Psychology - schizophrenia

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.