Tips for the exam and a goodbye from me!

• Read the question fully and highlight the key terms, including the question word (e.g. how/why)
• Spend 10 mins max. on part (a) questions, and 20 mins max on part (b) questions.
• Include as much relevant research as you can 
• Include details if it's relevant
• Use as many evaluative points in part (b) as you possibly can, with regards to the question
• Answer 4 questions: 2 from 1 section, 2 from another. You won't get the marks if you don't! Even if you aren't sure, do your best and don't miss out any questions. Also, don't accidentally answer 3 from one section!
• Don't panic!

Best of luck to everybody tomorrow! With regards to the site, I probably won't be answering any more comments, but I will be posting a link in the next few months about my new blog, which will be more generally about psychology, and posts based on my lectures from university (hopefully!)

So, do your best, and show the examiners what you can do. Hopefully some of you will be visiting my next blog!

Vicky

The DSM-IV and ICD-10

There are two main manuals which give details about the categories of dysfunctional behaviour and thus are manuals on how to diagnose dysfunctional behaviour. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is probably more widely used, whilst many studies conducted in the UK and US refer to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which is a specific manual for psychological disorders, whilst the ICD contains one chapter on psychological disorders and is as a whole a manual on health disorders generally.

The DSM is a practical guide based on field trials and empirical research, as well as referring to past editions of both the DSM and ICD. It was produced by the APA and instructs psychiatrists to evaluate the patient in terms of five axes, although the latter two are optional. The axes are as follows: clinical disorders (such as depression), personality disorders (such as mental retardation), physical health (due to recognising that long-term illness, for example, can influence mental health), environmental factors (such as family problems), and global assessment of functioning. These axes reflect an understanding that disorders result from an interaction of biological, psychological and social factors, and thus it is necessary to look at these axes to give a thorough analysis and diagnosis.

The ICD is an international standard diagnostic classification manual, published by the World Health Organisation – it is now in its tenth revision. Chapter 5 is the only chapter relevant for mental and behavioural disorders, as it is a manual for all health disorders. It is more symptom-based than the DSM, and lists clinical and personality disorders on the same axis. There are also 5 more groups of disorders than in the DSM, with ten therefore in total. These axes include: organic mental disorders, delusional disorders, mood disorders, mental retardation, and stress-related and neurotic disorders.

EVALUATION POINTS FOR AFTER A GUILTY VERDICT

As requested, here is a list of issues and evaluation points you can use for after a guilty verdict. It isn't comprehensive, so feel free to comment and add your own or just use a couple of these. It's completely up to you; use the most relevant evaluation points you can think of.

• Ethics: obviously,  the death penalty and imprisonment are unethical. But, restorative justice is also pretty traumatic. 
• Freewill and determinism: consequences of committing a crime tend to follow the ideology that criminals choose to commit crimes, despite upbringing, cognition, and biology all being deterministic explanations of crime. Thus, you can evaluate the appropriateness of punishing someone for what they didn't choose to do - if it's relevant. 
• Situational versus dispositional: this is one most relevant to imprisonment and treatments. Both seem to adopt the ideology that criminals themselves are to blame for their behaviour, whilst research has suggested situation and environment can play a role in determining criminality. Here you can refer to reductionism. Thus, are treatments likely to be effective if they're ignoring one aspect of why people commit crime?
• Methodology of research: a lot of research is content analysis, which is inexpensive and replicable, but is of course limited by the validity and methodology of the individual studies. You can, as with all research, evaluate population validity, ecological validity (most research is done in the field, which is great), usefulness, etc.
• Effectiveness of treatments: look at reduction in aggressive/anti-social behaviour, time/cost effectiveness, as well as recidivism.
• You can also look at how well research has been applied. Haney and Zimbardo suggested that individual differences should be taken into account, prisons should be used sparingly, and that psychological knowledge should be applied to prison policy. But the actual implementation of this seems slow, and prison is still more widely spread than most of the alternatives. There is still racial bias in US prisons, too. However, research raises the issues surrounding punishment and rehabilitation of offenders, and thus you could say any discussion is beneficial. 

EVALUATION FOR MAKING A CASE

Interviewing witnesses
STUDIES: Bruce, Loftus, Fisher

Generally questions have been based on research, so here are some issues:
Evaluating research;

• ecological validity: Bruce and Loftus are poor in EV, Fisher is high
• population validity/generalisability: all fairly low, but at least Fisher uses real detectives
• all are experiments: good for control and internal validity, and allow for replicability so likely to be somewhat reliable. However, many factors influence information given in witness interviews so it's unlikely that given the same situation, that any two people would give a consistent account and thus reliability is questionable. 
• usefulness and application: knowing about the inaccuracy of e-fit identification, eyewitness accounts and effectiveness of CIT has excellent real-life implications, helps inform policy and could help to change the way that juries perceive eyewitness testimonies. However the results aren't really well known, so this is a drawback.

