Basic Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences
Chapter One
Abnormal Behavio
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The Concerns of Abnormal Psychology
What is abnormal psychology?
Area of scientific study aimed at describing, explaining, predicting, and modifying behaviors that are considered unusual or strange
Uses psychodiagnosis: attempts to describe, assess, and systematically draw inferences about psychological disorders
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The Concerns of Abnormal Psychology (cont’d.)
Modifying abnormal behavio
Therapy: program of systematic intervention aimed at improving client’s behavioral, emotional, and/or cognitive state
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Determining Abnormality
Psychologists use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V)
Most widely used classification system
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Determining Abnormality (cont’d.)
DSM-V defines abnormal behavior as:
“a behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that reflects an underlying psychobiological dysfunction, that is associated with distress or disability and is not merely an expectable response to common stressors or losses.” (www.dsm5.org)
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Determining Abnormality (cont’d.)
Limitations of DSM-V definition
DSM definition is quite
oad and raises questions
When is a syndrome or pattern of behavior significant enough to have meaning?
What constitutes “present distress” and “painful symptoms”?
What criteria are to be used in assessing symptoms?
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Determining Abnormality (cont’d.)
Four major means of judging abnormal behavio
Distress
Deviance
Dysfunction
Dangerousness
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Abnormal Behavior in Context
Culture: shared learned behavior transmitted from generation to generation
Powerful determinant of how behavior is defined and treated
Cultural universality:
Origins, processes, and manifestation of disorders are the same across cultures
Cultural relativism:
What is normal/abnormal may vary from culture to culture
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Sociopolitical and Cultural Limitations
Mental illness as a sociopolitical construction
Must be sensitive to individual value systems, societal norms and values, and potential sociopolitical ramifications
Multicultural limitations
How does culture affect our understanding of human behavior?
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Sociopolitical and Cultural Limitations (cont’d.)
Two key questions to consider:
What is universal in human behavior that is also relevant to understanding psychopathology?
What is the relationship between cultural norms, values, and attitudes and the incidence and manifestations of behavior disorders?
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Frequency and Burden
of Mental Disorders
Psychiatric epidemiology:
Study of the prevalence of mental illness in a society
Prevalence:
Percentage of people in a population who suffer from a disorder at a given point in time
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Frequency and Burden
of Mental Disorders (cont’d.)
Lifetime prevalence:
The percentage of people in the population who have had a disorder at some point in their life
Incidence:
Onset or occu
ence of a given disorder over a period of time
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Frequency and Burden
of Mental Disorders (cont’d.)
Figure 1-1 One year prevalence of mental disorders in adult Americans and lifetime prevalence of mental disorders in American adolescents
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Frequency and Burden
of Mental Disorders (cont’d.)
Cost and burden to society is great:
At least 25% of adult Americans and almost 50% of American children suffer from diagnosable disorder.
What might account for the higher prevalence rates seen in the youth sample?
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Stereotypes about the Mentally Distu
ed
Mentally ill are frequently stereotyped
Common myths:
Mentally distu
ed people can always be recognized by their abnormal behavio
Mentally distu
ed have inherited their disorde
Biopsychosocial model: mental disorder are the result of an interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors
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Stereotypes about the Mentally Distu
ed (cont’d.)
More common myths
Mental illness is incurable
People become mentally ill because they’re weak
Mental illness is always a deficit
Mentally ill are unstable and potentially dangerous
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Historical Perspectives on Abnormal Behavio
Prehistoric and ancient beliefs:
Demonology treated by trephining or exorcism
Naturalistic explanations (Greco-Roman):
Naturalistic explanations supplanted supernatural
Hippocrates believed deviant behavior caused by
ain pathology, the dysfunction of the
ain
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Historical Perspectives on Abnormal Behavior (cont’d.)
