PSY 3171 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Intellectual Disability, Psy, Middle Ages

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3171
• Professor: Mark Coates

Document Summary

What is abnormal: need to use all the definitions , can"t use one on its own, statistical approach, psychological distress, violation of social norms. This approach doesn"t correctly judge where the line should be: many psychological constructs are normally distributed (bell curve) Same amount of people have high and low distribution. High and low scores should both be defined as abnormal. Extremely low iq is considered abnormal (mental retardation), but the equivalently rare high iq is not abnormal: we all have unique qualities, behaviours, thoughts, etc that are perfectly normal, even if rare. If a condition is too rare, then it is probably not worth spending too much time/resources researching it/describing it: psychological distress. Way their behaviour is affecting other people: certainly most of the symptoms of mental illness sound quite unpleasant, ego-dystonic. In conflict with the needs, goals, or wishes of the self. They themselves don"t like the behaviour, if they could, they would get rid of it.