Case studies

Question 1

What is a case study?

Answer 1

An in-depth inquiry of a single person, group (who all share a particular characteristic, like a family), event or community, used to study people or situations that cannot be studied through normal methods like experiments, questionnaires or interviews

Question 2

Why are case studies so valuable?

Answer 2

Investigate a phenomenon within its real-life context, especially useful where boundaries between phenomena and context are not clearly known

Question 3

What are 2 characteristic features of case studies?

Answer 3

1) Focus on abnormal cases - people with deviant behaviour, mental disorders, or unusual gifts
2) Usually longitudinal studies - take place over a period of time, usually months, recording changes in behaviour and mental state of the ppts over that period

Question 4

What kinds of methods can be used in case studies?

Answer 4

Mixture - focus is on interviews and observations and collecting rich qualitative data, but more recent case studies mix this with quantitative measures such as questionnaires and biological measures e.g. brain scans and genetic profiling

Question 5

What approach do case studies follow?

Answer 5

Ideographic - simply recording what happens to (or reconstructing what happened) a single participant/group of individuals. Does NOT test hypotheses, look for causes, or try to uncover generalisable laws.

In order to test hypotheses and generalise the ideographic approach can be followed up with a nomothetic approach e.g. if a case study shows interesting or unexpected results which researchers want to investigate more widely. Aggregate data in lots of individuals and examine the averages

Question 6

In which field of psychology are case studies particularly useful?

Answer 6

In clinical psychology - they shed light on unusual conditions that don’t fit patterns of “normal” behaviour.

Question 7

What do prospective case studies do?

Answer 7

Observe an individual/group in order to determine what happens to them over time e.g. a patient might be watched to observe the progression of a mental disorder

Question 8

How can prospective case studies be applied in a clinical psychology context (provide an example)?

Answer 8

Help with evaluation of therapies by showing whether someone with an unusual disorder benefits from a particular type of therapy

Bradshaw (1998) followed a young woman called Carol who was receiving CBT for schizophrenia - established that it could be effective, despite having previously been regarded as inappropriate for psychotic illnesses.
(However, important to bear in mind that Carol was not a typical patient –> cannot generalise)

Question 9

What do retrospective case studies do?

Answer 9

Look at historical information e.g. psychologists might start with an outcome, such as a mental disorder, and then uncover info about the individual’s life to determine risk factors that might have contributed

Question 10

Provide an example of how retrospective case studies can be applied in clinical psychology?

Answer 10

Might explore PTSD and neglect in someone’s past to explore what could have caused a mental disorder, in addition to genetic differences or brain damage that make a patient unusual

Question 11

What are instrumental case studies?

Answer 11

Occur when the individual allows psychologists to understand more than what is initially obvious i.e. studying something that cannot be manipulated in a lab experiment –> helps us to understand a disorder better by showing exactly how it affects a sufferer

Question 12

What is a famous example of an instrumental case study?

Answer 12

Dr Milner’s case study of HM, which revealed much more about his memory problems than was obvious at first - key piece of research that established different types of memory, and that memory is linked to the hippocampus and composed of different functions

Question 13

What are 3 key strengths of case studies?

Answer 13

1) Provides rich, in-depth data
2) Suggests directions for further research
3) Allows investigations that might be difficult or unethical to do in other ways

Question 14

What are 3 weaknesses of case studies?

Answer 14

1) Problems generalising results to wider population
2) Loss of detachment and objectivity can be a problem
3) Difficult to replicate and time-consuming

Question 15

Why is generalisability an issue with case studies?

Answer 15

Very small sample groups (often only one person), and also because case studies deliberately make a point of looking at UNREPRESENTATIVE people who might not even be representative of other unusual people

Question 16

Why can reliability be a problem with case studies?

Answer 16

Case studies rich in qualitative data can be highly subjective: the researcher’s own, highly personal, impression of the participant (e.g. this was the case in freud’s case studies)

Question 17

How can reliability of case studies be improved?

