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The concept of intelligence and understanding the mechanisms that create, sustain and develop it have both captivated and bemused scholars for millennia. For sure, as self-reflexive beings we are destined to comprehend or delineate the question of knowledge; the retention of information – the immaterial – that has a pivotal function in not only creating the psycho-social world but allowing it to evolve. The purpose of this essay is to examine the definitional nightmare that has plagued our conception of what intelligence is or how it should be described, before exploring the contributions made by psychology in capturing and measuring this phenomena. In turn, this essay will explore one of psychology’s longstanding dichotomous dilemmas, the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate, to explore whether intelligence is an inherent virtue or something ascertained through interaction and culture. This essay is one of exploration, a discovery and piecing-together of various strands within psychology, to provide an account of what intelligence is and its place of origin.

It seems somewhat obvious that our academic ancestors would have been heavily persuaded by the supernatural and otherworldly, before the emergence of scientific discourse and so-called Enlightenment. For Plato (2014), the soul existed independently of the corporeal, imbued with beauty, elegance and knowledge par excellence, residing in the sacred realms of perfect forms and facts before marrying with the body; a metaphorical prison that hindered the soul’s quest for actualisation. Thus, intelligence was a process of realisation or recollection, the overcoming of a fickle, polluted, and decaying body to a higher state of becoming; a master artisan of reflexivity or philosopher king (Plato 2014, 88). However, philosophers like Aristotle (2013) – often regarded as the ‘father of psychology’ – whilst sustaining the Cartesian Dualism somewhat, contended that there was a marriage (hylomorphic) between the mind and body; the former (passive intellect) an infinite and immortal vessel that engages with the former (active intellect) and its five senses to assimilate and project into (inter)action. However intellect (nous) remains an abstruse and spiritualised entity. As Magee (2000) alludes, such philosophical interpretations have an artistic and somewhat godly quality pertaining to intelligence, its origin and ascertainment. The advent of pseudoscience’s like phrenology sought to locate intellect within the details of the human skull; dimples and dents where regarded as proof that human potential could be determined, thereby damming already marginalised groups and heightening the divide across race, class and the sexes (Uttal 2003). The succession of science, whilst discounting religion as an illogical and epistemologically restrictive domain, also had a disenchanting effect (Weber1946) on our understanding of intelligence; placing it within realms of quantification, a variant that could be detailed, standardised, examined and subsequently explained without the need for wonder and mystic. Accordingly, psychology became a prime protagonist in exhuming the mythical and establishing the measurable substance of intelligence, its elemental makeup and related descriptions.

So, what is intelligence? Ironically, this topic remains hotly contested within psychology, though most accept that intellect is a necessary component for adaptation. It requires a host of mental operations (including a malleable brain), physical capabilities and ecological cues to converge – to some extent – in an orchestrated manner, allowing one to synthesise successfully, advance and ultimately master the environment around them. As the American Psychological Association suggest, it is the “global capacity to profit from experience” (APA 2015). The work of Piaget (1972) has assisted immensely in our understanding of (child) development and the cognitive-intellectual building blocks or schemas that emerge from birth, his preoccupation with how knowledge grows led to several assertions. In principle, intelligence is the creation of these mental representations through a process of assimilation i.e. the generation and deployment of schemas to manage (new) situations and/or objects, and accommodation which can be likened to schematic adjustments or transformations as new (updated) information is confronted. For Piaget (2001), intelligence is a process of four unique stages of increasing complexity, beginning with the sensorimotor stage at birth where the infant relies heavily on its motor senses to engage with the world, and ending with formal operations stage where the child develops abstract thought, employs deductive reasoning and differentiates oneself from others – progressing from primitive to infinitely complex structures, concepts and coding’s.

Similarly, for Cattell (1963) intelligence may be dissected into two dialectical concepts: the broad function to think logically and problem-solve through unfamiliar processes called fluid intelligence (Gf) and the ability to reason and implement based on previously acquired knowledge or what he called crystallised intelligence (Gc). However these original conceptions have been subsequently expanded to include a whole host of mental abilities (Lubinski 2004), including memory, visual and auditory processing. Yet, interaction with the world demands what Salovey and Mayer (1990) call emotional intelligence whereby, as social creatures, humans can appropriately gauge and control their own emotive state whilst determining that of others – what Weber (1946) calls ‘verstehen’ – to act with purposeful and productive intent both individually and collectively; this requires social learning and a mastery over ones emotive impulses – where biological impulse and society meet, the latter defusing, moulding and directing the former (Lieberman 2013). Indeed, as an extreme example, we discover in psychopaths the inability to form emotional bonds or act empathically, tending to mimic emotive demonstrations (Raine and Glenn 2014), leading to dysfunctional and extremely harmful individuals. Ironically, typical traits of psychopaths include a high level of general intelligence which is understood as the capacity to assimilate, comprehend and apply facts, laws and principles. Indeed, in his psychometric investigations, Spearman (1927) introduced the term general factor (g) to denote that humans possessed – to varying degrees – a core construct of cognitive capacity or mental energy. This was assessed by tapping into what he called specific factors (e.g. arithmetic, logic, and written) using a variety of mental tests; his findings showed that those participants demonstrating high performance on specific mental tasks tended to achieve in others. In addition, arguing the case for multiple intelligences, Thorndike (1920) posits an additional social intelligence, which parallels with our capacity as sentient animals, that includes our aptitude for participating and profiting within the social milieu; to act wisely, assimilate norms and values and interact with others. These techniques and interactive strategies are learned through social conditioning and vary across societies (Goleman 2007). Thus, intelligence appears to be multifaceted in its conceptual makeup, often hierarchical and including subdivisions of specificity.

For cognitive theorists, there has been a tendency for proponents of the psychometrics to focus purely on the realm of conceptual structure whereas they place impetus on uncovering the process through which intelligence is gained; a computer analogy is often deployed to describe how information is processed through various senses, mental nodes and serial formations. Importantly, as Jensen (1987) postulates, mental processing speed may play a pivotal role in intelligence, as well as how effectively we collate, compartmentalise and articulate mental representations of information. Theorists consider the basic components or models of cognition, such as creativity, attention, thinking and perception, and how these function. A variety of computer-like models have been generated as a kind of heuristic device or ideal-type (Huneman 2007) to detail mental procedures. For example, Atkinson and Shiffrin (cited in Ashcraft and Raduansky 2013) outline a multi-stage model of memory that shows various phases through which information is collated, stored and retrieved in a kind of processor-like input-storage-retrieval procedure; a variety of systems, including attention, sensory memory and the rehearsal loop, are involved in deciphering, coding, storing and retrieving memories.

A variety of research conducted on brain-function has provided some concrete evidence for cognitive theories inasmuch as the brain might be divided into sectors of functionality; the temporal lobes are involved in speech, memory and behaviour whereas the frontal lobe has been considered responsible for behaviour, movement and intelligence (Smith and Kosslyn 2008). Indeed, whilst certain regions of the brain can be attributed with particular tasks, most researchers accept the interconnectedness nature involved in creating intelligence. As Eysenck and Keane (2010) suggest, in order to measure cognitive phenomena and attempt to illuminate the genealogy of intelligence, researchers employ a host of “mental tests”, including the “original” Binet-Simon (later Stanford) intelligent quotient (IQ) – originally devised to identify underperforming children – which assesses general components of intellect, to more specific skill-related tests that account for memory, verbal, speed and emotional aptitude. In some cases, such tests have a high level of reliability, validity and standardisation providing a reasonable indicator (correlation) of aptitude and achievement potential. However, such tests have come under considerable criticism, particularly because of their class, race and cultural biases (Greenfield 1997); what should define intelligence and how this should be measured/assessed remains a problematic issue for all testing. Also, appreciating that the mind is a malleable organ and suited to adaptation based on environmental demands, it seems logical that humans will evolve differently across cultures; measures, values and descriptions of intellect will vary accordingly (Nisbett 2009). Similarly, aspects of intellect will be heightened according to environment, for example, in hunter-gatherer societies, spatial awareness and attention may be regarded as more useful tools (and may be accentuated in such cultures) than maths or verbal abilities (Smith and Kosslyn 2008).

Sadly, despite the implementation of scientific measurement, the psychology of intelligence remains somewhat speculative, hypothetical and dependant on mental constructs. The biological approach to intelligence seeks to place intellect within the realm of hard facts as a means of explaining (rather than describing) behaviour. However, this reductionist view is considered complementary to cognitive models and computer analogies of intelligence (Claxton 2015). Indeed, many studies, using modern technologies like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET), have sought to pinpoint activity within the brain when performing specific tasks as a method of compartmentalising brain function and sources of intelligence. Similarly, there has been considerable research into brainwaves and the effect on task performance and blood-flow as an indicator of mental activity (Devlin and Fienberg 1997). The field of DNA has also revealed the contribution that genes make to intelligence (using various IQ test), especially in adulthood with the implication that we reinforce (or indeed resist) our genes as we develop. Also, investigation into twin studies – particularly identical or dizygotic pairs – has demonstrated a strong correlation (between 70-80% variance) between heritability and intelligence; identical pairs separated at birth show similar readings in intellect whilst adopted children show similarities to that of their birthparents (McCartney et al 1990). Moreover, our understanding of genetic disorders, such as dyslexia and neural diseases like Alzheimer’s and Downs Syndrome further illuminate the biological grounding of intelligence and its related brain functions (Slade 2009).

Malyby and Day (2013) has also proposed how cultural influence interacts with the biological. For example, (mal)nutrition, stress and ‘mental scars’ due to trauma can impede on intelligence; this pertains to various environmental factors, such as poverty, war and abuse. In fact, as a retort to the biological approach, is the consideration of culture in shaping intelligence. As Skinner (2011, 46) one expounded “give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything” alluding to the notion that the mind is a tabula rasa awaiting social imbuement. Yet, as Berg (2012) recounts, the (social) world is an asymmetrical field, where resources or architectural means to reach ones potential are stockpiled in the hands of a few; denoting that social inequality remains an important factor in pedagogic (indeed human) potential, conditioning across race, class and gender boundaries generates specific malignant societal formations that hinder progress. In addition, as Fox et al (2011) demonstrates, those who come from dysfunctional families, where domestic violence is present, or placed in foster care show lower IQ scores than non-institutionalised cohorts of similar attribute or those who are subsequently removed from such environments; these tend to perform better in testing once removed. A classic example of the impact environment has on not only intellect but psychosocial development is that of feral children; these individuals lack a host of higher-intellectual faculties, including human language, empathy and social behaviours (Ashcraft and Radvansky 2003). This illuminates the importance of culture in, at the least, coaxing and facilitating human potentials.

In this essay we have explored the various conceptions and descriptions offered by psychologists and their philosophical ancestors to measure and explain intelligence. In truth, this appears to a definitional nightmare, filled with conjecture or hypothetical formations, though strenuous efforts are made using scientific measures to access the still illusive question of what intelligence is, a phenomena that has a multitude of variants across a range of societal and cultural spectrums. Yet, psychology has certainly offered an account of what may constitute intelligence, unlike our philosophical ancestors, science has permitted academics to fish through the lens of objectivism to uncover the composition of intelligence and its origin. Indeed, on the issue of nature versus nurture, it is apparent that both are interdependent; biology and genetic factors are certainly prerequisites for development and adaptation but both shaped by and dependant on environmental and social influences. Similarly, on a cellular or neural level, researchers observe the interrelations between various regions of the brain and, whilst on a conceptual level we find that a range of cognitive processes are involved in our intellectual makeup. That said, to what extent remains a mystery; the psychology of intelligence continues to be a best guess, but arguably a respectable one that is under constant scientific revision.

References

American Psychological Association. 2015. Topic in intelligence found at: http://www.apa.org/topics/intelligence/. 28th September 2015.

Aristotle.2013.Reprint. The Works of Aristotle: The Famous Philosopher. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Ashcraft, M. Radvansky, G. 2013. Cognition. Pearson Education.

Berg, G. 2012. Low-Income Students and the Perpetuation of Inequality: Higher Education in America. Ashgate Press: UK.

Carroll, J. 1993.Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor-analytical studies. Cambridge University Press: NY.

Cattell, R. 1963. Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 54(1), pp 1-22.

Claxton, G. 2015. Intelligence in the Flesh: Why Your Mind Needs Your Body Much More Than it Thinks. Yale University Press.

Devlin, B. Fienberg, S.1997. Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve. Copernicus Press.

Eysenck, M. Keane, M. 2010. Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. 6th Edition. Psychology Press: London.

Fox, N.Almas, A.Degnan, K.Nelson, C. Zeanah, C. 2011. The Effects of Severe Psychosocial Deprivation and Foster Care Intervention on Cognitive Development at 8 Years of Age: Findings from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. Vol 52(9), pp. 919–928.

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Goleman, D. 2007. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. Arrow Publishers.

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Discuss in relation to theory and research on pro-social behaviour.
Introduction

Helping behaviour has been a focus of social psychological research since the 1950’s (Hogg and Vaughan, 2008) and within this literature; there exists an abundance of studies concerned with the concept of altruism. The main aim of this essay is to consider the assertion that every action is a selfish one and thus true altruism does not exist. In order to do this, relevant theory and research on pro-social behaviour will be explored.

Broadly speaking, pro-social behaviour involves carrying out an act that benefits another (Hogg and Vaughan, 2008) and the interest in this topic since the 1950’s, from a research point of view, has impressive longevity. Altruism, as a concept, has attracted much debate and is a type of helping behavior, essentially involving helping another without any expectation of personal gain (Batson and Coke, 1981; Macaulay and Berkowitz, 1970). Perhaps it is rather difficult to realistically suggest that an act could ever be categorised as truly altruistic or indeed if it is not, then it must be selfish. This essay will help to support the view that altruism exists to some extent but often there can be benefits for the individual in demonstrating this behaviour. Research has unfortunately at times aimed to minimise the assertion that a motive to help others without personal benefit can exist (Krueger, 2012).

Theory and Research

Wilson (2015, p.5) very recently documented that “the question of how altruism evolves is such a controversy that is just entering its resolution phase.” Altruism is a fairly complicated concept to explore and some of Wilson’s (2015) writings reflect this. For instance, Wilson (2015) alludes to the idea that it can be challenging to truly understand an individual’s intention when helping another in that it may be to feel better, win favour with God or ensure the other person is in debt to you. The question therefore might be along the lines of what constitutes truly altruistic behaviour and when does it become selfish.

