Psychopathology Key Studies Flashcards
Study that supports behavioural explanation of phobias?
Watson and Raynor- conditioned fear into a toddler using classical conditioning. He showed no fear when presented with a rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, a mask with hair, or cotton wool.
When Albert was 11 months old the experiments started.
Albert was presented with a rat. Just as he reached for it, a steel bar behind him was hit. This procedure was repeated.
After two presentations Albert was given a week off.
Session Two: The following week the rat alone was presented.
Then three presentations were made with the rat and the loud noise.
This was followed with one presentation of just the rat.
Then two more presentations with the rat and the noise were made.
Finally the rat alone was presented.
So far Albert had had 7 presentations of the rat with the noise.
Session Three:
Albert was brought back five days later and given toy blocks (a neutral stimulus) to play with.
Presentations were then made of:
The rat A rabbit A dog A seal fur coat Cotton wool Watson’s hair A Santa Claus mask. Session Four: To see how time had affected the response, Albert was presented with the rat on its own five days later.
The dog and rabbit were also presented, and the steel bar was hit each time.
Albert was then taken to a well-lit lecture theatre to see if the response was the same as it was in the small room used up till now.
Session Five: One month later Albert was tested with various stimuli. These included the Santa Claus mask, the fur coat, the rat, the rabbit and the dog.
Findings
Session One: The first time the steel bar was struck when Albert touched the rat, he jumped and fell forward.
The second time he began to whimper.
Session Two: After five paired presentations in Session 2, Albert reacted to the rat alone by immediately crying, turning to the left and crawling quickly away from the rat.
Session Three: After each presentation of the blocks, Albert played with them happily.
The other stimuli produced negative responses of crying, moving away from the stimulus and crawling away.
Albert showed less negativity towards the cotton wool.
Session Four: The fear response to the dog, rat and rabbit were pronounced, with crying and crawling away from the objects.
In the different room the fear reaction was slight, until the bar was hit. Then the fear reaction increased.
Session Five: Albert continued to show fear reactions.
Unfortunately Albert was taken out of the hospital on the day of Session five. After session five Watson and Rayner had planned to attempt to decondition Little Albert’s fear.
Watson and Rayner were never able to carry out their aim of trying to find ways of removing a phobia in the laboratory.
Study that supports behavioural treatment for Phobias?
Gilroy- examined 42 patients with arachnophobia (fear of spiders). Each patient was treated using three 45-minute systematic desensitisation sessions. When examine three months and 33 months later, the systematic desensitisation group were less fearful than a control group (who were only taught relaxation techniques).
Study that supports the cognitive explanation for depression?
Grazoli and Terry- Grazioli and Terry (2000) assessed 65 pregnant women for cognitive vulnerability and depression before and after birth. They found that those women with high cognitive vulnerability were most likely to suffer from post- natal depression.
Study that supports cognitive treatment for depression?
examined 327 adolescents with a diagnosis of depression and looked at the effectiveness of CBT, antidepressants and a combination of CBT plus antidepressants. After 36 weeks, 81% of the antidepressant group and 81% of the CBT group had significantly improved, demonstrating the effectiveness of CBT in treating depression. However, 86% of the CBT plus antidepressant group had significantly improved, suggesting that a combination of both treatments may be more effective.
Study that supports biological explanations of OCD?
Nestadt- conducted a review of previous twin studies examining OCD. They found that 68% of identical twins and 31% of non-identical twins experience OCD, which suggests a very strong genetic component.
Study that supports biological treatment for OCD?
Soomro- conducted a review of the research examining the effectiveness of SSRIs and found that SSRIs were more effective than placebos in the treatment of OCD, in 17 different trials. This supports the use of biological treatments, especially SSRIs, for OCD.
