psych chapter 12 (final).txt

• Deviation from average(statistically-based)
• Deviation from ideal(majority’s high standard)
• Sense of personal discomfort
• Legal concept

• Law’s View of Abnormal Behavior
• Varies by jurisdiction
• Defendant can’t understand right or wrong at time of act; can’t understand criminality of behavior

Symptoms of Abnormal behavior, rooted, in physiological causes

Abnormal behavior; childhood conflicts(sex and aggression)

Abnormal Behavior as a learned response

Cognitions(thoughts & beliefs) central to person’s abnormal behavior

• Emphasizes self-awareness & responsiblility for own behavior
• Search for meaning & self-worth

Behavior, shaped by unhealthy interactions with family group, society, &

• Diagnoses/classifies abnormal behavior in U.S
• Describes problem condition
• Doesn’t suggest underlying causes
• Helps clinicians communicate

• “On being sane in insane places”
• Heard voices, then acted normal after admitted(hospital)
• Discovered by other patients

Intense, irrational fears—specific objects or situations

Anxiety, not triggered by identifiable stimulus, lasts a few seconds to several hours

Experience long term persistent anxiety

Anxiety occurs without external justification, begins to affect daily functioning

• preoccupation with one’s health;
• person is worried about health all the time and assumes that there is something wrong with them when in reality there isn’t.

• actual physical disturbance;
• inability to see/hear, or to move an arm/leg; cause is PSYCHOLOGICAL

• (multiple personalities):
• displays characteristics of 2 or more personalitiles

major, selective memory loss

• amnesiac condition;
• people take sudden trips with identity loss.
• Person goes missing forgetting who they are and remember who they are later on.

• severe depression, may last months or years
• symptoms: worthless feelings, loneliness, and crying; sleep disturbance
• research: low serotonin levels

people experiences cycles of mania and depression

talks about one idea and switches ideas, not aware of differences between good and bad ideas, extended state: intense, wild excitement with poor judgement

no regards for moral or ethical rules of society or others’ rights, no conscience

individuals have difficulty developing a secure sense of who they are

personality disturbance characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance

inattention, impulsiveness, low tolerance for frustration; usually lots of inappropriate activity

• severe developmental disability;
• communication problems(socially awkward)

schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

depression