AQA AS Psychology – Pyschopathology Study Guide 2023.

AQA AS Psychology – Pyschopathology Study Guide 2023. Abnormality - ANSWER deviation from social norms failure to function adequately statistical infrequently deviation from ideal mental health Deviation from social norms - ANSWER deviating from the standards of behaviour and attitudes set by a social group anything that deviates from acceptable behaviour is considered abnormal Limitations - can be used to justify the removal of unwanted people from a society e.g. opposing a political belief could be seen as abnormal cultures vary in their views of what is considered normal/acceptable social norms change over time Failure to function adequately - ANSWER not being able to cope with the demands of everyday e.g. going to work, eating in public abnormal behaviour interferes with quality of everyday living Limitations - the individual judges when their behaviour becomes abnormal and so a patient may feel content when clearly dysfunctional not everyone admits when they are struggling dysfunction may not be obvious cultures vary in views of adequacy Statistical infrequency/deviation - ANSWER defines normal/abnormal by the number of times it has been observed relatively usual behaviour is considered normal Strengths - can be used in the clinical assessment of patients with mental health disorders Limitations - infrequent behaviour can still be positive e.g. high IQ labels are not always helpful e.g. someone may put into the abnormal category yet their day to day may not be affected Deviation from ideal mental health - ANSWER Jahoda (1958) identified 6 conditions associated with ideal mental health: self-actualisation - achieving potential integration - cope with stressful situations autonomy - ability to make own independent decisions accurate perception of reality - seeing, feeling and believing what is really true mastery of environment - ability to love, work, solve problems etc Limitations of Jahoda's (1958) 6 categories for ideal mental health - ANSWER criteria is too demanding - very few people able meet all the ideals criteria is very subjective and relies heavily on self-report by the patient criteria is culturally subjective criteria is very vague criteria contains loopholes e.g. a violent offender may have a positive outlook and be resistant to stress, yet society would not consider them to be in ideal mental health Explain what is meant by deviation from social norms as a way to define abnormality (4 marks) - ANSWER Deviation from social norms as a definition of abnormality means deviating from the standards of behaviour and attitudes set by a social group. Anything that deviates from the accepted behaviour is considered abnormal. Describe and evaluate 2 ways of defining abnormality (12 marks) - ANSWER One way of defining abnormality is as deviation from social norms. This means that deviating from the standards of behaviour and attitudes set by a social group is considered abnormal