Also...
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Unit 12 - Psychology and abnormality (9990)
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Psychology and Abnormality
Schizophrenia:
- Characteristics of schizophrenia spectrum and psychotic disorders
Definitions, types, examples and case studies of schizophrenia and psychotic disorders
Schizophrenia: Umbrella term used to outline a range of different psychotic disorders. Is a long-term mental
disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour, leading to
faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into
fantasy and delusion. Types:
1. Simple – when people gradually withdraw from society
2. Paranoid – when people have delusional thoughts and hallucinations around one theme and may
experience delusions of grandeur.
3. Catatonic – when people have motor activity disturbances that may involve them standing or sitting in
the same positions for long periods of time.
4. Disorganised – when people have disorganised behaviour, thoughts and speech patterns. Also, they
may experience auditory hallucinations.
5. Undifferentiated – when people do not fit in one of the types above but are still experiencing
symptoms.
Characteristics:
The DSM-V (US-cultural bias)
1. Showing 2 or more these symptoms for at least 1 month – hallucinations, delusions, disorganized
speech, disorginsed or catatonic behavior, voices in head….
2. Showing declined social and/or occupational functioning.
3. Showing no evidence that medical factors may be causing the behaviour.
Negative symptoms of schizophrenia are those that remove behaviours, such as reduction are speech abilities.
Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are those that add behaviours, such as hallucinations, delusions.
Psychotic disorders are mental disorders that cause people to have atypical thoughts and perceptions about
themselves and the world around them.
Delusional disorder
Must be present for at least 3 months. Have ingle or multiple related delusions. Should be personal rather than
subcultural. Can be Persistent, or lifelong. E.g. others think that he/she is homosexual. No evidence for brain
disease.
Case study: study by Shah.
Symptom assessment using virtual reality (Freeman)
Study by freeman: In the author’s initial work with students, a library scene was used but subsequently
a 5-minute ride on a London underground train between 2 stations has been developed consistent with
continuum views of paranoia, it has been shown that approximately one-third of the general population
have persecutory thoughts about the computer characters. Validating the methodology, those higher in
trait paranoia experience higher levels of persecutory ideation in VR. In a study of 200 nonclinical
members of the general population.
Describe Evaluate
Virtual reality can help Schizophrenia in 7 ways: +Useful to assess the symptoms and severity
1. Symptom assessment – standardized of Schizophrenia -> appropriate treatment
assessment of symptoms by e.g. their +Observations are made rather than self-
reactions to avatars (see severity of reports so patients cannot “lie” or “give
paranoid delusions)] socially desirable answers”. More internal
2. Symptom correlates validity.
3. Identification of predictive variables – -Lacks ecological validity because patients are
, predict how patients may react to in unusual place for them-
situations presented to them > they might be completely different in real
4. Identification of differential predictors setting
5. Identification of environmental predictors -Patients may become distressed
6. Establishing causal factors – can help
determine cause and effect
7. Developing treatment – educate on what
factors make them better or worse;
exposure to fears; help them to cope with
symptoms.
- Explanations of schizophrenia and delusional disorder
Genetic (general)
Describe Evaluate
Belief that there is link between schizophrenia +Deterministic so patients want blame
and inherited genetic material. Thus, the closer themselves
one’ genetic is to someone diagnosed with the +Can be measured objectively by comparing
mental illness, the more likely they are to be concordance rates with relatives
diagnosed themselves. -Reductionist, does not consider environmental
factors
-Deterministic so no free will, patients might
think they cannot do anything, it’s not in their
power to change something that’s biological
Genetic (Gottesman and Shields)
Describe Evaluate
Looked at adoption, twin and family studies +Collected Quantitative data -> easy to compare
Examined MZ and DZ twins as MZ twins and analyze
share all of their genetic material. Result: MZ +Objective/scientific data -> no self-reports but
have more concordance rate. E.g. Cannon- rather percentages of shared illness
46% for MZ and 9% for DZ. Not completely -He collected different studies so not standardized
supported genetic explanation because then -> results is difficult to replicate
concordance rate would be 100% for MZ -He used different studies so the researchers might
twins as they share all genetic material. have used different criteria for diagnosing
Schizophrenia so it is more difficult to compare.
Biochemical (dopamine hypothesis)
Describe Evaluate
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter. +Scientific so can be objectively measured, has
The original dopamine hypothesis stated that scientific evidence.
schizophrenia suffered from an excessive amount +Useful to treat (drugs)
of dopamine. This causes the neurons to transmit -Reductionist -> cognitions
too many messages. High dopamine activity -Deterministic -> patients might feel that they
leads positive symptoms, which include: can do noting about it
delusions, hallucinations, confused thinking.
Evidence for this comes from that fact that
amphetamines increase the amounts of dopamine.
Large doses of amphetamine given to people with
no history of psychological disorders produce
behavior that is very similar to paranoid
schizophrenia. Small doses given to people
already suffering from schizophrenia tend to
worsen their symptoms.
A second explanation suggests that it is not
excessive dopamine but that fact that there are
, more dopamine receptors. More receptors lead to
more firing and an over production of messages.
It was found that there are generally a large
number of dopamine receptors (Owen), and
receptors are oversensitive.
Cognitive (general)
Describe Evaluate
Cognitive approach suggests that 'faulty +Useful for treatments -> CBT
cognitions', faulty information processing, faulty +Free will -> Patients might think that its about
schemata is responsible for a lot of positive their thoughts so will be empowered to change
symptoms of schizophrenia, such as delusions something themselves.
and hallucinations. When there are difficulties in -Reductionist -> environmental factors?
processing information at high levels, it causes Biological factors?
problems in the ability to recognise their actions -Guilt
and thoughts. According to cognitive approach,
symptoms may be due to a lack of self-
monitoring, so thoughts and ideas are attributed
to external sources such as hallucinations, or
result in delusions because the individual does
not realise that they are self-generated.
Frith (1992), supports this as he proposed that
schizophrenic patients have a deficiency of
central monitoring system that underlies positive
symptoms such as hallucinations (hearing
voices) and delusions. Hallucinations and
delusions result from the patient attributing his
own actions (inner speech) to an external
agency.
It is also said that there might be functional
disconnection between frontal areas of the brain
concerned with action and posterior areas of the
brain that control perception.
Cognitive (Firth)
Describe Evaluate
Firth studied faulty cognitive processes and the +Tries to explain both positive and negative
schizophrenic theory of mind – the belief that people symptoms
diagnosed with the disorder cannot distinguish +Useful as treatments can focus on the
internal and external actions. E.g. hearing voices is cognitions
not recognized as being self-generated. -Just suggestions and lacks evidence
He noted that schizophrenics might have a -Reductionist -> did not consider other
deficient META-REPRESENTATION, factors
which is the mechanism that allows us to
have a theory of mind.
This can be caused by a disconnection
between frontal areas of the brain – actions –
and posterior areas – perceptions.
Negative symptoms
- Treatments of schizophrenia and delusional disorder
Biochemical (antipsychotics and atypical antipsychotics)
Describe Evaluate
Drugs. +Quick and easy to take; easily accessible
1. First-generation: Phenothiazine blocks +Sown to be effective
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