Discuss Research into Stress and Illness

Discuss Research into stress and illness

Kiecolt Glaser studied the effect of stress on the immune system and health. Their procedure was a matched pairs design with a volunteer sample from a newspaper undertaken. 13 Women aged between 47 and 81 were carers and we placed in the experimental group with a further 13 participants placed in the control group meaning the experiment was comprised of 36 participants. Firstly, all of the participants were given a wound of 3.5mm just underneath the elbow called the punch biopsy which was treated and dressed by a nurse in the same way for each participant. In addition to this, a second measure of immune system functioning was taken with the investigators measuring levels of cytokines as an indicator for stress. Participants were also given a ten item perceived stress scale to check stress levels. The results found were significant with complete healing taking 9 days longer for the more stress carers and less cytokines found in the carers

To evaluate, this experiment is a natural experiment as it has a naturally occurring independent variable. This increases the ecological validity of the study and therefore the reliability. On the other hand though, the whole of the sample is oestrocentric meaning there are no males in this experiment. This means that the results of the study cannot be generalised to males reducing the validity of the study. The experiment is also a subject of beta bias as the whole sample comprises of females. This shows that the experimenters are not taking into account the immune system of males and are seen as inferior to males in this experiment. Furthermore, the participants were asked to fill in questionnaires which are a bad thing as the questionnaires maybe subject to social desirability bias, which may affect the results dramatically as the participants may not want to be viewed as stressed in their line of work. This may reduce the validity of the results. Finally, the study was undertaken in an individualistic culture. This means the results of the study cannot be generalised to a collectivist culture with alpha bias also playing a role with the investigators suggesting that a Western culture is seen as more important and influential than non -Western cultures.

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