the importance of ethic in psychology research

        

           The ethical potential issues is not been taking serious until relatively recent time psychology research did not have ethical and many studies were conducted that had significant problem in past 100 years. After that, there are  different organizations that prevent such unethical   problem happen, such as British psychology council and American psychology association .

there are many unethical experiments  happened in past 100 years and here is 2 examples,

Landi's Facial experiment

        

         In 1924, Carney Landis designed an experiment to study weather emotions evoke universal facial expression facial, for example if people shows a specific expressions used by all to convey shock or disgust?

this intention seems like a normal question,however, Land's methods of testing were extremely abnormal. 

research methodology

   In the research methodology, there are 3 main types of experiments, which are laboratory, field, and natural ( Quasi).

1.      Laboratory is the most common type experiment in psychology. Laboratory is a test that is in a under controlled condition so it can ensure the validity of the study. The participants need to sign the consents before they start doing the experiment.As the most common using method, it has some great strength.The 2 major strengths in lboratory are that it is usually the have the highest levels of reliablity due to the method, and it allows valid cause- effect conclusion in terms of the variables measured because of the certainty gained by control over extraneous variable. it however,has some limitation as well. Due to the artificiality, the experiment is not in a real life environment, which can cause distress to participants, which can narrow down the range of behaviors the participants give. it is also difficult to avoid the demand characteristics, which people can figure out what is the experiment is about, and give the answer the research wants instead of speak out the truth. the other concerns are base on the unrepresentative sampling, that might not apply to the whole society, and the ethical consideration.

        2. A field experiment is an experiment that is conducted in a more realistic situation. In field experiments the participants are not usually aware that they are participating in an experiment.
Field experiments are usually high validity in environment and may avoid the demand characteristics as the participants are unaware of the experiment. In field experiment, however, shows a difficulty to control confounding variable, and they takes time consuming and hard to conduct. In field experiments, the participants are not usually informed to a consent and it brings trouble on debriefing participant .

        3. A Quasi experiment is where the independent variable is occur by the researcher but happens naturally. Unlike the true experiment participants are through random assignment, the quasi experiment the researcher take the pre-existing conditions like ages, sex. The strength of quasi experiments is that participants are often unaware the participating.
        Due to its ethical and practical experiment, Quasi experiments are very common in psychology.


 

Aaron Beck

Aaron Temkin Beck(born July 18, 1921) is an American psychiatrist and a professor emeritus at the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. Beck is known as the pioneer of cognitive therapy and he creates the cognitive triad theory. The theory is a triad of types of negative thought present in depression, which was proposed by him in 1976. The triad involves negative thought about: 1. The Self ( i.e: self is worthless) 2. The world/ environment (i.e, World is unfair) 3.The future (i.e. the future is hopeless). This triad forms part of his Cognitive Theory of Depression.

On Beck’s Cognitive theory of depression, his main argument was that depression was instituted by one’s view of oneself, instead of one having negative views on oneself due to the depression. Which means that one’s thought and belief( schema) affect one’s behavior Moreover, there were several experiments have been done that showed people are more likely to be depressed after a negative event. (ex: Abela & D’Alessandro’s(2002); Sato& McCann’s(2000)…)

A main part of Beck’s Theory is not only that the subject will feel negative underlying beliefs, but also that these beliefs fall into a certain field which separates them from other disorders such as panic and anxiety disorders. For example, these include polar reasoning, selective abstraction and over-generalization. Abstraction means that successes are ignored, and lost to the subject, who is left only with sadness. Over-generalization implies one will do poor at one thing, and assume failure in all related things. Therefore, the main feeling of depression according to beck are failure and loss.  

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is developed by Dr.Aaron T.Beck, it also called as Cognitive Therapy (CT). It is a form of Psychotherapy in which the therapist and the patient working together as a team to identify and solve problems.  Therapists use the Cognitive Model to help paitens overcome their difficulties by changing their thinking, behavior, and emotional responses. Therapists use the Cognitive Model to help paitens overcome their difficulties by changing their thinking, behavior, and emotional responses. Compare to the other forms of psychotherapy, CBT is usually more focused on the present, more time limited, and more problem-solving oriented. In addition, patients learn specific skills that they can use for the rest of their lives. These skills involve identifying distorted thinking, modifying beliefs, relating to others in different ways, and changing behaviors.

treatment.

