Transcript Revision * 30.04.14

Revision – 30.04.14
Cognitive – Biological – Psychodynamic
Pictures, list study/theory and then
make revision maps in pairs, photo copy
What is this (2 mins to guess then I will tell you,
if you get it earlier tell me then write as much as
you can about this topic)
LA Key Issue • Do role models encourage anorexia because
they lead to teenagers wanting to be
impossibly thin?
Anorexia and anorexia nervosa
• Technically "anorexia" just means a loss of
appetite, whereas anorexia nervosa is an eating
disorder. In practice though, the vast majority of
people just say "anorexia" because it's shorter.
• Bulimia nervosa is… having episodes of binge
eating. This is followed by deliberately making
themselves sick (self-induced vomiting) or other
measures to counteract the excessive food intake.
Key Issue
• 1 in 100 girls said to
suffer from an eating
disorder
• 8% of 14 year old
girls happy with their
bodies
• Kate Moss and Victoria
Beckham said by 95% of
girls in a survey to be most
influential role model
Symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa
• Refusal to eat and maintain a minimum
average expected body weight.
• Fear of gaining weight
• Distorted body image
• Amenorrhea (absence of at least three
consecutive menstrual cycles)
• Weight less than 85% of expected
Learning Approach-Social Learning
Theory
• SLT suggests anorexia nervosa may be due to
role models in the media.
• Young people may feel they have to get to
around the same weight as thin celebrities in
order to be accepted
Social Learning Theory (ARRM)
• Teenagers pay attention to the fact that many
celebrity role models are extremely thin.
• They retain this information.
• They have the ability to reproduce being thin if
they diet excessively and will do it if they are
motivated to do so.
• They can see that their role models are famous
and rich and this may motivate them to be thin
too. Teenagers may think that being thin is what
is needed to be rich and famous or even just
accepted.
Explain the issue using L.A
• SLT suggests that people imitate role models, especially those they
see as relevant to themselves.
• One concept from the learning approach is identification.
• When someone identifies with a role model they are likely to
imitate their behaviour.
• It is therefore likely that teenage girls will imitate female models
and media celebrities where there is a trend to be very slim.
• Studies by Bandura have shown that girls copy female models and
boys copy male models, so if female role models are slim then girls
are likely to want to be slim.
• If someone observes behaviour but does not identify with the role
model they are not so likely to perform the behaviour.
• Girls who want to be slim are likely to stop eating and can develop
eating disorders such as anorexia.
Explain the issue using L.A
• Another concept from the learning approach
is reinforcement.
• If a role model is reinforced for being slim,
such as being praised, paid more or featured a
lot in the media, then they might be imitated
more.
Explain the issue using L.A
• Studies by Bandura have shown that behaviour that is
rewarded is likely to be imitated more, such as in
vicarious learning.
• There is also negative reinforcement for being fat,
through criticism and teasing, to avoid being teased,
fat children might starve themselves to slim down
which may turn into anorexia.
• So not wanting to be fat to avoid criticism and wanting
to be slim to get praise, might be two types of
reinforcement that help to explain anorexia.
Evaluation of the Learning Approach
+ Lai (2000) found that the rate of
anorexia increased for chinese
residents in Hong Kong as the
culture slowly became more
westernised.
+Crisp et al. (1976) found that
dancers and fashion models were
more likely to develop anorexia
nervosa.
+Mumford et al. (1991) found that
Arab and Asian women were
more likely to develop eating
disorders if they moved to the
West.
Doesn’t explain why the
disorder usually develops in
adolescence.
- Everyone sees the pictures
of slim people, so why is it
only some of the population
develop an eating disorder?
- There are psychodynamic
explanations for anorexia
nervosa such as fear of
growing up and family
issues.
-
Explain the issue using L.A
• As well as this, support comes from the work of
Bandura whose research can be criticised as
lacking validity as it was carried out in an
unnatural setting and used unnatural conditions
so.
• Nevertheless anorexia is found around the world
between different cultures and cross cultural
studies support the idea that anorexia is learned.
Explain the issue using Psychodynamic
• The psychodynamic approach suggests that a girl
might starve herself to avoid growing up (adults
sexual role) because she is fixated at a certain
psychosexual stage.
Biological explanation:
• One theory is that the system controlling a person’s sense of
appetite becomes disrupted.
• The primary setting of many of these abnormalities originate in a
the limbic system.
• A specific system called hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA)
may be particularly important in eating disorders.
• It originates in the following regions in the brain:
• Hypothalamus.
• The hypothalamus is a small structure that plays a role in controlling
our behavior, such as eating, sexual behavior and sleeping, and
regulates body temperature, emotions, secretion of hormones, and
movement.
• Appetite is controlled by the hypothalamus.
• When your body needs more food, your hypothalamus releases
chemicals to stimulate your appetite.
Biological explanation:
• Once you have eaten enough food, hormones
signal to your hypothalamus.
• Your hypothalamus will then release a different
set of chemicals that essentially reward you for
eating, and make you feel satisfied.
