Revision suggestions: Watch 'The 3 Faces of Eve' to give you a greater insight into what Eve was like.
Background: T & C wanted to find out whether it really was possible for more than one 'personality' to reside in one body.
Key words:
Sampling Technique: Opportunity- Eve self-referred herself and T & C took advantage of this to treat and study her.
Sample: Eve
Background: T & C wanted to find out whether it really was possible for more than one 'personality' to reside in one body.
Key words:
- Personality= 'The distinctive and characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behaviour that define an individual's personal style ans influence their interactions with the environment'
- MPD= rare neurotic disorder (now known as DID) where a person has all the different aspects of their personality, but they are contained in a separate unit/personality; resulting in them having more than one personality. In effect their personalities do not result as an integrated whole as they would in an average 'normal' person. Each personality/alter in a person with MPD has its own personal role it takes on and its own characteristics, likes and dislikes. Each may even live it's life alongside the others, while being contained within one body. There could be a part that is happy, jealous, sensible, loving etc. The alters will have its own memories, experience and relationships with others.
- Action Research= collecting evidence to support theory whilst trying to treat patient.
- A theory for this condition is that in early childhood the child adopted alters as a way of dealing with traumatic/disturbing events. The child would hypnotise/fool themselves into believing that the events had not happened to them, they had happened to one of their alters/someone else. Bliss (1983) came up with some evidence to support this as they discovered that MPD people were easier to hypnotise than a control grp.
- To treat someone with MPD, it is necessary therefore to convince the person that they dont need to have split personalities in order to deal with their earlier traumas and help them to reintergrate. But before they can do this they have to acknowledge, if not already; that they have alters.
- The reason for MPD being more common in women is the fact that more women are sexually abused in their childhood than men and in order to deal with this trauma they associated the problem with being with another person-another alter to their personality.
- Eve White was referred to Dr Thigpen because she was experiencing severe headaches and blackouts that had no physical cause and they wanted to investigate the cause.
- Although MPD was a rare but reasonably well known illness at this time, Eve’s case allowed Thigpen and Cleckley to research and develop their theories and treatments concerning this disorder.
Sampling Technique: Opportunity- Eve self-referred herself and T & C took advantage of this to treat and study her.
Sample: Eve
- *Self- admitted/referred as had been suffering headaches, blackouts and periods of forgetfulness/memory loss.
- *American
- *Mum of 4 yr old daughter
- Marriage was disintergrating, it caused her a great deal of stress and concern.
- Not aware of Eve Black (@ 1st)
- Religious-Baptist
- *Suffered emotional difficulties- martial conflict, hostile towards mother (made her kiss her dead grandmother when little), personal frustrations, scared of being a mum (in case harm her daughter), trauma from childhood (saw someone get beheaded).
- Wrote a letter, didn't remember sending it.
- Sweet & sad
- @ 1st attended sessions irregularly (as didn't have control of her personalities).
Additional Info:
-No one else - EW - Everyone (EW & EB)
- Loved her family - Didn't care - Compassionate
- Loved daughter - Didn't love family
- Marriage issues - Felt could care for daughter
- Letter - IQ & Memory tests
- Ink blot tests
- Observations
- Hypnosis
Evaluation:
Research Method:
+ = As it was a longitudinal study Eve couldn't have faked having all her personalities for all that time.
+ = Many methods of collecting data, collecting rich meaningful data.
+ = Enables you to see Eve's development that you wouldn't have seen with a snapshot study (Eve wouldnt have got control of EB and wouldnt have seen EW, EB and J)
- = DCs/bias possible as study so long and a relationship might have developed between the researchers and Eve, which would affect the results if the researchers interpreted it subjectively.
- = Subjective as relies on self- report data which Eve could have faked. Possible Eve answered with SDB.
- = No control- not a scientific research method.
Sample:
+ = As it was a CASE STUDY a lot of data was collected on Eve's personalities
+ = Gives insight into a unique disorder
- = Small sample- only Eve studied, not generalisable
- = Ethnocentric- Eve was American
Type of data:
+ = Qual data- interviews, letter analysis gives rich meaningful data that is valid
- = Data interpreted subjectively- researcher may have put their own bias on the results (may have believed Eve had MPD so made the results reflect this)
- = Qual data on own is REDUCTIONIST (doesn't consider other reasons why things are occurring).
Reliability:
+ = Consistent as what Eve's family says supports what Eve says.
- = Not replicable, people with this disorder have different experiences.
- = Collects qual data mostly so not going to be consistent.- = Difficult to generalise from person to person.
- = Small sample is not reliable, cant get consistent results with just one ps.
Validity:
+ = Concurrent validity as what Eve's family says supports what Eve says.
+ = As qual data used, rich and meaningful.
- = Relies on self-report data, possible DCs and SDB- she could be lying/'play-acting' so findings are not valid.
- = Researchers relationship with Eve as it is longitudinal may have affected their judgement of the case and may have led them to overlook any evidence that may have suggested that Eve was 'play-acting'.
- = Not ecol valid as wouldn't usually gain control of her personalities or be able to summon her personalities.- = Interviewer bias- researcher may have put their own bias on the results. E.g by not including evidence that could mean Eve was lying or didn't have MPD.
Usefulness:
- = Eve left the study with more personalities (21) than she started the therapy with (9)
- = Not generalisable- Eve could have deceived T & C
Ethical Issues:
+ = as Eve self-referred so more ethical.
- = 'Killing off' personalities (EW & EB) is involved in the method of merging Eve into one personality, which would be distressing for J to consider and very unethical in itself.
