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Validity and reliability of diagnosis

Intro

validity of a diagnosis is whether the diagnosis is correct and leads to a successful treatment.

reliability of a diagnosis is whether two or more psychiatrists using the same classification system make the same diagnosis.

if a diagnosis is not reliable it cannot be valid.

Rosenhan - 4 points

Rosenhan had a group of students play the role of confederates, going into different psychiatric hospitals and claiming that they heard a voice saying, “One, two, three, thud.” once admitted they immediately stopped saying that they had symptoms, but were still kept in hospital. Once released, they were diagnosed with schizophrenia in remission. The study claimed to show that the doctors did not make a valid diagnosis – and argued that the validity of diagnosis is problematic at best.

1st point - researcher bias

Rosenhan argues that the nurses noted that the pseudopatients took extensive notes. He says that this was “seen as an aspect of their pathological behaviour.” However, the nurses’ notes simply said: “engages in writing behaviour.” The fact that Rosenhan reads so much into the nurse's notes is an example of researcher bias. The behaviours of the staff were recorded by the “patients” themselves. They wrote about how their behaviours were perceived by the hospital staff. It is impossible for anyone to corroborate or refute this account of how the pseudopatients were treated by the staff. The study suffers from researcher bias, where those that were being observed assumed the intentions of the nurses on staff. This makes it less valid as the opinions of those researching can affect the findings meaning it isn't completely reflective of real life and only of the beliefs of rosenhan and the pseudopatients. This in turn makes it unreliable as with each researcher the findings will alter as their opinions will differ from the next.

Point 2 - deception

However, this study has been challenged. First, the study was based on deception. One of the difficulties of making a valid diagnosis is that psychiatrists are dependent on self-reported symptoms. In this case, the “patients” lied about their symptoms. As patients cannot be tested for auditory hallucinations, it is not possible to verify their symptoms. This trust between a doctor and a patient is key to a valid diagnosis.

Point 3 - symptoms

disorders are “clusters of symptoms” and many symptoms are representative of several different disorders. This also influences the validity of diagnosis. In this case, the study is old and based on the DSM III. At that time, auditory hallucinations were considered to be a sign of schizophrenia. Today, no single symptom would be used to make a diagnosis. A problem, however, is that there are no blood tests that can be given to test for the disorder, although it is possible that in the future genetic testing may make diagnosis both more valid and reliable.

Lipton & Simon (1985)

. The researchers randomly selected 131 patients in a hospital in New York. All of the patients had been diagnosed with a psychological disorder. Seven clinical experts at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center reevaluated the selected patients and their diagnosis was then compared with the original diagnosis. Of the original 89 diagnoses of schizophrenia, only 16 received the same diagnosis on re-evaluation; 50 were diagnosed with a mood disorder, even though only 15 had been diagnosed with such a disorder initially. Such results indicate that the same symptoms may not necessarily lead to the same diagnosis by a different psychiatrist. This study demonstrates the importance of having more than one professional give a diagnosis.

One of the limitations of the Lipton & Simon study was that patients were already undergoing treatment. This may have led to changes in symptoms and could be one reason for the different diagnoses. Studying the reliability of diagnosis in a naturalistic setting presents such problems, and this could be a reason for why less ecologically valid approaches are often used.

Lobbestael, Leurgans & Arntz (2011)

investigated the reliability of diagnosis using the DSM IV with a sample of 151 participants, consisting of both patients and non-patients. The original clinical interviews, often lasting up to two hours, were audio-taped. The interviews were then assessed by a second psychiatrist who did not know the diagnosis made by the first psychiatrist.

-The results showed that generally there was higher reliability for personality disorders over other disorders. There was a 71 per cent rate of reliability in the diagnosis of major depression, whereas there was an 84 per cent rate of reliability of personality disorders. The high rate of consistency in diagnosis indicates that a diagnostic manual like the DSM IV, in this case, ensures that clinicians are more in agreement on a diagnosis. But even if the diagnosis is reliable, that does not necessarily mean that it is valid.