The Middle Ages:
Reverted to supernatural explanations
The Dark Ages
Mass madness, or group hysteria
Witchcraft
The Renaissance:
The rise of humanism
Humanism: emphasizes human welfare and the worth/uniqueness of the individual
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Historical Perspectives on Abnormal Behavior (cont’d.)
The Reform Movement:
Moral treatment movement: shift to more humane treatment of the mentally distu
ed
Philippe Pinel
William Tuke
Benjamin Rush
Dorothea Dix
Clifford Beers
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Historical Perspectives on Abnormal Behavior (cont’d.)
What role should spirituality and religion play in mental health care?
Spirituality: animating life force or energy of the human condition that is
oader but inclusive of religion
What does research show us about the relationship between religiosity and mental health?
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Causes: Early Viewpoints
Biological (organic) view:
Mental disorders have a physical or physiological basis (Griesinger)
Kraepelin
Symptoms occur in clusters (syndromes) to represent mental disorders, each with a unique cause, course, and outcome.
Classified mental disorders based on organic causes: metabolic distu
ance, endocrine difficulty,
ain disease, heredity
Eventually became DSM of APA
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Causes: Early Viewpoints (cont’d.)
Biological view gained greater strength with discovery of general paresis, a progressively degenerative and i
eversible physical and mental disorde
Lead to
Pasteur (germ theory)
von Kfrafft-Ebing (infection)
Schaudinn (microorganisms)
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Causes: Early Viewpoints (cont’d.)
Psychological view:
Mental disorders are caused by psychological and emotional (not biological/organic) factors
Mesmerism and hypnotism
The Nancy School: Charcot and hypnotism
Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud: relief by talking about traumatic experiences
Cathartic method: therapeutic use of ve
al expression to release pent-up emotional conflicts
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Causes: Early Viewpoints (cont’d.)
Behaviorism:
Psychological perspective that stressed the importance of learning and behavior in explanations of normal and abnormal development
Stressed conditions that evoke, reinforce, or extinguish directly observable behaviors
Rooted in laboratory science
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Contemporary Trends
Diversity/multicultural psychology:
Culture, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and socio-economic class relevant to understand and treat abnormal behavio
Mental health professionals need to:
Increase cultural sensitivity
Acquire knowledge of diversity
Develop culturally relevant therapy approaches
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Figure 1-2 Census 2005 Racial/Ethnic Composition of the United States The rapid
demographic transformation of the United States is illustrated in the fact that minorities
now constitute an increasing proportion of the population. Several trends are evident.
First, within several short decades, people of color will constitute a numerical majority.
Second, the number of Hispanic Americans has surpasses African Americans. Third,
mental health providers will increasingly be coming into contact with clients who diffe
from them in race, ethnicity, and culture.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, National Population Estimates
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Contemporary Trends (cont’d.)
Dimensions related to cultural diversity:
Social conditioning
Cultural values and influences
Sociopolitical influences
Bias in diagnosis
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Contemporary Trends (cont’d.)
Positive psychology:
Study of positive human functioning, and the strengths and assets of individuals, families, and communities
Optimal human functioning:
Subjective well-being, happiness, optimism, resilience, hope, courage, ability to cope with stress
Self-actualization and self-determinism
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Contemporary Trends (cont’d.)
Changes in therapeutic landscape:
The drug revolution (1950’s):
Rapidly and dramatically decreased or eliminated symptoms
Deinstutionalization
Prescription privileges for psychologists
Managed health care: industrialization of health care, whereby large organizations in the private sector control the delivery of services
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Contemporary Trends (cont’d.)
Industrialization of health care has
ought about major trends:
Business interests are exerting increasing control over psychotherapy
Cu
ent business practices are depressing income of practitioners
Psychologists are being asked to justify use of their therapies
Enactment of mental health and substance abuse parity legislation
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Contemporary Trends (cont’d.)
