Freud - Little Hans (1909)

Aim: Monitor the development of a child up to the age of 4-5 years and help him over come the p[phobia of horses.
Background: Freud had meet Hans a couple of times. Hans Parents were followers of Freuds theories therefore Freud
tried to use evidence that came directly from Little Hans. Hans father wrote letters to Freud and Hans would ask his father
to tell Freud things.

Case Description:
Little Hans had an interest in his widdler (penis). He dreamt about widdler. Hans denied an interest and said it was
only in his dreams. When younger Hans played with his widdler his mum told him off for it.
Hanss father was away a lot, leaving Hans with his mother. Hans seemed to want his father to go away. Hans
wanted his father dead.

He was also jealous of his sister, born when Hans was 3 and a half. Father reported Hans was afraid of falling under
the water. Eventually Freud and Hanss father suggested to Hans that when watching his mother bath his sister he
wished she would let his sisters head go under the water. Hans agreed this was true.

Hans said he was afraid a white horse would bite him. Hans also said he was afraid of black on horses mouths and
things in front of their eyes. Once when walking with his mother Hans had seen a horse fall down whilst drawing a
bus.
Hans played with dolls and made them have children. His father commented that men cannot have children, and
Hans said mummy is the childrens mummy, Hans is the father and Hans father is the grandfather.
Hans also has a dream about giraffes, where on was crumpled and Little Hans sat on it, with the other giraffe
standing on the side.

Analysis according to Freud:
Hans denied interest in widdler except in dreams. This is evidence of repression, pushing unwanted desires into his
unconscious.
Hans wanted his father to go away as he slept with his mother when his father was away and he wanted his father
dead so that he could take his fathers place.
Hans fear of a white horse represented a fear of his father. The fear of the black around the mouth and eyes
represented his fathers moustache and glasses on, reinforcing the idea of Hans being afraid of his father.
His fear of drowning in the bath represented his wish for his sister to die.
When he was told off for playing with his widdler. This was interpreted as castration fear.
When Hans said the mother doll is his mummy and that he was the father and his own father the grandfather, this
showed Hans was now cured, this was the resolution of the Oedipus complex.
Freud thought that the giraffe dream was about sex and Little Hans was taking part.

Conclusion: Freud thought his study of Little Hans Provided evidence for his theory of psychosexual stages and theory of
how gender develops.

Evaluation:
The study lacked reliability as there were few controls, so it cannot be easily replicated
The study lacked reliability as there was not a set of standard questions to ask Little Hans, therefore it cannot be
repeated easily
As it was a case study on one boy the results may not apply to everyone therefore cannot be generalised
The data may be biased as it was collected by Hans father who may only have included details that fit with Freuds
theory
Although the information was not gathered from Hans directly, there were attempts made to analyse information
that Hans himself had spoken freely of (even though to his father) so to that extent the data was valid.
Freud had to interpret the information so increasing subjectivity as other analysts may come to different conclusions
from the same data
The study was done in Little Hanss natural environment so there was ecological validity
Freud ignored other reasons for Hans phobia, such as he saw a horse collapse in the street
It was considered ethical as he was under 16 so his parents gave consent for him to participate in the study


Axline: Little Dibs - Personality development in play therapy (1964)

Aim: To cure a five year old boy of his communication problems with others in school.

Description:
At school dibs played alone and attacked other children that tried to interact with.
Dibs teachers believed Dibs was suffering from some sort of behavioural disorder, as he would not speak
to anyone or interact with others, no one really knew the story behind Dibs silence. They just knew that
his mother used to pick him up from school; they never saw his father and Dibs never wanted to go
home, he would be violent with anyone who tried to take him home.
Dibs teacher asked Axline for help, Axline then gained permission from Dibs Mother to conduct weekly
play therapy sessions with the Boy. She carried out several sessions of play therapy with him to try and
understand his problems.
Axline allowed Dibs to say or do whatever he felt comfortable with, she did not interpret what he said or
wanted.
Throughout the therapy it was discovered that Dibs was very intelligent and was a gifted child who knew
how to read, spell will in advance for his age.
During one session he buried a toy solider in the sand which he called Papa
Dibs were able to work out his anger on his parents through the play therapy and became happier and
communicative after the therapy. It was also found out that Dibs hated Locked doors and walls.
A possible cause of his behaviour is that he had a strong superego, which could not be controlled by his
ego.
In conclusion the play therapy allowed him to find a balance between his ego, id and superego.

