Who’s Crazy Here, Anyway?
In this study conducted by D.L. Rosenhan, the following question is raised: are mental health professionals really able to tell who is mentally healthy and who is mentally ill? And what are the consequences of mistakes? To answer these questions, Rosenhan himself and eight other “pseudopatients” presented themselves at different psychological hospitals acting normally other than pretending to be hearing voices saying the same three words; all were admitted. The pseudopatients’ goal once they were admitted was to convince the staff that they were mentally healthy. The hospital staffs failed to detect the patients but interestingly enough, other patients knew pretty easily. While there was a severe lack of personal contact between staff and patients, there was no such lack of medications (the pseudopatients and many of the real patients flushed their pills down the toilet). One of the pseudopatients even noted that a nurse unbuttoned her uniform to adjust her bra in front of a dayroom of male patients; she wasn’t intending to be provocative, but simply did not view the patients as “real people”(Hock 2009).
Rosenhan’s study is critical to the world of psychology because it yielded two major results: 1) it appeared that the sane could not be distinguished from the “insane” and 2) it demonstrated the danger and damage diagnostic labels can cause. Rosenhan’s work caused extra care in diagnostic procedures to be taken and increased awareness of the harmful effects of labeling patients as well as a decrease in hospital populations, an increase in antipsychotic medications, and an increase in mental health facilities that focus on specific problems and tend to avoid labels(Hock 2009). In the study “Listen to My ...
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Traditional theories of intelligence do not account for the ambiguity of classes such as philosophy or for the wide range of interests a child can have. For example, contemporary theories such as Sternberg’s Theory of Intelligence and Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences both account for more than the general intelligence accounted for in traditional intelligence theories. According to Robert Sternberg’s Successful (Triarchic) Theory of Intelligence, are Hector’s difficulties in philosophy indicative of future difficulties in the business world? According to Sternberg’s Theory of Intelligence, Hector’s difficulty in philosophy will not negatively affect his future. Sternberg would instead focus on elements of successful intelligence like Hector’s involvement and contribution as an individual, as opposed to relying on intelligence measured by tests.
Movies and shows like, “Girl Interrupted” and “American Horror Story: Insane Asylum” portray hospitals in a way that has truth to it, however they portray the people in a negative way. It has become more known to society that the hospitals that the mentally ill are subjected to living in are not a good place to be. However, the stigma that mentally ill people are dangerous and cannot overcome their illness is still widely
The Modified Labelling Theory, created by Link et al., (1989) hypothesized that individuals who were labeled as mentally ill, would manage the stigma they faced through three coping mechanisms; education, withdrawal and secrecy (as cited in Ray & Brooks Dollar, 2014). The Modified Labelling Theory is a credible theory that has been used to approach not only the repercussions of stigma in mental illness, but also to explain behaviours of those who smoke, live with HIV/AIDS, or have a child with a disability (Ray & Brooks Dollar,
Star,S.A.(1955). The public’s ideas about mental illness. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Mental Health.
We all have our own perception of psychiatric hospitals. Some people may see them as a terrifying experience, and others may see them as a way to help people who cannot keep their disorders under control. David Rosenhan's perception led him to a variety of questions. How could psychiatric hospitals know if a patient was insane or not? What is like to be a patient there? According to Rosenhans study, psychiatric hospitals have no way of truly knowing what patients are insane or not; they quickly jump to labeling and depersonalizing their patients instead of spending time with them to observe their personality.
Because of this, there has been a terrifying increase of the need of mental health professionals over the past 70 years. The article states that “the majority of patients in therapy do not warrant a psychiatric diagnosis” meaning problems that used to be considered normal or easy to handle are now being approached by such professionals.
A Harvard graduate, Howard Gardner is a Psychologist who came up with the multiple intelligence. Regarding arts and education, Gardner recounted the curious dearth of literature that obtained at the time
1. The main thesis of the article is that deviance means going against the social norms. Social norms are also different for which person. Rosenhan says that pseudo patients are never detected as sane because each staff member has a confirmation bias. The setting of the mental hospital confirms their bias and they read each behavior from every patient and taper the behavior to fit the diagnosis.
