ROSENHAM STUDY

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What did Rosenham set out to do?
He set out to question whether abnormal behaviour was a feature of an individual or due instead to how others percieve this behaviour.
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why is it difficult to define mental illness'?
As society changes, also there is problems with labeling as it could lead to discrimination
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What is the Jane Elliot study 1968?
Blue eyes, brown eyes- This illustrates discrimination labeling, self fulfill, ruined the risk of being labeled
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Whats a problem with relaibilty from doctors?
Is it consistent, as do all doctors measure in the same way
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What a problem with validity?
Does it really measure mental illness, as it can say who is mental ill, but it should be able to say who isn't mentally ill too
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Whats a problem with medical classifications?
It physically can't be tested, e.g x rays and it all depends on whether you believe the patient or not
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What is schizophrenia?
This is not the same as MPD, it means shattered mind
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What are a few of the symptoms for schizophrenia?
Delusions, hearing voices/malluniations, inappropriate emotions/thought, involuntary movements
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How is schizophrenia tested?
With anti-psychotic drugs
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What was Rosenham testing?
He was looking at the diagnostic reliability, and to see whether doctors can distinguish between sane and insane
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What are the research questions of this study?
Do the characteristics that lead to a diagnosis of abnormality reside in the patients or in the environment they are in&if normal people attempted to be admitted to psychiatric hospitals, would they be able to detect as being sane
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What is the aim of this study?
To test the hypothesis that psychiatrists cannot reliably tell the differences between people who are mentally ill and those who are not
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What was the method of this study?
It was a field experiment, as well as pp's observation. It was set in 12 hospitals in different American states. There was 1 private and 11 funded, ones which were poorly staffed as well a good staffed
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Why did Rosenham have so many different hospitals?
To make sure he could easily generalise his results
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Who were the PP's in this study?
There were 8 Pseudopaitents, 5 males and 3 female
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What is a pseudoppaitent?
Is the name that Rosenham gave to the PP's who helped him with this study
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What did Rosenham make sure non of these PP's had?
A history of mental illness
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What occupation did these PP's have?
There were 3 psychologist, a psychiatrists, paediatrication, painter, and a housewive
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What were the IV of this study?
Was the made up symptoms of the Pseudopatients
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What was the DV of this study?
Was the psychartists administration and the diagnostic label of the PP's
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What did each Pseudopaitent do before they went into the hospitals?
They contacted them to book an appointment and on arrival they reported that they were hearing voices and these were unclear words, like 'empty' and 'hollow', and 'thud' could be recalled (this was IV)
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Why were these words chosen?
To suggest a exsitential crisis (Who am I? What's it all for? My life is empty and hollow')
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What sort of details did the pseudopaitants give?
They gave accurate details of their lives, apart from changing their names and also their occupation if it was related to psychology.
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What happened if they were diagnosed as 'insane' and admitted to a ward?
They were told to behave normally and report that they were no longer hearing voices. All pseudopatients would remain in the hospital until they were discharged.
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How many patients were admitted, and what for?
All patients were admitted, however 11 were diagnosed for schizophrenia and one with manic depression
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How many days were they in the hospitals before they were discharged?
Between 7-52 days
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What were they discharged with?
They were diagnosed as being 'in remission' and therefore still insane although not presenting the characteristics of the illness
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Why did the hosptial let them go?
They were all only discharged once they stopped saying they were sane, but saying they will ill, but feeling better
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Did the staff ever detect the pseudopatients were lying, and who did?
No, and the actually patients at the hospitals
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How did staff interpret the normal behaviour of the patients?
Their normal behaviour was interpreted as abnormal due to their insane label. e.g 3 nurses reported writing from the psudopatients as an aspect of their pathological behaviour
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What did Rosenham say about the inability to detect the pseudopatients?
Said doctors are most likely to diagnosis a sane person as insane as it is safer to misdiagnose an illness, as it is potentially more serious not admitting a insane person than admitting a same person incorrectly
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What is this known as ?
Type 2 error
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What is type 1 error?
To make a false negative, so not to admit an insane person
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What was the prove that once a patient was diagnosed they get treated as a non person?
As not many of the staff made eye contact with the patients or spoke to them. e.g 0.5% of nurses stopped to talk to the patients and 4% of psychiatrists did the same
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Why was there a second study?
As the staff at a teaching and research study knew the findings from the first study and doubted that such an error could occur in their hospital
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What was the aim for study two?
To see if the insane can be diagnosed as sane
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What was said to happen over the next few months?
That one or more pseudopatients would try to get admitted to their hospitals
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How many pseudopatients were send to this hospital?
No patients were sent
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How many patients came to the hospital?
193
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How many were thought by both a psychartrists and another member of staff to be a pseudopatient?
19
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How many were thought by just a member of staff to have been a pseudopaitent?
41
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How many were have thought by a psychiatrists to have been a pseudopatient?
23
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What does this now suggest?
It suggest that the diagnosis process is open to many errors as more insane people were said to be sane which is a type 1 error
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What was said about being labeled as insane in this study?
That is sticks,e.g queuing up for lunch was seen as oral acquisitive pathological behaviour also normal things which has happened in a persons life is said to have been expected from a schizophrenic (label sways people judgement)
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What did Rosenham conclude?
That it is not possible to distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals, Hospitals and labels provided influence perceptions of behaviour, which is more likely to be interpreted as insane.
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What were the methods of this study?
creative experimental design&how it was used to test reliability of identifying both sane and insane people, able to gain insight by PP's observation
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What can be argued about the PP's observation?
That the pseudopaitents are not really insane so their experiecnes do not really reflect those who are really insane. However, process of being admitted as insane and not being disgnoised as sane show it has high ecological validty
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What are some weaknesses to the method used?
Lots of backlash after study was published, ethics hospitals consent, deceived, POP (putting sane person with mental ill people)
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How representative was the sample?
Wide variety of hospitals used, easier to generalise, is the diagnosis of the patients the same as other countries (ethnocentric) only 8 PP's, 6 of who had a psychological background (bias?) sample small,
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What type of data was collected?
Quantitative data- numbers of pp's admitted&discharged in study, as well as social interactions data. Qualitative-related to the experience of being in hospitals, the stickiness of psychodiagnosis&powerlessness and depersonalisation
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How useful is this study?
Highlighted to difficulty of applying a medical model of diagnosis to mental health and has been the focus of much debate about what can we regard as normal behaviour
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why is it difficult to define mental illness'?

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As society changes, also there is problems with labeling as it could lead to discrimination

Card 3

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What is the Jane Elliot study 1968?

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Card 4

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Whats a problem with relaibilty from doctors?

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What a problem with validity?

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