Rosenhan Flashcards
What was the overall aim of this study?
To investigate the validity of psychiatric diagnosis and see if American hospitals could detect the sane from the insane.
how many pseudopatients were in experiment 1?
8
How many psychiatric hospitals were investigated and over how many states?
12 hospitals
5 states in America
What words did the say they could hear?
empty
hollow
thud
what were seudopatients admitted with?
7- schizophrenia
1- bipolar disorder
What was the one condition?
could only get out on own devices
What did the participants do?
They gave fake names, addresses and jobs but everything else was the truth.
As soon as they were admitted, they would say they felt fine and couldn’t hear the voices anymore.
What was the average number of days spent in hospital?
19
What was the highest number of days spent in hospital?
52
What was the lowest number of days spent in hospital?
7
What were some of the comments made by other patients?
“your a journalist”
“your not crazy”
What was queuing behaviour?
Queuing early for lunch was seen as abnormal, diagnosed as oral acquisitive behaviour (made up disorder)
What was writing behaviour?
records for 3 patients shown their writing was abnormal,
‘patient engages in writing behaviour’
What was a type 2 error?
calling a healthy person sick
What was a type 1 error?
calling a sick person healthy
what was the procedure of experiment 2 ?
staff at a hospital were falsely informed that during the next 3 moths, 1 or more pseudo patients would be admitted to their hospital.
staff members were asked to rate on a scale the likelihood of them as being a seudopatients
What scale rating did nurses use ?
on a 10 point scale (1=high confidence)
what were the results of experiment 2?
out of 193 patients, 41 were judged with high confidence
Nurses made a type 1 error
what happened in experiment 3 ?
In 4 of the hospitals, the pseudopatients carried out an observation, were they approach a staff member with a request.
then compared this to a young lady stopping people at Stanford.
What was the request of the pseudopatients ?
“pardon me, Mr/Mrs, doctor X, could you tell me when I will be presented at the staff meeting? ( or when im likely to be discharged? )
What did the young lady ask at Stanford university?
Asking directions, such as directions
What was the IV of the experiment?
Young lady or pseudopatients
How many of the nurses stopped?
0.5% stopped
how many of the psychiatrists stopped?
4%
How many people stopped for the pseudopatients?
everyone she spoke to
what does the term stickiness to labels mean?
Psychiatric labels stick more than a medical label
What’s an example of stickiness to labels?
When released, patients were diagnosed as ‘schizophrenic in remission’ not as being sane.
Why is it worse to make a type 1 error when diagnosing mental illnesses ?
As patients might not receive treatment.
What were some examples of depersonalisation?
Had to have physical examinations in semi-public rooms
nurse adjusted her bra in front of patients as if they weren’t there.
What are examples of powerlessness ?
Some patients were physically beaten initiating a convo with staff.
Restricted movement on wards.
Privacy was not respected, some toilets didn’t have doors.
All staff had access to patients records even cleaners.
What conclusions were drawn from this study?
Hospital staff cannot reliably tell the difference between people who are sane and insane.
Psychiatric labels tend to stick in a way that medical labels do not.
