the individual differences area Flashcards
What is the individual differences area?
this area assumes that our behaviour is due to our individual differences
What do we mean by an idiographic view?
The assumption that individuals are unique
Why do individual differences psychologists believe we should have an idiographic view?
They believe that it is worth studying individuals in detail to understand their individual behaviour, as human behaviour is so complex, we can not assume that all Individuals act in the same way
Give some examples of idiographic characteristic
- Aims to understand the constructs and structures of concepts such as personality and abnormality
- aims to develop an in depth understanding of the individual
- often uses qualitative methods to produce detailed case studies
What do individual differences psychologists believe about being able to measure human benaviour?
All behaviour and human characteristics can be measured
What is the individual differences key theme?
Understanding disorders
What does Freud believe are the origins of mental illnesses?
- A weak ego: if either the id or the superego overpower the ego then they will dominate personality
- unchecked id impulses: if the id is not stopped and dominates personality, it will cause self-destruction and immoral acts e.g. Psychopathic behaviours of
- too powerful superego:if the superego dominates personality, and is ultimately too harsh and inflexible in it’s moral values, creating feelings of neurosis e.g anxiety etc.
THE CLASSIC STUDY
FREUD 1909
What is the background to freud’s classical study?
Little Hans developed phobias, became ‘mentally ill’, which according to freud was because of things going on in his unconscious mind, freud then, due to the help of little hans father, was able to interpret this behaviour and tell him why he was thinking and behaving as he was - psychoanalysis.
freud uses the study to support his ideas about the origins of phobias, and the oedipus complex
what were freud’s hypothesis/aims for his classical study?
freud’s aim was to support his ideas on:
- sex-role identification
- psycho-sexual stages (phallic stage = oedipus complex)
- origins of phobias
what was freud’s sample for his classical study?
Little Hans, was five years old, and evidence started from 3 year old (direct age for the phallic stage)
freud’s classical study was a longitudinal case study, what does this mean?
a study that was done over time, ages 3 to 5, that collects in-depth detail
what data on little hans did freud gather from his case study?
data on little han’s fantasies, fears/phobias and dreams
what was used to gather freud’s data on little hans?
self reports = diaries and letters
little hans fears/phobias
- just before Hans was three, he started to show particular interest in his ‘widdler’ and the presence/absence of this organ in others, this led to his mother threatening to get a doctor to cut it off
- when he was three, Hans gained a baby sister, Hanna, whom he resented and subsequently wished his mother would drown, ultimately he ended up fearing the bath himself.
- Little Hans developed a fear of being bitten by white horses, which occurred from 2 incidents:
- overheard a father say to a child “don’t put your finger near the white horse or it will bite you”
- seen a horse pulling a carriage that fell and began to kick about with its legs
what did freud say about little hans fears/phobias?
- little hans had a fear of castration
- the bath was symbolic of the womb, he wished hanna’s head would go under the water, a desire that she would go back in the womb and be unborn = wanted his mother for himself
- the white horse symbolised his father = punishing hans by castrating him = castration anxiety
= black on the horse’s mouth = father’s moustache
= black around the horse’s eyes = fathers glasses
symbolised his unconscious oedipus complex
what were little hans dreams/fantasies and how did freud interpret them?
- the giraffe fantasy
= Little Hans had a drawing of a smaller giraffe and a larger giraffe, he crumpled up his smaller giraffe and sat on the drawing, and threw out the picture of the larger giraffe
= larger giraffe resembled his father whilst the smaller giraffe resembled his mother
=symbolic of him being possessive over his mother and getting rid of his father - plumber dream
1. plumber came and stuck a big borer into little han’s stomach
2. plumber used pincers to take away Han’s ‘widdler’ and replace it with a bigger one like his fathers - fantasy of becoming a father to his mother’s child, and married to her, with his dad as the grandad
what were freud’s findings?
that both the giraffe and the family fantasy, resembled Hans directly in his oedipus complex, as he tried to be possessive over his mother and resemble with his father
the plumber fantasy, resembled him now identifying as his father, and the resolution of the oedipus complex
what were possible conclusions for freud’s study?
