PSYC 341 – EXAM 1 – Study Guide o Chapter 1 – Intro to Abnormal Psychology / Research Methods
a. Stigma, confirmatory bias, self-fulfilling prophecy
Stigma: negative attitude toward a group or a condition.
Confirmatory bias:
Self-fulfilling prophecy
b. Rosenhan’s study – “On being sane in insane places”
Pseudopatients reported hallucinations.
Admitted to hospitals and acted normal.
Staff interpreted their behaviors in terms of mental illness and treated them differently.
Pseudopatients reported feeling dehumanized and received diagnoses.
c. Incidence & prevalence
d. Criteria for defining abnormal behavior
Unusual or infrequent: Behavior that is unusual is often considered abnormal.
Social Deviance or Socially unacceptable: Rare and different. All societies have norms (standards) that define the kinds of behavior that is acceptable in given contexts. Norms, which arise from the practices and beliefs of specific cultures, are relative standards, nor universal truths. Faulty perceptions or interpretations of reality (misinterpretations of reality): Holding unfounded ideas or delusions (ex. Hearing the voice of God, believing the CIA is out to get you).
Significant personal distress (severe personal distress): States of personal distress caused by troublesome emotions, such as anxiety, fear, or depression. Also, a lack of an emotional response to them would be regarded as abnormal. Appropriate feelings of distress are not considered abnormal unless the feelings persist long after the source of anguish has been removed or if they are so intense that they impair the individual's ability to function.
Maladaptive or self-defeating behavior: Behavior that leads to unhappiness. It tends to interfere with getting things done in our everyday life. (ex. Agoraphobia, alcoholism)
Dangerousness: Behavior that is considered dangerous to oneself or other people. Social context is crucial.
e. Past views/treatments of abnormal behavior: demonological model, trephination, medical model, exorcism, witchcraft, asylums
Demonological model: Belief in supernatural forces, demons, and evil spirits. Abnormal behavior was often taken as a sign of possession.
Trephination: the drilling of the skull to provide an outlet for angry spirits. Fresh bone growth indicates that some people did survive this “medical procedure.”
Medical Model- Humors: Hippocrates believed the health of the body and mind depended on the balance of humors, or vital fluids, in the body: phlegm, black bile, blood, and yellow bile. An imbalance of humors, he thought, accounted for abnormal behavior. Phlegmatic: a lethargic or sluggish person; Melancholia: overabundance of black bile; Sanguine (overly optimistic or cheerful): an excess of blood; Choleric: quick tempered due to an excess of yellow bile (bilious). It is important because it broke away from the demonological model.
Exorcism: Exorcists were employed to persuade evil spirits that the bodies of the “possessed” were no longer habitable. Methods of persuasion included prayer, incantations, waving a cross at the victim, and beating and flogging, even starvation.
Witchcraft: Malleus Maleficarum or The Witches Hammer, was a manual created for witch hunting. Tests were used to “diagnose” a witch, like the water-float test.
Asylums: Madhouses; Many were former leprosariums. Asylums gave refuge to beggars as well as the mentally disturbed. Residents were often chained to their bed and left to lie in their own waste or wander about unassisted. Some asylums charged admission to the public so they could observe the antics of the inmates.
f. Treatment reforms – important names and how they were influential
Moral Therapy: based on the belief that providing humane treatment in a relaxed and decent environment could restore functioning.
Jean-Baptiste Pussin & Phillipe Pinel: (Late 18th & 19th Centuries) they argued that people who behaved abnormally suffered from
