Psy3604: Introduction to Abnormal Psychology

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Psy3604 Introduction to Abnormal Psychology

• Instructor Kelly Berg
• TA Jenny Su
• Autumn Rydberg
• Fall, 2007
• Wednesdays 620 - 850 pm
• Smith Hall, Room 231

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What is Abnormal Psychology?

• Abnormal psychology is the study of behavior,
  thoughts, and mood that are outside the bounds of
  what is considered normal in a particular
  culture
• Howeverwhat is normal and what is abnormal?

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Elements of Abnormality

• Distress
• Dysfunction
• Deviance
• Danger

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Is this a mental disorder?

• A man cannot get through the day without crying
• A woman stays in bed until noon
• A woman believes that her daughters spirit is
  escaping from her body
• A man sets fire to his land

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Why define mental illness?

• Nomenclature
• Consensus
• Communication
• Organization
• Research
• Treatment

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What are the disadvantages of a classification
system?

• Loss of information
• Cultural factors
• Some disorders exist in some cultures and not in
  other cultures
• Manifestations of disorders can be different
  between cultures

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What are the disadvantages of a classification
system?

• Stigma
• Stereotyping
• Labeling

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Being Sane in Insane Places

• Rosenhan, 1973
• Eight healthy participants complained of hearing
  voices saying thud, hollow, and empty, but
  did not feign any other symptoms
• Admitted to inpatient hospital
• Once admitted, stopped hearing these voices
• Seven received diagnosis of Schizophrenia
• Stays ranged from 7 to 52 days, average of 19
  days

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Being Sane in Insane Places

• Family and friends could identify no significant
  differences in the behavior of the
  pseudo-patients
• 35/118 other patients identified the
  pseudo-patients as being sane
• Youre not crazy. Youre a journalist or a
  professor. Youre checking up on the hospital.
• Otherwise normal behavior was interpreted by
  hospital staff as symptoms of their illness
• Writing in a journal was interpreted as a
  compulsive behavior
• Walking around the floor was interpreted as
  anxiety

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Key points

• When thinking about mental disorders, it is
  important to remember
• Knowing a persons diagnosis and understanding
  that diagnosis is important, but it is not
  sufficient to understanding the person
• It is important to take a persons culture into
  consideration when thinking about their symptoms
• People are not defined by their diagnosis
• No one would talk about a cancer patient and say,
  Hes cancerian but people will say Hes
  schizophrenic when talking about someone
  suffering from schizophrenia

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Research Methods
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Key points

• Prevalence Incidence
• Descriptive Research
• Case Studies
• Sampling
• Criterion vs. Comparison Groups
• Self-report vs. Observational Research
• Correlations
• Retrospective vs. Prospective Studies
• Experimental Research

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Prevalence Incidence

• Prevalence
• Point Prevalence
• One-year Prevalence
• Lifetime Prevalence
• Incidence

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Research Question

• What are risk factors for depression?

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Descriptive Research

• Typically the first step in research
• Information gathering
• Does not necessarily test a hypothesis
• Case Studies, Sampling,

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Case Studies (in abnormal psychology)

• A detailed account of one persons pathology
• Current symptoms and their duration
• Past symptoms and their duration
• Personal history
• Family history
• Impact of the symptoms on the persons life
• Medical problems

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Case Studies

• Pros
• Cons

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Research Question

• What are risk factors for depression?
• How would we answer this question using a case
  study?

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Sampling

• A group of people that are representative of a
  specific population are studied
• Information is not as rich in detail
• Results are more generalizable
• Random sampling accounts for potential biases
• However, just because the sample shares a set of
  characteristics does not mean that those
  characteristics distinguish people with that
  disorder from people who do not have that disorder

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Research Question

• What are risk factors for depression?
• How would we answer this question using sampling?

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Criterion and Comparison Groups

• A group of people that meet some criterion are
  compared to a group of people that are similar in
  every way except that they dont meet that
  criterion

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Research Question

• What are risk factors for depression?
• How would we answer this question using criterion
  and comparison groups?

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Self-Report vs. Observational Research

• Self-Report
• Time-efficient and cost-efficient
• Only way to get information on internal motives
• However, people
• Intentionally lie
• Misinterpret the questions
• Want to present themselves in a positive light

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Self-Report vs. Observational Research

• Observational Research
• Direct observation
• Behavior (eg. aggression, interpersonal skills)
• Physiology (eg. heart rate, stress hormones)
• Great way to get information about the way a
  persons symptoms manifest themselves
• Sometimes the only way to get information about
  symptoms or a type of pathology
• Cannot answer the question why?

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Research Question

• What are risk factors for depression?
• How would we answer this question using
  self-report measures? Observational research?

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Correlations

• Measure two variables (eg. depression and GPA)
• Correlation a relationship between two
  variables
• Ranges from -1.0 to 1.0
• Weak correlation
• Strong correlation
• Positive correlation
• Negative correlation

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Research Question

• What are risk factors for depression?
• How would we answer this question using a
  correlational study?

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Retrospective vs. Prospective Research

• Retrospective
• Study a group of people who already have a
  disorder
• Pros
• Cons

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Retrospective vs. Prospective Research

• Prospective
• Identify a group of people who at a higher than
  average risk of developing a disorder (but have
  not developed it yet) and follow them
  longitudinally
• Pros
• Cons

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Research Question

• What are risk factors for depression?
• How would we answer this question using
  retrospective measures? Prospective research?

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Experimental Research

• Only way to test causality
• Manipulate one variable while controlling all
  other variables
• Independent variable
• Dependent variable(s)
• If the dependent variable does in fact change
  when the independent variable is manipulated, we
  can assume that the cause of the change is the
  manipulation of the independent variable

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Experimental Research

• Placebo
• Single-blind study
• Double-blind study
• p-value
• p lt .05

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Research Question

• What are risk factors for depression?
• How would we answer this question using an
  experiment?