Normality

Question 1

What are the 6 types of normality according to Gross 1995?

Answer 1

socio-cultural 
functional 
historical 
situational
--> all context dependent 

medical
statistical
–> maladaptive focus

Question 2

What is socio-cultural normality?

What is cohort normality?

Answer 2

• characteristic patterns of normal behaviour and beliefs

- cohort normality = what is normal for people who share similar experiences

Question 3

In what areas of social norms is cultural relativism?

Answer 3

child rearing 
diet and nutrition
living with chronic illness and disability 
caring 
reactions to adverse events 
consulting behaviour

Question 4

What is functional normality?

Answer 4

• Can an individual function i the roles the have developed around her?
• Functional normality depends on context: success as a doctor or teacher may not indicate success as a parent, leading to abnormal behaviour

Question 5

Give examples of historical normality?

Answer 5

• smoking
• others peoples urine –> toothpaste
• hysteria, wanding uterus

Question 6

What is situational normality?

Give an example

Answer 6

• normal behaviours are constructed according to environment
• nakedness may be valued in a Finnish Sauna, but would get you arrested in a GP waiting room

Question 7

What is medical normality?

Answer 7

• normality is an expected state
• normal and abnormal
• abnormalities is crucial in establishing the ‘sick role’
• there are normal ranges
• medical normality is not only assigned to conditions, systems and processes but also to beliefs and attributions
• deviation from expected behaviours or attitudes results in diagnoses of medical illnesses

Question 8

What is statistical normality?

Answer 8

• normality as typicality or an expression of central tendency (mean, median, mode)
• normal distribution of characteristics

Question 9

Give examples of the use of normal distribution in medical practice

Answer 9

birth weight 
sperm count
serum cholesterol 
blood pressure 
growing and adult heights

Question 10

How are norms maintained?

Answer 10

• ritual/routine
• mores
• law

Question 11

Can deviation from from the norm be positive?

Answer 11

• flexibility and progress
• new patterns of thinking
• evolutionary engine
• adaptive-maladaptive

Question 12

What are the definitions of social norms and conformity?

Answer 12

• ‘yielding to group pressure’
• ‘a change in behaviour as a result of real or imagined group pressure’
• ‘a tendency for people to adopt the behaviour, attitudes and values of a reference group’

Question 13

Pereceptions of what is normal behaviour influence self concept to a profound degree.
Give examples

Answer 13

• in early adolescence
• drinking behaviour
• sexual behaviour

Question 14

What are the two important aspects of maladaptation.?

Answer 14

Self maladaptation
- internal focus
- inability to reach own goals even if they appear fine e.g. depression
Social maladaptation
- problems projected externally, behaviour impacts others
- easier to identify

Question 15

What is the literal definition of abnormality?

Answer 15

away from the normal

Question 16

What is normal functioning on the psychological level?

How does modern psychiatry define normality?

Answer 16

• no clear agreement
• modern psychiatry attempts to define abnormality by looking at observable behaviours rather than by attempting to understand how someone thinks

Question 17

How does normality influence healthcare?

Answer 17

• patients and clinicians views on normality may be radically different
• socio-cultural normality influences beliefs and behaviours
• norms change over time
• perceptions of normality may lead to patients pushing for medicalisation

Question 18

• Statistical abnormality refers only to….., not ……..

- mental abnormalities are often diagnosed using …………. ……., not …….

Answer 18

• infrequency, not context

- descriptive lists, not context

Question 19

Discuss perceived vs actual norms

Answer 19

• perceptions of what normal behaviour is, influence self concept to a profound degree
• e.g. drinking behaviour in early adolescence
• misperceived social norms challenge individuals to confprmt o their perception rather than actuality