MASTERLIST OF CRUCIAL PSYCHOLOGY CASE STUDIES FINDINGS Covers sections of Abnormal Biological Cognitive and Socio cultural units as well as some Sport Psychology As this list is a lengthy compilation of studies use CTRL F to navigate by entering keywords or the researcher s last name into the search box that pops up Best of luck with your studies GO DUCKS Normal vs Abnormal Rosenhan and Seligman 1984 Aim To design a system to determine whether a person s mental state is normal or abnormal Procedure The pair identified seven characteristics to determine normality Suffering Does the person experience distress or discomfort Maladaptiveness Does the person engage in behaviors that make life more difficult for him or her rather than being helpful Irrationality Is the person incomprehensible or unable to communicate in a reasonable Unpredictability Does the person act in ways that are unexpected by himself herself or way others Vividness Does the person experience things that are different from most people Observer Discomfort Is the person acting in a way that is difficult to watch or that makes other people embarrassed Violation of Moral or Ideal Standards Does the person habitually break the accepted ethical and moral standards of the culture Evaluation These criteria demonstrate the fine line between defining abnormality in ways that focus on distress to the individual and defining it in terms of what is acceptable to society The danger of social judgements is that they often fail to consider the diversity on the ways in which people live their lives Defining normality has a lot to do with the implicit theories people have about what is normal and what is abnormal Mental Health Criteria Jahoda 1958 Aim Establish what is abnormal by identifying the characteristics of people who are normal Procedure She identified 6 characteristics of mental health efficient self perception realistic self esteem and acceptance voluntary control of behavior true perception of the world sustaining relationships and giving affection self direction and productivity Evaluation It is very difficult to define these criteria precisely so the question is what they actually mean If the criteria were applied most of the population would seem somewhat abnormal They are to a large extent value judgements It is relatively clear that what constitutes mental health depends widely on what is psychologically normal in the culture and society in which the person lives Criterion Tomasz Szasz 1962 Aim To argue against the concept of mental illness Shyness Julie Turner Cobb Findings The stress hormone cortisol is consistently lower in shy children than in extroverted people Evaluation Being introverted results in decreased stress Research in Psychology Rosenhan 1973 Aim To test the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses Participants 8 healthy people 5 men and 3 women Procedure The participants tried to be admitted to 12 different psychiatric hospitals They complained that they had been hearing voices The voices were unclear and only said single words like empty or thud After they were admitted they said they felt fine In a second study Rosenhan told psychiatric hospital that psuedo patients would try to gain admittance No psuedo patients actually came Results Seven of the eight were admitted to psychiatric wards and diagnosed with schizophrenia It took an average of 19 days before they were discharged In the second study 41 real patients were turned away and 19 were suspected of being frauds by hospital staff Evaluation It is not possible to distinguish between the sane and insane in psychiatric hospitals Reliability of Diagnosis Cooper et al 1972 Aim To study the effects of culture and society on psychological diagnoses of the same patients Procedure Psychiatrists in New York and London were asked to diagnose patients based on the same videotaped clinical interviews Results New York Psychiatrists were twice as likely to diagnose schizophrenia than London psychiatrists who in turn were twice as likely to diagnose mania or depression Evaluation Diagnoses are somewhat dependent on social and cultural norms Reliability of Diagnosis Lipton and Simon 1985 Aim To study the reliability of psychological diagnoses Participants 131 patients with psychological diagnoses at a hospital in New York Procedure Various assessment procedures were used to arrive at a diagnosis for each patient The diagnosis was then compared to the original diagnosis Results Of the original 89 diagnoses of schizophrenia only 16 received the same diagnosis upon re evaluation Initially 15 had been diagnosed with a mood disorder but upon re evaluation 50 had been diagnosed with a mood disorder Ethical Considerations in Diagnosis Scheff 1966 Argued that the self fulfilling prophecy was an adverse effect of labelling people with mental disorders People may begin to act as they think they are expected to and this could lead to an increase in symptoms Is it ethical to give a diagnosis even if it may negatively affect the patient Or is it ethical to withhold information from the patient to try and avoid the internalization of the patient s diagnosis Ethical Considerations in Diagnosis Jenkins Hall and Sacco 1991 Aim Participants European American therapists Procedure The therapists watched a clinical interview and were asked to evaluate the female There were four conditions representing the possible combinations of race and patient depression African American and non depressed European American and non depressed African American and depressed European American and depressed Results The therapists rated the non depressed African American and European American in much the same way But there ratings of the depressed women differed The therapists used more negative terms to rate the African American woman and saw her as less socially competent than the European American woman Ethical Considerations in Diagnosis Kahneman and Tversky 1973 Aim To point out that the more assessment techniques used does not necessarily result in a more valid interpretation Results There is no positive correlation between the number of assessment techniques used and the accuracy of the eventual diagnosis Cultural Considerations in Diagnosis Rack 1982 Pointed out how Asian doctors have reported that depression is equally common among Asians but that Asians only consult their doctor for physical problems rarely reporting emotional distress They do not see this as the responsibility of the