Definitions of abnormality Flashcards
What are the definitions of abnormality?
- Statistical infrequency
- Deviation from social norms
- Failure to function adequately
- Deviation from ideal mental health
What is statistical infrequency?
Behaviours that are statistically rare should be seen as abnormal. What is regarded as statistically rare depends on normal distribution.
What is normal distribution?
The majority of people’s scores will cluster around the average, and the further above or below that average, fewer people will attain that score.
What are the strengths of statistical infrequency?
- It is useful in clinical assessment and there is real life application in diagnosing disorders (eg: Intellectual Disability Disorder). All assessment of patients with mental disorders includes some kind of measurement of how severe their symptoms are compared to statistical norms.
- No value judgments are made
- All assessments on patients with mental disorders includes some kind of measurement of the severity.
What are the weaknesses of statistical infrequency?
- Not all infrequent behaviours are abnormal. Some rare behaviours are desirable, eg: high iq
- Not all abnormal behaviours are infrequent. Some statistically frequent ‘normal’ behaviours are abnormal. Eg: 10% of people will be depressed at some point in their lives which makes it common and therefore ’normal’
What is deviation from social norms?
+ examples
Behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviour in a community or society.
Groups of people making the collective judgement as a society about what is right.
eg: antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy) - we are making judgments that they are abnormal as the don’t conform to our standards.
Norms are specific to the culture we are in.
Social norms may be different for each culture and generation, so relatively few behaviours that would be considered universally abnormal on the basis that they breach social norms.
What are the strengths of deviation from social norms?
- Distinguishes between desirable and undesirable behaviours unlike the statistical definition
What are we the weaknesses of deviation from social norms?
- Social norms vary from each generation and culture/community. eg: someone from one cultural group may have their behaviour be labelled as abnormal by another cultural group (eg: hearing voices is acceptable in some cultures yet would be abnormal in the uk).
What is failure to function adequately?
Occurs when someone is unable to cope with ordinary demands of day-to-day living.
What are some examples of what could be considered as failure to function adequately?
- unable to maintain basic standards of hygiene and nutrition
- cannot hold down a job
- cannot maintain relationships with people around them
Failure to function adequately causes distress and suffering to the individual and/or others.
Distress to others is important as in some cases of mental disorders (eg: schizophrenia) the individual might not be distressed at all.
What are the strengths of failure to function adequately?
- It does attempt to include the subjective experience of the individual. Although it may not be satisfactory as it is difficult to measure distress.
It suggests that failure to function adequately is a useful criterion when assessing abnormality.
What are the weaknesses of failure to function adequately?
- It can be hard to say when someone is failing to function adequately or deviating from social norms. People who choose alternative lifestyles or people who practice extreme sports might be labelled as behaving in a maladaptive way.
We could risk limiting personal freedom and discriminating against minority groups is these behaviours are considered failures to function adequately.
What is deviation from ideal mental health?
When someone does not meet a set of criteria for good mental health.
