Psychology paper 2

Rosenhan

Aim: to investigate whether the sane can be reliably and accurately distinguished form the insane

Sample: 12 hospitals across 5 states (staff of hospitals = ppts), pseudopatients (3f, 5m)

Procedure: naturalistic, covert participant observation

• pseudopatients reported hearing voices, unfamiliar voices

• they had to be released by convincing staff they were sane

• acted normally, obeyed rules, pretended to take meds

• researches describe experience as distressing and unpleasnt

• staff observed the patients as genuine patients, keeping a written record…

Results:

• no ppts were ever detected by staff

• avg stay = 19 days before released

• other patients noticed ppts were ‘fake’

• 7/8 ppts diagnosed with schizophrenia

• 1/8 with manic depression and psychosis

Conclusion: rosenhan shows that the diagnostic system was flawed and unreliable as they were more likely to diagnose a healthy person as sick than a sick person as healthy

Rosenhan - link to normality v. abnormality

Rosenhan - link to biases in diagnosis

Rosenhan - link to validity of diagnosis

Parker et al

Parker et al - link to normality v. abnormality

Parker et al - link to classification systems

Lobbestal

Lobbestal - link to reliability in diagnosis