Case Study Analysis:
His father used to lock him in his room, which is probably explained his dislike of walls and locked doors.
Axline did not analyse the study using Freuds theory, but Freuds personality theory helps to explain
Dibs behaviour. E.g. he had an over controlling superego and his ego did not manage to balance the
demands of his Id and Superego.
Axline avoided interpretation during therapy in order to get Objective data.

Conclusion: The case study shows that there can be problems if the three parts of the personality are not
balance. It also shows that if problems are acted out e.g. through play therapy, they can be released and a
balance can be found.

Evaluation:
This shows that play therapy can be useful in allowing children to express their unconscious and so can be
used to help other children.
Axline had to offer some interpretation about what Dibs play meant which may not be valid.
This was a study on one child so the results may not be true for other children. Because it was a unique
case it would be hard to replicate the study again, reducing reliability.
It was ethical because Dibs were allowed to do what he wanted; he was never pushed into doing
something. E.g. when he wanted to play in Axlines office he was allowed to.
It may not have been the play therapy that led to Dibs improvement, but just having one to one time
with an adult who listened.
A meta analysis on play therapy found that it did lead to consistent improvements for children.




Money (1975) and David Reimers Story

Aims: To investigate sex reassignment (when a child changes sex)

Case Description:
Moneys Story: In 1965 identical twins Bruce and Brian were born. At 7 months they were sent for
circumcision and one of the operations went wrong. The babys penis was burnt off as electrical current was
too strong. The parents of the boy saw John Money on a television programme talking about sex
reassignment. After contracting Money and talking with him, the parents chose to bring up the boy as a girl. At
the age of 17 months the parents put the Bruce in dresses, encouraging her to play girl games and changed
her name from Bruce to Brenda. Hormones replacement therapy and surgery was used a Brenda got older.
Money saw Brenda and her parents fairly regularly for 9 years and all seemed to be progressing well. Brendas
mother reported that I found that my son chose masculine things like a fireman. I asked her and she wanted
to be a Doctor or a teacher. At around 11 years old, Money stopped gather data. There were reports that
Brenda did have tomboy traits e.g. being physically active, but this was said to be due to imitating her brother.
She did copy her mothers behaviour rather than her fathers behaviour and she did enjoy doing girl things.

Moneys Conclusion: Money concluded that an XY baby, genetically male can be successfully brought up as a
girl. Money concluded that we are born gender neutral; he said that gender identity is learned through our
upbringing. This was evidence to show that NURTURE was stronger than NATURE. He concluded that gender is
not biological and that it could be learnt.

Davids Story: Brenda even urinated standing up as a male would, despite not having a penis. She had many
behavioural and emotional difficulties throughout her childhood and at the age of 14 years old she was told
the truth and it emerged that she was never happy being a girl and always felt that it was wrong. Brenda
became David and underwent surgery (had a phalloplasty to create a penis). David became much happier after
he decided to live as a male and in his 20s he was introduced to, and later married, a divorcee who had three
children to whom he became step-father. At the age of 30, he met a psychologist called Diamond who
published a paper about him showing the problems of Moneys conclusion and the whole story was made
public. Sadly in 2002, in his late 30s Davids twin Brian killed himself by taking an overdose of antidepressants
and David blamed himself because of the trauma his case had caused the family during his childhood. He
became increasingly withdrawn and unhappy, leading to the breakdown of his marriage. His depression
worsened and in 2004, at the age of 38, David shot and killed himself.

Davids Conclusion: His side of the story strongly suggest that NATURE is stronger than NURTURE.