Wilson (2015) also helpfully simplifies how one might view altruism by focusing, temporarily, only on the behaviour. An example is illustrated by Wilson (2015) whereby if one individual helps another at a cost to themselves then that demonstrates altruism regardless of what they thought or felt about the situation.

Pro-social behaviour theory provides mixed support for the idea of true altruism. For instance, altruism does not particularly receive support from the well-known bystander-calculus model (Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner and Clark, 1981), if one is to accept it. This model would assert that individuals would take action in an emergency essentially to reduce their own unpleasant arousal (Batson and Oleson, 1991). This theory clearly makes reference to the significance of the thoughts and feelings of the individual. It may suggest that in part, the helper is to a degree being selfish, but at the same time, is actually carrying out an act that helps another. From this point of view, altruism is perhaps not the correct term since the individual is driven to act, to an extent, to serve his or her own interest.

Egoism and altruism have historically been framed as a “versus relationship” with Hogg and Vaughan (2004) summarising that a significant number of psychologists side with the theory supporting the egoism argument whereby behaviour is driven by personal gain. The work around egoism tends to feel like the darker side of pro-social behaviour theory and research.

Some of the evidence showing apparent support for this theory is rather questionable. For instance, Manucia, Baumann, and Cialdini (1984) conducted an experiment whereby certain participants were given a placebo pill but told that by taking it, their current mood would “freeze.” This led to people under this condition apparently being not as likely to help an individual in need since it would not improve their mood. Brown and Maner (2012) praised the intelligence of this study although it does have an artificial feel about it and one could question how much it might reflect a real-life scenario. It cannot necessarily be used as evidence that altruism does not exist since for some people, the motivation in the first instance might be to actually help the other person (Brown and Maner, 2012).

The above mentioned study is somewhat at odds with a review of theory and research regarding altruism at that time (Piliavin and Charng, 1990). One conclusion by these authors was that evidence from a number of fields such as sociology and social psychology among others suggest that altruism is indeed a feature of human nature (Piliavin and Charng, 1990). Bierhoff (2002) builds on this and suggests that altruism exists and reported that it is arguably perfectly captured in the parable of the Good Samaritan whereby having empathy for the victim led to the unselfish act of helping the victim to safety, even at personal cost. This parable is still taught in the modern day and apparent acts of altruism remain a feature of everyday society. This is not to discount the assumption that there could be side effects whereby the individual may experience private rewards for acts of altruism.

It is now necessary to consider relevant research studies in more detail in order to further explore the rather controversial central claim that every action is a selfish one and true altruism does not exist. It has been unfortunate in a way that researchers have, more often than not, chosen to focus on “anti-social” rather than pro-social behaviour. This perhaps reflects a tendency to be more interested in the worst in people. This also leads to the idea that people may be more likely to dismiss altruism and consider other explanations for this type of helping or selfless behaviour.

May (2011, p.25) implies that caution should be taken when interpreting altruism-based research in stating that “the consensus among psychologists (and common sense) is that a great number of our mental states, even our motives, are not accessible to consciousness.” As mentioned above, Wilson’s (2015) more recent writings seem to have certain parallels with this and it may be that one has to accept that knowing the individuals intent to help may not be possible. This could cast doubt on the reliability of much of the experimental work in the field of altruism, particularly when self-reporting measures are so commonly used.

Cialdini and colleagues certainly invested much effort in demonstrating that true altruism does not exist. In a related piece of research, Maner, Luce, Neuberg, Cialdini, Brown and Sagarin (2002) explored the effect of manipulated perspective taking with a focus on the empathy-helping relationship, which they suggested underpins altruism. Interestingly, the study featured 169 university students who had an incentive to participate in the study in order to help fulfill their academic requirements. There is a certain irony about this in that it does not reflect altruism towards the researchers. Following observing the views of participants who had listened to a particular interview, Maner et al. (2002) suggested that negative emotional states like sadness are more likely to lead to helping others rather than genuine altruism.

While it is difficult to prove that true altruism does exist, Batson and colleagues adopted a very different angle with regards to this concept. For instance, in a similar but earlier study, Batson, Sager, Garst, Kang, Rubchinsky and Dawson (1997) again used only university students to assess empathy and helping behaviour towards a young woman in need. In certain conditions, this woman was depicted as being from a rival university yet the students displayed empathy and a willingness to help. As with much of Batson’s research, this paper argued that empathy for others brings about natural altruism in people. These above examples highlight the entirely different ways in which altruism can be framed.

Krueger (2012) alludes to the idea that the search for true altruism is one that cannot realistically bring success. Research has unfortunately historically been rather black and white in its mission to explain altruism. It has almost featured a rivalry between benefitting the self against motives to benefit others. Krueger (2012, p.397) argues that it is “more important to protect the motive to benefit others from being discounted” while essentially avoiding branding people as selfish.

It is perhaps possible to learn something valuable about the nature of altruism from a piece of research regarding “giving blood” (Evans and Ferguson, 2013). It is difficult to generalise findings to the wider population given that it involved only university students. However, this particular paper examined, via surveying an impressive 414 responders, the motivating factors underpinning white blood donation. Evans and Ferguson (2013) reported that giving blood does not appear to be an act that reflects the actual definition of pure altruism. Instead, a blend of factors such as a sense of contributing to society, a feeling of being able to benefit others and personal satisfaction might explain blood donation. There are apparent benefits to the individual giving blood in the experience of positive emotions, described as “warm glow” by Evans and Ferguson (2013). This may not reflect true altruism. It would however seem unfair to suggest that the generally accepted altruistic act of giving blood is selfish.

If one continues to accept the view earlier put forward by May (2012), it would help to have some acceptance that it may not be possible to really know if true altruism exists. In a cross-cultural qualitative paper, Soosai-Nathan, Negri and Delle-Fave (2013) documented evidence from Indian and Italian cultures that illustrated that altruism can be more than a pro-social behaviour. Soosai-Nathan et al. (2013) suggest that altruism can help to improve relationships and boosts happiness and wellbeing. It would also be useful to view this in a positive light if possible while clearly, these types of “personal” rewards may well reinforce the altruistic behavior. It is fundamentally a good human quality though. This may be a more useful area for further research – to improve wellbeing – rather than aiming to disprove altruism, which has quite a dehumanising feel to it.

It would however be ignorant to bypass the idea that altruism is influenced by a number of factors. It would be overly simplistic to accept that it is just a natural trait of individuals.

The area of giving money to fundraisers adds interesting insights to the understanding of altruism. Andreoni, Rao, and Tratchtman (2011) conducted a natural field experiment involving monitoring the giving of money to fundraisers in a particular area of Boston, USA, and noted that a high volume of people avoided, via a number of means, the fundraisers who were standing at exits of a shopping centre. Robson (2002) warns of the dangers of these types of studies, e.g. loss of ability to control variables and loss of validity. Nonetheless, Andreoni et al. (2011) suggest that people may avoid eye contact with a fundraiser as empathy may be triggered otherwise, leading to the giving of money. On the other hand, people may give as they would like to be seen as being altruistic. There may also be a compromise between giving money to charity and balancing personal finances. Andreoni et al. (2011) conclude that altruism in people is influenced significantly by a combination of social cues and psychological mechanisms. This is perhaps unsurprising but helps to illustrate the complexity of human altruism.

Conclusions

Firstly, it would seem incorrect to necessarily reject findings from pro or indeed anti altruism research. May (2012) summed things up nicely, reminding that so often, people’s true intentions and thoughts about a situation are not visible even to themselves. If one accepts this then there might not be great confidence in suggesting either that altruism definitely exists or that all acts are selfish.

Altruism can certainly be viewed as a fairly controversial concept and one that has featured in social psychology theory and research for some years. It would appear that it is extremely difficult to be involved in a truly altruistic act and Staub (1974) much earlier alluded to this as generally when one acts in a pro-social way, inwardly, it can be rewarding, bringing about positive feelings.

When considering all of the available evidence, perhaps it can be concluded that altruism in its truest sense, as its very definition states, does not exist. However, there is likely to be an altruism continuum upon where most people in society would sit, rather than acts necessarily being classed in a fairly black and white fashion as altruistic or selfish. Krueger (2012) adopts a common sense stance on altruism and is suggestive that it exists and people do engage in acts designed to benefit others, without intended personal gain.

References

Andreoni, J., Rao, J. M., & Trachtman, H. (2011). Avoiding the ask: a field experiment on altruism, empathy, and charitable giving. (No. w17648). National bureau of economic research.

Batson, C.D., and Coke, J.S. (1981). Empathy: A source of altruistic motivation for helping? In Rushton, J.P., and Sorrentino, R.M. (eds.), Altruism and helping behaviour: Social, personality, and developmental perspectives (pp. 167-183). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Batson, C.D., and Oleson, K.C. (1991). Current status of the empathy-altruism hypothesis. In Clark, M.S. (ed), Prosocial behaviour (pp. 62-85). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Batson, D.C., Sager, K., Garst, E., Kang, M., Rubchinsky, K., and Dawson, K. (1997). Is empathy-induced helping due to self-other merging? Journal of personality and social psychology, 73 (3), 495-509.

Bierhoff, H-W. (2002). Prosocial behaviour. East Sussex: Psychology Press.

Brown, S.L., and Maner, J.K. (2012). Egoism or altruism: Hard-nosed experiments and deep philosophical questions. In Kenrick, D.T., Goldstein, N.J., and Braver, S.L. (ed), Six degrees of social influence: Science, application and the psychology of Robert Cialdini (pp. 109-118). New York: Oxford University Press.

Evans, R. and Ferguson, E. (2013).Defining and measuring blood donor altruism: A theoretical approach from biology, economics and psychology. The International journal of transfusion medicine, 106, 118-126. Available from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/vox.12080/pdf (Accessed 01/10/15).

Hogg, M.A., Vaughan, G.M. (2008). Social psychology (5th Edition). England: Pearson Education Limited.

Krueger, J.I. (2012). Altruism gone mad. In Oakley, B., Knafo, A., Madhaven, G., and Wilson, D.S. (ed), Pathological altruism (pp. 395-405). New York: Oxford University Press.

Macaulay, J.R., and Berkowitz, L. (eds.) (1970). Altruism and helping behaviour: Social psychological studies of some antecedents and consequences. New York: Academic Press.

Maner, J.K., Luce, C.L., Neuberg, S.L., Cialdini, R.B., Brown, S., and Sagarin, B.J. (2002). The effect of perspective taking on motivations for helping: Still no evidence for altruism. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 28, 1601-1610.

Manucia, G.K.,Baumann, D.J., and Cialdini , R.B. (1984). Mood influences on helping: Direct effects or side effects? Journal of personality and social psychology, 46 (2), 357-364.

May, J. (2011). Egoism, empathy and self-other merging. Southern journal of philosophy, 49, 25-39.

Piliavin, J.A., and Charng, H-W. (1990). Altruism: A review of recent theory and research. Annual review of sociology, 16, 27-65.

Piliavin, J.A., Dovidio, J.F., Gaertner,S.L., and Clark, R.D. (1981). Emergency intervention. New York: Academic Press.

Robson, C. (2002). Real world research (2nd edition). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Soosai-Nathan, L., Negri, L., and Delle-Fave, A. (2013). Beyond pro-social behaviour: An exploration of altruism in two cultures. Psychological studies, 58 (2), 103-114.

Staub, E. (1974). Helping a distressed person: Social, personality and stimulus dterminants. In Berkowitz, L. (ed.), Advances in experimental and social psychology (Vol. 7), pp. 294-341. New York: Academic Press.

Wilson, D.S. (2015). Does altruism exist?: Culture, genes and the welfare of others. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Introduction

A Theory of Mind (ToM) can be defined as the way in which children aged 3-to-4 years begin to develop a theory about their own and other people’s mental states, which include beliefs, intentions, knowledge and desires (Baron-Cohen, 1995). It is argued that humans have an innate predisposition to make inferences about their own and other people’s behaviour in order to predict and understand behaviour and that these mental processes have evolved because of the generally social and co-operative nature of life (Baron-Cohen, 1995). Mitchell and Lewis (1994) further argue that humans frequently attempt to manipulate the behaviour of others and one way of achieving this to instil a false belief, which can be achieved through the use of deception. The false belief task has become the classic test of determining whether young children have developed a ToM. However, research suggests that children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are unable to develop a ToM as they have difficulty understanding the concept of a false belief. The following essay will explore research that has investigated children with ASD and the question of whether they are able to develop a ToM is supported or refuted.

Methodology for Determining a ToM

The methodology used to establish whether a ToM has developed during early childhood is known as a false belief task (FBT). To pass a FBT, children are required to give the correct answer about a belief held by another individual and the ability to do this occurs in typically developing children at about the age of 4 years. There have been a number of variations of the FBT which follow a similar format involving young children demonstrating an understanding that another person can have an incorrect belief in comparison to their own belief. Wimmer and Perner (1983) developed the classic FBT, the unexpected transfer task, in which children are asked to infer the beliefs of Maxi regarding his chocolate bar. Maxi (a doll or puppet) puts his chocolate in one cupboard and then goes out of the room. While he is away his mother moves the chocolate bar to a different cupboard and the children are asked which cupboard Maxi will go to for his chocolate when he returns. The results showed that older children (92% aged 6- to 7-years) said that Maxi would look in the cupboard where he left his chocolate bar, whereas 58% of children aged 4- to 5-years said he would look in the cupboard that his mother had moved the chocolate bar to (Wimmer and Perner, 1983). Variations on the task include the Sally-Anne task developed by Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith (1985) in which Sally hides her ball and, when she is not looking, Anne moves the ball to a basket. The children are asked where Sally will look for her ball and most children aged 4 understand Sally will have a false belief about where her ball is. Another FBT involves a deceptive box in which children are shown a box covered with pictures of Smarties. When the box is opened there are pencils inside, not Smarties. Children aged 40 months were asked what their friend would think was inside the box, 70% said pencils, whereas 50% of children who were almost 4 years old said Smarties (Perner, Leekham and Wimmer, 1987). The findings from FBTs are consistent and appear to demonstrate that around the age of 4 years typically developing children go through a conceptual change in being able to articulate and form a representation theory of other people’s mental states (Surian and Leslie, 1999).

However, according to Mitchell and Lewis (1994) the wording used in false belief tasks may lead to misunderstandings by typically developing children younger than 4-years. Other factors can also contribute to some children passing a FBT. Earlier ability, for example, language development, has been considered an important factor (Fisch, 2013) and those children with older siblings and children who participate in fantasy play (Wellman, 2014).

