DEFINING ABNORMALITY
Difficulty in distinguishing normal from abnormal behavior, psychologists have struggled to devise a precise, scientific definition of "abnormal behavior."

Advantages and Disadvantages:

Abnormality as deviation from the average – to employ this statistically based approach, we simply observe what behaviors are rare or occur infrequently in a particular society or culture and label those deviations from the norm "abnormal."
Abnormality as deviation from the ideal – an alternative approach considers abnormality in relation to the standard toward which most people are striving—the ideal. This sort of definition considers behavior abnormal if it deviates enough from some kind of ideal or cultural standard. Society has so few standards on which people agree, and because the standards that do arise tend to change over time and vary across cultures, the deviation-from-the-ideal approach is inadequate.
Abnormality as a sense of personal discomfort –......

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Title: Disorders
Approximate Word Count: 1272
Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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