Appreciation for research
Neuroanatomy:
Role of neurotransmitters in mental disorders
Success of psychopharmacology spawned new interest in
ain-behavior relationship
Increasing exploration of biological bases of abnormal behavio
Combining drug therapy with psychotherapy
Move toward empirically based treatments
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Basic Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences
Chapter Two
Models of Abnormal Behavio
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One-Dimensional Models of Mental Disorders
Psychopathology:
Clinical term meaning abnormal behavio
Model:
An analogy used by scientists, usually to describe or explain a phenomenon or process that they cannot directly observe
Model, theory, viewpoint, and perspective are often used interchangeably
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One-Dimensional Models of Mental Disorders (cont’d.)
Etiology:
Causes of disorders
In the past, different pathways of thought were used exclusively without taking into consideration aspects of other viewpoints
Such a na
ow view of complex issues and conditions undermined understanding and treatment
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One-Dimensional Models of Mental Disorders (cont’d.)
Two main views of the past were:
Mental disorders are caused primarily by biological problems
Abnormal behavior is essentially psychosocial
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One-Dimensional Models of Mental Disorders (cont’d.)
These two views are overly simplistic:
Set up a false “eithe
or” dichotomy between nature and nurture
Fail to recognize the reciprocal influences of one on the othe
Mask the importance of acknowledging the biological, psychological, social, and sociocultural dimensions in the origin of mental disorders
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A Multipath Model of Mental Disorders
Biopsychosocial model attempts to integrate biological, psychological, and social factors but has limitations:
Provides little information about how factors interact to produce illness
Allows practitioners to do everything without guidance
Fails to consider the equally powerful influence of culture
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A Multipath Model of Mental Disorders (cont’d.)
Multipath model:
An integrative and interacting means of viewing disorders and their causes
Assumptions
Multipath model consists of following dimensions:
Biological factors
Psychological factors
Social factors
Sociocultural factors
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A Multipath Model of Mental Disorders (cont’d.)
Figure 2-1 The Multipath Model Each dimension of the multipath model contains factors found to be important in explaining abnormal behavior.
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Dimension One: Biological Factors
Biological pathway relies on certain assumptions:
Genetics help make people who they are
Human thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are associated with nerve cell activity of
ain and spinal cord
Change in thought, emotion, or behavior will be associated with change in activity or structure of
ain
Mental disorders are highly co
elated with some form of
ain or other organ dysfunction
Mental disorders can be treated by drugs or somatic intervention
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Dimension One: Biological Factors (cont’d.)
The human
ain:
Neurons:
Nerve cells that transmit messages throughout the body and that make-up the
ain
Two hemispheres control opposite sides of the body:
Right hemisphere:
Visual-spatial abilities and emotional behavio
Left hemisphere:
Language functions
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Dimension One: Biological Factors (cont’d.)
Human
ain has three main parts:
Fore
ain
Mid
ain
Hind
ain
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Dimension One: Biological Factors (cont’d.)
Figure 2-4 The Internal Structure of the Brain A cross-sectional view of the
ain reveals the fore
ain, mid
ain, and hind
ain. Some important
ain structures are identified within each of the divisions.
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Dimension One: Biological Factors (cont’d.)
Fore
ain:
Controls all the higher mental functions, such as learning, speech, thought, and memory
Thalamus:
“Relay station;” transmits nerve impulses throughout
ain
Hypothalamus:
Regulates bodily drives and body conditions
Limbic system:
Involves experiencing/expressing emotions and motivation
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Dimension One: Biological Factors (cont’d.)
Mid
ain:
Involved in vision and hearing (along with hind
ain) and controls sleep, alertness, and pain
Manufactures serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine
Hind
ain:
Controls heart rate, sleep, and respiration
Manufactures serotonin
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Dimension One: Biological Factors (cont’d.)
Biochemical theories:
Basic premise:
Chemical imbalances underlie mental disorders
Dendrites:
Receive signals from other neurons
Axons:
Send signals to other neurons
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Dimension One: Biological Factors (cont’d.)
Figure 2-5 Major Parts of a Neuron The major parts of a neuron include dendrites, the cell body, the axon,