Interviewing Suspects

• Validity of suspect interviews: police officers only 64.5% accurate at telling truth from lies, interviews lead to social desirability and all associated issues, interrogations lead to false confessions, etc. Research in this area tends to have high EV though, which is good because generalisability of findings should be strong.
• Reliability: similar to interviewing witnesses, affected by individual differences of interviewee and interviewer.
• Ethics is an important issue
• Usefulness/applications of research: shows that police officers may need more training in identifying lies and truth, highlights the unethical nature and poor validity of confessions obtained through interrogation

Creating a Profile

• Validity, effectiveness and usefulness: Mokros and Alison suggested that top down typological profiling is inaccurate as it's too reductionist, Canter found bottom up approaches effective, and Copson found that police officers may not be aware of benefits of profiling but that many would use again for a second opinion
• Reliability: top down is more reliable as it uses pre-existing categories. 
• Qualitative and quantitative data: both approaches feature some qualitative (e.g. looking at details, not numerical data) and some quantitative (e.g. looking at numbers and patterns). Quantitative is good because it's easy to analyse, qualitative is good because it's more in-depth and more humanistic. 
• Determinism: top down assumes that similar criminals create similar crime scenes, which is fairly reductionist and deterministic. Bottom up is less deterministic in that it suggests criminal choose to act consistently, and more holistic as it looks at each characteristic in turn and builds up a picture rather than choosing for example disorganised or organised. 

Identifying disorders and why it's not as simple as it seems

Characteristics for disorders (DSM-IV)

SCHIZOPHRENIA

• Psychotic disorder
• Generally characterised by loss of contact with “reality”
• Must have 2+ symptoms, as well as socio-occupational dysfunction
• Positive symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations and disordered thought/speech/actions
• Negative symptoms such as loss of contact with reality, catatonia, loss of pleasure in usual activities and loss of emotional responses

DEPRESSION

• Affective disorder, so most linked to mood changes
• Can be unipolar or bipolar as well as dysthymic (chronic)
• Must have 5+ symptoms to be classified as depression
• Behavioural symptoms include loss of pleasure and loss of appetite
• Physical symptoms include catatonia, fatigue and insomnia
• Cognitive symptoms include poor concentration and suicidal thoughts
• Emotional symptoms include feelings of worthlessness and persistent negative moods
• Bipolar disorder includes episodes of these characteristics alongside manic episodes, including delusions of grandeur, excessive happiness and feeling restless (those with bipolar may be confused with schizophrenia due to the occasional presence of delusions and disordered speech, thought or actions)

PHOBIA

• Anxiety disorder
• Persistent, excessive fear or anxiety and recognised as so
• Immediate fear response on contact
• Actively seeks to avoid phobic situation
• Disruption to everyday life
• May seem irrational to others but has very real consequences to the individual

Issues with identifying disorders:

• Highly subjective
• Requires self-report from individuals who may not perceive their behaviour as abnormal or dysfunctional, or who may be prone to lying/disordered thoughts and social desirability
• There is significant overlap between disorders e.g. loss of pleasure is a factor in depression and schizophrenia, whilst bipolar disorders and schizophrenia can feature delusions and disordered actions. Anxiety is also somewhat common amongst people who are depressed, due to feelings of worthlessness and pessimistic depressive thought patterns.

Some great short videos on clinical disorders

If you're anything like me, by this point in your revision looking at past papers and studies have started to get so monotonous you aren't sure it's going in. So, try a different approach.

Here's a link to a website some of you might find really useful. It's full of videos and short summaries of characteristics of disorders, explanations and treatments. Just use the search bar at the top to navigate yourself around. 

Enjoy!

Evaluation points for Stress

As requested, I've done some evaluation points for stress. They aren't the only ones, so if you think of any more, feel free to use those. 

Causes of Stress

• You could evaluate the extent to which each of these were nomothetic - does everybody have lack of control/work/daily hassles/life events? Does it cause each person stress?
• You could look at situational versus dispositional - all of these actually tend to favour situational explanations of stress, but the treatments tend to be dispositional, so this could be a good issue to look into. 
• You could maybe also look at how simple these causes would be to fix, and how the knowledge that they cause stress could be use. This leads you to evaluation issues such as usefulness and application. 

