Description
Throughout this unit, you have learned about various research methods that are used by psychologists. For this assignment, you must choose three of the six scenarios listed below.
- Elena is a psychologist interested in understanding the impact of a sense of control on stress in humans. She brings in students from around campus and gives them a number of choices (increasing sense of control) before exposing them to a very difficult math test. She brings in another group of students and does not give them any choices before giving them the math test. She uses the scores earned by the two groups to see if those students given choices before the test do better than the students who did not get choices.
- Maxim is working with Joaquin in a counseling situation. Joaquin is a resident of the local jail, having been found stealing pastries from a bake shop. When caught, Joaquin claimed that the devil told him to do it and that he had done far worse things in the past. Maxim visits with him and makes notes about what he learns about Joaquin each time they are together.
- Glynnis is interested in understanding how people handle confrontation. She hangs out in a store near the customer service counter unobtrusively watching the agents at the desk. She records if they respond with passive aggressiveness, kindness, or anger.
- Gigi is a student in the marketing department. She wants to understand more about what attracts people to certain products. She creates a document with pictures of cereal boxes and asks people to rate which box they would be most attracted to when searching for a cereal. She then gathers information about their age, income, profession, and gender.
- Breck is interested in studying personal space and relationships. He gathers a number of students who are strangers, acquaintances, close friends, or in romantic relationships. He brings them into a classroom and asks them to begin a conversation with each other. He records the distance between the individuals having the conversation.
- Lucretia works at a children’s hospital. Her responsibility is to ask children who are coming to the hospital for the first time to respond to a number of questionnaires that may help determine their anxiety, depression, and pain levels.
After choosing three of the above scenarios, answer the following questions for each of your three scenarios.
- Which research method was used (case history, survey, naturalistic observation, psychological tests, laboratory observation, or experiment)?
- Identify the information in the scenario that supports your reasoning.
- What ethical guidelines would need to be followed to conduct this study?
- Which basic ideas behind early approaches in psychology most closely align with this method?
Explanation & Answer
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Running head: PSYCHOLOGY CASE STUDIES
Psychology Case Studies
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Scenario 2 – Maxim
The research method that has been used by Maxim in this scenario is the case study
research method (Breakwell et al., 2006) because Maxim is focused on only one subject,
Joaquin. He wants to collect in-depth information on Joaquin and what he thinks about why he is
a resident at the local jail and whether he understands what awaits him. Maxim seeks to
understand Joaquin better to understand his behavior and the motivations behind it.
Some of the ethical guidelines that would be needed to conduct this study are that Maxim
must inform Joaquin of why he needs to open up and how the information obtained will be used
for his benefit. He must introduce himself as a counselor by letting Joaquin know that his role
there is to help him to get a fair trial. This will eradicate all fear from Joaquin and as such,
Maxim will be able to collect all the information he needs (Breakwell et al., 2006).
The basic idea behind early approaches in psychology that most closely aligns with this
method is Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory which articulates that the behavior of
individual results from an interaction between their identity, their ego, and their superego
(Elliott, 2015). As such, any metal problems can be resolved through talking about them just as
Maxim intends to talk to Joaquin who believes that it was the devil that told him to steal pastries
from a bakeshop (His ego). He even goes further and states that he has done far much worse
things in the past. Talking to Joaquin with enabling Maxim to understand the motivation behind
Joaquin’s behavior and hence resolve any mental issues that he could be battling.
Scenario 4 – Gigi
The research method that has been used by Gigi in this scenario is the survey research
method (Breakwell et al., 2006). Having established the area of interest as what attracts people to
PSYCHOLOGY CASE STUDIES
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certain products Gigi creates a questionnaire or survey with cereal boxes pictures for the people
to identify the box of cereal they would be most attracted to. After this, she also records
information about the respondents’ demog...
