Individual differences Flashcards
(22 cards)
Freud
Aim?
To give an account of a boy who was suffering from a phobia of horses and a range of other symptoms in order to illustrate the existence of the Oedipus complex.
Freud
Sample?
Little Hans- Herbert Graf Jewish boy from Vienna in Austria. Aged 5 at start of study.
Freud
Method?
Clinical case study- Freud did not see Hans more than twice. Han’s father conducted regular discussions with Hans and relayed these to Freud who analysed them.
Age 3-Han’s develops a great interest in his penis. His mum becomes very angry and threatens to get the doctor to come and chop is off if he does not stop touching it- castration anxiety.
Age 3.5- Hans saw a horse collapse and die and was very upset
Age 4- Han’s developed a phobia that a white horse would come and bite him related to fear of large penis due to dissatisfaction of his own. Han’s father did not want him sleeping in the parental bed anymore- fear worsened until he wouldn’t leave the house.
Age 5- phobia lessened to just a fear of white horses with blinkers and black bits around mouth then disappeared.
End of phobia marked by 2 fantasies
1. A plumber had come and removed his widdler and bottom and replaced them with larger ones
2. Han’s had several children with his mother as their mother and father as grandad
Freud
Results?
Freud interpreted the case as the oedipus complex:
Fear of horse represented father as they both had larger penis.
Giraffe in fantasy represent his parents: crumpled giraffe represents crumpling of mothers genitals, large giraffe with erect neck represents father.
Children fantasy= resolution of the oedipus complex in which Han’s becomes mother’s main love interest but father still has a place as grandad
Plumber fantasy= identification with father
Freud
Conclusions?
Han’s suffered from phobia of horses as he was suffering from castration anxiety and going through the oedipus complex. Dreams and fantasies helped express this conflict and resolved his OC by fantasising himself taking on his fathers role.
Freud
Evaluation?
Pros:
Qualitative data- very detailed to allow others to provide alternative interpretations.
Usefulness- used by psychotherapists for training purposes
Ethics- no deceit due to fathers informed consent
Cons: Sample- very small, cannot generalise Reliability- cannot be replicated Ethnocentric- very specific cultural context validity- subjective
Baron Cohen
Aim?
To investigate whether high functioning adults with austistic spectrum disorder struggled to identify emotions from photographs of eyes.
Baron-cohen
Sample
Autistic group- 13 men, 13 female
Tourettes group- 8men 2 female
Control- 25 men, 25 female– no clinical condition
Volunteers recruited through doctor, advertised in magazine
Baron-Cohen
Method?
Theory of the mind deficit related specifically to autism suggests autism would do worse on eye task. Pp shown 25 b+w photos of eyes and asked to chose between two mental states.
Control tasks to eliminate possibility that autistic group could not process photographs:
1. gender recognition using photos of eyes
2. identify basic emotions from photos of whole face
Validation of eyes task- Happe’s strange story task. Those who struggle with eye test should also struggle with this.
Baron-Cohen
Results?
Control- all groups perform normally
Eyes task:
Autism- 16.5./25 even though there was a 50% chance of guessing correctly
Tourettes- 20.4/25
Control- 20.3/25
Autism group was the only group to struggle with the Happe’s strange story test therefore Happe’s task is valid.
Baron- Choen
Conclusions?
- High functioning adults with autism and asperges syndrome have a significant problem with theory of mind. They find it hard to read mental states in other people so theory of mind deficit is central to understanding autism and could even cause some of the main symptoms.
- Eyes task is a valid test of theory of mind
Gould
Aim?
Gould’s aim was to reveal the problems with attempts to measure intelligence.
Yerkes aim was to devise a scientific way to test the natural trait of intelligence on a mass scale.
Gould
Sample?
1.75 million US army recruits in WW1
Men from many different backgrounds and regions across the USA
Gould
Method?
Yerkes used a large scale psychometric test:
- Army Alpha- written test for literate participants e.g. filling in the missing number in a sequences
- Army beta- test for those who were illiterate e.g. complete a picture task
- Individual explanations- spoken test for those who failed army beta
Gould explored the inconsistencies between canps where the tests took place. Many people who failed army alpha should have conpleted army beta but did not due to lack of time/opportunity. Many of these men were black/ recently immigrated- reflects the systematic bias due to a low levels of literacy and lack of education.
Gould
Results?
Gould named his article ‘A nation of morons’ as the age of moronity is just above 13
Mean mental age White American-13.04 Black American- 10.41 Russian immigrant- 11.34 Polish- 10.74
Gould
Conclusions?
Yerkes concluded that:
- Intelligence is an innate trait that is hereditary and intelligence can be determined by skin colour
- Average adults can be considered morons
- Mental testing of this kind is a valid, scientific technique with wide implications for society
Gould concluded that the internal contradictions and prejudices in the materials and methodology thoroughly invalidates the conclusions drawn by Yerkes. Army mental tests were a product of their time and results were used to further support racial beliefs and practices
Hancock
Aim?
To test whether crime narratives differ between psychopathic and non-psychopathic murderers. Psychopathic speech was analysed for a predatory/ instrumental world view, unique of socio-economic needs and poverty of effect
Hancock
Sample?
14 psychopaths and 38 non-psychopaths from the Canadian convectional facilities. All pleaded guilty to murder and volunteers.
Hancock
Method?
Self report method involving individual interviews. Psychopathy checklist- revised PCL-R rated Pp against 20 different criteria. Measured affective traits and impulsive/antisocial behaviour to give scores out of 40 ( 30 is the cut off point for diagnostic psychopathy)
Inter-rater reliability graduate student recoded 10 randomly selected files.
Pp fully debriefed and asked to recall their crime in as much detail as possible. ‘Step wise’ was used to facilitate open ended questions.
- Wmatrix- analyses parts of speech and semantics in the whole body of 2 transcripts
- Dictionary of affect in language- analyses emotional aspects of language
Hancock
Results?
- 1.84% of words used by psychopaths were subordinate conjunctions compared to 1.54% controls
- Psychology were much more likely to refer to basic needs
- Psychopaths used much more concrete nouns and past tense forms of verbs to describe homocide- psychologically distant
- 33% more disfluencies
Hancock
Conclusions?
- Psychopaths describe in a more rational but primitive way
- tend to view their crime as a logical outcome to a plan
- less emotional and less positive
- more emotionally detached
Hancock
Evaluation?
Pro:
Qualitative data
Reliable
Ecological validity
Cons:
sampling bias
validity- crime occurred many years ago