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

The American Psychiatric Association, in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition defines ASD as a condition where there are ‘persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction’ this involves impairment in verbal and non-verbal communication together with repetitive and stereotypical patterns of behaviours and interests (DSM-V, APA, 2013, p.50). ASD is a spectrum disorder and can range from autism with severe impairments to Asperger’s Syndrome which means the individual is high functioning and has a typical IQ (Adams, 2013). It is suggested by Senju, Southgate, White, and Frith (2009) that high functioning individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome are more likely to develop a conceptual understanding of a ToM in comparison to those with classic autism. However, according to Wellman (2014) most adolescents and adults with ASD perform poorly on FBTs.

Wellman (2014) argues that children with ASD have delayed cognitive abilities in areas such as language development and therefore this, together with their social impairments, prevent them from developing a ToM. Using an unexpected transfer FBT with children with ASD older than 4 years Baron-Cohen et al. (1985) found that they were not able to successfully complete the task. As children with ASD have several cognitive impairments it was proposed that the failure to pass the FBT may be related to learning difficulties. However, when the children with ASD were compared with a control group of typically developing children and a group of children with Down’s syndrome, learning difficulties were not found to affect the successful performance for the children with Down’s (Baron-Cohen et al.1985). Many other studies have found similar results with different groups of children compared to typically developing children that appears to suggest there is a cognitive impairment in children with ASD in developing a ToM (Baron-Cohen, 1995). Surian and Leslie (1999) further suggest that the findings from these studies suggest there are specialised neurocognitive mechanisms that support the development of a ToM.

Surian and Leslie (1999) used the Sally-Anne FBT and compared children and adolescents with ASD and mental ages of around 4-years, with a group of typically developing 3-year-old children. As predicted by Surian and Leslie, all the children in both groups failed to pass the FBT. However, even with instruction the children with ASD did not improve and remained unable to pass the FBT, although the 3-year old typically developing children showed improvement. The research identifies cognitive limitations in the typically developing children at age 3 which affects their performance, whereas the children with ASD appeared to be caused by a ‘deeper meta-representational impairment’ (Surian and Leslie, 1999, p.141). The study shows that although both groups of children (those aged under 4 years and those with ASD) typically fail the FBT, the reasons for the failure are different. The 3-year old children could pass the FBT with prompts and guidance, however, this was not the case for the children with ASD.[AJ1] It is concluded by Surian and Leslie (1999, p.153) that typically ‘developing 3-year-old children have intact conceptual competence and limited processing capabilities, whereas children with autism have sufficient processing resources but limited conceptual competence’.

Children with ASD may respond more successfully to a FBT if other mediums such as drawing are used. In a study that compared typically developing children (aged 4-years) with a group of children who had learnt signing language late in childhood and a group of children with ASD (aged 6-to-13 years), a standard FBT and a drawing FBT were used (Peterson, 2002). It was found that the late signing children and the children with ASD had lower scores than the typically developing children in the standard FBT. However, in the drawing FBT the late signing children and the children with ASD had higher scores than the typically developing children. The findings suggest that children with ASD (as well as the late signing children) have some understanding of the conceptual nature of an FBT but appear to be unable to express it in a standard, verbal way. The study supports the role of language in the development of a ToM as the profoundly deaf children who had not learnt signing until relatively late, had a three-year delay in developing a ToM (Peterson, 2002). It is also suggested by Peterson (2002, p.1457) that drawing may be a better way for children with ASD to communicate as they may have difficulties recognising ‘a link between what people say and what they think because their minds are organised in a more pictorial manner around visual images’.

Neurological Evidence regarding the ToM

Fisch (2013) argues that technological developments in neuroimaging appear to suggest that a neurocognitive explanation is more appropriate than other explanations for the social and cognitive impairment in ASD. This perspective is supported by Wellman (2014) who reports that when neuroimaging techniques are used the medial prefrontal cortex and right temporoparietal junction are the predominant areas activated during ToM tasks such as social reasoning (Wellman, 2014). In a longitudinal study undertaken over a 5-year period by White, Frith, Rellecke, Al Noor and Gilbert (2014) typically developing children were compared with children with ASD. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) atypical activity was found in the children with ASD and that ‘there is a neurophysiological abnormality that persists despite improvements over time, despite individual differences in performance, and is present even in mildly impaired ASD adolescents’ (White et al. 2014, p.23).

Can a ToM be Taught?

Evidence from the research undertaken by Surian and Leslie (1999) and discussed previously appears to suggest that despite prompts and guidance, passing an FBT did not improve in children with ASD. Swettenham (1996) attempted to teach a ToM using a computerised version of the Sally-Anne task which may be more appropriate for children with ASD. This is because children with ASD have problems communicating with other people and respond well to computers as there is no social interactions involved and they can work at their own pace. In the study there were three groups; children with ASD (mean age 10-years), typically developing children (mean age 3.5-years) and children with Down’s syndrome (mean age 11-years). It was found that all three groups passed the Sally-Anne task after instruction. However, although the typically developing children and the children with Down’s syndrome were able to generalise the finding to other similar tasks, this was not the case for the children with ASD. Swettenham (1996) suggests that the children with ASD developed a different type of strategy in order to pass the task but did not have any understanding of the conceptual principles of the FBT.

However, Begeer et al. (2011) also investigated the effectiveness of ToM training children with autism using a randomised controlled trial in which children with 40 high functioning ASD children with normal intelligence levels, aged between 8- and 13-years who were compared with a control group of typically developing children. It was found that children with ASD improved in their conceptual ToM skills, but not in their understanding, self-reported empathic skills or parent-reported social behaviour.

Conclusion

There appears to be considerable evidence in the many studies undertaken in the 1980s and 1990s that suggest that children with ASD are unable to develop a ToM and do not understand that other people can hold a false belief. However, there appear to be some inconsistencies in the research, for example Peterson (2002) found that children with ASD were more successful passing an FBT using drawing rather than verbal responses. Swettenham (1996) [AJ2]however, found that while children with ASD could pass an FBT presented on a computer they were using a different type of strategy and there was little understanding of the conceptual principles of a ToM. Children with ASD, who experience language delay as well as social impairments may have greater difficulty understanding a FBT (Wellman, 2014). However, one problem with early research into ToM is the methodology used which relies heavily on just one indication of whether a child has acquired a ToM, which is the FBT, even though there are several variations of the task. More recent research has used neuroimaging techniques (e.g. White et al. 2014; Wellman, 2014) which appears to suggest damage to the areas involved in ToM activity.

References

Adams, M.P. (2013). Explaining the theory of mind deficit in autism spectrum disorder. Philosophical Studies, 163(1), 233-249

American Psychiatric Association, (APA, 2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V fifth edition). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, and Frith, U. (1985). Does the Autistic child have a “theory of mind?” Cognition, 21, 37-46.

Begeer, S., Gevers, C., Clifford, P., Verhoeve, M., Kat, K., Hoddenbach, E. and Boer, F. (2011). Theory of mind training in children with autism: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 41, 997-1006.

Fisch, G.S. (2013). Autism and Epistemology IV: Does autism need a theory of mind? American Journal of Medical Genetics, Part A, 161, 2464-2480

Mitchell, P. and Lewis C. (1994). Critical issues in children’s early understanding of mind. In C. Lewis and P. Mitchell, (Eds), Children’s Early Understanding of Mind: Origins and Developments pp. 1-15, London: Psychology Press.

Perner, J., Leekham, S.R. and Wimmer, H. (1987). Three-year-olds difficulty with false belief: The case for a conceptual deficit. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 5, 125-137.

Peterson, C.C. (2002). Drawing insight from pictures: the development of concepts of false drawing and false beliefs in children with deafness, normal hearing and autism. Child Development 73(5), 1442-1459.

Senju, A., Southgate, V., White, S., and Frith, U. (2009). Mindblind eyes: An absence of spontaneous theory of mind in Asperger’s syndrome. Science, 325, 883–885.

Surian, L. and Leslie, A.M. (1999). Competence and performance in false belief understanding: A comparison of autistic and normal 3-year-old children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17, 141–155.

Swettenham, J. (1996). Can children with autism be taught to understand false belief using computers? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 37(2), 157-165.

Wellman, H.M. (2014). Making Minds: How Theory of Mind Develops. Oxford: Oxford University Press

White, S.J., Frith, U., Rellecke, J., Al-Noor, Z. and Gilbert, S.J. (2014). Autistic adolescents show atypical activation of the brains mentalizing system even without a prior history of mentalizing problems. Neuropsychologia, 56, 17-25.

Wimmer, H. and Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. Cognition, 13, 103-128.

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Broadly speaking, science is concerned with the objective, logical study of the material world based on fact, and not opinion or intuition. It can be defined as a systematic approach that is grounded in logic and which aims to produce data that can be measured, tested, analysed, and reproduced (Lilienfeld, 2010; Lindberg, 2010). Science encompasses all of our accumulated knowledge and discoveries about the universe. Though it featured early on in human history, namely ancient Greece, it has been argued that scientific thought did not reappear again until the European enlightenment because of the difficulties faced by humans in overriding automatic and intuitive modes of thinking (Lilienfeld, 2010).

Psychology on the other hand, is arguably a relatively new domain that has been studied as a distinct discipline in its own right for only a couple of hundred years (Danziger, 2013). Psychology is a multi-faceted and wide-ranging subject that focuses on the study of the mind and behaviour (Henriques, 2004). Many different perspectives have contributed to the study of psychology including behaviourism, developmental and cognitive approaches. The role of psychology as a science has been debated for over one hundred years and continues to generate controversy (Lilienfeld, 2010; Zittoun, Gillespie, and Cornish, 2009). Thus, the following work will discuss to what extent psychology should be considered a science. To achieve this aim, evidence in support of psychology as a science will be considered and evidence against this supposition will be examined. The work will conclude with a summary and analysis of the question under review.

In support of psychology as a science

Evidence that provides support for the idea that psychology is a science will now be examined. Science is grounded in the empiricism paradigm which postulates that observations and experiences, or data derived from the senses, are the primary way of gaining knowledge (Hjorland, 2005). Thus, empirical methods are used to obtain factual information that all can agree on and which is immune from the influence of any researchers (Hjorland, 2005). In the scientific approach, double-blind experiments should be utilised wherever possible and subjectivity reduced to the bare minimum (Hjorland, 2005). This is because the research ideal in science is to assume that all observations are neutral and not effected by any knowledge, bias, culture, or opinions of the researcher (Hjorland, 2005).

As per the scientific tradition, research in psychology predominantly relies on collecting objective empirical data from participants, for example through questionnaires, performance tasks, experimentation, or observation. Therefore, it can be argued that psychology is a science because many researchers use the scientific method of hypothetico-deductivism. Hypothetico-deductivism is a methodology which places emphasis on hypotheses verification or rejection through statistical analyses and significance testing (Haig, 2005). Consequently, in many psychological disciplines the researcher must test a theory or hypothesis by making observational predictions which can be empirically tested (Haig, 2005). The data needs to undergo direct statistical analyses, and if the data supports the predictions made at the outset then the result is viewed as confirming the theory in this instance. On the other hand, if the predictions are not supported by the data then this particular study is viewed as disconfirming the theory under question (Haig, 2005).

Predictability in empirical research is important because in this way, researchers can estimate or forecast future behaviour from their results. Another important feature of psychology as a science is that extraneous variables should be controlled as much as possible, and any research conducted should be amenable to replication by other researchers (Hjorland, 2005; Lilienfeld, 2010). In this way, cause and effect can be more clearly determined, and if different researchers consistently find the same results then it is more likely that the results are valid and reliable. Consequently, a theory or treatment should only gain acceptance if other investigators are able to provide empirical support for it (Haig, 2005; Hjorland, 2005; Lilienfeld, 2010). Accordingly, in parallel with the scientific domain, it can be argued that a major goal of research in psychology is to successfully identify empirical phenomena which subsequently lead to explanation and theory construction (Haig, 2005).

Behaviourism is one dominant example of empiricism and scientific thought in psychology. It should be noted that behaviourism in its original form is now considered outdated and too simplistic to account for the complexity of human behaviour. Nevertheless, it has been contended that it facilitated the focus on scientific principles and was the precursor to experimental research in areas such as cognitive, clinical, and developmental psychology (Costall, 2006; Moore, 2011). The foundation of behaviourism is the premise that behaviours are derived from learned associations between a stimulus and a response (Moore, 2011; Padoa-Schioppa, 2008). In other words, behaviourism proposes that all behaviours (including feelings, thoughts, and actions) are a result of events external to the individual and that organisms respond to stimuli in automatic ways and following universal laws (Hjorland, 2005).

It is clear that behaviourism is a highly scientific approach. Indeed Skinner, a prominent behaviourist, stated in relation to research “it is science or nothing” (1971, p. 160). Behaviourism posits that psychology should be studied scientifically with attention focused on observable behaviours rather than internal processes (Moore, 2011). Behaviourism is often regarded as a direct reaction to the unscientific and introspective nature of psychoanalysis, a perspective which dominated psychology in the early 20th century (Costall, 2006; Moore, 2011). Comparatively, behaviourism’s major strengths were that it was highly objective, was applicable to both humans and animals, and was highly replicable (Hjorland, 2005; Moore, 2011).

Another perspective that provides support for psychology being a science is the cognitive approach. It has been argued that the cognitive approach replaced behaviourism as the dominant paradigm in psychology (Costall, 2006; Gardner, 2008). Cognitive psychology returned focus to the importance of mental processes rather than concentrating solely on environmental factors as behaviourism had done (Gardner, 2008). The basic premise of cognitive psychology is to examine how mental processes contribute to human emotions, behaviour, and thinking (Gardner, 2008). Nevertheless, although investigating unobservable phenomena may seem unscientific, cognitive psychology continues to use the rigorous experimental methods and robust statistical analyses of behaviourism (Gardner, 2008). Therefore, in line with the hypothetico-deductive method cognitive psychologists develop precise theoretical hypotheses and then conduct well-controlled experiments in order to confirm or reject them (Gardner, 2008; Haig, 2005). By applying scientific methods researchers in the cognitive discipline are able to investigate complex systems such as information processing, language, attention, memory, and the effects of brain injury on cognition (Gardner, 2008).

