Essays on approaches and psychopathology for AQA A-Level Psychology
INCLUDES ESSAYS QUESTIONS SUCH AS:
- Discuss two or more definitions of abnormality
- Outline the Cognitive approach [6 marks]
- Outline and evaluate the social learning theory approach in psychology [16 marks]
- Outline a...
One definition of abnormality is failure to function adequately. Failure to
function adequately is when a person is unable to cope with the
demands of day-to-day living such as getting out of bed each day,
holding down a job etc. Rosenhan & Seligman suggested a range of
criteria that are typical of failure to function adequately. These include
maladaptive behaviour, personal anguish, observer discomfort,
unpredictability and irrationality. A benefit of this definition is that it does
recognise the subjective experience of the patient allowing to view the
mental disorder from the patient’s point of view. It is also relatively easy
to judge objectively as we can list behaviours & thus judge abnormality
objectively. However, a limitation is that judging a person as distressed
or distressing relies on subjective assessment. Therefore, this can vary
which can also lead to bias. Another limitation is that behaviours might
not be linked to abnormality but to other factors for example failure to
keep a job may be due to the economic situation, not to
psychopathology.
Another definition is deviation from social norms. This concerns
behaviours that are different from the accepted written or unwritten laws
of a society. It is culturally specific as behaviours seen as acceptable in
one culture may be deviant in another and changes over time. For
example homosexuality wasn’t acceptable and was considered to be
abnormal in the past. A benefit of this definition is that it does distinguish
between desirable behaviour & undesirable behaviour unlike statistical
infrequency. Real life application in the diagnosis of antisocial personality
disorder can also be used. However, norms can vary overtime. This
means that behaviour that would have been defined as abnormal in one
era is no longer defined as abnormal in another. It also suffers issues of
cultural relativism and is culturally specific as behaviours seen as
acceptable in one culture may be deviant in another e.g. hearing voices
is normal in some cultures but would be seen as a mental health
condition in the UK.
, Another definition is deviation from ideal mental health. This occurs
when someone doesn’t meet a set criteria for good mental health.
Jahoda’s criteria for ideal mental health is Environmental mastery,
Autonomy [independent], Resisting stress, Self actualisation, Positive
attitude to oneself & Accurate perception of reality [EARSPA]. The more
criteria someone fails to meet, the more abnormal they are. A benefit of
this definition is that it provides a holistic approach to diagnosis that
identifies areas for personal development. It also focuses on the
positives rather than the negatives & focuses on what’s desirable rather
than what’s undesirable. This idea thus allows for clear goals to be set
and focused upon to achieve ideal mental health. However, standards
are near impossible for most people to attain. Therefore, almost
everyone would be considered abnormal to some degree another
limitation is that it suffers from issues of cultural relativism as some of
the criteria are thought to be representative of individualist cultures only
Outline the Cognitive approach [6 marks]
The cognitive approach is focused on how our mental processes (for
example thoughts, perceptions, attention) affect behaviour. A key
assumption of the cognitive approach is that our internal mental
processes such as memories, thinking, perceptions and reasoning are
important features in influencing human behaviour. It assumes that the
scientific and objective study of internal mental processes is possible.
However, these private processes cannot be studied directly and this
need to be studied indirectly by inferring which enables cognitive
psychologists to develop theories about mental processes that led to the
observed behaviour. Cognitive psychologists use models to explain
cognitive processes based on the idea that the human mind can be
compared to a computer. The two models that cognitive psychologists
use are computer models and theoretical. The theoretical model is the
information processing approach. The information processing approach
suggests that the information is linked to input, storage and retrieval like
the multi-store model whereas the computer model focuses on how the
mind is like the computer. This is where the information is processed
through the central processing unit, the coding and stores that we find in
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