Once upon a time, long ago in the mists of time, sprawling brick structures housed countless individuals with mental disturbances. These massive structures were known to the world as mental asylums for the insane. In reality, the majorities of these individuals were not insane, but in contrast were suffering from mild mental problems such as depression or anxiety. These people were looked down upon in society and were labeled as "freaks" or "batty" because of their mental disorder. In the early twentieth century, mental issues were considered taboo. If a family had a sibling or relative who was suffering from a mental disorder, they were swept under a rug; to be taken care of at another time. These days, these immense structures are an object of the past, a bygone era. Many asylums still stand tall as monuments to the world of health care, while many do not stand at all.
As a teacher it will always be my responsibility to keep up to date on new research done on learning theories. That way I am able to provide a fun and exciting learning environment for my students. After learning about Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences I now realize how important it is to make sure I work hard to include every child into my curriculum. Gardner’s theory is that everyone is able to recognize a student that does scores great on an exam is smart, that does not mean that a student that falls short of doing good on the same test is not as brilliant as the other student. Howard Gardner’s, theory opposes traditional methods that view intelligences as unitary, and perceives intelligence to contain eight domains. Gardner believes there is several different intelligences that each person embodies in certain magnitudes. Having more of a particular intelligence than another will change has each person retain information. As a child growing up in public elementary schools, I was taught from a traditional methods. These methods focused mainly on verbal and mathematical skills. If a student is anyone of the other six proposed intelligences, he or she would most likely do unsatisfactorily in school. Howard Gardner’s eight intelligences are: body/ kinesthetic, naturalist, visual/ spatial, musical/ rhythmic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, verbal/ linguistic, and logical/ mathematical.
Moreover, the labeling perspective on mental illness... was first formulated decades ago, when mental hospitals were the predominant type of care for persons with mental health problems… Patients were described as undergoing a moral career, which involved the loss of all previous roles because of the way mental health care was structured, and which finally lead to a so-called spoiled identity, the result being that reintegration in society was very difficult, if not impossible (Verhaeghe et al.
In this essay I am looking at where Psychology as a discipline has come from and what affects these early ideas have had on psychology today, Psychology as a whole has stemmed from a number of different areas of study from Physics to Biology,
Gardner’s theory of MI offers an alternative view of intelligence which has measured intelligence based on the results that would predict success in the current educational system. Furham (2009) sums up Gardner’s definition as “the ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultural settings”. This definition suggests that human intelligence is comprised of more than the predictable success in a western school system. Gardner argues that traditional definitions of intelligence and intelligence testing are too narrow and marginalize people who do not fit traditional education system that focuses on visual–spatial, verbal–linguistic, and logical–mathematical intelligences. He supports this with unique cases of idiots savant, who are people with low IQs but excel in skills in areas not measured through tradition IQ tests (Arnett, 2013). MI theory proposes that individual’s intelligence can be differentiated on eight different modalities:
This is an essay about the different theories of intelligence; it will discuss which theory is best at determining intelligence in my opinion. The information provided will help describe the pros and cons of each of the theories being used to define intelligence, explain why is it important to assess children’s intelligence, and discuss the type of intelligence I possess. The different theories of intelligence are complex and understanding the elements of each can help an individual choose the one that they believe is the best for determining intelligence. Comparing the positive and the negative elements of each theory of intelligence will allow an individual to see both sides of the theory and the flaws that may be twisted
Wilhelm Wundt, a 19th Century German physician and physiologist, is credited with establishing psychology as a separate science as well as being the “founding father” of experimental psychology. Since then, the science of psychology has continued to develop and mature. Over time, psychology has increased the extent to which scientific standards are met by its procedures for collecting data in both laboratory and non-laboratory research thanks to advancement in techniques and technology. Psychology, being a study of human behavior, has obvious links to other natural sciences such as biology, chemistry, and physics. All of these sciences are completely inte...