Measures of Stress

• Validity is a major issue here. You've got low construct validity in that it's hard to define stress and thus hard to know when you're measuring it, as well as face validity because the measures of stress can be affected by lying, memory, demand characteristics, illness, emotion, etc. Also, different people experience stress differently so using only one measure on participants may not be a valid approach.
• Reliability is also important. As different people experience stress differently, measures are unlikely to give consistent results if used again in similar situations. Too many things affect measures of stress and stress itself in order to give consistent results on physiological or self-report measures.
• Reductionism is a potential issue. Obviously, measures which are only self-report (e.g. SRRS) or only physiological (e.g. heart rate monitor) are reductionist and don't look at many features of stress response or the dynamic between them, whilst combined measures are holistic and thus may be more appropriate and useful.

Managing Stress

• Situational versus dispositional is also appropriate to evaluate here. Social support takes the situational approach whilst cognition is dispositional, as is behaviourism (biofeedback). Though, behaviourist ways of managing stress emphasise the role of positive reinforcement, so it has a situational element as well. You could obviously link this to reductionism and holism. 
• You could look at whether symptoms or causes of stress are targeted, and evaluate whether this is a good approach to managing stress. SIT attempts to prevent stress as well as help the individual overcome their current stress which Meichenbaum suggests is the actual cause of stress, thus it targets causes rather than symptoms. Biofeedback treats the symptoms of stress response rather than the causes as it teaches relaxation, though this may prevent stress too. Social support targets the symptoms and causes in that having strong social networks can provide support to prevent stress, and provide support once stress has onset. 
• You could also look at effectiveness by looking at whether research supports it, or by cost and time effectiveness. Biofeedback in the form of EMG machines are expensive and require a practitioner, it's somewhat difficult and expensive to get a therapist but once you've learned the skills it lasts a long time, and social support is free and lasts a long time, but is not instantaneous. 

Also, some of the studies are pretty unethical, such as Geer and Maisel, and those which put participants on waiting lists rather than giving them therapy. Though control groups help with internal validity checks, they aren't the most ethical. E.g. Meichenbaum's study had a control group of students who did worse on their exams than the experimental groups - if they were in the other group, they'd have benefited and thus they lost out. 

Evaluation points for Turning to Crime

I may be posting more of these, so keep checking back. If you have any other suggestions for the blog, leave a comment! 

S = strength, W =weakness

? = potentially

UPBRINGING

-          Situational perspective (S=useful for government, W=reductionist)

-          Nurture perspective (S=easier to change than biology, W=ignores biology)

-          Determinist explanation (S=follows scientific laws as in physics, may encourage rehabilitation rather than punishment, W=ignores freewill, how can we punish people for something they didn’t choose)

-          Reductionist (S=easier to understand, helps us to determine causality and importance of individual factors, W=ignores dynamic of relationship between factors, may not be valid)

-          Runs in families; not necessarily upbringing (S=easier to change environment than biology, W=may not have face validity)

-          For maximum validity, studies testing this explanation need to be longitudinal (S=more in-depth, track development, W=attrition, observer bias, ethics)

COGNITION

-          Dispositional perspective (S=suggests therapy may be useful, W=reductionist)

-          Doesn’t specify nature or nurture; could be both (S=holistic, W=unknown cause?)

-          Soft deterministic as it suggests that cognitions determine behaviour but we have some freewill over our cognitions (S=more holistic, W=to what extent can we blame the individual?)

-          Cognitions aren’t observable (S=more complex than behaviourist approach, accepts that people have individual differences, W=subjective, non-scientific, may be invalid)

-          Somewhat more holistic as cognition can be influenced by situation as well as nature and nurture (S=likely to be valid as it looks at a variety of factors, W=still reductionist in that biology and upbringing tend to be overlooked, may not enable causality so may be less useful)

-          Relies on self-report (S=allows for attitudes and cognitions to be accessed, qualitative and quantitative data, W=validity may be poor due to demand characteristics, lying, and misinterpretation etc.)

BIOLOGY

-          Deterministic (S= follows scientific laws as in physics, may encourage treatment rather than punishment, W=ignores freewill, how can we punish people for something they didn’t choose)

-          Reliance on correlation (S=more ethical than manipulating biology, W=causality; how do we know whether brain dysfunction/genes/serotonin is a cause or result of criminal behaviour?)

-          Reductionist (S=easier to understand, helps us to determine causality and importance of individual factors, W=ignores dynamic of relationship between factors, may not be valid)

-          Nature approach (S=more scientific, observable, objective, W=harder to rehabilitate, reductionist)

What the examiners are looking for

Obviously, you need to answer 4 questions from 2 sections. You need to answer them well, describe and evaluate research and studies, and show the examiners what you know.

