Brief Lecture Notes for Unit 1
These brief lecture notes are no substitute for attendance at lecture, believe me! However, they can serve as rough lecture outlines and as guides for exam review. Key terms to know are presented in bold font; note also the study questions at the end of each unit.
Two fundamental issues have to be addressed at the start of this class: (1) What is meant by "abnormality"? (2) Why should we bother studying abnormal psychology at all?
What is "abnormality"?
Let's begin with a discussion of why it is difficult to define and measure abnormality compared to, say, something simple such as height. There are at least four reasons.
1. Height is what we can call a unitary, hierarchical, or ordinal measure. It can be reduced to a single number, hence a group of people can be arranged in rank order (a hierarchy) from the shortest (smallest height number) to the tallest (largest height number). Psychological normality or abnormality probably involves a number of different, only loosely related facets (is multivariate rather than unitary), which means that no meaningful "hierarchy of normality" can be constructed. People differ, but asking which is more normal may be a meaningless question, like looking at a table on which is placed an apple, a steak, a hot-fudge sundae, a carrot, some caviar, a pizza, and some fried grasshoppers and asking which is the "most normal" food.
2. Height can be measured objectively or operationally, using a standard or methodology on which all persons can agree (a yardstick or tape measure); hence, if several observers measure the same person's height, they are very likely to agree closely on the answer. It is debatable whether psychological normality is at all like this; clinical assessment is as much of an art as a science, a far more subjective process that cannot easily be systematized or operationalized. Some criteria can be (and have been) established, but the human judgment factor of clinical experience cannot successfully be eliminated.
3. Most variables of interest are normally distributed (the famous "bell-shaped curve") in the general population, meaning that most people fall somewhere in the middle (moderate scores), with small proportions of people in each of the two "tails" or extreme score ranges. From a purely statistical standpoint, extremes of both kinds (very high or very low scores) are "abnormal" in the sense that they are rare. (Very short and very tall people are both very infrequent.) But oftentimes, social values place a positive value on one set of extremes and a negative value on the opposite set, so from a normative standpoint, only one "tail" ends up being labelled as "abnormal" in a pejorative, value sense. This is only minimally true of something like height (though we tend as a society to value tall people over short people, as reflected in such variables as net worth; we "look up to" the tall and "look down on" the short, not only literally, but metaphorically), it is definitely true of most psychological variables. Think of people you admire, "role model" types of people, and you'll see that they usually inhabit the positive extreme (tail) of some psychological dimension: Mother Teresa was far more giving, Albert Einstein far more intelligent, Bill Gates far more successful than most humans. Are these people "abnormal" or not? By a statistical criterion, they are. But by a normative criterion, because they inhabit the value-positive tail of the dimensions in question, they are not: from a normative standpoint, we usually reserve the term "abnormal" for those who inhabit the value-negative tail of dimensions such as these (people who are selfish, stupid, and unsuccessful).
4. Language is inherently dichotomous; the terms with which we speak (and think) are either/or category terms (tall vs. short, rich vs. poor, friendly vs. unfriendly)... as if there were, in fact, two distinct, discrete groups of persons with no overlap between them. But in fact the external reality about which we are using language to communicate is usually a continuous one -- a broad range of possible values (of height, net worth, sociability, and so on) with, again, most people falling in the moderate range (of what usually, though not always, is a normally distributed variable). In other words, the dichotomies implied by our language system are usually apparent, not real. They do not really exist, but are a sort of linguistic metaphor. It can be dangerous and distorting to treat the dichotomies as if they were really there (in technical terms, to reify them), because they do not really exist in the underlying phenomena or data. There is no objective, clear-cut dividing line between rich and poor (what dollar figure would you suggest?) or between tall and short (what height cutoff should be used?) Only in rare cases (e.g., gender -- male vs. female) are there true dichotomies -- two distinct, easily identifiable populations -- in the external world as such. Psychological abnormality is, in general, a false or illusory dichotomy: there are not two groups (the normal and the abnormal, the well and the sick, the sane and the insane) but only one -- humanity, most of us being, of course, moderately neurotic. This fundamental reality -- that "abnormal behavior" is not categorically different from "normal behavior", that it differs only in degree and not in kind, only quantitatively and not qualitatively -- is the continuity hypothesis, and is perhaps the single most important point I have to make this entire semester!
