Explanations of Schizophrenia (AQA A Level Psychology): Flashcards

They are clinical and objective, so they are not affected by sources of bias such as individual differences.

True.

No research has ever found 100% concordance, so genetics is only one explanation of schizophrenia.

Symptoms vary between people, so from a genetic perspective it is difficult to know definitively whether a patient has schizophrenia or another disorder.

Nature. However, 48% MZ concordance suggests nurture also plays a key role, so an interactionist explanation (diathesis-stress) is likely to be most valid.

True.

It simplifies a complex disorder to genetic and neurochemical factors, ignoring psychological, social and environmental influences such as trauma or life stress.

Neural correlates are the particular brain areas, structures or functions linked to the symptoms and behaviours characteristic of schizophrenia.

The limbic system. It is associated with the anticipation of reward and is the largest structure in the basal ganglia.

Juckel et al. (2006) linked low activity in the ventral striatum to the negative symptom of avolition.

False.

It is a correlate of negative symptoms. Kirschner et al. (2016) found people with schizophrenia show less activity in the ventral striatum, associated with apathy.

The superior temporal gyrus (STG), which is thought to control the processing of speech.

People with schizophrenia show reduced grey matter volume in the STG, which is associated with hallucinations and thought disorder.

False.

They linked it to thought disorder, a positive symptom, suggesting the region's dysfunction contributes to that symptom.

Reward, motivation and reinforcement. It is also strongly implicated in the mechanisms of addiction.

The dopamine hypothesis (Van Rossum, 1966) claims that overstimulation of dopamine receptors may be a contributory factor to a person's vulnerability to schizophrenia.

The original dopamine hypothesis suggests that hyperdopaminergia in the sub-cortex may be responsible for schizophrenia.

Any two of the amygdala, basal ganglia, hippocampus and nucleus accumbens.

An altered perception of the world, e.g. excess dopamine receptors in Broca's area may be associated with poverty of speech and/or auditory hallucinations.

Dopamine antagonists, which block dopamine pathways, were linked to a reduction in positive symptoms, e.g. clozapine and risperidone (Littrell & Schneiderhan, 1996).

Hypodopaminergia is low levels of dopamine, which the newer dopamine hypothesis locates in the prefrontal cortex and links to negative symptoms.

Information-processing, rational thought and decision-making.

The prefrontal cortex plays a role in logical thinking, so low dopamine may lead to an inability to construct grammatical sentences.

False.

Both hyperdopaminergia and hypodopaminergia may be at work in different brain areas.

Abnormally low dopamine activity in the prefrontal cortex leads to excessive dopamine activity in the sub-cortex, so both high and low dopamine are implicated.

PET, MRI and fMRI provide objective evidence pinpointing specific brain structures, and controlled clinical conditions mean results are likely to be reliable.

False.

It takes a correlational approach to mapping brain regions to schizophrenia, so it lacks a cause-and-effect explanation.

It does not acknowledge the role of the environment in schizophrenia.

The neural correlates explanation is reductionist, as it reduces schizophrenia to brain structures and neurochemical activity.

It suggests abnormal brain structures and dopamine imbalance determine the onset of schizophrenia, challenging free will and raising ethical problems in legal or clinical contexts.

The schizophrenogenic mother (Fromm-Reichmann, 1948) is a toxic, negative, dysfunctional mother proposed as a major factor in her child's development of schizophrenia.

His passive, ineffectual nature and behaviour is another key factor.

The schizophrenogenic mother is a psychodynamic explanation, based on internal conflict rooted in aversive childhood experiences.

She is cold, rejecting and controlling, creating a family atmosphere characterised by tension and secrecy.

Distrust, paranoia, delusions and ultimately the development of schizophrenia in the child.

Double-bind theory (Bateson et al., 1956) describes a situation in which a child receives mixed messages and unpredictable or inconsistent standards are imposed on them.

