Psychopathology Key Terms Flashcards
(21 cards)
What is statistical infrequency?
Occurs when an individual has a less common characteristic, for example being more depressed or less intelligent than most of the population.
What is deviation from social norms?
Concerns behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviour in a community or society.
What is failure to function adequately?
Occurs when someone is unable to cope with ordinary demands of day-to-day living.
What is deviation from ideal mental health?
Occurs when someone does not meet a set of criteria for good mental health.
What is a phobia?
An irrational fear of an object or situation.
What is depression?
A mental disorder characterised by low mood and low energy levels.
What is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)?
A condition characterised by obsessions and/or compulsive behaviour.
What is the behavioural approach?
A way of explaining behaviour in terms of what is observable and in terms of learning.
What is classical conditioning?
Learning by association. Occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together - an unconditional (unlearned) stimulus (UCS) and a new ‘neutral’ stimulus (NS). The neutral stimulus eventually produces the same response that was first produced by the unlearned stimulus alone.
What is operant conditioning?
A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences. Possible consequences of behaviour include positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement or punishment.
What is systematic desensitisation (SD)?
A behavioural therapy designed to reduce an unwanted response, such as anxiety, to a stimulus. SD involves drawing up a hierarchy of anxiety-provoking situations related to the phobic stimulus, teaching the patient to relax, and then exposing them to phobic situations. The patient works their way through the hierarchy whilst maintaining relaxation.
What is flooding?
A behavioural therapy in which a phobic patient is exposed to an extreme form of a phobic stimulus in order to reduce anxiety triggered by that stimulus. This takes place across a small number of long therapy sessions.
What is the cognitive approach?
The term ‘cognitive’ has come to mean ‘mental processes’, so this approach is focused on how our mental processes (eg. thoughts, perceptions, attention) affect behaviour.
What is the negative triad?
Beck proposed that there were three kinds of negative thinking that contributed to becoming depressed: negative views of the world, the future and the self. Such negative views lead a person to interpret their experiences in a negative way and so make them more vulnerable to depression.
What is the ABC model?
Ellis proposed that depression occurs when an activating event (A) triggers an irrational belief (B) which in turn produces a consequences (C), ie. an emotional response like depression. The key to this process is the irrational belief.
What is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)?
A method for treating mental disorders based on both cognitive and behavioural techniques. From the cognitive viewpoint the therapy aims to deal with thinking, such as challenging negative thoughts. The therapy also includes behavioural techniques such as behavioural activation.
What are irrational thoughts?
Also called dysfunctional thoughts. In Ellis’s model and therapy, these are defined as thoughts that are likely to interfere with a person’s happiness. Such dysfunctional thoughts lead to mental disorders such as depression.
What is the biological approach?
A perspective that emphasises the importance of physical processes in the body such as genetic inheritance and neural function.
What are genetic explanations?
Genes make up chromosomes and consists of DNA which codes the physical features of an organism and psychological features. Genes are transmitted from parents to offspring.
What are neural explanations?
The view that physical and psychological characteristics are determined by the behaviour of the nervous system, in particular the brain as well as individual neurones.
What is drug therapy?
Treatment involving drugs, ie. chemicals that have a particular effect of the functioning of the brain or some other body system. In the case of psychological disorders such drugs usually affect neurotransmitter levels.
