Abnormal Psychology Course Research Articles

Use of Virtual Reality Technology to Enhance Undergraduate Learning in Abnormal Psychology

We examined whether using virtual reality (VR) technology to provide students with direct exposure to evidence-based psychological treatment approaches would enhance their understanding of and appreciation for such treatments. Students enrolled in an abnormal psychology course participated in a VR session designed to help clients overcome the fear of flying. We assessed students' understanding of how cognitive behavioral, exposure-based therapies work, as well as their attitudes toward various forms of intervention, prior to and after their participation in the VR session. We found that incorporating firsthand experience with evidence-based psychological treatments, such as VR exposure for overcoming the fear of flying, can be useful in enhancing students' understanding of such treatments.

Changes in Attitudes Towards Mental illness after Exposure to a Course in Abnormal Psychology among Students of a Nigerian University.

Background Several community studies in Nigeria of attitudes towards mental illness suggest low knowledge and a deep-seated negative attitude about the illness . Little is known about the effect of education in changing these rather negative views. Aims To determine the effects of exposure to a 13 week course in Abnormal Psychology on a follow-up assessment of knowledge and attitudes of undergraduate students of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria towards mental illness. Method All 140 students who registered for Abnormal Psychology: course code Psy 202 in the 2004/2005 academic session were first assessed at baseline (the first day of lecture) and at after 13 weeks (26 hours) the end of course evaluation. The response rate was 100% at both baseline and at follow-up. Results At the follow-up evaluation, knowledge about mental illness was significantly higher in all the items measured. There were non-significant changes in all items assessing stigma of mental illness except in the items indicating feeling upset or disturbed working in the same job and maintaining a friendship with someone with mental illness respectively. A significant favourable change was observed in the students perception towards group homes in the neighbourhood for people with mental illness. No significant changes were observed in attitudes toward human rights of the mentally ill, except regarding an item stating that mentally ill individuals should not have children in order to avoid heredity handicaps, with which a lower percentage agreed. Conclusions Poor knowledge and stigmatization of mental illness still exist among undergraduate students in Nigeria. While exposure to a course in abnormal psychology was effective in changing knowledge, there were still some aspects of stigma that were not amenable to education. Nigerian Journal of Psychiatry Vol. 5 (1) 2007: pp. 38-41

An Experiential Learning Activity Demonstrating Normal and Phobic Anxiety

This article describes an activity for an undergraduate abnormal psychology course that used student-generated data to illustrate normal versus clinically significant anxiety responses related to specific phobias. Students (N = 37) viewed 14 images of low- or high-anxiety valence and rated their subjective response to each. Discussion in a subsequent class focused on differentiating normal from pathological fear and the theory of predisposed, evolution-linked phobias. Students indicated the exercise was interesting and contributed to their understanding of specific and social phobias.

Review of Introduction to Clinical Psychology: An Evidence-Based Approach.

