Behavioural explanation
Symptoms of schizophrenic due to faulty leaning, as liberman said “due to child receiving little or no social reinforcement in early life due to parental disinterest. Makes child behave in a deviant way and focus on irrelevant environmental cues. E.g. the sound of a word rather than its meaning, thus making a person seem abnormal, as this would affect a person verbal and physical behaviour
AO2
Supported by the success of behavioural therapies, used in treating schizophrenia.
Support comes from roder who found that social skills training helps schizos gain social skills, as they were able to interact with wider community.
Cognitive
Suggest a diathesis relationship as further features of the disorder appear as individuals try to understand them, when the schizo first hears voices they turn to others to validate this., when others fail to validate this they believe they are hiding from the truth, and reject further feedback leading them to develop delusional beliefs.
AO2
Much evidence for cognitive deficits associated with schizos
Meyer et al found a link between the symptoms of schizo and reduced activity in prefrontal, thus their brains behave abnormally.
Sociocultural factors
Life events which cause extreme stress e.g. death, bereavement are all triggers which can lead to schizo
Following this claim, brown et al found that schizos appear to experience a major stress event 3 weeks prior to schizo episode
A02
Van os et al, found no link between stressful life events and schizo,
To criticise, evidence to suggest life events can lead to schizo is cause and effect therefore maybe affected by others factors not considered
Another criticism is that, many psychologists believe it is misunderstood, and suggest that schizo is a mental illness which can lead to loss, thus can lead to stress, therefore it creates large amounts of controversy.
Family relationships A01
Children who receive contradictory messages are likely to develop schizo e.g. if their mothers voice and body language implies different meanings, this will cause confusion in child, hence due to conflicting messages. This will be applied to surroundings and child will face confusion over surroundings in the long term lead to delusional beliefs, schizo.
