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
What Do We Mean by Abnormality?
There is no
consensus
definition
There are some
clear elements
of abnormality
4
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
Not all people
receive
treatment
10
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 healer
3. 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?
Cultural factors
influence
• Presentation of
disorders found
worldwide
• Certain forms of highly
culture-specific
psychopathology
14
Culture-Specific Disorders
Certain forms of
psychopathology highly
specific to certain
cultures
Voo doo
15
Multicultural Psychology
Seeks 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
Case studies
Observational
approaches
19
Case Studies
Specific individual described in detail
Subject to bias of author of case study
Low generalizability
20
Observational Approaches
Collecting information without asking
participants directly for it
Outward behavior can be observed directly
21
Hypotheses
Forming and Testing Hypotheses
Anecdotal
accounts and
unusual
research
findings help
researchers
develop
hypotheses
Hypotheses
must be tested
in well-designed
research studies
22
Sampling and Generalization
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
23
Measuring Correlation
Correlation
coefficient
Positive
correlation
24
Negative
correlation
Correlation
of zero
Measuring Correlation
25
Correlations and Causality
Correlation
does NOT
mean
causation!
26
Manipulating Variables:
The Experimental Method
Independent
variable
27
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!