-A strength of this study is that the researchers used a single-blind procedure - the second psychiatrist did not know the diagnosis made by the first psychiatrist. Also, by using only audiotapes, non-verbal behaviour or the appearance of the patient did not affect the diagnosis process. However, this can also be seen as a limitation. It is difficult to know the extent to which non-verbal behaviour may have played a role in the first diagnosis. Therefore, the second diagnosis may be too controlled and could have missed important non-verbal data which may have changed the diagnosis.

-Even though psychiatrists use the same diagnostic tools, they may come up with a different diagnosis. One of the questions that need to be answered is – is it the diagnostic tool itself that is the problem? Or are there also other factors that may affect how a psychiatrist makes a diagnosis?

Authors note: we back and at it again bois, with it being mock season and final exams just around the corner here is some juicy final year psychology abnormal essays, good luck kids and stay tuned for some funky essays!

#identity #psychology #abnormal #mental health #validity #reliable #sociology #paranoid schizophrenic #a level mocks #essays #stress #diagnosis #mental illness #psychiartist

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Discuss the effects of technology on cognitive processes. (22)

There is a multitude of conflicting ideas on the effects of modern technology on decision making. A popular one is that we are manipulated by technology, a theory which greatly influences marketers in how they can manipulate audiences into buying their product.

An example of research into the negative effects of technology in cognitive processes is a study done by Chou and Edge which aimed to test the influence of mental short cuts (availability heuristic) on how Facebook users compare themselves to other people (comparison theory).

They asked participants in the US to complete a survey which asked them how many hours a week they spent on Facebook, how long they had owned the account, the average time spent actually with friends per week and the number of friends on Facebook who they didn't know personally. The questionnaire also asked them to indicate, using a 10 point scale, how strongly they agreed with a series of statements such as “many of my friends have a better life than me” or “many of my friends are happier than me”.

The results showed that participants who spent the most hours on Facebook were more likely to agree that ‘other people are happier than me’. However, those who spent the most time out with friends in person were even more unlikely to agree with the statement. Participants who admitted to having a large number of friends on facebook who they didn't personally know were very likely to agree that ‘many of my friends have a better life than me’ however they didn't agree that other people were happier.

It was concluded that we overestimate how much peoples public profiles reflect peoples true behaviour and personality, we believe that a persons facebook profile is an accurate representation of a person when in reality it is more like a highlight reel, showing the best parts of a persons week and rarely portraying the negative parts. This shows the negative effects that modern technology has on decision making. This study, however, isn't generalisable as it used undergraduate participants from the US, this is a problem as people from the US may have different attitudes towards Facebook than other countries.

Kramer et al tested the idea that information in a Facebook feed could cause the transfer of emotional states from one person to another.

To test this and altered the content of peoples news, The research used an existing Facebook algorithm and a software system to identify posts containing positive and negative words. They changed it so that people with a positive feed was made negative and vice versa they then monitored the person posts after this change. The words used by participants in their own posts were analysed during the week of the experiment and the percentage of positive and negative words used in these posts was recorded.

They found that when participants had the positive content of their news feed reduced, they were less likely to use positive language in their own posts. And when participants had the negative content of their news feed reduced, they were less likely to use negative language in their own posts.

It was then concluded that the emotional content we are exposed through our Facebook feed affects our emotional state when we see fewer positive posts we are less likely to post positive events or positive opinions of our own. This is important to note as it means that technology could be used in both good and bad ways if used correctly can improve emotions and lead to greater happiness. The problem with this study, however, is that while it can be used in a way, it can also be used to inflict harm on people by pushing negative content on users.

While we may just assume that technology is bad for our cognitive processes, however,  there is research that may indicate that technology could actually be improving thinking and decision making skills; especially in a study of the effects of moderate video gaming.

One example of a study includes Uttal et al who concluded that spatial skills improve from playing shooter video games so much so that they are comparable to the effects of high school and university-level courses aimed solely at enhancing these same skills. The research also showed that spatial skills can be trained with video games in an only brief period of time and that these skills can be maintained over an extended period of time. Its also showed that these skills can be transferred to other spatial tasks outside the video game context.

