Individual differences Flashcards
1
Q
What are the features of a case study?
A
- New Research - new theories
- in depth and detailed study - where a variety of methods are used to gather data.
- Often applied to unusual or rare examples of behaviours.
- Used for behaviours that need to be changed or understood allowing interventions to be put in place.
2
Q
What are the strengths of a case study?
A
- Allows researchers to observe and record information about rare, impractical or unethical conditions and behaviours.
- Provide new evidence to support psychological theories.
3
Q
What are the weaknesses of a case study?
A
- Individual case of a person so is harder to generalised to the wider population.
- Difficult to replicate
- Time consuming and expensive
- Researchers bias (their own subjective feelings may influence the case study).
4
Q
Why do biological psychologists use case studies of brain damaged patients?
A
- The biological psychologists assume all our brains are the same, that there no individual differences in the brain structure and functioning.
- This allows psychologists to investigate the behaviour of one individual in a lot of detail and then generalise to the wider population.
5
Q
Who is Phineas Gage?
A
- Damaged his pre-frontal lobe
- He was a polite person
- A railway worker
- The rod went through the top of head and out of the left frontal lobe. He became rude and aggressive.
- This case study suggests that aggression may be linked to the frontal lobe.
6
Q
Who Charles Whitman?
A
- He killed his mother and wife and then went on to kill more people and injure them.
- He had an autopsy after he was shot which a tumor pressing against his amygdala.
- The amygdala is a region of the brain crucial of the brain crucial for emotions and behaviour control. This explained for his aggressive behaviour.
7
Q
Who was HM?
A
- Involved in an accident
- Has his hippocampus accidentally sucked out.
- experienced seizures
- Language difficulties
- His impairment was likely to his temporal lobe lesion and was more likely to be result of seizures at age ten as his education was interrupted and game from a low socioeconomic background.
8
Q
What is unique about each case study which would make it harder to claim biological cause of aggression are universal?
A
- It belongs to one individual person so therefore it makes i harder to claim the causes of aggression are universal. This is because aggression can be caused by many different factors which affects people differently.
9
Q
How can brain scanning help the validity of case studies of brain damaged patients?
A
- It has high ecological validity so it means brain scanning help detect the different parts of the brain to see which ones are functioning as normal and which parts are damaged as they are not carrying out their normal functions. The patient may be asked to perform an activity to help them identify this.
10
Q
Why are some areas of brain scanning techniques not valid?
A
- Some brain scanning techniques do not provide a direct measure of neural and brain activity. It sometimes shows us the activity of different parts of the brain and may not always tell you the function.
11
Q
Why can we not claim cause and effect in case studies of brain damage?
A
- Cause and Effect cannot be established as brain damage patients will always have different experiences and therefore cause and effect will be different so it would be hard to establish it.
12
Q
How might evolution explain behaviour has changed over time such as aggression?
A
- It shows how much aggression has changed over time in males and females. Females used to not be as aggressive but overtime have become more aggressive bout not as agressive as men.
13
Q
How do hormones explain gender?
A
- Males are seen to be more aggressive than females. Males have testosterone which is produced in testes.
- Females have small amount of testosterone which is produced in the ovaries.
- Males have more testosterone than females and therefore are seen more aggressive than females.
14
Q
How do hormones explain aggression?
A
- Testosterone plays a part in aggression as the removal of it decreases aggressive behaviours.
- Cortisol causes aggression especially in lower levels of this hormone.
- Without the control of this hormone, it can lead to aggressive behaviour.
