Chapter 2: An Integrative Approach to Psychopathology
One-Dimensional versus Multidimensional Models
What Caused Judy’s Phobia?
* She saw a movie with graphic scenes of blood and injury and had
a bad reaction to it.
Behavioural Influence
- Conditioned response to sight of blood: similar situations–even
words–produce same reaction.
- Tendency to escape and avoid situations involving blood.
* Judy experienced a vasovagal syncope, which is a common cause
of fainting.
> Syncope means “sinking feeling” or “swoon” caused by
low blood pressure in the head.
> vasovagal syncope is an overreaction of a mechanism
called the sinoaortic baroreflex arc, which compensates for sudden
increases in blood pressure by lowering it.
Biological Influence
- Inherited overreactive sinoaortic baroreflex arc.
- Vasovagal syncope: heart rate and blood pressure increase, body
overcompensates.
- Light-headedness and queasiness.
- Judy faints.
* Judy’s fear and anxiety play in the development of her phobia.
Emotional influence
- Increased fear and anxiety.
* Judy’s friends and family rushed to her aid when she fainted.
Social Influence
- Judy’s fainting causes disruptions in school and home:
Friends and family rush to help her.
Principal suspends her.
Doctors say nothing is physically wrong.
Genetic Contributions to Psychopathology
- Genes; long molecules of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) at various
locations on chromosomes, within the cell nucleus.
- Some of our characteristics are strongly determined by one or
more genes, including natural hair color and eye color.
* Disorders Determine by genes
1. Hungtingtons’ Disease; a degenerative brain disease that appears
in early to middle age, usually the early 40s. This disease has been
traced to a genetic defect that causes deterioration in a specific
area of the brain, the basal ganglia.
2. phenylketonuria (PKU); which can result in intellectual disability
(previously called “mental retardation”). This disorder, present at
birth, is caused by the inability of the body to metabolize (break
down) phenylalanine, a chemical compound found in many foods.
The Nature of Genes
- Normal human cell has 46 chromosomes arrange in 23 pairs.
- first 22 pairs of chromosomes provide programs or directions for
the development of the body and brain - the last pair, called the sex
chromosomes, determines an individual’s sex.
> In females, both chromosomes in the 23rd pair are called
X chromosomes.
> In males, the mother contributes an X chromosome but
the father contributes a Y chromosome.
- DNA molecule contain double helix (double helix is two spirals
intertwined, turning in opposite directions)
> Shape of helix; spiral staircase.
> A dominant gene is one of a pair of genes that strongly
influences a particular trait, and we need only one of them to
determine
> A recessive gene, by contrast, must be paired with
another (recessive) gene to determine a trait.
- Mendelian laws of genetics we can predict fairly accurately how
many offspring will develop a certain trait, characteristic, or
disorder, depending on whether one or both of the parents carry
that dominant gene.
> Polygenic; influenced by many genes
> Genome; individual set of genes
- Quantitative genetics; basically sums up all the tiny effects across
many genes without necessarily telling us which genes are
responsible for which effects.
- Molecular genetics; focuses on examining the actual structure of
genes with increasingly advanced technologies such as DNA micro-
arrays; (these technologies allow scientists to analyze thousands of
genes at once and identify broad networks of genes that may be
contributing to a particular trait)
- Hundred of genes can contribute the heritability in a single trait.
New Developments in the Study of Genes and Behavior
- Estimate attributes about half of our enduring personality traits
and cognitive abilities to genetic influence
- “chaotic” childhood can overwhelm the influence of genes.
- Psychological disorders, the evidence indicates that genetic factors
make some contribution to all disorders but account for less than
half of the explanation.
- specific genes or small groups of genes may ultimately be found to
be associated with certain psychological disorders.
> psychological disorders come from many genes, each hav-
ing a relatively small effect.
- genetic contributions cannot be studied in the absence of inter-
actions with events in the environment that trigger genetic
vulnerability or “turn on” specific genes.
The Interaction of Genes and the Environment
- The environment may occasion- ally turn on certain genes.
> lead to changes in the number of receptors at the end of a
neuron
> affect biochemical functioning in the brain.
- the brain and its functions are plastic, subject to continual change
in response to the environment, even at the level of genetic
structure.
* Model that receive most attention
1. The Diathesis–Stress Model; individuals inherit tendencies to
express certain traits or behaviors, which may then be activated
under conditions of stress.
Example: Judy inherited a tendency to faint at the sight of blood.
This tendency is the diathesis, or vulnerability.
> - diathesis, a condition that makes someone susceptible to
developing a disorder.
- diathesis is genetically based and the stress is environmental but
that they must interact to produce a disorder.
- The smaller the vulnerability, the greater the life stress required
producing the disorder; conversely, with greater vulnerability, less
life stress is required.
- chemical transporter; gene that produces a substance that affect
transmission of serotonin in the brain.
- serotonin; one of neurotransmitter & particularly implicated in
depression and related disorders.
- gene that Caspi et al or alleles
- individuals with at least two copies of the long allele (LL) were
able to cope better with stress than individuals with two copies of
the short allele (SS).
> people with two S alleles, the risk for having a major
depressive episode doubled if they had at least four stressful life
events; severe and stressful maltreatment during childhood more
than doubled their risks of depression in adulthood.
 > individuals carrying the LL alleles, stressful childhood Summary:
experiences did not affect the incidence of depression in adulthood; - a complex interaction between genes and the environment plays
depression in the LL allele group seems related to stress in their an important role in every psychological disorder.
recent past rather than childhood experiences. - Our genetic endowment does contribute to our behavior, our
2. The Gene–Environment Correlation Model; indicates that it emotions, and our cognitive processes and constrains the influence
applies to the development of depression. of environmental factors.
- Interrelationships between genes and environment to be even - Environmental events, in turn, seem to affect our very genetic
more complex. structure by determining whether certain genes are activated or not
- genetic endowment may increase the probability that an individual > strong environmental influences alone may be sufficient
will experience stressful life events. to override genetic diathese.
Example; people with a genetic vulnerability to develop a certain - neither nature (genes) nor nurture (environmental events) alone,
disorder, such as blood–injection–injury phobia, may also have a but rather a complex interaction of the two, influences the
personality trait. development of our behavior and personalities.
> these people, then, might have a genetically determined
tendency to create the very environmental risk factors that trigger a
genetic vulnerability to blood–injection–injury phobia.
Epigenetics and the Nongenomic “Inheritance” of Behavior
- epigenetics; means on or around) and that stress, nutrition, or
other factors can affect this epigenome, which is then immediately
passed down to the next generation and maybe for several
generations.
> genome itself isn’t changed, so if the stressful or
inadequate environment disappears, eventually the epigenome will
fade.
- conceptualizations of the role of genetic contributions as only
constraining environmental influences have implications for
preventing unwanted personality traits or temperaments and even
psychological disorders.
> environmental manipulations, particularly early in life,
may do much to override the genetically influenced tendency to
develop undesirable behavioral and emotional reactions.