Individual differences Flashcards
What is the assumption of the individual differences area?
Assumes behaviour is influenced by differences within individuals. For example mental disorders and autism.
What is the key theme of individual differences?
Understanding disorders
What are the 2 studies in the individual differences area?
Contemporary= Baren-Cohen
Classic= Freud
What is theory of mind?
The ability to understand that other people have independent minds of their own
What was the old theory of mind test?
The sally anne test
Why did Baron-Cohen decide to devise a new test for theory of mind?
Wanted to know if high functioning adults with autism and aspergers also have difficulty with mind reading
What were the 3 conditions in baron-cohen’s study?
Autism/Aspergers
Normal
Tourette’s
How many were in the austistic condition?
16
males= 13
females= 3
How many were in the normal condition?
50
males= 25
females= 25
How many were in the tourette’s condition?
10
males= 8
females= 2
how many participants were the altogether in baron-cohen’s study?
76
What were all 3 conditions intelligence levels?
Normal
How were the autistic condition recruited? What sampling method?
Variety of clinical sources and magazine ads
Volunteer
How did the normal condition recruit participants? What sampling method?
selected randomly through cambridge university
Random
How did the tourette’s condition recruit participants? What sampling method?
Referral centre in london
Opportunity
Where were participants tested in baron-cohen’s study?
Individually in a quiet room in their homes, the researchers clinic or laboratory at the university
How many tasks were there in Baron-Cohen’s study?
4 Always given in a randomised order The eyes task Happe’s strange stories task Gender Recognition Task Basic Emotion Recognition Task
What happened in the Eyes task?
Shown 25 pictures of eyes for 3 seconds. Had to choose from 1 or 2 mental states that the eyes portrayed in the picture e.g. Calm Vs Anxious
Pictures were always 15 x 10cm, black and white and all taken from magazines
What were 2 findings from the eyes task?
Autistic condition mean score was 16.3 out of 25 and the normal condition was 20.3 out of 25
Why could you conclude about the eyes task?
People with autism lack theory of mind compared to both normal and tourette’s patients who performed significantly better
What happened in the Happe’s strange stories task?
The normal condition didn’t do this.
They were read stories which incorporated white lies, jokes, figures of speech and they had to say why the characters did what they did.
This was used to check the validity for the eyes task because it was a test for concurrent validity.
What was one finding from Happe’s strange stories task?
Subjects with autism made errors and were significantly impaired on this task compared to other groups
What can you conclude about the Happe’s strange stories task?
Shows validity for eyes test as it provides similar findings
What happened in the gender recognition task?
To see if p’s could identify the facial cue of gender. It was a control task scored out of 25 using the same sets of eyes as used in the eyes task. they had to state the gender of the person in each photograph
What happened in the basic emotion recognition task?
To see if p’s could detect basic emotion. Shown pictures of whole faces which would show one of six basic emotions
What were the 2 control tasks in baron cohen’s study?
Gender and emotion recognition
What were the 6 emotions in the recognition task?
Happy Sad Angry Afraid Surprise Disgust
What was a finding from the basic emotion recognition task and the gender recognition task in baron cohen’s study?
No real difference between groups
What could you conclude about the gender recognition task?
Autistic group could detect gender
What could you conclude about the basic emotion recognition task?
Autistic group were able to detect emotion
If they failed on either control tasks they would definitely have been impaired on the eyes test
What research method was used in baron cohen’s study?
Quasi
What was the research design on baron cohen’s study?
Independent measures
What was the independent variable in baron cohen’s study?
The group the participants were in
What was the dependent variable in baron cohen’s study
The score on the four tests
What theory did freud want to investigate?
The psychodynamic perspective
What were the 5 psychosexual stages?
Oral stage Anal stage Phallic stage Latency stage Genital stage
What is the oedipus complex and when does it occur?
Name comes from classical greek tragedy which oedipus kills his father and marries his mother and it occurs in the phallic stage
What are the 3 levels of the mind?
Conscious
Pre-conscious
Unconscious
What are the 3 parts to our personality?
ID ( from birth, desires and no rational thought )
Ego ( 1-3 no moral bias but know from what’s socially acceptable )
Superego ( 3-5 internal rules and moral code )
What are the 3 defence mechanisms and which part of the personality are they?
Repression
Displacement
Denial
Part of the ego
What are the sample details of freud’s study?
Little hans aged between 3-5 during study and was austrian
What was Little Hans phobia?
Horses
How did Freud gain his data?
Hans father was a follower of freud and gathered data about Hans dreams, fears and fantasies through observations and conversations with Hans.
His father would then relay this to freud.
Freud only met Hans once
Why was Hans afraid of horses?
He became scared of white horses and that they would bite him, especially ones with black around their mouths
What was freud’s interpretation of hans phobia of horses?
Represented a fear of his dad with a dark moustache (DISPLACEMENT) his dad told him to be careful not to get bitten. This was evidence of the oedipus complex
What happened in Hans giraffe dream?
Big giraffe calling out because Hans had taken the crumpled giraffe away from it and Hans then sat on the crumpled one
What did Freud say about the giraffe dream?
Symbolises what happens in the parents ben in the morning, Hans comes in to see his mum and dad objects.
Evidence for oedipus complex
What happened in hans parenting/marrying fantasy?
Hans fantasised about marrying his mum and playing father to his own children
What did freud say about the parenting/ marrying fantasy?
Hans made space for his father in his life but he was made to be the grandfather.
This showed the resolution for the oedipus complex
What method did freud use?
Case study method
What is one strength and one weakness of a case study?
S= gathers lots of information that’s in-depth data about that individual
W= hard to generalise findings as small sample
What are conclusions about freud’s study?
Supports freud’s theory of psychosexual development
Behaviour is deterministic
Give 3 differences between freud and baron cohen’s study
Freud=small sample size and baron cohen= large (76)
Freud=case study Baron cohen= Quasi
Freud = longitudinal Baron Cohen = snapshot
give 3 similarities between freud and baron cohen’s study?
Both look at disorders
Part of data collected in own home
Normal intelligence levels
Give a strength and weakness of the individual differences area?
S= Has useful applications so support can be put in place to help individuals with differences
W= Focuses mainly on individuals so sampled are restricted
