Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Individual
Differences
(S+W)
- Provides useful in improving the
experiences of people with mental
health problems.
- E.g. Rosenhan's study led to a revision of the way that people
with mental health problems are both diagnosed and treated.
Similarly the study by Griffiths suggests that a type of cognitive
behavioural therapy may be successful with addicted
gamblers.
- The development and use of
psychometric tests to measure the
differences between individuals in
qualities such as personality and
intelligence.
- These
psychometric tests
provide reliable and
quantitative data
which can easily be
analysed and
therefore similarities
and differences
between individuals
can be discovered.
- Psychometric tests were
used in the study of multiple
personality by Thigpen and
Cleckley. However it may of
had observer bias.
- Reliance on dispositional explanations at the expense of
situational explanations. That is the individual differences
approach explains individual differences as resulting from a
person's own characteristics or disposition and has a tendency
to ignore external factors such as the situation a person is in.
- E.g. many of Eve's
difficulties could also be
explained by the
expectations of being a wife
in the US in the 1950s.
- Ethical issues raised with labelling people as
being different. The tendency to label people as
being different, abnormal and so on can have a
negative effect on individuals.
- Rosenhan was particularly critical about both the reliability and negative
effects of labelling. Furthermore such labels particularly negative ones can
lead to a self fulfilling prophecy in which expectations about a person (or a
group of people) can come true simply because of those expectations.