• It is thought that this ‘appetite-reward pathway’
becomes scrambled in people with anorexia.
• The feeling of fullness after a meal does not
produce a sense of reward, but a sense of
anxiety, guilt or self-loathing.
• In turn, feeling hungry may help reduce these
negative feelings.
Key terms & definitions: Brain lateralisation
•
•
•
Refers to the structural & functional differences between the the left & right
hemispheres (sides) of the brain.
Some brain functions seem to be evenly spread across the brain, such as those
connected with sensorimotor functions (connecting movement of limbs with the
senses)
Others seem to be concentrated in one side of the brain more than the other.
•
Language is an example of this: for most right-handed people language function is
found mainly in the left hemisphere; this is also true for 60% of left-handed
people (language is located in the right-hemisphere for less than 20% & the other
20% have bilateral hemisphere function).
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Left hemisphere tends to be:
Speech
Analysis
Time
Sequences
Recognises:
Words
Letters
Numbers
Right hemisphere tends to be:
Creativity
Patterns
Spatial awareness
Context
Recognises:
Faces
Places
Objects
Brain lateralisation & Gender
•
Some evidence to suggest there are differences between males & females with
regard to brain lateralisation.
•
Language tends to be affected by lateralisation: most comprehension & speech
functions are controlled by the left hemisphere; visuo-spatial tasks tend to
lateralised to the right hemisphere. Pattern is more noticeable in men than
women.
•
In males, the left hemisphere of the brain shows more activity during the
same linguistic tasks than females; women tend to show bilateral activity.
•
Brain damage, such as strokes that only affect one side of the brain, seem to
cause more profound damage to men than women. E.g., men who suffer
strokes may suffer more speech damage than women (McGlone, 1978).
•
This is because for women language function is less lateralised, the job of
interpreting & producing speech is more evenly spread across the two sides of
the brain
•
Appears to be true for visuo-spatial tasks; damage to the right side of the brain
in men but not women, caused a decline in non-verbal ability (McGlone,
1978).
Brain lateralisation & Gender
• Wada et al. (1975), using post-mortem evidence, found that the left
temporal plane tended to be slightly longer than the right, suggesting
some degree of brain lateralisation, i.e., more concentrated activity in
this side.
• However, not all brains showed this pattern of lateralisation, the majority
of brains that did not were female.
• More sophisticated MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging) techniques have
shown that on average, in males, the left temporal plane was 38%
longer than the right, no such differences were found in women
(Kulynych et al., 1992).
Brain lateralisation & Gender
• In some language related cognitive tasks, e.g., deciding whether 2 nonwords rhymed, results have shown more activity in the left hemisphere
of male brains than females, who tended to demonstrate more
symmetrical activity (Shaywitz et al., 1995).
• Some research has replicated this finding, but other studies have not.
• One explanation for this might be due to the tasks being performed.
Some research might measure activities where there tends to be an
inherent difference between men & women, explaining the
difference in lateralisation, whilst other studies might compare tasks
in which men & women are equally competent (can you name any?).
Godden & Baddely,1975
Godden & Baddely,1975
• Aim: To investigate cue-dependency theory
using divers in wet and dry recall conditions
•
• Godden and Baddeley wanted to test cuedependency theory by investigating the
effect of environment on recall.
• This was looking at context cues because it
was to do with external environment, not
the individual.
Godden & Baddely,1975
• In one condition the divers recalled in the
same location where they learnt the words
• In the other condition they recalled in the
other location
Procedure
• There were 18 divers from a diving club, and the lists had
36 unrelated words of two or three syllables chosen at
random from a word book.
• The word lists were recorded on tape.
• There was equipment to play the word lists under the
water.
• There was also a practice session to teach the divers how to
breathe properly with good timing, so as not to cloud their
hearing of the words being read out.
• Each list was read twice, the second time was followed by
fifteen numbers which had to be written down by the
divers to remove the words from their short-term memory
Procedure
• Each diver did all four conditions, making it a
repeated measures design.
• There was 24 hours in between each
condition.
• Every condition was carried out in the
evening, at the end of a diving day.
• When on land, the divers had to still wear
their diving gear
Findings/Results
• As predicted, words learned underwater were
best recalled underwater, and words learned
best on land were best recalled on land.
RESULTS (mean number of
words)
Study
Recall
Recall
Environment Environment Environment
DRY
WET
DRY
13.5
8.6
WET
8.5
11.4
Conclusions
• As the hypothesis stated: more words were
remembered when recall took place in the
same environment as learning: this is to do
with the context- dependent cues
• Godden and Baddeley identified some
problems with the study, including that the
divers were volunteers on a diving holiday, so
the setting could not be controlled as the
condition on each day was in a different place
Conclusions
• A further difficulty is that there could have
been cheating underwater (because the
researchers were unable to observe the
participants), however, the researchers
thought that there was no cheating going on
because that would have always produced
better results underwater, which you can see
is not the case
Conclusions
• Also, when the location of learning and recalling the words was
different, the divers had to move from one situation to the other:
whereas when the locations were the same, this did not happen
• it is possible that this led to the poorer recall.
