More on childhood and romantic relationships...

Here is a further presentation relating to research on the connection between childhood experiences and adult relationships.

A key issue in this topic is that different approaches can explain the findings of studies such as the Love Quiz - in particular there is a Nature vs Nurture debate angle, as the temperament (genes) hypothesis and continuity (early experience) hypothesis both explain why securely attached babies grow into securely attached adults etc.

There is a good opportunity for a methodological discussion too. Questionnaires like the Love Quiz allow a lot of data to be collected, but samples generally end up being quite biased anyway (readers of the same paper, and a volunteer bias - what type of person responds to this kind of thing?). Structured interviews allow more valid judgements of childhood attachment type to be made, because it's harder for participants motivated by social desirability bias to 'cheat'. The Adult Attachment Interview uses body language and the consistency of answers to different questions to judge how truthful participants are being.

The results of such studies support the original findings - but it could still all be temperament, or social learning for that matter. An even bigger problem for psychologists in this field is that properly scientific testing of these hypotheses isn't possible. Why not? What would be necessary??

How does childhood influence adult romantic relationships?

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this one...

There is some fairly strong evidence for children with secure attachments with their primary care givers growing into adults with secure romantic relationships, with less happy futures ahead of infants who form insecure avoidant or resisntant/ambivalent attachments. The debate is essentially nature vs nurture - the 'continuity hypothesis' is on the nurture side; it is Bowlby's view that infants learn an Internal Working Model of relationships during the critical period in the first two years of their life. However, it could be that they were born that way - the 'temperament hypothesis'.

Here is the presentation, but we only really used the first slide on Monday - your homework is to complete your notes on these and bring them along next Tuesday:

1. Outline Bowlby’s evolutionary theory of attachment. (two sentences max) 
2. Describe the procedures and findings of the strange situation. (two sentences max) 
3. Describe the procedures, findings and conclusions of the ‘Love Quiz’. 
4. What is the ‘continuity’ explanation for this? 
5. What alternative explanations exist? 
6. How strong is the evidence for continuity overall?

Breakdown of romantic relationships

Today we discussed Duck's (also known as Rollie & Duck's) stage-model for the dissolution (or breakdown) of romantic relationships.

Here is the presentation on theories of maintenance (which can also be used to explain breakdown) and Duck's breakdown theory.

Here is a sheet giving more detail on Duck's theory with some questions relating to its evaluation.

We looked at an example answer for this question:
"Discuss one theory of the maintenance of romantic relationships and one theory of the breakdown of romantic relationships." (8 marks + 16 marks).

Homework is to complete this for Wednesday next week.

We will also have a 'wall game' on Friday next week - all studies / theories covered so far could come up!

Theories of the Formation and Maintenance of Relationships

What factors lead people to form relationships, or not? We have looked at two theories here - the Filter Model (a 'field of availables' is filtered, in three stages, to a 'field of desirables' - people you actually want to go out with) and Reward / Need theory (relationships get going if both parties are rewarded for being with each other, and certain needs - including self-disclosure - are met).

Reward / Need can also be used to explain why some relationships are maintained while others break down. We have also considered 'Economic' theories based on Social Exchange - the trade-off of benefits and costs of being in a relationship.

Here is the presentation for theories of the formation of relationships, and here is the one for maintenance and  breakdown of relationships.

Bring your notes on these, including how they are supported by research, to Friday's lesson please.

Psychology book club

Psychology book club meets next on Monday 21st Jan (postponed from Mon 14th). We have been reading 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre - I have a few copies left so see me if you want to join in this week.

Our next book will be 'Opening Skinner's Box' by Lauren Slater, an investigation of the twentieth century through a series of ten fascinating, witty and sometimes shocking accounts of its key psychological experiments. These include classics from the AS and A2 course, Milgram, Zimbardo, Harlow & Rosenhan, and many more. Well worth a read for any A'level psychologist.

1.30pm, Monday 21st Jan, R23, tea & cake provided.

Mrs Watson

Schizophrenia essay

A reminder of the current homework essay on schizophrenia: 


'Discuss issues associated with the classification and diagnosis of schizophrenia' (8+16 marks)

I know that lots of people have exams at the moment but this still needs to be done - deadlines have been extended. I think this is the trickiest area of the schizophrenia spec so it will be well worth your while preparing this essay.

Neurochemical and neuroanatomical explanations of schizophrenia

Today we continued our examination of the biological explanations of schizophrenia with a look at the dopamine hypothesis and the neuroanatomical theories. The ppt is here (scroll down).
Bear in mind that no one theory is going to be satisfactory. Schizophrenia has large between-patient and within-patient differences, virtually all schizophrenics are on long-term antipsychotic medication, and there are big questions over cause and effect - does the increased dopamine (or increased ventricle size) lead to the schizophrenia? Or vice versa?
Please make sure you catch up if you were absent due to exams. I won't be covering the material again in class.