Enforcers of Behavioral Normality: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

“Normality” is an arbitrary social construct lacking inherent criteria, such that its application to human behavior remains unstable and oppositional to the 'abnormal.' Simultaneously, dominant healthcare texts, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), codify 'disorder' as abnormalities characterized by observable symptoms of dysfunction and suffering, a framework of biomedicine and behaviorism that has come to govern psychiatric classification. While diagnostic nomenclature remains necessary for clinical practice, the discursive power the DSM wields, in the tradition of Foucauldian nosology, shapes the very boundaries of how behavioral health and illness are understood. 

This thesis aims to interrogate the socio-cultural and epistemological consequences of classification itself on how behavioral normality is understood across colloquial, clinical, and academic contexts. First, I investigate how the DSM exemplifies a structure of power that directly and implicitly enforces behavioral normality. Next, I analyze theoretical frameworks in healthcare and human development that have been proposed as alternatives to strict biomedical reductionism but remain limited by binary conceptions of health and illness or by positioning the individual as passive within environmental systems. Finally, I propose the Mind-Body- Environment (MBE) model: an interdisciplinary framework that reframes 'disorder' as a systemic mismatch rather than an individual pathology, exposes the limitations of experimental designs reliant on controlled settings and non-representative samples, and models the mind, body, and environment as fundamental constituents whose dynamic interactions and weights in each context create an individualized experience profile. By recognizing behavior as an emergent property of a system too large for any single field to capture, the model’s final application lies in its advocacy for an integration of interdisciplinary inquiries, methodologies, and languages.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Disciplinary boundaries ................................................................... 1 

Foundational Institutions in Psychiatry ................................................................2 

Measuring and Diagnosing Behavior ....................................................................4 

Goals .........................................................................................................................6 

 

Ch. 1: Classifying Disorder: Diagnostic Frameworks & Normality......................6 

What is the DSM? ...................................................................................................6 

A Motivation to Classify .........................................................................................7 

DSM 1: WW2 and the Foundations of Psychological Nomenclature.................8

 DSM 2: Bidirectional Cultural influences...........................................................10 

DSM 3: A Look into Categorization....................................................................13 

Multi-Axial System ................................................................................................................... 14

From “Reaction” to “Deficit” ............................................................................................... 14

Autism Decoupling from Schizophrenia ................................................................................. 15

Adaptive functioning ........................................................................................................ 15 

DSM 4: A Modification that introduced “Clinical Significance” .....................16

 DSM 5: Awareness and Adjustments ..................................................................17 

So... Normality? ....................................................................................................18

Neurodiversity: Celebrated & Stigmatized.........................................................21 

Four Concepts of Normality .................................................................................22 

Normality as Health.......................................................................................................... 23

Normality as Utopia .................................................................................................... 23

Normality as Average................................................................................................................ 24

Normality as Process .............................................................................................. 24

 Arbiters of Behavioral Normality................................................................... 25 

 

Ch. 2: Theoretical Alternatives to the Bio-Medical Framework ..........................26 

Fundamental Attribution Error ........................................................................................... 27 

The Bio-Psycho-Social Model...............................................................................30 

Ecological Systems theory ....................................................................................35 

The Systems : Layers of Influence .............................................................................................. 36

The Environment through a Diagnostic Lens ............................................................................. 38 

From EST to PPCT: A Synergic Remodel ..................................................................................... 38 

The Objectivity of the Rings: A Critique of Scaling and Assignment............................................ 39 

The Systems Theory Approach............................................................................40 

 

Ch. 3: The Mind-Body-Environment Model .........................................................43 

The Proposal ..........................................................................................................43 

Defining the variables ...........................................................................................43 

Emergent and Resultant Properties ....................................................................45 

Mind and Body Distinction...................................................................................46 

 

Ch. 4: Applications of the M-B-E Model...............................................................46 

Why Start with Disorder ......................................................................................47 

Disorder: Defined on two planes ........................................................48

The Fixed Environment Fallacy...........................................................................49 

WEIRD Populations: Body & Environment ......................................................53 

Scalability: Bridging the Disciplinary Divide .....................................................56 

Interdisciplinarity in Neuroscience................................... ......................................................... 58

Case Study: Hypervigilance in Response to Police Sirens in Non-White Population ............... 59 

Case study: Altruism versus Aggression with The Female and Male Gaze .............................. 63 

Concluding thoughts .............................................................................................67 

Order in the face of “disorder” ...................................................................................... 67 

 

Bibliography & Additional Readings ..................................................................69

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture
Degree	B.S.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, Behavioral Sciences Philosophy of Science
Keyword	Health epistemology DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) Mind-Body-Environment model Psychiatric classification Behavioral normality Disorder Systems theory
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Mark Risjord, Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Matthew Segall , Emory University Dr. J. Alex Grizzell, Emory University

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