Defining Abnormality Paper - Assignment Example

Abnormality Affiliation: Explain the age challenge of defining and ifying normal and abnormal behaviorAbnormality is deviance, distress and dysfunctional from what is the norm of the society and this is what is defined by the DSM. For young children abnormal behavior is hard to define and classify because of the interaction with various people from the environment such as parents, peers, siblings among others. The behavior they may portray may not be the norm with the society or with the classification of DSM but are normal according to their peers.

The deviation from the norm may also be because of learning disabilities or slow childhood growth. The challenges of every developmental stage of growth may also make an individual of any age be considered to have abnormal behavior because of lack concurrence with people of the same age but the behavior has no abnormality whatsoever. Culture may also interfere with the behaviors some people especially children and teenagers portray leading to differences which may be considered as abnormal to others but normal to the cultural group (Sue, et al. 2012). Explain how classification of abnormal behavior can vary widely based on situational factor The situational factors such as gender, religion and sexual orientation may cause a variation in classification of abnormal behavior (Sue, et al. 2012). In some of the conservative societies, they view same sex relationships and marriage (gays and lesbians) as having abnormal behavior because t them it deviates from their normal relationships according to religion as well as being dysfunctional in as much as traditional definition of a family is concerned.

The liberals however have different view and to them the same sex relationships and marriages are normal just like the heterogeneous relationships. This therefore leads to classification challenge of what is the abnormal behavior. ReferencesSue, D. et al. (2012). Understanding Abnormal Behavior. New York: Cengage Learning.