Bavelier et al aimed to investigate the connection between action games and decision making. first, they studied two groups of men and women (whos average ages were 26) which said they had not played video games in the past year. One group was told to play two action video games, the second group was asked to play a simulation game in which they had to make decisions about a character's life, they were asked to play for two-hour sessions for a total of 50 hours. After the 50 hours of gaming, members of both groups were asked to look at a computer screen and do a simple test. The test consisted of a pattern of dots,  where participants had to determine which way the majority of dots were moving by pressing a key on the keyboard. Some of the patterns were easy, others were more complex.

Findings showed that although both groups were able to accomplish the task, however, those who had played the action video managed to complete it faster and with fewer errors. These results show that they were able to decipher a large amount of information more quickly and come to a decision, just as the case would be if they were playing a video game.

All together technology has its up and downs with many positives and many negatives. However, it is safe to assume that in moderation technology can be beneficial for our cognitive processes.

#technology #phones #facebook #depression #anxitey #mental health #video games #gaming #emotions

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Assess Feminist explanations for the formation of youth subcultures

The Feminist approach explains the way youth cultures are formed. A youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviours, and interests. They offer members an identity outside of the family, work, home and school. Feminists focus on the inequality between men and women within these subcultures.

Girls don’t participate in subcultures as much as boys: We don’t see as much participation from females in youth subcultures such as the teddy boys and the punks, that’s not to say there were no females in these youth subcultures, but they didn’t play as big a role as the males in the formations and continuations of the groups. Females could be seen in subcultures such as punk, however, they would more often play passive roles such as a girlfriend to one of the male members. McRobbie and Garber proposed a theory that girls, rather than being on the streets and playing an active role in youth subcultures such as the teddy boys and skinheads, had there own kind of subcultures which McRobbie and Garber came to call bedroom culture. This bedroom culture provided a safe space for girls to talk to each other in the comfort of their own bedrooms. They theorised that this was an attractive past time to females due to their domestic orientation. This shows us that the feminist explanation was right in saying that women were a minority in youth subcultures and they compensated for that by forming their own subculture. The feminist explanation was also right in saying that women were generally seen in more passive roles in boy-dominated subcultures but they are the main roles of their own bedroom culture.

The bedroom culture studies assume that girls have their own bedrooms as a private space. However, this may not be the case for most girls and raises issues of which girls these studies are representing. As the bedroom culture studies assume that girls have their own bedrooms the results are not representative and can not be generalised to the rest of the population because not all girls have their own bedroom as their private space.

In youth cultures, girls play a secondary role in the defining of the youth culture. This is especially so in the working class youth cultures which feminists say mirror the patriarchal society that still exists in Britain. Thornton argues that because girls had less disposable income, marrying earlier and earning less than their male counterparts, the ‘teenage market’ was dominated by boys. Girls invested more of their time and energy into doing well at school, while boys were investing in music and going out, leading to a difference in their ‘subcultural capital’. This shows us that feminists are not correct in thinking that women are completely excluded from youth subcultures because they still play a role in forming them and being a part of them. However, women still excluded from them as a result of the patriarchal society.

Feminists have argued that youth subcultures are for men only with only a brief explanation of women in the background as girlfriends of members. However detailed studies on these subcultures show that girls were visibly involved in the music, fashion and social behaviour of the subculture. For example, there were female hippies and mods. These are clearly seen in photographs of the youth subcultures.

Many feminists believe that today we live in a patriarchal society and say that this is reflected by male sociologists who have done little if any research into female youth culture. For example, one youth subculture is called ‘teddy boys’ and is therefore mainly male-dominated along with other subcultures such as skinheads. Marxist feminists especially point to the effect of the consumer society on women’s self-image. This shows that the feminist beliefs about society being run by men and therefore shows that females were not directly involved in the formation and development of many popular youth subcultures.

