Socially Sensitive Research
Socially sensitive research is research that will have a greater effect and impact
on society which stretches further than the initial study.
A psychological study that has effects that stretch beyond the sum of its parts
was Banduras BoBo doll study. Within the study Bandura found that children
would behave violently if they saw a role-model act in the same way. The core
effect this study had was on media that children can now consume, hence now
on TV there is a watershed that shields children from learning potentially
violent or antisocial behaviour from watching inappropriate role-models.
Unfortunately, governments or people in power can use censorship to eliminate
role-models from the media that could put other political viewpoints in a
positive light. Thus, creating a society that cannot expand and question their
leaders via free thinking on the media. This study has created both protection
and regulation within society via media control.
Socially sensitive research in terms of social control has also been affected by
research done by Sherif. Sherifs Robbers Cave Study focused on prejudice, it
found that competition can cause prejudice and superordinate goals can solve
these prejudices. Despite a response to the study being that Racism, Sexism and
other prejudices could be rationalised and accepted as 'nature', the main
response was that more emphasis was put on superordinate goals. Such as
different communities working together to fulfil a common goal. This study
encouraged people, down to the individual, to more conscientiously work to
achieve mutually beneficial tasks.
Aside from socially sensitive research related to social control, some socially
sensitive research is related to legislature, and pre-existing systems and
processes. One area in particular was the structure and system of mental
institutes within the US. Rosenhan conducted a study where he sent pseudo-
patients into actual mental institutes, these pseudo-patients were not mentally
ill and were considered sane, their goal was to convince the staff they were
sane. This study showed how ignored patients were, and how sane people could
not be detected within an insane environment. The effect of this study caused a
distrust between the public and psychology professionals within the medical
sector. This led to such a decline in trust even some of the hospitals within the
study had to close. Despite this initially seeming a major negative effect, this
study allowed for further research into the best way to treat people, by breaking
the mould it allowed it to be reformed in a better way. This helped kickstart the
decline of mental institutes and the introduction of more productive treatments.
A different sector that has been challenged by psychological research is the
criminal justice system and its decision making. What was challenged was the
liability of the perpetrators. Raine et al used PET scans to compare the brain
structure between murderers and non-murderers. He found that murderers had
less activity in the pre-frontal cortex than non-murderers. This impacted
massively as the pre-frontal cortex is related to consequence understanding and
fore-thought, hence the murderers lacked the biological makeup to pre-meditate
Socially sensitive research is research that will have a greater effect and impact
on society which stretches further than the initial study.
A psychological study that has effects that stretch beyond the sum of its parts
was Banduras BoBo doll study. Within the study Bandura found that children
would behave violently if they saw a role-model act in the same way. The core
effect this study had was on media that children can now consume, hence now
on TV there is a watershed that shields children from learning potentially
violent or antisocial behaviour from watching inappropriate role-models.
Unfortunately, governments or people in power can use censorship to eliminate
role-models from the media that could put other political viewpoints in a
positive light. Thus, creating a society that cannot expand and question their
leaders via free thinking on the media. This study has created both protection
and regulation within society via media control.
Socially sensitive research in terms of social control has also been affected by
research done by Sherif. Sherifs Robbers Cave Study focused on prejudice, it
found that competition can cause prejudice and superordinate goals can solve
these prejudices. Despite a response to the study being that Racism, Sexism and
other prejudices could be rationalised and accepted as 'nature', the main
response was that more emphasis was put on superordinate goals. Such as
different communities working together to fulfil a common goal. This study
encouraged people, down to the individual, to more conscientiously work to
achieve mutually beneficial tasks.
Aside from socially sensitive research related to social control, some socially
sensitive research is related to legislature, and pre-existing systems and
processes. One area in particular was the structure and system of mental
institutes within the US. Rosenhan conducted a study where he sent pseudo-
patients into actual mental institutes, these pseudo-patients were not mentally
ill and were considered sane, their goal was to convince the staff they were
sane. This study showed how ignored patients were, and how sane people could
not be detected within an insane environment. The effect of this study caused a
distrust between the public and psychology professionals within the medical
sector. This led to such a decline in trust even some of the hospitals within the
study had to close. Despite this initially seeming a major negative effect, this
study allowed for further research into the best way to treat people, by breaking
the mould it allowed it to be reformed in a better way. This helped kickstart the
decline of mental institutes and the introduction of more productive treatments.
A different sector that has been challenged by psychological research is the
criminal justice system and its decision making. What was challenged was the
liability of the perpetrators. Raine et al used PET scans to compare the brain
structure between murderers and non-murderers. He found that murderers had
less activity in the pre-frontal cortex than non-murderers. This impacted
massively as the pre-frontal cortex is related to consequence understanding and
fore-thought, hence the murderers lacked the biological makeup to pre-meditate
