Monkey drug trials 1969

Last week I found a list of the top ten unethical experiments that had been done throughout the many years of Psychology that involved humans and animals. Out of the list there was one such study that I found to be particularly interesting, and surprising that such an experiment was ever aloud to be conducted. This study was done by Deneau, Yanagita & Seevers (1969) and was known as the monkey drug trials.

The experiment was looking at the effects of self-administration of drugs by the monkey. In other words, whether a monkey would become addicted to drugs and as a result self-administer itself in order to maintain the drug abuse. The monkeys were first injected with drugs (some monkeys received cocaine, morphine and amphetamines) and researchers observed the behaviour afterwards, consequently the monkeys became dependent on the drugs. The experiment found that the biological traits were similar to that of humans, and results suggested that one of the key motivations for drug abuse was the psychological dependence. This experiment found the key reason why drug abuse takes place which can help researchers and physicians provide a psychological treatment which can help people with a drug addiction give up. As this kind of experiment cannot be done on humans, the only option for the researchers was to use monkeys. However, animals and humans are different and therefore findings on non-humans should be cautious when suggesting a similar trait can be found in humans. In some cases there can be many differences between animal behaviour and human behaviour, therefore results for one another cannot be generalised.

A classic example of this is the study looking at the effects of the drug thalidomide on morning sickness for pregnant women (as cited in Developmental Psychology, 2010). The study had tested the drug on rats and found there were no side effects caused from the drug and that the drug was effective in treating morning sickness. This drug was given to pregnant women, which alleviated the symptoms of nausea. However, when the women gave birth, there were serious abnormalities with their babies’ physical appearance. For instance, the babies would either have a absence of a limb or have limbs attached to their abdomen, and serious deformities in the eyes, heart, ears etc. This shows that whilst animals may not show effects to certain drugs, humans may, and therefore whenever experiments are being conducted on animals, researchers should not suggest that findings could be generalised to humans.

The monkeys trials were also highly unethical as the subjects suffered pain, withdrawal symptoms and in some cases died from an overdose. The Helsinki declaration was founded in 1964 and from there has been regularly updated on the principles of good practice. It first stated that, “the welfare of animals used for research must be respected”. This was the start of ethical guidance for non-human subjects. From here the APA ethical code added more guidance on the way animals should be treated and gave strict instructions for the grounds of when an experiment on animals is acceptable. For example animal research should not harm the animal or distress it on any way (APA). In this experiment, the monkeys would self-harm themselves (ie. Take chunks of fur off their abdomen when under the influence and in some cases the monkeys died) therefore under the APA ethical code, the researchers would be unethical and would not be allowed to conduct this experiment.

This experiment in my opinion is not useful to psychology, as it lacks ecological validity. Animals do not have the capability of administering drugs in the outside world, unless human interference trains them to self-administer. Although the results show a similarity in monkey and human behaviour in the self-maintaining of drugs, there is no real benefit to this finding and therefore the end does not justify the means.

 

References

APA guide. http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/guidelines.aspx

Deneau. G., Yanagita. T., & Seevers. M. H. (1969). Self-administration of psychoactive substances by the monkey. Psychopharmacologia, 16, 30-48. Doi: 10.1007/BF00405254

Helsinki declaration. http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/

Shaffer. D. R., & Kipp. K. (2010). Developmental psychology childhood and adolescence. 8^th Edition. Wadsworth.

The Act of Temptation

Temptation is everywhere, in foods we should not eat, in clothes we should not wear and in relationships with others. The temptation to procrastinate from doing work is something we all do and as a result we lose our self-control.

But what is self-control? In the Oxford Dictionary, self-control is described as “the ability to control one’s emotions or behaviour in difficult situations”. You could apply Freud’s approach (as cited in Gleitman, 2011) to self-control with the ID, Ego, & Superego. For example, you walk past a shop and notice a dress in the window that you really like. Your subconscious thoughts (superego) makes you want to get the dress because you really like it, but the other thoughts (ID) make you question whether you really need it and is it worth having for such a price. The temptation to buy the dress is the superego whilst the self-control is the ID. However this theory of the subconscious is very subjective as it is based on opinion. It cannot be measured as there are no such experiments that can understand the subconscious mind therefore it lacks validity. Another problem with this theory is that people are different therefore the results would be very different thus lacking reliability.

