Psychology Appendix to Pack 6536 The Psychology of Individual Differences Higher 7111 Summer 2000 HIGHER STILL Psychology Appendix to Pack 6536 The Psychology of Individual Differences Higher Support Materials *+,-./ CONTENTS Outcome 2- Major Studies Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) INTELLIGENCE Major study/article: Gould, S.J. (1982) A nation of morons. New Scientist (6 May 1982) 349-52. This article in the New Scientist magazine is in fact an extract from Gould’s book, The Mismeasure of Man, which examines human intelligence testing from the nineteenth century through to the modern day. In essence, the book/article/study sets out to reject the hereditarian theory of intelligence. The article examines the impact of the work of Robert M Yerkes and intelligence testing in America during the First World War and its subsequent impact upon immigration. Yerkes longed for psychology to have the same social standing and respectability as other established sciences and felt that sound mental testing would be an avenue to get this academic respectability. His efforts saw him working with a group of hereditarians including Lewis Terman and HH Goddard to produce intelligence tests for US Army recruits. Their work resulted in the production of three tests, the Army Alpha and Beta tests and a third individual test for those who failed the Beta test. Participants The participants were all US Army recruits with a sample size of 1.75 million. Method The Alpha test, being a written examination, was administered to all literate recruits in eight parts. The Beta test was administered to those who were illiterate or who had failed the Alpha test. The Beta test was a pictorial test consisting of seven sections. Both the Alpha and Beta test could be completed within one hour. Those soldiers who failed the Beta test completed an individual examination. Once the tests had been administered army psychologists then graded the soldiers from A+ through to E- and on the basis of this suggested the role that the soldier should perform within the army. Results For Yerkes, any soldier obtaining a score of C- was seen to be of low average intelligence whilst D or E soldiers were not expected to be able to ‘read and understand written directions’. Students should note that considerable problems were later identified with the results obtained. Due to the vast numbers involved, racial bias and a non-standardisation of testing many soldiers did not sit the correct level of test and were never recalled to sit the correct test. Consequently, the results obtained were later felt not a fair reflection of the soldiers’ abilities. Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 1 Further, E.G. Boring an assistant to Yerkes, selected 160,000 cases and produced a set of data from which three issues emerged. The first being that the average mental age of the white American was 13. Secondly, European immigrants could be graded by their country of origin with those from Western and Northern Europe deemed to have a higher intelligence. Thirdly, the Afro-American was situated firmly at the bottom of the scale having an average mental age of 10.41. Conclusion Yerkes devised the first mass-produced intelligence test which generated a tremendous level of interest and enquiry from a wide variety of sources outside the military. This heralded an era of mass testing in the USA and ultimately in the UK. Significantly, the results obtained in America had a massive political effect and were used to aid the cause of the Eugenicists in their attempt to stem the flow of immigrants to America. Their arguments certainly played an influential role in the introduction of the 1924 Immigration Restriction Act in the USA which had far reaching consequences for potential immigrants to America – tragically impacting upon those who sought to escape the holocaust in Europe. Discussion As hereditarians, Yerkes and his colleagues devised a series of tests to measure innate intelligence which by definition takes no account of environmental factors or indeed cultural differences. Unfortunately, the tests made no allowance for the fact that many recruits would not have completed their high school education and that many of the immigrants tested would not be familiar with American language and culture which predominated many of the questions; even in the pictorial Beta test. Further to this, the low scores obtained by Afro-Americans can be attributed to their history of being suppressed by a dominant white population and to the inherent racism that existed in American society at that time. Yerkes ignored such issues and instead utilised his results to support his hereditarian beliefs. Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 2 ATYPICAL BEHAVIOUR Major Study: Rosenhan, D.L. (1973) On being sane in insane places. Science, 179, 250-258. In traditional psychiatry the medical model very much influences the approach and treatments that are applied to those in need of assistance. It should be remembered that as medically trained professionals many psychiatrists are trained to see psychiatric disorders in the same light as other types of illness. Interestingly, this whole medical approach permeates through to a variety of levels in both psychiatry and indeed psychology. Consider the terminology most often used in dealing with mental illness: diagnosis, therapy and patient are but three examples. This terminology indicates a ‘sickness’ that is impliedly present within the individual. This field experiment conducted by Rosenhan wanted to test the hypothesis that those who are sane - and those who are insane - cannot be easily identified by psychiatrists using the DSM classification system. Consequently if this