Evaluate what psychologists have discovered about substance use and abuse Essay Example for Free

Evaluate what psychologists have discovered about substance apply and ab wasting disease EssayIn discovering about substance use and sophisticate unmatched issue encountered are the inevitable ethical issues that occur. In Mestel and Concars field of study for example, sensitive data was collected. Sharing this sensitive data wit hthe researchers may have caused participants unneeded anxiety or embarrassment if for example the urine test showed that they had used cocaine. This inevitably leads to ethical issues receivable to the acrid emotions participants may have been subjected to.Similarly in Robinson et amyotrophic lateral sclerosis study, participants may have experienced unpleasant emotions such as embarrassment and ill ease as a emergence of the personal character of the questions asked. From the two studies we can see that ethics is often a factor when exploring the issue of substance use and abuse up to now substance abuse is, by definition, against social expec tations and consequently is always likely to generate ethical dilemmas when researchers attempt to discover substance use and abuse. A nonher difficulty incurred when attempting to explore substance use and abuse is social pizzazz.Social desirability is the term hand overn to the situation in which people give answers that are contrary or different to their beliefs because their alternative answer is more socially acceptable. In Moolchan et als study for example personal data was collected and in order to present themselves in abettor light people may have lied when giving their answer responding by saying that their upgrade didnt smoke when in fact they did for example. Similarly in Landos study baseline data was collected by asking participants to keep a diary detailing their smoking for one week.Participants may have save false information because they felt this false information would be more socially acceptable. Social desirability can lead to results which are invalid an d resultantly lead to a lack of validity as the study will not record peoples true response. Another difficulty in discovering substance use and abuse is the issue of generalisability. Generalisability is the term used to define the bound to which results from one sample of participants can be apply to wider root words.In Griffiths study for example the realiseings may not be able to generalised to a earth such as Australia as the sample used was not representative. Similarly Murrays study conducted in 1988 had a sample which was exclusively composed of adolescents and consequently it could not be applied to the wider population. In reality however a study is likely to never be truly representative to a global extent and in doing so such a diverse sample may make it hard for distinct results to be distinguished due to cultural differences.Research into substance use and abuse may alike incur the difficulty of ethnocentric bias. This is the tendency to perceive the world from you own cultural assort, such as your wthnic group. The issue of ethnocentric bias can be seen in Gomels study. Gomel looked at a workplace in which smoking had been banned and how this related to the reduction in substance use (smoking). The study can be een to be ethnocentrically biased because it was conducted in one workplace in Australia.Ethnocentric bias can result in research that is not applicable to the larger population as the results from this study may not be found to be the same if it was conducted in Australia for example. c) Many people resolve to give up smoking each new year. With middle aged women specifically in mind suggest one psychological technique which would be useful to help them in their attempts to release smoking. Give reasons for your answer. In attempting to stop smoking one technique which may be useful is the use of self help groups. ego help groups are support circles where each member is also attempting to quit smoking. As Moolchan discovered in his study, women who smoke are likely to be socially skilled and confident and so may find a group therapy useful where they can support and gain support from other women in the group who are in a socially similar position to themselves. Group therapy may also be effective in helping a middle aged woman quit smoking as she may make friends with people in the group and thus flip over to them for support as she would turn to a friend outside of the group.The clear difference however would be that the person in the group would be going through the same experience as the middle aged woman and so would be able to identify with her. Those in the support group may also acknowledge an agent of competition each one wanting to continue to stop smoking so they remain in the group. For this variety of reasons a support group is likely to be the most effective strategy in supporting a middle aged woman who is giving up smoking.