Mental Health Flashcards
Mental health has been conceptualised with…
- a positive emotion (e.g. happiness)
- a personality trait
- resilience
Mental health definition
” A state of well-being in which the individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”
WHO (2004)
Subjective well-being (SWB)
The extent to which people think and feel that their lives are going well
- Constituted by a cognitive and affective components
Components of Subjective well-being
- Cognitive judgement: An individual’s judgment that his or her life is going well → life satisfaction
- Affective experience: Positive and negative affect (emotions) individuals experience → current state of well-being
Factors that influence SWB
- Basic needs (food, saftey, relationships)
- Psychological needs (freedom, autonomy)
- Personality
- Age, gender, ethnicity, employment status, religion
- Factors vary cross-culturally - income causes more happiness in developing countries
Are some cultures happier than others?
Diener & Tay (2015)
Continents cluster acroos the study
- Positive relationship between income and life-satisfaction
→ Costa Rica and Syria have similar income, but greatly vary in terms of life satisfaction - Other factors will play a key role (security, political friction)
Personality and SWB
Lucas & Diener (2009):
- SWB is moderately heritable (~ 40-50%)
- SWB is moderately stable over time - “setpoint level of happiness” (peaks and drops always return to set point)
- Major life events can have large and lasting effects
- SWB has been linked to specific personality traits
Five-factor model (FFM) and SWB
Steel et al. (2008):
- Meta analysis, 5900 participants
Extraversion: Big positive affect on life satisfaction
Neuroticism: Big negative affect
Why is persoanlity associated with SWB?
Instrumental theory: Persoanlity indirectly affects SWB due to influencing choice of situations or the experience of events
- e.g. Extroverts participate and enjoy more social activities - increases positive affect experienced
Temperament theory: Direct link between personality and SWB
- e.g. Extroverts feel more positive affect when rewarded and neurotics feel more negative affect when punished
Mental illness definition
“A syndrome characterised by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behaviour that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or development processes underlying mental functioning”
DSM-5
Diagnostic criteria of mental disorders
- Symptoms and symptom severity
- Onset
- Stability
- Impact on functioning
All or nothing principle - have disorder or doesn’t
DSM-5 criteria for Personality disorders
- Maladaptive patterns of behaviours and cognitions - deviate far from what is expected and accepted
- Pattern is Inflexible
- Significant distress or impairment in functioning
- The pattern is stable and can be traced back to adolescence or early childhood
- Exclusion of other mental disorders/ comorbid disorders
- Exclusion of alternative causes such as physiological effects of a substance or another medical condition
Personality disorders - clusters
Cluster A: Odd/ eccentric - cognitive distortions (paranoid, schizoid)
Cluster B: Dramatic/ erratic - Impulsive/ attention seeking (narcissistic, bpd)
Cluster C: Anxious/ fearful - Avoid or depend heavily on relationships with others (OCD, avoidant, dependent)
Narcisstic personality disorder
- A grandiose sense of self-importance
- Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
- Believing that they are “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
- Requiring excessive admiration
- A sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations)
- Being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends)
- Lacking empathy (unwilling to recognise or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
- Often being envious of others or believing that others are envious of them
- Showing arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes
Borderline personality disorder
- Fear of abandonment
- Unstable or changing relationships
- Unstable self-image, including struggles with sense of self and identity
- Stress-related paranoia
- Anger regulation problems, including frequent loss of temper or physical fights
- Consistent and constant feelings of sadness or worthlessness
- Self-injury, suicidal ideation, or suicidal behaviour
- Frequent mood swings
- Impulsive behaviours such as unsafe sex, reckless driving, binge eating, substance abuse, or excessive spending