Against psychology as a science

Hitherto evidence in support of psychology as a science has been examined; now arguments which contradict this notion will be considered. One important factor to consider when determining the scientific nature of psychology is that due to the complexity of brain function and human behaviour, control of all extraneous variables is almost impossible. For instance, in a study examining the relationship between depression and eating habits a psychologist would not be able to truly control for a person’s childhood experiences. In addition, much of the research in psychology does not employ double-blind procedures, even in studies of a clinical nature where it would be advantageous to do so (Lilienfeld, 2010). It is also likely that a researcher can never be completely certain that their hypothesis is true because psychological processes occur in the mind and are not readily accessible.

It is interesting that although the hypothetico-deductive approach to research is held in great esteem by many scientists and psychologists, it has also been heavily criticised (Haig, 2005). It has been argued that approaching research using the principles of empiricism means that the role of language and culture in psychological processes tend to be neglected (Hjorland, 2005). Furthermore, the nature of empirical studies means that generalisations are made by studying one population which may not be representative of all groups (Hjorland, 2005). It can be difficult to reconcile psychology with science when human behaviour varies across situations and over time. This means that testing an individual at one particular instance and situation is unlikely to provide an absolute explanation of any behaviour.

It is evident that there is a division within psychology as to how scientific it should be, which is determined by one’s perspective and priorities. For example, Lilienfeld (2010) strongly supports the idea that psychology should be a science but argues that a major threat to scientific psychology is the failure of empirical research to prevent or control confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is against scientific ideals because it involves the tendency for academics to look for evidence consistent with their hypotheses and to ignore, deny, or alter evidence that is in contrast to them (Lilienfeld, 2010). Thus, psychology is hindered by the desire of researcher’s to see what they want to see, and this has facilitated “dubious science, non-science, and even pseudoscience to take root and flourish in many quarters” (Lilienfeld, 2010, p. 282).

Another pertinent point is that not all areas of psychology adhere to strict methodological stipulations and are actually opposed to the idea of psychology being a science. For example, the humanistic psychology movement, which developed in the 1950s and 1960s partly as a reaction to psychoanalysis and behaviourism, emphasises the importance of an individual’s subjective way of thinking and personal perception (Elkins, 2008). For humanist psychologists, science has little place in psychology because only by investigating subjective experience can a true understanding of behaviour be realised (Elkins, 2008). Thus, humanists do not support empirical research involving rigorous testing and control and instead champion the precepts of free will, richness of experience and subjective understanding.

Humanists acknowledge the importance of the therapeutic relationship and the focus on an individual’s strengths (Elkins, 2008). Prominent supporters of humanistic psychology included Allport, Maslow, and Rogers (Elkins, 2008). Indeed, Carl Rogers developed client-centred therapy and was considered at one point the most influential psychologist in America (Elkins, 2008). Supporters of the humanistic perspective lament the dehumanising and deterministic nature of current psychology and humanism’s fall from favour (Elkins, 2008). They point out that despite the dominance of objective and scientific psychology, humanistic ideas permeate mainstream psychology and therapy (Elkins, 2008). It has been argued that mainstream, scientific psychology continues to undermine humanistic psychology and does not acknowledge its contributions to theory and academic literature (Elkins, 2008).

Conclusion

In summary, the extent to which psychology should be considered a science is a complex area of debate. Evidence in support of psychology’s scientific nature emphasises the benefits of conducting psychology research in line with the principles of hypothetico-deductivism such as greater control, replicability, and robust statistical analyses. Similar to science, in many areas of psychology objectivity is paramount, whilst subjectivity is frowned upon. For example, in the behaviourism and cognitive disciplines empirical research and the control of variables are highly important. Furthermore, some psychologists argue that psychology as a whole should be scientific and can be improved by following scientific principles (Lilienfeld, 2010). On the other hand, there are pitfalls to examining complex psychological processes in a scientific way such as difficulties with generalising findings to different populations, the practical impossibility of maintaining true control over all extraneous variables, and issues with conducting double-blind experiments.

In addition, it could be argued that psychology cannot be considered a science when confirmation bias remains so rampant in the field (Lilienfeld, 2010). Naturally, humanistic psychologists approach the debate from a different standpoint and wholly reject psychology as a science. They posit that mainstream psychology’s emphasis on laboratory experiments and objectivity has come at the cost of truly understanding individual experience and free will. Therefore, humanistic psychologists do not believe that psychology benefits from being (or trying to be) a science; rather psychologists should try to understand human behaviour from the perspective of the individual (Elkins, 2008). Consequently, it seems that psychology can be considered a science to a large extent. Nonetheless, its focus on the processes of the mind and behaviour means that it should not ignore potentially valuable, yet subjective, areas of investigation. However, one views psychology as a subject it is likely that its scientific identity will continue to cause controversy.

References

Costall, A., (2006) ‘Introspectionism’ and the mythical origins of scientific psychology. Consciousness and Cognition, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 634-654.

Danziger, K., (2013) Psychology and its history. Theory & Psychology, vol.23, no. 6, pp. 829-839.

Elkins, D. N., (2008) Why humanistic psychology lost its power and influence in American psychology: Implications for advancing humanistic psychology. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 267-291.

Gardner, H., (2008)The Mind’s New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution. New York: Basic Books.

Haig, B. D., (2005) An abductive theory of scientific method. Psychological Methods, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 371-388.

Henriques, G. R., (2004) Psychology defined.Journal of Clinical Psychology, vol. 60, no. 12, pp. 1207-1221.

Hjorland, B., (2005) Empiricism, rationalism and positivism in library and information science. Journal of Documentation,vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 130-155.

Lilienfeld, S. O., (2010) Can psychology become a science? Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 281-288.

Lindberg, D. C., (2010) The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to AD 1450. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Moore, J., (2011) Philosophy of science, with special consideration given to behaviorism as the philosophy of the science of behavior. Psychological Record, vol.60, no. 1, pp. 132-136.

Padoa-Schioppa, C., (2008) The syllogism of neuro-economics. Economics and Philosophy, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 449-457.

Skinner, B. F., (1971) Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Bantam.

Zittoun, T., Gillespie, A., and Cornish, F., (2009) Fragmentation or differentiation: Questioning the crisis in psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, vol. 43, no. 2, pp. 104-115.

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Introduction

Individuals respond to stressful events in different ways and their responses are influenced by a number of factors, such as personality characteristics or temperament, that can have an effect on the how the stressor is perceived (Anthony, Frederici, and Stein, 2009). Anxiety and stress are closely related, although stress tends to relate to a specific event or circumstances, whereas anxiety can be a non-specific, internal anticipation of something that might happen (Kahn, 2006). However, anxiety can cause stress – for example, imagining the consequences of being late (anticipation). Anxiety disorders are very common and can be debilitating and chronic, with patients experiencing distress over many years. It is suggested that anxiety is multifaceted and may be caused by biological factors – for example, high levels of serotonin, which is also a factor in depression. Another contributing cause to anxiety appears to be hyperactivity in the amygdala region of the brain, which results in high levels of neuroticism and anxiety. People who have a tendency towards neuroticism, for example, are more likely to experience anxiety disorders and negative emotions in response to stressors (Eysenck, 1967; Gray 1982). Psychological treatments and interventions focus on cognitive processes and behavioural responses that attempt to explain the acquisition and continuation of anxiety disorders (Anthony, et al. 2009). The aim of the following essay is to examine the efficacy of CBT interventions on treating anxiety and stress-related disorders.

Anxiety Disorders

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition (DSM-V) classifies anxiety disorders into three main groups: anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD), and trauma and stress related disorders (American Psychiatric Association, APA, 2013). Anxiety disordersinclude separation anxiety disorder, phobias, social phobia, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and generalised anxiety disorder. Obsessive-compulsive disordersincludes hoarding disorder, while the third group, trauma and stressor-related disorders,includes post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and acute stress disorder (DSM-V, APA, 2013). The DSM-V classifications of anxiety emphasise the relationship between disorders and therefore the possibility of comorbidity between anxiety, stress and depression (APA, 2013).

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

As will be discussed in the following section, many of the stress and anxiety related conditions listed in the DSM-V category of anxiety disorders can be treated using cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT).

CBT aims to change negative and maladaptive thought patterns and behaviours to more positive ways of dealing with stress-related problems. Therapy is non-directive and a therapist will facilitate change through working with the client or patient to achieve a series of goals. The therapist will also challenge the client’s negative beliefs and help the client develop strategies to manage their stress more effectively in the long term in order to prevent any relapses (Beck, 2011). Exposure-based CBT (Torp et al. 2015) has also been reported to be effective with young people and children. As discussed by Beck (2011) the relationship between the therapist and the patient is central to the success of the intervention, as it is necessary to have a rapport in order to sometimes discuss difficult topics.

The Efficacy of CBT in Stress-Related Disorders

In their meta-analyses of 269 studies that used CBT in studies, including anxiety disorders and general stress, Hoffman, Asnaani, Vonk, Sawyer and Fang (2012) found that the most effective results were for anxiety disorders and general stress (together with bulimia, somatoform disorders and anger control). A study comparing 65 patients with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), who were randomly allocated to one of three groups – CBT, relaxation techniques, and a control group of patients on the waiting list – was undertaken by Dugas et al. (2010). The follow-up sessions took place 6-, 12- and 24-months after the intervention and consisted of self-report and clinician ratings. It was found that both CBT and relaxation were more effective than the control group, although long-term improvement continued only with CBT (Dugas et al. 2010).

Other research has also found that CBT has been effective in generalised anxiety – for example, Otte (2011) states that a number of studies have demonstrated that CBT is effective for patients with anxiety conditions and states ‘the efficacy and effectiveness of CBT in anxiety in adults appears to be well established’ (Otte, 2011, p.418). However, despite the positive findings, Otto also states that there are there are various methodological problems in many studies, for example studies that do not include a control group, and therefore the effect size of the intervention is more difficult to assess. CBT has also be found to be effective in anxiety disorders in children, although as Hogendoorn et al. (2014) reports there are children who do not respond and therefore greater research is necessary in order to understand the mechanism that allows some children to respond well, while other children do not. In a study that investigated childhood anxiety and depression using CBT intervention it was found that there were more positive effects for anxiety than for depression in terms of behaviour and coping strategies used by the children (Chu and Harrison, 2007). It was concluded that there are different factors involved when using CBT in the treatment of anxiety and/or depression.

According to Leichsenring et al. (2013) social anxiety is a prevalent disorder that can cause severe psychosocial problems and can co-exist with other disorders such as depression. Social anxiety is characterised by an individual having a fear of social interactions and therefore affects a person ability to work and have a good quality of life (Yoshinaga et al. 2013). There have been a number of reports regarding the efficacy of CBT in treating social anxiety, although many studies have small sample sizes and are conducted in one location. In their study Leichsenring et al. (2013) assessed 495 outpatients who were randomly allocated to either CBT intervention, (n=209), psychodynamic therapy (n=207), or a waitlist control group (n=79). The patient’s baseline and post-treatment scores were compared using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (Liebowitz, 1987). It was found that both CBT and psychodynamic therapy were effective in treating social anxiety.

Yoshinaga et al. (2013) also evaluated CBT and social anxiety in Japan using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (Liebowitz, 1987). The aim of the study was to assess whether results in Japan would be similar to those in Western countries. The intervention was over a 14 week period and measurements of social anxiety were taken before during and after the intervention. It was found that CBT was effective although there were a number of limitations in the study. The sample size was very small, with only 15 patients, which limits the generalisability of the study to other patients, particularly as it was a single-centre study. Another limitation was that the participants were mainly females, which again can limit generalisability of the findings to male patients. There was also no long-term follow-up, so the effects of CBT in preventing relapse were not assessed. Furthermore many patients were also taking medication which was not controlled for and may have had an effect on the results.

Another stress-related condition which can cause serious impairment is OCD. The condition in adolescents and children is similar to that of adults, and OCD often begins in childhood (Torp et al. 2015). In a study undertaken in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, patients aged between 7- and 17-years diagnosed with OCD received CBT intervention in a community setting over 14 weeks. The study was an uncontrolled trial, which meant all patients received exposure CBT and were assessed using the Children Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Scahill, et al. 1997), which both children and their parents completed, as well as other measures. The children had a range of behavioural and emotional problems and the study involved therapists and health professionals who evaluated the intervention. A strength of the study was that it was undertaken in different centres in three countries, which means it has good generalisability. The number of participants was also relatively high, which was also a strength of the study. The professionals helped the children and their parents complete the treatment and the findings showed a high success rate which was rated independently. It was concluded by Torp et al. (2015) that exposure-based CBT is an effective treatment for OCD in community children and adolescent outpatient clinics. The severity of the symptoms decreased in the patients and some were described as being in remission. However, there were a few limitations in the study – for example, the group was not ethnically diverse and the trials were not randomised (Torp et al. 2015).

A final area where CBT has been found to be effective in stress-related disorders is PTSD, which is a disorder which can occur after an individual has experienced a major traumatic event. Typical symptoms include re-living the event, recurring thought of the event, avoidance, numbing and detachment and estrangement from family and other people. In looking at the efficacy of CBT in treating PTSD, Bisson and Andrew (2007) undertook a systematic review of research in which patients had been evaluated by clinicians for traumatic stress symptoms as well as self-rating by the patient of stress, anxiety and depression. Treatment included Trauma focused CBT (TFCBT), exposure therapy, stress management which included hypnotherapy and group CBT and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) and a waitlist control group with no intervention. The findings showed that TFCBT, EMDR and group CBT were all effective in treating PTSD. In the long-term TFCBT and EMDR were found to be more effective, although some of the studies were found to have methodological flaws which means the data must be interpreted with caution.

After the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, the CATS consortium was established to help deal with the trauma experienced by young people and also to assess the outcomes of the intervention using CBT. The CATS Consortium (2010) report on the efficacy of CBT being used with children and adolescents aged between 5- and 21-years who were traumatised after the attack. The young people (n=306) were allocated to one of two groups depending on the severity of their trauma. The first group involved trauma-specific CBT and the second group, brief CBT. The findings showed that for both groups there was a decrease in their symptoms and they were no longer diagnosed as having PTSD, and it was also found that the therapy could be effectively delivered in the community by trained professionals. The limitations of the study were that the design did not conform to a typical randomised controlled study and a control group was not used. The circumstances around the study were chaotic in the days after the attack and, as the authors state, the children may have improved without any treatment or intervention, which is, of course, the purpose of a controlled group. Nonetheless, the study has provided useful information regarding the use of CBT for young people after a traumatic event.