Even though feminism explains the inequality of the youth subcultures it only explains this. It fails to mention the effect of social class and ethnicities in its explanation. So it doesn’t consider how these factors have affected the formation of youth subcultures.

#feminist #feminism #girls #bedroom #bedroomculture #marxist #subcultures #identity #hippies #punk #rock

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Using your wider sociological knowledge asses the usefulness of ethnographic research methods for investigating young people in poor neighbourhoods (25 marks)

Ethnography is a qualitative research method in which a researcher observes a social setting to provide descriptions of a group, society or organisation. This method is most frequently used by interpretivists as it allows the collection of meaningful and valid data which is one of the things interpretivists value most.

This method would allow the researcher to observe the interactions among the members of the working class, meaning they can learn about youths in poverty. This would allow the lower class to have a voice and show that they don't want to be in the situation that they are in. This method would allow a great deal of insight among the lives of youths in the lower class, this is important as it would allow detailed research and qualitative data to be collected making the information more valid as it would give a proper representation of the youths working norms and values. This method priorities the building of trust and rapport which creates more valid data, this would be very important in this study as it is unlikely that the working class youths would be open and truthful to a person they just met because of their sensitive position, this means that the researcher would need to build trust and a relationship with the participants for them to be completely honest.

This method can be subjective as the qualitative data collected may be biased due to the researcher's subjective and selective interpretations, confirmation bias may play a role in the results collected as researchers will look for the results they want in the qualitative data. The researcher may experience many social interactions but will only select a limited amount for analysis and publication. This means the data collected may be unrepresentative of the population and only represent the sociologist's point of view. This is sometimes called the file drawer phenomenon.

The use of qualitative data means that this method is difficult to replicate and therefore verify. Much of the research data depends on the rapport built with the members of the group meaning that other sociologists may not be able to build this same rapport and therefore produce different data. This means that the data is less reliable and can lead to problems in verifying results.

Using a combination of qualitative methods produces a fuller picture and allows you to gain a deeper insight into the lives of other groups, this will make your data more valid as it will truthfully reflect the group you are investigating.

Researchers are less likely to be misled by subjects because the group is typically studied over a period of time, this means that if there is anything that could skew the results, maybe one person in the group who has different norms and values or some other factor then the period of time would allow you to detect the anomalous result.

#sociology #social class #ethnography #poor #working class #youth #Youth Subcultures #essays

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Explain one cognitive bias making use of one study. (9 marks)

Peak-end rule says that people judge an experience based mostly on how they felt at its peak, for example, its most intense point, and at its end. As opposed to a person judging an experience based on the whole average of the experience, taking into account everything that happened. It is, however, not the case that other information before and between the peak and end of the experience is forgotten, but rather it is not used in reaching a decision or judgement on the experience. This process occurs whether or not the experience is positive or not. We see an example of this with movies as well. We are more likely to recommend a movie that has a slow start but an amazing ending than a movie that has an amazing start but a bad ending. This heuristic theory helps people to make a conclusion on an experience easily and can have a profound effect on how we view an experience even if it was all round a positive experience, we can view it negatively because it didn’t have a peak. This is important as it can be applied to real life in things such as movies, to make sure that there is a peak and a good end will ensure that the movie is a success.

Kahneman did an experiment to test the peak-end rule. He did this by asking participants to hold their hand in a bowl of freezing cold water until they were asked to remove them. Researchers used two conditions: the first was 60 seconds of immersion in water at 14 degrees Celsius. After the time was up they were told to take their hand out the water. The second condition lasted for 90 seconds, with the first 60 seconds being the exact same as the first condition but after that time for the last 30 seconds, the researcher poured slightly warmer water into the bowl, raising the overall temperature by about 1 degree. After they have completed the two conditions participants were told they were to undertake one more trial which was to be a repeat of either condition 1 or 2. The participants were asked which they would rather repeat, and results showed that 80% chose the second condition. This supports the peak-end rule as participants chose the second option even though the first would've been the smarter choice as both conditions would have the same level of pain for the same amount of time, but after that time, condition 1 gets to finish and condition 2 gets a slight decrease in pain for an extra 30 seconds.

