Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Bettelheim (1943)
Ferrare (1962)
17 elderely people, forced old age home: 4 weeks later = 8 dead 10 weeks later = 16 dead
Personal =
Control
I want to do these tests in my own order. I am sure that would make me feel less anxious
Segliman (1975)
Lack of control leads to learned helplessness
Dogs conditioned to receive a shock did not move to relieve themselves from it even though they were free to.
Learned helplessness
A child who performs poorly on math tests and assignments will quickly begin to feel that nothing he does will have any effect on his math performance. When later faced with any type of mathrelated task, he may experience a sense of helplessness.
To study the effects of enhanced personal responsibility and choice in a group of nursing home patients.
Does increased control have general beneficial effects? How would physical, mental alertness, activity, sociability and satisfaction be affected? Would the sense of responsibility be generalised to other aspects of their lives?
Study carried out on two floors of a top Conneticut nursing home. All residents had similar: health, socioeconomic status and length of stay in home. 1 floor = Responsibility Induced Group (RIG). This was the experimental condition. 2nd Floor = comparison group. This was the control condition.
Each group was briefed differently about their stay in the nursing home:
Responsibility Induced Group (RIG) Experimental condition They had influence over what happened They should give their opinions about complaint procedures They could select their own plant and care for it They could choose which night was movie night Comparison Group (CG) Control condition They were given options of what happened All complaints would be handled by staff They would be given a plant which someone else would care for They would be told which night was movie night.
This questionnaire assessed how much control residents felt they had over their lives. The research assistant scored their level of alertness. 3 weeks after the briefing they were given Questionnaire 1 and 2 again Completed by the 2 nurses who worked on each floor. They rated each resident for: Happiness, alertness, dependency, sociability and activity levels, eating time, sleeping time. They also noted whether residents went to the movie night or took part in organised activities
Implications:
Personal responsibility = increased well being
But what about the sample?
71% of CG became more debilitated over the 3 weeks The improvements in the conditions of the RIG group were
Internal validity concerns the extent to which the researcher has tested what they intended to test. Ecological validity concerns the extent to which the research findings can be generalised beyond the research setting. Experimenter bias Extraneous variables
Sampling - representative Ethics Informed consent? Deception? Lack of right to withdraw?
Rodin and Langer (1977) Returned 18 months later, average mortality 25% RIG group = 15% CG group = 30% Schulz (1976) Benefit when institutionalized aged given control over their visitors. Savell (1991) Found no difference between choice and no choice groups in terms of physical well being.
Wurm et al. (2007) Cognitive schemas surrounding sense of control and the ageing process important in the physical health of elderly. Suls and Mullen (1981) SRRS (think Rahe et al) controllable life changes had less negative impact on health. Cohen et al. (1993) Ps given cold virus. Those whose life was unpredictable and stressful more likely to develop cold.