Conclusion

Overall, the evidence presented demonstrates that CBT is an effective intervention in a number of different stress-related conditions identified by the DSM-V (APA, 2013). Meta-analyses and systematic reviews are able to provide robust evidence regarding the effectiveness of interventions using CBT, although, as has been discussed, there are a number of methodological issues with some of the studies used in meta-analyses. Some of the limitations include small sample sizes, for example, which means that generalisation to other groups is not possible. Another limitation is the lack of a control group, where, as discussed by CATS Consortium (2010), the patients who were traumatised after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York may have recovered spontaneously over time without any intervention, and this can only be observed in a control group which has no intervention. Another potential issue is the use of different measures such as self-report and clinician’s measures (Dugas et al. 2010), in comparison to other studies which used validated questionnaires such as Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (Leichsenring et al. 2013). This means that comparisons between studies are more difficult. However research using CBT has taken place in a number of different contexts and cultures – for example, Norway, Sweden and Denmark (Torp et al. 2015) and also Japan (Yoshinaga, et al. 2013) – and has been shown to be effective.

References

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Torp, N.C., Dahl, K., Skarphedinsson, G., Thomsen, P.H., Valderhaug, Weidle, B., Melin, K.H., Hybel, K., Nissen, J.B., Lenhard, F., Wentzel-Larsen, T., Franklin, M.E. and Ivarsson, T. (2015). Effectiveness of cognitive behavior treatment for pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder: Acute outcomes from the Nordic Long-term OCD treatment study (NordLOTS). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 64, 15-23.

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There is a consensus among researchers that human memory is prone to distortions. The study of false memories addresses this phenomenon, examining individuals’ recollection of past events. This paper aims to discuss the nature of false memories and what effect they may have on our lives. In particular, this essay focuses on how false memories can be elicited in experimental or other settings, how research in false memories has improved our understanding of the cognitive effects of trauma, and how memory distortions can be elicited also among healthy people. The overall application of false memory research findings will be discussed along with the limitations of this line of research.

The nature of false memories

Smeets, Merckelbach, Horselenberg, and Jelicic (2005: 918) define false autobiographical memories as “recollections of events that never happened or that are recalled very differently from how they actually happened”. Researchers have attempted to examine those erroneous recollections using a variety of techniques including imagination inflation, personalized suggestions and drawing on real life situations (Smeets et al. 2005). The most widely discussed implications of this research involve eyewitness reports and individuals’ memory of traumatic experiences (e.g. Brennen, Dybdahl, & Kapidzic? 2007). Researchers have employed various research methods to address those phenomena including interviewing, Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists DRM lists and diverse experimental designs. Research consistently shows that individuals are prone to over-remember trauma, although these memories are open to change (Brennen et al. 2007; Engelhard, van den Hout, & McNally, 2008; Giosan, Malta, Jayasinghe, Spielman, & Difede 2009; Strange & Takarangi, 2012; 2015). Strange and Takarangi (2012; 2015) used an experimental research design to examine individuals’ recollection of traumatic events using a United Kingdom public service announcement film against texting while driving that depicted a fatal car accident for five people including a baby. The researchers manipulated the experimental conditions by identifying all events being depicted in the film and then removing a number of short clips. Participants were asked to watch the film and then returned 24-hours later for a recognition test showing them 18 new and old short clips. Their findings reveal that 95% of the participants identified correctly which clips they had originally watched or not but they also claimed that they had watched 26% of the missing clips. A significant finding was also the fact that participants were more likely to exhibit memory distortions regarding the prime traumatic events depicted in the film rather than peripheral ones. Strange & Takarangi (2015) following a similar methodology investigated individuals’ erroneous recollections separating their participants into four experimental conditions: Static (S), Static + Warning (SW), Static-Warning-Label (SWL) and Control (C). All participants watched the film and the control group received no indication regarding any missing footage, those in the Static (S) condition were shown static frame for those clips that were missing, those in the Static + Warning (SW) received a warning as well in the beginning of the film regarding the missing clips, those in the Static-Warning-Label (SWL) was also shown an additional label during the static frame of the missing footage. In the following day, just like their first study, participants were called for a surprise test that asked them to decide whether 18 short clips were part of the film they had watched or not. Their findings showed that participants overall identified correctly the clips that they had initially watch, while 27-39% also claimed that they had watched footage that was not included in the original film and participants remembered inaccurately more often central than peripheral events. Further comparisons between the different experimental conditions suggest that memory distortions can be malleable as there was an improvement in the experimental conditions compared to the control group.. In particular, the visual static made no difference, warnings were more effective than the static condition, and the provision of both a label and a warning did not differentiate substantially from the plain static condition. The authors interpreted their findings based on various memory models (e.g. Fuzzy Trace Theory, Associative Activation Theory) that equally predict that most memory distortions would occur in relation to the most critical of the events that individuals experienced.

The most common experimental design that is employed in false memories research is the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm (DRM; Deese 1959; Roediger & McDermott 1995). It involves lists of words, where each list is tailored around one word that is called “critical lure” and is not present in that list. Among healthy subjects, false recognition can reach up to 80% (Stadler, Roediger, & McDermott 1999) and it is a method that has often been employed in order to examine false memories among Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) patients. Research findings have been often inconsistent (Bremmer, Shobe, & Kihlstorm 2000; Zoellner, Foa, Brigidi, & Prseworski 2000; Brennen et al. (2007) and Brennen et al. (2007) addressed those inconsistencies using an adaptation of the DRM method that include both neutral and war-related DRM lists in order to examine the false memories of a group of patients with PTSD and a group without PTSD but exposed to war trauma. Their findings reveal that PTSD patients mistakenly recalled more war-related words offering support to the argument that source-monitoring may be impaired among PTSD patients due to assumed links between PTSD and dissociation (Ehlers & Clark 2000; Zoellner et al. 2000; Brennen et al. 2007). Jelinek, Hottenrott, Randjbar, and Moritz (2009) also investigated the production of false memories among 48 traumatized patients (20 full or partial PTSD patients and 28 non-PTSD patients) and a control group of healthy individuals (N=28) using a visual variant of the DRM method. In particular, they asked from their participants to watch four pictures (each one appearing for 40sec in a monitor) that depicted different scenes (classroom, beach, funeral, room surveillance) and then were asked to decide on a recognition test whether a list of 48 items were present in those pictures. Their analysis showed that PTSD participants showed a higher rate of false memories compared with traumatized and non-traumatized individuals but this difference was not statistically significant. Furthermore, PTSD participants did not exhibit higher confidence in falsely remembering critical lures which is in accordance with Brennan et al. (2007) tentative evidence that such differences may be present only in relation to trauma-related critical lures.

The impact of false memories in our lives

The string of research that has addressed the effect that false memories can have in our lives has focused on the way in which individuals’ recollect past events and how this can influence their decisions and judgement in the present and future. Research consistently shows that people are susceptible to remember persistently events that may have never happened or recollect past events erroneously and even change their preferences based on those erroneous recollections.

Loftus and Bernstein (2005: 101) define such rich false memory as “the subjective feeling that one is experiencing a genuine recollection, replete with sensory details, and even expressed with confidence and emotion, even though the event never happened”. Usually individuals will be presented with some piece of often misleading information about an event that will distort their memory about that event. This distortion can be manifested when the individuals’ memory gets tested. In daily life these distortions can be generated by photographs or leading questions that can create the strong impression that someone has experienced one specific event in the past. For example, an adult may believe that he or she had visited a place as a kid after seeing a picture of the place. Such effects can even impact criminal cases or litigations. Anecdotal evidence has often documented such phenomena among eyewitnesses’ stories and in stories about alien abduction and satanic abuse. Such an example is the litigation brought by Patricia Burgus against her former psychiatrist Dr. Braun for malpractice according to which Dr. Braun has used “repressed memory therapy, including hypnosis” (Holdem 1998, p.6) which led to her holding the belief that she is the high priestess of a satanic cult. Medical and court records support that she held these beliefs but the lack of the controlled conditions of an experimental research design does not allow us to draw safe conclusions regarding her memory distortion.

Crombag, Wagenaar, & van Koppen (1996) is a frequently cited study as it was able to show how a leading question can plant in one’s memory a false suggestion regarding a traumatic event. The researchers questioned Dutch participants regarding their memories about a news story that took place 10 months earlier in 1992, when a plane that crashed into an apartment building in Amsterdam, killing the four crew members and 30 people that were inside the apartment at the time of the crash. The leading question that researchers posed to their participants was whether they had seen the television film of the moment the place hit the apartment building, as in reality such footage did not exist. If the participants replied positively then they were further questioned. Indeed, more than half of their participants (55%) answered that they had seen the fire and in a second study, this percentage was raised to 66% confirming the malleability of memories. Similar were the findings of another study that followed an analogous methodology (Ost, Vrij, Costall, & Bull 2002) regarding the car crash in which Princess Dianna died and a 45% of a British sample claimed that had seen a film of the actual car crash. Nourkova, Bernstein, and Loftus (2004) cite an earlier unpublished doctoral dissertation (Abhold 1995) that showed that experimentally manipulated misinformation can distort the memory for a witnessed life-and-death situation. Nourkova et al. (2004) examined the malleability of the memory in a sample of undergraduate students from the Moscow State University regarding the terrorist bombings in two apartments in Moscow in 1999 and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. In particular, they attempted to plant the false memory of having witnessed a wounded animal in those critical events. Their findings showed that 12.5% of the participants that received the experimental manipulation regarding their memory of the Moscow bombings agreed that they had witnessed a wounded animal in the accounts of the bombings. The authors also found that for the misled participants, the critical event exhibited lower personal significance but higher historical significance. These findings suggest that traumatic memories are not immune to false memory even if individuals hold strong emotions about those events. However, the authors also highlight that false memory was successfully implanted only with regards to the Moscow bombings as the context of Moscow apartment made the scenario of witnessing a wounded animal more plausible which is in accordance with theoretical arguments regarding the processes involved in the creation of false memories (Mazzoni, Loftus, & Kirsch 2001).

These effects of false memories have also been confirmed in laboratory settings that have shown that it is possible to plant memories for events that can be impossible or even traumatic (Loftus & Bernstein 2005) utilizing suggestive methods (e.g. misinformation) and amplify them using imagination exercises. Mazzoni and Memon (2003) examined whether imagining an event can create false memories in a sample of 82 British students. In the process of the experiment, a group of participants imagined a relatively frequent event and received information about an impossible event, while another group imagined the same event that never occurs (“Having a nurse remove a skin sample from my finger”) and received information about a common event (“Having a milk took extracted by a dentist before the age of 6”). Furthermore, all participants completed three different versions of the Life Events Inventory (LEI) that rates participants’ likelihood of experiencing sets of events in their lives. Their findings showed that imagination was an adequate condition for the production of false memories irrespective of familiarity with the event.

Several studies examined the consequences of false memories showing that they can impact on individuals’ judgements and food preferences. For example, Bernstein, Laney, Morris and Loftus (2005b) found planting a negative false memory about food (e.g. false feedback about getting sick at young age due to eating dill pickles or hard-boiled eggs) can make subsequently people show less interested into consuming those foods. In other research, (Bernstein et al. 2005a) the experimental conditions were manipulated to let people believe that as kids, they had been sick as a result of consuming strawberry ice cream or chocolate cookies. A change in participants’ food preferences was manifested among those participants who believed the false feedback regarding the ice-cream, as 40 % subsequently demonstrated less preference to consuming ice-cream. This finding, though, was not found among those that believed the false feedback regarding the chocolate cookies suggesting that other factors such as the novelty of a food can determine the consequences of false memories. These findings show that false memories not only can impact how we think or feel about past experiences but they can also influence our future decisions altering our preferences and judgements.

Conclusion

Research in false memories has gained a lot of attention since the ’90s as psychologists began to systematically examine their development as a means to fully understand memory distortions in healthy and traumatized individuals. Indeed, research has shown that those distortions can impact individuals’ decision about the present and the future and their persistence can be a great challenge especially during criminal investigations. . However, “false memory” is a quite broad term that may often make it challenging to include all the types of memory illusions studied by cognitive psychology. For example, an argument that has been raised is whether the experimental procedures employed to test false memory actually increase individuals’ confidence to the planted memories, create false beliefs or false memories of those events (Wade, Sharman, Garry, Memon, Mazzoni, Merckelbach, Loftus 2007). However, understanding the nature of false memories can assist psychologists understand memory illusions and use this knowledge to inform their practice with traumatized individuals.

References

Abhold, JJ 1995, ‘The distortion of a distant and traumatic memory: Implications for eyewitness testimony and psychotherapy.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Arkansas.

Bernstein, DM, Laney, C, Morris, EK, & Loftus, EF 2005a, ‘False beliefs about fattening foods can have healthy consequences’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, vol. 102, pp. 13724–31.

Bernstein, DM, Laney, C, Morris, E., & Loftus, EF 2005b, ‘False memories about food can lead to food avoidance’, Social Cognition, vol. 23, pp. 11–14.

Bernstein, DM, Loftus, EF 2009, ‘The consequences of false memories for food preferences and choices’, Perspectives on psychological science, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 135-9.

Brennen, T, Dybdahl, R, & Kapidzic, A 2007. Trauma-related and neutral false memories in war-induced Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Consciousness and Cognition, vol. 16, 877-85.

Bremner, JD, Shobe, KK, & Kihlstrom, JF 2000, ‘False memories in women with self-reported childhood sexual abuse’, Psychological Science, vol. 11, pp. 333–7.

Cronmbag, HFM., Wagenaar, WA, & van Koppen, PJ 1996, ‘Crashing memories and the problem of “source monitoring”‘, Applied Cognitive Psychology, vol. 10, pp. 95-104

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Why is it difficult for some people with learning disabilities to socially integrate in wider society? Outline and evaluate some of the ways in which learning disability services can help individuals with learning disabilities realise their dreams of developing friends and relationships with others.

