Transcript Classical Conditioning

Chapter Two
Models of Abnormal Behavior
One-Dimensional Models of Mental
Disorders
• Etiology:
– Cause or origin of a disorder
• Model:
– An analogy used by scientists, usually to describe
or explain a phenomenon or process they cannot
directly observe
– Model, viewpoint, and perspective are often used
interchangeably
One-Dimensional Models of Mental
Disorders (cont’d.)
• Most explanations or causes of abnormal
behavior fall into four distinct camps:
– Biological explanations
– Psychological explanations
– Social explanations
– Sociocultural explanations
One-Dimensional Models of Mental
Disorders (cont’d.)
• These one-dimensional views are overly
simplistic:
– Set up a false “either-or” dichotomy between
nature and nurture
– Fail to recognize the reciprocal influences of one
on the other
– Mask the importance of acknowledging the
contributions of all four dimensions in the origin
of mental disorders
A Multipath Model of Mental Disorders
• Biopsychosocial model:
– Attempts to integrate biological, psychological,
and social factors, but gives little importance to
sociocultural influences
• Multipath model:
– Provides an organizational framework for
understanding the causes of mental disorders, the
complexity of their interacting components, and
the need to view disorders from a holistic
framework
A Multipath Model of Mental Disorders
(cont’d.)
Figure 2-1 The Multipath Model Each dimension of the multipath model contains factors found
to be important in explaining abnormal behavior.
A Multipath Model of Mental Disorders
(cont’d.)
• Assumptions of the multipath model:
– No one perspective can explain the development
of mental disorders
– Multiple pathways to and causes of a disorder
– Explanations must consider all four dimensions
– Not all dimensions contribute equally to a
disorder
– The multipath model is integrative and interactive
– Strengths of a person may serve as protective
factors against psychopathology
A Multipath Model of Mental Disorders
(cont’d.)
Figure 2-1a The Resilience Model Strengths, assets and protective factors that help maximize
mental health and allow individuals to bounce back from trauma and stressful life events.
Dimension One: Biological Factors
• Biological models have been heavily
influenced by the neurosciences
• Understanding biological explanations
requires knowledge about the structure and
function of the central nervous system
The Human Brain
• Neurons:
– Nerve cells that transmit messages throughout
the body and that make-up the brain
• Three functions of the brain:
– Receives information
– Uses information to decide on a course of action
– Implements decisions by commanding muscles
and glands
The Human Brain (cont’d.)
Figure 2-4 The Internal Structure of the Brain A cross-sectional view of the brain reveals the forebrain,
midbrain, and hindbrain. Some of the important brain structures are identified within each of the divisions.
The Human Brain (cont’d.)
• The forebrain:
– Controls all the higher mental functions, such as
learning, speech, thought, and memory
– Thalamus:
• “Relay station;” transmits nerve impulses throughout
brain
– Hypothalamus:
• Regulates bodily drives and body conditions
– Limbic system:
• Involves experiencing and expressing emotions and
motivation
The Human Brain (cont’d.)
• The midbrain:
– Involved in vision and hearing, and along with the
hindbrain, controls sleep, alertness, and pain
– Manufactures serotonin, norepinephrine, and
dopamine
• The hindbrain:
– Controls heart rate, sleep, and respiration
– Manufactures serotonin
Biochemical Theories
• Basic premise:
– Chemical imbalances underlie mental disorders
• Dendrites:
– Receive signals from other neurons
• Axons:
– Send signals to other neurons
Biochemical Theories (cont’d.)
Figure 2-5 Major Parts of a Neuron The major parts of a neuron are dendrites, the cell body, the
axon, and the axon terminals.
Biochemical Theories (cont’d.)
• Synapse:
– Gap between axon of sending neuron and
dendrites of receiving neuron
• Neurotransmitters:
– Chemicals that help transmit messages between
neurons
Biochemical Theories (cont’d.)
Figure 2-6 Synaptic Transmission Messages travel via electrical impulses from one neuron to another. The impulse crosses the
synapse in the form of chemicals called neurotransmitters. Note that the axon terminals and the receiving dendrites do not touch.