Evaluation:
The case of Daphne Went supports Moneys study as she was happy as a female even though she was biologically
male. However several other studies have found that gender reassignments dont work so reducing the reliability of
Moneys study.
The study was not controlled so it would be hard to replicate and carry out again.
It is reliable as Brian acted as a control to compare Brenda with.
It was a unique case study so it cant be repeated reducing reliability, this also means that you cannot generalise to
others.
The follow up of David Reimer found that he hadnt been happy as a girl so questioning the validity of Moneys
findings.
Population validity is low as Money only studied one child, so results may not be true for others.
This was a real-life case that was reported by Money so it has high ecological validity because the boys life and the
events that happened to him were all real and not manipulated in any way. This means that the conclusions drawn
about the importance of biology on gender identity are based on a real experience and not the result of an
experimental condition. Furthermore the case study collected many in-depth and valid data.
Ecological validity is high as Brenda carried on with her normal life with her parents/at her own home whilst the
study was being carried out.
Brenda did not know why she was being studied so she showed natural behaviour/no demand characteristics.
Twin Studies - Gottesman and Shield (1966)

Aim:
Wanted to see how far schizophrenia was a generic disease by looking at the concordance rate of a group
twins.
To see if there was a genetic or environmental influence of the development of schizophrenia

Procedure:
Gathered secondary data from one hospital in the USA about twins who are diagnosed with
schizophrenia
They covered sixteen consecutive years from 1948-1964
The researchers after discounting some patients ended up with 57 twin pairs, where at least one of the
MZ or DZ twins had schizophrenia
The average age of the patients was 37; the group of patients were born between 1893-1945 and were
the ages of 19-64
Each pair of twins was tested using blood group, fingerprints and how alike they looked to decide
whether they were identical or not
They used hospital records to determine whether one of the pair had schizophrenia as well as interviews
The twins and their parents were tested for disorganised thinking and the twins also had a personality
test
Data was collected through: Hospital notes, Case histories based on self-report questionnaires and
interviews with the twins and their parents, Tape-recorded 30 minute samples of verbal behaviour from
semi-structured interviews.
The independent variables: Concordance rate and whether they are MZ/DZ twins

Results:
They found that there was a stronger link in schizophrenia with regard to twins in MZ than in DZ twins
They found that 42% of the MZ twins both had a diagnosis of schizophrenia compared to 9% of the DZ
twins
77% of the MZ twins of severe schizophrenics also had schizophrenia compared to 15% of the DZ twins
If your parent has schizophrenia there is a 46% chance that you will have it as well.

Conclusion:
The findings suggested that the closer the genetic relationship between two people, the greater the likelihood
that if one of them is diagnosed with schizophrenia. They concluded that genes play an important role of
schizophrenia as the concordance rate of MZ twins was higher than DZ twins.

Evaluation:
The results are supported and backed up by other studies which have produced similar findings, such as
in Japan Inouye (1961) who found a 74% concordance rate of twins with a progressive chronic
schizophrenia disorder, and a 39% concordance rate for mild schizophrenia. These were similar findings
to Gottesman and Shield.
Issues such as sampling are dealt with carefully; these issues were criticised in previous studies, therefore
the study addresses problems of the previous study.
The study has clear controls of all variables, therefore showing a clear cause and effect. This also means
that the study can be replicated and that similar if not the same results may be found.
The study achieved what is wanted to find out therefore it has experimental validity.
This was a laboratory experiment therefore it may lack some mundane realism.
Researchers felt that the concordance rate simply notes that if one twin has an abnormality, the other
has too. It does not give you the degree of the abnormality, such as a scale.
The study suggests there are some generic links but it fails to give any more detail about the explanation
for schizophrenia or whether there are different types of schizophrenia; it is descriptive rather than
explanatory.
Operant Conditioning: The Skinners Box (1874)
Skinner studied conditioning through trail and error learning. He developed a special box to record the
behaviour of animals in response to difference consequences. Skinner places a rat in a box which contained a
lever that the rat could press. Once the rat pressed the level food would be delivered through a chute. At first
the rat would only press the lever by accident whilst exploring the box. After pressing the lever several times,
the rat began to associate pressing the lever with its consequence - the delivery of food. Skinner the placed the
rat in a box where pressing the lever meant that the rat would receive a mild-electric shock. The rat soon
began to associate pressing the lever with receiving a shock and therefore avoided pressing the lever. This
shows that animals can learn new associations between their behaviour and subsequent events,

Classical Conditioning: Watson and Raynor - Little Albert (1920)
Aim: Whether they could condition dear of an animal by simultaneously presenting the animal and striking a
steel bar to make a load noise to frighten the child.

