Lecture 2: research methods

Question 1

Who do we ask when we report on childhood maltreatment?

Answer 1

• Self vs. information
• Parent vs. child
• Retrospective vs. prospective
• Subjective vs. observing

Question 2

Retrospective research

Answer 2

Looking backward on what happend.

Advantages:
- Practical in the case of long-term consequences.

Disadvantages:
- Memory can have errors
- Potential recall bias
- Cause and effect can be hard to disentangle

Question 3

Prospective research

Answer 3

Looking ahead in time, following people over time.

Advantages:
- Temporal order of abuse and it’s consequences (you know which followed which)
- Objective identification of abuse
- No recall bias

Disadvantages:
- Selective drop-out over time
- Unethical without intervening
- Duration, costs

Question 4

Video feedback intervention

Answer 4

Objective measure of parenting where parents get assignments to do with their child and psychologists observe the parents reactions to the child’s behaviour. To study the impact of parenting styles.

Question 5

Study about the effects of parental childhood maltreatment on their behaviour towards their own child and their autonomic responses.

Answer 5

Parents who experienced ABUSE as a child showed:
- Less warmth and more negativity towards their child during interactions –> more behavioural reaction.

Parents who experienced NEGLECT as a child showed:
- More arousal within the sympathetic system (parasympathetic system was repressed) –> more autonomic reaction.

Question 6

How do we establish causality?

Answer 6

This can be done with experimental studies. 2 different types of experimental studies:
1. Analogue ‘acute stress’ studies: like the TRIER social stress test (maltreatment = related to stress).
2. Animal research: eliciting stress in animals.

Question 7

Acute stress studies

Answer 7

• Trier Social Stress Test: temporarily inducing social (and psychological) stress.
  Example: saying you have to give a presentation within 5 minutes.
• Cold pressor test: temporarily inducing bodily (and psychological) stress by putting your had in a bucket of ice cold water, which causes a stress response.

With these tests you can measure: mood, performance, questioning etc.

Question 8

Animal (stress) research

Answer 8

In translational research (form animals to humans) we can measures the consequences of stress in animals with a stress paradigm, but this should bi-directionally informed: can we see the same in animals as in humans.
The choice of the animal also matters:
- Rats = smartest
- Mouse = fastest
- Primate = closer to humans

Question 9

Studies of maternal care in rats

Answer 9

1. Maternal care: rats have a natural behaviour for maternal care (nursing, caring etc.), but there is a big variation in maternal care. You have low, mid and high maternal care rats.
2. Separation of the mother (=neglect): this can cause a single or a chronic trauma (1 day vs. a few days).
3. Limiting nesting material: causes stress in mother rats, which causes her to care less for her children.

Question 10

HPA axis

Answer 10

This is a system that is seen in humans and in mice. Mice also show a heightened stress response after maltreatment.

Question 11

Hippocampus

Answer 11

• Maternal support in early childhood predict larger hippocampal volumes.
• Childhood maltreatment can cause smaller hippocampal volume.
• The hippocampus in maltreated rats showed fever connections.

Question 12

Morris water maze

Answer 12

Throwing rats in water and looking at how long it takes them to figure out how to get to the platform. This time became less and less with every try. But rats with hippocampal problems (due to maltreatment) showed much slower learning behaviour.

Question 13

Studies about ELS and emotions in rats, showed:

Answer 13

• Depressive behaviour
• Increased anxiety
• Aggressive behaviour
• More substance abuse

Question 14

Studies about ELS and SUD in non-human primates, showed:

Answer 14

• Higher voluntary alcohol intake after a new stressor.
• Higher caloric intake.
• Different findings per stressor for cocaine.
• All related to cortisol levels.

Also showed that different types of early life stressors can cause higher or lower proneness to substance use disorder.

Question 15

What we can’t study with animal studies:

Answer 15

• Objective emotions
• Negative self-inferences
• Mental health
• Inducing sexual abuse
• Inducing emotional abuse
• Testing behavioural intervention

Ethics: the scientific purpose of the research should be of sufficient potential significance to justify the use of nonhuman primates.

Question 16

Possible underlying mechanisms of the effect of ELS

Answer 16

• Cognitive schemata of self and others (depression)
• Insecure attachment (relationship problems)
• Emotion regulation and recognising (social problems)
• Hypervigilance to threat (anxiety disorder)
• Low responsiveness to reward (SUD)