Introduction

Learning disabilities refer to a group of disorders whereby individuals may display significant difficulties in listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, mathematical abilities and social skills (Kavanagh & Truss, 1988). These individuals find it difficult to socially integrate in wider society (Gresham and Elliot, 1987); this issue will be referred to social functioning in this essay. Indeed, this is a problem; not only does this have consequences for social functioning, but consequences for academic achievement (LaGreca & Stone, 1990). Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms that explain the relationship between learning disabilities and social functioning, and the methods used to promote social functioning. Researchers have proposed a number of possible explanations to explain the relationship between learning disabilities and a lack of social functioning. These are social skill deficits (e.g., Bryan, 1991), communicative deficits (e.g., Storey, 2002) and anxiety (e.g., Beauchemin, Hutchins and Patterson, 2008). Individuals with social skill deficits do not have the social skills in their repertoire to interact appropriately with peers (Gresham & Elliot, 1987). Individuals with communicative deficits have difficulty communicating with partners, such as proximity, eye contact, expecting the other individual to communicate and to respond sufficiently (Downing, 2005). Whereas social skills may include non-communicative behaviours (e.g., dressing appropriately), communicative skills are solely relational; that is, the interaction between individuals (Downing, 2005). Furthermore, anxiety refers to the high state of arousal for individuals with learning disabilities, which, in turn impacts on social skills (e.g., Beauchemin et al., 2008). A number of interventions have been designed based on the above potential mechanisms. These are social skills training (e.g., Vaughn, 1985), communicative skills training (e.g., Downing, 2005) and mindfulness meditation (e.g., Beauchemin et al., 2008). Overall, the research suggests that social skills training, communicative skills training and mindfulness meditation offer modest results. These findings suggest these interventions provide little support for helping individuals with learning disabilities to develop friends and relationships. However, these modest effects may be limited to methodological limitations, such as how concepts are defined and measured. These interventions are viewed best as experimental interventions with theoretical structures that need rebuilding.

Social skills training

There is a consensus in the learning disability research literature that social skill deficits are a defining feature of learning disabilities (e.g., Forness & Kavale, 1996; Kavale & Mostert, 2004). Social skill deficits may occur because a set of skills has not been learned and therefore cannot be performed (Kavale & Mostert, 2004). Social skills training is based on the assumption that if social skills can be taught, learned and performed, social competence will develop. Social competence is an umbrella term, which refers to the perceived adequacy of one’s social functioning (Maag, 2005). For example, as an individual acquires listening skills, they will begin to develop peer acceptance, which, in turn, infers social competence.

Social skill training is an increasingly popular intervention used to increase the social competence of individuals with learning disabilities (Kavale & Mostert, 2004). Social skills training programmes often involve developing a comprehensive set of skills, such as social problem-solving, expressing feelings, working cooperatively and learning how to listen (Kavale & Mostert, 2004). Training is delivered in a range of styles, such as direct instruction, coaching, modeling and prompting (e.g., Combs & Slaby, 1978; McIntosh, Vaughn & Bennerson, 1995). For example, McIntosh, Vaughn and Bennerson (1995) developed an interpersonal problem-solving intervention, which involves carrying out social tasks between individuals, as opposed to isolation. McIntosh, Vaughn and Bennerson (1995) argue that if social skills are considered in multiple contexts (e.g., parents and peers), it is more likely to deliver long-term benefits (McIntosh, Vaughn & Bennerson, 1995).

In order to assess whether social skills training should be included in intervention programmes it is important to assess their effectiveness. By effectiveness, this refers to whether it is possible to teach students with learning difficulties social skills so that they can cope and adapt to the larger social environment (Kavale & Mostert, 2004). A number of comprehensive reviews in the research literature of learning disability have investigated the effectiveness of social skills training (e.g., McIntosh, Vaughn & Zaragoza, 1991; Sridha & Vaughn, 2001). However, the findings of these reviews have been mixed (Kavale & Mostert, 2004), therefore offering tentative conclusions (i.e. conclusions that are not certain). This mixed support makes is possible to question the effectiveness of social skills training and whether individuals with learning disabilities can develop friends and relationships with others.

Alternatively, meta- analyses have investigated the effectiveness of social skills training (e.g., Kavale & Forness, 1995; Forness & Kavale, 1996). A meta-analysis is a quantitative research method, which involves the collection of research studies. The conclusion of a meta-analysis is calculated by identifying the common statistical measure shared between studies, such as the effect-size (Cohen, 1988). Meta-analyses are considered the most robust research method as they are a way of achieving the highest statistical power. This means that researchers can be confident with generalising about a certain intervention (Eden, 2002).

Kavale and Mostert (2004) conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the effectiveness of social skills training. Findings showed that social skills training had small effects, meaning that social skills training had limited efficacy for developing individuals’ social competence (Kavale & Mostert, 2004). Kavale and Mostert (2004) suggest that the small effects associated with social skills training may be due to a number of theoretical and design issues.

Perhaps one of the reasons social skills training has small effects is due to how social skills are conceptualised. Indeed, there is a continual debate in the literature over how social skills are defined (Gresham, 1986). For example, some researchers refer to social skills as certain actions used to respond to social tasks (e.g., McFall, 1982). In contrast, other researchers refer to social skills as behaviours that help individuals initiate and maintain relationships and adapt to the larger social environment (e.g., Walker, Colvin & Ramsey, 1985). Therefore, if there is a lack of a universal concept surrounding social skills then research studies will evaluate the effectiveness of social skills training in different ways.

Another potential explanation as to why social skills training have small effects is related to measurement issues. Indeed, in the learning disability research literature there is a common problem of psychometric issues i.e. the design of quantitative tests (Gresham, 1986). For instance, researchers have identified that there has been a poor rationale for the inclusion of certain items in questionnaires. In addition, items often present poor reliability (i.e., items that produce inconsistent results across consistent conditions) and poor validity (i.e., items selected do not truly measure what they intend to measure). Therefore, if questionnaires to not obtain valid measures of social skills, research studies will find it difficult to show that social skills training works. To overcome these methodological issues, researchers have developed more robust instruments. These are the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham, 1986) and the Walker-McConnell Scale of Social Competence and School Adjustment (Walker & McConnell, 1988). However, in Kavale and Mosterts’ (2004) meta-analysis, very few research studies utilised these instruments. A recommendation for future research would be to utilise instruments with good psychometric properties, in order to estimate the true efficacy of social skills training.

Communicative skills training

Individuals with learning disabilities show deficits in communication. Therefore, researchers have focused on developing individuals’ communicative skills in order to promote communicative competence. Communicative skills training develop these communication skills at job sites, such as employment offices (Storey, 2002). A responsive communicator refers to one who is aware that they are required to wait sufficiently for their partner to finish, before responding with relevant information (Downing, 2005). These communication skills lack in individuals with learning disabilities. This type of intervention is based on the foundation that communication is relational. Indeed, communication is characterised by the interaction between at least two individuals, or more, where there is a sender of a message and a receiver of a message. According to Downing (2005), using communicative partners in interventions is necessary for individuals with learning disabilities to understand the social aspects of communication.

Like social skills training, communicative skills training use a variety of methods, such as modelling, role-playing, feedback and problem-solving. Furthermore, communicative skills interventions use reciprocity, facilitation and co-worker support. For example, Lamb, Bibby and Wood (1997) designed a programme, which included peer-communication activities. Participants were presented with publications of communication paradigms. The task required a speaker to describe the illustration to the listener who is then required to draw the illustration. An author supported this interaction. The author demonstrated the task first and provided regulatory strategies such as asking, answering and checking to encourage effective communication. Participants were told that if they would need to use these regulatory strategies in order to complete the tasks. This programme consisted of 12-weekly sessions, which each lasted about an hour. Results showed that by the end of the programme, individuals engaged in these strategies more and became more effective at communicating. This suggests that communicative skills training is an effective intervention used to promote the social functioning of those with learning disabilities.

A systematic review carried out by Alwell and Cobb (2009) investigated the effectiveness of communication skills training for the social functioning of individuals with learning disabilities. Findings showed modest support for communicative skills training, suggesting that communicative skills training promote individuals’ social functioning. This systematic review has a number of methodological strengths. First, this review only included studies that had robust methodology, such as high internal validity, high internal reliability, and studies that provided important statistical information, such as effect sizes. Therefore, researchers should have greater confidence that the results are reliable, at least across educational settings. Nevertheless, although it is a strength that the review only included studies that provided effect sizes, it can also be argued as a limitation. Alwell and Cobb (2009) raise the issue that excluding studies reduces the breadth and depth of the research pool, which, will reduce the quality of the systematic review. Therefore, future research should consider reporting their effect sizes so a larger pool of studies can be included in systematic reviews.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is an alternative approach to other interventions that can also be used to target the social functioning of individuals with learning disabilities (Beauchemin et al., 2008). Mindfulness refers to paying attention to one’s emotions, thoughts and sensations, in the present moment and in a non-judgmental way (Kabat Zinn, 1994). Mindfulness was originally identified as a method for improving mental health and reducing psychological distress (Bishop et al., 2004). However, it is recently becoming recognised as a technique that can be applied to a range of issues.

A study conducted by Beauchemin et al. (2008) investigated whether mindfulness-based meditation intervention promoted social skills. The intervention included meditation sessions to be carried out every day, over a period of five weeks. Specifically, students were instructed to focus on their breath as they inhaled the breath and exhaled the breath, in an attempt to achieve a sense of calmness. After students had achieved a sense of calmness, students were instructed to mentally note the thoughts and feelings they experienced during the exercise. Students were instructed that if they felt over-involved in their thoughts and emotions that they should identify and acknowledge these experiences in a non-judgmental way.

Findings showed that mindfulness meditation had modest results for promoting individuals’ social skills (Beauchemin et al., 2008). This suggests that mindfulness meditation may be a method disability services can use to increase the social functioning of individuals with learning disabilities. This relationship between mindfulness and the improvement of social skills can be partly explained by the cognitive-inference model of disability. The cognitive-inference model of disability suggests that mindfulness meditation reduces anxiety and the self-focus of attention, which, in turn improves social skills (Wine, 1971; 1982). For example, if an individual with learning disabilities is thinking about their competence and negative thoughts, they are likely to experience higher anxiety, which, in turn, will impact on their social functioning. Indeed, mindfulness meditation was significantly associated with a reduction in anxiety, providing support for the cognitive-inference model (Beauchemin et al., 2008).

The study conducted by Beauchemin et al. (2008) has a number of strengths. First, the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) developed by Gresham and Elliot (1990) was utilised. This instrument is a self-report instrument, which assesses student, teacher and parent ratings of the individuals’ social skills. The SSRS is a robust instrument, which has demonstrated acceptable internal validity and reliability (Harper, Webb & Reynor, 2013). By using instruments that have good psychometric properties, researchers can be more confident about the efficacy that mindfulness meditation has for promoting social competence. However, the generalisability of this study is subject to a number of limitations. First, the study did not utilise a control group (i.e. a group that does not receive the intervention). In experimental studies, control groups often serve as a comparison group, to evaluate interventions. In this instance, a control group was not used, producing threats to internal validity because the researchers cannot be sure that the behavioural changes observed are due to the intervention. Therefore, future research should consider randomly allocating participants to intervention and control conditions to ensure that changes in behaviour can be attributed to the intervention (Harper, Webb & Reynor, 2013). There is a robust set of research showing that mindfulness meditation reduces anxiety (e.g., Maags, 2005). However, there is a lack of research demonstrating the long-term effects of mindfulness meditation for promoting social skills (Beauchemin et al., 2008). Longitudinal studies are required in order to determine a causal relationship. Future research should consider conducting longitudinal studies in order to investigate the long-term impact mindfulness meditation has for promoting social skills.

Conclusion

This essay has provided potential explanations to explain the why individuals with learning disabilities find it difficult to socially integrate in wider society. These are social skill deficits (e.g., Bryan, 1991), communicative deficits (e.g., Storey, 2002) and anxiety (e.g., Beauchemin et al., 2008). This essay has also outlined the different ways learning disability services can promote social functioning. These are social skills training (e.g., Vaughn, 1985), communicative skills training (e.g., Downing, 2005) and mindfulness meditation (Beauchemin et al., 2008). This essay also evaluated these interventions based on meta-analyses, systematic reviews and research studies. Overall, the research suggests that social skills training, communicative skills training and mindfulness meditation offer modest results. These findings suggest that these interventions provide little support in promoting the social functioning of individuals with learning disabilities. In light of the importance social functioning has for developing friends and relationships, these results are somewhat disappointing. However, these modest findings are limited to a number of methodological limitations. Some of these include the lack of agreed concepts (e.g., Gresham, 1986), the lack of robust instruments (e.g., Gresham, 1986) and the lack of control groups (e.g., Beauchemin, 2009). Because of these methodological issues, the theoretical structures of these interventions remain incomplete, limiting the efficacy interventions have for social functioning. These interventions are viewed best as experimental interventions, and future research should consider rebuilding them.

References

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Beauchemin, J., Hutchins, T. L., & Patterson, F. (2008). Mindfulness meditation may lessen anxiety, promote social skills, and improve academic performance among adolescents with learning disabilities. Complementary Health Practice Review, 13(1), 34-45.

Bishop, D. V., & Snowling, M. J. (2004). Developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment: Same or different?. Psychological Bulletin, 130(6), 858.

Bruck, M. (1986). Social and emotional adjustments of learning disabled children: A review of the issues. In S. J. Ceci (Ed.), Handbook of Cognitive, Social, and Neuropsychological Aspects of Learning Disabilities (pp. 361-380). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bryan, T. H. (1991). Social problems and learning disabilities. In B.Y.L. Wong (Ed.), Learning About Learning Disabilities (pp. 195-231). New York: Academic Press.

Combs, T. P., & Slaby, D. (1978). Social skills training with children. In B. Lahey & A. Kazdin (Eds.), Advances in Clinical Child Psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 38-57). New York: Plenum Press.

Donahue, M., Pearl, R., & Bryan, T. (1983). Communicative competence in learning disabled children. In I. Bialer & K. Gadow (Eds.), Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities (Vol. 2, pp. 49-84). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Downing, J. E. (2005). Teaching Communication Skills to Students With Severe Disabilities (2nd ed.). Baltimore: Paul Brookes.

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Gresham, F. M., & Elliott, S. N. (1990). Social Skills Rating System Manual. Circle Pines, MN:American Guidance Service.

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Introduction

The emotional intelligence field is a very new area of study in psychological research. The definition therefore is varied and is constantly changing. It was only in 1990 that Salovey and Mayer came up with the first published attempt in trying to define the term. They defined emotional intelligence as “the ability to monitors one’s own and other feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide ones thinking and actions”. (Salovey P. & Mayers, J.D, 1990)

Emotional intelligence to a larger extent involves “emotional empathy” which is the ability to concentrate on one’s emotions and recognize mood both of themselves and others. It further describes how well one is able to adapt to various life challenges like stress and difficult incidences. It also involves the ability balance “honest expression of emotions against courtesy, consideration and respect”. This would obviously involve possession of some level of good social and communication skills.