Genetic Explanations
• Genetic makeup plays an important role in
developing abnormal conditions
• Autonomic nervous system reactivity may be
inherited
• Hereditary factors are implicated in
alcoholism, schizophrenia, and depression
• Genotype: genetic makeup
• Phenotype: observable physical and
behavioral characteristics
Biology-Based Treatment Techniques
• Psychopharmacology:
– Study of effect of drugs on mind and behavior
• Electroconvulsive therapy:
– Application of electric voltage to the brain to
induce convulsions
• Psychosurgery:
– Brain surgery for the purpose of correcting a
severe mental disorder
Multipath Implications of Biological
Explanations
• Science increasingly rejects a simple linear
explanation of genetic determinism
• Disorders are seen as the result of complex
interactive and often reciprocal processes
– Epigenetics: field focused on understanding how
environmental factors influence gene expression
– Genome: all the genetic material in the
chromosomes of an organism
– Environment affects biochemical and brain
activity, as well as structural neurological circuitry
Dimension Two: Psychological Factors
• Psychological explanations vary considerably
depending on the psychologist’s theoretical
orientation
• Four major perspectives:
– Psychodynamic
– Behavioral
– Cognitive
– Humanistic-existential
Psychodynamic Models
• Psychodynamic model:
– Adult disorders arise from childhood traumas or
anxieties
– Childhood-based anxieties operate unconsciously
and are repressed through defense mechanisms
because they are too threatening to face
• Defense mechanism:
– Ego-defense mechanisms that protect the individual from
anxiety, operate unconsciously, and distorts reality
Psychodynamic Models (cont’d.)
• Personality structure:
– Id:
• Present from birth
• Operates on the pleasure principle
– Impulsive, pleasure-seeking aspect of our being; immediate
gratification of instinctual needs
– Ego:
• Realistic, rational part of mind
• Operates on reality principle
– Awareness of environmental demands and need to adjust
behavior to meet these demands
Psychodynamic Models (cont’d.)
• Personality structure:
– Superego:
• Moral judgments and moralistic considerations
• Conscience instills guilt
– Instincts give rise to thoughts and actions and fuel
their expression
– Freud:
• Sex and aggression as dominant human instincts
• Although most impulses are hidden from
consciousness, they determine human actions
Psychodynamic Models (cont’d.)
• Psychosexual stages:
– Sequence of stages through which personality
develops:
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•
•
•
•
Oral (first year of life)
Anal (second year of life)
Phallic (beginning ages 3-4)
Latency (approximately ages 6-12)
Genital (beginning in puberty)
– Fixation: emotional development gets stuck at a
particular psychosexual stage
Psychodynamic Models (cont’d.)
• Defense mechanisms:
– Characteristics:
• Protect individuals from anxiety
• Operate unconsciously
• Distort reality
– Maladaptive when overused
Psychodynamic Models (cont’d.)
• Traditional psychodynamic therapy:
– Psychoanalysis has three main goals:
• Uncovering repressed material
• Helping clients achieve insight into desires and
motivations
• Resolving childhood conflicts that affect current
relationships
Psychodynamic Models (cont’d.)
• Traditional psychodynamic therapy:
– Four methods to achieve therapeutic goals
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•
•
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Free association
Dream analysis
Resistance
Transference
Psychodynamic Models (cont’d.)
• Contemporary psychodynamic theories:
– Post-Freudian theories place less emphasis on sex
and more emphasis on:
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•
•
•
•
Freedom of choice and future goals
Ego autonomy
Social forces
Object relations (past interpersonal relations)
Treatment of seriously disturbed people
Psychodynamic Models (cont’d.)
• Criticism of psychodynamic models:
– Freud’s observations made under uncontrolled
conditions
– Patients represented a very narrow spectrum of
his society
– Models cannot be applied to a wide range of
disturbed people
– Formulations are difficult to investigate in a
scientific manner
Behavioral Models
• Behavioral models:
– Concerned with the role of learning in abnormal
behavior
– Three learning paradigms:
• Classical conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)
• Operant conditioning (B. F. Skinner)
• Observational learning (Albert Bandura)
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
• Classical conditioning paradigm:
– Classical conditioning:
• Process in which involuntary responses to stimuli are
learned through association
– Unconditioned stimulus (UCS):
• Elicits an unconditioned response
– Unconditioned response (UCR):
• The unlearned response made to an unconditioned
stimulus
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
• Classical conditioning paradigm:
– Conditioned stimulus (CS):
• Neutral stimulus that acquires some properties of
another stimulus with which it is paired
– Conditioned response (CR):
• The learned response made to a previously neutral
stimulus that has acquired some properties of another
stimulus with which it was paired
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
Figure 2-8 A Basic Classical Conditioning Process Dogs normally salivate when food is provided (left).
