Invitation to Psychology

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Chapter

11

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sychological Disorders

Chapter 11 Psychological Disorders 417

Learning, Culture, and Addiction

The biological (disease) model: Some people are genetically

predisposed to addiction or develop addictions as a result of

changes in the brain caused by heavy drug use.

The learning model: Most addictions stem from conditions that

encourage drug abuse. Evidence for this view:

1. Addiction patterns vary according to cultural practices.


2. Abuse of alcohol increases under policies of total
   abstinence because people do not learn to drink moderately.


3. Many people stop taking drugs without withdrawal
   symptoms.


4. Drug abuse depends on the reasons for taking the drug.

Personality Disorders

Personality disorders are characterized by rigid, self-destructive
traits that cause distress or an inability to get along with
others.

• Borderline personality disorder is characterized by
  extreme negative emotionality and an inability to regulate
  emotions.


• Psychopathy is an inability to fear punishment and to feel
  guilt or remorse for antisocial behavior.


• Antisocial personality disorder (APD) describes people
  who have a lifelong pattern of irresponsible, antisocial
  behavior such as lawbreaking, violence, and other impulsive,
  reckless acts.


• Not all people with APD are psychopaths; some lifelong
  criminals or violent offenders are otherwise capable of
  normal emotions.


• Factors involved in psychopathy and being a lifelong violent
  offender:
   abnormalities in the central nervous system.
   impaired frontal-lobe functioning.
   genetic influences.
   environmental events.

Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders

Substance-abuse disorders range in severity from mild impairment

to compulsive drug taking that impairs a person’s ability to

function and harms the drug-taker or others in his or her life.

Causes of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia involves abnormalities in the brain, including a decrease in the volume of

the temporal lobe or hippocampus, reduced numbers of neurons in the prefrontal cortex,

and enlarged ventricles.

Contributing factors include:

1. Genetic predispositions.


2. Prenatal problems or birth complications.


3. Excessive pruning of synapses in adolescence.


4. Interaction of these biological factors with
   environmental stressors to trigger the disease.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly called
multiple personality disorder, involves two or more identities
that appear to split off within one person.

• Some clinicians believe DID is common and originates in
  childhood trauma.


• Most psychological scientists believe that DID results from
  suggestion by clinicians themselves.


• Media coverage contributed to the rise in diagnoses of DID
  after 1980.


• The sociocognitive explanation holds that DID is an extreme
  form of the ability we all have to present different aspects of
  our personalities to others.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a form of psychosis, a mental condition that

involves distortions of reality and inhibits one’s ability to

function in everyday life.

Symptoms of schizophrenia:

• bizarre delusions.


• hallucinations, sometimes visual but usually auditory.


• disorganized, incoherent speech (“word salads”).


• disorganized and inappropriate behavior, including catatonic
  stupor.


• negative symptoms such as loss of motivation and emotional
  flatness.