Abnormal Psychology - Studies Flashcards
Shmelkov et al. (2010)
Aim
To investigate the association between the SLITRK5 gene and behavioral phenotypes linked to OCD
Method
True experiment
Background
SLITRK5 gene - plays an important role in learning as it plays a key role in neuronal growth and neuroplasticity
Procedure
The researchers created SLITRK5 knockout mice by replacing the SLITRK5 gene with a reporter gene, called lacZ. This led to three groups of mice: homozygous, heterozygous, and control.
A variety of measures were used to assess anxiety in the mice. For example, the mice were placed in the center of a plexiglass arena divided into quadrants. The researchers observed how much time each mouse spent exploring different areas of the arena. They also placed them individually into a smaller cage containing twenty glass marbles evenly spaced on a 5 cm thick layer of sawdust. After 20 minutes the mouse was removed from the cage at which point a photograph was taken of the cage allowing the researchers to count how many marbles had been buried. This “marble-burying” behavior was used as a measure of anxiety. Marbles were counted as buried if at least 33% of the marble was covered. Excessive grooming was also measured/observed.
Results
From three months old the homozygous knockout mice developed facial hair loss and severe skin lesions due to excessive grooming, compared with the control group of healthy littermates. The heterozygous group developed the same abnormal behaviors, although the age of onset was later, between 7 - 9 months. The researchers noted that the experimental mice spent less time exploring different areas of the cage, although the distance traveled was the same for each group, suggesting that the knockout mice were less adventurous. The knockout mice also buried a greater percentage of the marbles than the control mice.
Conclusion
The SLITRK5 gene is essential for the healthy development of neural circuits in mice, and “turning off” this gene is associated with anxiety and compulsive behavior. Given the similarities between the central nervous systems of mice and humans, one can extrapolate the findings and infer that abnormalities relating to this gene may also be linked to compulsive behaviors, such as cleaning and checking in humans.
Lopatka & Rachman (1995)
Aim
manipulating perceived responsibility to see how this affected compulsive checking and cleaning behavior in people diagnosed with OCD.
Method
True experiment - volunteer sampling was used to gather 30 compulsive checkers. They were recruited from clinics, newspapers, radio/television adverts, and notices posted on bulletin boards in hospitals and ‘self-help’ bookstores.
Background
Schema are mental representations based on past experiences that help us to interpret information in our environment. A highly controlling parent, bullying, or a high-stress home environment may all lead to maladaptive schema - that is, a cognitive framework that may distort the thinking of an individual about a situation. Salkovskis argues that this schema is one of “personal responsibility” in which individuals see themselves as responsible for the safety of others - and a sense of shame or ineptness for having thoughts that may compromise others’ safety.
Procedure
There were two experimental conditions:
Low responsibility condition: Participants were told that the researcher would take full responsibility for anything that was not perfect, or if something bad were to happen, that the researcher would pay for any damage. All of this was then put into a contract signed by both the researcher and the participant to ensure that the participant was absolutely clear that they were in no way responsible.
High responsibility condition: Very similar wording was used in the low responsibility condition to standardize the instructions provided across the two conditions, but they were told that they must take full responsibility for anything that was not perfect and that for any bad outcomes, the participant must pay for any damage. Again, everything was put in writing, with both parties having to sign the contract.
There was also a control condition. The participants were asked to treat the situation as they would in everyday life and the researchers were simply interested in learning more about their regular checking in everyday situations.
The study used a repeated measures design using counterbalancing. Participants took part in all three levels of the independent variable: high and low perceived responsibility, and a control condition. The dependent variables were self-reported discomfort, urge to check, and perceived responsibility to check the manipulation of the independent variable had worked.
The checking/cleaning situations varied according to each participant’s compulsions, e.g. they were told “Without checking it at all, we would like you to:
lock the door and then walk away from it;
turn the stove on and then off and then walk into the next room;
adjust the thermostat to 20°and then walk into the next room.
Results
As can be seen in the graph above, the average urge to check went down from 68.7 in the control condition to 35 in the low responsibility condition, with similar decreases in discomfort. In each instance, the self-reported percentage roughly halved. Increasing responsibility also led to change in the expected direction but the differences were not as great, e.g. the urge to check went up by 10 points from 69 to 79.5, and discomfort by 12 points from 60 to 72. The researchers note that this may have been because the participants already experienced high levels of distress and urges to check.
