individual differences area

Question 1

defining principles and concepts of individual differences area

Answer 1

1. human condition is extremely diverse and therefore it is hard to define normal behaviour
2. deals with behaviours and characteristics that make us stand out from those norms, what makes us unique/individual
3. supports both nature and nurture
4. focuses on personality
5. adopting an ideographic approach

Question 2

strengths of individual differences area

Answer 2

1. enables psychologists to find out about a wider range of human behaviours because all behaviours are studied
2. have great social benefit in improving understanding of mental disorders and suggesting treatments
3. help to inform free will/determinism debate suggesting extent to which we have control over our behaviour
4. holistic area that provides a variety of explanations for behaviours

Question 3

weaknesses of individual differences area

Answer 3

1. lacks a set of defining beliefs about why people behave as they do
2. socially sensitive
3. tools for measuring differences may not always be valid
4. makes people responsible for their actions and ignores determinism

Question 4

applications of individual differences area

Answer 4

treatment of mental health issues, links to education, intervention strategies

Question 5

freud aim

Answer 5

developed a phobia, he referred him to Freud. Freud agreed to help and believed Hans’ phobia was due to things going on in his unconscious mind. Freud used the study of Little Hans to support his views on the origins of phobias, childhood sexuality and the Oedipus complex, as well as his belief in psychoanalysis as an effective therapy. Freud believed Hans’ fears, dreams and fantasies were symbolic of his unconscious passing through the phallic stage of psychosexual development.

Question 6

freud research method

Answer 6

longitudinal case study

data was gathered by the father regularly observing and questioning Hans and sending the data off to Freud to interpret

Question 7

freud sample

Answer 7

Little Hans was 5 years old at the time of the study but historical evidence started from when he was 3 years old. From Austria

Question 8

freud ‘widdler’ concept

Answer 8

At 3 ½ interest in ‘widdler’ and mother found him with hands in pants. Threatened to send him to doctors to have it cut off. For Freud this was when Hans anxieties begin as a result of the fear from losing his penis. When he was 4, he made 1st attempt at seducing mother by asking the mother why she does not touch his ‘widdler’ when powdering him around that area after his bath. 2nd attempt when he climbed into his mother bed one morning. This was explained as Hans going through the phallic stage of psychosexual development and experience the Oedipus complex

Question 9

freud fear of horses concept

Answer 9

being bitten and blinkers. Bitten is of fear of castration again. Blinkers were the subconscious fear of his father this is because the dark around the mouth of the horse plus the blinkers resembled the moustache and glasses worn by his father, he was fearful of his father because he was experiencing the Oedipus complex.

Question 10

freud ‘giraffe fantasy’ concept

Answer 10

Crumpled up giraffe and a big giraffe in a dream he had. Big giraffe called out because Hans took the crumpled one away. It then stopped calling out and he sat on the crumpled one and the big one called out because he took the crumpled one away

Question 11

freud ‘plumber fantasy’ concept

Answer 11

plumber came and took away his behind with a pair of pincers, and then gave me another, and then the same with his ‘widdler’

Question 12

freud ‘parenting fantasy’ concept

Answer 12

Hans had a fantasy about becoming a father which linked his experiences of the Oedipus complex

Question 13

freud conclusions

Answer 13

The study of Little Hans provided support for his theory of psychosexual development on his suggestion that boys in the phallic stage of psychosexual development experience the Oedipus complex.

The nature of phobias and his theory that they are products of unconscious anxiety displaced onto harmless external objects

His concept of unconscious determinism which holds that people are not consciously aware of the causes of their behaviour

His use of psychoanalytic therapy to treat disturbed thoughts, feelings and behaviours by first identifying the unconscious causes of the disturbances and then bringing them into the conscious so that they can be discussed and resolved

Question 14

baron-cohen aim

Answer 14

Develop another ‘advanced’ test of theory of mind, but this time one that would properly test the theory of mind competence of adults

Question 15

baron-cohen hypothesis

Answer 15

They predicted that the participants with autism or AS, in spite of being adults of normal or above average intelligence, would show a significant impairment on the Eyes Task relative to the other 2 groups

They predicted that, in line with ‘folk psychology’, the normal females would perform significantly better on the Eye’s Task than would the normal males

Question 16

baron-cohen research method

Answer 16

quasi, natural experiment

independent measures design

IV = type of person, adults with high functioning autism/asperges , normal adults, adults with tourettes. naturally occurring so it could not be manipulated by the researchers

DV = performance which was scored at 25 on the eyes task measured by showing each participant 25 black and white standardised photographs of the eye region of either a man or female and asking them to make a forced choice between 2 mental states to best describe what the person in the photograph was feeling or thinking

Question 17

baron-cohen sample

Answer 17

Group 1 = 16 individuals with high functioning autism or Asperger syndrome with the sex ratio of 13:3 (M:F) and were recruited through an advert in the National Autistic Society magazine and a variety of clinical sources

Group 2 = 50 normal aged matched adults with 25 males and 25 females drawn from a general population of Cambridge. Included largely as a control group so that a ‘normal’ level of performance could be established on the Eyes Task

Group 3 = 10 adults with Tourette syndrome also age matched with Group 1 and 2 with a sex ratio of 8:2 (M:F). All were of normal intelligence and were recruited from a referral centre in London. Included because Tourette’s has a number of similarities with autism or Asperges

Question 18

baron-cohen procedure

Answer 18

Participants were tested individually in a quiet room in their home, in the researchers’ clinic or in the researcher’s laboratory at Cambridge University. The eyes task, the strange stories task and the 2 control tasks (gender recognition task, basic emotion recognition task) were presented in random order to all participants.

