Psychology 1B - Abnormality, Mood, Anxiety, and Personality Disorders

Vocabulary flashcards covering the definitions, models, and symptoms of mood, anxiety, eating, personality, and psychotic disorders as presented in the Psychology 1B lecture notes.

Psychopathology

The study of abnormal behaviour and psychological dysfunction.

Deviant behaviour

Behaviour that goes against a statistical or social norm.

Subjective discomfort

A criterion for abnormality where deviant behaviour causes emotional distress or distress to the individual.

Psychological disorder

Any pattern of behaviour or psychological functioning that causes significant distress, causes individuals to harm themselves or others, or harms their ability to function in daily life.

Biological Model

A model explaining that psychological disorders have medical causes such as faulty neurotransmitter systems, brain damage, dysfunction, or genetic causes.

Socio-cultural Perspective

A perspective where thinking and behaviour are seen as products of family, social, and cultural influences, noting that what is normal in one culture may be abnormal in another.

Biopsychosocial Perspective

An approach that assumes biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors interact to cause psychological disorders.

DSM-5-TR

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision, published in 2022 to help classify and diagnose disorders.

Research domain criteria (RDoC) project

A potential new system for classifying disorders that considers genetics and cognitive neuroscience in addition to behaviour.

Major depressive disorder

The most commonly diagnosed mood disorder, characterized by a deeply depressed state, little pleasure in activities, and feelings of worthlessness.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)

A seasonal variation in depression that is worse in winter due to low levels of light.

Bipolar I

A mood disorder characterized by a range of mood from normal to manic, with or without episodes of depression.

Bipolar II

A mood disorder where normal mood is interspersed with periods of major depression and hypomania.

Hypomania

A state of elevated mood that is less severe than full mania.

Manic

A state having the quality of excessive excitement, energy, and elation or irritability.

Learned helplessness

A concept from the behavioural perspective linking depression to a state where an individual feels unable to change their situation.

Free-floating anxiety

Anxiety that seems to be unrelated to any realistic and specific, known factor.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Fear of interacting with others or being in social situations that might lead to a negative evaluation.

Specific Phobia

An irrational, persistent fear of a specific object or situation, such as claustrophobia (small spaces) or acrophobia (heights).

Agoraphobia

Fear of being in a place or situation from which escape is difficult, appearing in at least $2$ out of $5$ specific situations.

Panic attack

A sudden onset of extreme panic with physical symptoms such as a racing heart, rapid breathing, and a sensation of dying.

Panic Disorder

A disorder in which panic attacks occur repeatedly and cause persistent worry or changes in behaviour.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

A disorder involving persistent feelings of dread and impending doom along with physical stress symptoms lasting for $6$ months or more.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

A disorder where intruding, recurring thoughts (obsessions) create anxiety that is relieved by performing repetitive, ritualistic behaviours (compulsions).

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

A disorder resulting from exposure to a major stressor, with symptoms like nightmares and reliving the event lasting for more than $1$ month.

Magnification

The tendency to interpret situations as far more dangerous, harmful, or important than they actually are.

All-or-nothing thinking

A cognitive distortion where a person believes their performance must be perfect or the result will be a total failure.

Overgeneralisation

A cognitive distortion where a person draws sweeping conclusions based on only one incident and applies them to unrelated events.

Minimisation

The tendency to give little or no importance to one's successes or positive events and traits.

Ataque de nervios

A cultural syndrome in Latin American culture where anxiety manifests as fits of crying, shouting, and physical aggression after stressful events.

Anorexia nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by reducing eating to the point that body weight is significantly low, often defined as a BMI less than $18.5$ in adults.

Bulimia nervosa

An eating disorder involving cycles of binging on large amounts of food followed by purging behaviours to avoid weight gain.

Binge-eating disorder (BED)

A condition in which a person overeats enormous amounts of food in one sitting but does not engage in purging.

Sexual dysfunction

A problem with sexual functioning or with the actual physical workings of the sex act.

Personality Disorder

An excessively rigid, maladaptive pattern of behaviour and ways of relating to others that makes it difficult to have normal social relationships.

Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)

A disorder characterized by habitual law-breaking, impulsivity, lack of remorse, and disregard for the rights of others.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

A disorder marked by intense and unstable interpersonal relationships, an unstable sense of self, and extreme fears of abandonment.

Schizophrenia

A severe, long-lasting psychotic disorder characterized by a split between thoughts, feelings, and behaviour, leading to a break from reality.

Positive symptoms

Symptoms of schizophrenia that represent an excess or distortion of normal functions, including hallucinations and delusions.

Negative symptoms

Symptoms of schizophrenia that represent a decrease of normal functions, such as flat affect, poor attention, and alogia.

Delusions

False personal beliefs that are firmly and consistently held despite evidence to the contrary.

Hallucinations

False sensory perceptions that occur in the absence of real external stimuli, most commonly auditory (hearing voices).

Clanging

A speech disturbance in schizophrenia where words are strung together based on their sounds rather than meanings.

Word salad

A meaningless and jumbled mixture of words and phrases often seen in advanced schizophrenia.

Flat affect

A condition in which a person shows little or no emotion, or emotions that are inappropriate for the situation.

Catatonia

Disturbed behaviour ranging from statue-like immobility to bursts of energetic, frantic movement and talking.

Stress-vulnerability model

A model suggesting that a person with genetic markers for a disorder will only develop it if exposed to environmental or emotional stress.

Alogia

A negative symptom of schizophrenia characterized by a reduction in the amount and content of speech.