After doing some research on Abnormal Psychology, I found a website that encompasses a lot of important information about it. While reading, I discovered that abnormal psychology is the study of people who are considered "abnormal" by the society in which they live in based on their actions. People who are classified as abnormal have behavior that is statistically infrequent and rare. However, these infrequencies don't necessarily deem a person as abnormal because their actions may be because they are more gifted than the usual person. Discovering if a person is truly abnormal, you have to do more research and make more observations to see if they are violating social norms. People who violate social norms go against the acceptable behavior that a certain social group has set for the mass majority to follow. However, social norms are always changing, which means that the list of abnormal behavior is evolving as well. Fortunately, another way to determine if a person if abnormal is if they are unable to function adequately to meet the needs of everyday life. If they are unable to take care of themselves, to keep a job, to interact properly with people, they therefore fail to function well in society. These people could possibly also encounter suffering, maladaptiveness, unconventionality, unpredictability, discomfort by those observing, and could possibly violate social standards. However, some people with the inability to function properly in society may use abnormal behavior to soothe their mental complications, making everyday life a little easier to handle. Once these abnormal actions are discovered, it is necessary to determine whether or not these characteristics are a necessity to acquiring good mental health. While it is near impossible to achieve all of these ideal characteristics at a time, it is always a good goal to work towards if people choose to live a normal life.
As seen in the video above, I also found a YouTube video about abnormal psychology. In The World of Abnormal Psychology, we discover the difference between people that behave in a narcissistic way and people who have a narcissistic personality disorder. As stated in the video at :40, "there is a healthy narcissism and there is an unhealthy narcissism. The healthy narcissism has to do with our need to love ourselves, to value ourselves, to regard ourselves as worthy human beings" while at 1:05, people with an unhealthy narcissistic personality disorder "are unable to develop this... where they have their own internal sense of value." To research the difference between the two types of narcissism, psychotherapists train actors to understand these disorders. In the video, an actor plays out an argument with her boyfriend while using narcissistic personality traits. While it may seem that she "is being unreasonable," as her boyfriend states at 3:07, her narcissistic attitude is so "self-involved... that [she needs] to get involved with people who will admire [her]," as stated at 3:25. The abnormal behavior of the female is caused simply because she has an unhealthy narcissism personality disorder where all she cares about is what people think of her and "be[ing] the star and... the center of attention" as her psychologist states at 5:03.