Having a temptation in close proximity repeatedly is more likely to increase its value therefore causing more temptation for an individual to want it (Zajonc, 1968).  However other research (Brock, 1968 as cited in Myrseth, Fishbach & Trope, 2009) has suggested that by removing the temptation all together, from the individual’s sight is more likely to increase the temptation with the individual valuing it more. Therefore by decreasing the availability of the temptation, this increases the value of it.

However Myrseth, Fishbach & Trope (2009) have found that when you make a temptation available, people will find it less tempting and have a better self-control. They found that gym members who walked out of the gym were given an option to choose from a healthy snack or a chocolate bar. Researchers picked these types of foods in order to create a self- control dilemma for the participants. They found that participants were more motivated to eat the healthy bars than the chocolate bars when deciding which food to take. This suggests that when tempting foods such as chocolate is made available, people are in more self-control and therefore and more likely to value the chocolate less.

Baumeister (2002) stated that people can fall into the impulsivity of wanting the temptation and as a result their self-control can fail. He states that there are important factors that effect self-control, one factor being that people who are unsure what their goals are, will more likely have less self-control than people who know their goals, and as a result are more likely to give in to temptation. For example, people who want to reach a certain weight (goal) are less likely to give in to temptation, therefore have a higher self-control compared to people who do not wish to reach a certain weight.

Other research suggests people who do implementation intentions are more likely to stick at their goals compared to people who don’t (Psychology today). This means that people who make specific plans, which include possible obstacles such as temptations, will likely to be more successful in reaching their goals and resist the temptation. In this article they found females who had made a specific plan were more successful at resisting tempting foods. If this intervention is effective then it can be used in all areas of temptations for example; smokers, alcoholics, drug users, people who need to lose weight etc.

References

Beumeister (2002). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/338209.pdf?acceptTC=true

Gleitman, Gross, Reisberg. (2011). Psychology. Eighth Edition. Norton

Myrseth, Fishbach & Trope, 2009. Retrieved from http://pss.sagepub.com/content/20/2/159.full.pdf+html

Psychology Today http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201110/harness-the-power-temptation

Zajonc, 1968. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/9/2p2/1.pdf

Children with ADHD

Diagnosing children with ADHD is increasing. In the UK 3-9% of children are diagnosed with the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and 5% in America. Yet in France, it is considerably less with only a 0.05% of children being diagnosed. Therefore the UK is diagnosing too much in order to find solutions for parents with particular demanding children?

According to the NHS, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a behavioural disorder that consists of children being restless, easily distracted and have a short attention span. Dupaul et al (2001) found that children with ADHD had higher levels of problematic behaviour and were less socially skilled than typical normal developing children. Yet this study was a small sample consisting of 94 children (58 with ADHD, 36 control) and so cannot be generalised to all cases of children with ADHD.

Both the UK and America use the same diagnostic criteria, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), when diagnosing people with disorders. Yet there is a difference in how many children in the UK are being diagnosed compared to children in America. As America has a much higher population, surely it would be expected to see a higher percentage of children diagnosed compared to the UK. However, it is estimated that there are more children in the UK with the disorder (3-9%). A reason why there are so few cases of children reported with ADHD (0.05%) in France might be because psychiatrists in France classify children differently compared to psychiatrists in the UK and America (Psychology Today). The article states that French psychiatrists, who do not use the DSM, believe the condition is psychological and not biological as they see it as an underlying social problem that has caused the child to be troubled. They treat the condition with psychotherapy and family counselling instead of administering drugs to the children. This approach has shown to be successful, but more importantly is prevents developing children from taking medication that change the child’s chemical balance. Whilst drugs have been shown to be effective, ethical issues must me raised into whether it is a good idea to administer medication to a child who is still growing as the drugs could have possible side effects.

