Issues and Debates
CIE 9990 PSYCHOLOGY A-LEVEL: Health and Abnormality
,Application to everyday life
●Issue; Psych findings should improve our everyday lives.
●Examples: education, raising children (aggression, Bandura), treating mental
illnesses (phobias, S+S)
●ALL CASE STUDIES HAVE RWA: they highlight real-life examples which may
make instances more obvious to sufferers who have had difficulty
interpreting/don’t know symptoms (Charles (Rappaport) could have legitimised
a child’s OCD for another mother)
●+ves: improves understanding of our world, interactions, and if useful –
improves public perception of psych.
●-ves: methodological issues such as sample generalisability (ethnocentrism),
ecological validity (balance w/ control), and ethics (balance w/ demand
characteristics) should be considered. Often aren’t, leading to
ineffective/inapplicable research.
,Application: Health
- McKinstry and Wang
- determine what doctors wear IRL to improve relationships - lab coats and ties are a must, jewellery is a no
- McKinlay
- encourages the avoidance of medical jargon to improve relationship and patient understanding for better
health
- Ley
- helps practitioners construct consultations by taking advantage of the primacy and recency effect,
categorisation, summarisation
- Byrne and Long
- shows that patients need to be more involved in consultation
- Savage and Armstrong
- expands on B+L by showing that authority still needs to be maintained
- Robinson and West
- shows how to get most information from patient, reducing personal contact improves relay of sensitive
information
- Safer
- Shows which factors to target to reduce delay
- Barlow and Durand
- Shows when and where hypochondria is most likely to occur to help prevention and aid recognition and
treatment
- Aleem and Ajarim
- Shows real-life manifestation of Munchausen in different culture
, Application: Health
- Bulpitt
- Shows how to improve adherence specifically in elderly male hypotensive patients
- Becker and Rosenstock
- Outlines specific factors of adherence so practitioners can gauge and target them for improved adherence
- Riekart and Droter
- Highlights inefficiency of self-report as adherence measure
- Chung and Naya
- Shows objective way to measure adherence
- Roth and Caron
- Shows accurate way of measuring
- Sherman et al
- Shows the most practical way of measuring adherence
- Ley
- Shows how to improve adherence through patient-practitioner r/s
- Yokley and Glenwick
- Shows the significance of an emotional appeal
- Watt et al
- Shows how to improve paediatric adherence