All this shows how impactful the rule is and how it can mislead us, the experiment showed clearly how a peak in an event can shift our opinions of what we think about an experience.

#psychology #essays #essay help #cognative #cognative bias #peak #peak end #theorys #kahnman

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Assess the view that most youth subcultures are based on social class (24)

Intro statement:

Some sociologists argue that youth subcultures are formed as a response to class divisions in society but some might argue that youth subcultures actually ignore the class divisions and almost combine all classes together.

Paragraph 1:

Marxist sociologists believe that some subcultures that emerged from the 1950’s were firmly class-based. Hall and Jefferson (1976) Teddy boys emerged at a time of high employment and relative affluence. However they often got excluded from this affluence because they didn’t do that good at school. As they didn’t have any career aspirations, they would hang out in big groups in local cafés. They wore Edwardian-style, brightly coloured jackets and suede shoes with lace ties. This supports the idea that the teddy boys, even though they were from the lower classes, they still acted and dressed like the were in a higher, more sophisticated class.

Paragraph 2:

The punk culture that emerged later in the 1970’s can also be seen as a class-based movement. Hebdige (1979) emphasises the historical, socioeconomic, class, race, and mass media contexts of each subculture. For instance, Hebdige argues that there is a common theme underlying the white punk and black reggae subcultures; they both reject British national symbolism. Although seemingly unrelated, Hebdige proves this point by outlining the similarities in their styles. This suggests that social class was based on how you dressed and what youth subculture you were in. For example, the teddy boys were all people belonging to the working class but they all dressed in clothes that were typical of higher classes. However, some subcultures such as mods dressed in clothes the were typical of lower classes but were in a slightly higher social class.

Point 3:

Marxists did not believe that these subcultures changed anything for working-class youth. Brake (1980) carried out research on middle class subcultures such as hippies  and beatniks as the CCCS didn’t seem to have any research about them and only went into detail about working class subcultures such as the teddy boys. Hippies felt alienated from middle-class society, which they saw as dominated by materialism and repression, and they developed their own distinctive lifestyle. So therefore Hippies were apart of middle class society but they actually were presenting themselves as a slightly lower class because they didn’t completely agree with the lifestyle of middle-class society .

Introduction to counterargument (A03):

The idea that youth subcultures are class-based is challenged by sociologists who argue that other factors are important in the formation of subcultures.

Counterargument 1:

For example, the club cultures that emerged in the 1980’s cut across class divisions. Thornton (1995) argued that girls married earlier and were earning less than than their partners, but they were very involved in the mainstream music culture.  Therefore class was almost completely irrelevant to everyone and you didn’t have to be from a certain class to join and be involved with the club cultures. Mainstream culture was usually looked down upon by those with subcultural capital and when a style moves from ‘hip’ to being mainstream, it becomes feminised. Therefore it seems that gender was more relevant to what youth subcultures are based on.

Counterargument 2:

McRobbie and Garber studied the Bedroom Culture (1976) which is another good counter argument for the Marxist point of view. This culture is based around romance, fashion and the private domestic space of the girls’ bedroom. It concluded that girls had a subculture of their own, but were in a private space of their bedroom instead of on the streets or park where many of the boys were more visible. This suggests again that youth subcultures are based more around genders than by social class.

Counterargument 3:

Eisenstadt (1956) argues that the general function of youth subcultures is to smooth the transition between childhood and adulthood. He believes that youth cultures are functional to society because they allow the transition from childhood to adulthood to be easier and fluid which helps maintain social order. This argues that youth subcultures are based on how well you transition from child to adult, how easy it is for you and in which way you transition.

