361 Week 7
- Epistemology – how do we know that we know?
o Research methods are ways of knowing – finding out about the world
o Of importance well beyond this course
o What is “evidence”?
o In clinical psychology, misinformation abounds
§ Sometimes we look for answers even in the wrong places
- Where do theories come from?
o Generating a hypothesis, a theory, or even a paradigm – straightforward?
o The creativity involved, the hunches, the inspiration
o Kuhn and paradigms – they don’t simply emerge from existing theories or data
- Chaos theory (paradigm) and human limits
o Chaos theory concerns deterministic systems whose behavior can, in principle, be predicted
o Suggests that major events may be affected by unexpected, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and seemingly trivial events. Deterministic yet so complex may be unpredictable at a given moment in time
o Cautions scientists (and people in general) to be modest in predicting with extreme confidence the long-term outcomes of apparently tiny changes in events
o Our ability to predict is limited by many unexpected and uncontrollable factors
§ Many factors are constantly operating on every individual
· For example, unrealistic to think that we can predict the social environment of any future time. If we believe that one’s physical and social environment plays a role in our behavior, it follows the constraints in predicting these future environments will constrain our success in predicting future behavior. And yet we try – no nihilism
· Implications for follow-up data in psychotherapy research?
o “The Chance Theory of Life” – a common experience. Chance plus what you do with it plus how the environment rewards or punishes it
o How I got into clinical psychology. How I came to position on sexual reorientation therapy
o scientists act as though they can discover all controlling variables even though chaos theory makes us humble about actually ever being able to do so. Still, scientists push the limits of inquiry. In principle, we can
o therapists have limited contact with and control over patients’ daily lives
§ hundreds of factors at play, many unexpected
§ worth having a modicum of humility in an enterprise that would presume to try to understand the vagaries of the human condition and to intervene in positive ways
§ and yet throwing up our hands is also unwise. Chaos does not have to be a value, something worth striving for. Rather, it’s a limitation in what we can realistically achieve at a given moment in time
- correlation and causation
o important point: while correlation cannot prove causation, causation cannot be demonstrated without correlation
o the best way to prove causation is through experimental methods, where independent variables are manipulated
o correlational vs. experimental methods in examining the relationship of stress and blood pressure
§ correlation
· participants à measure recent life stress and measure blood pressure à correlate the two variables
§ experiment
· participants in stress group à give speech in front of audience, blood pressure measured
· participants in no-stress group à sit quietly, blood pressure measured
· compare the blood pressure readings of the two groups
- double-blind studies and the placebo effect
o double blind: condition unknown to both experimenter and subject
o problem with the experimenter(s) and/or the research participants knowing whether an active drug has been given or not
o “active” placebo can help with this challenge—a chemical preparation that produces effects different from those being studied but which can convince the subject that a real drug is being used
o Placebo effect – an expression of ignorance? Or is the operative factor expectation of getting better? In which case, is it really inactive?
- Analogue studies and experimental research
o An analogue experiment is one that studies under controlled conditions a phenomenon related to the interests of the experimenter but different from it
o “whether an experiment is regarded as an analogue depends not on the experiment itself, but on the use to which it is put. We can very readily study avoidance behavior in a white rat. The data collected from such studies are not analogue data if we limit our discussion to the behavior of rats. They become analogue data only when we draw implications from them and apply them to other domains, such as anxiety in human beings.” (Davison et al.)
- Analogue studies and external validity
o “determining the external validity or generalizability of the results of a psychological experiment is extremely difficult…in many instances results obtained from investigations with laboratory animals, such as rats, have been generalized to human beings…researchers must be alert to the extent to which they claim generalization for findings, for there is no entirely adequate way of dealing with the questions of external validity. The best that can be done is to perform similar studies in new settings with new participants so that the limitations, or the generality, of a finding can be determined.” (Davison et al.)
- The importance of case studies
o The importance of literature (novels, poems, biographies, cinema, TV)
o A case study may cast doubt upon a general theory
o The heuristic value of case studies
o A case study may permit the study of rare but important phenomena
o A case study may provide examples of applying principles and ideas in new ways
o A case study may provide enough control to furnish scientifically acceptable information
o A case study illustrates the need for “putting meat on the theoretical skeleton”
§ Flesh on the theoretical skeleton
· A challenge faced by any therapist is moving from a general principle to a concrete clinical intervention. As with any therapy, the application of a general principle to a particular case is not a simple matter. Although a given theoretical framework helps guide the clinician’s thinking, it is by no means sufficient
· “the clinician in fact approaches his work with a given set, a framework for ordering the complex data that are his domain. But frameworks are insufficient. The clinician, like any other applied scientist, must fill out the theoretical skeleton. Individual cases present problems that always call for knowledge beyond basic psychological principles.” (Lazarus & Davison)
- Clinical innovation and research
o Two-way bridge: ideas tested in the laboratory may be applied by the practitioner. And ideas formulated in the clinic, provided that they are amenable to disproof, can be studied scientifically
o “Ideas tested in the laboratory may be applied by the practitioner who, in turn, may discover important individual nuances that remain hidden from the laboratory scientist simply because the tight experimental testing ground makes it impossible for certain behaviors to occur or for certain observations to be made. Conversely, ideas formulated in the clinic, provided that they are amenable to disproof, can send scientists scurrying off into laboratories and other research settings to subject the claims of efficacy to controlled tests.” (Davison & Lazarus)
o The importance of clinical experience
§ Clinical experience enables a therapist to recognize problems and identify trends that are usually beyond the perceptions of novices
§ It is at this level that new ideas can come to the practitioner and often constitute breakthroughs
o Different kinds of data and differing levels of information are obtained in the laboratory and the clinic. Each is necessary, useful, and desirable
- Clinical innovation – what do I do now?
o clinical innovation as a form of experimentation
§ trying something that the clinician may never have done before and/or that lacks empirical validation
o the actual experiment [innovative] operations will usually be determined in part by the therapist’s own theoretical orientation
o occasionally, a sense of desperation may lead a clinician to make a response that fits neither his/her theoretical preconceptions nor his/her more usual empirical resources. Many clinical advances are preceded by what we might term a frustration-observation sequence
- what does effectiveness of a technique tell us about the theory?
o We cannot assume that, if a technique proves successful in achieving its desired results, the rationale that led to it is thereby necessarily strengthened or confirmed
o “techniques may, in fact, prove effective for reasons that do not remotely relate to the theoretical ideas that gave birth to the techniques” (Davison & Lazarus)
- The importance of theory in clinical practice
o The theoretical notions a clinician espouses during the conduct of all clinical activities matter very much.
§ For example, if one assumes that a given phobic reaction is best conceptualized as an anxiety-avoidance gradient, and furthermore is not secondary to a basic underlying condition which is the proper focus for treatment, like a repressed oedipal conflict, one is more likely to employ, with confidence, a technique like desensitization or other exposure-based interventions
o the “set” (or paradigm theory) with which a clinician approaches a problem determines his/her own clinical behavior and his/her view of what happened after a given intervention