Rosehan (1973)

Question 1

What was the aim of the study?

Answer 1

• To see if 8 sane people who gained admission to 12 different hospitals would be ‘found out’ as sane.

Question 2

What was the sample?

Answer 2

• 8 pseudo- patients
• 3 women and 5 men
• 20 year old graduate, 7 older people made up of 3 psychologists, a paediatrician, a psychiatrist, a painter and a house wife.
• those who employed in mental health provided a different occupiation
• Rosehan was one of the pseudo-patients

Question 3

What was study one’s procedure?

Answer 3

• Pseudopatients called admissions office of one of the 12 hospitals
• They asked for an appointment as they were hearing voices.
• they used false names and occupations
• They said they were hearing one of the following voices: ‘empty’, ‘thud’, ‘hollow’
• they gave mainly details of their own life
• once admitted they behaved normally and reported of no further symptoms.
• they were given medication which they did not swallow
• all by one wished to be discharged
• they behaved sanely and cooperatively
• they kept notes on their experiences at first covertly but later openly.
• Four of the psedopatients carried out an observation - the ways staff treated inpatients.

Question 4

What was study’s one results?

Answer 4

• Their sanity was never detected by staff and they were all discharged with diagnosis of schizophrenia.
• Staff treated the pseuo-patients in line with their diagnosis and frequently pathalogised normal behaviour.
• There was depersonalisation of the patients by the staff.
• The results were published by some institutions reacted with challenges as they did not believe they could be fooled.

Question 5

What was study two procedure?

Answer 5

• Staff doubted the first study.
• Rosehan told them that in the next 3 months one or more pseudo patients would attempt to be admitted.
• Staff were asked to rate patients on a scale of 1-10 to reflect the likelihood of them being a pseudo-patient.

Question 6

What were the results of study 2?

Answer 6

• Judgements were given on 193 patients admitted for psychiatric treatment.
• 41 were judged with high confidence by at least 1 member of staff to be pseudo-patients

Question 7

What were the general conclusions?

Answer 7

• Once labelled schizphrenic, there is nothing a pseuo-patient can do to over come that tag which was prodoundly colours perception of him and his behaviour
• Rosehan cocnluded that staff were unable to distinguish between sane and insane
• Normal behaviour was interpreted in a pathological way by staff.