Define schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves. Disruptions in thought processes perception, emotional responsiveness and social interactions.
Define persistant delusions
beliefs that the person thinks, that aren’t true/ not real life.
Example: falsely believing that someone is trying to harm you.
Define Persistant Hallucinations
Hearing things that aren’t there or seeing things that aren’t there.
Define Thought disorder
An inability to think and therefore speak in an organized manner.
Define Experiences of influence, positivity or control
The beliefs that your thoughts or actions are influenced or controlled by someone or something external.
Many other diagnostic symptoms can occur, such as:
Avolition: (lack of emotion)
Flattened affect: (blunt emotional expression)
Impaired cognition function: (Reduced memory or attention)
Catatonia: (lack of movement or speech)
Negative symptoms
Functioning or experience levels fall below normal levels
Example: apathy, social withdrawal
Positive symptoms
adding other symptoms to the diagnosis, “in addition to”
Example: hallucinations, hearing people
Aneja et al. (2018) (We’re only talking about 1)
Carried out 3 case studies on individuals who developed early onset schizophrenia.
Core study 1: a boy who had a decline in general behaviour and academic studies from the age of 10. Because his parents divorce. They then moved in with his grandparents alongside his mother, and changed schools. At 12 he started yelling at things that weren’t there. In following years ge was admitted to a hospital with meds. From then on he was diagnosed with onset schizophrenia and was kept at bey with his meds.
Type of delusions
Persucutory delusions, Grandiose delusion, Delusion of reference
Define Persucutory delusions
belief that are are in danger and other are trying to make you do harm.
Define Grandiose delusion
Thinking you are a superhero or have special abilities or powers
Define Delusion of reference
Thinking environmental beliefs that occur are related to you.
Example: telephone programme is talking about you
Freeman et al. (2003) small def:
Small context definition: The use of VR technology in exposure therapy.
Example: fear of spiders, and showing it in vr.
Freeman et al. (2003) Main theories and explanations
persecutory ideation, a belief that others are hostile without evidence, is a common symptom of schizophrenia. This leads to social withdrawal and fear. Virtual reality (VR) can help those without schizophrenia understanding these experiences, and improving support for those affected.
Freeman et al. (2003) AIM
To see if people without mental illness would have persucatory thoughts in virtual reality and to identify predictors of these thoughts.
Assumed that people with high emotional distress and paranoia would experience such thoughts.
Freeman et al. (2003) Design
Sample: 12 male and 12 females from University College London ( student and administrative staff) no history of mental illness.
Volunteer sampling: ad poster on campus
Average age: 26
Lab experiment: train the participants on the use of VR
Virtual environment: Library scene 5 minutes. The pps. were not informed that the research was investigating Persucatory ideation.
In the VR environment, five avatars were present, displaying ambiguous behaviour, such as: smiling and talking to eachother. After the VR session = participants completed several questionnaires, including the BRIEF SYMPTOM INVENTORY (BSI), which assesses nine symptoms dimensions such as: interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, Hostility and psychotisim. Other questionnaires measured anxiety, paranoia and the sense of presence in the visual world.
To account for potential priming effects, half the pps. completed the questionnaire both before and after the VR experiment.
Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted
Explanations for schizophrenia (BIOLOGICAL) (Genetic)
Genetic: one biological explanation for schizophrenia, is that genes or combinations of genes are passed on and the disorder can develop from there.
Define family studies
studies that investigate whether biological relatives of those with a disorder are more likely than non-biological relatives to be similarly affected.
Define Twin studies
study that compares sets of twins to analyse similarities and differences. MZ: monozygotic (identical) DZ: dizygotic (faternal) twins are studied and concordance rates are compared.
MZ: Monozygotic
refers to twins that are identical, These twins share the same genetic material and are always of the same sex.
DZ: Dizygotic
twins that are fraternal. These twins share about 50% of their genetic material, just like regular siblings, and can be of the same or different sexes.
Define Adoption studies
study looking at the similarities between adopted individuals and their biological parents as a way of investigating the differing influences of biology and environment (influences of genetics or influence of environment)
dopamine hypothesis
states the brains of people with schizophrenia produce more dopamine than people without schizophrenia.