PSY 3171 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Scandinavian Mountains, Abnormal Psychology, Cultural Relativism

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3171
• Professor: Giorgio Tasca

Document Summary

Psychopathology is a field of psychology concerned with the nature and the development of abnormal behaviour, thoughts or cognition, and feelings or emotions. Abnormal behaviour is typically thought of negatively, however it simply refers to a deviation from the norm. Language and different behaviours can be barriers and end up seeming like abnormalities to cultural norms. The concept of family resemblance can be directly associated to the notion of abnormalities having certain features you can detect (just as families look alike, abnormalities have certain elements that trigger us to think one has a mental illness). No two illnesses have the same elements, but have features we can detect and group them into abnormalities. They are usually determined by the presence of several characteristics at one time: statistical infrequency: comparative data, cultural relativism: violation of norms, personal distress, disability, dysfunction, maladaptive behaviour, unexpectedness: unaware of inappropriate behaviour to situations.