Friday, April 18, 2014

Are You Normal?

In my current course, Abnormal Psychology, we are discussing normalcy. What is normal to most people? What is normal according to psychologists?Is there a such thing as normal?

What appears as abnormal might not be. Think about the last person who you saw displaying what appears to be very abnormal behavior (maybe sitting on a bench, hysterically crying and rocking back and forth). You might think that person is behaving abnormally. But imagine if 30 seconds before you saw them, that person had just gotten a phone call that their entire immediate family had been killed in a car accident. You probably wouldn't think that was so abnormal, then.

Of course, behavior that some people--such as serial killers--display is not normal, but some things are completely normal responses to life occurrences.

And then there are cultural differences to take into consideration. What is normal in one culture may seem "abnormal" to others.

So, what does "normal" mean?

2 comments:

  1. Yes there are many behaviors that a person may show that without further investigation one might think that persons behavior is not normal but normal behavior is also relative to the culture that a person grows up in. This blog was very interesting and makes a valid point about behavior great blog.

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