Treatment for the Major Depression Disorder

CBT (Cognitive behavior therapy)

       CBT can help people to change how we think(cognitive) and what we do(behavior). These changes can help us to feel better. The difference between CBT to the other talking treatment is that CBT looks for ways to improve people’s start of mind now, that focuses on the “ here and now” problems and difficulties. The other treatments are more likely to focusing on the causes of the distress or symptoms in the past.

       The aim of CBT is to help you to make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller parts. Hence we can see how they are related to each others and how they affect you.

These parts are

1.         Situation- which conducts the following reactions

2.         Thoughts

3.         Emotions

4.         Physical feelings

5.         Actions

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/treatments/cbt.aspx

Mental disorders

Anxiety disorder: Specific Phobia

Requirements for diagnosis:

       A specific phobia is an extreme fear of a specific object or situation that out of proportion to the actual danger of threat. In addition, an individual with a specific phobia is distressed about having the fear, or experiences significant interference in his or her daily-life because of the fear.

       However, many people have a fear of a particular object or situation, but as long as that doesn't influence day-to-day life, it will not be considered as phobias. For example: a person who has a extreme fear of spider would not have a phobia if the situation does not bother he/she to have the fear, and if the fear does not interfere the functioning. Otherwise, an individual with a fear of spiders who frequently avoid activities such as camping, gardening, and going in the basement, and has trouble sleeping at night because of the fear of encountering spiders, might have a specific phobia. So, once the specific fear that interfering a person’s personal life either career, they might have a specific phobia.

Symptoms of Specific Phobia:

       Base on the criteria from the DSM-4^th; American psychiatric association, 2000

l   The individual experiences excessive and persistent fear of a specific object or situation.

l  The individual experiences feelings of anxiety, fear, or panic immediately upon encountering the feared object or situation.

l  The person recognizes that the fear is excessive. Unreasonable, or out of proportion to the actual rick in the situation.

l  The individual tends to avoid the feared object or situation, or if he/she doesn't avoid it, endures encounters with the feared object or situation with intense anxiety or discomfort.

l  The individual’s fear, anxiety, or avoidance causes significant distress or significant interference in the person’s day-to-day life. ( the fear makes many difficulty to the person’s social interaction)

l  In children younger than 18 years of age, the problem must be present for at least six months before a diagnosis of specific phobia would be considered appropriate.

l   The person’s fear, panic, and avoidance are not better explained by another disorder.

There are 5 types of specific phobia given by DSM-Ⅳ-TR.

1.   Animal type: include fears of animals such as dogs, cats, spiders, bugs, mice, snakes. Fish…

2.   Natural environment type: include fears of heights, storms, and being near water…

3.   Blood-injection-injury type: include fears of seeing blood, receiving a blood test or injection, watching or even just talking medical procedures…

4.   Situational type: includes fears of situation such as driving, flying, elevators, and any enclosed places…

5.   Other type: include other specific fear, such as fears of choking or vomiting, fears of loud noise (balloons breaking) or fear of clowns…

Causes of specific phobia

The cause of specific phobia are complex, it could involve 3 main factors: environmental(learning history), cognitive(psychologically), and biological.

Environmental- Learning history

l   Direct learning experiences – Specific phobias can sometimes begin following a traumatic experience in the feared situation. Ex: someone who is bitten by a dog might develop a fear of dogs, or a person who has a car accident might develop a fear of driving.

l  Observational learning experiences – there is evidence that people can learn to fear particular situation by watching others show signs of fear in the same situation. EX: growing up with parents who fear heights could lead to a fear of height in some children as well.

l  Informational learning – this involves learning to fear a particular object or situation by hearing or reading that the situation is dangerous. Ex: learning to fear flying by hearing about plane crashes in news.

l  Many individuals report that their fear started without any obvious trigger or cause. Some individuals report having had their fear for as long as they can remember.  Also, note that most people are exposed to negative experiences (car crash; bitten by dogs) and do not develop phobia.  The interest question that still remains mystery is “who develops a phobia following one f these experiences and who doesn't?”

Cognitive (Psychological factors)

l  Attention and memory – generally people with specific phobias tend to pay more attention on threatening information and relates to their fear.( ex: individuals with spider phobias would looking for threat (spider) if they see green grass, or image down to the basement)

l  Beliefs and interpretations about feared object and situations – people with SP tend to hold beliefs and to image situation in such a way as to maintain or increase their anxiety. ( ex: people with fears of heights may assume that they are likely to fall at any time)

l  Avoidance and other anxious behaviors – Avoidance of feared situations prevents people with SP from learning that the situations they fear are not as dangerous as they feel. In addition, replying on “ safety behaviors” ( e.g.. driving extra slowly to avoide car accident, wear long pants all the time to prevent spiders from touching one’s legs) can also help to maintain a person’s fears.