Conclusion
The researcher notes this interesting cognitive distortion for people with OCD, i.e. that they overestimate the risk of a negative outcome when they feel responsible, but that bad outcomes are less likely when someone else is responsible.
Becker et al (2002)
Aim
to investigate the effect of prolonged exposure of TV on attitudes of eating and eating behaviours in Fijian young girls.
Method
naturalistic experiment as introduction to TV was natural. Used a prospective multi wave cross sectional design.
Background
adolscent girls from fiji. Indepdnent groups design. 1st sample: 63 grisl in 1995 several weeks before TV came in. 2nd sample: different set of 65 girls in 1998. Combined qualitiative and quantitative methods
Procedure
1st sample: completed a survey to measure eating behaviours, serepate questions about TV viewing asked (those whos cored high (cause for concern) were asked ot participate in a semi-structured interview. 2nd sample: extra qurstions about body image, dietin and how they saw their parents views. Qualitative data gathered using open ended quesitons in semi-structured interviews using 30 girls grom orignial sample
Results
percentage of high scores in survey increased. Proportion of sample that used vomiting to lose weight increased (was none before). 77% said TV influenced their body image. 40% justified desire to eat less or lose weight as a means of improving career or beocming more useful at home
Conclusion
identifying with role models on TV changed body image in the period of the study. Cultural values were changing.
Brown & Harris (1978)
Aim
to investigate how depression could be linked to social factors and stressful life events in a sample of women.
Method
Semi-structured interviews - 458 women in South London
Background
When studying the prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder, we see that women are twice as likely to develop depression as men. Arguments in the past used to focus on hormonal differences as the source of this difference, but many studies of hormones have not demonstrated a clear link to depression. Brown & Harris decided to look at how sociocultural factors or environmental factors may play a role in this gender difference.
Procedure
interviewed about their daily lives and depressive episodes. The researchers focused on important biographical details—that is, particular life events or difficulties faced by the women. These events were later rated in severity by independent researchers.
Results
8% of all the women - that is, 37 in total - had become clinically depressed in the previous year. 33 of these women (nearly 90%) had experienced an adverse life event (e.g., loss of a loved one) or a serious difficulty (e.g., being in an abusive relationship). Only 30% of the women who did not become depressed suffered from such adversity. Only four of the 37 women who became depressed had not experienced any adversity.
Social class, measured by the occupation of the husband, played a significant role in the development of depression in women with children. Working-class women with children were four times more likely to develop depression than middle-class women with children.
The researchers identified three major factors that affected the development of depression.
Protective factors protect against the development of depression despite stressors, e.g. high levels of intimacy with one’s husband. These factors lead to higher levels of self-esteem and the possibility of finding other sources of meaning in life.
Vulnerability factors increase the risk of depression in combination with particularly stressful life events - called provoking agents in the study. The most significant vulnerability factors were (1) Loss of one’s mother before the age of 11, (2) lack of a confiding relationship, (3) more than three children under the age of 14 at home, and (4) unemployment.
Provoking agents contribute to acute and ongoing stress. These stressors could result in grief and hopelessness in vulnerable women with no social support.
Conclusion
The study showed that social factors in the form of life stress (or serious life events) could be linked to depression. The fact that working-class mothers were more likely to develop depression than middle-class mothers showed risk factors associated with social class. According to Brown and Harris, low social status leads to increased exposure to vulnerability factors and provoking agents, whereas high social status was associated with increased exposure to protective factors and decreased exposure to provoking agents.
Thobois et al. (2004)
Aim
To investigate the effect of damage to the caudate nucleus in the brain.
Method
a case study of a 24-year-old right-handed male who underwent surgery to remove a hematoma (a blood clot caused by broken blood vessels) after a stroke in the region of the caudate nucleus. Three months later the patient developed compulsive behavior. He couldn’t stop himself from only using words and sentences of 10 letters. He showed no anxiety or obsessive thoughts. He also exhibited signs of aggressiveness. Although he was aware of his OCD symptoms he did not recognize the change in his personality. His symptoms stopped him from going to work and severely impacted his social functioning. Two years later he was referred for further testing. It was at this point, that Thobois et al began their case study.
