Biological and Psychological Explanations of Schizophrenia

?
  • Created by: asusre
  • Created on: 28-03-21 21:14
What is the cognitive explanation for schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is caused by dysfunctional thought processing.
1 of 37
What is dysfunctional thought processing?
Dysfunctional thought processing is informational processing that does not represent reality accurately and produces undesirable consequences.
2 of 37
What is the cogitive explanation of delusions?
Egocentric bias causes delusions as it leads schizophrenic people to interpret irrelevant stimuli as relating to the self.
3 of 37
What is the cogitive explanation of auditory hallucinations?
Hypervigilance, which is paying excessive attention to auditory stimuli, may cause auditory hallucinations, as schizophrenic people may interpret their own thoughts as hearing voices in their head.
4 of 37
What study proposes the cogitive explanation of negative symptoms?
Frith (1992) proposed central control dysfunction theory. This involves the inability to suppress automatic responses, which causes symptoms such as spech poverty and derailment because each word triggers new associations.
5 of 37
What are the strengths of the cognitive explanation?
The cognitive explanation has research support and has a real-world practical application.
6 of 37
Which research supports the cognitive explanation?
Stirling et al (2006) found that schizophrenics take twice as long on the Stroop test, which involves identifying the colour of a word rather than reading the word itself, as a control group.
7 of 37
What is the practical application of the cognitive explanation?
CBTp is a successful therapy which encourages scrutiny and testing of delusions/hallucinations. NICE 2014 report found it was more successful than antipsychotics for reducing symptoms of schizophrenia.
8 of 37
What is a limitation of the cognitive explanation?
One limitation of the cognitive explanation is that it ignores neurochemical and environmental factors.
9 of 37
Which study proposed a more appropriate explanation?
Howes and Murray (2014) proposed the integrated model, where genetic vulnerability and social stressors sensitise the dopamine system. Then, biased cognitive processing of this increased dopamine activity leads to psychosis, more stress, and a cycle forms
10 of 37
Which study proposed double-bind theory, and what is it?
Bateson et al (1956) proposed double-bind theory, which states that children who receive contradictory messages from their caregiver find themselves in situations where they fear doing the wrong thing because it is unclear what this is.
11 of 37
How do contradictory messages lead to the development of schizophrenia?
Contradictory messages prevent the development of coherent understanding of reality and leaves children with an understanding of the world as confusing and dangerous, which is reflected in symptoms such as paranoid delusions and disorganised thinking.
12 of 37
Which research supports double bind theory?
Berger (1965) found that schizophrenics recall more double bind statements from their mothers than non-schizophrenics.
However, this has validity issues - schizophrenia affects recall.
13 of 37
Which research challenges double bind theory?
Liem (1974) found no difference between the parental communication in a family with a schizophrenic child and one without.
14 of 37
What is expressed emotion?
Expressed emotion is a family communication style characterised by criticism, hostility and emotional over-involvement. These high levels of expressed emotion are a stressor for schizophrenic people which can cause relapse.
15 of 37
What research supports expressed emotion?
Tienari et al (1994) found that adopted children with a schizophrenic biological parent were more likely to develop schizophrenia in a ‘disturbed’-rated adopted family.
16 of 37
What are the limitations of expressed emotion?
There are individual differences in vulnerability to expressed emotion and it has ethical implications.
17 of 37
Which study found that there are individual differences in vulnerability to expressed emotion?
Altorfer et al. (1998) found that 25% of schizophrenia patients showed no response to stressful comments from their families. Some schizophrenic people relapse in families with low levels of expressed emotion and, some schizophrenic people do not relapse
18 of 37
What is an ethical implication of expressed emotion?
Expressed emotion may cause family conflict as the schizophrenic patient may blame their family for making their condition worse, which causes more stress, therefore increasing the chance of relapse.
19 of 37
What are neural correlates?
Neural correlates are brain structures which are associated with and may cause an experience, in this case, of schizophrenic symptoms
