Rosenhan, 1973 (Insanity) Flashcards
What are the symptoms of schizophrenia?
- delusions (+)
- hallucinations (+)
- thought disorders (+)
- unusual emotional responses (-)
- lack of motivation (-)
What is schizophrenia?
A mental disorder where a person finds it difficult to know if something is real or not (hearing voices).
How is schizophrenia treated?
-medicine: anti-psychotic medication.
What is the method of the study 1?
Covert participant observation.
What is the aim of study 1?
To see if sane individuals who presented themselves to a psychiatric hospital would be diagnosed as insane.
Describe the pseudopatients in study 1?
- 5 men
- 3 women
- Various ages and occupations (graduated student, psychologist, pediatrician, painter and housewife)
- Rosenhan was a pseudo patient himself
Who were the participants in study 1?
- Hospital staff and patients in 12 hospitals across the USA from 5 states.
- Different kinds of psychiatric hospitals (old, modern, poorly staffed etc.)
- Only one hospital was private.
Describe the procedure in study 1.
- Each pseudopatient asked for an appointment.
- On arrival he/she had been hearing voices (empty, dull, thud and hollow) and spoken in an unknown voice. These symptoms were chosen as it has not been reported for schizophrenia before.
- Gave personal information (non of their life histories were abnormal).
- Once in the hospital, they acted normal (other than being nervous because of how easy they got into the hospital, afraid of being detected as fraud).
- They did not take any of their medications and instead hid it.
- They spent lots of time writing notes about their environment and were friendly to the staff.
- The staff thought that their writing (making notes) was an aspect of their illness, “Patient engages in writing.”
- When the patients were mistreated and got angry, it was said that their anger was because of their condition.
- However other patients became suspicious of their note taking and many of the real patients (35/118) accused them as being fake and said things like, “You’re not crazy!” or, “You’re a journalist.”
What were the results in study 1?
- None of the pseudopatients were detected as fake: diagnostic system failed.
- 8 pseudopatients were admitted with schizophrenia.
- On discharge, they were said to have, “schizophrenia in remission.”
- Once diagnosed it shows that you have a “sticky label” and that you can’t overcome the tag.
- 7 days was shortest stay.
- 52 days was longest stay.
- 19 days was the average stay.
What type of error was study 1 and define it?
False positive: saying somebody who isn’t ill is.
Why did the participants fail to detect sanity from insanity?
It is more dangerous to misdiagnose illness than health. Therefore they feel as though it’s “safer” so they leave it even though they suspect that they aren’t actually ill.
What is the aim in study 2?
To see if the tendency towards diagnosing the sane as insane (study 1) could be reversed.
Who were the participants in study 2?
The staff in one psychiatric hospital.
What was the method in study 2?
Self report.
Describe the procedure in study 2.
When the staff in one psychiatric hospital was informed about the first study, they doubted their hospital would have made similar mistakes. Rosenhan then told them that at some point during the next three months, one or more pseudopatients would try to be admitted to their hospital. This was also a controlled participant observation. Each member of staff was asked to rate all patients who tried of gain admission within the next three months. There were asked to rate all patients using a 10-point scale.