Procedure:
At nine months Little Albert was chosen, he showed no fear in response to a variety of neutral stimuli
including a white rat, rabbits, some wooden blocks etc. However he was afraid of loud noises.
At 11 months he was presented with a white rat, he initially showed no fear and reached out to the rat
using his left hand at this point the researchers loudly struck a steel bar behind Albert, which scared him
as he jumped and fell forward but did not cry. After a short time Albert reached out for the rat again but
this time using his right hand, and the same loud noise was presented again, this causes Albert to fall
forward and he started to whimper.
This was repeated five times one week after.
When Albert was one years old, he was tested again and he still demonstrated some fear towards the rat.

Findings:
Whenever a steel bar was struck Albert displayed fear
The pairing of rat and loud noise created an association resulting in the rat alone being a conditioned
stimulus producing fears as conditioned response.
5 days after the final experiment Albert cried in response of the rat and various similar objects e.g. white
rabbit, Santas beard etc. This is known as stimulus generalisation.
Blocks were not presented with noise therefore Albert did not fear them
After a month of the final experiment, Albert still showed fear towards the conditioned stimulus but
started to reach out for other similar objects e.g. the rabbit.

Conclusions: Albert was classically conditioned to be afraid of the rat and became afraid of other similar
objects. The researchers where therefore able to conclude that it is possible to classically condition the
emotional response of fear, although this seems to diminish over time.

Evaluation:
Experiment was well designed and controlled e.g. the IV each time was clear and the DV was measured
and recorded carefully. This meant that there were standardise procedures, which meant that it can be
repeated and tested for reliability.
Study showed Pavlovs theory of Classical Conditioning and it could be said to be true for humans.
This study was not ethical as Albert was distressed through out the study and even though he was
distressed the study continued for weeks.
This was a laboratory experiment therefore the tasks and setting was artificial which means that the
study lacked ecological validity.


SLT - Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)
Aim: To see whether young children are more likely to imitate same sex parent

Procedure:
72 children aged from three to five were split into two groups according to their gender. This experiment
took place in Stanford University under
laboratory conditions.
There were eight experimental conditions
in four conditions:
The Aggression levels of the children were measured and then the groups were further split into two, one
group was to see the non-aggressive model where as the other group saw the adult kick, hit and punch
the Bobo doll.
Children from all the groups were taken to a room that had toys, were they were allowed to play with the
toys until they were told that the toys were not for them to play with.
They were then taken into another room that had the Bobo doll as well as other aggressive toys.
The children were observed through a one way mirror for 20 minutes by the experimenter who recorded
the behaviour.

Results:
70% of the children in a non-aggressive state showed almost no aggression.
Watching the aggressive model lead to more boys copying the actions than girls
Girls were more likely to engage in verbal aggression and boys more likely to engage in physical
aggression.
On average girls copied 5.5 aggressive acts if the model was female and 7.2 aggressive acts if the model
was male
Boys copied 25.8 aggressive acts when the model was male.
On average 12.7 aggressive acts were imitated from the aggressive model.
He found children are more likely to hit the Bobo doll if the adult was the same sex as them.
Male role models were imitated more than female role models by both genders.

Evaluation:
They used a large sample (of 72) so the results could be generalised to others
As it was only done on children aged three to five the results may not be true for older
children/teenagers/adults
It was done on children in the university nursery so does not include children from other backgrounds
The sample contained both boys and girls so results apply to both genders
It was carried out in a lab setting so this makes it artificial and lacking in ecological validity, although as
they did try to make the laboratory look like a nursery some may argue that is has high validity.
The children had never seen a Bobo doll before so may have hit it because that is what they thought they
should do with it so the experimenters werent measuring the effect of violent role models on childrens
aggression in normal circumstances.
As the children were deliberately encouraged to be aggressive, this may cause them to be aggressive
towards others after they left the study which can be an ethical issue.
There was high reliability due to inter-rater observation by the observers.
Experiments can be replicated. Standardized procedures and instructions were used allowing for it to be
replicated. In fact the study has been replicated with slight changes, such as using videos and similar
results were found.
Since data was collected immediately, it is also difficult to know what the long-term impact might have
been.
Boy - Aggressive Male Boy - Aggressive Female
Boy - Non Aggressive Male Boy - Non Aggressive Female
Girl - Aggressive Male Girl - Aggressive Female
Girl - Non Aggressive Male Girl - Non Aggressive Female