To explore these issues further, we need to take a bit of a side trip and ask a wider question, "What does it mean to define anything?" Much of the material that follows will be based on the pioneering work of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and psychologist Eleanor Rosch.
Dictionaries generally define objects and concepts by means of a distinction between defining features and characteristic features, and we might call approaches to concept definition that rest on this distinction the classic approach. A defining feature is something that must be true of something if it is to belong to the category in question. A characteristic feature is not necessarily true of all valid examples of the category, but it is true of prototypical or "good" examples.
Let's take the example of the category "bird". (You might want to close your eyes and imagine, as vividly as you can, a specific bird before reading further.)
Defining features of birds include the fact that all birds:
1. Have wings
2. Have feathers
3. Have a beak or bill
4. Lay eggs
5. Are warm blooded
If something lacks these qualities, it is not a bird at all (but see below). If something has all these qualities, it is presumably, by definition, a bird (but see below).
Characteristic features of birds include the fact that prototypical or "good" birds:
1. Are small
2. Perch on branches
3. Can sing
4. Eat seeds
5. Have nests
Not all birds have these features. For instance, ostriches are not small, penguins can't sing, albatrosses don't have nests (as far as I know), and so forth. These are birds, but not the kind of birds most people think of as "typical" or "real" or "good" birds. (How many of the characteristic features in the list above did the bird you visualized have?)
The problem with this approach to classifying and defining things is that it implies a black-and-white, yes-or-no, either-or boundary between categories. But in reality, most categories are "fuzzy", as Wittgenstein and Rosch showed. For instance, if you take a chicken and pluck it (so that it now lacks defining characteristic #2, feathers), does it cease being a bird? Of course not. Conversely, if you take a warm-blooded creature like yourself and add wings, feathers, and a beak, if you set an egg down on a table (thus "laying" it on the table), do you become a bird? Probably not. The classic approach to concept definition can't allow for examples like this. Nor can they easily accommodate the fact that some nonbirds (such as bats) are more "birdlike" than others (elephants).
A better approach (that is, it comes closer to the ways in which human beings actually think and use words) to definition is the family resemblance approach. This approach does away with the classic distinction between defining and characteristic features, and instead thinks of concepts as having inherently fuzzy boundaries, with examples fitting the concept to a greater or lesser extent (not black/white, but shades of grey) depending on how well they match the features of a prototypical exemplar of the concept. By this approach, a robin is more of a bird (or closer to the central elements of "birdness") than an eagle, an eagle closer than a penguin, a penguin closer than a bat, a bat closer than an elephant, and an elephant closer than a comet. At some point on this continuum (somewhere between penguins and bats, if we want to make friends with members of the zoology department) we can draw an arbitrary, artificial line and say (though it always involves a bit of a lie) that objects on one side of the line are birds and objects on the other side are not, but that line (wherever we draw it) is always somewhat fuzzy and subjective. If you want to know more about this concept and have a mathematical turn of mind, look up Zadeh's classic article on "fuzzy logic".
Why study abnormality?
Besides the pragmatic reasons (studying abnormality to become a more effective therapist, counselor, or people helper, or studying abnormality to cope more effectively with personal life challenges and struggles), a theoretical reason is that, if normality and abnormality are part of the same overall continuum of personality, understanding exaggerated forms of behavior and cognition might help us better understand more typical forms of the same thing.
The dangers of labeling
We'll be spending much time this semester looking in detail at specific psychological diagnoses, but before we do, it's important to remember that the application of social labels always comes with a potential cost. Not only can labels lead to self-fulfilling prophecy effects or to social stigmatization, but there is always a nontrivial probability that the label is simply inaccurate (especially since the category boundaries are inherently fuzzy, see above).
Signal detection theorists have developed a language to clarify this problem. Take the example of a criminal court, which tries to avoid the two errors of convicting the innocent (what we call a type I error or false positive) and letting the guilty go free (a type II error or false negative). In most social situations, false positives are more costly. The same is true of psychodiagnosis: while it can be harmful to fail to diagnose and treat a person who really is mentally ill (type II), it's worse overall to label someone as mentally ill when the label is mistaken, ill-advised, hastily applied, or unwarranted (type I). Can you think of some reasons why?
