Abnormal Psychology: Personality Disorders and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing core concepts, clinical criteria, and historical perspectives of Personality Disorders and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders.

Personality

A person's stable, consistent, and distinctive way of thinking, feeling, acting, and relating to the world, forming the core framework that shapes self-perception and interpersonal interactions.

Personality Disorder

A persistent pattern of emotions, cognitions, and behavior that results in enduring emotional distress for the person affected and/or for others and may cause difficulties with work and relationships (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Cluster A Personality Disorders

The odd or eccentric cluster characterized by unusual thoughts, social awkwardness, peculiar behavior, and a tendency to withdraw from social relationships.

Cluster B Personality Disorders

The dramatic, emotional, or erratic cluster centering on intense, unstable emotions, impulsive actions, dramatic relationship patterns, and difficulties with emotional control.

Cluster C Personality Disorders

The anxious or fearful cluster driven by chronic anxiety, fear, cautiousness, rigidity, and a strong need for control or reliance on others.

Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD)

A Cluster A personality disorder marked by a pervasive pattern of suspicion and distrust of others, requiring 4 or more diagnostic criteria; it is more commonly diagnosed in men.

Schizoid Personality Disorder (SzPD)

A Cluster A disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, preference for a solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, detachment, and apathy, affecting 3% to 7.5% of the population.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

A Cluster A condition characterized by severe social anxiety, thought disorder, paranoid ideation, transient psychosis, ideas of reference, and unconventional beliefs or magical thinking; requires 5 or more criteria.

Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)

A Cluster B pattern of socially irresponsible, exploitative, and guiltless behavior reflecting disregard for others' rights; requires an age of at least 18, evidence of conduct disorder before age 15, and 3 or more criteria.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

A Cluster B disorder featuring a long-term pattern of unstable relationships, distorted sense of self, chronic emptiness, fears of abandonment, impulsivity, and intense emotional reactions; twice as common in women.

Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD)

A Cluster B disorder involving an overwhelming need to be the center of attention, characterized by impressionistic speech, shallow shifting emotions, and theatrical emotional displays; affects 2% to 3% of the general population.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

A Cluster B disorder characterized by persistent grandiosity, a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, excessive need for admiration, entitlement, exploitative behavior, and lack of empathy; 50% to 75% diagnosed are men.

Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD)

A Cluster C disorder in which individuals view themselves as socially inept or personally unappealing and avoid occupational and social interaction out of fear of criticism, rejection, or embarrassment.

Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD)

A Cluster C condition where individuals excessively depend on others to meet emotional and physical needs, struggle to make everyday choices independently, and fear being left alone.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)

A Cluster C disorder marked by an excessive preoccupation with details, rules, orderliness, miserliness, and perfectionism that interferes with task completion; diagnosed twice as often in men and common in oldest children.

John Haslam

Superintendent of a British hospital who outlined a clinical description of the symptoms of schizophrenia in 1809 in Observations on Madness and Melancholy.

Benedict Morel

A physician at a French institution who in 1852 introduced the term démence précoce (dementia praecox), meaning early or premature loss of mind, to describe schizophrenia.

Emil Kraepelin

A German psychiatrist who in 1898/1899 unified the distinct categories of hebephrenic, catatonic, and paranoid schizophrenia under the single diagnosis of dementia praecox.

Eugen Bleuler

A Swiss psychiatrist who introduced the term schizophrenia in 1908, which translates to 'splitting of the mind.'

Schizophrenia

A disorder characterized by a broad spectrum of cognitive and emotional dysfunctions, including delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior, and inappropriate emotions.

Positive Symptoms

Symptoms of schizophrenia that involve excess experiences or behaviors added to normal functioning, such as delusions and hallucinations; experienced by 50% to 70% of affected individuals.

Delusion

A belief that would be seen by most members of a society as a misrepresentation of reality.

Delusion of Grandeur

A mistaken belief that one possesses special power, supreme abilities, unique identity, or extraordinary importance.

Delusion of Persecution

The fixed belief that other individuals or groups are actively trying to harm, follow, conspire against, or control the person.

Capgras Syndrome

A specific delusional belief that someone close to the individual has been replaced by a visually identical impostor.

Cotard's Syndrome

A delusion where the affected person believes they are dead, do not exist, or have lost their internal organs or body parts.

Hallucinations

The perception of sensory events (such as hearing voices or seeing things) occurring without any real input from the surrounding environment.

Negative Symptoms

Symptoms that reflect the absence or insufficiency of normal behaviors, such as apathy, poverty of thought or speech, and emotional withdrawal; displayed by approximately 25% of individuals with schizophrenia.

Avolition

A negative symptom characterized by the inability to initiate and persist in goal-directed activities.

Alogia

A negative symptom defined as a relative absence or significant poverty of speech.

Anhedonia

A negative symptom involving a presumed lack or loss of pleasure in activities once enjoyed.

Asociality

A negative symptom defined by a profound lack of interest in social interactions and forming relationships.

Affective Flattening

A negative symptom manifested by showing diminished facial expression, monotone vocal emotion, or an unresponsive emotional affect.

Disorganized Speech

A communication disturbance in schizophrenia characterized by jumping erratically from topic to topic (tangentiality or derailment/loose associations) and speaking illogically.

Schizophreniform Disorder

A psychotic disorder marked by active symptoms of schizophrenia that persist for more than 1 month but resolve in less than 6 months, allowing a return to baseline functioning.

Schizoaffective Disorder

A condition characterized by an uninterrupted period of illness featuring a major mood episode (depressive or manic) concurrent with Criterion A of schizophrenia, alongside delusions or hallucinations lasting 2 or more weeks without mood symptoms.

Delusional Disorder

A psychotic disorder marked by the presence of persistent beliefs contrary to reality lasting at least 1 month, occurring in the absence of other prominent symptoms of schizophrenia.

Brief Psychotic Disorder

The sudden occurrence of one or more positive psychotic symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech/behavior) lasting 1 month or less, often precipitated by severe stress.

Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome

Mild, subthreshold psychosis-like experiences where reality testing remains largely intact, indicating an increased risk for developing full psychotic disorders in the future.

Agonistic and Antagonistic Drug Effects

Agonistic effects increase neurotransmitter availability or stimulate receptors to enhance transmission, while antagonistic effects decrease neurotransmission by inhibiting release, causing vesicle leaks, or blocking receptor sites.

Hypofrontality

A neurobiological abnormality characterized by abnormally low blood flow and reduced brain activity in the frontal lobes, particularly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).

Expressed Emotion (EE)

A family interaction pattern characterized by high levels of criticism, hostility, and emotional overinvolvement, which strongly predicts relapse in patients with schizophrenia.

Token Economy

A behavioral inpatient intervention developed by Paul and Lentz wherein hospitalized individuals earn exchangeable tokens as rewards for adaptive self-care and social behaviors.

Genain Quadruplets

A renowned case study of identical quadruplets who all developed schizophrenia, demonstrating that despite identical genetics, symptom onset, course, and severity can differ markedly.