Individual Differences Area Flashcards
1
Q
What are the main principles of the individual differences area?
A
- interested in behaviours that don’t fit patterns, i.e. what makes individuals unique
- often focusses on individuals that are not typically developing
- suggests behaviour is determined by dispositional factors that vary greatly from person to person
2
Q
What are the strengths of the individual differences area?
A
- avoids the averaging effect by researching less common behaviour
- informs the free will vs. determinism debate
- useful in the development of interventions that are highly effective for small groups/individuals
3
Q
What are the weaknesses of the individual differences area?
A
- research tends to be socially sensitive as it highlights differences between people
- many dispositional factors are unobservable and so difficult to measure, meaning research often lacks internal validity
4
Q
What is a phobia?
A
- an intense, persistent and irrational fear of an object, context or activity that causes symptoms associated with anxiety in response to its presence, resulting in the sufferer avoiding the object of the phobia where possible
5
Q
What are the five psychosexual stages?
A
- oral
- anal
- phallic
- latency
- genital
6
Q
What were the aims of Freud’s study?
A
- to report the findings of the treatment of a five year old boy for his phobia of horses. However, an implicit hypothesis was to illustrate his own theory of psychosexual development
- to test his explanation of how phobias develop (meant he could use his method of treatment, psychoanalysis, and demonstrate its usefulness)
7
Q
What sample did Freud use?
A
- participant was a boy called Little Hans who was aged between three and five during the study
- also involved Hans’ father, mother and sister (they lived in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century)
- opportunity sample because Hans was selected due to his father being interested in Freud’s work and wishing to give him the opportunity to explore his theories
8
Q
What procedure did Freud carry out?
A
- Hans’ father was one of Freud’s closest followers and a member of his Wednesday night study group
- Freud used his ‘psychoanalysis’ technique: involves the interpretation of a patient’s thoughts and fantasies so that the patient can come to understand them himself
- Hans’ father recorded events and conversations and regularly sent them to Freud
- Freud and the father both offered interpretations of Hans’ behaviour and on one occasion Hans was taken to meet Freud
9
Q
How did Hans feel about his widdler and his mother?
A
- started to show more interest in his ‘widdler’ just before he was three
- he observed that animals had big ones, especially horses, and assumed both his parents must also have big ones because they are fully grown
- he got pleasure from touching his widdler and also from excretion - when he imagined having his own children he supposed he would help them widdle and wipe their bottoms
- his mother found him playing with his penis and said ‘if you do that I shall send for a doctor to cut off your widdler’
- Hans also felt sexual desire towards his mother which was repressed and expressed as interest in other girls and wanting to kiss them
- this links to the phallic stage
10
Q
How did Hans feel towards his father?
A
- during his summer holiday at Gmunden, Hans spent time alone with his mother whilst his father returned to work in Vienna
- when they returned home, Hans had to share his mother once again with his father and wished his father was permanently away
- Hans expressed this conflicting aggression and love towards his father by hitting him and then kissing him in the spot where he was hit
- this links to the phallic stage and the oedipus complex
11
Q
How did Hans feel towards his baby sister?
A
- when Hans was 3.5yrs old his sister Hanna was born, further separating him from his mother
- Hans admitted that he watched his sister having a bath and wished his mother would let her go
- this unconscious desire to see his sister down became translated into a fear that his mother might equally do the same to Hans in the bath
12
Q
When did Hans’ phobia of horses start and what did Freud think his real fear was?
A
- developed a fear that a white horse would bite him when he was 4.5yrs - he called this fear ‘my nonsense’
- Freud felt that the real fear was that he would lose his mother - his anxieties had been repressed into his unconscious mind and eventually were expressed as a phobia
13
Q
How did Freud explain the link between Hans’ anxieties and horses?
A
- the basis was on a real event: Hans heard a man warn his daughter that a white horse might bite if she touched it
- this was linked to Hans’ mother telling him it wouldn’t be proper if he touched his penis
- Hans feared his mother might leave him because she disapproved of his request - his desire for his mother was a result of his sexual libido, which was now linked to a sense of anxiety
- in order to cope, Hans subconsciously transferred the anxiety to white horses
- his anxiety was exacerbated because his father told him that women don’t have widdlers - Freud suggested Hans thought hers had been cut off and so experienced castration anxiety
14
Q
What did Freud propose when Hans visited him?
A
- proposed horses may be symbolic of Hans’ father because the black mouths and blinkers resemble his father’s moustache and glasses (symbols of manhood)
- Freud told Hans he was afraid of his father because he was so fond of his mother - revelation appeared to release Hans so he could directly deal with his phobia (he started to go out again)
15
Q
What further horse anxieties did Hans develop?
A
- new fear developed of horses pulling heavy laden carts - this created a generalised anxiety disorder where Hans became afraid of leaving his home
- related to an actual event: when he was walking with his mother they saw a horse that fell and kicked its legs about (Hans thought the horse had died)
16
Q
What anxieties did the kicking horse represent for Hans?
A
- Hans secretly wished his father would fall down dead - seeing the horse fall over increased his anxiety about this death wish
- Hans had become preoccupied with faeces (lumf) and lumf falling in the toilet made a similar noise to the noise of the horse falling
- a heavily laden cart was also like a pregnant woman and babies were also like lumf - the cart tipping over represents a woman giving birth
- anxieties about pregnancy were linked to Hans’ repressed feelings about his sister
- this links to the anal and phallic stages
17
Q
What dream did Hans have about giraffes?
A
- Hans told his father ‘in the night there was a big giraffe in the room and a crumpled one; and the big one called out because I took the crumpled one away from it. Then it stopped calling out; and then I sat down on top of the crumpled one’
- Hans’ father perceived that the big giraffe was him or his penis, and the crumpled one was his wife’s genital organ
- scene is a replay of Hans going into his parents’ bed in the mornings (welcomed by his mother but warned not to do this by his father)
18
Q
What criminal fantasies did Hans have?
A
- dreamt about doing forbidden things with his father
- for example, dreamt that they smashed a window on a train and were taken away by a policeman
- this represented wishing to do something forbidden with his mother which his father was also doing
- this links to the phallic stage and the oedipus complex
19
Q
What fantasies allowed Hans to express his repressed feelings and recover from his phobias?
A
- the plumber
- where babies come from
- becoming the daddy
20
Q
What was Hans’ plumber fantasy?
A
- Hans told his father: ‘I was in the bath, and then the plumber came and unscrewed it. Then he took a big borer and stuck it in my stomach’
- Hans’ father interpreted this as: ‘I was in bed with mummy. Then daddy came and sent me away. He pushed me away with his big penis’
- another fantasy: ‘the plumber came and first he took away my behind with a pair of pincers, and then he gave me another, and then the same with my widdler’
- these fantasies showed Hans was now identifying with his father by wanting a widdler like his - thus he was resolving his feelings towards his father
- he is beginning to overcome the phallic stage and the oedipus complex
