Outline two Biological explanations into Depression.
Outline two Biological explanations into Depression Depression according to Comer 1995 is a low, sad state in which life seems bleak and its challenge overwhelming. Depression is a mood, or affective disorder in which a sustained emotional state colours a person's perceptions, thoughts and behaviour. Clinical depression occurs when depression becomes hard to break out of, lasts a long time and affects a person's ability to function normally. There are many explanations into depression one of which being the biological explanation. There are two main biological explanations the first being genetics. Research has pointed towards depression being an inherited illness, evidence of such genetic factors come from family studies, twin studies and adoption studies. Family studies point towards the idea that depression runs in the family. Herrington et al (1993) estimate that up to 29% of the relatives of people diagnosed with depression are also affected, in comparison to the 5-10% of those in the general population. Twin studies suggest that as like schizophrenia, depression has a higher concurrence rate when it comes to monozygotic (MZ) twins compared to dizygotic (DZ) twins. Research by Bertelsen et al (1977) estimated that in a Danish sample the concordance rate for MZ twins was 43% in comparison to the 20% in DZ twins. However the same pattern is not proved true for all
Compare and contrast two explanations of depression.
Compare and contrast two explanations of depression. There are two types of depression, Bipolar and Unipolar both of which effect mood of the patient. Unipolar depression is where the person feels 'low' the majority of the time and have the following clinical characteristics: The emotional symptoms of unipolar depression are that the person feels intense feelings of guilt and a lack of enjoyment in activities that the individual previously enjoyed. Motivational symptoms can include difficulty in conducting actions as well as a lack of decision making. There are also cognitive and somatic symptoms which include negative thoughts and feelings of hopelessness (cognitive) as well as loss of energy, disturbance in weight and sleep (somatic). The clinical characteristics of Bipolar depression are also divided into four categories: Emotional, Cognitive. Somatic and motivational. Emotional characteristics are that if being euphorically happy then drastically changing into feeling of extreme sadness. The individual is also very irritable.Cognitive symptoms include an inflated self-esteem, racing thoughts and ideas as well as lack of attention however this may drastically change into feelings of hopelessness and dysfunctional thought. Somatic symptoms include decreased need of sleep as well as being fidgety and more talkative with rushed speech. Finally Motivational symptoms include
Discuss genetic explanations of aggression
Discuss genetic explanations of aggression: The genetic explanation of aggression suggests that aggressive behaviour is hereditary and is passed on through a person’s genes, which would cause aggression to run in families. Similarly your genes could cause you to have a vulnerability or predisposition to aggressive behaviour. Studies on this could be grouped into two types, twin studies and adoption studies. Twin studies compare the difference in concordance rates (likelihood of both twins being aggressive) for MZ and DZ twins. For example, McGuffin and Gottesmann (1985) found a concordance rate of 87% for aggressive and antisocial behaviour for MZ twins, compared with 72% for DZ twins. Adoption studies look at aggressive behaviour in children who have been brought up and influenced by adoptive parents not their biological parents. For instance Hutchings and Mednick (1973) reviewed over 14,000 adoptions in Denmark. They found a significant positive correlation between the number of convictions for criminal violence among the biological parents and the number of convictions for criminal violence among their adoptive sons. In addition, researchers have identified a number of ‘candidate genes’, genes that are thought to contribute to an increased risk of engaging in antisocial and aggressive behaviour. For instance, dysfunctions of serotonin and dopamine are known to
Depression- Biological Explanations
Discuss biological explanation of depression. (25 marks) In order for depression to be diagnosed the person needs to show at least five of these symptoms everyday for a minimum of two weeks. These clinical characteristics for depression can be emotional symptoms; this can involve sadness, melancholy, self-involvement, guilt and even thoughts of suicide. Another characteristic could be a lack of motivation including passivity, loss of interest and energy. The person could also have cognitive problems such as thoughts of hopelessness, pessimism and lack of self-esteem. Finally there can be somatic symptoms such as loss or increase of appetite and weight, and sleep disturbances. Depression is a mood disorder which can have different variations; Unipolar disorder is most common and most severe form of depression and bipolar disorder is where the condition occurs in episodes of depression, periods of normality and periods of mania. This can be caused genetics which can predispose the individual to the disorder. Furthermore we would expect to find that relatives have similar chances of developing the disorder. Evidence from this can come from twin studies; MZ twins share 100% of their genes whereas DZ twins only have 50%. If genes are to be a facto in depression we would expect a higher number of MZ twins to share the disorder. One study based on nearly 200 pairs of twins found
Discuss biological and psychological explanations of depression
Discuss biological and psychological explanations of depression (30marks) There is a key distinction between major depression (unipolar depression) and manic depression (bipolar depression). According to DSM-IV, major depressive episodes require 5 symptoms to occur nearly every day for a minimum of two weeks. These symptoms include emotional symptoms (sad, depressed mood), motivational symptoms (changes in activity levels, passivity), somatic symptoms (insomnia, hypersomnia), and cognitive symptoms (negative self concept, hopelessness). Patients with bipolar depression experience both depression and mania (a mood state involving elation, talkativeness, and unjustified high self esteem). Around 10% of men and 20% of women become clinically depressed at some time in their lives and over 90% of these people will suffer from unipolar rather than bipolar depression. In addition to the distinction between the two types of depression, unipolar depression is split into a further two categories; reactive depression- a reaction to a stressful event, such as the death of a loved one and the event triggers and episode of depression and endogenous depression- depression from within a person, for instance it may be due to hormonal imbalances. Endogenous depression is linked to biological factors, whereas with reactive depression an individual may have a genetic predisposition to
Discuss the genetic and biochemical explanations of schizophrenia