Yet other evidence suggests ADHD is a biological disorder, as brain scans have shown the difference between the brain of someone with ADHD and a brain of someone who is typically normal. Whilst there are only subtle differences, there is evidence that shows that children with ADHD have reductions in their total brain volume/ reduced brain size (Toga et al, 2006). It is important to note however, that it is not possible to determine that the reduced brain size is the cause of ADHD or that ADHD causes the reduction. Therefore whilst there are physiological differences between ADHD children and typically normal children, it is still unclear as to what is the cause of the disorder.

As children are still typically developing, it is important not to judge and label them too quickly. Whilst I agree that this disorder may occur in a number of children, I disagree with the administration of drugs that cause changes to a developing child. The UK could conduct more research into the causes of ADHD and perhaps try to include psychotherapy and counseling to see if this form of treatment is also effective. Perhaps then the UK may not have a high estimation of children with ADHD.

References

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201203/why-french-kids-dont-have-adhd

Dupaul. G. J., McGoey. K. E., Eckert. T. L., & Vanbrakle. J. (2001). Preschool Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Impairments in Behavioral, Social, and School Functioning. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890856709606808

Toga. A. W., Thompson. P. M., & Sowell. E. R. (2006). Mapping brain maturation. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166223606000245

Is Token Economy effective in people with Schizophrenia who live in the community?

Token economy has been shown to be an effective treatment for inpatients that suffer from schizophrenia. But does this type of treatment work as well outside the hospital environment in a community setting?

Token economy is where tokens are given to a person after they have behaved in a certain way that deserves credit. Tokens on their own are worthless however are exchanged for privileges such as being allowed to watch TV, have sweets or be given money (Ayllon & Azrin, 1965). For example, parents often give their children pocket money for cleaning their room. Token economy is a way of rewarding good behaviour that will be positively reinforced with rewards, like operant conditioning (Skinner, 1938 as cited in Gleitman, Gross, Reisberg, 2011).  It has shown to be an effective treatment for inpatients with schizophrenia (Kazdin, 1982).

People with schizophrenia have negative symptoms including apathy and lack of motivation. As a result of these symptoms, patients lack interest in living a normal healthy life such as washing, self-eating and maintaining their physical appearance. As a result, research has been done to find a way of decreasing these negative symptoms and encourage the individual to take part in these skills. Token economy has been suggested to be effective in encouraging this behaviour (Ayllon & Azrin, 1965; Kazdin, 1982). Baker et al (1977) also found that token economy improved patient’s social withdrawal and behaviour when looking at inpatients that had chronic schizophrenia.

Yet the majority of research into this type of therapy has been done in a hospital environment where staff, like nurses and psychiatrists has enforced this system to which patients have responded well too. Corrigan (1991) stated that there are problems with the token economy method for out patients living in the community. He stated that inpatients receive 24-hour care where staff can encourage the token method, yet for outpatients living in the community they only receive day treatment (3-8 hours) therefore the token method would only be used for part of the day. He also stated that there is better control for staff to monitor and reward inpatients as there are a lot of restrictions placed on them thus inappropriate behaviour is reduced. Yet community patients have freedom to do what they like and have what they like without needing to behave. Therefore using the token economy would be ineffective.

Other research conducted by Denkowski & Denkowski (1985) found that token economy on its own was not as effective in reducing aggression in MR adolescent offenders who lived together in a group house in the community. Levels of aggression and violence still occurred and therefore patients living in a community setting need more than just a reward system.

Whilst the token economy has shown to be effective in reducing negative symptoms for people with schizophrenia, it has only really worked when in a hospital setting. Undoubtedly inpatients are being taught how to look after themselves which is a great way to help prepare them for the real world. However, once that person lives in the community, the methods of token economy are lost as they do not have the 24-hour care that they would receive if they were in a hospital.

More research should be conducted to find ways in which people with schizophrenia can be given more help in coping with their negative symptoms and successfully leading a normal life in the community.

