A clinical psychologist was interested in how different parenting styles might a
ID: 3457075 • Letter: A
Question
A clinical psychologist was interested in how different parenting styles might affect the incidence of neurosis in adults. Based on observations of her own clients over many years, she hypothesized that unstructured and lax child rearing environments were more likely to result in adult neurosis than well structured and disciplined child rearing. She created a 20-item questionnaire that asked subjects about their own childhood experiences and also their neurotic tendencies. She obtained a small government grant to cover the costs of administering the survey through the mail to residents in three large metropolitan areas on the east coast.
From these answers she rated each parenting style along a 1 to 5 scale that varied from very unstructured (1) to very structured (5). In addition, she rated each participant along a 1 to 5 scale that reflected their degree of neurosis from low levels of neurotic behavior (1) to high levels of neurotic behavior (5).
A) What type of statistic was most likely used to analyze the data? What was the hypothesized outcome?
B) Can you think of another way to test the hypothesis?
A clinical psychologist was interested in how different parenting styles might affect the incidence of neurosis in adults. Based on observations of her own clients over many years, she hypothesized that unstructured and lax child rearing environments were more likely to result in adult neurosis than well structured and disciplined child rearing. She created a 20-item questionnaire that asked subjects about their own childhood experiences and also their neurotic tendencies. She obtained a small government grant to cover the costs of administering the survey through the mail to residents in three large metropolitan areas on the east coast.
From these answers she rated each parenting style along a 1 to 5 scale that varied from very unstructured (1) to very structured (5). In addition, she rated each participant along a 1 to 5 scale that reflected their degree of neurosis from low levels of neurotic behavior (1) to high levels of neurotic behavior (5).
Explanation / Answer
A. The clinical psychologist used inferential statistics to draw conclusion about the population using the random sample from three metropolises of the East coast . In all likelihood, she used t test as a measure of statistically significant difference between the unstructured/ lax and structured/ disciplined child rearing environments.
In her study, she hypothesised that there would be a significant difference between the two groups and the group which experienced lax and unstructured parenting style were more likely to experience adult neurosis than groups who had well structured and disciplined child rearing.
B. Other than the survey method used by the researcher, The hypothesis can be studied using the experimental method wherein the participants can be engaged in a simulation exercise with confederates demonstrating two different parenting styles to the two groups of participants. In addition a control group which receives no treatment or parenting style would be used for baseline comparison. After exposure to the treatment conditions, the participants could be additionally asked to fill in a questionnaire about their level of anxiety during and after the experiment Andy how would they like to respond to their simulated parents.
Such a design could help to tap on the changes in behaviour as they occur during the experimental condition and also help to establish the hypothesis with high external validity.
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