Psychological Theories of Crime PDF 2024

----------------- GTF317 Psychological Theories of Crime AP Dr Geshina Ayu Mat Saat 3 & 6 November 2024 1 OBJECTIVES OUTCOMES Exposure to Explain using psychoanalytic theory psychoa...

----------------- GTF317 Psychological Theories of Crime AP Dr Geshina Ayu Mat Saat 3 & 6 November 2024 1 OBJECTIVES OUTCOMES Exposure to Explain using psychoanalytic theory psychoanalytic theory Exposure to cognitive Explain using cognitive theories theories Exposure to behavioral Explain using behavioral theories theories Exposure to Explain using psychopathology theories psychopathology theories AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 2 2 1  Introduction Current practice in psychology is to use the term ‘forensic psychology’ to refer to any topic remotely connected with crime, despite the existence of some etymological inaccuracy. With the focus on individuals, the first psychological theories of criminal behaviour applied knowledge of genetics, intelligence, and physic functions. In the early stage of both psychology and criminology, common roots were explored through empirical studies of intelligence (e.g. Spearman, 1972, Lombroso, 1909) and hereditary (e.g. Goring, 1913; Ferri, 1929) of criminogenic traits. Criminological psychology is a specialized branch of psychology. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 3 3 The early psychology-crime link The literature has established that academic achievement depends on general cognitive abilities, such as working memory, processing speed, and relational reasoning (Siegler et al., 2012; Geary, 2011). As general cognitive abilities are shaped early in life and can persist in later years due to social and economic circumstances, differences in general cognitive abilities can partially explain differences in academic achievement between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students (Welsh et al., 2010). Recent research in rural China suggests that one possible explanation for the poor educational outcomes of China’s rural students may be the persistent cognitive delays that begin in early childhood. – Studies on rural infants and toddlers have found that nearly half of rural children under age three are at risk for cognitive delays (Wang et al., 2018; Yue et al., 2019). – These delays may be inhibiting academic achievement among China’s rural students, contributing to the low skill levels in rural China overall (He, et. al., 2021). AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 4 4 2  The early psychology-crime link The literature has established that academic achievement depends on general cognitive abilities, such as working memory, processing speed, and relational reasoning (Siegler et al., 2012; Geary, 2011). As general cognitive abilities are shaped early in life and can persist in later years due to social and economic circumstances, differences in general cognitive abilities can partially explain differences in academic achievement between economically advantaged and disadvantaged students (Welsh et al., 2010). Recent research in rural China suggests that one possible explanation for the poor educational outcomes of China’s rural students may be the persistent cognitive delays that begin in early childhood. – Studies on rural infants and toddlers have found that nearly half of rural children under age three are at risk for cognitive delays (Wang et al., 2018; Yue et al., 2019). – These delays may be inhibiting academic achievement among China’s rural students, contributing to the low skill levels in rural China overall (He, et. al., 2021). AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 5 5 The early psychology-crime link Early psychological theories linked to criminal behaviour focus on two major traits: intelligence and temperament. Intelligence – Weschler (in Matarazzo, 1976): “… capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, & to deal effectively with his environment” – Flynn (2007) effect: the average IQ increased in populations as the environment becomes more equal across socioeconomic groups. genetic effect on IQ is about 36% – Dickens & Flynn (2001): Multiplier effect – Link to IQ tests: https://wechslertest.com/ AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 6 6 3  The early psychology-crime link Temperament – Rothbart (2012): “… individual differences in reactivity and self- regulation, influenced over time by genes, maturation and experience” – Components include: Mood e.g. happy, sad Activity level e.g. high, low Sociability e.g. extrovert, introvert Reactivity e.g. calm, excitable Affect e.g. warm, cold AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 7 7 IQ, Traits & Crime Source: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/reformmanifesto/images/d/d6/IQdifferences.png/revision/latest?cb=20170715034717 AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 8 8 4  PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 9 9 Personality Mayer & Bryan (2024): Personality is a system that includes a person’s major psychological systems, including their motives and emotions, knowledge and intelligence, plans for action, and executive self- management. Personality traits associated with criminal behaviour: – Impulsiveness – Negative emotionality – Sensation seeking – Empathy – Altruism – Conscientiousness – Agreeableness AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 10 10 5  Psychoanalytic Theory Freud’s psychodynamic ideas were commonly used to explain criminal behaviour even though he himself had little to say about it. Aichhorn (1955) developed a view of delinquency that saw juvenile crime as a consequence of a psychological disposition which was called ‘latent delinquency’. This was based on the ‘eros principle’ – the supposed hedonistic basis of behaviour; whereby the failure of socialization and emotional development allowed the latent delinquency to become overt behaviour. Healy and Bronner (1936) applied the concept of sublimation (the channeling of unsatisfied psychological impulses into action, typically linked with emotional ties with a parent) as an explanation for antisocial behaviour. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 11 11 Psychoanalytic Theory AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 12 12 6  Psychoanalytic Theory Freud’s psychodynamic ideas were commonly used to explain criminal behaviour even though he himself had little to say about it. Psychoanalytic theory is a general term for approaches to psychoanalysis which attempt to provide a conceptual framework more-or-less independent of clinical practice rather than based on empirical analysis of clinical cases. Development is described as a primarily unconscious - that is, beyond awareness - and is heavily colored by emotion. In some respects, this can resemble phenomenology insofar as it attempts to account for consciousness and unconsciousness in a an eidetic fashion – although there are inherent conflicts between phenomenology as a study of consciousness and the frequent psychoanalytic emphasis on the unconscious or non-coincidence of consciousness with itself AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 13 13 Psychoanalytic Theory Today psychoanalysis comprises several interlocking theories concerning the functioning of the mind. The term also refers to a specific type of treatment in which the "analysand" (analytic patient) brings up material: – including free associations, – fantasies, and – dreams, Contemporary psychoanalysis has progressed beyond subjective interpretation of a client’s problems related to sexual-development impairments or fixations. The patient with the assistance of the analyst attempts to infer the unconscious basis for the patient's symptoms and character problems and to use this insight to resolve the problems. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 14 14 7  Psychoanalytic Theory Unconscious functioning was first described by Freud, who modified his theories several times over a period of almost 50 years (1889- 1939) of attempting to treat patients who suffered with mental problems. In the past 70 years or so, infant and child research, and new discoveries in adults have led to further modification of theory. During psychoanalytic treatment, the patient tells the analyst various thoughts and feelings. The analyst listens carefully, formulates, then intervenes to attempt to help the patient develop insight into unconscious factors causing the problems. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 15 15 Psychoanalytic Theory The specifics of the analyst's interventions typically include confronting and clarifying the patient's pathological defenses, wishes and guilt. Through the analysis of resistance (unconscious barriers to treatment), and transference to the analyst of expectations: – psychoanalysis aims to unearth wishes and emotions from prior unresolved conflicts, – in order to help the patient perceive and resolve lingering problems. The role of psychoanalysis is to help offenders and victims overcome conflicts and problems so that they become better adjusted individuals. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 16 16 8  Psychoanalytic Theory The predominant psychoanalytic theories include:- Conflict theory – Emotional symptoms and character traits are complex solutions to intrapsychic conflict. – This revision of Freud's structural theory (Freud, 1923, 1926) dispenses with the concepts of a fixed id, ego, superego, and instead posits unconscious and conscious conflict among wishes (dependant, controlling, sexual, and aggressive), guilt and shame, emotions (especially anxiety and depressive affect), and defensive operations that shut off from consciousness some aspect of the others. – Healthy functioning (adaptive) is also determined, to a great extent, by resolutions of conflict. – A major goal of modern conflict theorist analysts is to attempt to change the balance of conflict through making aspects of the less adaptive solutions (also called compromise formations) conscious so that they can be rethought, and more adaptive solutions found. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 17 17 Psychoanalytic Theory Ego psychology –This series of constructs, paralleling some of cognitive theory, includes the notions of autonomous ego functions: mental functions not dependant, at least in origin, on intrapsychic conflict. –Such functions include: ▪ Sensory perception ▪ Motor control ▪ Symbolic thought, Logical thought, Speech ▪ Abstraction integration (synthesis) ▪ Orientation, concentration, judgment about danger, reality testing, adaptive ability, executive decision-making, hygiene, and self-preservation. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 18 18 9  Psychoanalytic Theory Ego psychology –Freud noted inhibition as a way the mind may interfere with any of these functions to avoid painful emotions. –Hartmann (1950s) pointed out that there may be delays or deficits in such functions. –Frosch (1964) described differences in those people who demonstrated damage to their relationship to reality, but who seemed able to test it. –Deficits in the capacity to organize thought are sometimes referred to as blocking or loose associations (Bleuler), and are characteristic of the schizophrenias. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 19 19 Psychoanalytic Theory Ego psychology –Deficits in certain ego functions are routinely found in severely sexually or physically abused children, where powerful affects generated throughout childhood seem to have eroded some functional development. –Ego strengths, later described by Kernberg (1975) include: ▪ the capacities to control oral, sexual and destructive impulses; ▪ to tolerate painful affects without falling apart; and ▪ to prevent the eruption into consciousness of bizarre symbolic fantasy. –Defensive activity, which shuts certain conflictual thoughts, fantasies, and sensations out of consciousness, is also sometimes included here, although defensive operations are different from autonomous functions. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 20 20 10  COGNITIVE THEORIES AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 21 21 Cognitive Theories Cognitive psychology is a school of thought in psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. It had its foundations in Gestalt psychology and in the work of Jean Piaget, who provided a theory of stages/phases that describe children's cognitive development. Cognitive psychologists are interested in how people understand, diagnose, and solve problems, concerning themselves with the mental processes which mediate between stimulus and response. Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of algoritms— rules that are not necessarily understood but promise a solution, or heuritics—rules that are understood but that do not always guarantee solutions. In other instances, solutions may be found through insight, a sudden awareness of relationships. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 22 22 11  Cognitive Theories Ulric Neisser coined the term 'cognitive psychology' in his book published in 1967 (Cognitive Psychology), wherein Neisser provides a definition of cognitive psychology characterizing people as dynamic information-processing systems whose mental operations might be described in computational terms. Also emphasising that it is a point of view which postulates the mind as having a certain conceptual structure. Neisser's point of view endows the discipline a scope which expands beyond high-level concepts such as "reasoning", often espoused in other works as a definition of cognitive psychology. Although cognitive psychology is concerned with all human activity rather than some fraction of it, the concern is from a particular point of view. Other viewpoints are equally legitimate and necessary. Dynamic psychology, which begins with motives rather than with sensory input, is a case in point. Instead of asking how a man's actions and experiences result from what he saw, remembered, or believed, the dynamic psychologist asks how they follow from the subject's goals, needs, or instincts. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 23 23 Cognitive Theories Cognitive psychology is radically different from previous psychological approaches in two key ways: –It accepts the use of the scientific method, and generally rejects introspection as a valid method of investigation, unlike symbol-driven approaches such as Freudian psychology. –It explicitly acknowledges the existence of internal mental states (such as belief, desire, and motivation) unlike behaviorist psychology. Cognitive psychology is one of the more recent additions to psychological research, having only developed as a separate area within the discipline since the late 1950s and early 1960s. Since then, the dominant paradigm in the area has been the information processing model of cognition that Broadbent put forward. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 24 24 12  Cognitive Theories This is a way of thinking and reasoning about mental processes, envisioning them as software running on the computer that is the brain. Theories refer to forms of input, representation, computation or processing, and outputs. Applied to language as the primary mental knowledge representation system, cognitive psychology has exploited tree and network mental models. Its singular contribution to AI and psychology in general is the notion of a semantic network. One of the first cognitive psychologists, George Miller is well-known for dedicating his career to the development of wordNet, a semantic network for the English language. Development began in 1985 and is now the foundation for many machine ontologies. Because of the use of computational metaphors and terminology, cognitive psychology was able to benefit greatly from the flourishing of research in artificial intelligence and other related areas in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, it developed as one of the significant aspects of the inter-disciplinary subject of cognitive science, which attempts to integrate a range of approaches in research on the mind and mental processes. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 25 25 Cognitive Theories It refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. Other interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the development of concepts; individual minds, groups, organizations, and even larger coalitions of entities, can be modelled as societies which cooperate to form concepts. The autonomous elements of each ‘society' would have the opportunity to demonstrate emergent behaviour in the face of some crisis or opportunity. Cognition can also be interpreted as "understanding and trying to make sense of the world". The term cognition (Latin: cognoscere, "to know") is used in several loosely related ways to refer to a faculty for the human-like processing of information, applying knowledge and changing preferences. Cognition or cognitive processes can be natural and artificial, conscious and not conscious; therefore, they are analyzed from different perspectives and in different contexts, in neurology, psychology, philosophy and computer science. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 26 26 13  Cognitive Theories The concept of cognition is closely related to such abstract concepts as mind, reasoning, perception, intelligence, learning and many others that describe numerous capabilities of the human mind and expected properties of artificial or synthetic intelligence. Cognition is an abstract property of advanced living organisms; therefore, it is studied as a direct property of a brain or of an abstract mind on subsymbolic and symbolic levels. In psychology, it is used to refer to the mental functions, mental processes and states of intelligent entities (humans, human organizations, highly autonomous robots), with a particular focus toward the study of mental processes: ▪ comprehension, ▪ inferencing, ▪ decision making, ▪ planning, and ▪ learning. Recently, advanced cognitive researchers have been especially focused on the capacities of abstraction, generalization, specialization and meta-reasoning which descriptions involve such concepts as beliefs, knowledge, desires, preferences and intentions of intelligent individuals/ objects/agents/systems. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 27 27 Cognitive Theories Traditionally, emotion was not thought of as a cognitive process. This division is now regarded as largely artificial, and much research is currently being undertaken to examine the cognitive psychology of emotion; research also includes one's awareness of strategies and methods of cognition, known as metacognition. Empirical research into cognition is usually scientific and quantitative, or involves creating models to describe or explain certain behaviors. While few people would deny that cognitive processes are a function of the brain, a cognitive theory will not necessarily make any reference to the brain or any other biological process. It may purely describe behaviour in terms of information flow or function. Relatively recent fields of study such as cognitive science and neuropsychology aim to bridge this gap, using cognitive paradigms to understand how the brain implements these information-processing functions), or how pure information-processing systems can simulate cognition. The branch of psychology that studies brain injury to infer normal cognitive function is called cognitive neuropsychology. The links of cognition to evolutionary demands are studied through the investigation of animal cognition. And conversely, evolutionary- based perspectives can inform hypotheses about cognitive functional systems known as evolutionary psychology. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 28 28 14  BEHAVIOURAL THEORIES AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 29 29 Behavioral Theories Behaviorism (North American English) or Behaviourism (other varieties) (also called learning perspective) is a philosophy of psychology based on: – the proposition that all things which organisms do, including acting, thinking and feeling; can and should be regarded as behaviors. The school of psychology maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind. Behaviorism comprises the position that: – all theories should have observational correlates but that, – there are no philosophical differences between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as thinking and feeling). AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 30 30 15  Behavioral Theories From early psychology in the 19th century, the behaviorist school of thought ran concurrently and shared commonalities with the psychoanalytic and Gestalt movements in psychology into the 20th century; but also differed from the mental philosophy of the Gestalt psychologists in critical ways. Its main influences were: – Ivan Pavlov - who investigated classical conditioning – Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson – who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods, and – B. F. Skinner, who conducted research on operant conditioning. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 31 31 Behavioral Theories The various branches of behaviorism include: Classical: The behaviorism of Watson; the objective study of behavior; no mental life, no internal states; thought is covert speech. Methodological: The objective study of third-person behavior; the data of psychology must be inter-subjectively verifiable; no theoretical prescriptions. It has been absorbed into general experimental and cognitive psychology. Radical: Skinner's behaviorism; is considered radical since it expands behavioral principles to processes within the organism; in contrast to methodological behaviorism; not mechanistic or reductionist; hypothetical (mentalistic) internal states are not considered causes of behavior, phenomena must be observable at least to the individual experiencing them. Logical: Established by Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle in his book The Concept of Mind (1949). AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 32 32 16  Behavioral Theories Teleological: Post-Skinnerian, purposive, close to microeconomics. Theoretical: Post-Skinnerian, accepts observable internal states ("within the skin" once meant "unobservable", but with modern technology we are not so constrained); dynamic, but eclectic in choice of theoretical structures, emphasizes parsimony. Biological: Post-Skinnerian, centered on perceptual and motor modules of behavior, theory of behavior systems. Inter behaviorism: Founded by J. R. Kantor before Skinner's writings and currently worked by L. Hayes; E. Ribes; and S. Bijou, centered in the inter behavior of organisms, field theory of behavior; emphasis on human behavior. