Budzynski: Behavioural As Improvement

Question 1

Method?

Answer 1

Experimental method in a lab

Question 2

PPs?

Answer 2

18 PPs who replied to an advert in a local paper in Colorado

Question 3

Design?

Answer 3

Independent where PPs randomly allocated to 3 groups

Question 4

What were the 3 groups?

Answer 4

Group A= taught relaxation and told ‘clicks’ of biofeedback machine would reflect muscle tension (slower clicks= less tension)

Group B= told to concentrate on varying clicks, given pseudo feedback

Group C= given no training, told would start in 2 months

Question 5

Results?

Answer 5

• after 3 months group As tension was significantly lower than B
• As reported headaches dropped significantly below baseline+had less than Bs+Cs
• drug usage in A decreased more than B

Question 6

Conclusions?

Answer 6

Biofeedback is an effective way of treating patients to relax and reduce their tension headaches.
Relaxation training is also more effective than just being monitored, but is better when used together with biofeedback.

Question 7

Strengths?

Answer 7

• control of extraneous variables as lab experiment
• ethical as volunteer sample
• longitudinal
• objective measure which supports psychology as a science+not effected by bias

Question 8

Weaknesses?

Answer 8

• ethnocentrism
• small sample
• lab= low ecological validity
• unethical as not treating C
• low population validity
• volunteer sample so demand characteristics
• reductionist

Question 9

Aim?

Answer 9

To see whether biofeedback is an effective method of reducing tension headaches.

Question 10

What is biofeedback?

Answer 10

Patients are trained to improve their health by using signals from their own bodies