individual differences

• freud: background: freud developed a theory of child development

  • freud based this theory on the recollections of his adult patients describing their childhood and proposed that these events explained the mental disorders and difficulties they experience as adults.
• freud: aims: to document the case of little hans who was suffering from anxiety that led to a phobia - freuds aims were to use the case study to support his ideas abt:

  • child development and the oedipus complex
  • the origins of mental disorders such as phobias
  • the value of psychoanalysis for treating mental disorders
• freud: case study of a single individual, longitudinal spanning two years.
• freud: sample: opportunity sample

  little hans ages 3-5

  • hans was initially a cheerful little boy until he developed a phobia
  • his family members (father, mother and sister) are an important part of the study.
  • hans family selected bc his father was interested in freuds work and wished to give freud the oopportunity to explore his theories.
• freud: research techniques:

  • data collected from convestations between father and son recorded by the father
  • a mixture of interview and self report
• freud: procedure:

  • hans father became concerned abt his sons fear of horses.
  • hans father sent regular reports to freud abt the case kept of 2 years
  • final account of this case consisted of:

  ~ diary of events in hans family (such as the birth of his sister and the time when hans heard a man warn his daughter abt touching a white horse)

  ~observations of hans behaviour (hans touching his ‘widdler’)

  ~conversations between hans and his father

  ~analysis, anaylsed the events
• freud: results:

  early life:

  • hans experienced the oedipus complex = desire for mother wished father dead
  • developed fasination bc he was in the phallic stage
  • feared castration

  analysis:

  • fear of horses bc of ego defenses- repressed the anxiety so expressed in a fear of horses.
  • fear of horses explained by subconcious fear of his father
  • fear of carts- bc they represented pregnancy (anxiety abt his sister)
  • daydream abt giraffes was due to attraction to his mother.
• freud: conclusions:

  • the nature of phobias and his theory that they are the product of unconscious anxiety displaced onto harmless external objects.  
  • His concept of unconscious determinism which holds that people are not consciously aware of the causes of their behaviour.
• freud: validity: the extent to which the study of one boy can shed light on normal development.

  • freud agrues that the anxieties that hans experienced are normal for early childhood. - this means that hand was not really abnormal at all and means that it is reasonable to use this case to increase our understanding of normal development.
  • the counter agrument is that hans may not be regarded as normal - means that any generalisations abt normal development should be made with caution.
  • both the use of leading questions and lack of objectivity also reduce validity.
• freud: ethical considerations: study of child so informed consent is provided by the parent.

  • intrusion into their privacy

  psychological harm - hans father felt encouraged to ask more questions of his son than he would have if he was not recording the data for freud.

  • intensive levels of questions might have been quite stressful and invasive.
• freud: ethical considerations:

  research into mental disorders is socially sensitive

  • this case suggests that the reason that ppl have phobias is bc of repressed emotions from childhood.
  • simpler explanations such as the behaviorist idea that phobias are learned through an association between a neutral object and one that provokes fear.
• baron-cohen: background:'

  • Autism Spectrum Disorder: It is often described as a spectrum disorder' because the condition affects people in many different ways and to varying degrees.  
  • the core deficit of autism is the autistic 
  • person’s inability to employ a theory of mind.  
  • Theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have emotions and ideas that that can be different to your own. 
• baron-cohen: aims: determine whether the ‘Reading the Mind in the eyes’ task is a valid measure of ToM.

  • investigate whether lack of ToM is a core deficit of ASD. 
• baron-cohen: quasi experiment bc IV = type of person likely to have ToM deficits was naturally occurring.

  DV = was the performance out of /25 on the eyes task

  matched pairs design bc group of normal adults and group with tourette’s were age matched with A/AS group
• baron-cohen: sample:

  • 16 ppl with high functioning autism
  • 4 ppl with AS

  (13 males 3 females)

  • 50 aged matched ‘normal’ cambridge residents

  (25 males 25 females)

  • 10 aged matched people of normal intelligence with tourette’s from referral centre

  (8 males 2 females)
• baron-cohen: procedure:

  the eyes task

  • photographs of the eye region of 25 different male and female faces
  • showed for 3s then p’ were given a forced question printed under each picture
  • ‘Which word best describes what this person is feeling or thinking?’
• baron-cohen: procedure:

  the gender recognition task

  • involved identifying the gender of the eyes used in the Eyes Task. The task controlled for face 
  • perception, perceptual discrimination and social perception.  

  the basic emotion recognition task

  • involved judging photographs of whole faces displaying basic emotions
  •  task was done to check whether difficulties on the Eyes Task were due to difficulties with basic emotional recognition.  
• baron-cohen: results: mean score for adults with tourette’s = 20.4/25

  was not significantly from ‘normal‘ adults = 20.3/25

  but both were significantly higher than the A/AS = 16.3/25
• baron-cohen: results:

  the strange stories task

  • A/AS group made significantly more errors than other groups

  gender and emotion recognition

  • no differences between the groups
• baron-cohen: conclusions:

  • the strange stories test obtained similar results showing deficts in ToM of adults with ASD and not individuals with tourette’s (this validates the eyes task as a test of ToM as the results were comparable to this established ToM (concurrent validity)).
• baron-cohen: reliability = concerns measurement

  p’ were tested on different tasks which were carried out the same way each time and the results of which could ve interpreted in the same way each time by the experimenter.
• baron-cohen: ethical consideration = all adults and in position to give informed consent

  however issues abt whether ppl who lack ToM are able to understand what is involved in the study and give truly informed consent. (BPS code of ethics)

  special efforts should be taken to protect them from psychological harm.

  • research into developmental disorder is socially sensitive - consequences to have a negative impact on specific groups of people/society