Background
One of the key biological explanations of OCD is known as the worry circuit (Insel, 1992). The worry circuit primarily consists of three parts of the brain: the orbital-frontal cortex, the caudate nucleus, and the thalamus. The orbital-frontal cortex [OFC] is the part of the brain that notices when something is wrong. For example, when the OFC registers that there is a threat of danger nearby (e.g. something dirty that could lead to infection), it sends a ‘worry’ signal to the thalamus. The thalamus interprets these signals and then sends messages to different parts of the brain in order to cope with the threat - in this case, messages are sent back to the OFC. These nerve cell connections form a “circuit” in the brain. The caudate nucleus regulates signals sent between the OFC and the thalamus. Normally, the caudate nucleus acts like the brake pedal on a car, suppressing the original ‘worry’ signals sent by the OFC to the thalamus. This prevents the thalamus from becoming hyperactive. In people living with OCD, the caudate nucleus is thought to be damaged, so it cannot suppress signals from the OFC, allowing the thalamus to become over-excited. If this occurs, the thalamus sends strong signals back to the OFC, which responds by increasing compulsive behavior and anxiety. This could explain the repetitive and seemingly senseless rituals performed by obsessive-compulsives.
Procedure
A battery of psychometric tests was used to assess his cognitive abilities including verbal fluency and memory. They also measured his IQ using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III). With regard to psychiatric symptoms, he completed the Beck Depression Scale and the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive (YBOC) scale.
Results
The man had normal scores for verbal fluency, e.g. he named 18 words in one minute starting with ‘r’ but poor verbal comprehension (6/19) on the WAIS-III. While his depression score was within the normal range (3/30), his YBOC compulsion score was 12/20 and his obsession score was 0/20. This is consistent with a diagnosis of compulsive behavior (pure OCD). In addition, the YBOC indicated that the patient spent between 30 minutes and 2 hours a day on his compulsive behaviors and felt the behaviors were beyond his control.
Conclusion
In this case study, the compulsive behaviors could be said to have been triggered by caudate nucleus damage from the stroke and subsequent surgery, as the patient did not suffer any symptoms before this.
Myers & Wells (2013)
Aim
to test the metacognitive explanation of OCD, i.e. the theory that what we think about our thoughts plays a causal role in the development of OCD symptoms.
Method
Quasi experiment - 273 university students completed an initial test of OCD symptoms. 32 students in the top and bottom quartiles were recruited, giving a total sample of 64 students.
Background
Rachman focused on a specific cognitive bias called thought-action fusion (TAF), where a person believes that thoughts can directly influence events/actions in the real world, increasing the sense of personal responsibility that is common in many people with OCD.
The idea of this study was investigated by inducing thought-action fusion (TAF) and observing the extent to which this affected subsequent intrusive thoughts and associated emotions. It was hypothesized that TAF would increase the frequency of intrusive thoughts and the distress they caused, and this effect would be greater in people who were already prone to obsessional symptoms compared with those who were not.
Procedure
The study employed an independent samples design whereby participants who were high or low in obsessional symptoms were randomly allocated to either the experimental or control condition. All participants were hooked up to an EEG machine and told that it would detect activity in their hypothalamus if they thought about drinking.
Firstly, participants completed a questionnaire to assess their current mood to ensure that both groups entered the study in a similar frame of mind. Next, they were given the standardized instruction about the EEG machine which supposedly would detect any thoughts about drinking or water. The participants put on the EEG electrode cap, which was attached to the EEG machine, although this was switched off. Participants then put on headphones and watched three short video clips about drinking water while the researcher supposedly checked to ensure that the EEG was registering hypothalamus activity as expected. They were then told the machine was working well and to sit and think for 4 minutes.
Those in the experimental group were told that the machine was set up so that if they thought about water or drinking, a loud aversive noise might sound. Those in the control group were told the same information and that they may hear the loud noise but this was not in any way linked to their thoughts about water or drinking. After 4 minutes all participants completed self-report measures to assess the dependent variables: the self-reported number of intrusions about drinking, the level of discomfort from these intrusions, the amount of effort to control thoughts about drinking, and the amount of time spent thinking such thoughts.
