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. 

Case study of offender profiling - JOHN DUFFY

Canter applied his criminal consistency theory in order to create an offender profile for the "Railway rapist". 

The offender profile that Canter provided included the following characteristics based on interpersonal consistency:

• male in his mid-late twenties
• poor relationship with women but has probably been married
• considerable sexual experience, potentially with bondage
• a couple of close male friends
• experience with police or knowledge of procedures (he combed the victim's pubic hair to remove evidence of his own)
• probably not physically strong (he used restraints but only enough control to rape)
• male in his mid-late twenties; potentially semi-skilled work

And these were characteristics based on spatial consistency:

• knowledge of the railway
• worked/lived nearby crime scene

These moved John Duffy up the list of suspects to the prime suspect spot due to his extraordinary similarity to the offender profile. 

He was 29 and worked as a travelling carpenter for British rail. He had been married, but was separated. During their time together, Duffy tied his wife up during sex, and the relationship was abusive. He had a criminal record and watched hardcore pornography. He also had two male friends.

(               a)     Describe one case study as an approach to offender profiling (10)

A case study is a piece of research which looks extensively at and documents the development or investigation of one particular event, individual or group. One example of a case study which documents a case of offender profiling is Canter’s case study of John Duffy, the railway rapist.

Canter is a forensic psychologist who devised the criminal consistency hypothesis which is central to the way that many offender profiles are created using the bottom up approach. The criminal consistency hypothesis has two central components: interpersonal consistency, which is the idea that the offender is likely to interact with others in his or her daily life in a similar way to how the victim was treated; and spatial consistency, which refers to how many offenders will commit crimes in places they are familiar with, so it may be en route to their work, or to a friend’s house they visit regularly. In his case study, John Duffy built up the offender profiling upon these principles.

The “railway rapist” was a serial rapist and murderer of several women, who committed these violent sexual acts at railway stations throughout the south east of England during the 1980s. Canter was employed to build up an offender profile in order to significantly narrow down the list of suspects. From the crime scenes, Canter believed that the offender would be in his mid to late twenties, and was likely to have been married though had generally poor relationships with women. The profile also consisted of characteristics such as having an extensive knowledge of the railway systems, a job which involved semi-skilled labour, and previous police contact, judging from the way the bodies were largely clean of any DNA of the offender. Canter also deducted that it’s likely that the offender enjoyed bondage and had considerable sexual experience due to the treatment of the victims, but was likely not to be physically strong.

The offender profile drawn up by Canter was found to be extraordinarily accurate of one man, John Duffy, who admitted to the crimes. He was 29, and had recently separated from his wife. During their marriage, which was abusive, he liked to tie up his wife during sexual intercourse, and he also enjoyed hard-core pornography. Canter had two close male friends, but no female friends. He worked as a travelling carpenter for British rail, and had previous police contact.

Thus, a case study such as Canter’s study of John Duffy, can be used as an effective approach to offender profiling as it gathers in depth data about the crime scene and allows for thorough and extensive profiling to be undertaken. 

Creating a Profile - Top down approach

This is potentially one of the more difficult areas to get your head around in G543 forensic psychology. Here's a simplified version that can help you with your 10-markers:

• The top-down approach is also referred to as "crime scene analysis", "typological profiling"and "the FBI approach".
• It's American (used by the FBI).
• It was based on a small number of case studies of offenders, which essentially categorized offenders and crimes into organised or disorganised:
• Organized crime scenes are generally characterized by no visible evidence or weapon. They're planned in advance, thoughtful and not spontaneous. The body may be hidden, or moved from the original location. It reflects control, and restraints may have been used and brought with them. Organized offenders are thought to be of above average intelligence, socially and sexually competent, may be in a relationship, and was likely to be depressed or frustrated at the time of the murder.
• Disorganized crime scenes tend to be the result of spontaneous crimes. Little or no effort has been made to remove evidence, and crime scenes show lack of control. Disorganized offenders are likely to live or work nearby the scene, live alone or with parents, be of low birth order status, not be in a stable relationship, and of average or below average IQ.
• It's described as a qualitative approach to offender profiling due to looking at the overall picture and using typologies. 
• It's based on police experience and case studies rather than psychological theory.
• It's suitable for the more extreme/unusual crimes, such as murder, rape and ritualistic crimes. 

