Ways of dealing with ethical issuers when using human participants in psychology experiments
Ways of dealing with ethical issuers when using human participants in psychology experiments When conducting psychology research, there are several important standards that must be observed in order to protect study participants. Ethics are a set of moral principles used to guide human behaviour. When these guidelines are breached, they become ethical issues. Nowadays the British Psychology Society (BPS) uses a set of ethical guidelines for all psychology experiments to be bound to. Most ethical problems in human research stem from the participant being typically in as much less powerful position then the experimenter. It follows that steps need to be taken to ensure that the participant is not placed in a powerless and vulnerable position. All participants must have the basic right in experiments to stop their involvement at any given point. Furthermore, they do not have to feel obliged to explain the basis on which they have decided to withdraw if they choose not to, and they may also insist the data they provided during the experiment should be destroyed. Informed consent is also another safeguard taken by psychologists to indicate a formal agreement between the experimenter and study participant. However the experimental design, eg. field experiment, may not always enable this as it could potentially seriously affect the validity of the results. Yet a precaution used is
Humanistic Psychology
Humanistic Psychology emerged in the USA during the 1950's. The humanistic approach began in response to concerns by therapists against the perceived limitations of Behaviourism and Psychoanalysis. Individuals like Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow felt that existing theories failed to adequately address issues like the meaning of behaviour and the nature of healthy growth. However, the result was not simply new variations on the then current theories, but rather a fundamentally new approach. There are several factors which distinguish the Humanistic Approach from other approaches within Psychology, including the emphasis on subjective meaning, a rejection of determinism in favour of individual choice, and a concern for positive growth rather than pathology. While one might argue that some psychodynamic approach theories provide an image of healthy growth (including Jung's concept of individuation), the other characteristics distinguish the Humanistic Approach from every other approach within Psychology. The basic assumptions of the humanistic approach are that behaviour must be understood in terms of the subjective experience of the individual, and that past or current circumstances do not limit behaviour. Human behaviour is not simply a response to an immediate stimulus. If you wish to understand behaviour, the humanists argue, you must understand the person producing the
Discuss the consequences of disrupting biological rhythms
Discuss the consequences of disrupting biological rhythms. Shift work and shift lag are the results of disturbing biological rhythms. Night workers are required to be alert at night and sleep during the day, which is the reverse of our natural rhythms and out of line with most of the cues for zeitgebers. Other consequences include jet lag which results in phase advance and phase delay. During shift work, research studies have found that there is a decreased alertness and night workers often experience a circadian 'trough' of decreased alertness during their shifts (Boivin et al., 1996).This occurs between midnight, when cortisol levels are lowest and around 4.00am when core body temperature is lowest. However there are other reasons why people experience the circadian 'trough', such are as social disruption as well to their biological rhythms; this makes a person's exogenous zeitgebers out of place which make it harder for a person to sleep in the day making them less alert at night. Soloman, 1993 found that it is difficult to meet friends and spend time with family and divorce rates are as high a 60% among all-night workers. Shift work can lead to sleep deprivation, workers who have to sleep by day often experience sleep problems because when the finish work its daylight and there are other distributions such as noise outside and daylight induces sleep quality as our
Outoline and evaluate two biological theories of dream
According to Crick and Mitchison (1983) dreaming is an opportunity of deleting unwanted information in order to make more space. During sleep our brain sifts through these parasitic memories that take up a lot of space in the cortex. By deleting these memories it will create more space in the neuron network so it will function more efficiently. This process is done by the bombardment of impulses to the cortex from the brain stem whilst the modified synapses ensures that the memories will stay unlearned in the future. Dreams also clear out memories of a pathological nature (obsessive or bizarre). Without this deletion of memories our daytime thinking would be disrupted by these bizarre thoughts. This seems to be apparent in people deprived of REM sleep when they show bizarre behaviour. Crick and Mitchinson also suggests that reverse learning provides an adaptive feature. REM allows smaller brains in mammals that sleep and larger neural networks for those that do not to absorb more information. The theory would explain why forget our dreams 95% of the time. But it would not explain why sometimes our dreams are significant and meaningful since this theory suggests our dreams are nothing but biological processes within the brain. There is evidence in which researchers found that dreams related to our current emotional problems in awake-state (Domhoff, 1996). He found that the
Compare and contrast the main approaches - Biological and Behaviourist, biological and cognitive, Psychodynamic and Behaviourist.
