ROSENHAN

• background


  in the 1960s psychiatrists started to criticise the medical model of abnormality. he observed that the prosecution and defence teams at murder trials often called their own psychiatrists who often disagreed with the defendants sanity. this lack of consistency, led him to consider whether there was any way to reliably identify who is abnormal
• aim


  Rosenhan wanted to test the validity and reliability of the diagnostic system. the aim of this study was to see if psychiatrists can reliably tell the difference between people who are sane and those who are insane
• method


  covert participant observation
• participants


  staff and patients of 12 hospitals in five different states in the usa. range of private and public hospitals.
• pseudopatients 


  were not the participants. 8 fake patients. fake names and fake jobs. no history of mental illness. 5 male 3 female
• procedure


  all pseudo-patients contacted the hospital for an appointment and reported on hearing voices. all were admitted, 11 diagnosed with schizophrenia and 1 with manic depressive psychosis. noting down everything that happened and didnt take any medication given. none of the p-p were found to be fake this was a failure amongst the hospital. all p-p were eventually discharged with a diagnosis of 'schizophrenia in remission'
• dependent variable - what the pseudopatients recorded

  • the responses to patients when they made requests to staff
  • the amount of minutes staff spent with patients
  • no. of time nurses left the 'cage' (their office)
  • amount of eye contact from psychiatrist with patients
  • how patients were treated
• quantitative results 


  psychiatrists left the 'cage' - 6.7 times a day

  avoided eye contact - 71%

  7 minutes a day spent with psychiatrist

  length of hospitalisation 7-52 days average of 19 days
• qualitative results


  their experience was extremely unpleasant, often felt a sense of powerlessness and depersonalisation. led to some questioning their sense of identity.
• conclusion


  the diagnostic system was unreliable. could not reliably tell who was sane or not.

  this is known as a type 1 error
• anxiety disorders - specific phobias


  according to the DSM 5 fear is 'the emotional response to a real or perceived imminent threat' however anxiety can be defined as 'anticipation of a future threat'. a key feature of this disorder is that fear are experienced when in the presence of a particular object or in a specific situation, this is known as the phobic stimulus

  its common for people to have more than one phobias 75%. specific phobias are more common in teenagers between the ages of 13-17, females experience phobias more than males.
• affective (mood) disorders - major depressive disorder


  major depressive disorder is generally seen as a mood state characterised by a sense of inadequacy, despondency and a decrease in activity. must have five or more symptoms for 2+ weeks.

  7% of people in the usa have it with 18-29 having it twice as much as 60+. 3x more likely in males. increases in puberty.