JOHN HUNSLEY and CATHERINE M. LEE Introduction to Clinical Psychology: An Evidence-Based Approach Mississauga, ON: John Wiley & Sons, 2006, 594 pages (ISBN 0-470-83580-X, US$92.95, Hardcover) Reviewed by DEBORAH DOBSON Introduction to Clinical Psychology: An Evidence Based Approach is intended to be a textbook for a senior undergraduate or beginning graduate course in clinical psychology. This goal is easily met and the text is a welcome addition to the choices that are available. The authors are leaders within the field, advocating for the use of empirically supported treatments for children, adolescents, and adult clients. This text is both similar to and different from other introductory clinical psychology books (e.g., Nietzel, Bernstein, & Milich, 2003; Todd & Bohart, 2005). The differences include a focus not only upon information relevant to the Canadian context but other countries around the world, particularly the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Another difference is that the expectations upon the reader are greater than most other texts encountered. The writing is sophisticated, in depth, and detailed, which would likely lead to greater understanding of the controversies, issues, and questions that are being raised in the field. I have found many undergraduate texts quite simplistic, a mistake that Hunsley and Lee did not make. It is well organized, clear, and interesting to read, making it appealing to most students. There is an excellent balance of research, viewpoints, clinical examples, and topics. It is, of course, similar to other introductory clinical textbooks in that all of the basics are covered, such as history, ethics, assessment, and interventions. The level of detail is sufficient, but not overwhelming for its purpose. The first chapter does a good job of emphasizing the impact of mental health issues and the need for the profession of clinical psychology. Throughout the text, Hunsley and Lee place clinical psychology solidly within the scientist-practitioner model. Comments regarding how a psychologist might function within interdisciplinary teams in different work settings could have been added, as most practitioners work in such teams. The ongoing debate regarding different models of training and practice is acknowledged. The breadth of the field is covered in Chapter 2. The enthusiasm of the practitioners providing details for the profile boxes in this and many other chapters is infectious. Good choices of practitioners and researchers were made, ranging in this chapter from an outpatient adult public setting to university training clinic to private practice. The reader certainly will come away with a good sense of the diversity of settings and work activities that a clinical psychologist can participate in. Canadian readers will find profiles of individuals that they have met, worked with, read papers written by, or otherwise are familiar with. It was a pleasure to have the efforts of so many colleagues acknowledged throughout this text. Debates, such as the one surrounding prescription privileges, are addressed and will provide a starting point for classroom discussions. Many students ask about training and Hunsley and Lee address the issue thoroughly in Chapter 2 as well as in Appendix 2. A list of accredited internships could have been included following the list of training programs. The next sections cover classification, diagnosis, research methods, and assessment. The background on classification and diagnosis is relatively brief, which is useful, considering virtually all students reading this text already have taken a course in abnormal psychology. Redundancy with introductory psychology texts tends to be a problem with many senior level course books. The major issues are noted, including limitations of diagnosis and of the DSM-IV. Somewhat more coverage of other classification systems could have been included for more balance. Similarly, the next chapter on research methods covers the basics as applied to clinical psychology, but is not likely to be redundant for the student. …

Conversation with Conan Kornetsky.

Conversation with Conan Kornetsky.

Lessons about Gay and Lesbian Lives: A Spaceship Exercise

We designed an active learning activity to allow students to experience stereotyping and consider the social stigma often directed toward gays and lesbians. We used an unusual fictional scenario to alleviate students' concerns about impression management and permit them to experience the role of someone faced with discrimination without the automatic recognition of gay stereotypes. Sixty-eight undergraduates gave the activity positive evaluations along a variety of dimensions. Although the long-term effect remains unclear, analysis of students' pretest and posttest scores on the Homophobia Scale (Wright, Adams, & Bernat, 1999) suggested that this activity fosters more positive attitudes toward gays and lesbians. This exercise is suitable for introductory, social, educational, clinical, and abnormal psychology courses.

A Case-Conference Exercise to Facilitate Understanding of Paradigms in Abnormal Psychology

In this article we describe an in-class case-conference exercise designed to enhance the teaching of paradigms in abnormal psychology courses. The primary pedagogical goals are to increase awareness of how paradigms are applied in real-life settings; better distinguish between paradigms; and recognize how paradigms influence understanding of etiology, assessment, and treatment. A pretest–posttest evaluation of paradigm-related knowledge and student ratings of the exercise from 2 classes support the effectiveness of the exercise. The exercise makes it possible for instructors to more effectively use paradigms as heuristic themes throughout the course.

Problem-Based Service Learning: The Evolution of a Team Project

In this article, I describe the evolution of a problem-based service learning project in an undergraduate Abnormal Psychology course. Students worked in teams on a semester-long project to locate and evaluate information and treatment for specific psychiatric disorders. As part of the project, each team selected relevant bibliographic materials, made site visits to area treatment facilities, and prepared resource materials for people in the community seeking information on psychiatric disorders. I modified the process but not the content of the project over 4 semesters. Student evaluations improved significantly after I implemented students' suggested changes.

Incorporating Published Autobiographies into the Abnormal Psychology Course

Published autobiographies written by individuals suffering from mental disorders can enrich abnormal psychology courses by complementing the outside-looking-in perspective of textbooks with an insider perspective. Autobiographies can serve as outside readings, lecture examples, primary texts for discussion sections, extra-credit assignments, and source books for topical seminars. Students favorably rated the pedagogical value of such autobiographies in 3 separate evaluations. We present a condensed autobiography review form and a Web site address for an annotated list of autobiographies.

