Psychology - Individual Differences

Idiographic approach - Definition

Focuses on individual characteristics and what makes someone unique

Nomothetic approach - Definition

Focuses on groups of people and says behaviour can be generalised

Assumption one

Individuals differ in their behaviour and personal characteristics so not everyone can be considered the average person. We should focus on these differences to explain behaviour.

Assumption two

All human characteristics can be measured and quantified. We can distinguish differences by comparing these characteristics

Assumption three

Behaviour is caused by an individual’s disposition rather than the situation

Freud - Background

ID - based on pleasure principle, instinctive and impulsive

Ego - mediates between the demands of the ID and the real world

Superego - operates on the morality principle

Psychosexual stages of development

Oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital

Freud - Aim

Give an account of a boy who was suffering from a fear of horses and use this to illustrate the existence of the Oedipus complex

Freud - Sample

1 boy from Vienna, aged between 3-5yrs old

Freud - Method

Longitudinal case study

Data gathered by Little Hans’ father regularly observing and questioning Hans

Freud - Procedure

Hans started showing an interest in his ‘widdler’

He eventually developed a fear of being bitten by white horses, this seemed to be linked to seeing a horse that was pulling a carriage fall down

Freud - Giraffe fantasy

One giraffe was big, the other was crumpled. Hans took the crumpled giraffe away and sat on it.

Freud - Two plumber fantasy

1st - Hans was in the bath and a plumber came and unscrewed it before sticking a borer in his stomach

2nd - Took away his widdler with pliers and replaced it with a bigger one

Freud - Parenting fantasy

Married to his mother with children, father is grandfather instead

Freud - Results

Fear of horses was a subconscious fear of his father, dark around the mouth represents the moustache his father wore.

Fear and obsession with his widdler was due to the Oedipus complex

Freud - Conclusions

Supported his theory of psychosexual development

Boys in the phallic stage develop the Oedipus complex

Phobias are the product of unconscious anxiety displaced onto harmless objects

Freud - Ecological validity

Experiencing and recalling fantasies in his own home to his father

This environment is natural and familiar to him, more likely to be truthful when explaining dreams/fantasies - increased validity

Freud - Generalisability

Case study - one boy

Had specific experiences and dreams - interpretations can only be applied to him

Lack of population validity

Freud - Researcher bias

Talk about conclusions

Freud himself analyzed the data and interpreted Hans' behavior.

Interpretations based on his own theories and may have been influenced by his pre-existing beliefs.

He may have overlooked or downplayed data that contradicted his theories or emphasized data that supported them

Freud - Demand characteristics

Referred by his father who was a keen supporter of Freud’s work

Data gathered by him

As he was familiar with Freud’s work, he may have altered the dreams and fantasies to fit with Freud’s theories. This reduces the validity of the results.

BC - Background

Happe’s strange stories - see if individuals could identify a range of social interactions

Theory of mind

Being able to predict the minds of others requires being able to see things from their point of view

BC - Aim

To test whether high functioning adults with autism and aspergers would struggle with a new and more difficult test for theory of mind

BC - Sample

16 high functioning adults with autism or aspergers (13m:3f) recruited through an advert in the national autistic magazine

50 ‘normal’ age-matched adults drawn from the population of Cambridge

10 adults with tourettes syndrome

BC - Method

Quasi experiment with matched participants design

BC - The eyes task

25 black and white pictures of the eye region of male and female individuals, had to choose which emotion was being shown from 2 options

BC - Procedure

Presented with 4 tasks in a random order

Eyes task

Gender recognition task - eyes male or female

Basic emotion recognition task - full face

Strange stories

BC - Results (eyes task)

Autistic - 16.3

Normal - 20.3

Tourettes - 20.4

No s.d between normal and tourettes, suggests that it is autistic people that lack theory of mind

No differences between the groups on the gender and emotion control tasks, so no problems with general facial recognition skills

Normal females performed significantly better than normal males on the eyes task

Females (mean 21.8) performed significantly better than males (mean 18.8) on the eyes task

BC - Conclusions

Contrary to previous research, shows that autistic people seem to posses an impaired theory of mind

Assumes that TOM deficits are independent of general intelligence

BC - Ethics

Reference conclusions

Measures and highlights the weaknesses of a vulnerable group of people

Results may cause distress for those with the disorder and stigma from others

BC - Practical applications

Results (name them) can be used to highlight the difficulties faced by autistic people.

Measures can be put in place to support them

Can be applied to real life situations such as job interviews

BC - generalisability

TP is everyone with autism - only includes 16 people with high functioning autism.

