Psychology coursework - Repression.
Psychology coursework
Repression
Introduction
Sigmund Freud developed many theories, which have formed the basis of the psychodynamic approach to psychology. Freud says that there are three main parts to personality and these are shown in the diagram below:
ID (I want)
Tension EGO (negotiates the tension)
SUPEREGO (You can't)
As we can see from the diagram Id is our basic desires. We are born with the id. The id works in harmony to the 'Pleasure Principle'. The Superego can be referred to as being our conscious and has a sense of right and wrong. The superego has to be learned because we are not born with it so we learn via our parents and laws they set upon us. Last but not least we have the Ego which is what we are seen to be, so our behaviour. The ID and SUPEREGO build up tension between them so the EGO comes into place to negotiate the tension between them.
One way that Freud says this is done is through dreams. An example of this is that if you have just had an argument with one of your parents say your father, and you go to sleep annoyed and dream about strangling him to release this tension but when you wake up you feel a bit guilty. Freud says that we replace the father for any kind of object like a tree. In our dream we take an axe and chop down this tree and by doing this we release tension and when waking up we don't feel any guilt because we have not hurt our parents in any way.
The idea of releasing tension through dreams works in harmony with Freud's idea of ego-defences. These are unconscious mechanisms by which we protect ourselves from painful or guilty thoughts and feelings. The following are some of Freud's defence mechanisms:
* Denial, which occurs when smokers refuse to admit to themselves that they are endangering there lives by smoking
* Displacement, which takes place when we redirect emotions, most commonly anger, away from those who have caused them on to a third party. This can be seen when a parent comes home from work and the manager has been getting on their nerves but they do not say anything to the manager but rather take out on the kids and act moody all day.
* Regression, in which we use childlike strategies like crying helplessly or nail biting in order to find comfort when under stress.
* Reaction formation, is where you feel the very opposite of what you truly (unconsciously) feel.
* Sublimation, is a form of displacement, which a substitute activity is found to express an unacceptable impulse. The activity is usually socially acceptable, if not desirable.
* The last I will talk about and will be basing my work on for defence mechanisms is repression, and this is where we force a dangerous /threatening memory/idea/feeling/wish out of consciousness and making it unconscious. Often used in conjuction with one or more other defences; one of the earliest used by the child. An example of this is a 5-6 year old child repressing its incestuous desire for the opposite-sex parent as part of its attempt to resolve the Oedipus complex.
Background research
There is some evidence to show that some of Freud's ego-defences work. A recent study done by Adams et al. (1996) supported that homophobia is due to reaction formation. He done this by showing videos of either heterosexual, lesbian or male homosexual sex and found that 80% of homophobic men became sexually aroused.
There have also been studies to test whether Freud's theory of repression actually works. There were alternative interpretations to that of the one Freud used and this was proposed by Eysenck and Wilson (1973). This was based on research carried out in the 1960s which showed that on immediate test, highly arousing words tent to be poorly retained whereas after a delay, the effect reverses. If the items are being repressed, then they should continue to be repressed, whereas if arousal is the crucial variable, then the effect should reverse.
Also, Levinger and Clarke (1961) looked at the retention of associations to negatively-charged words compared with those for neutral words. When asked to give immediate free associations to the words, the emotional words tended to produce a longer response latency. Although similar results have been found more recently, other studies have found a general inhibition of emotional responses at all retention levels.
Rationale
The reason I am going to conduct this experiment is to see whether or not Freud's theory of repression actually works. By testing whether participants forget more negative words than neutral words ...
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Also, Levinger and Clarke (1961) looked at the retention of associations to negatively-charged words compared with those for neutral words. When asked to give immediate free associations to the words, the emotional words tended to produce a longer response latency. Although similar results have been found more recently, other studies have found a general inhibition of emotional responses at all retention levels.
Rationale
The reason I am going to conduct this experiment is to see whether or not Freud's theory of repression actually works. By testing whether participants forget more negative words than neutral words will show whether there is a link between defense mechanisms and repression in particular. This is because if they forgot more negative words this would be because the participants wold try to repel the negative associations. If this does seem to be the case then it will show that Freud was right in believing repression is a defense mechanism.
Aim
To test whether Freud's theory of repression actually works when using negative and neutral words in a laboratory setting.
