Socially Sensitive

Question 1

What is Socially Sensitive Research

Answer 1

Is research that has negative implications for the participants and or for the group they represent beyond the study itself.

Question 2

Implications of Socially Sensitive Research

Answer 2

If findings are SS then can affect lives, psychology itself and the psychologists conducting the study
Various degrees of seriousness could lead to stigma if research is private or stressful
People may be treated differently due to the results interpretation or how they are reported by the media
But needs to be done in spite of this because such research is likely to relate to people how are seen to have low status or targeted by the media
Can help people understand the sensitivity (what is it like to experience abuse)
Needs to be handled carefully

Question 3

Specific Issues of Socially Sensitive Research

Answer 3

1. ) Attention of the Media and Public
2. ) Formulation of Research Question
3. ) How Research is Conduction/ Treatment of Partipant
4. ) Context and Place of Research
5. ) Interpretation and Application of research

Question 4

Attention of the Media and Public

Answer 4

SS attracts media attention and GP intrest
Must be considered when conducting and planning out the study
Ethics need to be considered

Question 5

Formulation of Research Q

Answer 5

Sieber and Stanley: Wrote ‘Ethical and Professional Dimensions of SS Research’ where they discussed aspects of Research that lead to ethical concerns including the setting up an RQ
Can present bias by making assumptions before evening testing
(S/S Example: Racial Differences in Intelligence)

Question 6

Conducting Research and Partipant Treatment

Answer 6

Ethics focus on doing no harm
In SS Research Confidentiality needs to be maintained as well as Privacy as usually involves looking into Private Areas of Life (Drug Use)
Duty of Care to protect Participants from Harm even if it means breaking C and P
Harm to participants (long term or short term)
Benefit to society

Question 7

Context and Place of Research

Answer 7

Sieber and Stantly: Context in which study is carried out is important
A study in a particular setting may affect that setting negatively
If imitation holds power over the Participants then they may be affected in any consequent ‘fallout’

Question 8

Interpretation and Application of Research

Answer 8

Research findings and their use may go beyond the Orginal Psychologists intention
Will be applied to real life and have implications
Make people obey/ Used as a defense for soldiers who attacked prisoners in Abu Ghraib - not personality and not obedience
Unreliable EWT lead the court not to solely rely on it during prosections
McCosker: SS is important and should be done but with safeguards (Careful interviewing and Counsellors present to help pp and stop if necessary)

Question 9

Humphreys and The Tea Room Trade

Answer 9

Recognized that the public and the law-enforcement authorities hold highly simplistic stereotyped beliefs about men who commit impersonal sexual acts with one another in public restrooms, and decided to gain a more objective understanding of who these men are and what motivates them to seek impersonal sexual gratification.
He stationed himself in public toilets and offered to serve as “watchqueen” Gained the confidence of some of the men he observed, and persuade them to tell him about the rest of their lives and about their motives. Humphreys secretly followed some of the other men he observed and recorded the license numbers of their cars. A year later he appeared at their homes claiming to be a health-service interviewer and interviewed them about their marital status etc.
Concluded that most of the stereotypes were untrue and that their public sexual practices were not harmful to anyone. 54% of his subjects were married and living with wives, 38% were neither bisexual nor gay.

Question 10

Humphrey Cost-Benefit Analysis

Answer 10

Benefits: An informal inquiry stated this research helped persuade police departments to stop using their resources on arrest for this victimless crime. Many would count this as a social benefit.
Costs: Unethically invaded privacy, threatened social standing and potentially causing long term harm to life, AKA could have been arrested. His colleagues petitioned the president of Washington University to rescind Humphreys’ PhD degree. Public outrage focused not on results but on how it was conducted.

