Individual Differences Area Flashcards
What are the principles of the individual differences area?
- Looks at why people fall out of the ‘normal’ range
- Focuses on why people differ and the reasons for these differences
- Develop an understanding of disorders
- Also concerned with how to measure differences between people
What are the key concepts of the individual differences area?
Understanding disorders (such as phobias, autism, psychopathy), measuring differences, theory of mind
What are the core studies within the individual differences area?
- Freud (classic)
- Baron-Cohen (contemporary)
- Gould (classic)
- Hancock (contemporary)
What is the background of Freud?
Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development
Freud believed that sexual impulses are present in the new born child and they seek satisfaction through their own body
Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital
What are the aims of Freud?
To provide evidence for psychosexual development theory using psychoanalysis of dreams and fantasies of a child ‘Little Hans’ with nervous disorder.
What is the sample of Freud?
1 Boy (Little Hans) from Vienna, Austria. Aged 3 at the beginning of the study and 5 by the end.
What is the procedure of Freud?
Hans’ father recorded details of Hans’ behaviours and conversations, and made his own interpretations. He would then send these in a weekly letter to Freud.
Freud replied with his own interpretations of the behaviours and conversations, and would give guidance on what Hans’ father should be discussing with Hans, and which behaviours to look out for.
What are the results of Freud?
Because Han’s was experiencing the Oedipus complex (a sexual desire for his mother and rivalry with his father) he was subconsciously scared of his father.
This fear was manifested in a fear of horses, particularly those with dark around the mouth (representing his father’s beard) and blinkers (which represented his glasses).
Hans’ obsession with his ‘widdler’ was another sign of being in the phallic stage of development and experiencing the Oedipus complex.
included the giraffe fantasy which represented the desire to take his mother away from his father
The final family fantasy was interpreted as the resolution of the Oedipus Complex.
What are the conclusions of Freud?
Freud claimed that he had learned nothing new from studying Little Hans’ case and that the study provided support for:
His Psychosexual Stages of Development Theory
Oedipus Complex
little Hans wanted his father ‘out of the way’ so that he could have the affections of his mother all to himself.
Phobias come from the unconscious
The fear of his father finding out about his desires was displaced into a fear of horses.
What was the research method in Freud?
Case study
How does Freud relate to the individual differences area?
Freud’s study falls within the individual differences area because it is investigating a way in which people differ – namely, by experiencing phobias.
How does Freud relate to the key theme?
In relation to the key theme of understanding disorders, Freud’s study would appear to tell us that this can be done through an understanding of unconscious conflicts.
How is Freud valid?
TIn terms of whether Freud is correct in the interpretations he places on Little Hans’ dreams and fantasies, it is arguable that there are much more obvious explanations available for them. For example, behaviourists would explain his fears in terms of classical conditioning as the fear of horses biting him could have been triggered by him hearing an adult warn a child that this could happen, while the fear of horses falling over could have been triggered by him actually seeing this happen.
Low in Population validity as the sample of Little Hans is not diverse and therefore not representative of the target population and therefore leading to results not being generalisable.
How is Freud reliable?
A sample of one is too small to establish a consistent effect. To be able to say that all children progress through the five psychosexual stages of development, Freud would need to illustrate this across a much larger sample.
Is Freud ethnocentric?
As already noted, it is questionable whether the experiences of a middle class child in Vienna are likely to be typical of the experiences of children in other, less privileged parts of the world. For this reason, it might be supposed that the study is ethnocentric. That said, as phobias are common in children across the world, perhaps the findings don’t only apply to children from this one culture.
Which side of the nature/nurture debate does Freud support?
In a footnote added by Freud in 1923, he explicitly stated that ‘both disposition and experience’ can be expected to play a part in anxiety disorders such as those experienced by Little Hans. In other words, he would see phobias as arising from a combination of both nature (a child’s ‘constitution’) and nurture (their ‘accidental experiences’ as they grow up).
Which side of the free will/determinism debate does Freud support?