N.B. Whilst it was based on case studies of actual offenders, studies have suggested that this may not be a reliable way to create accurate offender profiles. For example, Mokros and Alison used a sample of 100 rapists, and found no correlation between aspects of crime scenes and characteristics of the offender. This suggests that socio-demographic profiling may be too reductionist. 

What is the cognitive interview (CIT)?

The cognitive interview is a major part of interviewing witnesses. It's essentially an interview between a witness and detective where the detective uses cognitive techniques in the form of CIT to "extract" information from the witness in as much depth and accuracy as possible.

There are four stages of CIT:

1. Report everything. The witness is asked to recall everything they can remember about the event, regardless of how insignificant they perceive it to be. 
2. Context reinstatement. The witness is asked to give details on the context of the event, including where they were, what time of the day it was, what they'd been doing before that led them to this situation, etc.
3. Recall in a different order. The detective asks the witness to start from one point in the day and recall backwards or forwards from that point. It helps to reduce the "story-telling" tendencies we have when recalling information about a previous event. 
4. Recall from a different perspective. The detective asks the witness to say what they think others could have seen from a different point of view.

Reductionism

Reductionism is a really key issue in psychology because to some extent it can be applied to every theory, and every approach or paradigm. 

Reductionism refers to the breaking down of complex phenomenon into smaller components. It's the opposite of holism, where complex phenomena are looked at in their entirety.

Reductionism/holism is a continuum rather than an either/or description of a theory or approach. Some of the more reductionist approaches are behaviourism and the biological approach, whilst the more holistic approaches are humanistic psychology, the individual differences approach and social psychology.

Essentially, the more simplistically a behaviour is explained, the more reductionist the theory. 

Usefulness

Like many of the issues and key terms in psychology, we know the gist of this term but it's one that is pretty hard to answer in an exam situation. What does it mean, and what points can we make on usefulness?

Usefulness refers to whether a piece of research or a theory is useful, practical or applicable. A useful piece of research is one that can be accurately generalised to a wide population or the target population and benefit a number of people or causes.

Accurately generalised to a wide population. You can actually split this definition pretty cleanly into three evaluative points: internal validity, external validity (including population and ecological) and to what extent it takes a nomothetic approach. 

Internal validity
It encompasses a number of individual factors, and you'll have to really think about it in terms of the question to know what part is relevant to evaluate. Most of the time, it's either face validity (is it measuring what it intends to measure?) or construct validity (is the definition in the research actually accurate? Often a problem with stress is that it's hard to define stress, and often it's operationalised in a way that isn't truly accurate). If either are poor, a study isn't going to be very useful.

External validity
There are three main types: ecological validity (conducted in a real-life situation, i.e. has mundane realism), population validity (representative, large sample) and temporal validity (whether the research is only really applicable at one time). If any of these are poor, it's not going to be as useful as we would ideally like.

Nomothetic
Nomothetic in psychology refers to a theory which can be assumed to be a general law or principle of behaviour. If it is, it's more likely to be useful. The more "exceptions to the rule" there are, the less it's going to be useful. For example, Loftus et al's theory about weapon focus is pretty nomothetic, as is the theory about hassles causing more stress than life events. Findings from research that aren't nomothetic and can only be applied to a small number of people or situations aren't very useful. 

Issues and Debates in Psychology: How to answer "Compare..."

A lot of the part b) questions ask you to "compare" research, methods and theories. It's actually one of the easiest forms of question to answer because you can apply the issues you know best to the question, but it can be pretty daunting to think of them at first. 