Question 11

SOCIAL: Prejudice and Personality

Answer 11

If people with RW Authoritarian personality are more prejudiced like sociologists like Cohrs suggested then people may turn against those with that personality or the behaviour that personality relates too.
Cohrs found that Ideological attitudes (RWA and SDO) did correlate with prejudice and Openness to experience correlated negatively with RWA and prejudice.
Prejudice can also be engendered such as forming an in-group with resulting out-group hostility as shown in Tajfel work on SIT.
Studies could be done to reduce prejudice but could be used in other ways.
Guimond found that multiculturalism led to less prejudice than assimilation, which is socially sensitive as it may result in countries that use the assimilation approach (Germany) to adopt a multiculturalism approach instead. Implying Germans are more prejudiced which could create stereotypes about them.
Social identity theory, implies society and humans are generally negative.

Question 12

SOCIAL: Obedience and Prejudice

Answer 12

Social psychology includes socially sensitive issues around obedience and prejudice.
Milgram showed that Germans weren’t different and that anyone could be blindly obedient and commit atrocious acts. 65% when to 450v. Supports Agency Theory could be used to explain and or justify blind obedience.
Social identity theory implies society and humans are generally negative.SIT also provides an explanation for why discrimination occurs even when the outgroup is no threat to the ingroup and there is no competition over resources. If self-esteem is based on social identity, then some people need to put down outgroups in order to feel good about themselves.
Offers no solution to P and O. Almost justifying it and encouraging these acts as they seemingly cannot be stopped. Human nature is not good.
Understand blind obedience and origins of prejudice offers potential to reduce. RCT offers the idea of superordinate goals has a clear application for reducing prejudice and discrimination. The in-group and outgroup need to work together towards something that is valued by both of them; then they see each other as members of the one group, with a shared goal of achieving resources through cooperation. This is how Sherif defused prejudice in “Robbers Cave”.
Allport’s Contact Hypothesis applies here because prejudice will be reduced if group members get to mingle freely with the outgroup and question their own stereotypes.

Question 13

SOCIAL: The Holocaust

Answer 13

Studying atrocities like the Holocaust can cause distress and harm to victims and families and the communities affected. Jews seen as victims and Germans are stereotyped.
Milgram twisted the data to make it look as if there was “a Nazi inside all of us” to make himself famous. With a better understanding of blind obedience, tragedies like this could be prevented in future. Milgram argues that, after the Holocaust and My Lai, a scientific understanding of obedience is so important it justifies this sort of research.
Can prevent Genocide. An act committed with the intent to eradicate a specific group of people, such as a religious group. RCT Competition (Jews had resources), Certain personalities, when no outgroup threat and agenetic shift.
The theories are not a good enough explanation for genocide on their own and so combining them would provide a more holistic explanation for genocide with more detail to provide better preventions.

Question 14

SOCIAL: Milgram, Sherif and Burger

Answer 14

Milgram: Full voltage, sensitive and harmful to learn that
Sherif: Showed that anyone can be prejudiced as the boys simply became prejudiced over the competition.
Burger: Less than Milgram. Only 150v and 15 test v. But found the same conclusions. Implies no mater social changes it’s human nature.

Question 15

COGNITIVE: Alzheimers and Dementia

Answer 15

Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are very debilitating for someone, and being diagnosed with memory problems at any age is distressing.
These participants are vulnerable. And could be scaring people into thinking they have symptoms.
For example, Sebastian and Hernandez Gil discuss the poor digit span for people with Alzheimer’s and another form of dementia and indeed for older people in general. Which could be socially sensitive. As it causes stereotypes and a panic.
But studying helps develop early intervention techniques and ways to interact with patients.
MSM: Labeling things in unfamiliar environments to save them from worrying about having to rehearse the objects
WMW: Do one thing at a time. No sense of overload. Limit distractions.
Tulving: Cues. Telling them things.