Social and Abnormal Psychology Textbooks: An Objective Analysis

Given the increased demand for undergraduate psychology courses beyond the introductory level, research on textbooks for such courses is surprisingly sparse. This study partially rectifies this problem. Because social and abnormal psychology are the two most frequently listed advanced courses in college catalogs (Perlman & McCann, 1999), we provide feature and content analyses of the 14 social psychology and 17 abnormal psychology survey texts published from 1995 to 1998. We also furnish comparisons between these two types of tesxts and introductory psychology texts. These analyses and comparisons should greatly facilitate the text selection process for teachers of social and abnormal psychology courses.

Beyond the Sponge Model: Encouraging Students' Questioning Skills in Abnormal Psychology

Much of education emphasizes an “answers-by-the-experts” and “student-as-sponge” orientation, thereby failing to encourage students' questioning behavior, an essential component of critical thinking. We argue that educators should provide students with explicit training in asking critical questions. We describe such a training strategy taught in 2 recent abnormal psychology courses. At the beginning of both courses, students completed a pretest for which they asked questions after reading an essay. On an identical posttest at the end of the courses, students asked significantly more questions overall and particularly asked significantly more critical evaluation questions. The results support the promise of using explicit questioning training in promoting the evaluative aspects of critical thinking.

Transforming Coverage of Primary Prevention in Abnormal Psychology Courses

A comprehensive understanding of abnormal psychology requires coverage of recent advances in primary prevention that are documented by empirical research. We describe a brief conceptual scheme and exemplary studies for presenting primary prevention in abnormal psychology courses and suggest resources and teaching methods for instructors. Our approach assumes that clinical and community psychology are conceptually distinct but complementary fields; the study of prevention not only connects them but provides a useful perspective for understanding abnormal psychology. Our concern with integrating primary prevention into abnormal psychology courses goes beyond articles on more specialized courses on community and preventive psychology recently published in Teaching of Psychology.

Jeopardy© in Abnormal Psychology

A version of the Jeopardy© game is described for use in an abnormal psychology course. This game can increase student interaction, encourage the application of information, and add a light touch to a subject that is sometimes distressing to students.

Questioning the Conventional Wisdom and Critiquing Unconventional Perspectives in Abnormal Psychology: A Written Exercise

This article describes a teaching exercise used in an undergraduate abnormal psychology course to strengthen students' critical-thinking abilities. Students complete a term paper critiquing a book that is itself a critique of the conventional wisdom in the field. Several books representing a variety of unconventional perspectives are available. The exercise aims at increasing students' historical perspective on the field and at confronting them with controversial issues. It also requires students to engage in an active dialogue with their instructor about an issue raised by the book. This dialogue culminates in the students defining a clear personal position on that issue. The exercise is consistent with an active approach to learning.

A HyperCard stack for the creation of graphically organized glossaries

Many students find it difficult to transform expository text and lectures into well-organized mental constructs. Studies show that learning of this type can be enhanced by the use of graphic organizers that depict relationships among concepts by diagramming them as a tree structure. In order to incorporate all concepts taught in a course into a single graphic organizer, a HyperCard authoring shell was developed to expedite drawing tree diagrams and linking each concept in the diagram to a definition. The authoring features of the stack and its application to an abnormal psychology course are discussed in this article.

Educational equivalents of psychotherapy: Positive and negative mental health benefits after group therapy exercises by college students

In abnormal psychology courses, exercises that simulated group therapy markedly improved the mental health of students. Although the exercises were limited to two or four class sessions, and were relatively narrow in focus (on the “ABCs” of Rational-Emotive Therapy, and on script techniques for personal assertiveness), they consistently produced decreased emotional distress, increased satisfaction with life, and increased self-esteem. In three studies, measures of reduced distress (negative affect) and of increased satisfaction and self-esteem (positive affect) were significantly correlated, but they provided measure-specific, as well as conjoint, evidence of multiple global benefits.

