Rosenhan

Question 1

What is psychiatry?

Answer 1

the branch of medicine concerned with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness

Question 2

What is labelling?

Answer 2

a distorted way of thinking about things, when a person’s mind convinces them of something that is untrue

Question 3

What is institutionalisation?

Answer 3

The effects of being kept in an institution e.g., lacking social or communication skills

Question 4

What is a pseudo patient?

Answer 4

a person who pretends to be ill, especially to gain some benefit
A fake patient

Question 5

What is depersonalisation?

Answer 5

when people are not treated humanely

Question 6

What was Rosenhan’s aim?

Answer 6

to test the reliability and validity of diagnosing disorders

Question 7

What is the IV?

Answer 7

the 12 hospitals

Question 8

What is the DV?

Answer 8

whether or not the pseudo patients were admitted

Question 9

What was Rosenhan’s method?

Answer 9

a field experiment / participant observation

Question 10

What was the setting?

Answer 10

12 psychiatric hospitals in 5 different states = different types - understaffed, modern, old etc

Question 11

What are the strengths of the method?

Answer 11

high in ecological validity - real staff, patients, and institutions

Question 12

What are the weaknesses of the method?

Answer 12

lack control over extraneous variables = harder to establish causality

Question 13

What is the sample?

Answer 13

• 8 pseudo patients
• 5 male and 3 female
• range of jobs e.g., a housewife
• some with psychological background (some without)

Question 14

What are the strengths of the sample?

Answer 14

no gender bias

Question 15

What are the weaknesses of the sample?

Answer 15

• culture bias
• small = unrepresentative and ungeneralisable = lack population validity

Question 16

How did participants gain access to the hospitals?

Answer 16

rang hospitals and arranged an appointment

Question 17

How did participants appear when they showed up to their appointments?

Answer 17

dishevelled - appear not to take care of themselves

Question 18

What did the participants tell the hospitals were their symptoms?

Answer 18

they said they heard a voice the same gender as them saying “empty” “hollow” “thud”

Question 19

How were participants confidentiality protected?

Answer 19

they gave fake names so that any diagnosis would not go on their official medical record

Question 20

What about the participants was kept authentic?

Answer 20

their life experiences

Question 21

How did participants behave once they were admitted to the hospital?

Answer 21

immediately behaved normally as they would in everyday life
- interacted with staff and patients
- no longer experienced symptoms

Question 22

How was information / data gathered?

Answer 22

by the participants in notepads
- initially secretly and eventually in public

Question 23

What did staff assume about the participants note taking?

Answer 23

assumed it was a symptom and stated participants were “engaging in obsessive writing behaviour”

Question 24

What were the diagnoses given to the participants?

Answer 24

7/8 = schizophrenia
1/8 = manic depressive (bipolar)

Question 25

What were the reactions from other patients about the pseudo patients?

Answer 25

many patients detected the pseudo patients saying "you're not crazy, you're a journalist or professor checking up on the hospital"

Question 26

How many patients voiced their concerns?

Answer 26

35/118

Question 27

What was the range of length of stays?

Answer 27

8-52 (average=19)

Question 28

What normal behaviours were seen as symptoms of a disorder?

Answer 28

- making notes / observations - pacing corridors - queueing early for lunch

Question 29

What did pseudo patients do with their medication?

Answer 29

flushed it down the toilet

Question 30

What did pseudo patients notice when flushing their medication?

Answer 30

there was already medication in the toilet = indicates other patients were also flushing their medication

Question 31

How did pseudo patients get out of the hospital?

Answer 31

had the responsibility of persuading hospital staff that they were sane and should be discharged

Question 32

What happened to the pseudo patients once they were released?

Answer 32

left with the diagnosis of schizophrenia or manic depression in remission

Question 33

What does in remission mean?

Answer 33

that it could come back

Question 34

Why did Rosenhan conduct a second experiment?

Answer 34

to see how well staff could recognise pseudo patients

Question 35

What did Rosenhan do for the second experiment?

Answer 35

nothing - no pseudo patients were actually sent

Question 36

What was the procedure for experiment two?

Answer 36

staff used a rating scale to rate new arrivals

Question 37

What was the key result from experiment two?

Answer 37

41/193 genuine patients were thought to be fake

Question 38

What is stickiness of labelling?

Answer 38

leads to prejudice, discrimination and distress

Question 39

What are the ethical issues of Rosenhan?

Answer 39

- deception - protection from harm - no right to withdraw - no informed consent

Question 40

How can Rosenhan be considered ethical?

Answer 40

informed consent

Question 41

How can Rosenhan be considered unreliable?

Answer 41

- lack external reliability - different cultural values do not align with USA diagnosis (DSM vs ICD)

Question 42

How can Rosenhan be considered invalid?

Answer 42

- lack construct validity - lack population validity

Question 43

What is a type one error?

Answer 43

a false positive = saying something has something they DO NOT

Question 44

Which experiment is a type one error?

Answer 44

experiment 1

Question 45

What is a type two error?

Answer 45

saying someone doesn't have something they do have

Question 46

Which experiment is a type two error?

Answer 46

experiment 2

Question 47

How were Rosenhan's patients dehumanised?

Answer 47

no toilet doors general abuse