Emotional intelligence is often times measured using the Emotional Intelligence quotient (EQ) which is more of a description of the capacity or ability to perceive, then assess and eventually manage one’s own and others emotions, To date there are 3 main emotional intelligence models which include:

Emotional intelligence Model based on Trait

Emotional Models based on Ability

Emotional intelligence from Mixed models

i) The Trait Emotional Intelligence model

Trait emotional intelligence or Trait emotional self efficacy refers to “a constellation or behaviour dispositions and self-perceptions regarding a persons ability to recognize, process and utilize emotional-laden information” where the trait emotional intelligence should be measured within the framework of an individuals personality.

The trait emotional intelligence is measured by several tools of self-report and include the EQ, the Six seconds emotional intelligence assessment, the Swinburne University emotional intelligence test (SUEIT) and the Schuttle self report emotional intelligence test (SSEIT).A trait emotional intelligence questionnaire (TEIQUE) that is in 15 languages was designed specifically in an open- access manner to measure EI compressively.

ii) Emotional intelligence model based on ability

Salovey and Mayer revised their earlier Emotional Intelligence definition and upgraded it to read as “the ability to perceive emotion, integrate emotion to facilitate thought, understand emotions and regulate emotion to promote personal growth” (Mayer, J.D. & Salovey, P.,1997)

This model upholds emotions as vital information sources that enable a person to make good use of the social environment. According to the model, an individual’s ability to process emotional information varies from one person to another and certain adaptive behaviours manifest themselves in this ability. The model thus goes further to propose four ability types that include

Perceiving of emotions

Using of emotion

understanding emotions and

Initiating the emotions

Upon the development of this model, it heralded the development of a measurement instrument that was named after its proponents, Mayer-Salovey- Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) which is based on various “emotion- based problem solving items” (Salovey P & Grewal D,2005).

The ability of a person is measured on the four branches of emotional intelligence which then generates a score for each branch and eventually the total score.

iii) Mixed models of emotional intelligence

Included in the mixed emotional intelligence model are Golemans’s Emotional Competencies and Bar-On’s emotional-social intelligence model.

The emotional competencies (Goleman) model

This is a model that was introduced by Daniel Goleman who portrays emotional intelligence as a combination of a variety of skills and competencies that strengthen managerial performance. The managerial performance in human resources is measured by a 360-degree feedback program known as the “multi-source feedback” or “multi-rate feedback” or “multi-source assessment” which assesses the employee in totality. (Goleman, D.1998).

In this model, Goleman developed 4 outlines for emotional intelligence. These main outlines include;

Self- awareness: This is the ability to understand ones emotions and recognizing their impact.

Self-management: being able to adapt to charging circumstances by controlling ones emotions.

Social awareness: being able to understand sense other people emotions and reacting to them while understanding the social networks.

Relationship management: which includes being able to inspire, develop and influence others in a conflict management set-up. Within each outline, Goleman included a set of emotional competencies which are learned capabilities and to achieve outstanding performance, must be developed and worked on. To learn the emotional competency, each individual is born with a level of emotional intelligence which determines the potential to learn.

Measurement tools utilized in this model include the ECI (Emotional Competency Inventory) an emotional intelligence appraisal taken as a 360-degree assessment or a self- report assessment. (Goleman, D.1998).

The Bar-On model of emotional-social intelligence (ESI)

This model was developed by Reuven Bar-On who was a psychologist. He defined emotional intelligence as “involving the effective understanding of others including oneself and being able to relate well with people and developing the ability to deal effectively with the environmental dynamics and adapting and coping with them. According to Bar-On, emotional intelligence is developed over the time and improved by training therapy and programming (Bar-On, R.1997).

He developed what is termed as the “Emotional Quotient” which indicated a measure of emotional intelligence where higher EQ individuals are successful under any form of environmental demands and pressures. He also posited that Emotional Intelligence deficiency is usually accompanied by emotional problems. Therefore according to him, the potential to succeed in life lies in both the cognitive intelligence and emotional intelligence. (Bar-On R.1997).

As a measurement tool the Bar-On Emotion Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) was developed and estimates a person’s both emotional and social intelligence. It measures the individual’s mental ability to succeed in any environmental circumstance. (Bar-On, R.1997).

To obtain a Total Emotional Quotient (Total EQ), 133 items are used that inform and produce scores to correspond with the 5 main components of the model. (Bar-On, R.1997).

Emotional intelligence in the workplace.

At the work place the ability to “exercise clear and sound judgement in situations that the jobs role presents” solely depends on the emotional intelligence employees possess. It encompasses the ability to manage their own impulses, cope with change, effectively communicate with others, and solve problems and being able to make use of humour to defuse a tense situation. Such employees have the ability to empathise with others, are optimistic in the face of down turns and are effective in resolving customer complaints. Therefore emotional intelligence plays a vital role in separating top performers from weak ones at the work place.

At the work place certain emotional quotient Competencies correlate with each other to make it a successful place, such competencies include;

Social competencies

Social competencies describe a person’s ability to handle relationships. Inherent in the person is the awareness of the feelings and concerns of others. The social competency at the work place is very important because of various reasons mentioned below.

It enables the person to understand others by actively showing interest in other peoples’ concerns and interests. It’s an intuitive way of sensing the perspectives and feelings of others.

Customer service adaptation: being able to handle customer service responsibilities in a successful manner by being able to recognize, anticipate and meet the needs of customers.

Development of people: being able to identify other people’s needs of growth, development and mastering on the individuals strength.

Leveraging on others: being able to harness and cultivate growth opportunities through diverse people.

Social skills and political acumen

This is another important competence that is very important at the work place and it describes “our adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others” it is important because of various reasons, which include:

Communication: the ability not only to sent clear and convincing messages but messages that are under hood by others.

Influencing – ability to effectively utilize persuasion techniques to achieve positive and desired results.

Leadership being able to inspire and guide teams or groups of people by creating synergy to pursue and achieve collective goals in a team set up.

b). Personal Competencies

Personal Competencies are competencies that determine how an individual manages him/herself. This competency includes self awareness which is the ability to know the internal state of oneself, by understanding such factors as resources, instincts and inclinations At the work place the competence is of great importance for various reasons, some of which are;

Awareness of specific emotions: the ability to recognize one’s own emotions and the impact they have on those around us.

Accurate self-assessment: the ability to recognize one’s span of strengths and abilities

Self-confidence: Being sure of one’s self-worth, self esteem and capabilities.

Self Regulation: This is the ability to control or manage one’s internal impulses, states and resources. The competence is very important at the work place because it enables the individual cultivate a high level of self control in which he/she is able to manage any form of disruptive impulses or emotions. An individual is able to maintain a higher level of integrity and honesty which results to trustworthiness and conscientiousness by taking personal responsibility and accountability in any form of personal performance.

Motivation Emotional and self expectation tendencies which are important to achieve set goals. At the work place this competency is of great importance because it gives us the ability to impose on ourselves standards of excellence that we want to achieve in a certain time period. This in turn enables us to remain aligned and committed to the group’s and organization’s goals.

An individual also at this level acts at every opportunity without being told because he/she is self motivated and takes initiatives to achieve success in whatever challenge he/she comes across. The particular individual is always ready in whatever circumstance and is full of life and optimism, thus is very persistent in trying to achieve whatever goals regardless of the setbacks and obstacles placed on the path to the eventual success.http://www.zeroriskhr.com/Articles/EmotionalIntelligence.aspx

The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on a company’s Bottom Line

Since the development of the Emotional Intelligence field, many companies have resorted to hard skills and personality traits assessment while focusing on the criteria for selection and training. Such hard skills include industry knowledge, technical expertise and education among others.

Previously such competence topics like “empathy, political/social acumen, stress management and assertiveness skills” were ignored and never measured in most companies’ development and training programs. Yet they are important factors that companies cannot afford to ignore, because in reality they have an effect on the company’s bottom-line.

To show the importance, a study of forty four Fortune 500 companies revealed that sales people with higher Emotional Quotient produced double revenue compared to the sales people with less or average Emotional Quotient scores. In yet another survey, technical programmers with higher EQ were developing up to 3 times more software than those ones with lower EQ.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that the field of emotional intelligence is quite new in the field of psychological research, it is a field that should not be ignored by any progressive minded organization. Highly emotionally intelligent employees would turn out to be great assets not only to the organization but to the community of employees and customers that the organization interacts with. It important therefore for the organization to delve much deeper into this field and develop or adopt certain measurement procedures that would help with identifying and developing competent employees that would be the delight of the organization in the long run.

References

Bar-On, R. (1997). The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i): a test of emotional intelligence. Toronto: Multi-Health Systems.

Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books

Salovey P. & Mayers, J.D (1990): “Emotional Intelligence” Imagination, cognition andpersonality 9, 185-211

Mayer, J.D. & Salovey, P. (1997): What is emotional intelligence? Emotional development and emotional intelligence: educational applications (pp. 3-31). New York: Basic Books.

Salovey P and Grewal D (2005): The Science of Emotional Intelligence. Current directions inpsychological science, Volume14 -6

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Introduction

Neglect and abuse are difficult concepts to define because they are not homogeneous terms and can include diverse experiences ranging from extreme deprivation to less extreme forms of abuse/neglect which may be short- or long-term (Skuse, 1989). The UK Government’s inter-agency document Working Together to Safeguard Children defines neglect as a ‘persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and or psychological needs’ (Department for Education, DfE, 2015, p.93). Neglect is defined as a parent/carer not providing a child with adequate food, clothing, shelter or adequate supervision, not protecting them from physical or emotional harm or providing them with medical care when necessary (DfE, 2015).A Abuse can be both physical and emotional. Physical abuse involves such actions as the child being burnt, scalded, poisoned or suffocated, other aspects of abuse include child sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation and radicalisation (DfE, 2015). Emotional abuse can occur independently, and is defined as including the persistent ridicule of the child by others and/or being told they are worthless, unwanted and unloved. Children may also suffer emotional abuse from bullying and cyber bulling (DfE, 2015). The aim of the following essay is to evaluate the effects of childhood neglect and abuse on the developing child, and whether there are long-term effects.

Case Studies of Deprivation

Many of the early studies that investigated the effects of neglect and abuse were undertaken with one or two children as case studies. For example, Curtiss (1989) documented the case of Genie who experience extreme neglect and physical and emotional abuse until she was 131/2. Genie was kept in isolation and had very limited exposure to language and was beaten if she made any sounds. Curtiss (1989) reports that Genie was never able to fully develop her language or social skills. However, Genie’s history in terms of her cognitive ability was not known, and it is possible she suffered from a learning disability and may never have developed language regardless of the deprivation she endured.

A study reported by KoluchovA? (1976) looked at twins who spent 5 years until the age of 7 locked in a cellar, enduring severe neglect and abuse. When they were found they appeared to be severely cognitively deficient, although it quickly became apparent that this was a result of deprivation. However, it is suggested by KoluchovA? (1976) that because they formed an attachment with each other and had also experienced 18 months of relatively adequate care in a children’s home before the abuse began they were protected against permanent damage. There was no evidence of long-term cognitive damage after their removal and their language developed normally. Because both examples are case studies, they are difficult to generalise to other abused or neglected children because the circumstances of Genie and the twins are so unique. The details of their childhood abuse and neglect were retrospective and may result in slight inaccuracies or omissions. However, it would of course be unethical to undertake studies of children experiencing such severe neglect and abuse until after the event has occurred and the children removed from the situation.

Bowlby (1977) argued that early experience from birth and forming an attachment, predominately with the mother, was a powerful factor in determining typical development of a child. Attachment involves the formation of strong affection bonds to others during a critical period of development (up until about the age of three), and enables the child to deal with stressors and emotional distress. This would appear to be supported by KoluchovA? (1976), as the twins formed an attachment with each other whereas Genie, who did not develop age appropriate skills had no-one with whom she could form an attachment (Curtiss, 1989). However, Werner (2000) found in her longitudinal study of children who were born and raised in adverse circumstances that there were a number of protective factors that helped the child develop resilience. One positive factor was the formation of an attachment with a caring supportive other (such as a grandparent or teacher). Werner, in part, supports Bowlby’s assertion of the importance of attachment, although the bond does not necessarily have to be the mother, it can be any other suitable person, which is also suggested by KoluchovA? (1976) in her study of the twins.

Studies of Groups of Children

A group who suffered extreme neglect and abuse were children incarcerated in concentration camps during the 2nd World War. Child survivors were interviewed 40 years after the camp was liberated with the focus on how they had adjusted to life after the war (Krell, 1985). Only one survivor from a total of 24 survivors was a patient at a psychiatric hospital. However, 40 years after the war, the child survivors were characterised by a desperate need to be perceived as ‘normal’, to belong and to cope, so they were not perceived as being different (Krell, 1985, p.379). The age of the child survivor was also important as adult survivors had memories of pre-war life, whereas many of the children had very few. The child survivors as a group were also characterised by ‘their affirmation of life’ and their ‘active compassion for others’ (Krell, 1985, p.379).

Robinson and Hemmendinger (1982, cited in Krell, 1985 p.379) report on 14 children liberated from Buchenwald camp. Communication with the children was difficult immediately after their liberation as they were hostile and were completely apathetic and indifferent to everything around them, and were described as ‘psychotic or psychopathic’ (Krell, 1985, p.379). 30 years later the child survivors reported psychological problems such as depression, insomnia and nightmares about their past. Both groups of child survivors emphasise the importance of their families. A further characteristic of the child survivors of the holocaust is that although the trauma the children experienced continued to have a pervasive negative influence in their lives, it existed simultaneously with a strong desire to survive, which Valent (1998) terms resilience in the face of enormous adversity. Another factor which helped the children survive, particularly very young children, was the development of an attachment with another person. The child survivors were able to adapt very quickly and suppress their emotions and after the camps were liberated the children also suppressed their memories and focused on their future lives (Valent, 1998).

Beckett et al. (2006) investigated the long-term effects of 131 Romanian adoptees compared to UK adoptees who were not institutionalised. The Romanian children ranged in age between less than 6 months to 42 months, and had experienced severe neglect in the institutions. The main findings were that deprivation had implications for the physical and psychological development of the Romanian children. Adverse effects remained present at age 11-years for those children who were over 6 months old when adopted although the outcomes for the children were diverse.