Hypothesis
H1: In the two conditions more neutral associated words will be recalled than negative associated words.
H0: There will be no difference between the two conditions.
Method
Method and Design
We are going to test Freud's theory of repression using a laboratory experiment. The reason for this is because there is an obvious independent variable and dependent variable. Another reason that we will be using a lab experiment is that we will be using repeated measures design. By repeating the experiment this will eliminate the problem of individual differences.
Variables
The independent variable is Word type, which had two levels, negative and neutral words. Negative words were operationalised as words which evoked negative emotions and the neutral words were operationalised as words which did not evoke any sort of emotions, which could also be considered as a type of control.
The dependent variable is memory, which is operationalised as the number of correct words recalled. To explain further this relates to the number of correct associated words recalled.
Participants
A total of 40 people took part in the experiment. 20 males and 20 females. The age range was 16-20 years old. The target population was the students of Harrow. It was an opportunity sample due to the fact that this was a quick an easy way of recruiting participants. All the participants volunteered to take part in the experiment and before they took part they were told that they could withdraw from the experiment whenever they felt they needed too. This was done in order to ensure that none of the ethical guidelines of the BPS were violated. We also realise that harm to the partipants is an important aspect, this is why we used participants of whom we had prior knowledge of their previous encounters with negative emotions towards the words. For example, should we have used a member of the public of whom we had no prior knowledge that they had just suffered from depression. The words misery or suffering could have evoked negative emotions on his behalf and we may not have been testing repression but rather neutral words against negative emotions (rather than negative words). This would result in a failure to test the experimental hypothesis.
Apparatus
The materials used were two word lists, consisting of 30 words, 15 neutral and 15 negative words. Each participant was given only one of the two word lists. However, each word list had the same words, except they were counterbalanced so as to eliminate the effect of order effects and also primacy and recency effect. All the words were abstract nouns. Also, standardised instructions, pens, paper were used.
Procedure
Once the participants volunteered to take part in the experiment and then they were taken to a quiet room in order to reduce the level of distraction during the experiment. They were given a set of standardised instructions, which basically explained what they had to do. Also it thanked them for taking part and also stated that should they feel uncomfortable for a certain reason then they could feel free to withdraw from the experiment. Once they were happy with what they were doing they were told orally that they would be given a piece of paper with a list of numbers from 1-30. As we called out the words they had to make paired associations and write the word, which they associated with the given word. Once all 30 words had been called out we gave them another piece of paper consisting of the 30 words which we had called out. I asked them to write down as many of the associations they made with each word they could remember. Once they finished I would take it and that would be the end of the experiment. Even though this was written on the standardised instructions I explained it aloud in order to clarify.
All students gathered their own data and then we pulled all the data together to form an overall result.
Controls
Standardised instructions were given so that the experiment is fair and to ensure that all the participants are given the same information. The counterbalancing of the word order reduced primacy and recency effects, and also order effects. Gender was controlled for by using the same number from each sex. Most importantly, the same words were used for every participant so that we can be sure that we were testing repression rather than the effects given from words. Also, another control was the neutral words because they acted as words with no emotions which could therefore be a base line to compare the negative words to. In addition, the circumstances of the participants was known so we were sure that the words did not evoke negative emotions from prvious experiences therefore, we may not have been testing repression but rather neutral words against negative emotions (rather than negative words).
Results
Summary Table
Mean recall of associated Negative/Neutral words
Mean
Standard deviation
Negative words
8.28
2.19
Neutral words
1.48
2.68
Summary Table Commentary
As we can see from the table there were more neutral words recalled than negative words. The difference between the means is 3.20 words. This shows that participants were able to recall more words associated to neutral words than to negative words, which would agree with Freud's theory of repression. This would lend support to the alternate hypothesis.
Additional Graphical Description of Results
Descriptive Statistics Commentary
Visually we can see that more neutral words were recalled then negative words. Through this we can agree with Freud's theory of repression visually.
Relationship of Results to Hypothesis(es)
Through the results we have seen that overall more Neutral words were recalled than Negative. In effect this would agree with the H1, which stated that in the two conditions more neutral associated words will be recalled than negative associated words. Hence we can reject the null hypothesis. The difference between the Negative and Neutral words (as shown through the standard deviation. May seem minimal but considering we had a large sample so the result in effect is strong.
