Psychological Abnormality Essay

in that respect are many an(prenominal) ways of defining psychological freakishity the 2 I will be discussing is deviation from neighborly norms and misfortune to character adequately. Deviation form social norms is a persons cerebration or appearance cosmos classified as abnormal if it violates the rules or norms about what is expected or acceptable behavior in a particular social group. An example of this can be anorexia, more plebeian in females where the person sees themselves as over cant over even when extremely lightly and person is terrified of weight gain.The media create unrealistic, and for most people exalted images, especially of women. Most models are well below normal weight for their age and height Sufferers desperately want to be accepted and set and tend to feel that they are not. However self-starvation is seen as abnormal in terms of social norms. Strength of deviation from social norms is that this definition wees into esteem the effect that behav ior has on others in which deviance is delimitate in terms of breaking social rules which are usually made in order to help people merry to leaseher.There are many boundarys with the definition of deviation from social norms, beliefs about abnormality and social norms or morally acceptplable behavior changes over time for example homosexuality was include in the American classification system for disorders up to the 1960s. Since then attitudes sport changed and homosexuality it no longer seen as a disorder. other limitation is that linguistic context is import as we distinguish between normal and abnormal tally to social norms of the time.Much of our behavior is context specific and take out of context may seem bizarre for example if you aphorism a person suddenly jump up from a parkland bench and start talking to themselves you might think of them as being very strange on the other hand if you saw a camera crew you would consume thought of it being bizarre. Also nicety r elativity can be a limitation as disparate cultures hold up different ideas about acceptable behavior fro example approximately African societies cut themselves as a sign of inner saucer but in Western societies we se it as self harm.Another definition of abnormality is failure to function adequately this is when abnormal behavior interferes with daily life/functioning i. e. people are unable to live a normal life. An example of this can be when people cannot officiate and lose the motivation to care for themselves decent and agoraphobia or misgiving of crowds which is defined as an abnormal behavior where a person may halt a fear of open space and cant go shopping, school and do other everyday things because they have a fear of crowds. Strength of this definition is that it is easy to judge who is failing to function adequately because it is easy to . ist behaviors that show people are not functioning properly in their everyday lives e. g. unable to dress themselves, cant g et up in the morning etc. Limitations of this definition can be the context as starving yourself is irrational, unpredictable and maladaptive. However it is understandable when policy-making prisoners go on hunger strike as a political protest, so context is important. Also some people may not have psychological disorder but still have failure to function adequately e. g. dues to economic conditions it may not be executable to hold down a job and support family.Another limitation is that some people are able to maintain an adequate or high level of functioning even if they have a psychological disorder for example some people with anxiety or low can still function. Similarity between both definitions is that they both have a limitation of culture relativity as different societies have different rules and norms of whats normal and abnormal. A problem with both definitions is that context is important as we distinguish what is normal and abnormal behavior according to what is expec ted in a given situation according to the social norms at the time.