PSYC200 Research Methods In Psychology

Question 

FIRST ARTICLE

1. The aim of this study was to investigate developmental antecedents that are related to self esteem, during periods of early and middle childhood. The authors tried to evaluate role of parent-child co-construction on the development of global self esteem by reminiscing about significant past events and conversations, with children aged 5 to 13 years.

2. The methodology comprised of one to one interviews with the children, from February 2014- December 2015 in a laboratory. The children were aged 5 to 13 years and had parents belonging to different races such as, White, Asian, Latino, or other race. The measures were evaluated on the basis of lifespan self esteem scale, self esteem consistency, kern’s security scale and domain specific self esteem scale. Parent questionnaires for also used to observe their parenting behaviour and life narratives. The interaction between a parent and the child was observed by parent-child reminiscing tasks that included discussions on 5 emotional events such as, misbehavior, stress, proud, positive, and embarrassment. This was followed by conduction of a statistical analysis with the use of raw correlations and bayesian model testing.

3. Several associations were found between different aspects of reminiscence style and parent narrative identities. No significant results were obtained that could support the hypothesis of the relation between child self esteem and parent reminiscence style. The reminiscent style was also found related to child attachment security, thereby showing consistency with previous findings. No relation was found between the two parenting behaviours of reminiscing and narrative emotional explanations. Parents who were found involved in detailed explanation of the emotions, while writing about lowest point in the lives, showed an increased likelihood to discuss about emotional explanations that were experienced in past events with their child. This in turn was related to child attachment security.

4. Thus, it can be suggested that the small sample size recruited for the study and the multi-method design had severe limitations, owing to the less diverse population that had been enrolled. There is a need to replicate a similar study with more diverse parents, by lowering the number of biological mothers, present in dual parent homes. Taking into account reminiscence of conversations with individuals such as, peers, other than both the parents would also help in evaluating outcomes of child self esteem.

 

SECOND ARTICLE 

 

1. The aim of the study was to characterize the musical phenotype present in individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome, by measuring 3 different variables namely, 1) an increase in motion while listening to music that represents engagement response, 2) a reduction in heart rate after hearing music, thereby demonstrating a relaxation response, and 3) tone deafness that represents ability of speech perception

2. 39 people suffering from Prader-Willi syndrome were studied and compared with different cohorts that were comprised of developing adults and children. The children and adults with Prader-Willi syndrome were tested for the musical phenotype by collection of data from the cohort, in two different sessions held 6 months apart. First session comprised of pilot testing of picture perception and reading session. Cognitive tests and new pitch tests were conducted in the second session. The musical content comprised of 12 songs namely, 4 folk songs and 8 lullabies. Wrist mounted physiological monitor was used to assess the heart rate of the recruited sample. Stata was utilised for the statistical analysis of heart rate, pitch perception skills, and motion.

3. The result findings suggested that individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome demonstrated an increased engagement and great emotions, while listening to music and a lower heart rate that signifies improved relaxation after music listening session. Pitch perception ability was found to reduce after music listening. Similar amounts of songs were found to produce increased effects in individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome, compared to the normal developing subjects. Differences within subject during motion, between speech recordings and songs were also found to differ between the cohort with Prader-Willi syndrome and the typically developing ones. The Prader-Willi syndrome cohort demonstrated a substantial reduction in mean proportion of appropriate answers, related to pitch test, when compared to adults. Raw scores for the sample cohort were also found to be less than those for the adults, belonging to the cohort that contained typically developing individuals.

4.The findings confirm the theoretical predictions that have been made regarding evolution of infant directed songs. A reduction in pitch perception ability can be associated with the fact that infants demonstrating less sensitivity to pitch might be less selective about the singing quality that is required for eliciting a calming response, thereby reducing their demands for investment from the parents. There is a need to conduct future research by characterizing music perception deficits among people with Prader-Willi syndrome based on rhythm perception tests.