With his laboratory dogs, Ivan Pavlov paired the ringing of a bell with the presentation of food (middle).
Eventually, the dogs would salivate to the ringing of the bell alone, when no food was near (right).
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
• Classical conditioning paradigm:
– John B. Watson:
• Demonstrated acquisition of a phobia (exaggerated,
seemingly illogical fear) using classical conditioning
paradigm
– Classical conditioning helps explain acquisition of
phobias, unusual sexual attractions, and other
extreme emotional reactions
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
Classical Conditioning Classical Conditioning involves the pairing of an unconditioned stimulus with a
conditioned stimulus in order to learn and produce new responses.
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
• Operant conditioning paradigm:
– Operant behavior:
• A voluntary and controllable behavior that “operates”
on an individual’s environment
– Operant conditioning:
• Voluntary behaviors are controlled by the
consequences that follow them
• Differs from classical conditioning
– Linked to voluntary, not involuntary, behaviors
– Behaviors are controlled by reinforcers
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
• Operant conditioning paradigm:
– Abnormal behaviors (e.g., head banging) have
been linked to environmental reinforcers:
• Positive: pleasurable feelings; lower anxiety
• Negative reinforcers: escape/ avoidance
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
Rat in a Skinner Box Take a tour of the Skinner box and see a demonstration of reinforcement
contingencies that govern operant conditioning.
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
• The observational learning paradigm:
– Behaviors are acquired by watching other people
perform those behaviors
– Modeling (vicarious conditioning):
• Learning by observing models and later imitating them
– Exposure to disturbed models is likely to produce
disturbed behaviors
Behavioral Models (cont’d.)
• Criticisms of behavioral models:
– Often neglects importance of inner determinants
of behavior
– Overextends animal studies to human behavior
– Mechanistic: ignores human values
Cognitive Models
• Cognitive models:
– Conscious thought mediates or modifies an
individual’s emotional state or behavior in
response to a stimulus
• Cognitive dynamics in psychopathology:
– Causes of psychopathology:
• Actual irrational and maladaptive assumptions and
thoughts
• Distortions of the actual thought process
Cognitive Models (cont’d.)
• Beck and Ellis:
– Psychological problems produced by irrational
thought patterns stemming from an individual’s
belief system
– Irrational thoughts conditioned through early
childhood are reinstilled in adulthood
• “Logical errors” in thinking distort objective
reality
Cognitive Models (cont’d.)
• Cognitive approaches to therapy:
– Highly specific learning experiences designed to
teach clients to:
• Monitor negative, automatic thoughts (cognitions)
• Recognize connections between cognition, affect, and
behavior
• Examine evidence for and against distorted automatic
thoughts
• Substitute more reality-oriented interpretations
• Identify and alter beliefs that predispose them to
distort their experiences
Cognitive Models (cont’d.)
• Criticisms of cognitive models:
– Skinner:
• Cognitions are not observable, so they cannot form the
foundation of empiricism
– Human behavior is more than thoughts and
beliefs
– Therapist, as teacher, expert, and authority figure
is direct and confrontational and may intimidate
client and misidentify the disorder
Humanistic-Existential Models
• Assumptions:
– Reality:
• The product of our unique experiences and perceptions
of the world; subjective universe is more important
than the events themselves
– We have free choice/personal responsibility
– A person’s wholeness or integrity is critically
important
– We have the ability to become what we want and
to fulfill our capacities
Humanistic-Existential Models (cont’d.)
• The humanistic perspective:
– Abnormal behavior results from disharmony
between a person’s potential and self-concept
– Positive view of the individual
– Carl Rogers best known of humanists
– Humanity is basically good, forward-moving, and
trustworthy
Humanistic-Existential Models (cont’d.)
• The humanistic perspective:
– Actualizing tendency:
• People are motivated to satisfy not only biological
needs, but also the self
– Abraham Maslow’s actualizing tendency:
• Self-actualization:
– Inherent tendency to strive toward realization of one’s full
potential
Humanistic-Existential Models (cont’d.)