Students' Evaluation of Writing Assignments in an Abnormal Psychology Course

Students in an abnormal psychology class rated the usefulness of drafts for two writing assignments: a case-study reaction paper and a research proposal. Evaluative data indicated that the research proposal was more effective than the case study in developing students' interest in psychokjgy. Students indicated that they valued the research proposal mostly for the opportunity to be creative; they valued the case study mostly for the opportunity to read an interesting book. Writing assignments and feedback to students should reflect important aspects of a discipline, and a clear rationale for the value of writing skills should be communicated to students.

Clergy's Knowledge of Psychopathology

Although the literature suggests that clergy provide a substantial amount of psychotherapeutic counseling, and that potential clients seek out the clergy as a primary source of psychotherapeutic assistance, little is known about the degree of knowledge that clergy have about basic psychopathology. A 120-item multiple choice test was developed to assess knowledge about psychopathology, based on the material covered in Abnormal Psychology courses. The test was administered to clinical psychologists, graduate students in Clinical and Counseling programs, undergraduate students in Abnormal and in Introductory Psychology, and to clergy including Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis, Protestant ministers, Eastern religious leaders and those in nontraditional ministries. Clergy scored lowest of all groups, indicating a lack of exposure to basic material and/or lack of knowledge of psychopathology.

Undergraduate Role Players as “Clients” for Graduate Counseling Students

We describe two exercises using undergraduates from abnormal psychology courses to act as role-play clients for graduate counselor–trainees. The first exercise involves mock counseling sessions; the second is a mock case conference. We grade graduates on their counseling and case-conceptualization skills. Undergraduates participate as ungraded volunteers. We believe that graduate students benefit from the challenge and honest feedback that undergraduate role players provide. Undergraduates reported academic benefits and increased empathy for the characters they played. The exercises seem to be educationally beneficial and may also help decrease undergraduates' negative stereotyping of persons with psychological problems.

HYPNOTIC SUGGESTIBILITY AND PARANORMAL BELIEF

Summary.-The beliefs of upperclass college students (208) toward the paranormal were correlated with scores on the Harvard Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility and several personality measures. The Harvard scale scores correlated significantly with reported psychic experiences. church attendance, Taylor's Anxiety Scale, Adorno's Stereotypy/Superstition, and attitudes toward parapsychology and the supernatural. It has been suggested that people who accept pseudoscientific, paranormal, or supernatural explanations for events and/or experiences may be more gullible (4), do not understand the concepts of coincidence and probability (5), are capable of critical thinking (2), and have scientific education (8). However, Tobacyk and Mitchell (11) have not noted poorer personality adjustment among those who report out-of-body experiences. Further, Tobacyk and Milford (10) found uncritical inference only relared to less common ~aranormal beliefs and irrational beliefs related onlv to suoerstition. Hilgard (6) found that hypnotic suggestibility did not seem to be related to suggestibility (defined as gullibility or persuasibility). However, since it could be argued chat hypnosis does involve imagery, imagination, and acceptance of phenomenal experiences suggested by an authority, it was hypothesized that there would be a relationship berween suggesribility to hypnosis (as measured by the Haward Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibiliry) and attirudes toward the paranormal. Two hundred and eighc college srudents in an abnormal psychology course taking at leasc their second course in psychology were administered the Harvard scale, a questionnaire (12) containing five questions relating to belief in parapsychology (can be studied scientifically, is not a crick, telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis), four items about the supernatural/occulr (stars influence personality, UFOs exist, cards can predict the future, and mediums can contact spirits of the dead), the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (9). the dogmatism scale (7). the srereotypy/superstition subscale (1) which is supposed to measure the disposition to think in a rigid way and to believe in mystical determinants of one's destiny, and a variety of biographical items including frequency of church attendance, and personal psychic experiences. Responses to belief and dogmatism items were made on five-point Likert-type scales. Table 1 presents the significant Pearson correlations found. While Hilgard (6) reported that scores on the Harvard scale were related to few other measures, it certainly seems here to be associated with supernatural and paranormal beliefs and psychic experiences. The significant association of paranormal with supernatural beliefs, as well as the stereotypy correlations suggest that there may be a core of anitudes which may cause concern for critics of the paranormal (2, 8). These critics would argue that Civilized Society today requires adults who rely upon pseudoscience and more upon rational and objective information ro make intelligent and informed decisions in an increasingly complex technological world. While supporters of experirnen