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 33 33 Behavioral Theories Skinner and radical behaviorism Skinner carried out experimental work mainly in comparative psychology from 1930s – 1950s, but remained behaviorism's best known theorist and exponent virtually until his death in 1990. He developed a distinct kind of behaviorist philosophy, which came to be called radical behaviorism. He is credited with having founded a new version of psychological science, which has come to be called behavior analysis. B.F. Skinner was influential in defining radical behaviorism, a philosophy codifying the basis of his school of research (named the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, or EAB.) While EAB differs from other approaches to behavioral research on numerous methodological and theoretical points, radical behaviorism departs from methodological behaviorism most notably in accepting treatment of feelings, states of mind and introspection as existent and scientifically treatable. This is done by identifying them as something non-dualistic, and here Skinner takes a divide-and-conquer approach, with some instances being identified with bodily conditions or behavior, and others getting a more extended 'analysis' in terms of behavior. Radical behaviorism stops short of identifying feelings as causes of behavior. Among other points of difference were a rejection of the reflex as a model of all behavior and a defense of a science of behavior complementary to but independent of physiology. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 34 34 17  Behavioral Theories Experimental and conceptual innovations This essentially philosophical position gained strength from the success of Skinner's early experimental work with rats and pigeons. Of particular importance was his concept of the operant response, of which the canonical example was the rat's lever-press. In contrast with the idea of a physiological or reflex response, an operant is a class of structurally distinct but functionally equivalent responses. For example, while a rat might press a lever with its left paw or its right paw or its tail, all of these responses operate on the world in the same way and have a common consequence. Operants are often thought of as species of responses, where the individuals differ but the class coheres in its function--shared consequences with operants and reproductive success with species. This is a clear distinction between Skinner's theory and S-R theory. Skinner carried out substantial experimental work on the effects of different schedules and rates of reinforcement on the rates of operant responses made by rats and pigeons. He achieved remarkable success in training animals to perform unexpected responses, and to emit large numbers of responses, and to demonstrate many empirical regularities at the purely behavioral level. This lent some credibility to his conceptual analysis. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 35 35 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 36 36 18  Psychopathology Psychopathology is the study of mental illness. It includes the signs and symptoms of all mental disorders. The field includes abnormal cognition, maladaptive behavior, and experiences which differ according to social norms. – Early explanations for mental illnesses were influenced by religious belief and superstition. Psychological conditions that are now classified as mental disorders were initially attributed to possessions by evil spirits, demons, and the devil. This idea was widely accepted up until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Adults who do not experience guilt and shame, and who indulge in criminal behavior, are usually diagnosed as psychopaths; or, using DSM-IV-TR, antisocial personality disorder. Panic, phobias, conversions, obsessions, compulsions and depressions (analysts call these "neurotic symptoms") are not usually caused by deficits in functions. Instead, they are caused by intrapsychic conflicts. The conflicts are generally among sexual and hostile-aggressive wishes, guilt and shame, and reality factors. The conflicts may be conscious or unconscious, but create anxiety, depressive affect, and anger. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 37 37 Psychopathology The various psychoses involve deficits in the autonomous ego functions (see above) of integration (organization) of thought, in abstraction ability, in relationship to reality and in reality testing. In depressions with psychotic features, the self-preservation function may also be damaged (sometimes by overwhelming depressive affect). Because of the integrative deficits (often causing what general psychiatrists call "loose associations," "blocking," "flight of ideas," "verbigeration," and "thought withdrawal"), the development of self and object representations is also impaired. Clinically, therefore, psychotic individuals manifest limitations in warmth, empathy, trust, identity, closeness and/or stability in relationships (due to problems with self-object fusion anxiety) as well. In patients whose autonomous ego functions are more intact, but who still show problems with object relations, the diagnosis often falls into the category known as "borderline." Borderline patients also show deficits, often in controlling impulses, affects, or fantasies - but their ability to test reality remains more or less intact. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 38 38 19  Psychopathology These various elements are managed by defensive operations - essentially shut-off brain mechanisms that make people unaware of that element of conflict. – "Repression" is the term given to the mechanism that shuts thoughts out of consciousness. – "Isolation of affect" is the term used for the mechanism that shuts sensations out of consciousness. – Neurotic symptoms may occur with or without deficits in ego functions, object relations, and ego strengths. – Therefore, it is not uncommon to encounter obsessive-compulsive schizophrenics, panic patients who also suffer with borderline personality disorder, etc. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 39 39 Psychopathology Many adult problems can trace their origins to unresolved conflicts from certain phases of childhood and adolescence. Freud, based on the data gathered from his patients early in his career, suspected that neurotic disturbances occurred when children were sexually abused in childhood (the so- called seduction theory). Later, Freud came to realize that, although child abuse occurs, that not all neurotic symptoms were associated with this. He realized that neurotic people often had unconscious conflicts that involved incestuous fantasies deriving from different stages of development. He found the stage from about three to six years of age (preschool years, today called the "first genital stage") to be filled with fantasies about marriage with both parents. Although arguments were generated in turn-of-the-(20th)century Vienna about whether adult seduction of children was the basis of neurotic illness, there is virtually no argument about this problem in the 21st century. Many psychoanalysts who work with children have studied the actual effects of child abuse, which include ego and object relations deficits and severe neurotic conflicts. Much research has been done on these types of trauma in childhood, and the adult sequelae of those. On the other hand, many adults with symptom neuroses and character pathology have no history of childhood sexual or physical abuse. AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 40 40 20  Psychopathology In studying the childhood factors that start neurotic symptom development, Freud found a constellation of factors that, for literary reasons, he termed the Oedipus complex (based on the play by Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, where the protagonist unwittingly kills his father Laius and marries his mother Jocasta). Oedipal refers to the powerful attachments that children make to their parents in the preschool years. These attachments involve fantasies of marriage to either (or both) parent, and, therefore, competitive fantasies toward either (or both) parents. The terms 'positive' and 'negative' oedipal conflicts have been attached to the heterosexual and homosexual aspects, respectively. Both seem to occur in development of most children. Eventually, the developing child's concessions to reality (that they will neither marry one parent nor eliminate the other) lead to identifications with parental values. These identifications generally create a new set of mental operations regarding values and guilt, subsumed under the term "superego." AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 41 41 Normality – What’s Normal? Psychopathology: – Scientific study of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders – Also refers to abnormal or maladaptive behavior – Characterized by subjective Discomfort Private feelings of discomfort, unhappiness, or emotional distress Symptom, but not necessary Some pathologies might have lack of discomfort AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 42 42 21  Defining (Ab)normality Psychopathology is characterized by: – Statistical Abnormality Abnormality defined by having extreme scores on some dimension, such as intelligence, anxiety, or depression Tells us nothing about the meaning of the deviations Don’t tell us where to draw the line between normal and abnormal AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 43 43 Defining (Ab)normality Psychopathology is characterized by: – Social Nonconformity Disobeying societal standards for normal conduct Usually leads to destructive or self-destructive behavior Use caution in separating unhealthy nonconformity from creative or eccentric lifestyles Strictly following social norms is not necessarily healthy – Situational Context Social situation, behavioral setting, or general circumstances in which behavior takes place Is it normal to walk around strangers naked? If you are in a locker room and in the shower area, yes! – Cultural Relativity Judgments are made relative to the values of one’s culture All cultures classify failure to communication and consistent unpredictability as abnormal AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 44 44 22  Defining (Ab)normality: Core features of Disordered Behavior 1. Maladaptive Behavior – Behavior that makes it difficult to function, to adapt to the environment, and to meet everyday demands 2. Loss of ability to control thoughts, behaviors, or feelings adequately AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 45 45 Common categories of psychiatric disorders Paranoid Antisocial Avoidant Borderline Dependent Histrionic Narcissistic Obsessive-Compulsive Schizoid Schizotypal Personality Disorder NOS AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 46 46 23  Exposure to Explain using OUTCOMES OBJECTIVES psychoanalytic psychoanalytic theory theory Exposure to Explain using cognitive theories cognitive theories Exposure to Explain using behavioral theories behavioral theories Exposure to Explain using psychopathology psychopathology theories theories AP Dr Geshina (c) 2024 47 47 24