• The humanistic perspective:
– Development of abnormal behavior
• Rogers: If left unencumbered by societal restrictions,
we would become fully functioning people
• Self-concept: assessment of one’s value and worth
• Imposition of conditions of worth, transmitted via
conditional positive regard, results in disharmony, or
incongruence, between one’s potential and one’s selfconcept
• Unconditional positive regard: Value and respect a
person, separate from one’s actions
Humanistic-Existential Models (cont’d.)
• Person-centered therapy:
– Emphasizes therapist’s attitudes in therapeutic
relationship rather than the precise techniques
used
– Therapeutic techniques involve expressing and
communicating respect, understanding, and
acceptance
Humanistic-Existential Models (cont’d.)
• Existential perspective:
– Shares with humanistic psychology emphasis on
individual uniqueness
– Also differs in following ways:
• Less optimistic than humanistic therapy
• Individual must be viewed in context of human
condition
• Stresses not only individual responsibility but also
responsibility to others
Humanistic-Existential Models (cont’d.)
• Criticisms of humanistic and existential
approaches:
– “Fuzzy,” ambiguous, nebulous nature
– Applied to a restricted population
– Creative in describing human condition, but not in
constructing theory
– Not suited to scientific or experimental
investigation
Humanistic-Existential Models (cont’d.)
• More criticisms of humanistic and existential
approaches:
– Subjective, intuitive, and empathic; not
empirically based
– Effective with intelligent, well-educated, relatively
“normal” clients, not severely disturbed clients
Multipath Implications of Psychological
Explanations
• All psychological theories have strengths and
weaknesses; none has the “whole truth”
• Multipath model suggests we best understand
abnormal behavior only by evidence-based
integration of the various approaches
Dimension Three: Social Factors
• Assumptions of social-relational models:
– Healthy relationships are important for human
development and functioning
– These relationships provide many intangible
health benefits
– When relationships are dysfunctional or absent,
individuals may be more prone to mental
disturbances
Social-Relational Models
• Family, couples, and group perspectives:
– Family systems model:
• Behavior of one family member directly affects entire
family system
– Characteristics:
• Personality development ruled by family attributes
• Abnormal behavior is a reflection of unhealthy family
dynamics and poor communication
• Therapist must focus on the family system, not just the
individual
Social-Relational Models (cont’d.)
• Social-relational treatment approaches:
– Conjoint family therapeutic approach:
• Stresses importance of teaching message-sending and
message-receiving skills to family members
– Strategic family approach:
• Deals with family power struggles by shifting to a more
healthy distribution
– Structural family approach:
• Reorganizes family in relation to family involvement
Social-Relational Models (cont’d.)
• Social-relational treatment approaches:
– Couples therapy:
• Aimed at helping couples understand and clarify their
communication, needs, roles, and expectations
– Group therapy:
• Members of group are initially strangers
• Focus on interrelationships and dynamics of interaction
among members
Social-Relational Models (cont’d.)
• Criticisms of social-relational models:
– Studies have generally not been rigorous in design
– Groups tend to operate under culture-bound
definitions
– Family systems models may have negative
consequences:
• Parental influence may not be a factor in an individual’s
disorder but are burdened with guilt
Dimension Four: Sociocultural Factors
• Emphasizes importance of the following
factors in explaining mental disorders
– Race
– Ethnicity
– Gender
– Sexual orientation
– Religious preference
– Socioeconomic status
– Physical disabilities
Race and Ethnicity: Multicultural
Models of Psychopathology
• Past cultural models:
– Inferiority model:
• Contends that racial and ethnic minorities are inferior
to majority population
– Deficit model:
• Minority groups lacked “right” culture
– The universal shamanic tradition:
• Non-Western indigenous psychologies assume special
healers have power to act as intermediaries between
the human and spirit worlds
Race and Ethnicity: Multicultural
Models of Psychopathology (cont’d.)
• Multicultural model (current model):
– Recognizes differences in cultures, and that each
culture has its own strengths and limitations
– Assumes all theories of human development arise
from a particular cultural context
– Suggests that sociocultural stressors reside within
the social system – not within the person
– Appropriate treatment, therefore, may be served
through teaching self-help skills and strategies to
negotiate client’s social situation
Race and Ethnicity: Multicultural
Models of Psychopathology (cont’d.)
• Criticisms of the multicultural model:
– Operates from relativistic framework: normal and
abnormal behavior must be evaluated from a
cultural perspective
– Critics argue “a disorder is a disorder,” regardless
of cultural context
– Lacks empirical validation concerning its concepts
and assumptions
– Based on Western worldview