Results
For participants who scored high on obsessive thoughts, the frequency of intrusive thoughts was greater in the experimental group (6.5) than the control group (3.3), yet there was little difference in the frequency of intrusive thoughts in the low obsessional symptoms group, between the two conditions: 5.75 in the experimental condition compared with 5.0 in the control condition.
Similarly, the high obsession symptoms group experienced more distress when they believed their thoughts controlled the noise than when they believed their thoughts were unconnected to the timing of the noise, yet in the low obsessional group more distress was experienced when they thought they had no control over the noise.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that assessing TAF beliefs and targeting them in therapy could help people with OCD to reduce intrusive thoughts and discomfort, and thereby reduce the need for neutralizing behaviors.
Al-Solaim & Loewenthal (2011)
Aim
Exploring how religious observance contributes to the expression of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in young women in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the study examines help-seeking in this sample, i.e. who do people turn to for support.
Method
Semi-structured interviews - The sample was made up of 15 Saudi women, aged 14 - 30. All were diagnosed with OCD and had been exhibiting religion-oriented symptoms since before the age of 21.
Background
Tight cultures are those in which social norms are clearly defined and reliably imposed, leaving little room for individual improvisation and interpretation.
Loose cultures are those in which social norms are flexible and informal. They propose expectations but permit individuals to define the range of tolerable behavior within which they may exercise their own preferences.
The study took place in Saudi Arabia, a tight culture with strict rules governing behavior, especially for women. For example, the majority of women wear face coverings. A small minority only cover their hair, but this is generally frowned upon in public places.
Procedure
Interviews were semi-structured, conducted in Arabic, and lasted 60-90 minutes. Open-ended questions were asked about the extent and duration of symptoms they had been experiencing and how these were affected by their religion. Written records were made since due to cultural sensitivities, video, and audio recordings were deemed inappropriate. Notes were translated from Arabic to English and thematic analysis was performed to identify themes in the interviews.
Results
All participants initially sought help from faith healers, who read to them from the Quran and gave them holy water to drink and oil to anoint their bodies. Most interviewees believed the “evil eye” had caused their symptoms. Once referred to psychiatric services, participants accepted a biological explanation but still believed the evil eye caused the biological changes that triggered the disorder. This explanation is not stigmatized in Saudi culture as the evil eye is bestowed upon people with admirable qualities. This said, people may feel guilty for having attracted the envy of others.
Participants found intrusive thoughts of a religious nature very distressing, especially if they thought others would doubt their devotion to Islam.
Ruminations about God (Allah) were rarely reported but compulsions related to prayers and ablutions were common. The researchers suggest this is because overt worship is an important aspect of the Islamic faith.
Prayer and fasting were considered important coping mechanisms. Religious faith appeared to help people rather than be the cause of their behavior. All participants gained esteem from “being a good Muslim” and recognized the difference between obsessional traits and religious adherence.
Conclusion
The researchers noted that participants sometimes expressed a sense of responsibility for a lack of religious observance by family members; this worsened their symptoms, but when they stopped advising family members, their symptoms eased, adding further cross-cultural support for Salkovskis’ cognitive theory.
Rosmarin et al. (2010)
Aim:
Investigate whether Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews recognize scrupulosity as OCD and recommend professional treatment.
Method:
Participants: 93 Jews (70 Orthodox, 23 non-Orthodox)
Design: Independent samples experiment
IV: Type of OCD symptoms (religious vs. non-religious)
DV: Recognition of OCD & likelihood of seeking professional treatment
Procedure:
Participants were randomly assigned to read one of two vignettes:
A religious OCD case (obsessions with prayer/rituals)
A non-religious OCD case (obsessions with safety/checking)
They rated how likely the character had OCD and whether they would seek a therapist or a religious leader for help.
Religiosity was measured through a questionnaire on prayer frequency and synagogue attendance.
Results:
Orthodox Jews recognized both types as OCD (82% vs. 84%) & equally recommended professional help.
Non-Orthodox Jews were less likely to recognize religious OCD (44% vs. 100%) & less likely to recommend professional treatment.
Conclusion:
Orthodox Jews may better distinguish excessive religious behavior from normal observance.
Non-Orthodox Jews may hesitate to label religious behavior as OCD, possibly due to cultural sensitivity.