• Godden and Baddeley chose to investigate this factor further, by
running a second study with two separate groups.
• There were 18 divers, who each did the disrupted and nondisrupted conditions.
• The disrupted condition involved going in and out of/out and in the
water in between learning and recall when the situations were the
same.
• The study produced results of 8.44 words for the non-disrupted
condition and 8.69 words for the disrupted condition.
• Because these numbers were so similar, it was concluded that this
factor did not cause the difference in results of the primary study
Conclusions
• Saying these weaknesses, the study did however
have strong controls, which makes it replicable so
reliability can be tested.
• Also, even though the task was artificial, the
participants were all divers who had experience
with performing tasks under the water, and so
the environment they were in was not unfamiliar,
therefore a there was a limited presence of
ecological validity for the experiment
Treatment for Phobias: Systematic
Desensitisation
• Treatments focus on changing the abnormal
behaviour rather than considering thought
processes or underlying biological causes…
Weakness?
• If we assume that psychological disorders are
learned behaviours, then treatments should
aim to help the person unlearn the
maladaptive behaviour and substitute a more
adaptive response in its place.
Systematic Desensitisation
• Systematic desensitisation is based on the
principle of incompatible responses i.e. the idea
that you cannot be both anxious and relaxed at
the same time.
• According to this approach phobias, for example,
are thought to be learned anxiety responses to
particular stimuli.
• Therefore, the treatment assumes that the
phobia can be removed by teaching someone to
relax when in contact with the phobic object.
Process:
• Treatment takes place over a number of sessions
depending on the strength of the phobia and the
client’s ability to relax.
• Therapist and client both jointly agree on what
the therapeutic goal should be and the therapy is
deemed to be successful once the goal has been
reached.
• The process can either be in real exposure to the
object or imaginary exposure to the object.
Stages:
• Functional Analysis – Careful questioning to discover the nature of
anxiety and possible triggers.
• Construction of an Anxiety Hierarchy – Client and therapist devise
a hierarchy of anxiety – provoking situations from the least to the
most fearful.
- Example (have a read then complete your own):
Fear of spiders
1 Think about spider
2 See picture of spider
3 Be in same room as spider in glass tank
4 Sit next to glass tank with the lid closed
5 Sit next to glass tank with the lid open
6 Put hand in tank
7 Hold spider in hands
Stages:
• Relaxation Training – The client is taught to relax
using the methods which suit them best, e.g.
listening to their favourite music. Deep muscle
relaxation techniques are used (hypnosis,
meditation or Valium)
• Gradual Exposure – The phobic object is slowly
introduced. Subject relaxes at each stage starting
with least fearful and progresses to next stage
when fully relaxed to do so
But does it work?
Evaluation of Systematic
Desensitisation
• How EFFECTIVE is this therapy?
• This therapy is very effective with simple phobias
such as phobia of spiders.
• McGrath et al (1990) found that 75% of patients
with specific phobias showed clinically significant
improvement following the treatment.
• Jones applied SD to infants with phobias. Little
Peter had strong phobia of rats and rabbits. Peter
was presented with a rabbit in a cage each time
he had lunch, 40 sessions later he was able to
stroke rabbit and eat lunch at same time.
Evaluation of Systematic
Desensitisation
• Wolpe (1988) claims that 80-90% of patients
are either apparently cured or much improved
after an average of 25-30 sessions.
• However, systematic desensitisation is not
effective with disorders such as schizophrenia.
Evaluation of Systematic
Desensitisation
• How EFFECTIVE is this therapy?
• Complex and social phobias such as
agoraphobia do not respond so well and
relapse rates are high.
• Craske and Barlow (1993) found that between
60% and 80% of agoraphobics show some
improvement after treatment and clients
often relapse completely after six months.
Evaluation of Systematic
Desensitisation
• Are there any PRACTICAL issues involved in the use of
this therapy?
• One practical issue for this therapy is patient
motivation.
• Patients who have opted for therapy will be more
motivated than those who have been coerced.
• The successful application of systematic desensitisation
relies on the patients’ willingness to practice relaxation
techniques and people differ on how successfully they
manage this.
• It does require little equipment and therefore the cost
is low.
Evaluation of Systematic
Desensitisation
• Are there any ETHICAL issues involved in the
use of this therapy?
• The treatment is considered to be more
ethical than others based on classical
conditioning, such as flooding.
• This is because the patient is given more
control and will only move on when they feel
ready to.
Evaluation of Systematic
Desensitisation
• POWER of practitioner?
• The therapist conditioning the desired
behaviour is in a position of power; they
control the hierarchy after it has been
decided.
• However, the client has to agree to the
therapy and can withdraw from it, which
reduces the power of the therapist.
Evaluation of Systematic
Desensitisation
• Treating the SYMPTOMS or the CAUSE?
• The treatment only focuses on observable
symptoms rather than any deeper underlying
causes of phobias.