References

Ayllon. T., Azrin. N.H. (1965). The measurement and reinforcement of behaviour of psychotics. Journal of the Experimental Analysis Behaviour, 8, 357-383. Doi:   10.1901/jeab.1965.8-357

Baker. R., Hall. J. N., Hutchinson. K., & Bridge. G. (1977). Symptom changes in chronic schizophrenic patients on a token economy: a controlled experiment. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 131, 381-393. Doi: 10.1192/bjp.131.4.381

Corrigan. P.W. (1991). Strategies That Overcome Barriers to Token Economies in Community Programs for Severe Mentally Ill Adults. Community Mental Health Journal, 27, 17-30. Doi: 10.1007/BF00752712

Denkowski. G.C., & Denkowski. K. M. (1985). Community-based residential treatment of the mentally retarded adolescent offender: Phase 1, reduction of aggressive behavior. Journal of Community Psychology, 13, 299- 305. Doi: 10.1002/1520-6629(198507)13:3<299::AID-JCOP2290130308>3.0.CO;2-5

Gleitman, H., Gross, J., Reisberg, D. (2011) Psychology 8^th Edition. NY & London: Norton

Kazdin. A.E. (1982). The Token Economy: a decade later (Abstract). Journal of Applied Behavioural Analysis, 15, 431-445. Doi: 10.1901/jaba.1982.15-431

Diagnosing babies with Autism

According to the National Autistic Society, Autism is a disability which affects communication skills causing difficulty in social interactions with others. This includes difficulty in speech, communicating with others, making friends, and certain stimuli which may affect their senses in a positive or negative way. Therefore can we really begin to diagnose 6 month old babies even before they have begun to socialise with others? New research suggests we can.

In most cases, Autism is diagnosed when children reach the age of three years, as this is the time when they begin to interact with other children in social settings such as nursery. However, scientists are now suggesting there are ways of finding these autistic traits in babies from 6 months old by measuring brain activity when babies are given a stimuli. The stimuli consisted of images of faces which looked directly at the baby and away from the baby. Using brain electrodes which test the brain patterns of the babies responses to the stimuli, researchers have found there was a large difference in brain waves when the face looked at the baby and when the face looked away. This large difference suggested normal social interaction and the babies did not develop autism, babies however, who had a smaller difference in brain waves between the two faces went on to develop autism at the age of three.

The link below explains the procedure and results from the experiment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16769495

Yet this study only consisted of 104 babies which is not a representable sample of the population and therefore lacks ecological validity as it cannot be generalised. The results also showed that the test only predicted autism some of the time therefore the reliability of the test is questioned. As this research is in the early stages of implementation, it is not possible to suggest autism can be found by measuring brain activity at such a young age.

Other researchers support the idea that early diagnosis can be achieved by the way a child moves in infancy (ie. crawling, sitting, and walking). Teitelbaum et al (1998) stated that babies who when have learned how to sit up, crawl, walk and even turn over onto their chest will have differences if they develop autism compared to babies who develop with normal social skills. For example, a baby with autism when crawling would not use their hands as support but would instead lean on their forearms. Again this study was a small sample consisting of 17 children who had gone on to develop autism and 15 children who did not develop autism.

Perhaps researchers are close to finding a way to diagnose autism at an earlier age. It would be ideal for families to have that early knowledge that their child has the condition and then early interventions can be put in place to help support the child and the family. However, until a breakthrough where the research is highly reliable and the findings can be generalised to the larger population, parents still have to wait for their child to reach an age where they begin to interact with others.

References

BBC news health. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16769495

National Autistic Society. (2012). What is Autism. The National Autistic Society. Retrieved from http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/autism-and-asperger-syndrome-an-introduction/what-is-autism.aspx

Teitelbaum, P., Teitelbaum, O., Nye, J., Fryman, J., & Maurer, R.G. (1998). Movement Analysis in infancy may be useful for early diagnosis of autism. Psychology, 95, 13982- 13987. doi:10.1073/pnas.95.23.13982

Sex… colour preference

Why do girls like pink and boys like blue? Why do parents dress is in these colours according to our gender? It’s a question that researchers have attempted to answer.

