Individual Differences Flashcards
Two examples
Thigpen and cleckley
–study of eve white who said she suffered black outs and dizzy spells– through 100 hours of interviews with family and friends and iq tests and psychometric it was found that eve white had MPD and had other personalities such as eve black who was less smart and more extroverted; she claims to be allergic to polyester tights whereas eve white was not and would come about by saying ‘hi doc!’ All extravagant etc.
Rosenhan
8 pseudo patients attempting to gain admission in 12 different hospitals in the usa. They would go in and complain of hearing a ‘thud’ noise in their heads— all admitted as having schizophrenia or bipolar for 7-52 days – the other inmates detected their sanity but the staff didn’t.. E.g a pseudo was pacing due to boredom and this remarked as abnormal behaviour– others would wait outside the cafeteria waiting for lunch as they were bored too and this was called oral acquisitive syndrome
Two strengths and two weakness
+useful– rose ban shows that type 1 errors are common and it indicates that doctors should be aware
+holistic - looks at whole person not just parts
-only qualitive date/ hard to analyse
-case studies usually unrepresentative sample,
Main assumption
Everyone’s behaviour is different, not all people are the same due to differences in intelligence, life experience etc.
