Case Studies

Question 1

Whats an idiographic approach?

Answer 1

Focusing on individuals and what has happened to them

Question 2

Whats a case study?

Answer 2

This method involves reconstructing the case history (details of the case) of a single participant, group of individuals or of an event. It is an in-depth and detailed study, where a variety of methods are used to gather data including interviews, questionnaires and observations for example involve the use of interviews with the individual and family,friends, medical professionals etc.

It is usually applied to rare or unusual examples of behaviour, which may provide important insights into psychological function and help question/ support psychological theory and lead to the possibility of new research

Case studies mainly provide qualitative data but some methods generate quantitative data

Question 3

Whats a nomothetic approach in an experiment?

Answer 3

Creates general laws / rules that can apply to a population

Question 4

What is qualitative data?

Answer 4

Written data (language) that includes opinions/thoughts and feelings
SUBJECTIVE DATA

Question 5

What is quantitive data ?

Answer 5

Numerical data (statistics)
OBJECTIVE DAta

Question 6

WHATS THE TRIANGULATION ANALYSIS?

Answer 6

Questionnaires, participant responses, observations

Aka methods used to find something out about a person

Question 7

Why are cognitive psychologists interested in brain damaged patients?

Answer 7

These case studies are used to study brain damaged patients and have been used to treat and rehabilitate the individual but also investigate the impact of brain injury on cognitive functioning

This might involve assessing the abilities that have been lost due to certain areas of damage

Question 8

A strength of a case study is that it allows detailed, in-depth data to be collected, as it permits the study over a long period of time. Explain how this benefits psychologists in explaining human behaviour?

Answer 8

It allows them to find specific conditions and how they work, allowing psychologists to make medical advancements and recognise specific behaviour based on this in other studies and help with other medical conditions

Question 9

However, in a case study it is extremely hard to establish a cause and effect relationship, why might this be?

Answer 9

Because there is no control group, as it’s rare for these conditions to be repeated (normally only single individual studied) this naturally occurring event will make us not have control over any variables

Question 10

Why is it hard to generalise findings in a case study?

Answer 10

This is because the study isn’t fit to the rest of the population (no diversity as it is only based on a single person that is being studied) It might be an anomaly, something that happens to one person might not happen to everyone else

Question 11

Why are case studies not replicable?

Answer 11

Because normally there is an individual with a condition that is unlikely to be discovered again (as it’s normally rare individuals studied)

So the study is not replicable and it wouldn’t be ethical to replicate it on another person

Question 12

Why is the data collected being subjective a weakness?

Answer 12

As its based on the experimenters own views and opinions and so it reduces the reliability of the study as each psychologist would interpret the results based on their own judgment (aka experimenter bias)

Question 13

When there is more than one case study available showing the same brain damage (more or less) with the same difficulties in cognitive functioning, therefore…

Answer 13

We can assume that there’s a relationship between the two and that the same things will apply to both

Question 14

Damage to the brain rarely occurs in just one specific area without damaging surrounding areas and the surrounding areas might be where the relevant processing might take place. This affects validity as…

Answer 14

Internal validity cannot be certain if you have a areas of the brain could’ve been damaged as an effect of the removal of one area

Question 15

How are ethical issues considered in case studies?

Answer 15

Ethical issues need to be considered as participants will be completing several different methods and potentially over a long period of time. Fully informed consent is likely to be obtained and the right to withdraw should be offered throughout. A pseudonym is often used to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of a patient

Question 16

Give the case study of H M

Answer 16

At 27 years old, HM had brain surgery to alleviate the severe symptoms of epilepsy, which involves the removal of part of the brain within the temporal lobe called the hippocampus. He was diagnosed as suffering with anterograde and retrograde amnesia. anterograde person can’t store new information in the STM, and they often should a normal memory for events prior to the incident, but have severely impaired ability to record information about events occurring after the incident. On the other hand, retrograde amnesia is the loss of memory for events that occurred or information learned before the injury.

His STM remains normal, but he was completely unable to transfer any new information into his LTM . He was able to remember people. He knew from a long time ago, but knew people that he met remain strangers. He also showed no knowledge of current affairs because he forgot any new items as soon as he read it.

Question 17

Why did HM have a partial lobotomy performed on him?

Answer 17

As he cracked his skull as a child and had seizures, and the surgery would reduce this

Question 18

Which part of a HM’s brain was removed?

Answer 18

The hippocampus, which is associated with emotions and found in the limbic system

Question 19

What were the results of HMs lobotomy?

Answer 19

Improved, IQ

Same personality

No formation of new memories, like eating

However, he could run the skills for tasks (procedural memory)

Question 20

What does HM’s case study teach us about memory?

Answer 20

That there is a distinction between STM and LTM

The hippocampus plays an important part in recall of what he’s learnt

Question 21

Review HM’s case study ethically?

Answer 21

Although he tried to help, it didn’t really as it reduced his quality of life, as he couldn’t do much for the rest of his life

There were issues around informed consent, and he forgot that he even gave consent, and he can’t withdraw from it. However, family and friends can consent on his behalf.