Hurlbert & Ling (2007) stated that this colour preference is down to our biology as the evolutionary theory states that our ancestors gender roles reflect on our preference choice today. For example women prefer red/yellow colours because their ancestors were gatherers of foods and therefore would identify foods that are ripe such as “yellow fruit and edible red leaves”. The researchers had 208 participants aged 20-26 years (171 British caucasian and 19 Han Chinese living in the UK) make a forced decision on their colour choice. Results showed that both genders had a preference for blue colours but females preferring reddish/ purple colours more whilst the males preferring the blue/ green colours.This does reflect that biology could be a component of sex difference in gender as it shows there is a significant difference.  Results also showed that the Chinese participants had more of a preference to the colour red.

Yet in China, the colour red is seen as “good luck” and so their colour preferences would be towards the red colour compared to the British. Therefore is it all down to our biology? In this case, it is not as it cannot explain why people in China have more of a preference to the colour red compared to British people. Therefore could this cultural difference be explained by our social and behavioural environment? If it is encouraged socially in China to prefer the colour red, as it brings good luck, and parents and peers also influence this preference then a person is likely to follow the rest of the crowd. This theory could also be used in Britain as parents dress their child in pink/red colours if they have a girl and blue/green colours if it is a boy. Therefore it is not just the biological components that affect our preference.

With any research cause and effect cannot be established, however, the media often ignores this scientific. For example, Henderson (2007) who writes for the The Times, stated that the research conducted by Hurlbert & Ling was proven evidence of why colour preference in genders exist as his title stated “At last, science discovers why blue is for boys but girls really do prefer pink”.  Whilst he states the true scientific findings that men and women have a significant difference he adds that males prefer blue because blue is an “indicator of fine weather” he still suggests from the title that the evolutionary theory can explain the cause and effect for the colour preference. The research cannot “prove” why there is a colour explanation nor can it state that the evolutionary theory alone contributes to this preference, therefore the media article does not give a true reflection on the research.

References

Henderson, M. (2007). At last, science discovers why blue is for boys but girls really do prefer pink. The Times. Retrieved from https://blackboard.bangor.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/1188.201112/Pink%20Blue.pdf

Hurlberg, A.C., & Ling, Y. (2007). Biological Components of Sex Differences in Colour Preference. Current Biology, 17, 623-625. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2007.06.022

Memory- Can we measure it?

There are three main stages in how we learn something. The first stage is the acquisition stage where you process information either intentionally or incidently (without realising you have learn’t something such as remembering what you had for breakfast). This then moves onto the second stage which is where you “store” the information by placing it into the long-term memory where you than can retrieve the information at a later date (third stage).

Yet how do we know this to be true? Memory is part of the unconscious mind, and is very complex therefore it cannot be measured. Psychologists also have to rely a lot of their work through introspection as they often have to ask the client to remember or “recall” a previous memory. Sometimes though, the memory can be a belief that something did happen when in reality it did not, this causes a lot of problems especially in eye witness testimonies. The DRM paradigm (Roediger & McDermott 1995, as cited in Gleitman, Psychology) shows this as participants were asked to remember words that had been called out, the participants then had to recall the words. The words were associated with sleep such as “yawn” “snooze” “nap”. However the word “sleep” had not been said out loud. Researchers found that almost 90% had successfully recalled the words that had been said, but then they were just as likely to recall the word “sleep” even though it had not been said. This suggests that whilst people found it easy to recall the words because they were related to “sleep” they made memory errors by believing sleep had been said.

However, the three main stages in memory do give us an understanding into how we learn and remember information. This can help us when we look at clients who have suffered from brain damage and can no longer remember certain aspects of their short or long term memory. Scoville & Milner (1957) looked into a case study where a young man who had a history of severe epileptic fits underwent a “bilateral media temporal-lobe resection” where tissue was removed, in particular some of the hippocampus (controls short term and long term memory). Their results found that whilst his seizures had reduced dramatically, his memory had severely been affected, to the point where he could no longer create new memories. For example, when he moved to a new house, he could remember his old address but not the one he had just moved into. This research has provided significant evidence that the hippocampus may play an important role in memory, however it is still important to note that cause and effect cannot be established, ie. we cannot be sure the removal of the hippocampus causes memory loss.