Good issues to mention are:

• reductionism/holism
• to what extent do the theories/studies support psychology as a science?
• nomothetic/idiographic
• situational/dispositional
• to what extent are they subjective/objective?
• nature/nurture
• ethics
• application of research
• usefulness
• validity
• reliability
• approach
• determinism/freewill
• research methods

Some people use the GRAVER STANDERS acronym to help them but there's a few extra ones above just for good measure.

Personally, I think the most important ones are reductionism, validity, reliability, usefulness and situational/dispositional because you can apply them to most questions, but it's worth learning them all.

With regards to how to answer compare questions, here's an example:

b. Compare techniques for managing stress [15]

Intro: outline the three main approaches (cognitive, behaviourist and social support)

Main body: compare the approaches on the basis of (for example) whether they take a situational or dispositional approach, how useful they are, and how easily they can be applied. Use evidence from studies to support your arguments, and then evaluate one or two strengths or weaknesses. E.g. social support is situational which may be harder to change and may cause additional stress so may not be appropriate, but cognitive therapy is expensive and requires dedication, but the support offered may help to reduce stress more quickly and thus may be more efficient. Make sure you include similarities and differences and evaluate them on this basis. 

Conclusion: summarize the main points from each paragraph

What is Reliability?

Reliability is probably one of the most difficult concepts to get a handle on that you have to understand at A-level psychology. So I'll ease you in gently.

Reliability refers to the extent to which something is consistent. It does not imply validity, as something may consistently give incorrect measures, though both can be affected by factors such as participant variables, observer bias, subjectivity and standardisation. 

You can be asked to assess reliability of a number of things, most commonly:

- reliability of a measure
- reliability of research
- reliability of a method

There are two main types of reliability: external reliability and internal reliability. Internal reliability refers to the extent to which a measure is consistent within itself whilst external reliability is consistency over time (i.e. it is externally reliable if the measure taken in similar circumstances would produce similar results).

Generally, the factors that affect reliability are:
- the level of control over confounding variables. The higher the control, the less chance there is of inconsistencies over time and thus the more externally reliable it is likely to be
- standardisation. If research into an area tends to use experiments with standardised procedures, or a manual is used, it's more likely that reliability will be high.
- population and ecological validity (research). If a study has poor generalisability due to an ethnocentric or biased sample, or poor mundane realism (as in the case of many lab experiments) findings when applied to real life cannot be expected to be consistent with that of the research.
-subjectivity. If a measure or study relies on subjectivity to give results, as with all qualitative data, self-reports or observations and much research done in cognitive/psychodynamic psychology, it's unlikely to produce consistent results and will probably lack in internal reliability because interpretation becomes a confounding variable and thus may change from measure to measure.

Tips on revising for G543

People revise in different ways, but here are some tried-and-tested methods that have worked for me and may work for you:

The best, most reliable way to revise and to check your progress is to do past papers. Obviously, this step is only applicable once you've learned your studies and theories, but it's the best way to test how much you really know. Start with your notes beside you, and looking every so often to check you're writing the correct material, regardless of how long it takes. Once you've done that a few times with different questions, try to reduce how many times you look at the answers and highlight bits you keep forgetting and focus on learning these. Gradually, you need to be able to write the answers in the time limit (15-20 mins per 15 mark question, and 10 mins for the 10 mark questions) and then check your answers against the mark scheme. 

For those of us who learn by writing it out:

- Flashcards (name of study and topic on one side, details - sample, method, results conclusion and main evaluation points - on the back). Test yourself, or get anyone you can to test you.

- Plan out how you'd answer questions. It's virtually impossible to do EVERY past paper question, and often the most difficult part isn't writing it; it's knowing what to write and being able to think of the points (especially for part b) questions) instantaneously. Bullet point what you would write for each kind of question, such as for validity you could write about internal validity, population validity and ecological validity. 

- Keep rewriting your notes. This may not work for everyone, but personally I find that if I keep writing out my studies and theories, trying to remember all the details and getting it condensed into the best format I can, then I won't forget it when it comes to the exam.


Visual learners:

- make posters about each topic, sub-topic and study; include pictures, bubble-writing, little symbols, anything you like to make sure you remember it. 