This is more deterministic as it suggests that you will always go through psychosexual development and this means that you will always have a desire to take away your mother/father and will always have a fear of your mother/father and this resolves as you move through the stages of the psychosexual development.
Which side of the reductionism/holism debate does Freud support?
Freud’s case study can be seen as reductionist in the sense that he explained Little Hans’ phobias and fantasies in relation to his theory of psychosexual development (i.e. he reduced the explanation for them down to this, and this alone).
However, the way in which the research was conducted – namely, as an in-depth case study collecting data on Little Hans over a period of approximately two years in an unstructured way – was relatively holistic , as it meant that Little Hans was not restricted in the different aspects of his experience that he could reveal.
Which side of the individual/situational debate does Freud support?
This is more individual as fears and nightmares are part of our personality and that is innate to use and how it influences our behaviour, in this case, the giraffe fantasy which represented the desire to take his mother away from his father, which is something that is part of his personality.
How useful is the research of Freud?
In Freud’s own words, he describes the aim of psychoanalysis as being ‘… to enable the patient to obtain a conscious grasp of his unconscious wishes’ , replacing ‘… the process of repression … by a temperate and purposeful control on the part of the highest agencies of the mind’ . It certainly aims to be of use to those in receipt of it and, according to Freud, Little Hans seemed to benefit from it.
How have the ethical considerations been kept/broken in Freud?
We have already seen that Freud was alert to the question of whether psychoanalysis could cause patients harm. His use of the pseudonym ‘Little Hans’ shows that he was also aware of the need to protect his patient’s identity. Beyond this, since Little Hans was a young child, it was down to his parents to give Freud consent to publish the psychoanalysis as a research paper. Interestingly, Little Hans’ father did not seem to deceive him as to what was going on. Thus, when Little Hans asked his father why he was writing down everything he had said in relation to his giraffe fantasy, he replied, ‘Because I shall send it to a professor, who can then take away your “nonsense” for you’
How socially sensitive is the research of Freud?
It can be socially sensitive as people who get accused of being in love with one of their parent or wanting their sibling to die might be subject to discrimination and prejudice.
How scientific is the research of Freud?
In so far as research can be regarded as scientific if it is replicable, objective and falsifiable, it is difficult to defend this case study as scientific. In the first place, case studies are of their very nature always unique and therefore cannot be replicated to see if someone else would get the same ‘results’. In this case, it is also arguable that Freud’s interpretations of Hans’ phobias and fantasies were his ( subjective ) opinion rather than a matter of (objective) fact. Finally, as it is unclear how in principle Freud’s interpretations could be proved wrong, it can be claimed that he is holding them in an unfalsifiable way as, presumably, he would just say that his critics were in denial, or that of course they don’t know what is in their unconscious because it is of the nature of the unconscious that anything within it is hidden from them. That said, whilst there are problems with Freud’s choice of case studies as his research method, at least he recognises that his theories require empirical evidence to back them up.
What is the background of Baron-Cohen?
Baron-Cohen had established through the Sally-Anne test in the 1980s that ‘Theory of Mind’ (the ability to recognise what another person is thinking or feeling) is an area that children with autism typically show a weakness in.
What is the sample of Baron-Cohen?
16 adults with either autism or Asperger’s syndrome (13m; 3f) recruited through magazine or professional contacts of Baron-Cohen
50 ‘normal’ adults (25m; 25f) recruited from the general population of Cambridge, UK.
10 adults with Tourette’s syndrome (8m; 2f) recruited from a referral centre in London
What are the aims of Baron-Cohen?
To investigate whether adults with autism still experience a deficit in Theory of Mind.
To develop a new ‘advanded’ way of testing Theory of Mind that would be appropriate for adults (and not be vulnerable to a ceiling effect.)
What is the procedure of Baron-Cohen?
-Ppts took the ‘reading the mind in the eye task’, which involved 25 pairs of eyes being shown for 3 seconds each and ppts had to say which two semantically opposite words/phrases best described what the person was thinking or feeling
-The ‘Eye Task’ was the new test of Theory of Mind. Baron-Cohen also gave ppts the ‘Strange stories’ task to do. This is because it had already been validated so if the scores on the eye task were similar then they would presumably be measuring the same the same construct (therefore having concurrent validity).
