PSY 366 - Chapter 1 - Exam 1

What constitutes a psychological disorder (4 D’s):

• deviance

• distress

• dysfunction

• dangerousness

Deviance (4 D’s)

• different, extreme, unusual, bizarre

distress (4 D’s)

• unpleasant and upsetting to the person

Dysfunction (4 D’s)

• interfering with the person’s ability to conduct daily activities in a constructive way)

Norms: 

• Social rules that define acceptable behavior in society

How does culture impact norms: 

• Norms change in time and place

• What culture you’re in will affect your norms 

Cultural relativism:

• The idea that different cultures have their own values and standards

• Values and standards should be understood within the culture

Thomas Szasz:

• Psychiatrist 

• Argued that medicine is a strong institution of social control that cloaks values and politics 

Positive psychology:

• The study and enhancement of positive feelings such as optimism and happiness, positive traits like hard work and wisdom, and group directed virtues like altruism and tolerance

Development of prevention programs: 

• Identify risk factors

• Select theoretical framework

• Design interventions based off of evidence based practices

Foci of prevention programs: 

• Identify and reduce risk factors

• Prevent disorders before they occur 

Prevention programs and community mental health:

• Community mental health programs use prevention program techniques to address mental health issues in the community 

  Prevalence:

  • The total number of cases of a disorder occurring in a population over a specific period of time 

  
  

  Incidence:

  • The number of new cases of a disorder occurring in a population over a specific period of time 

  
  

  Difference between prevalence and incidence:

  • Incidence: new cases

  • Prevalence: total cases

National Comorbidity Survey:

• Large scale & nationally representative survey that aims to assess prevalence, risk factors, and consequence of mental disorders within the general population 

median age of onset: 

• 18 years old (half of all mental disorders begin before the age of 18)

% patients receive treatment:

• 50.6%

median delay in treatment:

• 11 years

% patients who receive treatment from specialists:

• 46%

Case study:

• Detailed account of a person’s life and psychological problems 

Case study strengths:

• It’s a source of new ideas about behavior 

• Shows the value of new therapeutic techniques 

• May offer opportunities to study unusual problems that do not occur often enough to permit a large number of observations 

Case study weaknesses:

• Reported by biased observers 

• Relies on subjective evidence 

• Provides little basis for generalization

Correlational method:

• Research procedure used to determine how much events or characteristics vary along with each other 

Positive correlation:

• Variables change the same way 

negative correlation:

• One value increases while the other decreases

Null correlation:

• No consistent relationship between them

Why is it essential to conduct research in the treatment of disorders:

• Allows for better treatments to be developed that are effective

• Provide the most optimal care for participants

Confirmation bias:

• Tendency to favor information that confirms (and ignores or criticizes information that disconfirms) one's preconceptions and hypotheses

How was confirmation bias exhibited by those in the frontline video:

• Once they saw the experiment that proved that facilitated communication is false and not real, a lot of people said that the experiment itself was flawed 

Skepticism:

• The process of subjecting claims to scientific scrutiny

who in the frontline video exhibited skepticism:

• The opposing scientists who did the experiments that proved facilitated communication is not real

Internal validity:

• certainty; how certain are you that there isn’t another explanation for a phenomenon?

• “Approximate truth about inferences regarding cause and effect relationships”

External validity:

• Generalizability to the larger population 

• The extent to which the findings of a study can be generalized beyond the sample 

independent variable:

• Variable that is manipulated in the study 

dependent variable:

• Variable that is measured 

Confounds:

• A variable other than the independent variable that is also acting on the dependent variable 

Control groups:

• Group of research participants who are not exposed to the independent variable 

Why do experimenters use control groups:

• Experimenter can better determine the effect of the independent variable

Why do experimenters use random assignment:

• To reduce the effects of preexisting differences between groups

Why do experimenters use masked design:

• Avoiding participant bias 

Types of control groups used in treatment outcome studies:

• Placebo groups

• No treatment groups

• Active control groups (receiving the treatment)

Strongest (most rigorous) control group:

• Placebo group 

• Allows for the most rigorous assessment of a treatment’s efficacy 

Clinical significance:

• Does the treatment have a real, noticeable difference on the patient’s day to day functioning?

Quasi-experimental designs:

• Design that fails to include key elements of a pure experiment and/or intermixes elements of both experimental and correlational studies

Matched designs:

• Matches experimental participants with control participants who are similar in key characteristics 

Natural experiments:

• Quasi experiment

• Experiment in which nature manipulates an independent variable while the experimenter observes the effects

• Used to study psychological effects of unusual and unpredictable events 

Analogue experiments:

• Experimenter produces abnormal like behavior in laboratory participants and then conducts experiments on the participants 

• Manipulate emotions

Single-subject experiments:

• A single participant is observed and measured both before and after the manipulation of an independent variable 

Longitudinal studies:

• Observes the same participants on many occasions over a long period of time

Epidemiological studies:

• Measures incidence and prevalence of a disorder in a given population