'Clinical assessment must also take a person's cultural background into account'- to what extent have definitions of abnormality been limited by cultural diversity?

        The deviation from social norms approach to defining abnormality is a relatively basic way in relation to the other definitions however the effects of cultural difference are probably most profound in this approach.  This approach defines abnormality by the way people behave in relation to normal practices.  Therefore this method assumes that if a person is abnormal they will behave in a way not considered normal by other people in that society.  This approach is therefore limited by varying cultures as what is considered as normal behaviour in one area could be considered to deviate from the norms elsewhere.  This is a rather significant problem in that in the modern multi-cultural societies someone may consider what they are doing is totally acceptable but those around them may.  This makes it incredibly difficult for a diagnosis to take place totally accurately under this method.  This problem was evident in the case of a number of African men who were often diagnosed with Schizophrenia in the Western world until it was found that their behaviour was completely acceptable in relation to the cultural rules they were used to living by.  This definition is especially vulnerable to the limits of cultural of differences as it relies totally on social norms to judge normality and therefore it is most likely to be affected by cultural variations.

        The second definition which is strongly affected by cultural differences is the failure to function adequately approach.  This approach by Rosenhan et al. suggests 7 standards which can be used to judge if a person is abnormal.  These elements include suffering, unpredictability and irrationality.  However, it is the observer discomfort and violation of moral and ideal standards that are most problematic to judge due to cultural differences.  Observer discomfort is felt when a person appears to be acting in a way which deviates from the unwritten rules of society and socialising.  The problem with this when judging abnormality is that these rules vary between cultures.  For example, certain gestures would be considered offensive in some cultures whereas in others they may not.  This may mean that a person may not respond to or may respond in an ‘abnormal’ way to certain gestures and therefore they maybe considered abnormal.  The problem with violation from moral and ideal standards is similar to the problems I discussed for the deviation from social norms definition in that a person may be considered abnormal in this category despite not been in their relevant society.  Overall, therefore simply for abiding by the rules of a different culture, under this definition, a person could be considered abnormal as they would display at least 2 and possibly more of the characteristics required to be.

        The deviation from statistical norm approach is also affected but just in that a person may be out the bounds of normality as some things are more common in certain cultures.    

        The deviation from ideal mental health may also give an abnormal outcome simply because factors included in this definition are not goals strived by all cultures for a person to be normal.  For example a collectivist society would not strive for total autonomy like people in Western society.

        In conclusion, therefore, all the definitions of abnormality are limited by cultural problems but to different extents.  This cultural division problem means that experimentation is limited to one culture and therefore conclusions of investigations cannot be generalised effectively to incorporate many different cultures.  Therefore it is difficult and possibly very inaccurate to judge people from other cultures by our standards and to class them as abnormal because of this.