- supporting his ideas on psychosexual development / infant sexuality
- supported his ideas on boys in the phallic stage undergoing the oedipus complex
= which is how boys acquire their sex-role identity - phobias are the product of unconscious anxiety displaced onto harmless external objects
- the use of practical applications, psychoanalysis, to treat disturbed thoughts, feelings and behaviours
- his concept of unconscious determinism which holds people not accountable, as they are ‘not consciously aware’ of the causes of their behaviours
what are the strengths of freud’s research method (longitudinal case study)
- we have an in depth-understanding of the phallic state of development
- we are able to see change in behaviour over time
evaluate freud’s validity in his classical study?
- high in ecological validity
= conducted in little hans home - secondary data
= came from hans father
= subject to interpretation
what was a weakness of freud’s reliability on his study on little hans?
no standardised procedure
= lacks replicability
= gathered his data from unique diaries and letters
what was a weakness of freud’s sample?
extremely biased sample
= results are based on one viennese, middle class boy (also makes it ethnocentric)
evaluate freud’s types of data
he used qualitative data
+ high in validity
- had to be interpreted, subjective
evaluate freud’s ethical considerations
+ confidentiality (little hans nickname)
+ informed consent from parents
+ no deception
- Hans was unable to give his own consent
- psychological harm
= invasion of privacy
THE CONTEMPORARY STUDY
BARON-COHEN
1997
what was the first order ToM test? what happened?
the sally anne test
sally places her marble into her basket, then leaves to play, whilst she is gone, anne moves her marble from her basket to her own box, sally comes back, the child is then asked, where would she look for her marble?
what was the second order ToM test?
Happè’ strange stories test
where children were to judge the mental/physical state of a character in a short story
why could both the sally anne test and happè strange stories task, not be used in adults?
they both had a ceiling effect, sally anne (age 4/5) and happè (age 8/9) as both tests only shown a basic understanding of other peoples thoughts and feelings, only shown a basic ToM
what was the background on the contemporary study?
evidence was to show that ToM deficit may have been a core cognitive deficit in autism, the inability to recognise others mental state, however, previous ToM tests had a ceiling effect, and could not generalise to autistic adults
what was the sample for Baron-Cohen’s contemporary study?
GROUP 1: 16 individuals with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome (HFA=4, AS =12)
13 males, 3 females, all were of normal intelligence
recruited through an advert in an autistic magazine, and a variety of clinical sources/doctors
self-selected
GROUP 2: 50 ‘normal’ age-matched individuals (25males, 25 females)
randomly selected from Cambridge University
GROUP 3: 10 adults with Tourette syndrome (8males, 2females)
B-C used this group, as they have similar features to autistic people, however, he wanted to prove that a ToM deficit was unique to autistic people only
self-selected from a referral centre in London
what was the hypothesis/aims for Baron Cohen’s contemporary study?
- to investigate if autism in adults is caused by a core cognitive effect - an impaired ToM - by using a more challenging ToM test
= all participants in group 1 and 3, must have been able to pass the first and second order ToM tests.
what was the contemporary study’s research method?
quasi experiment, where the IV occurs naturally and can not be manipulated or controlled by the researchers, whether or not an individual has autism
what was the contemporary study’s experimental design?
matched pairs design
outline the procedure of the eyes task
the dependent variable was the performance of the individual - score out of 25 - on the eyes task, which consisted of showing the participant 25 black and white standardised photographs of the eye region of faces, both male and female, and asking them to make a choice between two mental state words (target and foil) and asking them which most resembled what the person in the photograph was feeling or thinking
what were they key findings of the contemporary study?
mean scores:
group 1: autistic adults = 16.3
group 2: ‘normal adults’ = 20.3
group 3: TS = 20.4
what were possible conclusions for the contemporary study?