#race #social #sociology #social class #poor #rich #upper class #working class #bedroom #culture #skinhead #punk #teddy boy #mods #essays #essay help #subcultures #youths #youth #youth subcultures

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Explain acculturation with reference to one study. (9 marks)

Moving to a new culture may result in changes to behaviour and thinking, just exposure to another culture can do the same. This phenomenon whereby people adopt the norms and values of a new culture is known as acculturation. There were four acculturation strategies proposed by researcher Berry that can be used by individuals, they are as follows: assimilation, integration, separation and marginalisation. Assimilation is when an individual abandons their own culture and fully integrates themselves into their new culture, adopting all of its norms and values. Integration talks about wanting to adopt the norms and values of a new culture while still maintaining their original culture. Separation is when migrants fully maintain their own culture and try to minimise contact with the new culture. Finally, marginalisation, where it isn't possible to maintain one's original culture but because of prejudice or discrimination it isn't possible to adopt the new culture.

Lueck and Wilson aimed to investigate the variables that predict acculturative stress in a sample of asian immigrants and asian Americans. The researchers conducted interviews and a randomly selected sample were contacted to validate the data taken from the interviews. These interviews measured their levels of acculturative stress and the impact of language proficiency, discrimination, social networks, family cohesion and acculturative stress. The results showed that 70% of the sample were found to have acculturative stress, they concluded that this was due to; a bilingual language preference, asians who do not know the native / english language well and therefore may struggle with friends / family events causing stress; negative treatment such a xenophobia which may include prejudice and discrimination, contributing to high levels of acculturative stress. They also found that acculturative stress was significantly lower in those who were happy with their economic opportunities and status in the states.

#psychology #acculturation #berry #asian #discrimination #stress #essays #essay help

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Explain one study of enculturation. (9 marks)

A big part of our development of our personal identity is learning and maintaining the necessary and appropriate norms and values of our own culture. This is the process we call enculturation. Direct tuition (when your parents tell you what you are supposed to do), observational learning (where we learn from watching other people) and participatory learning (where children engage in an activity which can later transfer into different situations) are all ways that enculturation can occur.

Williams et al studied the role of television on children's gender roles and how they develop. He aimed to see if there was any significant increase in gender stereotypes after the introduction of tv. He did this by investigating children's gender stereotyping in towns where television had only been recently introduced. This would show the process of enculturation by introducing another factor to teach its own norms and values that have been taken from other countries such as America, causing children to learn then as if they were the norms and values of their own culture. He did this by observing the gender stereotypes before tv and then went back two years later to observe the effect. He found that the children of the town had learned significantly more gender stereotypes after the two years that they had been exposed to television. This shows the affect of enculturation on children as they used observational learning to watch and take in things being done on tv. They may also of taken part in participatory learning by engaging in activities proposed by the media or by copying that acts shown to them. Williams study is good evidence for acculturation as we see fast changes in an important factor of identity which could only of been learnt through the process of enculturation.

#enculturation #williams #television #tv #gender #gender roles #feminist #psychology #stereotypes #america #essay

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Describe one cultural dimension making reference to one study (9 marks)

The cultural dimension of individualism and collectivism are learned through enculturation as they are learned more or less subconsciously. Individualistic cultures are ones that encourage independence and focus on building each person as their own individual, not needing to rely on a group. They believe that any you should always take measures to further yourself as an individual. In an individualistic culture, such as Germany or the United States, uniqueness is highly valued and speaking one's mind is important. This is because it displays your single personality and independence and shows that you don't need to rely on the rest of the group to get along. Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, prioritise the group, believing that any actions you take should be in the interests of the whole collective. They encourage people to rely on each other and to live in harmony. Collectivist cultures such as japan and china, believe that rule breaking lead to shame and loss of face, meaning they use the power of the group and pressure of others to control individuals. This also means that collectivist cultures don't expect privacy.