Discussion
The results of the current study showed that participants were able to recall more words associated to neutral words than to negative words, which would agree with Freud's theory of repression. This would lend support to the alternate hypothesis.
Validity
From one aspect we can say that the results are valid because we found that participants tended to forget the negative associated words than the neutral. Which would agree with Freud's theory of repression as they are repressing the negative and emotional words, but the question which can be asked is whether these are really emotional words and are we really testing repression? We say this because if we look closely at the two types of words: negative and neutral, is it really emotional and neutral? So perhaps the effect was not between neutral/negative but rather between neutral/emotional words. If this was the case this would not be looking at repression at all. Also, we found that it was easier to think of negative associated words than neutral, for example, if I was to say hell, you may think fire instantly but if I said walk then you may find you needed a little longer to find an association. Due to this, the processing that has taken place may help you to remember the associated word. This relates to level of processing, it could be argued that it is easier to recall words, which are processed more deeply than other words. Hence, we would be looking at levels of processing rather than repression.
Suggestions for improved Validity
The validity could be improved if a pilot study was conducted before the experiment so that the effects of the levels of processing and the effects of types of words that were used could be minimised and then we could be sure that we are only looking at repression. Another improvement could be that we could also test the effects of positive words because if they resembled that of the neutral words, this would further support Freud's theory.
Reliability
It is difficult to say how reliable the results are because the words used was not controlled for their frequency. Hence, rare words may be much easier to recall than familiar words. Also, since an opportunity sample was used it was not possible to control for other factors such as age. This may have an effect of the number of words because ones memory span is often linked to ones age. Also it would be interesting to see the associative words used because people from different cultural backgrounds may use different associative words.
Improving Reliability
Due to the fact that a between subjects design was used each participant only took part in the experiment once. This led to a decrease in reliability and highlights a disadvantage of the study. The reason being that the results could have been affected by the mood of the participant which in turn may have affected the type of associations made. Also there was no control over the tiredness of the participant. Lastly ceiling effects could have occurred because the words used may have been to easy therefore this should have been controlled for. Also if within subjects were used then the same participant would have been in the same condition at least twice and we could have composed an aggregate score, which would have made the results more reliable.
Implications of Study
The findings showed that participants were less likely to remember the negative associations. This supports Freud's theory of ego defences where he stated that you tend to repress negative things. Evidence of this can be seen by the number of neutral word associations, which were made which exceeded the negative associative words. Hence it can be said that people use repression today.
Conversely the results of the current study does not support Adams et al (1996) study which measured the physiological reaction not recall, but if we put the two studies together we can see a similarity in the fact that they both support Freud's idea of ego defences.
Eysenck and Wilson (1973) found that highly arousing words tend to be poorly retained. This would be expected and would be in line with the current findings of this study. However Eysenck and Wilson found that after a delay highly arousing words were actually remembered. This opposes Freud's repression theory because if a word is repressed it should continue to be repressed, these findings led to confusion. Parkin et al (1982) cleared it up by replicating Levinger and Clarke's (1961) study but also adding a delayed recall of seven days. The findings supported the current studies findings (and also Levinger and Clarke's findings) where higher levels of arousal inhibited immediate recall but longer term recall was better.
Generalisation of findings
The findings can be generalised to the population of young students. However the findings can not be said that they are representative of the whole population because with regards to children they may have difficulty understanding the words used in the experiment and with regards to senior citizens they may have difficulty remembering the associations made. Also since the study was based in Harrow it is difficult to generalise the findings in other counties or boroughs.
Applications
The study showed that in general negative things do tend to be forgotten because we may find that negative things tend to bring us emotionally down and we try to stay positive in most situations so we block them out. We can see this applied in everyday life, e.g on parents evening when the teacher is talking to the parents they tend to remember the good things said about their child rather than some of the bad things. This can also be applied to teaching and learning where positive words are used in order to influence a wanting attitude to learn. This suggests that Freud's theories of the ego defence mechanisms are still applicable today and it gives us meaningful insight into how people deal with everyday problems.
Anthony Georgiou Psychology Coursework Page 1