Biological factors

       Unlike other types of anxiety disorders, there has relatively little research on role of biology in causing or maintaining SP Still, there is evidence that SP sometimes run in families and that genetics may play a role. Moreover, when a person is exposed to a feared object, there are many biological changes happens in the body, including changes in brain activity, the release of certain hormones…






http://depression.about.com/cs/diagnosis/a/mdd.htm

how do stereotypes changes our views of world?

First of all, we should know what is stereotype. The definition of stereotype in psychological way is no more likely the way people think is in general. Stereotype is the way how people view a group of people or a thing base on the experiences before either limited information we have known before. Stereotype can be uses on a helpful way either on a nasty way. Somehow, people use stereotypes to view out-groups differently base on race, gender and so on. As explicit discrimination has receded in the last 2 decades; in the elevation of an African-American to the Presidency, a woman to the House speakership and a black woman to the galactic dominance known as being Oprah Winfrey… Overall, it has brought up a question to psychologist: Is discrimination is less powerful? How to explain the phenomena that some groups in society continue to fare wores than others? Has bias merely become better hidden, or there is something else?

       One theory has been discovered from it among sociologists called Stereotype Threat. So what is Stereotype Threat? Is that the force work among those groups of people to feel worse? It has shown that stereotype threat is that some members of stigmatized groups, when faced with stressful situations, expect themselves to do worse – a prophecy (foreshadowing) that fulfills itself.

       Stereotype effect our judgement of first impression when we meet strangers. we are biased by the information form the first impression, it has called as confirmation- bias.  People form impression very fast; because we don't need to see much of a person to get a fairly accurate picture of who they are, it is called as Thin slices.  

      Of course, we might wonder what actually helped us form the impression.  What are the effect of being perceive in a certain way? From the experiment of Pygmalion Effect by Rosenthal and Jackson, we got know that expectation really matter. The purpose of the experiment was support that hypothsis that reality can be influenced by the expectation of others.  

error of attribution

1. What is the difference between dispositional factors and situational factors?

     A situational factor would be things outside once immediate control, eg, the enviornment, the actions of a person they dont know, or it could even be like the equipment one uses. For example: Floods happen close to your hometown. you would feel fear and sadness, fear if the flood will continue moving to your town. sadness for the neighbor town's  damage.

     Dispositional factor has to do with a person ( internal) impact like an action or even that changed you or affected you psychologically. For example: you have been bited by an  dog when you were little, then once you grown up, but the fear of dog will never disappear, because you have such experiment tells you dog is dangerous.

 

2. Explain and give an example of the fundamental error of attribution.

     The fundamental attribution error happens all the time in our lives.  It happens when we are estimating someone we dont really know by some of the behavior or clue we perceive from that person. For example: when people are driving the cars, out of sudden an driver drive rashly and cut line infront of you  without any warn. Then you would be mad at that driver and give a bad impression to him/her, because he is rude and stupid to cut the line infront of you without any warn. Or, you would think maybe he/ she has something really important that she/he forgot the rule and that is more understandable.

3. Explain and give an example of the self-serving-bias error of attribution.

    A self-serving bias is when a person describes their own behavior and tend to choose attributions that are favorable to themselves. Which means that people like to take credit for their good actions and let the situation account for their bad actions. For example:  I did not do well on the mock exam, if you ask me why i didnt do well? I would blame for some external conditions immediately, like: it was too noisy out there, or i did not sleep well, i was ill. but I wont say, i did not do well because im stupid nor i m a bad student. That is Self-serving- bias.

4. Explain two possible explanations for these errors.

  people are having the  fundamental attribution error is because we are judging or complimenting someone by the first impression and we dont think any deeply.

   But on the self-serving- bias, people are always trying to get compliment from the others when they have done something right because  they feel good about themselves, but people usually dont want take responsibility when they make mistakes, so people would let the situation account for their mistakes but not themselves.

5. What does the study by Miyamoto and Kitayama tell us about cultural differences in attribution errors?

    it tells us that people from individualist cultures are more inclined to make fundamental- attribution error hat people from collectivist culture. And the research suggest that individualist cultures engage in self-serving bias more than do collectivist cultures