Adoption study - Heston Flashcards
What was the aim of Heston’s adoption study?
To investigate if schizophrenia has a genetic predisposition and to study the nature vs. nurture debate
What was the IV and DV of Heston’s adoption study? (3 points)
IV: Whether the adopted participants’ biological mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia
DV: A score of 1-100 assigned to each participant regarding psycho-social disability
Scores below 75 indicate troublesome psychiatric symptoms
What was the methodology (type, design, pps) of Heston’s adoption study? (4 points)
Procedure: Quasi-experimental design
Design: Matched pair design based on sex, type of eventual placement and length of time in care
Participants - experimental group:
58 participants - born to schizophrenic mothers in an Oregon State psychiatric hospital
Further deaths and loss of contact through follow-up resulted in:
47 experimental participants (30M, 17F)
50 controls (33M, 17F)
What was the selection criteria for adopted participants in Heston’s adoption study? (3 points)
Biological mother had put child up for adoption at birth
Biological mother’s diagnosis of schizophrenia
No other diseases
What was the procedure of Heston’s adoption study? (3 points)
- 3 independent psychiatrists (including Heston) reviewed each adopted participant’s file
- When all 3 psychiatrist raters agreed, a formal diagnosis of Sz was given
- Sz was also diagnosed by a psychiatric hospital
What were the results of Heston’s adoption study? (3 points)
Sz diagnosis for adopted participants:
Experimental - 10.6%
Control - 0%
50% of the experimental group were successful adults with artistic talents and imaginative adaptations to life - not found in the control group
There must be other factors which influence Sz development
What were the conclusions of Heston’s adoption study? (2 points)
Sz is influenced by the biological inheritance of genes contributing to psycho-social disability
Significantly more participants in the experimental group had:
+ Psycho-social disabilities including other psychiatric diagnoses
+ Criminal records
+ Psychiatric illnesses that got them discharged from armed forces
How generalisable was Heston’s adoption study? (4 points)
Predominantly androcentric - 30 male v 17 females
Results cannot be generalised to other populations unaffected by Sz - experimental group is a unique population
Ethnocentric due to location of study in Oregon, USA
The age group being studied at follow-up was 35/36 years old - not representative of younger or elderly adult populations
How reliable is Heston’s adoption study? (2 points)
Inter-rater reliability - 3 independent psychiatrists who reviewed each patient’s file to come to a common agreement for a diagnosis
Questionnaires like personality (MMPI) and IQ tests were used to measure participants’ traits - can be easily replicated
How applicable to real life is Heston’s adoption study? (2 points)
Results have important implications for the nature V nurture debate
Helps debunk the common misconceptions such as the ‘Schizophrenic Mother’ causing the illness
How was Heston’s adoption study internally valid?
Matched pair design minimised participant variables, increasing the internal validity of the results
How is Heston’s study not internally valid? (3 points)
Secondary data, such as the hospital records collected, could be more subjective than primary data - decreased internal validity
Quasi-experimental design reduces control over extraneous variables - cause and effect cannot be established between genetics and schizophrenia
Difficult to account for environmental factors - e.g. the psychiatric status of each participant’s father was not checked which may have been a contributing factor to Sz
How ecologically valid was Heston’s adoption study? (2 points)
A quasi-experimental, natural study was conducted, increasing the ecological validity
Real adopted children with schizophrenic biological mothers in a real-life scenario were used
How is Heston’s adoption study ethical? (2 points)
Presumptive consent was given by the parents of the adopted participants or adoption agency
Participants were lost from the sample, indicating a right to withdraw
How is Heston’s adoption study unethical? (3 points)
The study does pry into the personal and social life of participants e.g. their private medical records and details of previous crimes or psychosocial disability
Could lead to long-term psychological harm - goes against thesocial responsibilityof ethical research as confidential information is being shared across multiple sources
Despite this, understanding nature V nurture debate for clinical disorders is very important for the “the common good” - this research mightmaximize benefitfor all scientific understanding