20 of 37
Which study found a neural correlate for avolition?
Juckel et al (2006) found that lower levels of activity in the ventral striatum, which is involved in anticipation of rewards/motivation, may cause avolition.
21 of 37
Which study found a neural correlate for auditory hallucinations?
Allen et al (2007) found that those with schizophrenia had lower activation levels in the superior temporal gyrus and anterior cingulate gyrus when identifying pre-recorded speech as own or others than a control group, so this may corelate with auditory h
22 of 37
Gyrus: ST and AC
Superior Temporal gyrus
and
Anterior Cingulate gyrus
23 of 37
What are the limitations of neural correlates?
Neural correlates is biologically reductionist/ignores the environment, and has the issue of correlation-causation, meaning it unclear whether reduced activity in ventral striatum causes negative symptoms or the other way round.
24 of 37
Which study shows that neural correlates ignores the role of environmental factors in causing schizophrenia?
Tienari et al (1994) - adopted children with schizophrenic biological parent more likely to develop schizophrenia in a ‘disturbed’-rated adopted family
25 of 37
What is the dopamine hypothesis?
The dopamine hypothesis argues that schizophrenia is caused by abnormal levels of dopamine in different areas of the brain. Schizophrenic people are thought to have abnormally high numbers of D2 receptors on receiving neurons.
26 of 37
What was the original version of the dopamine hypothesis?
The original version of the dopamine hypothesis suggested that high levels of dopamine (hyperdopaminergia) in subcortex causes positive symptoms. For example, hyperdopaminergia in Broca’s area, which is responsible for speech production, may cause auditor
27 of 37
What is the recent version of the dopamine hypothesis?
The more recent version of the dopamine hypothesis argues that low levels of dopamine (hypodopaminergia) in the cortex may cause negative symptoms.
28 of 37
Which study supports the recent version of the dopamine hypothesis?
Goldman-Rakic et al. (2004) found that hypodopaminergia in the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision making, may cause negative symptoms.
29 of 37
What is one strength of the dopamine hypothesis?
One strength of the dopamine hypothesis is that there have been successful treatments of schizophrenia which lower dopamine levels.
30 of 37
Which research supports the effectiveness of antipsychotics?
Leucht et al. (2013) showed that anti-psychotics reduce symptoms of schizophrenia.
31 of 37
Which research challenges the effectiveness of antipsychotics?
Noll (2009) argues that anti-psychotics don’t alleviate positive symptoms in about a third of patients. Furthermore, some people with schizophrenia experience positive symptoms despite having normal levels of dopamine.
32 of 37
How do genetics cause schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is polygenic – caused by multiple genes – and aetiologically heterogenous – different combinations of factors can lead to the condition.
33 of 37
Which study supports the genetic explanation of schizophrenia?
Gottesman (1991) found that the concordance rate is higher for monozygotic twins (48%), who share 100% of their DNA, than dizygotic twins (17%), who share only 50% of their DNA.
34 of 37
What is a concordance rate?
The concordance rate is the likelihood that if one twin has schizophrenia, then the other will too.
35 of 37
What is one limitation of the genetic explanation?
One limitation of the genetic explanation is that twin studies incorrectly assume that the environments of MZ and DZ twins are equivalent.
36 of 37
Which study argues that the environments of MZ and DZ twins are not equally similar?
Joseph (2004) argues that MZ twins are treated more similarly, encounter more similar environments (more likely to do things together) and experience more ‘identity confusion’ (being treated as ‘the twins’ rather than two distinct individuals) than DZ twi
37 of 37

Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What is dysfunctional thought processing?

Back

Dysfunctional thought processing is informational processing that does not represent reality accurately and produces undesirable consequences.

Card 3

Front

What is the cogitive explanation of delusions?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is the cogitive explanation of auditory hallucinations?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What study proposes the cogitive explanation of negative symptoms?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
View more cards

Comments

No comments have yet been made

Similar Psychology resources:

See all Psychology resources »See all Schizophrenia resources »