Abnormal Psychology Flashcards
What three traits makes something abnormal in Psychology?
(1) Maladaptive (2) Causes stress (3) Deviates from norms of culture and era.
What is the David Roseham Study (1973)?
Fake patients were checked into a psych hospital because they were schizophrenic but then they acted normal but the medical staff still treated them differently.
What is the medical model?
Psychological diseases have biological causes.
What is the diathesis-stress model?
A person may be predisposed for a disorder (genetic) that remains dormant until triggered by life stressors (environmental). You have to have both, the genetics and the stressor.
What is anxiety?
A feeling of nervousness or unease. A certain amount of anxiety is functional.
What are phobias?
An intense, irrational, excessive fear of a specific thing.
What is true about the history of phobias?
Most common phobias are those that have been recurrent evolutionary dangers for our species.
What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?
It is a constant, unrelenting anxiety that is not focused on any particular threat.
What is OCD and what are the traits?
It is frequent and intrusive thoughts and compulsive action. It is maintained through operant conditioning. It runs in families, more common in women, and can be treated with therapy and drugs.
What are the two mood disorders?
Unipolar Depression (major depressive disorder) Biopolar Disorder (manic to depression)
What is major depressive disorder and what are the traits?
It is low mood, no pleasure, disrupted sleep, and thoughts of death. It is a vicious cycle of biology, negative experiences, and depression. It has. 40% heritability.
What is bipolar disorder and what are the traits?
It is alternating cycles of depression and mania. It is 80% genetic, hight suicide rate, and is common in poets, musicians, and other artists but not writers.
What is Antisocial Personality Disorder?
They disregard law, do not feel guilt, remorse, or shame. More men than women. 50% heritability. Small and less responsive amygdala, and deficit in frontal lobe functioning.
What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
They have grandiose sense of self, lack of caring about others, entitled. Sometimes reach high positions in business and government.
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?
They have intense, emotional, love/hate relationships with others. The “border” of anxiety and psychosis. The key feature is instability.
