Psychological explanation AO1

Explain family dysfunction

• suggests that schiz caused by sources of stress within families causing/influencing schiz development

• double bind theory believes communication style of family is important in schiz development

• message + meta message convey different meaning - no-win situation for child + punished by withdrawal of love

• unresolved contradiction leads to paranoia + disorganised thinking/speech

• high expressed emotion also cause schiz as fam show criticism, hostility, exaggerated control has negative influence as can cause stress or relapse

• leads to child experiencing overwhelming emotion affecting how they might respond to future stress/challenging experiences = paranoid thinking + speech poverty (due to dissociation)

Explain Attentional bias

• Bental suggested schiz ppl have deficits + biases in the way they process info

• unusual attention bias to certain stimuli or threatening/emotional can lead to hallucinations + delusions

• may misinterpret event as threatening due to exaggerated amount of processing of stimuli e.g a knife

Explain Meta representation

• ability to identify + reflect on own thoughts, behaviours, emotions etc so dysfunction is this disrupts ability to recognise our behaviour as our own thoughts/actions

• schiz ppl have this dysfunction so can’t recognise their own thoughts/actions so believe they are due to external forces

• suggested that this links to auditory hallucinations as being sue to faulty meta representation

Explain central control errors

• ability to supress undesired automatic thoughts when we do deliberate actions

• to fit into society norms CC helps suppress stimulus driven behaviour and activate willed behaviour so schiz person has dysfunction in CC so can’t control automatic thoughts/response to stimuli

• results in disorganised speech as thoughts aren’t controlled + may explain auditory hallucinations