Discuss the genetic and biochemical explanations of schizophrenia (25 marks) Biological explanations have been used in attempting to explain many mental disorders. However, such explanations have proved more successful in accounting for the development of schizophrenia than most other disorders. Two main branches of this type of explanation are genetic factors, which explain schizophrenia through inheritance of abnormal genes; and biochemical factors, which explain schizophrenia through the presence of abnormal neurochemicals. Nonetheless, there is contrasting evidence for both and it has been suggested that you can't completely separate these explanations from each other as schizophrenia is a complex and multi-cause disorder. In order to use twin studies to support genetic explanations of schizophrenia, when one twin is known to be schizophrenic, researchers are interested in the probability that the other twin may also be. This is known as concordance. Gottesman (1991) summarised 40 twin studies and found that the concordance rate was 48% when a monozygotic or identical twin had schizophrenia, but only 17% when a dizygotic twin or non-identical twin had schizophrenia. These findings strongly suggest that genetic factors are important - the reason why identical twins have a much higher concordance rate than fraternal twins is because they are much more similar genetically
Examine Genetic Explanations for Aggression
Genetics Genetic explanations of aggression suggest that its genes that have a large impact on aggressive behaviour. A lot of studies have been conducted on monozygotic twins (MZ) who share the same genes or dizygotic twins (DZ) who don’t. Christianson conducted research with MZ and DZ twins finding that MZ twins had a higher concordance rate for criminality than DZ twins. Concluding that genes do have an impact on aggression and MZ twins are likely to show aggressive behaviour if another does. Supporting research was conducted by McGuffin. They found similar results to Christianson and found that MZ twins had higher concordance rates than DZ twins. This supports the claim that twins that share genes are more likely to both show aggressive behaviour. However both studies never showed 100% concordance rates which means that there must be other factors that contribute to aggression. Also another weakness is MZ twins get treated alike because they look the same. Evans et al argued that findings within twin studies had low validity as MZ twins get treated in the same way which could contribute to aggression. Furthermore, its measures was in criminality. Not all criminal offenses show aggressive behaviour such as stealing. Therefore, the findings validity is reduced. Alike, twin studies fail to consider the environment and how it may impact the likelihood of twins
Critically consider 2 or more psychological explanations of depression
Assignment title: Critically consider two or more psychological explanations of depression. The first psychological approach is the psychodynamic theory introduced by Sigmund Freud. This model suggests that major losses such as the loss of a job or rejection tend to increase the chance of developing depression in an individual. According to Freud, if an individuals fail to establish effective ways of dealing with such loss early on, they are likely to be depressed when confronted with another major loss. In this model, Freud also emphasised the significance of low self esteem in depression as a consequence of anger inward when encountering loss. For example the individual may believe that it is inappropriate to express their anger and therefore internalise it which leads to depression. One strength of the psychodynamic model of depression is that it has been supported by research in this area. For example Shah and Waller (2000) reported that many depression sufferers admitted to having affectionless parents. Given this, it could be argued that early loss is active in triggering later depression. In support of this Bifulco (1992) discovered that children were more likely to suffer depression later in life if their mothers had died during their childhood. However although this appears to be the case, we could argue that since their mothers had died, lack of necessary care
Looking at explanations for depression both biological and psychological gives strong evidence that depression is due to either one of the factors or in many places a little of each.
DEPRESSION Looking at explanations for depression both biological and psychological gives strong evidence that depression is due to either one of the factors or in many places a little of each. Looking closer at biological depression the main explanation is the genetic factor. First degree relatives who have mood disorders are more likely to develop one than with people who have relatives without this disorder. Allen (1976) showed a higher average concordance rate for bipolar disorder in MZs (72%) than DZs (14%). For major depression concordance rates are different suggesting that if genetic factors are involved they are different for the two disorders. Data is, however, limited as families and twins share the same environment. But this factor has been overuled by the adoption studies. Adopted children who later develop a mood disorder appear to be more likely to have a biological parent with a mood disorder, who becomes an alcoholic or commits suicide. Looking closer at DNA the gene SERT, occurs 10 to 12 times. However, people with depression have only 9 repeating sections, linked with serotonin. Fact that serotonin is strongly implicated in depression and new drugs interacts with serotonin leads us to think that genes may be involved in depression. Looking at biochemical influences as a biological factor, Schilknats proposed that too little noradrenaline causes
Critically discuss the view that eating disorders are caused by genetic and biological factors. With reference to the biological and genetic explanations whilst also trying to offer alternative explanations.
Critically discuss the view that eating disorders are caused by genetic and biological factors. With reference to the biological and genetic explanations whilst also trying to offer alternative explanations. Eating disorders are only one category of mental disorder but which affect the most amounts of people. Individuals with eating disorders have some problem with food for example they may over eat (obesity) or they may under eat (anorexia) or they may vomit repeatedly after binging on vast quantities of food (bulimia). There is evidence that such disorders may have a genetic basis but could also equally be triggered by biological factors. Anorexia Nervosa, to give it its full name, is literally a nervous lack of appetite. Brief explanations of some of the characteristics are as follows. - There is a deliberate and prolonged restriction of calorific intake and considerable weight loss with the weight usually falling to less than 85% of the person's normal weight. - They have an intense fear of gaining weight, but are often obsessed with food - They have a disturbed body image- they usually continue to see themselves as overweight - It is usually accompanied with amenorrhoea - It is largely a problem with middle class and adolescent girls. - Two types of anorexia have been identified; the restricting type (constant fasting) and the binge eating type (those who