Sometimes though, the mark schemes are less than clear about how to reach that top band (the As and A*s). Here are some generic tips I've found in the mark schemes that are important in getting as close to full marks as you can:

January 2013

• Relevant research should be applied to part a)
• Must address “how” if the question asks for this
• “Discussion” may involve a comparison and following/challenging a viewpoint
• Detail is beneficial in part a)
• Usefulness, application, ecological validity, reductionism, reliability and ethics are all good evaluation points for interviewing witnesses
• A good way to “assess strengths and weaknesses” is to discuss whether or not an apparent “weakness” may actually be desirable or necessary in order to fulfil a function

June 2012

• Responses should be clear, precise and explicit
• To what extent implies a degree of judgement is necessary
• Responses should directly answer the question rather than simply describing research when this is not asked for. Research can be used to illustrate responses but this should be linked to the question.
• Usefulness can be examined in terms of validity, reliability, ethnocentrism, etc.
• Stronger answers with regards to treatments will be contextualised
• Comparison invites similarities as well as differences
• Reliability can be affected by mood, interviewee, social desirability bias, lying and misjudgement 

Behavioural explanation and treatment of depression

Approach	Explanation [Study]	Treatment [Study]
BEHAVIOURAL All behaviour is learned Depression is learned Depression can be unlearned	The behaviourist perspective explains that depression is learned and is the result of the environment; particularly, depression is the result of maladaptive learning experiences. Lewinsohn argued that positive reinforcements were important; lacking positive reinforcement for non-depressed activities and then gaining positive reinforcement for depressed activities could cause depression. Lewinsohn: sample of 30 participants, some with depression and some without. They were asked to self-report their positive reinforcements in a “pleasant events schedule”, and their depression levels were monitored on a “depression adjective checklist”. The results showed a negative correlation between positive reinforcements and depression scores.	The behaviourist perspective assumes that as behaviour can be learned, it can also be unlearned. In terms of positive reinforcements, this means that positive reinforcements can be introduced to the individual’s daily life as a reward for non-depressed activities such as socialising and getting things done. It’s generally part of CBT programmes, rather than administered by itself. e.g. Lewinsohn conducted a study on the CBT course of “coping with depression”, which involved a sample of 69 adolescents with depression. There were 3 groups: a control group, the standard CBT group, and the CBT group with the addition of parents being encouraged to give reinforcements for improvements in behaviour. The control group improved 5%, the standard CBT group improved 43%, and the parent+CBT group improved 47%.

Effectiveness and Appropriateness

These two seem to catch a lot of people out, because they're pretty hard to define and apply to different areas. Here's some generic tips, with an example to help. 

Effectiveness - the extent to which something brings about an effect, usually a positive one.

(Example question: Assess the effectiveness of offender treatment programmes)

Introduction - define effectiveness

1. Who is it effective for?
(e.g. anger management is only effective for non-psychopathic males, who have an anger problem so it isn't effective for a wide audience, whilst cognitive skills programmes are effective for most offenders as they target the cognitions believed to result in criminality, such as taking a social perspective, self-control and morality)

2. To what extent does it make a difference?
(e.g. to what extent do the treatments reduce recidivism or improve behaviour? Anger management is believed to be somewhat effective, but not in all cases. Ireland et al found it did reduce some angry behaviours. Ear acupuncture appears to make a significant difference to aspects of an addicts life such as improving mood and sleep as well as cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Cognitive skills programmes found to reduce recidivism rates by 14% which is positive, but it's obviously not effective enough to reduce it by more)

3. Is it time and cost effective?
(e.g. therapy treatments tend not to be because they require several sessions, whilst biological treatments such as acupuncture are quick and easy to administer)

Conclusion: summary
Somewhat effective, but a holistic approach where two or more methods are combined would be most effective. 

Appropriateness

Appropriateness refers to the extent to which something is suitable, usually in terms of population or situation.

To what extent are treatments for your chosen disorder (e.g. depression) appropriate?

You could answer this by looking at the population: people with depression. Personally, I'd break it down into biological treatments and therapies. 

Biological treatment: drug therapy.
Yes it's appropriate because... it requires little participation from the client, who is likely to feel apathetic, lack motivation, etc. 
No it's not appropriate because... treating a disorder that does not necessarily have a biological cause with drugs may not be treating the real issue, but actually just reducing the symptoms of low serotonin levels.

