Bam 13A

With reference to research, examine the concepts of normality and abnormality.

Abnormal behaviour or psychological disorders is difficult to define and therefore,
difficult to diagnose. It cannot be assure that one person certain behaviour is normal or
abnormal, and moreover what is normal and what is abnormal. Psychologists use a
standardized system called a diagnostic manual to help them, however, the symptoms of
the same psychological disorders can vary between individuals and also between social
and cultural groups. Besides, psychiatric diagnosis can also be bias or wrong and the
definition can change over time. Thus, there are four ways that can define abnormality,
however, they can be limited by cultural relativism.
The first way is to define abnormality as statistically infrequent behaviour. Where a
persons trait, thinking or behaviour is classified as abnormal if it is rare or statistically
unusual or behaving in ways the majority does not behave in or vise versa. For example,
a majority of people in a country is heterosexual, and the minority is homosexual, by this
definition homosexuality is abnormal. However, this definition fails to take into account
the social desirability of minority behaviours or characteristics. For example, being
creative is minority behaviour, however, it is socially desirable.
Moreover, there can be some behaviours which are statistically frequent however, are
socially undesirable or classified as mental disorders. Child abuse, is very common and in
this definition, it is the majority, nevertheless it is a wrong thing to do. Most importantly,
the statistical frequency of a behaviour can differ between cultures, so this definition is
bound by culture. For example, in Thailand, people greet each other using wai,
however, in other countries around the world there is no such gesture. Therefore, does it
consider as being abnormal if it is a tradition and a culture.
Norms are expected ways of behaving in a society according to the majority and those
members of a society who do not think and behave like everyone else break these norms
and are often defined as abnormal. This is another way to define abnormality, when there
is a deviation from social norms. Their behaviour may make other people feel threatened
or uncomfortable and being incomprehensible to others, violating a societys implicit or
explicit social norms. Dropping litter would be an abnormal behaviour in ones culture, as
it is against the law about littering for example. Not queuing when waiting for a bus
could also be considered as abnormal in ones culture, even though there is no law, there is
an implicit social norm about queuing at bus stop.
Conversely, different cultures have different social norms, what is considered normal in
one culture may be abnormal in another. Where this is bound by culture, the way in
Japanese behave at a restaurant is incomprehensible the Chinese. Chinese will be
considered as inappropriate and rude to the Japanese, and therefore is not accepted. No
culture can tell another culture what is abnormal or normal.
Another way is defining abnormality as a failure to function adequately, a person is
considered abnormal if they are unable to cope with the demands of everyday life. When
a person is unable to perform the behaviour necessary for day-to-day living, such as self

Bam 13A
care, hold down a job and interact meaningfully with others. A case study from Rosenhan
and Seligman, 1989 lists the characteristics of a person that could possibly be considered
as abnormal. For example, being maladaptiverness, causing danger to themselves,
showing vividness and unconventionality, violates moral, unpredictability and loss of
control.
The limitation to this is that the behaviour, which might be considered a failure to
function adequately in one culture, might be viewed as functioning adequately in another
culture. For instance, in most culture, the game of dominoes is a very quiet affair,
however, in West Indian culture, the game is wild and loud where other culture would
considered it as bizarre. Therefore, cultural relativism means that we have to be careful
before we label bizarre to other peoples behaviour.
Lastly, abnormal can be define as a deviation from ideal mental health. In this case,
abnormality is possessing characteristics the mentally healthy person should not possess,
or not possessing characteristics of a mentally healthy person. The characteristics of an
ideal mental health by Maria Johoda, 1958 are the capability for growth and
development, positive view of the self, accurate perception of reality and positive
friendships and relationship, for example.
This can be limited by cultural relativism as different cultures have different ideals. What
is considered to be healthy in one culture is not necessary considered healthy in another.
Even within a culture, healthiness is determined by the context in which a behaviour
occurs. For instance, when a person takes off clothes in order to get into the bath is
healthy thing to do, however, taking clothes off to go to shopping is not. Additionally,
other cultures may disagree with the ideals of autonomy and independence, and view
other characteristics as more important.
These definitions are useful and can be applied to many cases. Nonetheless, there is no
general agreement on which is right and is the best one. Therefore, they use a multiple
perspectives approach where they use all the definitions to make a decision whether a
behaviour is abnormal or normal. Still, the main limitation to this is the idea of cultural
relativism, what may be considered as perfectly normal in one culture can be seen as
abnormal to other cultures.

Word Count; 907