Each person is different, some have an excellent memory where they can state a time with a place that happened years ago, whilst others cannot remember what they had eaten the night before. Therefore when we look at memory we must keep in mind that we cannot generalise our results to everyone. However the understanding we have of memory now is useful when looking for treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s. In particular research could focus on the retrieval stage where people cannot retrieve something they had learn’t recently or in the past.

References

Gleitman, H., Gross, J., Reisberg, D. (2011) Psychology 8^th Edition. NY & London: Norton

Scoville, W.B., & Milner, B. (1957) Loss Of Recent Memory After Bilateral Hippocampal Lesions. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery Psychiatry, 20, 11-21. Doi: 10.1136/jnnp.20.1.11

Can we diagnose mental illness?

Early beliefs of mental illness was said to be caused by evil spirits and resulted with people being flogged and starved in order to try and cure it (Gleitman, Gross & Reisberg, Psychology). Modern theories suggest that people can develop mental illnesses from their biological and environmental surroundings. Yet is it possible to diagnose such complex characteristics when this diagnosis is of the mind and not the physiological aspects of the body? I am going to use the mental disorder, Schizophrenia as my example.

The DSM is often used as a guide to diagnose people with mental illnesses. People who are thought to have Schizophrenia are diagnosed with either positive or negative symptoms. Positive symptoms is when a behaviour occurs which is not typical in normal behaviour (hallucinations, delusions). Negative symptoms is when a behaviour that should be shown in normal behaviour is absent in that individual (express little emotion, withdrawal from others).

Schizophrenia can occur due to a person’s genetic factors; the International Schizophrenia Consortium (2008 as cited in Gleitman et al, Psychology), Stefansson et al (2008, as cited in Gleitman et al, Psychology) found that people who had DNA deletions were more prone to developing Schizophrenia compared to those who had not had DNA deletions. Twin studies also confirm that if twins are identical there is a 41-65% chance they both will have schizophrenia compared to fraternal twins which have a 0-28% (Cardino & Gottesmann, 2000).

Yet, Rosenhan (1973) stated that diagnosing people into categories of the normal and abnormal were impossible.  His study supported this theory as he sent eight pseudo-patients (had no medical history of mental illness) to different hospitals that ranged from high to low qualities. The aim was for the pseudo-patients to be found from hospital staff as “fakes” as they were instructed to act normally. The results found, that none of the eight pseudo-patients had been found out suggesting that there was no clear difference in people who are “sane” or “insane”. This could be because of the environment in which the patients are in; a hospital surrounding suggests people are suffering from a mental illness, therefore the environmental surroundings are a strong indicator of peoples beliefs of others.

Whilst there are some clear issues in diagnosing people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, it cannot be ignored that professionals are providing the best knowledge for this time. For example, MRI scans can show the difference in brain activity in a person with schizophrenia compared to someone without it (schizophrenia patient has enlarged cerebral ventricles). Successful treatments are also being used to help prevent certain symptoms from occurring, therefore if it is successful, then professionals must have found a way to diagnose people with schizophrenia. More research needs to be done to establish clear and definite symptoms for schizophrenia in order to ensure there are clear differences between normal and abnormal behaviour.

References

Cardino, A.G., Gottesman, I.I. (2000). Twin Studies of schizophrenia: From bow-and-arrow concordances to Star Wars Mx and functional genomics. American Journal of Medical Genetics, 97, 12-17. Doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(200021)97:1<12::AID-AJMG3>3.0.CO;2-U

Gleitman, H., Gross, J., Reisberg, D. (2011) Psychology 8^th Edition. NY & London: Norton

Rosenhan, D.L., (1973) On Being Sane in Insane Places. Science, 179, 250-258. Doi:10.1126/science.179.4070.250

Observations- seeing is believing

Its the question we all find difficult to answer; Observations- are they useful?

Observations are used in many experiments; lab, field and natural. However, the problem they have is that as humans we make mistakes and can never fully concentrate for a period of time. Our brains do not function well enough to pick out all the different types of things that goes on around us. The clip below highlights this problem.