- play Pictionary with the studies! Grab a friend who's taking the same exam, and all you have to do is take it in turns drawing clues about a study and get the other to guess what study it is (bonus points for every detail about the study each of you can recall!). For example, to guess Fisher et al's CIT study you could draw a police officer, Florida (or an American flag), a burglar, a desk, etc. 

- give each study in a section a different colour/font combination, and whenever you revise it  make sure you stick with that combination as colour aids memory and recall. But make sure it's readable!

Other tips on revising:

- Try listening to music. Make a playlist of music you like, but won't get distracted by. This might be classical or instrumental, but I like listening to music with lyrics so long as it's not too loud. When I was doing my Core Studies paper, I made a playlist with one song per study and I'd try to remember everything I can about the study when its song was on. It'd work for this unit too and is a pretty fun way to revise a lot all at once. Just don't spend too long finding a song for the study. Relevant ones work best for me, such as Memories by Panic! at the Disco for Loftus et al's weapon focus study or Old Grey Face by Twin Atlantic for Bruce et al's facial recognition study.

- Move about. This includes physical exercise at least every couple of days (preferably a walk or more everyday), as well as working in different environments. Being cooped up in your room at the desk for hours on end isn't healthy and you'll start to get really bored. Try working in the kitchen one day, the dining room another, your sofa, outside, in the library... literally anywhere for a change of scenery when you're struggling to concentrate.

- Talk to people. I don't find study groups helpful as I prefer independent revision, but when you're struggling, real people are a lot more reassuring and helpful than searching through the internet for hours on end just getting stressed out. Check here for why social support is definitely good for you!

- Try different modes of revising. Revising gets boring; after all, you're looking at the same information for hours on end. So try to make it somewhat interesting by combining visual methods, note-making, flashcards and past paper questions. 

- Make up your own practice questions. This'll get your brain working, help you to practice and even means you can target specific areas of weakness. For example, if you struggle with reliability, write yourself a reliability question on every topic. You never know, it might come up.

- Take breaks. I'm rubbish at this, because I tend to work at something until I'm utterly shattered but so much research has shown our concentration lapses sometime after half an hour of work. I'd suggest working periods of 50 minutes followed by a ten minute break, and then every couple of hours, take an hour break. During your breaks, make sure you get a drink, maybe a snack, and leave your work area. Even just wandering around your living room is better than surfing the internet at the laptop you'll be staring at all afternoon as it'll keep you energised. 


Good luck, let me know if you have any tips for me to add!

MANAGING STRESS: Social support networks [Waxler-Morrison et al.]

Many forms of dysfunctional behaviour are treated in group therapy and support sessions, such as alcoholism, drug addiction and anger management. Some stress management also emphasises the need for social support in coping with stressful situations.

Cohen and Willis argue that there are four types of social support (all of which we need):

1. Instrumental support; practical support such as help with taking care of loved ones or help with getting to where you need to be.

2. Informational support; advice on what to do and how to cope with different situations.

3. Esteem support; emotional support from friends, colleagues, loved ones and others which makes you feel valued, safe, loved and respected. 

4. Social companionship; general interaction with others for its own sake rather than functional relationships such as at work.

Study: Waxler-Morrison et al. 

Waxler-Morrison et al conducted a study on the impact someone's social support networks had on their ability to cope with the stress of and survive cancer. It used a sample of 133 Canadian women under the age of 55 who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Data was taken from medical records as well as self-report methods (largely questionnaires but also some interviews). The findings suggested six aspects of social support were most closely associated with cancer survival:

1. Marital status (married women who survived tended to report supportive husbands)

2. Support from friends

3. Contact with friends

4. Employment (employed women found this important in coping with cancer as it was a source of information and social support).

5. Social network

6. Total support

A strong social support system was concluded to reduce the stress associated with life-threatening but not necessarily terminal illnesses such as breast cancer, and thus make survival more likely. Though, obviously the most important factor in survival is the diagnosis of the cancer (i.e. how developed the cancer is).

