Psychology Research Design: Approaches, Methods, Studies, Models, and Theories - Prof. Ron, Study notes of Abnormal Psychology

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Research Design  Nomothetic- research that sees to determine general laws/principles o Groups o Represents most research  Idiographic- focuses intently on the individual o Clinical situations  Epidemiology- study of the frequency and distribution of disorders within a population o Prevalence- proportion of population that has a disorder at the same point in time o Incidence- rate of new cases of disorder in given period o Risk factor- condition variable which, if present, increases the likelihood of the disorder o Protective factor- condition variable which, if present, decreases the likelihood of the disorder  Naturalistic observation- observing a subject in his/her natural environment o Doesn’t show cause and effect  Survey methods o Random sample- every member of population has equal chance of being chosen o Stratified sample- collected so that it accurately represents population of interest  Correlation method- examines extent to which …… o Positive- as one increases, the other decreases o Negative- as one increases, the other decreases o Magnitude

 Between 1 and - o Can’t prove causation, but causation can not be proven with out correlation o Bi-directionality- can not determine if A caused B or B caused A o Third variable problem- unknown variable C may be causing both A and B  Case study o Can be used when working with rare phenomena o Can generate hypothesis for…… o Can be used by practicing clinicians to contribute to literature o Doesn’t show cause and effect  Experimental methods o Single subject design  Reversal/withdrawal/ABAB Design- ……  Multiple Baseline- …. o Group design- random assignment to conditions and applying treatment A vs. treatment B or no treatment
Models  Diathesis-Stress/Biopsychosocial Model o Diathesis- pre-disposition toward disorder  Heredity, early experiences, etc. o Stress- current environmental factors that combine with diathesis to influence likelihood of developing a disorder o Biology, psychology and sociology all play a part in likelihood of developing a disorder  Sroufe’s Pathways Model

o May lead to discovery of causes of particular disorder o Can improve clinicians ability to predict outcome (prognosis) o Can lead to guidelines for selecting treatment  Potential problems of classification o Labeling o Reliability/agreement o Research in constantly changing  Validity- usefulness o Etiological- classification may reveal cause  Past o Concurrent- two measurements agree  Present o Predicted- what can be expected in the future  Future  General types o Categorical- have or don’t have  i.e. boy or girl o Continuous/dimensional- scale  i.e. height  Five Axes o Clinical disorders o Personality disorders and/or mental retardation o General medical conditions o Psychological and environmental factors o Global Assessment of Functioning  Comorbidity- having more than one disorder o Very common with DSM-IV o

Mental Health Professionals

o Psychoanylical psychologists  When told it was a job applicant, rate of mental health was high  When told it was a mental health patient, rate of mental health was low  Background predisposed them to see more pathology (theory makes a difference)
Freud/Psychoanalysis  Psychosexual stages of development o Biological emphasis o Early stages are most important  Structure of mind o Id- present at birth, impulse-driven, pleasure-principle o Ego- makes plans/decisions, logical, reality-principle o Superego- learned from parents/society, moral-principle o Depicted as iceburg  Unconscious mind below water (greatest portion)  Conscious mind above water  Pre-conscious mind along water line  Has potential to become part of consciousness  Defense Mechanisms o Function is to protect ego from anxiety  Can be useful or restrictive o Projection

 i.e. paranoia- attribute your own unacceptable urges or impulses to other people o displacement  redirecting an urge/impulse from a move to a less threatening person/object  Techniques o Dream analysis/interpretation o Free Association- talking with out usual editing found in conversational speech  i.e. “first-thing-that-comes-to-mind” o Transference- client acts toward therapists in “unconscious” way as if they are an important person in their past  i.e. authoritative mother/father o Interpretation- therapist shares theory/thoughts with client  Will hopefully bring insight to client o Resistance- therapist notes instances of when client avoids unpleasant, but important content Carl Rogers/Humanistic Theory  Client centered  Foundational belief- if people are given the right conditions, they will become the person they are meant to be o i.e. unconditioned love/acceptance  goal- insight, create conditions necessary for growth by therapists characteristics o genuineness, unconditional positive regard, empathetic understanding
Erikson/Psychosocial  Social oriented  Stages of crisis

Behavior Psychology  Classical conditioning (Pavlov) o Unconditioned stimulus- with no prior learning, capable of eliciting an unconditioned response o Conditioned stimulus- an originally neutral stimulus which, through association with US, elicited UR o Learned response can be cognitive, emotional or physiological o Generalization- stimuli similar to CS will elicit, to some degree, the CR with no additional learning o Discrimination- presenting US only after specific CS, which decreases generalization o Extinction- presenting the CS without the US leads to a gradual lessoning of CR o Spontaneous recovery- increase in CR to CS following extinction without any additional learning  Operant Conditioning (Skinner) o Positive- behavior results in something being added following behavior o Negative- behavior results in something being taken away following behavior o Reinforcement- increase in behavior because of consequences behavior brought about o Punishment- decrease in behavior because of consequences behavior brought about  Stimulus control o  Functional analysis of behavior o Antecedent- comes before behavior, prompting occurrence o Behavior o Consequence- comes after behavior, influences likelihood  Increasing behavior

o Shaping- breaking a complex task into its component parts (task analysis) and teaching each step in sequence o Modeling- way of teaching complex behaviors not easily taught through shaping, involves a model and an imitator  Decreasing behavior o Extinction- with holding reinforcers for a previously reinforced behavior  Extinction burst- increase in behavior at beginning of extinction program o Differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO)- reinforcement of a behavior that prevents the undesirable behavior o Time out (from reinforcement) o Reprimanding/punishing  Cognitive Behavior Theory o Ellis- developed Rational Emotive Therapy  Assumption that if irrational beliefs responsible for emotional issues are identified and correvyed, rational beliefs will promote better emotional responses o Beck- developed Cognitive Behavior Therapy  After identifying maladaptive automatic thoughts, validity of thoughts are challenged through Collborative Imperiasism  Maintenance and generalization o Maintenance- behavior change continues once therapy has ceased o Generalization- behavior is performed in non-training enviorments  Ways to maintain behavior o Introduction to natural communities of reinforcement (reinforcement trap) o Intermittent reinforcement schedule  More resistant to extinction o Program common stimuli