A family resemblance approach to defining abnormality
With the above cautions in mind, let's take a stab at listing some prototypical characteristics of psychological abnormality or mental illness. (Think of a specific example of a behavior or condition that you think of as obviously abnormal, then run your example through the gauntlet below to see how well it matches the features listed.)
1. Suffering. In general, most forms of abnormality hurt or are unpleasant; they are not conditions or states people would voluntarily seek. However, not all who suffer are abnormal (can you think of examples?), and not all who are abnormal are suffering by their own definition of their conscious experience (can you think of examples?)
2. Maladaptiveness. Abnormal behavior tends to be dysfunctional -- that is, it does not promote individual and social well-being, and it often interferes with essential life functions like working and relating with others. A difficulty, of course, with this element is that is vague, and depends on how a given culture may define "well-being" or "adaptiveness" or "essential life functions".
3. Irrationality/incomprehensibility. Abnormal behavior is hard for others to explain or understand. Again, however, it shouldn't be assumed that your inability to understand someone else's motives necessarily makes them abnormal. Perhaps the fault lies with you!
4. Unpredictability/uncontrollability. At least in our culture, we assume that healthy people can control their actions (to an adequate extent): can start doing what they want to do, and can stop doing what they do not want to do. (Anyone who has tried to lose weight knows that there are limits to "normal" people's self-control, of course. A cultural bias may be involved... social psychologists use the term fundamental attribution error to refer to the fact that people in Western cultures at least tend to overestimate the extent to which people's behavior is internally driven, underestimate the role of external situational influences.) To the extent that people's behavior is erratic or clearly outside their attempts to voluntarily control what they do, a label of abnormality is more warranted. (But other cultures, that place less emphasis on individual self-control, may view this criterion rather differently.)
5. Vividness/unconventionality. Abnormal behavior tends to be "unforgettable" -- it stands out from the background of more conventional, normal behavior. However, this criterion too is very culturally and historically dependent (when I was 20, piercing your body with shards of metal would have been considered highly deviant; today it seems to be normal among college student populations). Also, some forms of mental illness are much more likely to draw attention to themselves than others.
6. Observer discomfort. A subliminal test of abnormality is the extent to which a person's behavior bothers or disturbs others. But, of course, this depends strongly on what the observer's values, priorities, and expectations are, as well as the social context... wearing a "cheesehead" hat is normal behavior at Packer games, but not at funerals.
7. Violation of standards. Of course, standards vary from one culture (or subculture) to another, and from one time of history to another. And some societies value conformity more than others. But behavior that starkly violates consensual standards is more likely, all things being equal, to be labeled as abnormal.
See here for my thoughts about the case study to be discussed in class. (I will not activate this hyperlink until after the case study has been presented, so if you're reading ahead and wondering where the comments are, they are temporarily secret.)
Just as there are many ways to be abnormal, there are many ways to be normal. See the hyperlinked material for information about the now influential Big Five model of variants of psychological normality.
The Big Five model is based on the lexical hypothesis that all important or significant personality traits or differences are "marked" linguistically (there are trait words or terms for them). The Big Five dimensions represent five superordinate clusters (literally, factors) of traits that are highly intercorrelated, based on massive research looking at subjects' subjective perceptions of the interrelationships between pairs of traits drawn from a master list of some 15,000 trait terms (e.g., "How likely is it that a person who is intelligent is also neurotic?") Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research has been conducted to attempt a confirmation of the idea that these same basic trait clusters occur in all language systems; since there are some 7000 extant languages in the world, it will be some time before we know for sure, but the same general clusters show up with native English vs. native Chinese speakers, for instance.
Click here for new information about Strauss and Howe's model of generational cyclicity.
Study Guide
1. How do the classic and the family resemblance approaches to concept definition differ? Apply these ideas to the definition of abnormality. What does it mean to say that mental health is a continuum, not a dichotomy?
2. Discuss some reasons to study abnormal psychology and their implications.
3. What are some of the potential costs associated with the psychodiagnostic enterprise? How do type I and type II errors differ?
4. What are seven features that can be utilized to define abnormality? Be able to apply this model to specific instances.
5. Summarize the Big Five model of normal personality. What is the lexical hypothesis?