ECON 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Pocket Cube, Phineas Gage, Major Depressive Disorder
Document Summary
Case studies: careful analyses of the experiences of a particular person or group. > not always certain if results apply generally for people. > extraordinary experiences which are difficult/impossible to re-create in the laboratory. > mostly if little to none systematic research has been conducted on a topic. => phineas gage turned through brain accident into social/emotional disaster. Case studies can t definitely answer basic research questions, but can be used to test specific hypotheses. > study of k. c. (amnesia-patient) shows that the self-concept is distinct from the episodic/autobiographic memory (no memory, but correct self-concept still available) Unusual people are hard to gather in large numbers, therefore case studies. > produce/provide a deterministic, empirically grounded, parsimonious & testable explanation. Single-variable studies: designed to describe some specific property of a large group of people (e. g. prevalence of clinical depression in dutch universities) > descriptive rather than theoretical, not helpful to find causes.