Question 16

COGNITIVE: Dyslexia

Answer 16

Is a sensitive group that are already stereotyped as ‘slow and stupid’ by those who don’t know it doesn’t affect intelligence.
Dyslexia is a reading disorder, which affects up to 10% of children, characterised by problems in learning to recognise and decode words at a level that matches their age. Children with dyslexia struggle to read fluently and accurately. Difficulty learning letter sounds and names indicating a problem with learning to associate a word with its speech sound. The will lead to spelling and reading problems. They also have poor verbal STM.
Smith-Spark et al found that adults with dyslexia had unimpaired spatial working memory but verbal working memory was impaired. This suggests that there is a deficit with the phonological loop.
Labelling as they don’t have the same DS as others. Testing may cause distress.
People with it face an impairment to the phonological loop which slows down the processing of words due to not being able to subvocally rehearse and so the capacity of their stm may be lower. So cannot chunk to help.
But can help as justifies them having extra time in exams.

Question 17

BIOLOGICAL: Biological Cuases of Agression

Answer 17

Bio Causes are: Brian Structure, NT and Hormones
Claiming they cause aggression. An anti-social behaviour that differs from culture to culture. Which may draw attention from the media causing a question of who is responsible.
Seems that the implication if aggression is a someone’s nature are that it might be seen as needing support, whereas if aggression comes from something someone can do something about, society might then think the punishment is worthwhile.
Punishment is part of OC holds if someone is rewarded for behaviour it will be repeated and punished the opposite.
If not nurture it cannot be unlearned.

Question 18

BIOLOGICAL: Brains of Murders (Raine)

Answer 18

• Murders who plead NGRI are a venerable group.
• NGRIs agreed to have the PET tests because it would help their court case, by showing they were not fit to stand trial or acting as evidence that they weren’t in control of themselves when they committed the crime. The Controls all gave their prior consent. If the NGRIs or the schizophrenic Controls were not competent to consent, then presumptive consent was given by their lawyer or carer. So not true consent.
• They were found to differ from the controls. Deficits in the corpus callosum make it harder for the brain’s hemispheres to communicate, making it difficult to think through long term consequences and make decisions.
• Taken as meaning they aren’t responsible due to biology.
• Perhaps they will be treated better or abused by those who are in complete control.
• Seems to suggest that some people are driven to kill by their brain structure. Invites us to “screen” to check they don’t have “a murderer’s brain.” Raine and his colleagues make it clear they are NOT drawing these conclusions themselves, but once a study like this is known to the public its conclusions may be misinterpreted. This would go against the social responsibility of ethical research.

Question 19

BIOLOGICAL: Case Studies

Answer 19

Uses case studies to investigate brain damages patients: Phineas Gage, Henry Molaison and Charles Witman.
Add evidence. But they are vulnerable.
Social responsibility is important in ethical research. Studying rare or unusual cases is important, but researchers need to bear in mind the effect that this can have on public opinion. This particularly applies to case studies of serial sex offenders, terrorists or murderers because of the danger of “copycat” crimes or of creating stereotypes of minority groups.
They are in distressing situations and have experienced substantial changes in their lives.
Weighing their welfare against the benefit to society.

Question 20

LEARNING: Phobias (Watson and Rayner)

Answer 20

Watson and Rayner and Capafons benefits need to be weighed against their benefit to society.
WATSON AND RAYNER:
Caused distress in an infant. Continued until he was distressed and didn’t extinguish his fear reaction leaving him with a long term phobia.
But chosen because he wasn’t easily frightened. Definition of harm is that it should not be greater than what the participant would experience in their “normal lifestyle”.
Argued that Albert would go onto have distressing experiences when he started nursery and there was nothing excessive or unusual about what they had put the child through. After a month, his conditioned fear response had dropped, so it’s possible the effects of the conditioning would completely wear off in time.
But Learning Psychologists, who have built on Watson & Rayner’s research and investigated phobias in greater depth. This has led to techniques like Flooding and Systematic Desensitisation.
But gained consent and got to withdraw him.