Cognitive/behavioural therapies: CBT
Yes it's appropriate because... the relationship between the client and therapist may boost confidence in the client and in others and give them a sense of purpose. The behaviourist element to CBT also encourages and rewards self-motivation and non-depressed activities, which helps to teach the client to overcome possible future relapses.
No it's not appropriate because... it requires a LOT of motivation on behalf of the client, it's often quite a lengthy process which people suffering with depression are unlikely to have the energy to go through, etc.

And my conclusion would probably be that drug therapy is appropriate for those with short-term, reactive depression because they need a "quick fix", but if depression is long-term or recurring, therapy enables skills to deal with depression more effectively and thus this may be more appropriate in the long run. 

Characteristics of disorders - Phobia, Depression and Schizophrenia

Anxiety disorders
An anxiety disorder is broadly described as a disorder which gives a continuous feeling of fear or anxiety, which is disabling and reduces daily functioning. Anxiety may be triggered by something that appears trivial to others, or may even be “non-existent” – but it feels very real and can have disastrous effects on the person with the disorder. Anxiety disorders encompass many different types of disorders, such as OCD and phobias.


Phobia
A phobia is defined as having a persistent fear of a particular phobic object or situation, for example of dogs or being in enclosed situations. It must be fairly severe to be classified as a dysfunctional behaviour, and the person must exhibit various symptoms such as avoiding the stimulus of the phobic reaction and feeling very apprehensive or becoming unwell when in the phobic situation. The DSM IV will classify a phobia on the basis that the phobic reaction is marked, persistent and excessive or unreasonable and recognised as so. Other characteristics a psychologist or psychiatrist would look for in order to diagnose someone with a phobia is if the situation is avoided, it disrupts the person’s normal life, and if exposure to the stimulus provokes an immediate anxiety response. Additionally, if the person is under 18, the phobia must have been in excess of six months of duration. These are the symptoms that most with phobias will exhibit; however one or two not shown in the patient is unlikely to hinder their diagnosis as individual differences means people react differently to phobias.
 
Affective (mood) disorders
An affective disorder is one which is affects someone’s mood and emotions. Whilst it is completely normal to have varied and sometimes irrational moods, sometimes such severe or debilitating moods are the result of an affective disorder. The most common affective disorder is depression, which is likely to affect most people directly either through an individual themselves having it or someone they are close to having it.


Depression
The DSM IV would require a patient or client to be exhibiting five or more of the listed symptoms in the manual in order to diagnose somebody with depression. These symptoms can be emotional, such as sadness and loss of pleasure in usual activities, behavioural and physiological such as insomnia and fatigue, or cognitive such as poor concentration and suicidal thoughts – or there can be a mixture of all three. There are many types of depression, but the two most common and most known are unipolar depression and bipolar depression. Unipolar is also known as major depression, and is associated with low mood, a sense of worthlessness, hopelessness and inability to experience pleasure, either in single episodes, periodic outbreaks or continually. Bipolar depression is when somebody’s mood fluctuates between depressive episodes (as described above) and manic episodes which are the extreme opposites. Symptoms are frequently split with episodes of perceived normality, and periods of mania and depression can last anywhere between days and years.


Psychotic disorders
Psychosis is the general term for disorders which involve loss of contact with “reality”, and those diagnosed with psychotic disorders frequently exhibit symptoms such as disordered thought and speech, delusions and withdrawal from the outside world. One psychotic disorder in which these symptoms are typical is schizophrenia.
 
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder which is characterized by various delusions such as auditory and visual hallucinations, disordered thought and speech and chaotic behaviour and actions. Schizophrenia is described as having positive symptoms, meaning something is gained, such as delusions and disordered behaviour, as well as negative symptoms, such as losing emotional responses and inability to feel pleasure. The DSM would require two or more of these symptoms in order for a diagnosis to be made, as well as social occupational dysfunction which is unexplained by medication or developmental disorders. 

Predictions

A lot of people are trying to guess what'll come up in the paper, but it's such a risky way to revise. Honestly, this paper is unpredictable, so you're going to need to learn all the studies and theories in the 3 or 4 sections from each of your options. The examiners know that people try to guess what will come up, so they are unlikely to give you lots of questions on the sections that haven't come up yet.

There really is no substitute for learning it all, and learning it well.

Some practice questions for Forensic

(a)    Outline how an upbringing in poverty or disadvantaged neighbourhoods could explain why someone might turn to crime (10)
(b)   Discuss the validity of upbringing explanations to crime (15)
 (a)    Describe one piece of research into how criminality might be learnt from others (10)
(b)   Discuss the reliability of research into cognitive explanations of crime (15)
 (a)    Describe one piece of research into the cognitive interviewing technique (10)
(b)   Evaluate the validity of research into interviewing witnesses (15)