is the case the classification system being utilised to produce the faulty diagnosis must also be invalid – and much of the therapy or psychosurgical interventions which underlie it. Participants The participants consisted of eight pseudo-patients, three females and five males (one of the pseudo-patients was Rosenhan himself who only revealed his identity to the chief psychologist and the hospital administrator) coming from a diverse range of backgrounds including a housewife, a psychiatrist, a painter and a psychology graduate. Method There are essentially two parts to this experiment. The major part is centred on a number of pseudo-patients feigning auditory hallucinations and attempting to gain admission to a number of US hospitals. The second part involved informing members of staff at another research and teaching hospital that pseudo-patients would attempt to gain entry to the hospital during a three-month period. None however did. (It should be noted that participant observation was an important part of this experiment as the pseudo-patients kept written records once they were admitted to the various hospitals). 12 different hospitals were used in the study in five different states in both the east and west coast of the USA. The patients contacted the hospital for an appointment and gave a false name, vocation and complained of hearing voices. This was the independent variable. All additional information given, such as life history, relationships and personal circumstances were all recounted truthfully for that particular person. Once the patient had been admitted to a ward they immediately stopped feigning any abnormal symptoms and began recording their experiences. Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 3 The second part to the experiment focused on attempting to diagnose the insane sane. This involved informing the staff at a research and teaching hospital that over a threemonth period one or more pseudo-patient would attempt to gain admission to their hospital. The staff were asked to use a ten-point scale to rate all those who presented themselves at admissions or on the ward as to whether or not they were deemed a pseudo-patient. Results The results obtained for the main part of the research are particularly interesting as none of the pseudo-patients were ever detected by psychiatric professionals as ‘at it’! Their stay in hospital averaging 19 days, ranged from seven to fifty two days. All bar one were admitted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The only people who suspected anything amiss were a number of the actual patients in the wards who often vocalised these suspicions to the pseudo-patients. On discharge, the pseudo-patients were given the diagnosis of schizophrenia in remission. The results for the second experiment are also interesting. The staff made judgements on 193 patients with the following results: • 41 patients were identified by at least one member of staff as being pseudopatients, • 23 were identified by at least one psychiatrist and 19 by a psychiatrist and another staff member. All admissions were genuine! Conclusion For Rosenhan, this research raised some real concerns regarding the identification of the sane and the insane and over the reliability and accuracy of the processes used to diagnose patients. Further to this, Rosenhan states that ‘It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals, which themselves impose a special environment in which the meanings of behaviour can be easily distorted’. Discussion Rosenhan raises some pertinent issues and in the light of his research produced further discussion on the experience of being a psychiatric patient and on the powerlessness and depersonalisation that is experienced by the patient. These are negative experiences which do little to assist the patient or the disorder. Indeed, if psychiatrists cannot identify the sane from the insane then the question of whether they can differentiate between different types of psychiatric disorders becomes even more clouded and questionable. The issue of the dominant medical model and its classification of disorders has been embroiled in argument for many years with adversaries fiercely contesting their views. In the past, the reliability of classification varied especially if psychiatrists, trained in different countries, were compared i.e. between the USA and Britain. It should be noted that today much clearer and more universal guidelines exist in the form of more Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 4 up-to-date publications such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV which provides clearer structured information for classifying psychological problems and disorders. Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 5 Consequently, it is unlikely that a psychiatrist today would be so easily duped by a pseudo-patient feigning auditory hallucination - as for example the symptom (and others) would have to be repeated on a number of occasions over a period of time. Rosenhan’s experiment allowed for only one such episode. Rosenhan also placed great emphasis on the labelling process that takes place within the hospital setting. This raises another important issue of how people are treated in hospitals once they have been labelled as having a disorder. Interestingly, although Rosenhan placed great emphasis on the power of labelling the real patients in the hospitals were not themselves overcome by the labels attributed to the pseudo-patients. Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 6 PERSONALITY Major Study: Brown, C.A & Detoy, C.J. (1988) A comparison of the personal constructs of management in new and experienced managers. In Fransella F. & Thomas l. (eds) Experimenting with personal construct psychology. