One Adoption Study - Heston (1966)

Question 1

What was the aim of Heston’s adoption study?

Answer 1

The aim was to investigate whether nature or nurture was responsible for the development of schizophrenia by using an adoption study to separate out those factors

Question 2

What were the participants in Heston’s study like?

Answer 2

Born between 1915 and 1945 to schizophrenic mothers in an American psychiatric hospital

Question 3

Which children were selected for Heston’s study?

Answer 3

Children were selected if their mothers had put them up for adoption and the mother had a diagnosis of schizophrenia

Question 4

Initially how many children met the criteria of Heston’s study?

Answer 4

Initially 74 children met the criteria

Question 5

What checks were carried out in Heston’s study?

Answer 5

Checks carried out to ensure each child had no contact with their mother or her family.

16 participants were dropped later for reasons including death or contact with mother

Left 58 participants

Question 6

What controls were the remaining participants of Heston’s study matched on?

Answer 6

Matched with controls on sex, type of eventual placement and length of time in child care

Question 7

What different sources were used to access psychiatric status in Heston’s study?

Answer 7

Different sources were collected for each individual including school records, any psychiatric hospital records, interviews and personality inventory

Question 8

How were the participants of Heston’s study evaluated?

Answer 8

Two psychiatrists blindly and independently evaluated the information compiled on each participant whilst a third evaluation was made by Heston himself

A diagnosis of schizophrenia was only given if all three raters agreed

A score of 1-100 was assigned to each participant regarding psycho-social disability where scores below 75 indicate psychiatric symptoms becoming troublesome

Question 9

After analysis in Heston’s study what was found about psycho-social disability and levels of Sz?

Answer 9

It was found that there were differences in psycho-social disability and levels of schizophrenia between those individuals in the sample and the controls

Question 10

What were the average scores in Heston’s study for psycho-social disability compared to the controls?

Answer 10

Average scores for participants born to schizophrenic mothers was 65.2 compared to 80.1 in the controls

The rate of schizophrenia in those born to schizophrenic mothers and adopted was 10.6% compared with 0% in the control who were adopted but not born to schizophrenic mothers

Question 11

What do the scores in Heston’s study support?

Answer 11

Supports the concordance rate of 10% if one parent has schizophrenia

Question 12

What did Heston conclude?

Answer 12

Concluded that the findings support the influence of genes in schizophrenia and that inheritance also contributes to psycho-social disability

There must be other possible factors influencing the development of schizophrenia though because Heston also reports that half of the participants born to the schizophrenic mothers were successful adults who possessed artistic talents and imaginative adaptions to life which wasn’t found in the control group

Question 13

What were the strengths of Heston’s study?

Answer 13

Data from a number of different sources

Nature and nurture

Ethical

Question 14

What are the weaknesses of Heston’s study?

Answer 14

Sampling could be bias

Socially sensitive research

Selective placement

Question 15

Why is data from a number of different sources a strength of Heston’s study?

Answer 15

Data from a number of different sources such as interviews, school records, and personality tests

Led to detailed qualitative data in the reports presented to the psychiatrists in order to make a diagnosis and assessment of psycho-social disability

Increases the validity of the findings

Question 16

Why is nature and nurture a strength of Heston’s study?

Answer 16

Designed in such a way to allow for comparisons between the influence of genes (nature) and the environment (nurture) by utilising an adoption study

The use of matched control group allows conclusions to be made about the influence of environmental factors on schizophrenia

Question 17

Why is the study being ethical a strength of Heston’s study?

Answer 17

The procedure is based upon naturally occurring events and doesn’t involve any direct manipulation of the children’s behavior, the study may be viewed as an ethical way of measuring the genetic basis of schizophrenia

Question 18

Why is the sample being bias a weakness of Heston’s study?

Answer 18

Sampling flaws could have led to a bias in the group adopted from mothers with schizophrenia

e.g. the group of biological mothers may be unrepresentative of schizophrenic mothers in general, as this group of schizophrenic mothers gave their babies up for adoption

Question 19

Why is socially sensitive research a weakness of Heston’s study?

Answer 19

Adoption studies such as Heston’s are important for helping us understand how much impact adoptive parents have on the children they are raising

Data collected on the individuals in Heston’s study is of a sensitive nature for the individuals involved

e.g. measuring their ‘psycho-social disability’ and also for society where adopted individuals may be treated differently

Question 20

Why is selective placement a weakness of Heston’s study?

Answer 20

The issue of selective placement means that adopted children are often placed with families similar to their birth family; this means that there isn’t a complete change of nurture

So Heston may be over-estimating the role of nature in causing the similarities (development of schizophrenia ) between the children and their birth mother