IB Psych Semester 1 - Studies

Página 1

Dr. Money - David Reimer (1965-2004)

David Reimer was originally named Bruce

Aim: Dr.Money wanted to demonstrate and test his theory that gender identity is a result of social influence and that a child's identity depends on how they were raised (nature vs nurture)

Procedure: After Bruce's penis burned off, Dr.Money gets consent for his experiment. t 22 months old, Bruce underwent sex reassignment surgery (given a vagina), Bruce was now Brenda. Dr.Money said the procedure was successful and that Brenda was flourishing as a girl. Dr.Money saw the Reimer family every year for 10 years.

Result: Initially, Dr. Money said that the research was successful. However, Brenda said that the results were not correct and that sessions were a nightmare. She then had sex alteration/reassignment surgery again and became David.

Conclusion: The results show that gender isn't something that can be altered based on how you are raised. These conclusions were taken from the second set of results given by David years after the case study.

Ethics: The research mostly had a lack of protection against physical and mental harm. The physical harm was due to the ongoing surgeries done by David. The mental harm was due to omitting the truth, which led David to kill himself, and Brian (the twin) to develop schizophrenia.

Strengths: highly descriptive data; high ecological validity

Limitations: difficult to be applied to other populations; bias; low internal validity

Página 2

Rosenthal and Jacobson: The Pygmalion Effect (1968)

Professor Rosenthal (Harvard University) and Leonore Jackson, the principal of an elementary school

Aim: To find out whether or not teachers' expectations had an effect on the student's performance.

Procedure: begin the study the researchers gave if classes of students (from kindergarten to sixth grade) a standardized intelligence test to have as a baseline. Then they selected a random 20% of those students and told their teachers they were going to bloom. At the end of the year, all of the students were tested again.

Results: The students labeled as intelligent had a greater increase than the others.

Conclusion: The teacher's expectations did have an impact on the student's intellectual growth.

Ethics: Mental harm is a possibility for the students that were not labeled intelligent and consequently not given enough attention. Mental harm for the teachers additionally there was no concent.

Strengths: can show cause and effect; high internal validity; no participant bias

Limitations: moderate ecological validity; researcher bias; subject variables

Página 3

Rogers & Frantz (1962)

Social Identity Theory: assumes that individuals strive to improve their self-image by trying to enhance their self-esteem based on either personal identity or various social identities

In group (us)

the group the person is part of

Out-group (them)

everyone else

Aim: To investigate the development of stereotypes in white immigrants to Zimbabwe.

Procedure: White immigrants were interviewed when they arrived and 6 months later. (Semi-structured interviews)

Results: The white immigrants took on the stereotypes and prejudice of the local population against the black population.