Compare and Contrast the Psychodynamic and Cognitive approaches in terms of similarities and differences. [12 Marks] The cognitive and psychodynamic approaches have many similarities and differences; these include debates in nature and nurture, the usefulness of these approaches, deterministic and scientific/non scientific. The psychodynamic approach takes into account both nature and nurture, however the cognitive approach has failed to recognise the influence of nature and nurture. Freud claimed that adult personality is the product of innate drives (nature) and childhood experiences (nurture). These innate drives include the structure of the personality, Id, ego and superego as well as the psychosexual development every child passes through. If a child does not pass through these processes successfully it could lead to abnormalities in behaviour. The cognitive approach has carried out research into intelligence but has not looked at the influence of genes in its research or environmental factors (such as wealth) that could influence intelligence. Therefore this clearly indicates that both approaches are different in terms of nature and nurture. The cognitive approach is useful and has been applied successfully in therapy. As one of the core assumptions of the cognitive approach is that mental processes influence our behaviour, therefore if these process are
Depression- Biological Explanations
Discuss biological explanation of depression. (25 marks) In order for depression to be diagnosed the person needs to show at least five of these symptoms everyday for a minimum of two weeks. These clinical characteristics for depression can be emotional symptoms; this can involve sadness, melancholy, self-involvement, guilt and even thoughts of suicide. Another characteristic could be a lack of motivation including passivity, loss of interest and energy. The person could also have cognitive problems such as thoughts of hopelessness, pessimism and lack of self-esteem. Finally there can be somatic symptoms such as loss or increase of appetite and weight, and sleep disturbances. Depression is a mood disorder which can have different variations; Unipolar disorder is most common and most severe form of depression and bipolar disorder is where the condition occurs in episodes of depression, periods of normality and periods of mania. This can be caused genetics which can predispose the individual to the disorder. Furthermore we would expect to find that relatives have similar chances of developing the disorder. Evidence from this can come from twin studies; MZ twins share 100% of their genes whereas DZ twins only have 50%. If genes are to be a facto in depression we would expect a higher number of MZ twins to share the disorder. One study based on nearly 200 pairs of twins found
Personality in Sports
Task One Personality Personality is a mixture of a person's traits and characteristics which make them different from everyone else. Sports performers personalities' may widely vary or be very similar. When describing their personality, just listing characteristics is not always 100% accurate. This is because their characteristics may be different when not playing sports. For example, Eric Cantona may only be aggressive when on the football pitch and not in his everyday life. Because of this, Hollander then designed a structure of personality which was split into 3 layers: . Psychological core - true beliefs and values 2. Typical responses - normal response to a situation. 3. Role-related behaviour - response is affected by the social environment the person is in. These can also be shown on a diagram like this: Social Environment Structure of personality example - Theo Walcott. CHARACTERISTICS PSYCHOLOGICAL CORE TYPICAL RESPONSES ROLE-RELATED BEHAVIOUR Humble Quiet Motivated Committed Focussed Competitive Driven Fearless Another way in which sports psychologists differentiate between sports personalities is with the trait approach. Two psychologists, Cattell and Eyesnck, discovered that there are two types of traits: - Primary or source traits - genetic/inherited - Secondary or surface traits - influenced by learning and experiences. Eyesnck said
The Racist Mind
The Racist Mind Short Essay Josie Torres 5/3/2011 I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. ~Martin Luther King, Jr. In the Book "The Racist Mind" by Raphael S. Ezekiel, racism is examined and more closely explored to why people would join hate groups. Ezekiel, who is Jewish and never attempted to hide it from the people he studied, vividly paints readers the results of seven years of research among America's racist rights. Despite his Jewish religion, Ezekiel's respondents surprisingly cooperated with him and allowed him to study them. He did his research with different groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and the Neo-Nazi's. He was interested in understanding the world that these racist leaders lived in and what caused them to feel and hate the way they do. In studying these groups thriving on hate and racism, Raphael Ezekiel would attend get-togethers, rallies and group meeting and observes and interacts with them. Through attending these events and with his observations, Ezekiel learned many things about these groups. First, he discovered that for these white racist leaders and groups, there was absolutely no grey area. Meaning, you were either
Describe and evaluate research into the stages of sleep
Describe and evaluate research into the stages of sleep To talk about a concept, we must first be clear on its definition. Psychologists describe sleep as an altered state of consciousness. It is a resting state in which an individual becomes relatively quiescent and relatively unaware of the environment. During sleep, which is in part a period of rest and relaxation, most physiological functions such as body temperature, blood pressure, and rate of breathing and heartbeat decrease. The amount of sleep needed depends on both the individual and the environment. With the invention of the "Electroencephalogram" or an "EEG" as it is more commonly known has made it possible to monitor the brain's electrical activity. The EEG picks up and records electrical activity through electrodes attached to the scalp. The reading of a waking person is clearly different than that of a sleeping person. The EEG pattern of our brain during waking periods is very rapid, irregular and low on voltage. This means that many neurons are firing at different intervals and at different times, with different strengths too. This type of irregular electrical activity in the brain during wakefulness is called beta waves or beta activity. When we are relaxed, sitting in the sofa watching T.V. without any mental arousal, the EEG records a waveform called alpha waves or alpha activity, slower than beta
With reference to alternative research findings, critically assess Aschs study into conformity
With reference to alternative research findings, critically assess Asch's study into conformity A study that criticises Asch is by William & Sogon (1984) who claimed that the group Asch created did not reflect all groups found in society. They found that majority influence was significantly greater among friends than among strangers. Therefore Asch failed to realise that he could have obtained much stranger majority influence if he had replaced groups of strangers with an in0group of friends of the genuine participants & consequently this limits Asch findings to only groups of strangers & as a result lacks generalisability to other populations. And to support this Abrams et al (1990) argued that 1st year psychology participants would show more conformity if the other group members were perceived as belonging to an in group (other 1st yr psychology students) than if they were perceived as belonging to an out group (history students). Eagli & Carli (1981) criticise Asch study for being gender biased. They claim that in Western societies a masculine bias exists & as a consequence women show higher levels of conformity than men in the Asch study. They also found that in feminist societies, women actually show less conformity than men. This criticises Ash because he ignored complex gender characteristics that would have affected his results. Also David & Turner (1996) criticise