Its so easy for us to get distracted from one thing, whilst something equally or more important is happening at the same time. We zone in to the one thing we are looking for without a thought into how other things may be effecting the outcome of behaviour.Look at eye witness testimonies, people record what they have seen, but often get mixed up as to what they thought had happened to what actually occurred. For example, Brewer & Treyens, 1981 found that when they asked participants to say what they had seen when they entered a Professors office, one-third had stated that there had been books in the there even though there were none. This could have happened, because the participants expected there to be books in the office therefore their expectations may confuse real life observers.

Another problem with observations is observer bias. If the observer is the researcher of the study who knows what it is that is being tested, they can be biased to the results and only record what they want to see and ignore anything else that may disprove their theory. In this case, however, many observations are done with the double blind effect, so that the observer has no attachment to the study therefore will not influence the results.

How do we know what we see is what the other person sees. Having two observers may be good in also eliminating observer bias, but will the results from the two observations be exactly identical. If the two observers were asked to watch how children act aggressively to one another, they may have different levels as to what is deemed aggressive. One may think that pushing someone over is not very aggressive therefore fail to record it, whilst the other may think the opposite.

To say observations are flawed is too harsh. They serve a purpose for Psychologists in observing behaviour that occurs in different scenarios. Take Zimbardo’s study, this was an observational study in which the researchers witnessed how the guards mistreated the prisoners and how the prisoners dealt with being downgraded to being highly emotional and upset. The results from this are still discussed today because of the findings that people take on the role of someone who is associated with a certain power (guards uniform and persona is seen as an authoritarian figure compared to a prisoner).

I personally believe that whilst observations are seen in a negative way, we can still use them in research so long as we ensure where the potential faults lie and how to overcome them.

Should we really test animals in the name of research?

Animals are often used in experiments to test different products for humans. This can consist from medical treatments, make-up and psychological approaches- all for the greater good for humans. But we have to ask our selves, has it come to a point where we are being obsessed with animal testing or is it necessary to conduct these sorts of experiments.

The problem with animal testing is that animals unlike humans have no choice. They cannot communicate when they feel pain or discomfort and therefore we have to ask ourselves is it right to use them in research. I sit on the fence with this topic because I feel that while it is unfair and unethical, it is extremely important in the world of research and science. If a new drug was being brought out and was in the very early stages of development then I would choose an animal rather than a human to test it. As I’m sure many people would. But I feel it is unnecessary to use animals in tests that take them away from their natural environments for purposes such as measuring their intelligence. Many laws have been put in place to ensure that animals are treated in an ethical manner but are these laws strong enough? We still test products on rats to see if they react well to a certain chemical or not which can potentially cause pain. After all, rats and not humans and they may have a different reaction to what humans have- therefore the findings cannot be generalised to humans.

In Psychology, many researchers have used animals in their experiments to measure animal behaviours. Skinner (1938) used rats in his experiment to see whether he could reinforce a particular behaviour. His aim was to measure how many times the rat would press the lever in order to get food. He noticed that the rat associated that pressing the lever would produce a reward (food) and from there Skinner could see positive reinforcement. Although this observation is well known by many on how reliable Skinner’s data was, can it really be useful? The experiment was only performed on rats, therefore his observation can only be generalised to rats and not humans. Another point is that keeping the rat in a small box is unethical as it goes against the rats natural environment.

However Cheney & Seyfarth et al (1990) believe that it is important to compare humans with animals as they say their are commonalities in the communication. They go on to say how Velvet monkeys have different calls for alarm depending on the type of predator they are faced with. This kind of research helps Psychologists understand the differences and similarities animals have with humans. Of course learning about animals is just as important that learning about humans- we all share a world together.

Studies that are conducted in an animals natural environment should be allowed as it is not harming the animal or taking them away from their habitat. This is purely observations of how animals act and behave with others thus highly ethical and ecological findings will be found.

References

Cheney & Seyfarth (1990) (as cited in Gleitman, Gross, Reisberg, Psychology 8th Edition, p414)

Skinner (1938) (as cited in Gleitman, Gross, Reisberg, Psychology 8th Edition, p281)