Answer 17

Using standardised procedures to gather quantitative data as part of the case study - comes from biometric data and psychometric data

However, even with these procedures unreliability can still be an issue - ppts studied are often so unusual it is difficult to find anyone to replicate the study with e.g. HM’s brain damage was similar to, but not the same as, other brain-damaged ppts in the study; Carol in Bradshaw’s study was unusual, although not a complete one-off

Question 18

Why are case studies generally considered to have high validity?

Answer 18

1) They “get under the skin” of ppts and help researchers understand ppts much more thoroughly than any one-off interview
2) The long time they take to carry out means the ppts generally get quite used to the researchers and act more naturally around them –> reduces the problem of demand characteristics and social desirability bias (although doesn’t completely remove it - esp. if ppt only meets interviewer for a short period at intervals)
3) Researchers get used to the ppts and learn to understand and interpret their behaviour –> reduces problem of ethnocentrism and cultural bias (but again doesn’t remove it completely)

Question 19

What is a key validity problem with case studies?

Answer 19

In these studies researcher and ppt tend to develop a bond and a strong relationship - the researcher can get to know the ppt pretty intimately and this can lead to both parties considering each other as friends –> loss of objectivity!
Particularly problematic when studying people who have been through difficult experiences because empathy and emotions come into play

Question 20

What key ethical principle is jeopardised when intimacy develops between researcher and ppt?

Answer 20

Integrity - demands that researchers conduct themselves professionally, keeping a professional distance. Researchers aren’t supposed to befriend ppts or become romantically involved, also cannot make promises that can’t be delivered (particularly problematic when studying ppts in custody, suffering drug addictions, or with deviant fantasies)

Question 21

How does the principle of minimising harm apply to case studies?

Answer 21

States that researchers should not “normalise” unhealthy behaviours - ppts who have delusions or deviant fantasies might feel encouraged if a psychologist appears to sympathise with them.

Question 22

Why is social responsibility important in ethical research?

Answer 22

Studying rare or unusual cases is important, but researchers need to bear in mind the effect that this can have on public opinion
This particularly applies to case studies of serial sex offenders, terrorists or murderers because of the danger of “copycat” crimes or creating stereotypes of minority groups

Question 23

Why did Bromley (1986) claim that case studies are the “bedrock of scientific investigation”?

Answer 23

Many psychological studies are difficult to replicate in principle, and it is the interesting, unpredictable case that has traditionally spurred scientists towards changes in paradigms or theoretical innovations

Question 24

Summarise the 4 key advantages of using a case study method

Answer 24

1) Outstanding cases - a phenomenon may occur that is so unique or dramatic it could never have been predicted or studied in a pre-planned way. Such cases bring attention to possibilities in the human condition not previously considered
2) Contradicting a theory - One contrary case is enough to challenge seriously an assumed trend or theoretical cause-effect relationship.
3) Data pool - Multiple case studies serve as replications or as extensions of a prior study in order to refine an initially broad hypothesis or to check up on anomalies
4) Insight - Whether or not case studies lead to later, more formal and structured quantitative studies, the richness they provide is their unique strength; there would be no way to create questions that would find out this information the same way, and these experiences could cause complete restructuring of our thoughts on a condition –> allows more full empathy and adds to our overall comprehension of human psychology

Question 25

What is a particular problem with reliability of retrospective case studies?

Answer 25

Historical material often depends on a person’s own memory, which is notoriously error-prone and subject to distortion. Experiences we claim to recall from childhood are often our original reconstruction from relatives’ stories

Question 26

In addition to the ppt-researcher interaction, how else can subjectivity be problematic?

Answer 26

Subjective selection of information which enters final report - can’t present everything recorded of course! So choice of what gets included will be affected by points of background theory, or issues the researcher wishes to raise/emphasise. It is easy to ignore contradictory info. Also, for every illustrative case study, we don’t know how many cases did NOT deliver the kind of info the researcher wanted to present