the results provided evidence that adults with autism/AS do possess an impaired theory of mind
some of the autism/AS group hold university degrees and were all of ‘normal intelligence’
evaluate baron-cohen’s research method for his contemporary study
+ IV occurs naturally
= impossible to do a lab experiment
= impossible to allocate people into groups otherwise
- low levels of control
= impossible to control whether people have autism or not - no cause and effect
evaluate Baron-cohen’s validity on his contemporary study
+ high in internal validity
= high levels of control
= able to measure what we intend to (ToM)
- low levels,s of ecological validity
= lacks mundane realism
= artificial tasks
what are the positives to Baron-cohen’s reliability on his contemporary study
- standardised photographs
= black and white, same size, same eye region etc.
evaluate Baron-cohen’s sample
+ randomly selected control group
= likely to be representative of the target population
- self selected sample (G1 and G3)
= only a certain type of person may put themselves forward - small sample size
= may be unrepresentative
how is Baron-cohen’s study ethnocentric?
results to explain ToM deficits were only researched in the UK, and may not be able to be generalised to other cultures
what data was used in Baron-cohen’s study? why was this positive?
quantitative data
= easy to compare results between groups
= provides a useful cut off point (18)
evaluate the ethical considerations of Baron-cohen’s study
+ informed consent
= put themselves forward
- psychological harm
= being diagnosed with autism and getting a low score
how has the contemporary study changed our understanding of individual, social and cultural diversity?
individual diversity = a lot
= able to analyse specific characteristics that lead to changes in behaviour over a more sustained period in comparison to freud
social diversity = not at all
cultural diversity = not at all
how has the contemporary study changed our understanding of the key theme?
a lot
= showed that there are more ways than psychoanalysis to study individual differences, such as using the experimental method.
Baron-cohen, allowed us to understand more about AS and how the issues, is not how they feel, but their thought processes that structure the way they experience the world
PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
freud vs baron-cohen
freud
- studied the unconscious mind, which can not be studied or observed
- diaries and letters were used, subjective to interpretation
- qualitative data
- deductive method
- non falsifiable
B-C
+ standardised procedure
+ standardised task
+quantitative data, score out of 25, objective
+ inductive method
+ falsifiable
SOCIALLY SENSITIVE RESEARCH
freud vs baron-cohen
freud
- sexualises children, suggests they have a libido
- parents are the ones to blame if their children have issues later in life
B-C
- highlights a difference between people, discriminative
- recognises a ‘vulnerable’ group of people in society
USEFULNESS
freud vs baron-cohen
freud
+ produced psychoanalysis, which helps to treat disorders
B-C
+ helped create a new ToM test, that was able to diagnose autism in adults
FREE WILL/DETERMINISM DEBATE
freud vs baron-cohen
freud
= soft deterministic, freud suggest that behaviours are a result on intra-psychic conflicts, however, how we are brought up can impact this as we may react in response to our environment and upbringing, which alters our own choices (free will)
B-C
= deterministic
= having autism causes people to have a defect in their theory of mind
similarities between freud’s classic study and baron-cohen’s contemporary study?
- both ethnocentric
- both can be viewed as a biased sample
- both use self-reports
- both socially sensitive
- both useful
differences between freud’s classical study and baron-cohen’s contemporary study?
BC=reliable, standardised procedure that is replicable
F=not reliable, no standardised procedure
BC=high in internal validity
F=low in internal validity
BC=low in ecological validity
F=high in ecological validity
strengths of the the individual differences area
- provides individual explanations which gives useful insights into the differences between people’s behaviour
= cause and effect
= psychology as a science - often uses the scientific method
= gives high control over extraneous variables
= high in internal validity - useful, produces practical applications
= psychoanalysis, which may help people to overcome issues and allow them to live a more fulfilling life
weaknesses of the individual differences area
- can produce socially sensitive findings
= can lead to individuals feeling discriminated or marginalised from others in society - can use less scientific methods e.g self reports or case studies
= production of non-falsifiable hypothesis, which are less useful
