Flashcards · 9990 · A Level Topic 3

Specialist Option 1: Clinical Psychology (A Level) flashcards

31 cards on A Level Topic 3, subtopics 1.1 to 1.5. Pick a subtopic or study them all.

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1.1 Schizophrenia

Positive vs negative symptoms of schizophrenia: Positive symptoms are additions to normal experience, such as hallucinations and delusions. Negative symptoms are reductions or losses, such as flat affect, avolition and reduced speech.
What did Freeman et al. (2003) investigate with virtual reality?: Whether VR can be used to study persecutory ideation. Non-clinical participants entered a virtual scene with neutral characters; some attributed hostile intentions to them, showing paranoid thoughts can be studied safely and objectively in VR.
What is the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia?: A biochemical explanation: symptoms (especially positive ones) are linked to excess dopamine activity, e.g. too many or over-sensitive dopamine receptors in some brain pathways. Supported by antipsychotics, which block dopamine receptors.
What is the genetic explanation of schizophrenia, and one weakness?: Schizophrenia runs in families and concordance is higher for identical (MZ) than non-identical (DZ) twins, suggesting inherited vulnerability. Weakness: MZ concordance is well below 100%, so environment must also play a part.
Typical vs atypical antipsychotics: Typical (first-generation) antipsychotics mainly block dopamine D2 receptors and reduce positive symptoms, but can cause movement side effects. Atypical (second-generation) also act on serotonin, may help negative symptoms and have fewer movement side effects.
How is CBT used for schizophrenia (e.g. Sensky et al., 2000)?: Patients examine the evidence for their delusions and the meaning of their voices, and develop coping strategies. Sensky et al. (2000) compared CBT with a befriending control and found lasting benefits from CBT at follow-up.

1.2 Mood (affective) disorders: depressive disorder (unipolar) and bipolar disorder

Depressive disorder (unipolar) vs bipolar disorder: Unipolar depression involves depressive episodes only (persistent low mood or loss of interest). Bipolar disorder involves manic (or hypomanic) episodes of elevated mood and energy, usually alternating with depressive episodes.
What is the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)?: A self-report psychometric questionnaire of 21 items, each scored 0–3, measuring the severity of depressive symptoms. Quick and standardised, but open to social desirability and subjective interpretation.
What is Beck's cognitive theory of depression?: Depression results from faulty thinking: negative schemas and the cognitive triad (negative views of the self, the world and the future), maintained by cognitive biases such as overgeneralisation.
What is learned helplessness (e.g. Seligman et al., 1988)?: Repeated experience of uncontrollable negative events leads a person to stop trying even when control is possible. A pessimistic attributional style (internal, stable, global causes for bad events) is linked to depression.
Which genes did Oruč et al. (1997) examine?: Genes for the serotonin 5-HT2C receptor and the serotonin transporter (5-HTT), in an association analysis comparing people with bipolar disorder and controls. The study tests a genetic (biological) explanation of mood disorders.
Name three classes of antidepressants and the general way they work: Tricyclics, MAOIs and SSRIs. All increase the availability of monoamine neurotransmitters such as serotonin at the synapse; SSRIs do so by selectively blocking serotonin reuptake.
Beck's cognitive restructuring vs Ellis's REBT: Cognitive restructuring: the client tests negative automatic thoughts against evidence and replaces them. REBT (Ellis): the ABC model; irrational beliefs (B) about an activating event (A) cause the consequence (C) and are disputed.

1.3 Impulse control disorders

Name the three impulse control disorders on the 9990 syllabus: Kleptomania (a recurrent failure to resist impulses to steal objects not needed), pyromania (repeated deliberate fire-setting) and gambling disorder (persistent gambling despite harm).
What is the K-SAS?: The Kleptomania Symptom Assessment Scale: a self-report questionnaire rating the frequency and intensity of urges, thoughts and behaviours linked to stealing over the past week, giving a quantitative severity score.
How do dopamine and positive reinforcement explain impulse control disorders?: Biological: the behaviour triggers dopamine release in reward pathways, producing pleasure. Behavioural: the excitement or relief after acting positively reinforces the behaviour, so it is repeated.
What is Miller's feeling-state theory?: A cognitive explanation: an intense positive feeling becomes linked with a specific behaviour (such as stealing). Later, the person repeats the behaviour to recreate that feeling, so the impulse is driven by the stored feeling-state.
What did Grant et al. (2008) investigate?: Predictors of response to opiate antagonists (such as naltrexone and nalmefene) and placebo in treating pathological gambling. A family history of alcoholism was linked with a better response to the opiate antagonists.
Covert sensitisation vs imaginal desensitisation: Covert sensitisation (e.g. Glover, 1985): the person imagines the behaviour paired with an unpleasant consequence. Imaginal desensitisation (e.g. Blaszczynski and Nower, 2003): imagining trigger situations while relaxed, without acting on the urge.

1.4 Anxiety disorders and fear-related disorders

Name the three anxiety and fear-related disorders on the 9990 syllabus: Generalised anxiety disorder (persistent, excessive worry), agoraphobia (fear of situations where escape may be difficult) and specific phobia, focusing on blood-injection-injury phobia.
What are the GAD-7 and the BIPI?: GAD-7: a seven-item self-report measure of generalised anxiety symptoms. BIPI: the Blood-Injection Phobia Inventory, a self-report measure of blood-injection fear (e.g. Mas et al., 2010).
How did Watson and Rayner (1920) show a phobia can be learned?: Little Albert was classically conditioned to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud noise; the fear generalised to similar objects. Supports the behavioural explanation of phobias.
What is the psychodynamic explanation of phobias (e.g. Freud, 1909)?: A phobia is an unconscious conflict displaced onto an object. Freud's case of Little Hans explained his fear of horses as a displaced fear of his father (Oedipus complex). The case was idiographic and hard to test.
What is systematic desensitisation?: A behavioural therapy: the client learns relaxation, builds a fear hierarchy, then works up it while relaxed so the feared stimulus becomes associated with relaxation instead of fear (reciprocal inhibition).
What is applied tension, as in Chapman and DeLapp (2013)?: A technique for blood-injection-injury phobia: tensing the muscles raises blood pressure and prevents fainting. Chapman and DeLapp used it in nine sessions of manualised CBT with T, a 42-year-old man who fainted at blood tests, in a case study.

1.5 Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

Obsessions vs compulsions: Obsessions are persistent, unwanted intrusive thoughts, images or urges that cause anxiety. Compulsions are repetitive behaviours or mental acts performed to reduce that anxiety.
What are the MOCI and the Y-BOCS?: The Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory is a true/false self-report questionnaire. The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale is a clinician-rated interview measure of the severity of obsessions and compulsions.
What was the case of Charles (Rapoport, 1989)?: A boy with OCD who washed for hours each day. It illustrates the diagnostic features of OCD: obsessions about contamination and time-consuming washing compulsions.
Biological vs behavioural explanations of OCD: Biological: low serotonin (biochemical) and inherited vulnerability (genetic). Behavioural (operant conditioning): a compulsion reduces anxiety, so it is negatively reinforced and repeated.
What is exposure and response prevention (ERP)?: The patient is exposed to the feared trigger and prevented from carrying out the compulsion, so they learn the anxiety falls without it (e.g. Lehmkuhl et al., 2008).
What did Lovell et al. (2006) find about telephone CBT for OCD?: In a randomised controlled non-inferiority trial, CBT given by telephone was about as effective as face-to-face CBT for OCD, making treatment more accessible.