Question 21

LEARNING: Phobias (Capafons)

Answer 21

Found SD is effective even when a simulation as 18/20 who received treatment had a decrease in the fear of flying.
Gave informed consent as Volunteers through a media campaign advertising free treatment for aerophobia.
Also had control over the stages so much more ethical than a flooding experiment.

Question 22

LEARNING: BANDURA

Answer 22

• Bandura created aggression in young children by teaching them aggressive sayings and behaviours like hitting a bobo doll.
• The major issue is harm and the wellbeing of participants. The children may have been distressed by the aggressive behaviour they witnessed and the aggressive behaviour they learned from the study may have stayed with them, going on to become a behavioural problem. Participants are supposed to leave a study in the same state they entered it, which may not have happened here. This is an example of what the BPS Code of Ethics calls “normalising unhelpful behaviours”.
• Although the children could not give valid consent to take part, their nursery teachers agreed and it is assumed the children’s parents agreed to; this is presumptve consent. Nonetheless, the children could not withdraw from the study and no effort seems to have been made to debrief them afterwards (by explaining that the aggressive adults were only pretending).
• But many useful applications. Calm role models, support censoring TV, films and video games aimed at children, against the catharsis argument and films and games should be made to show the real consequences of violence rather than the rewards.
• The benefits to society outweighed the risks to any of the children that took part. His research has shown us the influence that role models have on aggressive behaviour, especially role models on TV and film. This has been an important contribution to the debate over censorship in TV, films, videos and games. Ie the Watershed.

Question 23

LEARNING: Conditioning

Answer 23

• Operant learning theory can be compared to classical conditioning learning theory, as both are methods through which behaviour can be modified. Consequences versus stimuli to modify behaviour.
• Pavlov’s (1927) training dogs to associate the sound of a bell with being fed. Dogs learnt to salivate when they heard a bell, in anticipation of food.
• Skinner’s (1957) Placing rats in separate boxes each of which contained a bar. When the rat pressed the bar, a consequence would occur. Some were fed, some suffered an electric shock and other rats were given an electric shock until they pressed the bar, and the shock went away. They learnt to change their behaviour, either to obtain the benefits or to avoid the harmful effects.
• These concepts of behaviour modification have been adopted by advertising.
• Ads pair products with stimuli that will elicit positive emotion. If we react positively to one stimulus, advertisers will pair it with their product or their opinion in hopes that we will, therefore, react in a similar, positive manner to their product or viewpoint.
• Sainsbury’s to use celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to front a major advertising campaign Can be seen to have a strong classical conditioning effect, as it helps customers to associate the products and branding that they see in Sainsbury’s stores with a well recognised culinary expert.
• How ethical is it to use conditioning in ads. It works both ways. Used to manipulate in political ads to sway viewpoints. Associating “the good life” with popularity and money is unwise because more fame and fortune don’t necessarily mean a better life. Is harmless but could be considered brainwashing.
• Osselaer and Alba (2000) When a company already has an existing reputation based on product quality, indicating that consumers are more likely to trust the operant conditioning they have developed from using products, rather than the perception of said products.

Question 24

CLINICAL: Culture and Ethnicity

Answer 24

How mental illness is perceived differs from every culture, ethnicity and religion. Preconceptions about different cultures that lead to ethnocentric conclusions.
-The culture an individual belongs to effects the likelihood of being diagnosed with a particular disorder and the treatment they received.
-Fernando (1992) That certain groups appear to be more prone to certain disorders - African Caribbeans being more likely to suffer from schizophrenia. But these differences are caused by bias in the mental health system over bio differences.
-He identified key issues:1) Overdiagnosis of schizophrenia among West Indian and Asian British/ Excessive used of compulsory admission for West Indian-British/More West Indian, African and Asian British is transferred to locked wards when hospitalised
The fact that such high rates of mental illness are not seen in the countries of origin and such bias may include lack of recognition of differences in cultural beliefs. Creating damaging stereotypes. Which effects quality of treatment.
-Banyard (1996) He found that 25% of patients on psychiatric wards were black, whilst they only made up 5% of the population and whilst in the hospital were more likely to be seen by a junior doctor instead of senior ones.
Socially sensitive as could be twisted that AC is inferior but by revealing these statistics they could be used to better treatment and raise awareness of clinician bias. Use DSM as an objective tool and so reduces subjectivity of clinician. But still made in US.