Question 19

baron cohen eye task

Answer 19

participants shown 25 photographs for 3 seconds each. Photos were from magazines, were black and white, all standardised. Taken of the eye region of a person’s face. Participants were asked ‘Which word best describes what a person is thinking or feeling?’. Under the pic there were 2 mental state terms they had to choose from, and they were always semantic opposites and were difference genders. Max score was 25

Question 20

baron cohen strange stories task

Answer 20

participants are presented with 2 examples of each of 12 story types. In each story, a character says something which is not literally true, and the participant is asked to explain why the character said what he or she did. Answers on this task are either scored correct or incorrect, and as either involving mental states/psychological factors or involving psychical states

Question 21

baron cohen gender recognition task

Answer 21

participants looking at the same sets of eyes that were used in the Eyes Task, but this time their task was to identify the gender of the person in each photograph. Max score was 25

Question 22

baron cohen basic emotion recognition task

Answer 22

participants were shown photographs of whole faces. 6 faces were used, and they displayed the 6 basic emotions. These were happy, sad, angry, afraid, disgust and surprise. The task was carried out to check weather difficulties on the eyes due to difficulties with basic emotional recognition. The strange stories task was used to validate the results from the eye task.

Question 23

baron cohen results

Answer 23

Mean score for adults with Tourette’s was not significantly different from normal adults, but both were significantly higher than the autism Asperges mean score

Within the autism Asperges group there was no significant correlation between IQ and the performance on the eye task

More females performed significantly better than normal males on the eye task but the normal males were significantly better than the autism Asperges group

Question 24

baron cohen conclusion

Answer 24

Adults with autism or Asperger syndrome, despite being of normal or above average intelligence, have subtle deficits in their mindreading ability. They also conclude that, within the normal population, adult females are significantly better at mindreading than adult males

Question 25

gould aim

Answer 25

to prove that psychology could be as rigorous a science as physics, by which he meant it could be just as focused on numbers and quantification. For Yerks, the area of psychology that offered the most promising means by which to do this was the field of mental testing which, at the time, was just being developed

Question 26

gould research method

Answer 26

The Gould study is not a piece of empirical research. It is important to be aware that the article is an edited extract from Gould’s (1981) book, ‘The Mismeasure of Man’ in which he traces the history of the measurement of human intelligence from nineteenth century craniology (the measurement of skulls) to today’s highly technical and sophisticated methods of IQ testing.

The study is therefore a review article that looks at the history of Robert M. Yerkes’ intelligence testing of recruits for the US army in WW1, and his attempt to establish psychology as a scientific discipline.
Yerks study is a quasi-experimental method, with the naturally occurring independent variable being the ethnic origin of the participants and the dependent variable being the average mental age of the recruits from the various ethnic backgrounds, based on their results in the tests of ‘native intellectual ability’ however, this was certainly not a tightly controlled quasi experiment given all the variation in how the tests were administered

Question 27

gould sample

Answer 27

1.75 million army recruits in the USA during WW1. The recruits included White Americans, ‘Negroes’ and European immigrants.

Question 28

gould procedure

Answer 28

From May to July 1917, Yerkes, together with a number of colleagues who shared his views on the hereditary nature of intelligence, wrote the army mental tests. Together they developed three types of test, the first two of which could be given to large groups and took less than an hour to complete.

Question 29

gould army alpha test

Answer 29

This was designed for literate recruits. It consisted of eight parts. It included items with which we are totally familiar as part of intelligence testing: analogies, filling in the next number in a sequence etc. It required a good basic understanding of English language skills and literacy. Although the tests were considered by Yerkes to measure ‘native intellectual ability’ (intelligence that is not influenced by education and/or culture), they were in fact extremely biased. After all, how could someone who was unfamiliar with American culture achieve a decent score? The following examples give some idea of the type of questions asked: Washington is to Adams as first is to ……. Crisco is a: patient medicine, disinfectant, toothpaste, food product? The number of kaffir’s legs is 2, 4, 6, 8? Christy Matthewson is famous as a: writer, artist, baseball player, comedian?

Question 30

gould army beta test

Answer 30

This was a test designed for people who were illiterate or failed the Army Alpha Test. It had seven parts and consisted of picture completion. The pictures were again culturally specific and would have been extremely difficult to complete if participants had no knowledge of some of the items. There were also maze tests, counting the number of cubes, finding the next in a series of symbols and translating numerals into symbols using a code to work from. The instructions were written (in English), in three of the seven parts the answers had to be given in writing, yet this was a test for illiterates who may never have held a pencil beforehand!

