Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

Neuroscience in Your Life: 
One Step 
Closer to Understanding OCD
FIGURE 3
People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have structural diff erences in their 
brains. These images show increased levels of grey matter (i.e., more connections or more 
neurons) in the thalamus (a) and in the left frontal cortex (b) in people with OCD as compared to 
people without it. These fi ndings help us to understand the potential causes of OCD and may 
lead to the development of better treatments for the disorder. 
(Source: Christian et al., 2008, Figure 1.)
(a)
(b)
“No, I don’t need an alarm clock—
anxiety is my alarm clock.”
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518 Chapter 
15 
Psychological Disorders
Psychologists who employ the behavioral perspective have taken a different 
approach that emphasizes environmental factors. They consider anxiety to be a 
learned response to stress. For instance, suppose a dog bites a young girl. When the 
girl next sees a dog, she is frightened and runs away—a behavior that relieves her 
anxiety and thereby reinforces her avoidance behavior. After repeated encounters 
with dogs in which she is reinforced for her avoidance behavior, she may develop a 
full-fl edged phobia regarding dogs. 
Finally, the cognitive perspective suggests that anxiety disorders grow out of 
inappropriate and inaccurate thoughts and beliefs about circumstances in a person’s 
world. For example, people with anxiety disorders may view a friendly puppy as a 
ferocious and savage pit bull, or they may see an air disaster looming every moment 
they are in the vicinity of an airplane. According to the cognitive perspective, people’s 
maladaptive thoughts about the world are at the root of an anxiety disorder (Frost & 
Steketee, 2002; Wang & Clark, 2002; Ouimet, Gawronski, & Dozois, 2009).
Somatoform Disorders