PATH 14 - Definitions 1 statistical and social norms

Question 1

What is abnormality?

Answer 1

• It is defined as any behaviour which is statistically infrequent
• Identifying abnormality enables clinicians to identify and support people in distress

Question 2

What is statistical infrequency?

Answer 2

Occurs when an individual has a less common characteristic, for example being more depressed or less intelligent than most of the population

Question 3

What is deviation from social norms?

Answer 3

• Concerns behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviour in a community or society
• Social norms can be implicit (unwritten) or explicit (written e.g. law)
• Norms are specific to the culture we live in, so few behaviours are universally abnormal

Question 4

What is an example of statistical infrequency?

Answer 4

IQ and intellectual disability disorder

• This statistical approach comes into its own when we are dealing with characteristics that can be reliably measured, for example intelligence
• We know that, in any human characteristic, the majority of people’s scores will cluster around the average, and that the further we go above or below that average, the fewer people will attain that score. This is called the normal distribution
• The average IQ is set at 100. In a normal distribution, most people (68%) have a score (in this case IQ) in the range from 85 to 115. Only 2% of people have a score below 70
• Those individuals scoring below 70 are very unusual or ‘abnormal’, and are liable to receive a diagnosis of a psychological disorder - intellectual disability disorder (IDD)

Question 5

What is an example of deviation from social norms?

Answer 5

Antisocial personality disorder

• A person with antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy) is impulsive, aggressive and irresponsible
• According to the DSM-5 (the manual used by psychiatrists to diagnose mental disorder) one important symptom of antisocial personality disorder is an ‘absence of prosocial internal standards associated with failure to conform to lawful and culturally normative ethical behaviour’
• In other words, we are making the social judgement that psychopaths are abnormal because they don’t conform to our moral standards
• Psychopathic behaviour would be considered abnormal in a very wide range of cultures

Question 6

What are the strengths of statistical infrequency?

Answer 6

Has real world applications

Question 7

What are the real world applications of statistical infrequency?

Answer 7

• One strength of statistical infrequency is that it has real world applications
• Statistical infrequency is used in clinical practice, both as part of formal diagnosis and as a way to assess the severity of an individual’s symptoms
• For example, a diagnosis of intellectual disability disorder requires an IQ of below 70 (bottom 2%)
• An example of statistical infrequency used in an assessment tool is the Beck depression inventory (BDI)
• A score of 30+ (top 5% of respondents) is widely interpreted as indicating severe depression
• This shows that the value of the statistical infrequency criterion is useful in diagnostic and assessment processes

Question 8

What are the limitations of statistical infrequency?

Answer 8

Unusual characteristics can be positive

Question 9

How can unusual charactersitics be positive?

Answer 9

• One limitation of statistical infrequency is that infrequent characteristics can be positive as well as negative
• For every person with an IQ below 70 there is another with an IQ above 130
• Yet we would not think of someone as abnormal for having a high IQ
• Similarly, we would not think of someone with a very low depression score on the BDI as abnormal
• These examples show that being unusual or at one end of a psychological spectrum does not necessarily make someone abnormal
• This means that, although statistical infrequency can form part of assessment and diagnostic procedures, it is never sufficient as the sole basis for defining abnormality

Question 10

What are the strengths of deviation from social norms?

Answer 10

Has real world applications

Question 11

What are the real world applications of deviation from social norms?

Answer 11

• One strength of deviation from social norms is its usefulness
• Deviation from social norms is used in clinical practice
• For example, the key defining characteristic of antisocial personality disorder is the failure to conform to culturally acceptable ethical behaviour i.e. recklessness, aggression, violating the rights of others and deceitfulness
• These signs of the disorder are all deviations from social norms
• Such norms also play a part in the diagnosis of schizoptypal personality disorder, where the term ‘strange’ is used to characterise the thinking, behaviour and appearance of people with the disorder
• This shows that the deviation from social norms criterion has value in psychiatry

Question 12

What are the limitations of deviation from social norms?

Answer 12

• There is a variability between social norms in different cultures and even different situations
• Risk of unfair labelling leaving people open to human rights abuses

Question 13

How is there a variability between social norms in different cultures and even different situations?

Answer 13

• One limitation of deviation from social norms is the variability between social norms in different cultures and even different situations
• A person from one cultural group may label someone from another group as abnormal using their standards rather than the person’s standards
• For example, the experience of hearing voices is the norm in some cultures (as messages from ancestors) but would be seen as a sign of abnormality in most parts of the UK
• Also, even within one cultural context social norms differ from one situation to another
• Aggressive and deceitful behaviour in the context of family life is more socially unacceptable than in the context of corporate deal-making
• This means that it is difficult to judge deviation from social norms across different situations and cultures

Question 14

How does deviation from social nomrs pose a risk of unfair labelling?

Answer 14

• One limitation of deviation from social norms to define someone as abnormal is that it carries the risk of unfair labelling and leaving them open to human rights abuses
• Historically this has been the case where diagnoses like nymphomania (women’s uncontrollable or excessive sexual desire) have been used to control women, or diagnoses like drapetomania (black slaves running away) were a way to control slaves and avoid debate
• On the other hand, it can be argued that we need to be able to use deviation from social norms to diagnose conditions such as antisocial personality disorder