MANAGING STRESS: Behaviourist Approach and biofeedback [Budzynski et al]

The behaviourist approach to psychology assumes that we are all born as a blank slate, and we learn all of our behaviour. It's a very reductionist approach as it is purely on the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate, the situational side of the situational-dispositional debate, and deterministic on the freewill-determinism debate. 

It essentially works on the basis of three concepts: classical conditioning (learning via association), operant conditioning (learning via punishment and reinforcement) and social learning theory (learning via imitation and interaction with others).

In terms of stress management, the behaviourist approach takes the view that as behaviour is learned, you can be taught to manage stress through the same processes. Stress is often dealt with in behavioural therapies through the use of CBT (mentioned in this post on cognitive therapies) or through the use of positive reinforcements. This often involves direct positive reinforcement in terms of improved relaxation and reduced stress combined with feedback from a biodot (which shows you reducing your stress) or a monitor such as a heart rate monitor.

Study: Budzynski et al 

Budzynski et al conducted a study on the role of biofeedback in reducing stress management. It was a field experiment using 18 volunteers who had responded to an advert asking for people with tension headaches. They were split into 3 conditions. Group 1 were taught relaxation techniques during two weekly sessions for eight weeks, during which they had their muscle tension measured by an EMG machine. They were informed about the biofeedback in terms of clicks, (more clicks = more tension) and encouraged to relax. Group 2 had the same relaxation training but didn't know about the biofeedback and were given a false soundtrack of clicks, whilst Group 3 were not trained in the relaxation techniques nor taught about the biofeedback and so acted as a control group. The study showed that Group 1 had the lowest muscle tension, lowest levels of hysteria and depression and the fewest tension headaches by the end of the study, concluding that biofeedback combined with relaxation techniques help to significantly reduce stress-related illness. 

MANAGING STRESS: Cognitive Approach and SIT [Meichenbaum]

The cognitive approach works on the assumption that it is necessary to refer to internal mental processes such as thought, perception and language in order to understand and explain behaviour. 

It would thus view stress as the result of faulty thinking and poor perceptions, and as a form of dysfunctional and maladaptive behaviour which can be improved or cured via cognitive restructuring. This is the fundamental concept behind all forms of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

One form of CBT specifically targeted at coping with stress is Stress Inoculation Therapy (or SIT). It was developed in the 1970s by Meichenbaum, and has three stages which aim to help clients to replace "self-defeating thoughts" which cause stress with more positive ones, which can help to reduce the effect of potential stressors, and thus reduce the overall stress response.

The three stages of SIT are:

1. Conceptualisation - the client and therapist work together to identify the nature of stress, and the therapist educates the client on the general effects of stress to help them understand what stress is and thus how it can be overcome

2. Skills acquisition - the therapist helps to train the client in relevant skills which will aid them to cope with and reduce their stress. This often includes monitoring their own internal dialogue and reassuring themselves that things are okay if not everything goes to plan.

3. Follow through/application - the patient has to apply their skills to real-life situations, and the therapist helps them with this. 

Study: Meichenbaum: comparing SIT to systematic desensitisation and a control group in reducing test anxiety (a major cause of stress)

The study consisted of 21 students aged 17 to 25, who had responded to an advert asking for participants in a study on test anxiety. It was a field experiment, where the IV was the type of therapy (if any) the participant received, and the DV was reduction in test anxiety, which was measured through the use of grade averages and self-reported measures. It was a matched pairs design with three conditions. Group 1 received eight therapy sessions where they were taught to identify stress, learn how to reduce thoughts which increased their stress, monitoring their internal dialogue, etc. Group 2 received the same number of sessions but were given the behavioural therapy of systematic desensitisation, whilst Group 3 were put on a waiting list. Both therapy groups had improved results, but Group 1 (SIT group) performed better in test conditions and had reduced anxiety levels than both other groups, and thus it was concluded that SIT helped to reduce the test-associated stress people felt and enabled them to perform better.