classic study: rosenhan Flashcards
What year was the study conducted?
1973
What is the study called?
Being SANE in INSANE places
Background of the study
Rosenhan wanted to see whether people who posed as mentally ill would be detected as being sane.
He made sure the pseudo-patients he used had never been diagnosed with a mental illness, to see if they could be distinguished.
He also felt that there were issues with RELIABILITY and VALIDITY of the DSM II, as well as defining ‘abnormality’
What were the aims of the study?
Rosenhan wanted to investigate whether 8 people gaining admission to 12 different hospitals would be ‘found out’ as sane using DSM classification.
He wanted to see what the experience was like and what it feels like to be viewed as being ‘insane’.
What does pseudo mean?
Fake, false, fraudulent
How many people did the sample consist of?
8 pseudo-patients = 3 women and 5 men
What were the pseudo-patients’ occupations?
3 psychologists, a paediatrician, psychiatrist, painter and housewife - AND ROSENHAN
Who knew about Rosenhan in the hospital?
The hospital administrator and chief psychologist knew about Rosenhan, but nobody else did.
What happened to the patients employed in mental health?
They provided a different occupation to avoid being treated differently
What was the setting of the study?
They used a variety of hospitals to increase generalisability - 12 hospitals were used in 5 different USA states.
1 private hospital, the rest public.
Old/new, short-staffed/well-staffed.
What was the procedure of the hospital admission?
The pseudo-patients called for an appointment and arrived at the administration office saying they were hearing voices.
What were the patients hearing voices of?
The voices were ‘unclear’, but they were hearing 3 words:
EMPTY
HOLLOW
THUD
On admission the pseudo-patients gave a…
Different name and some personal history, including details of their own life.
What happened once the pseudo-patients were admitted?
They stopped simulating symptoms of abnormality, behaving ‘normally’
When given medication, they did not swallow.
They responded to instructions from staff and chat to other patients.
Each pseudo-patient was told they would have to get out by convincing staff they were sane.
What were their tasks?
1) seek release by convincing staff they were sane
2) observe and record the experiences of the institutionalised mentally disordered patient (done covertly at first, but unnecessary)