A study that tested individualism was Berry, who suggested that hunting and fishing societies tend to be individualistic whereas agricultural societies tended to be collectivist. He aimed to measure the level of conformity in the two societies. Berry used three cultures, first the temne, a society which is based on rice farming. Secondly the inuit people who survived by hunting and fishing, and finally he used scots as a reference group. In the rice and hunting societies the groups of participants were made up of people who had never had a western education and maintained a traditional way of life; and people who were in transition and either had a western education or western employment. Individuals were brought into a room and asked to (in their native language) to complete the task that we know as Asch’s paradigm where they had to say which line was the same length as the sample line given. There were two practice tests to make sure that the instructions were understood. After this, there were four more trials where they were given the same type of test but were prompted with saying that people from their culture chose a particular line and recorded if this had any affect on their answers. For the third trial the correct answer was given, for trials four, five and six, the wrong response was given. They found that the collectivist culture had a much higher rate of conformity even when the answer was incorrect. The inuits had a lower rate of conformity than the Scots. They also found that being traditional didn't affect the results and it had no effect if they had been exposed to a western culture. It was concluded that when reminded of their cultural identity, cultural dimension played a more significant role in their responses. His findings show that cultural dimensions play a large role in how we behave and affect us in many aspects of life.

#psychology #culturaldiversity #culturaldimentions #individual #collective #collectivist #germany #united states #berry #culture

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Define the term hybrid identities using examples (6)

Hybrid identity consists of the fusion of two or more cultures, resulting in the creation of new ones. This refers to the idea that identity in a multicultural society no longer relies on one specific culture for its characteristics. This is because people now mix and match aspects of personal style from a variety of ethnic and global sources, resulting in the formation of new cultures.

Examples of hybrid identities in contemporary UK are spoken about by sociologist Nayak who coined the term ‘white wannabes’. A term which is used to describe white British males who act, dress and speak in a way that is strongly influenced by black hip-hop culture. This can be the result of multicultural nature of certain parts of London, where mixed groups of white and black people influence each other, creating a hybrid dialect.

#hybrid #sociology #define #identity #british #britain #uk #black #white

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Explain and briefly evaluate the view that sexuality has a significant effect on an a person’s identity (20 marks)

Although sexual identity is a significant issue for many, it tends to be more significant for those who are not heterosexual. What is classified as normal sexual behaviour is socially constructed. In Britain the dominant view of sexuality is heterosexuality as it has links to reproduction. This is known as heteronormativity.

Firstly, because what is seen as ‘normal’ sexual behaviour in Britain is heterosexuality, the process of developing and accepting a homosexual identity (coming out) can be more complicated. Weeks argued that sexual identity was a lot more complex than other aspects of identity. In this he refers to how some people can identify as gay and strongly participate in the gay culture and community, however at the same time they do not sexually participate in homosexual relations. On the other hand some people may not identify themselves as gay but still partake in sexual activities with the same gender. This means people can identify themselves differently even though they are, by definition, something else.

secondly, ‘becoming a homosexual’ can be a difficult process in a society where homosexuality is still not accepted by many groups. It is still common for gay or bisexual people to be seen deviant, as they are not a part of the majority. This means being gay might also mean being part of a subculture. Mcintosh's study shows that being gay affects your identity as men who had come out as gay showed more stereotypical ‘gay traits’. This shows that if you are labeled gay then you become the stereotypical gay; high voice wearing effeminate mannerisms and a greater interest in fashion. This shows that people act differently when they are identified as homosexual, this highlights the effect that sexuality hsa on your identity.  

Finally, if people are homosexual or bisexual, they might have negative experiences of bullying and discrimination. The 2013 Stonewall report shows that more than half of LGBT pupils are bullied at school in Wales, and the percentage goes up to 73 % for transgender pupils. Three in five LGBT pupils 'frequently' or 'often' hear homophobic language in school, and half 'frequently' or 'often' hear transphobic language. Bullying experienced by Welsh students is mostly psychological. Students are reluctant to talk about the bullying: nearly half of LGBT pupils who experience bullying never tell anyone about it. These negative attitudes towards LGBTQ+ may have an effect on people's identity as they might fear being open about their sexuality and the repercussions of being open could affect them mentally.  