A child is yelled at for not tidying their room, but told they are wasting their time when they do tidy it.

Paranoia and disorganised thoughts, e.g. wondering whether they are doing the right thing or whether they even know right from wrong.

By withdrawing love and approval, leaving the child fearful and confused about how to be themselves in an unpredictable world.

False.

Bateson saw the double bind as a risk factor, not the sole reason a child develops schizophrenia.

Expressed emotion is how a family member communicates their thoughts and feelings towards the person with schizophrenia in their family.

Hostility (anger and resentment), criticism (being openly judgmental) and over-involvement (playing the 'martyr').

High EE is associated with an increased risk of relapse in a person recovering from schizophrenia.

Warmth, support and care, which helps to facilitate recovery and prevent relapse.

True.

EE could be one of the reasons a vulnerable person develops schizophrenia, as well as affecting relapse.

It was developed during tension over women's changing roles in American society, as a way of reclaiming psychotherapy as a purely male domain.

Observation showed parents of people with schizophrenia were more likely to send mixed messages to their child than other parents, e.g. parents of young offenders.

EE theory undermines positive attitudes towards family members, so future studies should focus on protective factors as well as risk factors.

Biology cannot fully account for all onset factors. Family dysfunction shows that close-knit relationships can be toxic as well as life-enhancing.

Kavanagh (1992) found a 48% relapse rate for patients living with high EE families, compared to 21% for low EE.

It is a dangerous stereotype and a product of blame culture with no basis in scientific fact, which may have caused a great deal of harm.

It is almost impossible to differentiate a double bind from ordinary family communication, making the theory difficult to operationalise and test.

True.

It blames mothers, portraying them as cold and controlling, while ignoring the role of fathers, reflecting outdated sexist assumptions.

They imply parenting or family communication can cause schizophrenia, which may place stigma, guilt or blame on parents without sufficient scientific evidence.

Dysfunctional thought processing refers to how a person with schizophrenia understands, perceives and interprets the world and other people around them.

Their typical internal dialogue (e.g. mentally reading, daydreaming) from what they interpret as external voices directed at them.

Frith (1992) suggested DTP involves two mechanisms: metarepresentation and central control.

Metarepresentation is the ability to reflect on one's own thoughts, intentions and goals, and to interpret others' behaviour as belonging to them and not to oneself.

True.

Metarepresentation is a type of theory of mind, so to lack one is to lack the other.

The extreme paranoid delusions seen in schizophrenia, e.g. 'the FBI are out to get me and are watching me all the time'.

Central control is the cognitive ability to suppress automatic responses while carrying out deliberate actions.

Each word produced triggers automatic associations that cannot be suppressed, explaining disorganised speech and thought disorder that metarepresentation alone cannot.

Attentional bias is the tendency to pay attention to specific stimuli and to ignore other types of stimuli.

Perceived threat- or danger-related stimuli over benign, harmless ones, e.g. 'my neighbour mows his lawn every Sunday, so he intends to kill me'.

A person with schizophrenia may be unable to use rational thought to reassure themselves that a threat is not real.

False.

Being unable to recognise benign stimuli contributes to the positive symptom of delusion.

People with schizophrenia who had paranoid delusions and failed a ToM test were unable to distinguish between their mental state and that of others, compared to controls.

Patients with schizophrenia showed an attentional bias towards threatening scenes on video, with late avoidance of sad scenes.

Schizophrenia is marked by a misperception of reality, so hallucinations are the product of a distorted sense of what is real and what is fantasy.

Using standardised ToM false-belief tasks, which can be replicated.

False.

They lack cause-and-effect conclusions. Schizophrenia may cause DTP, or DTP may lead to the symptoms.

Thought processing is highly subjective and idiosyncratic for everyone, which threatens the validity of cognitive explanations.

They imply symptoms are caused by automatic cognitive dysfunctions people cannot easily control, so symptoms arise from deficits, not conscious choice.