-Autistic ppts were also asked to identify the gender of people in the photos used in the eye task and to recognise the six basic emotions (happiness, anger, sadness, disgust, etc) from photos of whole faces
-If they had failed either this gender recognition task or basic emotion recognition task, then they wouldn’t have been given the eye task to do because if they couldn’t succeed in these more basic tasks then they would certainly not have been able to succeed in the eye task.
What are the results of Baron-Cohen?
Adults with autism did worse in the eye task (means score of 16.3/25) than either the normal adults (20.3/25) or the adults with Tourette’s syndrome (20.4/25)
within the normal participants, females performed better than males on the eye task (mean score of 21.8/25 versus 18.8/25), supporting folk psychology claims about females, being better at reading other peoples emotions than males
What are the conclusions of Baron-Cohen?
this suggested that (one) deficit in theory of mind, persists into adulthood for people with autism, and (two). The eye task is a test that can pick this up (NB, we are told that result on this test were similar to those on the strange stories tasks, it was concurrently valid with this established tests)
How does Baron-Cohen relate to the individual differences area and how could it be cognitive?
It’s investigating way in which people differ – namely, by being diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.
it can be cognitive, because the way in which Baron Cohen believes people on the autistic spectrum differ is a cognitive one, namely difficulty in recognising the thoughts and feelings of other people.
How does Baron-Cohen relate to the key theme?
It suggest that adult autism or Asperger syndrome experiencing impairment when it comes to the theory of mind.
How is Baron-Cohen valid?
Low on ecological validity, because you are more likely to see the face of another, rather than just the eyes. However, it is ecologically valid because we observe peoples eyes on a daily basis and we recognise peoples emotions too.
it is high in population validity because it’s got both males and females, ratio of autistic people represents the target population. However, it is not high and population validity because the sample is not diverse, some of them were willing to take part, some were known by Barron Cohen and some were recruited, which means that the results may not be generalisable.
it’s also got concurrent validity because they compared the strange stories task (an already proven valid task) to the eye task to see if they have similar results, and the participants scored worse on both of them.
How is Baron-Cohen reliable?
it is high in internal reliability, because there was a standardised procedure as all participants got two options, and were shown the eye for three seconds, therefore making it possible for other researchers to replicate the procedure and find different findings.
it is also high in external reliability because the eye task was done enough times to establish consistent effect as it was done by 76 participants. However, the basic emotion test was only done 16 times, therefore it cannot establish consistent effect, therefore the results could be a fluke .
Is Baron-Cohen ethnocentric?
As autistic spectrum disorders and Tourette syndrome occur within people irrespective of their cultural background (suggesting a genetic component to both disorders), the results from this study could be expected to apply to people from beyond the UK. For this reason, the findings from the study shouldn’t be seen as applying to people from one culture alone.
That said, there may be variation between cultures in the amount of experience people have at reading people’s emotions from the eyes alone (e.g. if living somewhere in which Muslim women wear the niqab).
Which side of the nature/nurture debate does Baron-Cohen support?
It’s strongly support nature as autism has a strong genetic component, so therefore you are born with it.
Which side of the free will/determinism debate does Baron-Cohen support?
it can be free will as people with autism could try to learn how to better understand emotions. However, it is more deterministic as those with autism are unlikely to be able to understand emotion.
Which side of the reductionism/holism debate does Baron-Cohen support?
In comparison to the study by Freud, the investigation by Baron-Cohen et al . can be seen as relatively reductionist . The approach they take involves focusing on understanding a disorder by isolating one variable (Theory of Mind) and testing for this in an experimental way. It is important to note that describing a study as reductionist is not necessarily a criticism as there is great merit in conducting research in this way.
Which side of the individual/situational debate does Baron-Cohen support?
more individual, because autism is a part of your individual personality, and you will have autism in every circumstance. However, it could be situational because certain circumstances could worsen the symptoms of your autism.