However, some sociologists would argue that times have changed and sexuality is no longer the central issue for many gay people in forming their identity. Changes in attitudes in the UK over the last 30 years, and also legal changes have changed the way most people see homosexuality. Gay marriage was legalised in the uk in march 2014 there is evidence to show that this is overall beneficial to homosexual couples as in areas where gay marriage isn't legal anxiety disorders are 284 percent higher. This shows how important sexuality is in the forming of identity. 

#sociology #homosexual #LGBT #LGBTQ #LGBTQ+ #trans #gay #essay #essay help #sexuality #identity

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Outline and evaluate the view that age plays an important part in the construction of identity (20 marks)

Age can be said to be a socially constructed concept which leads to different age-appropriate norms which can have a significant influence on our identity Sociologists would argue that ideas about age are created by society. There are different norms and values associated with different age groups. These can therefore form the basis of social identity as well as individual identity ie your age can have an impact on your own sense of identity as well as how other people see you.

Firstly, age can be shown to be historically relative; an example researcher was Postman, who believed that childhood is a relatively new idea. He went one step further and suggested that childhood is now rapidly disappearing. As evidence to support his theory postman  looked at the trend towards giving children the same rights as adults, the growing similarity of adult and children’s clothing and even some cases of children committing more adult crimes such as murder and rape. He suggested that in the middle ages most people were illiterate meaning that speech was the main form of communicating, therefore there was hardly any distinction between adults and children. Postman argues that childhood became more prevalent as literacy became more mainstream and there was more of a need to be literate. This was because the printed words created a division between those that could read and those that couldn’t, such as adults and children. This division emerged because it takes several years to learn reading and writing skills. Postman argues now that things like television and the internet blur this separation and that children are now much more able to access the adult world, meaning there is less of a boundary between issues that are more adult. For example age ratings on movies and tv shows are being lowered massively, so movies that were an 18 ten years ago are now considered a PG, exposing children to more adult content. This means that as we develop technology and media becomes more and more important, that childhood as we know it is disappearing. This shows that age is historically relative as in the middle ages childhood was more fluid as there wasn't any knowledge boundaries between adults and children.

Secondly, age can be shown to be culturally relative as some cultures have an abrupt end to childhood whereas others take longer to move into adulthood. Traditional societies mark the passage from childhood to adulthood with rites of passage. The Hamar Tribe practice a rite of passage ceremony in which the boy who is to become a man whipps the women of the tribe with sticks of birch. The more pain that they endure, shows the more devotion they have towards the male. Next the boy is to run across the backs of a line of cattle, If he is successful he will become a man. If he fails he will have to wait another year to try again. This shows that age is only relative to culture as traditions differ from place to place. While here in guernsey we may consider adulthood starting at any age from 18-21, as we don't have a straight cut line saying when a person becomes an adult. Whereas in the hamar tribe it starts at 17. While in both cultures your responsibility changes when you become an adult.

Finally, the way the elderly are treated is also relative across cultures In traditional societies the elderly are often revered and seen as wise, useful and important. This will have a positive effect on identity for the elderly. However in the UK this is often not the case. In Britain the elderly are not treated with a great deal of respect or status because work is the major source of status in industrial societies. Hockey & James used the term infantilism to explain how the elderly are treated in the UK. They thought that there were a lot of similarities between how we in the UK think about children and the elderly. They link old age to childhood, saying that they are socially constructed in a similar way. The two compare care homes to the way we would treat children in a play school. Hockey and James describe it as losing ‘personhood’

However, some sociologists would argue that times have changed and age is much less important in identity formation as it used to be, postmodernists would argue that age is becoming more fluid and people are becoming less defined by their life stage.

The popularity of ‘retro’ fashions and comeback tours for bands from the 1770’s and 80’s also blur the boundaries between life stages and generations Featherstone & Hepworth think that negative media images of ageing are giving way to new identities and as the population of the UK ages, more positive images may emerge.Therefore in a postmodern world, other aspects of identity, such as ethnicity or gender might be more important than age.

-disclaimer- this is all my own written work so don’t expect it to be perfect, it is just to give you some idea what to write! 

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