Clinical Psychology: The branch of applied psychology that deals with understanding mental health and illnesses, such as Anorexia Nervosa. Sometimes referred to as ‘abnormal psychology’ as it is concerned with the study of behavior that is not regarded as ‘normal’....
Primary Data: Primary data are gathered first hand from source directly by the researcher(s). For example, Milgram (1963) collected primary data during his study into obedience in a laboratory environment, and Bandura et al. (1961) collected primary data when they...
Twin studies involve comparing MZ and DZ twins to see what differences there are in the incidence of a certain characteristic. MZ twins are identical in genetic make-up as they come from one egg. DZ twins share 50% of their genes like any other brother/sister pair as...
Interviewing can take the form of questionnaires, in which case the interviews are structured. The questionnaire will remain the same for all respondents, so each person is asked the same questions in the same format. Another form of interviewing is the...
Diagnostic classification systems: There is no one manual for diagnosing mental illness. There are two classification systems which are most widely-used in western cultures: The APA’s (American Psychiatric Association) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental...
Reliability and validity in clinical psychology: To be reliable as a diagnostic classification system, there would have to be consistency with the DSM. This means that the DSM is reliable if the clinicians using it consistently arrive at the same diagnoses as each...
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder that affects about 1% of the population. It is the condition most associated with ‘madness’. Schizophrenia is not a ‘split personality’, but there is a loss of contact with reality and in severe cases a complete disintegration of...
A phobia is defined as an irrational and intense fear of a specific object or situation. In DSM-IV-TR phobias fall under the broader category of anxiety disorders. DSM-IV indicates that the fear experienced is intense & persistent & that individuals are...
Aim: To investigate whether psychiatrists can reliably tell the difference between people who have a mental disorder and those that do not. Method Study 1: The main study was a field experiment involving participant observation. The participants were hospital staff in...
Aim: To investigate whether rhesus monkeys can learn fear through observing it in other rhesus monkeys. Method: Two experiments were conducted where videotapes of model monkeys behaving fearfully were shown. The videos were spliced so that it appeared that the models...