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul. In order to successfully engage with this study it is strongly recommended that the student obtain a clear understanding of George Kelly’s (1955) Personal Construct Theory. The following few lines serve only as a very brief summary of a challenging area in personality. In an addition a sound understanding of the Role Construct Repertory Test devised by Kelly is also important if Brown and Detoy is to be clearly understood. Personal constructs are for Kelly the way in which we make sense of the world via our unique perceptions. Thus for Kelly, the human being acts like a scientist by formulating hypotheses, testing them and in the light of this hypothesis testing revises them if necessary. Put simply ‘If it works don’t fix it.’ This personal construct then helps to provide each person with their own unique way of making sense of the world and the people in it. He believed that to really understand a person it was vital to know something about those person’s personal constructs. To assist in this Kelly devised a method of accessing these constructs using his Role Construct Repertory Grid. This enables a researcher or other professional to use the individuals own constructs to help analyse their experience. The Brown & Detoy (1988) study is set against the background of training in employment and the effectiveness or otherwise of employees. Indeed, it is identified that very often the individual and the management may well be functioning on the basis of different constructs and as such the operational efficiency of the individual will be impaired. It is argued that if trainers first ascertain the personal constructs of their trainees then the whole training process will itself be enhanced providing at the end of the day a more secure and competent worker. Participants The participants were all employees of Coldwell Banker a major Californian commercial real estate brokerage. They consisted of 41 new managers who had been assigned to their management positions six months or less and 33 experienced managers who had been in position for six month or more. Method All the managers were given the Role Construct Repertory Test by a psychologist hired specifically for that task. The exercise was described to the mangers as a method of ascertaining the concepts they each held about management. The test contained three sheets of paper; the instruction sheet, role title sheet and the response sheet. The version of the test used contained ten role titles including, the best manager you know; the worst manager you know; self; a favourite teacher and your best friend. Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 7 In completing the test the mangers firstly had to name an individual that they knew personally who fitted each of the role titles - with that named person only being used once. They had to use the response sheet to think about three people identified on the sheet and consider if two of them were alike in some important way different from the third person. They then had to write a word or phrase describing the more positive end of the spectrum that differentiated the two people from the third and perform a similar task for a negative word or phrase. Brown and Detoy took Landfield’s 1971 personal construct categories (22) and condensed them into 6. The 637 constructs obtained from the managers were then arranged into these six categories. The two categories of most interest and relevance identified by Brown and Detoy (1988) were Social Interaction and Forcefulness. Results 24 % of the constructs of the experienced managers fell in the forcefulness category compared with only 16% of new managers. Indeed, it was found that the experienced managers used constructs that involved forcefulness a great deal more than new managers. In addition, 32% of the constructs of the new managers fitted in the Social Interaction category, compared with only 13% of experienced managers. This indicted that the new managers tended to construe management in terms of social behaviour. In terms of social psychology the experienced managers were more task-orientated than the less authoritarian new management intake. Conclusion The use of the Role Construct Repertory Test proved to be particularly useful in identifying to the managers the different management constructs that they each brought with them to their work and to any training that they attended. In addition, it highlighted the influence of experience upon their constructs and indeed, how their constructs differed from that of the company as an organisation. Discussion Brown and Detoy put the practical application of personal construct theory into the context of management training programmes. It enables a clear comparison of the constructs held by each individual in a straightforward way and gives immediate feedback to those completing the test. One of the further values of the process being that it generates considerable discussion long after the test had been completed and causes many to re-construe the world of work in which they operate - which it is hoped is valuable to the individual and to the organisation as a whole. It should be noted that personal construct theory does have its critics; some have stated that it is difficult to address the theory without the grid devised by Kelly and that the process of obtaining constructs does itself limit the thoughts of the individual which in turn very much limits the data that is obtained concerning their thoughts feelings and possible behaviours. Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 8 Psychology: Appendix to Pack 6536 - Psychology of Individual Differences (H) 9