The children were tested on a range of cognitive abilities at age 6- and 11-years. The children who had not experienced institutionalise care had higher scores than those children from institutions, even after a number of years in a nurturing environment with their adoptive parents. The authors conclude that severe deprivation at a young age of 6 months can persist for a number of years, up to age 11. The children who showed cognitive impairment at age 6 showed substantial impairment at 11, which indicates that cognitive impairment is persistent (Beckett et al. 2006). This is supported by neuroimaging techniques which show distinct changes in the brain of children who were institutionalised at an early age. It is suggested by Beckett et al. (2006) that the results of their study are viewed with caution, as it is unique, and, fortunately, there are not many cases where large numbers of very young children experience severe neglect to make comparisons.

KoA?ovskA? et al. (2012) also studied adopted children who had experienced severe maltreatment and found that many of the children had a range of psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as disorganised patterns of attachment and indiscriminate friendliness, which is often found in maltreated children (KoA?ovskA? et al. 2012; KoluchovA? (1976). Kumsta et al. (2010) state that whilst there is a well-defined pattern of four specific symptoms displayed by institutionalised children there is not similar patterns shown by children who have experienced other types of neglect or abuse (e.g. sexual abuse). Therefore, it is not possible to predict what type of psychopathy will occur for other types of abuse or neglect (Kumsta, et al. 2010).

Thompson and Tabone (2010) investigated the effects of early childhood neglect when the child was younger than 4-years old. The study involved 242 children, 154 had a history of maltreatment (mainly neglect) and 88 children did not. The children were assessed at age 10-years on a range of behavioural measures including anxiety, depression, aggression and attention. It was shown that over time, the children who had experienced abuse showed a greater incidence of depression and anxiety as well as attention seeking behaviour although these behaviours were not evident when the child was younger. The finding suggests that young children experiencing abuse or neglect should be assessed throughout childhood for long-term effects (Thompson and Tabone, 2010).

Risk Factors for Negative Outcomes

According to Appleyard, Egeland, van Dulmen, and Sroufe (2005) there is a relationship between a high number of risk factors and the later adverse effects on the child, which can manifest, for example, as disruptive behaviour in adolescence. It is argued that there are five cumulative risk factors involved, which include; child abuse, high levels of parental stress, domestic violence between parents (that may involve children), dysfunctional family life and low socioeconomic status, and these factors present the greatest risk in early and middle childhood (Appleyard, et al. 2005). The factors are supported by Boyd and Bee, (2012) who suggest that there is a strong relationship between poverty, neglect and abuse as the children typically live in situations that are chaotic causing the child considerable stress, particularly if they have limited social or psychological support. In a longitudinal study, Peruzzi (2013) found that children from deprived backgrounds in the UK were rarely able to break the cycle of poverty and frequently displayed deviant behaviour as adolescents, had poor educational attainment and were socially excluded as adults.

Another longitudinal study which investigated risk factors for abuse and neglect as well as coping strategies involved 9-12 year-old boys in the Isle of Wight and also a group of children in London whose parents had mental health disorders (Rutter, Tizard, and Whitmore, 1970). It was found that if a child was exposed to at least four risk factors this could contribute to later maladjustment. The risk factors included; discord in the marriage, a low socioeconomic status, a large family, criminal activity by the father, the mental health of the mother and whether the child was placed in foster care (Rutter et al. 1979).

Conclusion

The evidence presented indicates that early childhood abuse and neglect, which is also referred to as deprivation, typically has a long-term detrimental effect on the cognitive, emotional and behavioural development of children. Thompson and Tabone (2010) suggest that the effects of deprivation may not be immediately apparent, and therefore assessments of abused and neglected children should be undertaken through childhood and adolescence. There were adverse effects reported by the child survivors of the holocaust, although they survived by suppressing their memories and emotions and focusing on their futures (Krell, 1985; Valent, 1998). There are difficulties with the methodology used in investigating the effects of childhood neglect and abuse. Firstly, some studies are case studies of one or two children which means the findings are difficult to generalise. Secondly, the information obtained is retrospective as it would be ethically unacceptable to study children in a situation where they were being neglected or abused. This means that information may be unintentionally distorted or over-exaggerated. A third issue is the wide diversity of situations in which abuse or neglect occurs and the individual differences of the children involved (Skuse, 1989). For some children there are many risk factors, such as poverty, which can exacerbate the effects of the neglect or abuse (Appleyard, et al. 2005; Boyd and Bee, 2012; Peruzzi 2013), or other factors such as a positive attachment figure who can mediate the effects of deprivation (Bowlby, 1977; Werner 2000).

References

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Prime Minister’s Questions is a weekly event, taking place on Wednesdays at midday in the House of Commons, in which Members of Parliament ask questions of the Prime Minister which he/she is obliged to answer over the course of approximately half an hour. Prior to 1997, this was instead two fifteen minute slots (Seaton and Winetrobe, 1999). The Leader of the Opposition is allocated six questions during this period. In the past, the Prime Minister has been able to transfer questions to relevant members of his/her Cabinet, and the Leader of the Opposition has foregone the opportunity to ask his/her allocated number of questions. Since the changes made under Tony Blair in 1997, the third-largest party (since then the Liberal Democrats) has been afforded the chance to ask two questions (Thomas, 2004: 5). The event has a long tradition in British politics and is considered a central element in the adversarial thrust of the parliamentary system and the House of Commons. It provides an opportunity for Members of Parliament to address questions and issues directly to the Prime Minister, and to have those issues answered and responded to (Gimson, 2012). As such, it is considered a cornerstone of the British political system. This paper will argue that it alone is not an effective means of holding the government to account, but that it forms an important constituent part in the wider adversarial democratic process of ensuring government accountability. It will also be noted that an increasing emphasis on point-scoring, machoism and unruly contentiousness is something which has detracted from the democratic effectiveness of Prime Minister’s Questions.

One of the central emphases of Prime Minister’s Questions is that the issues raised and questions put to the Prime Minister are ones which he/she does not know in advance. It is therefore seen as an opportunity for Members of Parliament to challenge the Prime Minister away from any prepared or scripted response. For this reason, Prime Minister’s Questions has been valued by the opposition and in some cases feared by the Prime Minister as it forces him or her to be very well briefed on the issues of the day, as well as to improvise and respond quickly and efficiently to unanticipated questions or issues which might be raised (Cowley, 2001: 820). However, it has been argued, both by politicians and by commentators, that the unruly nature of some Prime Minister’s Questions has meant that, rather than being an important part of the democratic process and a chance to hold the government to account, it has become something of a spectacle and an uncivilised shouting match.

This problem has indeed been raised by the current Speaker of the House, John Bercow, who has identified the ‘histrionics and cacophony of noise’ associated with the event (Mason and Edgington, 2014, n.p.). Bercow suggested in the same interview that female Members of Parliament in particular are driven to not attend Prime Minister’s Questions because of the machoism and unruliness of the behaviour in the House (Mason and Edgington, 2014). To the extent that the nature of the event discourages certain Members of Parliament from attending suggests that it is less than ideally effective as a democratic process. If not all Members wish to attend, not all the potential questions and issues which could or should be raised in Prime Minister’s Questions are going to be addressed. In such circumstances, it is possible that the emphasis is more on presentation and cheap point-scoring than on actual political processes and accountability, and that the ability of the Prime Minister to make jokes, cutting ripostes and other ‘style over substance’ elements in the debating process has taken centre stage. Given the relatively short duration of the event – half an hour per week – the possibility for unruly behaviour and disruption to undermine the process and ensure that little is actually said or achieved in the questioning session is all the greater (Murphy, 2014). Bates et al. (2014: 243) addressed in their research of Prime Minister’s Questions from Margaret Thatcher through to David Cameron, the question of whether or not the event has ‘become increasingly a focal point for shallow political point scoring rather than serious prime ministerial scrutiny’. They found some worrying evidence of Prime Minister’s Questions as both ‘rowdier and increasingly dominated by the main party leaders’ with Prime Ministers ‘increasingly expected to be able to respond to a wider range of questions’, female MPs ‘as likely to ask helpful questions but less likely to ask unanswerable questions than male counterparts’ and Members of Parliament being ‘less likely to ask helpful questions and more likely to ask unanswerable questions the longer their parliamentary tenure.’ These all suggest a less than ideal process of holding the government to account.

Thus it is necessary to distinguish between adversarial discourse which serves a political democratic process in holding the government to account on the one hand, and confrontational or aggressive behaviour which is simply point-scoring and face-saving on the other. Bull and Wells (2011: n.p.), in their study of ‘adversarial discourse’ in Prime Minister’s Questions, analysed the concept of ‘face-threatening acts’, and identified ‘six distinctive ways in which FTAs are performed by the leader of the opposition in questions and five distinctive ways in which the PM may counter FTAs in replies were identified.’ They concluded that ‘face aggravation in PMQs is not just an acceptable form of parliamentary discourse, it is both sanctioned and rewarded, a means whereby MPs may enhance their own status through aggressive facework.’ These face-threatening acts were ones which, without constituting non-parliamentary language (i.e. language which is deemed by the Speaker of the House to be directly insulting towards another Member of Parliament), nevertheless aimed at embarrassing or undermining the person at whom they were directed. This so-called ‘aggressive facework’ may serve a political purpose, and may constitute a challenge to the government and its representatives, but it is one which is based more on personality than politics, and one which therefore serves more of an interpersonal role within the House than it does a wider political role in ensuring democratic accountability.

Mohammed (2008: 380) characterises Prime Minister’s Questions in terms of institutional conventions, arguing that it has a structured purpose and format which achieves its ends by being institutionally defined. In other words, such a format for adversarial exchange, where there are clear rules and conventions of behaviour, is one which makes it effective and efficient in achieving its goals i.e. holding the government to account. Mohammed (2008: 380) highlights the ‘initial situation’ of Prime Minister’s Questions as being ‘a mixed difference of opinion concerning a proposition evaluating the performance of the government.’ This suggests that although the topical questions put to the Prime Minister may not be critical or aggressive in their nature, that what is presupposed in the questioning is nevertheless a process of accountability. The Prime Minister is recognised as the centre of the process, and he/she is called upon as ‘the main protagonist of the positive standpoint, since he is expected to always defend his government (sic)’ (Mohammed, 2008: 380). The emphasis on a single individual as representing the government and addressing the issues which are raised, and the executive manner of the role within the eponymous questions session, means that Prime Minister’s Questions does have a recognisable symbolic value as a means of holding the government to account.

As well as being well-codified and formalised, Prime Minister’s Questions is valued as a means of holding the government to account in terms of its importance (Lovenduski, 2012). This is reflected in the fact that Members of Parliament are present at Prime Minister’s Questions to a degree which far exceeds their presence during normal proceedings in the House of Commons. Salmond (2014: 321) has argued in favour of Prime Minister’s Questions as a democratic tool of accountability on these grounds, noting that the data demonstrates how ‘these open QTs are associated with higher levels of political knowledge, partisanship, and turnout.’ In that they attract a large number of parliamentarians, and therefore a wider gambit of democratic representation, they are a means of ensuring that the largest possible proportion of the electorate is represented during the session. Moreover, these members of the electorate are able to effectively have their issues put directly to the most important politician in the country. This was made explicitly evident recently by Jeremy Corbyn, whose first Prime Minister’s Questions session as newly-elected Leader of the Opposition involved him addressing questions to David Cameron directly from those members of the electorate who had put them to him in emails and letters. He went so far as to directly name these individuals and thereby to literally employ Prime Minister’s Questions as a platform in which members of the electorate could directly address their Prime Minister (BBC News, 2015).

In the same session, ‘Labour’s new leader said he wanted the weekly sessions to be less “theatrical” and Mr Cameron agreed there should be more focus on “substantial issues”‘ (BBC News, 2015). This returns to the issue raised earlier of the degree to which style and point-scoring at the personal level has taken precedent over substance and addressing issues at the political level. Indeed, this call for not only Prime Minister’s Questions but the political process more generally to become more substantial and less personality-oriented is one which has dominated the discourse of the last decade or so. Indeed, David Cameron promised when he was elected Leader of the Opposition to end “Punch and Judy” politics, and responded to Corbyn by saying that ‘no one would be more delighted than me’ if Prime Minister’s Questions were made into more of a ‘genuine exercise in asking questions and answering questions’ (BBC News, 2015). As such, there is a continued recognition of the fact that political processes have to negotiate between personal and political, style and substance, in their practices. However, to the extent that both Corbyn and Cameron recognise this problem, and claim to be willing to change it, there is evidence that Prime Minister’s Questions, if it has been less than ideal as a means of holding the government to account in the past, is likely to become more so in the future.

To conclude, therefore, it can be argued that there are strengths and weaknesses to Prime Minister’s Questions as a tool in ensuring government accountability to the electorate. Among the strengths, this essay has identified three key elements. Firstly, it is a well-regulated, formal system with recognised rules and proceedings. This means that this regular event runs efficiently and can allow for a number of important questions to be asked directly to the most important politician in the land and direct representative of the government. Secondly, the fact that the Prime Minister’s responses are not fully prepared in advance means that the session has an impromptu and spontaneous element which allows for potentially greater accountability. Thirdly, the session is well-attended by parliamentarians and well-recognised by people who follow politics (with its being broadcast on BBC2), and therefore it is also a high profile opportunity to raise issues and find the government accountable. However, whilst these benefits obtain, it is also notable that Prime Minister’s Questions can be less than ideal as a means of holding the government to account. Causes of this include the relatively short length of the sessions, their comparative infrequency being held only once a week and, as identified above, the fact that cheap point-scoring and what has been identified in the literature as ‘aggressive facework’ (Bull and Wells, 2011) constitute one of the central features of the questioning process. As such, there is the real possibility of what would otherwise be an effective means of holding the government to account descending into a competitive, mud-slinging match where the emphasis is on achieving personal goals rather than political ones. If the evidence of recent Prime Minister’s Questions is reliable, it can be noted in closing, there is a suggestion that this emphasis is being decreased, and that Prime Minister’s Questions may in the future become increasingly like the effective means of holding the government accountable that it has the potential to be.

References

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Mason, C. and Edgington, T. (2014). ‘Female MPs shunning PMQs, says John Bercow.’ BBC News. Available online [accessed 19th October 2015] at: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27062577.

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