Schizophrenia
Describe & evaluate explanations of schizophrenia (1 bioloigcal & 1 psychological).
One explanation of schizophrenia is genetics. Gottesman (1991) summarized about 40 twin studies; the concordance rate was 48% for monozygotic twins, and 17% concordance for dizygotic twins. This suggests that there is a link between genes and schizophrenia, but this does not apply to the whole population, as twins are not typical of the general population. Twin studies only take very small sample sizes. Also the twins share the same environment, which could also be the reason why both twins develop schizophrenia. Gottesman also reviewed concordance rates in family studies. If both your parents have schizophrenia, then you have a 46% chance of developing schizophrenia as well, if one parent has schizophrenia it is 16%, if a sibling has it then the concordance rate is 8% and the concordance rate is 1% for a random individual. This suggests that the stronger the genetic link the greater the chance that you will get schizophrenia. However, the fact that family members who are more similar genetically tend to spend more time together means that environmental factors are also indicated in this evidence. The concept that genetic factors are important in producing schizophrenia is supported by adoption studies. Tienari (1991) managed to find 155 schizophrenic mothers who had given up their children for adoption, and they were compared against 155 adopted children not having a schizophrenic parent. There was a large difference between these two groups, 10.3% of those with schizophrenic mothers had developed schizophrenia compared with only 1.1% of those without schizophrenic mothers. This suggests that genetics do play a part, but not completely based on genetics. Kety et al. (1978) considered adults who had been adopted at an early age between 1924 and 1947. Half had been diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia and the other half had not. The two groups were matched on variables such as sex and age. The rate of schizophrenia was greater among the biological relatives of those with schizophrenia than those without, which is as expected if genetic factors are important. The rate of schizophrenia did not differ for adoptive families that had adopted a child who became, or did not become, schizophrenic. This suggests that environmental factors had little impact on the development of schizophrenia. Although Kety et al.’s findings support the importance of genetic factors in schizophrenia; these statistics were gathered from a time-span of over 70 years.
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Peer Reviews
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Quality of writing
The Quality of Written Communication is brilliant. This candidate is either an exceptional writer or has re-read their answer and spell/grammar checked it. Presuming the latter, it is always a very good practice to get used to, as we as humans make so many unconscious errors when we write or type and sometime these errors can slip past the spell-checker. I would like to have seen a better use of psychological terminology like "longitudinal" and "anxiety disorder"/"affective disorder"/"psychotic disorder", as this would further strengthen the candidate's answer, fortifying it with plenty of indication that they possesses a deep-set understanding of psychology and it's language.
Level of analysis
The Level of Analysis for the evaluation of the biological approach is better than the evaluation of the psychodynamic approach. There is sufficient analysis (though sporadic) evident in the first part of the answer but only about three lines worth of analysis hastily bolted onto the end of the explanation of the psychodynamic explanation for schizophrenia, although I believe this is not a great issue, because whilst there is always a danger when opting for the psychodynamic approach that the explanation will outweigh the evaluation, much of the understanding and comprehension marks are harder to get due to the very complex nature of the approach. I would though suggest a less obvious evaluative point could be used (temporal validity is a very easy one), such as the lack of credibility in modern day Psychology which has easier methods of explanation to comprehend and also has cheaper therapy plans (psychodynamic therapy is very time-consuming and enormously expensive, whereas antibiotics are relatively cheap), so there are practical issues with psychodynamic treatment.
Response to question
The candidate responds well to the question, dealing with two very significant approaches to psychology and how they would explain disorders (in this case, the psychotic disorder, schizophrenia). The candidate shows a bias towards the explanation and evaluations of the biological approach, and they explain is sufficient detail three psychological studies and evaluated each one in comparison to just one theoretical understanding of the development of schizophrenia for with the psychodynamic approach. In further questions, candidate should look to balance their answer, and thus should dedicate two theories with supporting evidence for each of the explanation they are asked for, to show a broader range of knowledge about all aspects of psychology, rather than show a bias towards one particular approach.
