INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Flashcards
Explain Id
Demands immediate satisfaction, governed by pleasure principal
Explain Ego
Develops as a child interacts with he world, conscious rational part of personality
Explain Superego
Morality principle, develops identification
Describe the phallic stage
Starts age 3, ends age 5
Become interested in their genitals and find out they are pleasurable, experience guilt when told not to touch themselves
Psych deals with conflicts by repressing urges (defence mechanisms)
-over reliance leads to mental disorders
Describe the Oedipus complex
Key element of Phallic stage
Child aware of different genitals (anatomic sex differences)= sexual attraction, rivalry, jealousy, etc
Boys, sexually desire their mother (father=rival)
Child scared + guilty- resolves conflict= identify with father, adopts his attributes
Aim of Freuds study
Provide evidence to support is theory of psychosexual development, specific ally in regards to the Oedipus complex
Second aim was to explain developments of a phobia towards horses in a five year old boy
What was Freuds sample?
One boy- ‘little Hans’
Son of Freuds friends
What was the method used for Freud?
Case study
Self reports, over two years
Letters written by his father explaining his dreams
What happened to Hans at age 5?
Started having an irrational fear of horse, Freud believed this would be due to him having been frightened by a large penis
What were Freuds initial explanation of Hans; phobia?
Thought he was experiencing Oedipus complex as his ego couldn’t deal with the constant anxiety, he claimed Hans had projected his fears of his father onto horses
What did Hans do at age 4 1/2?
Attempted to seduce mother during his daily bath when she was powdering around his penis
Hans said ‘why don’t you put your finger up there?’
His mother responded ‘it’s not proper’
Indicating sexual desires towards his mother
What scared Hans about the horses?
The black around there eyes and mouth- glasses and moustache
What happened when Hans became jealous of his sister?
Became obsessed with ‘lumf’ (faeces), imaginary friend called ‘Lodi’- symbolised lumf
Freud believed this was because Hans was concerned with how his mother produced a baby from her stomach and pushed it out- the way she would defecate
Explanations of Freud
Black around horses eyes and mouth, glasses and moustache, sexual fantasies towards mother therefore feared his fathers’ retaliation
Mental illnesses are caused by over reliance of defence mechanisms
Talking therapy is an effective treatment for mental disorders
Identification with father meant Hans resolved inner conflicts which caused phobia to disappear
Background of Baron-cohen
Autism is a pervasive disorder, meaning affects more than one aspect of behaviour
Characterised as having triad of impairments:
1. socialisation and communication
2. language
3. imagination
Sally Anne test used on children to show how having autism means you lack theory of mind, developed eye task for adults
Aims for Baron-Cohen
Show adults with autism lack advanced theory of mind
To test genetic differences in theory of mind
What was the method used by Baron-Cohen?
Quasi (spectrum, Tourette’s or neurotypical)
Sample for Baron-Cohen
Spectrum- 16 adults (13 M and 3 F)
Tourette’s- 10 (8 M and 2 F)
Neurotypical- 50 adults (25 M and 25 F)
Tourette’s syndrome individuals used as control comparison group to show that, even though they have a neurotypical disorder, lacking theory of mind is a cognitive defect of autism disorder an no other neurological disorder
What were the variables used in BC
IV- the group the P belonged to
DV- score on the 4 tests
What was the first task for BC?
Eye task:
Look at set of eyes
Each set, two words- one target, one foil
Eyes selected through magazines, 4 judges generated target and foil words
To further check validity, 8 independent judges had to decide from the types of words till 100% agreement
What was the second task for BC?
Happe’s strange stories:
Involving answering Qs on a selection of short stories about a characters thoughts
Example of a Happe’s strange story
Child coughs throughout lunch
Her father says “poor Emma, you must have a frog in your throat”
Children with autism would think this statement is literally true
Third task for BC
Gender task (control task- only experimental group completed):
Identifying gender of eyes used in the eye task
Involves facial perception
Fourth task for BC
Basic emotion task (control):
Judge emotions of whole faces on six basic emotions
-happy, sad, angry, afraid, disgust, surprise
Results for eye task
Mean /25
Autism- 16.3
Tourette’s- 20.4
Neurotypical- 20.3
Results for Happe’s strange stories
Ps with Tourette’s and neurotypical did not make any errors but Ps with autism made mistakes
Concurrent validity between this and the eye task
Results for Gender and emotional control tasks
No differences between groups
Results for second aim whether there are gender differences in theory of mind skills
Eye task:
Mean /25
Males- 18.8
Females- 21.8
Aim for Hancock
Examine the language characteristics of psychopaths (when describing their crimes) on three major traits
What was the first major trait for H?
An instrumental/predatory world view
93% of homicides are premeditated, H hypothesised that this would be reflected through the use of more subordinating conjunctions like ;since’, ‘as’.
Explanatory and casually framed linguistic tools (associated with cause and effect)
What was the second major trait for H?
Use of socioeconomic needs when discussing their crimes
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs- psychopaths more concerned about satisfying basic needs rather than higher level needs
Maslows hierarchy of needs
Physiological, safety, love, esteem, self actualisation
What was the third major trait for H?
Emotional deficit (previous research found that p have difficulty reading emotional faces and identifying expression)
Produce fewer intense words
More disfluencies- can’t explain crime in appropriate way
Use of past tense- distancing from and lack of personal responsibility
What was the sample for H?
52 men (8 first degree, 32 second, 2 not specified)
Canadian prison- murder
All had confessed
What was the method used by H?
Quasi
Self-report (semi-structured interview)
Ps asked to describe their crime in as much detail as possible, 25 min maximum
How did H classify who was a psychopath and who wasn’t?
Used Hare’s psychopathy checklist- revised (PLC-R)
Score from 20 criteria, such as lack of remorse, superficial charm, irresponsibility
Max score= 40, cut off point=25 or above to be classified psychopath
How did they check reliability from the Hare’s psychopathy checklist?
10 case files were recorded randomly and results showed a high level of agreement
How many classified psychopaths were used in the study?
14
38 non-psychopaths