Question 31

gould individual examination

Answer 31

If recruits failed on the other two tests, they were supposed to be given an individual spoken examination, this however rarely happened. Every individual was given a Grade from A to E, with plus and minus signs e.g. C- indicated a low average intelligence, suitable for the position of ordinary private in the army; D indicated a person rarely suited for tasks requiring special skill, forethought, resourcefulness or sustained alertness.

Question 32

gould results

Answer 32

The average mental age of White American adults was 13. The score of 13 was at the top of the category of ‘moronity’. That is why the title of the article is ‘A Nation of Morons’, because the ‘data’ showed that the USA was just that. Terman had previously set the standard at 16.

It was possible to grade European immigrants by their country of origin. The average man of many countries was a moron, with the fair people of Northern and Western Europe scoring higher than the Slavs of Eastern Europe and the darker people of Southern Europe. (The average Russian had a mental age of 11.34; the Italian, 11.01; the Pole, 10.74).

The average score of Black men was 10.4, which was considerably below the White average.

Question 33

gould conclusions

Answer 33

IQ tests are culturally and historically biased. IQ tests do not measure innate intelligence. IQ testing is often unreliable. IQ tests may not produce valid results. Inappropriate, poorly administered IQ tests can lead to tragic consequences. Nations can be graded by their intelligence

Question 34

hancock aim

Answer 34

Examine the language characteristics of psychopaths when describing their violent crimes on 3 major characteristics

Question 35

goud research method

Answer 35

Quasi experiment method
Naturally occurring independent variable being whether the participants were psychopaths or non-psychopaths. It can be seen to have an independent measures design
Self-report in the form of semi-structured/open-ended interviews
Content analysis, given the quantitative analysis they carried out of verbal information obtained during interviews

Question 36

gould sample

Answer 36

52 men who were being held in prison in Canada for murder
All had admitted their crim and volunteered to take part in the study
Their mean average age at the time for their murder was 28.9 years

Question 37

gould apparatus

Answer 37

‘corpus analysis’ programme called ‘Wmatrix’ in which speech produced by all 14 of the psychopaths was brought together and analysed as one in comparison to the speech produced by the 38 non-psychopaths. The tagging parts of speech was used and to analyse semantic concepts

The other text analysis program that was used was the Dictionary of Affect in Language (DAL) This is a dictionary-based tool that assesses the emotional properties of language

Question 38

gould procedure

Answer 38

Assessments were made using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. On the PCL-R, which is the most widely used tool for assessing psychopathy in criminal settings, psychopathy is characterised by 20 criteria scored from 0 to 2 for a max score of 40.

Items on the PCL-R measure traits in 2 broad areas: Factor 1 items assess interpersonal and affective traits, such as superficial charm, lack of remorse, and pathological lying; Factor 2 items assess traits that indicate an anti-social lifestyle, such as early behavioural problems, impulsivity and irresponsibility

The men were assessed by different psychologists or people who were well trained in the coding of the PCL-R. to check that the different raters were consistent with each other in how they had arrived at the scores, a trained graduate student recorded ten case files selected on a random basis and results indicated a high level of agreement between the raters in their coding

The cut off point for a clinical diagnosis of psychopathy is a score of 30 or above. However, in line with practice in research by other psychologists, a person was classified as a psychopath in this study if they had a score of 25 or above.

To collect data from participants, an interview was arranged with all 52 men. These were led by two senior psychology graduate students and one researcher student. All were blind to the psychology scores of the offenders. At the start of each interview, the purpose of the study was explained to each offender verbally, as was the procedure that followed.

Participants were then asked to describe their offences with as much detail as possible. Interviews were audiotaped and lasted approx. 25 minutes. Afterwards, the narratives were turned into typed transcripts, with efforts being made to make these as verbatim as possible

Question 39

gould results

Answer 39

Instrumental language analysis: As predicted, the psychopaths produced significantly more subordinating conjunctions than the non-psychopaths. Such words made up 1.82% of the words used by the psychopaths, but only 1.54% per cent of the words used by the non-psychopaths.

Hierarchy of needs analysis: Again, results were in line with expectations. The psychopaths used significantly more words connected to food, drink etc than did the non-psychopaths. By way of contrast, the non-psychopaths used significantly more words connected to family and religion than did the psychopaths

Emotional expression in language: the speech produced by the psychopaths contained approximately 33% more disfluencies than the speech produced by non-psychopaths. Psychopaths used a significantly higher percentage of verbs in the past tense and the non-psychopaths used a significantly higher percentage of verbs in the present tense. The DAL scores revealed no significant differences between the 2 groups. It found there was a negative correlation between Factor 1 scores and both the pleasantness and intensity of emotional language used by the participants

Question 40

gould conclusions

Answer 40

Hancock concluded from the ‘idiosyncratic’ way in which psychopaths describe powerful emotional events (their crimes) that they operate on a primitive but rational level