- = The depth of personal info is arguably enough for some people to work out who Eve really is, which is not keeping her info kept confidential.
Improvements & Implications:
1a) Method:
Conduct a field experiment, with cameras put up in Eve's home through asking her partners permission
Brain scan to see what parts of the brain is working at certain points. Might show picture of Eve's daughter to J, EW and EB
Get more researchers to observe Eve.
Advertise in the local press for people in America who think they have MPD to volunteer in a study on 'different personalities'. A sample of 10 would be selected with 5 F & 5 M to take part in the study.
- T & C knew Eve was not schizophrenic as:
- Eve referred herself, if schizophrenic would have lost touch with society/no control over it.
- Voices she heard were atypical of schizophrenia.
- She had neurosis rather than psychosis.
- T & C thought Eve had MPD as:
- EEG- objective
- Things she said cross-referenced with what her family said about her.
- Study took a long period of time- Eve couldn't have faked her personalities so consistently and deceived T & C for that long, surely!?
- Eve was embarrassed and distressed by the letter.
- Who knew who?
-No one else - EW - Everyone (EW & EB)
- How each Eve felt about her family:
- Loved her family - Didn't care - Compassionate
- Loved daughter - Didn't love family
- Marriage issues - Felt could care for daughter
- Outcome of the therapeutic process:
- Qual vs Quant
- Letter - IQ & Memory tests
- Ink blot tests
- Observations
- Hypnosis
- More about the letter:
- Ink blot test- A PROJECTIVE TEST where Eve had to describe what she saw from some images and the therapists interpreted it.
- T & C convinced that Eve was suffering from MPD, which was probably brought on by childhood trauma.
- Jane may offer a partial resolution to the problem of integrating the personalities.
- More research is needed into this disorder.
Evaluation:
Research Method:
+ = As it was a longitudinal study Eve couldn't have faked having all her personalities for all that time.
+ = Many methods of collecting data, collecting rich meaningful data.
+ = Enables you to see Eve's development that you wouldn't have seen with a snapshot study (Eve wouldnt have got control of EB and wouldnt have seen EW, EB and J)
- = DCs/bias possible as study so long and a relationship might have developed between the researchers and Eve, which would affect the results if the researchers interpreted it subjectively.
- = Subjective as relies on self- report data which Eve could have faked. Possible Eve answered with SDB.
- = No control- not a scientific research method.
Sample:
+ = As it was a CASE STUDY a lot of data was collected on Eve's personalities
+ = Gives insight into a unique disorder
- = Small sample- only Eve studied, not generalisable
- = Ethnocentric- Eve was American
Type of data:
+ = Qual data- interviews, letter analysis gives rich meaningful data that is valid
- = Data interpreted subjectively- researcher may have put their own bias on the results (may have believed Eve had MPD so made the results reflect this)
- = Qual data on own is REDUCTIONIST (doesn't consider other reasons why things are occurring).
Reliability:
+ = Consistent as what Eve's family says supports what Eve says.
- = Not replicable, people with this disorder have different experiences.
- = Collects qual data mostly so not going to be consistent.- = Difficult to generalise from person to person.
- = Small sample is not reliable, cant get consistent results with just one ps.
Validity:
+ = Concurrent validity as what Eve's family says supports what Eve says.
+ = As qual data used, rich and meaningful.
- = Relies on self-report data, possible DCs and SDB- she could be lying/'play-acting' so findings are not valid.
- = Researchers relationship with Eve as it is longitudinal may have affected their judgement of the case and may have led them to overlook any evidence that may have suggested that Eve was 'play-acting'.
- = Not ecol valid as wouldn't usually gain control of her personalities or be able to summon her personalities.- = Interviewer bias- researcher may have put their own bias on the results. E.g by not including evidence that could mean Eve was lying or didn't have MPD.
Usefulness:
- = Eve left the study with more personalities (21) than she started the therapy with (9)
- = Not generalisable- Eve could have deceived T & C
Ethical Issues:
+ = as Eve self-referred so more ethical.
- = 'Killing off' personalities (EW & EB) is involved in the method of merging Eve into one personality, which would be distressing for J to consider and very unethical in itself.
- = The depth of personal info is arguably enough for some people to work out who Eve really is, which is not keeping her info kept confidential.
Improvements & Implications:
1a) Method:
Conduct a field experiment, with cameras put up in Eve's home through asking her partners permission
- + = Natural behaviour observed, high ecol validity
- - = Not aware being observed- no informed consent
- - = Hard to control extraneous variables from affecting the experiment
- - = Deception- Eve is not aware she is being observed and her partner is keeping this from her.
Brain scan to see what parts of the brain is working at certain points. Might show picture of Eve's daughter to J, EW and EB
- + = Objective, scientific, high validity.
- + = Less reliant on self report data and/or brain scan can be used to determine whether Eve was telling the truth.
- - = Very expensive equipment is required.
Get more researchers to observe Eve.
- + = Less subjective, reduces chance of the bias, more objective.
- - = Might be distressing to be observed by more people.
- - = Eve might not reveal as much info about herself as the more experts would be.
- - = More expensive the more experts you involve.
Advertise in the local press for people in America who think they have MPD to volunteer in a study on 'different personalities'. A sample of 10 would be selected with 5 F & 5 M to take part in the study.
- + = Larger sample will be more reliable and therefore representative of the population of people who have/could have MPD.
- + = Greater depth of knowledge on MPD to generalise what MPD consists of.
- + = Useful applications- greater understanding of the suggested symptoms and increase validity of diagnosis of MPD.
- - = Still ethnocentric as all from America.
- - = There may not be enough people with MPD to do the study and therefore it still may not be representative.