Phobias- an anxiety disorder
● Behavioural characteristics include avoidance, sweating, panic attacks, shaking etc
● Emotional characteristics include overwhelmed, fear, anxiety, sadness, worry etc
● Cognitive characteristics include catastrophic thoughts, irrational thoughts etc
Depression- a low mood disorder
● Behavioural characters include social isolation, sleeping issues, eating issues etc
● Emotional characteristics include sadness, hopelessness, worthlessness, numb etc
● Cognitive characteristics include irrational thinking, cognitive distortions, ANTs etc
OCD- an anxiety disorder
● Behavioural characters include repetitive obsessive cleaning/checking/hoarding etc
● Emotional characteristics include anxiety, fear, distress, sadness, anger etc
● Cognitive characteristics include catastrophic, irrational, intrusive thoughts etc
Abnormality
1. Statistical infrequencies- rare, anomalous behaviour is shown on a normal distribution
curve by being plus or minus 2 standard deviations away from the mean.
Over Simplistic as some abnormalities are desirable eg IQ 150 + therefore cant distinguish
Culturally biassed eg Maori people hear voices so weaker as there's no universal standards
2. Deviation from social norms
Culturally biassed (dead teeth jewellery) so unfair judgement
Historical biassed, cant generalise to other times eg being gay, so must examine period
Over simplistic, ignoring other factors eg bikini on beach vs school, so too complex
3. Failure to function adequately- Rosenhan and Seligman’s characteristics include
suffering, maladaptiveness, unconventional behaviour, unpredictability, irrationality,
observer discomfort and violation of moral standards
over simplistic (suffering in grief vs all the time) so not full definition without context
Culturally biassed (can lead to non white being more diagnosed) so only western
4. Deviation from ideal mental health- Jahoda’s Growth, Resistant to stress, Autonomy,
Perception of reality, Environmental mastery and Self attitudes (positive)
Unscientific, subjective eg growth capacity so not practical to assess
Cultural bias, eg growth is american so only for individualist
Unrealistic criteria, very few people are all eg exam periods so its less useful in real world
Behavioural explanations for phobias
● Mowrer's two process model says that they are initiated with classical conditioning and
then maintained through operant conditioning- avoiding is negative reinforcement (no
anxiety ) and facing is punishment (anxiety)
● Eg little albert: a white rat (neutral stimulus) was paired with a scary noise (unconditioned
stimulus) so he cried (unconditioned response). Therefore he associated the NS with the
UCR so the rat became a conditioned stimulus with crying as a conditioned response.
This then generalised to all white fluffy things
Supporting evidence, sue et al interviewed to find that most phobics link it to a traumatic event,
therefore clearly classical conditioning
Environmentally reductionist complex behaviour inappropriately explained at a basic level eg di
nardo found that not everyone bitten by a dog gets a phobia therefore weaker
Environmentally deterministic ONLY environmental eg seligman says genetic to aid survival
Ignore cognitive factors, can't explain them eg irrational thinking about lifts. Therefore cognitive
therapies are more successful treatments than behavioural ones
● Behavioural characteristics include avoidance, sweating, panic attacks, shaking etc
● Emotional characteristics include overwhelmed, fear, anxiety, sadness, worry etc
● Cognitive characteristics include catastrophic thoughts, irrational thoughts etc
Depression- a low mood disorder
● Behavioural characters include social isolation, sleeping issues, eating issues etc
● Emotional characteristics include sadness, hopelessness, worthlessness, numb etc
● Cognitive characteristics include irrational thinking, cognitive distortions, ANTs etc
OCD- an anxiety disorder
● Behavioural characters include repetitive obsessive cleaning/checking/hoarding etc
● Emotional characteristics include anxiety, fear, distress, sadness, anger etc
● Cognitive characteristics include catastrophic, irrational, intrusive thoughts etc
Abnormality
1. Statistical infrequencies- rare, anomalous behaviour is shown on a normal distribution
curve by being plus or minus 2 standard deviations away from the mean.
Over Simplistic as some abnormalities are desirable eg IQ 150 + therefore cant distinguish
Culturally biassed eg Maori people hear voices so weaker as there's no universal standards
2. Deviation from social norms
Culturally biassed (dead teeth jewellery) so unfair judgement
Historical biassed, cant generalise to other times eg being gay, so must examine period
Over simplistic, ignoring other factors eg bikini on beach vs school, so too complex
3. Failure to function adequately- Rosenhan and Seligman’s characteristics include
suffering, maladaptiveness, unconventional behaviour, unpredictability, irrationality,
observer discomfort and violation of moral standards
over simplistic (suffering in grief vs all the time) so not full definition without context
Culturally biassed (can lead to non white being more diagnosed) so only western
4. Deviation from ideal mental health- Jahoda’s Growth, Resistant to stress, Autonomy,
Perception of reality, Environmental mastery and Self attitudes (positive)
Unscientific, subjective eg growth capacity so not practical to assess
Cultural bias, eg growth is american so only for individualist
Unrealistic criteria, very few people are all eg exam periods so its less useful in real world
Behavioural explanations for phobias
● Mowrer's two process model says that they are initiated with classical conditioning and
then maintained through operant conditioning- avoiding is negative reinforcement (no
anxiety ) and facing is punishment (anxiety)
● Eg little albert: a white rat (neutral stimulus) was paired with a scary noise (unconditioned
stimulus) so he cried (unconditioned response). Therefore he associated the NS with the
UCR so the rat became a conditioned stimulus with crying as a conditioned response.
This then generalised to all white fluffy things
Supporting evidence, sue et al interviewed to find that most phobics link it to a traumatic event,
therefore clearly classical conditioning
Environmentally reductionist complex behaviour inappropriately explained at a basic level eg di
nardo found that not everyone bitten by a dog gets a phobia therefore weaker
Environmentally deterministic ONLY environmental eg seligman says genetic to aid survival
Ignore cognitive factors, can't explain them eg irrational thinking about lifts. Therefore cognitive
therapies are more successful treatments than behavioural ones