Question 25

CLINICAL: CAUSES OF ANOREXIA

Answer 25

-AN has an emphasis on females, starving themselves and misperception of body image. An area of sensitivity. 1/200 women will develop anorexia at least once within their lifetime with 85% of patients develop anorexia between 13-18 years old. A sensitive group as underaged.
-Suffers and their families may feel responsible as it is often linked with stress and the media. The socio-cultural explanation is that it is caused by the pressure of Western society to conform to an idealised notion of beauty being thin with celebrities for women as well as rising anorexia in males being due to slimmer ideals being portrayed in the media. Celebrities in the media are presented as desirable due to their thinness
-Barlow and Durand (1995) supports as they found that over half of the Miss America contestants were 15% below their recommended BMI therefore, demonstrating that the media does show unrealistic body ideals as desirable
-Eysenck and Flanagan (2000) reject by pointing out that almost all Western women are exposed to the media yet only 3% of them develop AN. Therefore suggesting that this theory is not sufficient enough to explain individual differences
-Crisafulli (2008) Considered attitudes to AN to see if they judged differently depending on if they read a bio or sociocultural explanation. If bio then they blamed the person less than the latter. Not strong but an indication that if bio explanation they are less likely to blame the individual.
-Kipman et al (1999) support the genetic cause of anorexia. He gave the concordance rate for MZ twins as 44% and 12% for DZ twins demonstrating that anorexia has genetic components
Should we make an evidence of bio underpinning public to reduce blame on suffers? But lead to blaming family or stereotyping them as vulnerable which may lead to it arriving as they are expected to have it. Not protecting ptts as a competitive disease.

Question 26

CLINICAL: Diagnosis

Answer 26

• Sensitive because R and V are important. Ad treatment is based on this so if wrong so our treatment.
• Diagnosis is not always seen as valid due to issues like culture. D is not scientific, universal or accurate.
• Incorrect D could lead to labelling.
• Rosenhan (1973) All but one ppt presented one basic symptom of szh and were diagnosed with szh in remission. Behaved normally but treated as mentally ill. Writing Behavior and kindness were written off. SS because it showed staff in a mental hospital did not recognise good mental health. Even in second part identified true patients as imposters.
• Sanity and insanity are not easy to diagnose.

Question 27

CLINICAL: Rosenhan

Answer 27

• Failing in a duty of care towards his own researchers, the pseudopatients. Put them in a harmful environment where they experienced tension and stress. Witnessed physical abuse going on. Had to avoid taking medication, but if they had been forced to take medication, it could have produced side-effects on them.
• Took, a few precautions. In his own case, he notified the hospital manager and chief psychologist of what he was doing. Prepared lawyers who would intervene to get the pseudopatients out of hospitals if they requested it.
• Rosenhan’s study is that it contributed to a crisis of public confidence in the American mental health system prevented people who genuinely needed help from seeking it.
• Huge impact on mental health care worldwide. Psychiatric hospitals to reviewed admission procedures and how they trained their staff to interact with patients. Move away from dependency on the “chemical straitjacket” of drugs. Today, the study is a compulsory part of training in psychiatric medicine and nursing.

Question 28

Conclusions

Answer 28

Socially sensitive research does have useful applications
But if the theory is reductionist it isn’t worth making ppts suffer needlessly.
Deterministic as says men are aggressive and we humans are naturally prejudiced regardless of our free will.
Aronson- cost/benefit analysis = done professionally, for right reasons = psychologists best people to do this research.