Theory of mind may vary depending on the severity of a person’s autism and symptoms of the disorder can vary between people - results cant be generalised

Freud + BC - Similarities

Usefulness - can provide support

Generalisability - shit

Freud + BC - Differences

BC supports the nature side of the debate whereas F is more interactionist

Freud - more holistic

Gould - Background

first widely accepted intelligence test was for children - Binet-Simon test

Produced a mental age score and allowed support to be provided

Believed that intelligence was not fixed and could be improved with appropriate support

Theories of intelligence

Fluid and crystallised intelligence

Gardners theory of multiple intelligences

Gould - Aim

To identify the problematic nature of psychometric testing in general and the measurement of intelligence in particular

Gould - Research method

Peer review article of large scale psychometric testing

Gould - Sample

1.75 million army recruits in the USA. Included white Americans and European immigrants

Gould - Procedure

Alpha test - written exam given to literate recruits, consisted of unscrambling sentences and analogies - was culture bound

Beta test - for illiterates (failed alpha), relied on pencil work and number skills

Individual spoken exam - failed and called for an individual exam

Given a score between A-E which decided rank

Gould - Key findings

Mean mental age

White American - 13.04

Black American - 10.41

Italian immigrant - 11.01

Gould - Conclusions

There are many problems with measuring IQ subjectively

The application of measuring tools can have devastating consequences

IQ tests are unreliable

Gould - Generalisability

Describe sample

Sample is representative of the wider population

CA - Army only consisted of men in 1921, androcentric, cannot be applied to women

Gould - Peer review

Examined the early history of IQ testing conducted by Yerkes for recruits of the US army in 1921

Use of secondary data means it is quick and easy

No further testing had to be done, the data collected was simply reviewed

Gould - Ethical considerations

Scored A-E - determined rank

Suggesting that someone cannot have certain jobs because of their intelligence is psychologically harmful - especially considering that the procedure took place in 1921

Limited access to education for certain groups

Gould - Validity

Questions in alpha test were culture bound

Tests not measuring what they claim to be measuring (IQ) so low in construct validity.

This decreases the usefulness of the findings.

What is a psychopath?

Individuals that possess a combination of distinct social, cognitive and emotional impairments

Hancock - Background

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Psychopaths focus primarily on the basic, physiological needs such as breathing, food and water

Psychopaths have unique drives and socioemotional needs - makes language distinct

Williamson - psychopathic language may be more unclear

Hancock - Aim

To identify features of language that are used in crime narratives by psychopaths

Hancock - Method

Quasi experimental study

Psychopathy was measured by the PCL-R

Study used semi-structured interviews which employed the stepwise interview technique

Narratives transcribed and analysed using the Wmatrix and the DAL

Hancock - Sample

52 male murderers (14 psychopathic, 38 non-psychopathic) incarcerated in a Canadian facility who admitted their crime and volunteered

Mean age at the time of the homicide was 28.9yrs

Hancock - Procedure p1

Interested individuals underwent a psychopathy assessment conducted by a trained prison psychologist or a researcher who was well trained in the coding and they used the cut off of 25

Participants were then interviewed, they were asked to describe their homicide in as much detail as possible, omitting no details.

They were prompted to do this by the stepwise interview technique

Hancock - Procedure p2

Interviewers were two senior psych grad students and a research assistant who were blind to the psychopathy scores

Narratives were transcribed and tools were used to analyse the transcripts

Hancock - Results

Psychopaths used approximately twice as many words relating to basic physiological needs

Drink - 66%p 38%np

Psychopaths more likely to use subordinating conjunctions - shows cause and effect

Hancock - Conclusions

Psychopaths are more likely than non-psychopaths to describe cause and effect relationships when describing their murder

They are more likely to view their crime as a logical outcome of a plan and focus more on physiological needs than higher level social needs

Hancock - Reliability

Interviews with prisoners all followed the same 'step-wise' interview procedure. Use of computer programmes to analyse prisoners language also have helped to ensure the data from each participant were approached in a consistent way.
However, as interview procedure was open-ended in style, likely the narratives generated by prisoners would have varied in such matters as which parts of their crime they described in most detail.

Hancock - Ethical considerations

Participants not deceived regarding purpose and the procedure of their interviews
Participants volunteered to take part, gave consent to be involved.

Hancock - Generalisability

Describe characteristics of sample

All convicted of the same crime - not all psychopaths commit crimes

Hancock - Reductionism

Focuses on the impact of psychopathy only, there may be other variables that are influencing the language of the participant

Gould and Hancock - Similarities

Quantitative data

Measuring individual differences

Gould and Hancock - Generalisability

Gould - generalisable to a wide range of cultures

Hancock - all ppts incarcerated in a Canadian facility

Gould and Hancock - Validity

Gould - low in internal validity - tests not measuring IQ efficiently and Yerkes only published findings that supported his theory

Hancock - high in internal validity - low risk of researcher bias and tests effectively measure psychopathy

Strength of the area - Allows us to learn more about human behaviours as many behaviours are studied and quantified

Use Baron-Cohen as an example - highlights how those with autism differ which informs people how they should be supporting people with this diagnosis

Findings can be applied to real life and improve our understanding, diagnosis and treatment of certain behaviours.

Unique treatments and support programmes can help individuals feel included in society

Weakness of the area - Methods aren’t always objective, so open to bias which lowers the external validity

Use Freud as an example of researcher bias - the research cannot be applied and used to help our understanding of phobias

Weakness of the area - Ethics can be questioned due to labelling people as different or abnormal

Use BC as an example - results showing a lack of theory of mind (name them) may cause people to think badly about themselves

Strength of the area - High in ecological validity as usually take place in ppts natural environment

Use Freud as an example

Increases the validity of the research in this field, meaning it can be used to explain how individual differences may impact real life situations