Reconceptualizing Quantitative and Qualitative Methods: A Case Study Dealing with Place as an Exemplar

A useful framework for understanding methods is to think of them as being on a continuum of holistic and pattern focused to particularistic and specific. This paper argues for this conceptualization rather than thinking of quantitative and qualitative methods as oppositional and potentially contradictory. A case study provides an example of using both quantitative and qualitative methods in a holistic and pattern-focused study, while also attending to the values and goals of community psychology. The substantive research goal is to understand a child's experience of places related to school. Methods include ethnographic long-term participation and observation, interviews, multidimensional scaling, and social network analysis. Most quantitative method variables are generated from study participants; no outside structure is imposed. The quantitative methods extend and inform the qualitative methods, just as the qualitative methods extend and inform the quantitative methods. The quantitative and qualitative methods work reciprocally to extend and inform each other.     

Rediscovering a missing link: The sensory physiologist and comparative psychologist Mathilde Hertz (1891-1975)

Although her work was greatly respected by scholars from both psychology and biology, such as Wolfgang K?hler, Max Wertheimer, and Karl von Frisch, the life and work of the German sensory physiologist and comparative psychologist Mathilde Hearz (1891-1975) have remained relatively obscure until recently. Her research represented a combination of biological principles fused with a psychological-phenomenological perspective. After a prolific career within a short time span, Hertz's career came to an abrupt end in 1933, despite the intervention efforts of Max Planck. Hertz's personal and professional fates are in many ways representative of the field of comparative psychology in Germany prior to the middle of the 20th century, both of its history and its demise.     

Evolution of the Colored Eco-Genetic Relationship Map (CEGRM) for Assessing Social Functioning in Women in Hereditary Breast-Ovarian (HBOC) Families

The CEGRM was initially conceived as a simple, concise, visual representation of the social interaction domains of information, tangible services and emotional exchanges (Kenen, R., & Peters, J. (2001). J Genet Counsel, 10, 289–309). A blend of the genetic pedigree, genogram, and ecomap, the CEGRM was developed to facilitate contemporary genetic counseling goals. An exploratory pilot study of 20 subjects showed that it was feasible, comfortable and efficiently accomplished, and that the process was useful both for assessment and as an intervention with study participants (Peters, J. A., Kenen, R., Giusti, R., Loud, J., Weissman, N., & Greene, M. H. (2004). Am J Med Genet Part A, 130A, 258–264). Subsequently, we have extended the CEGRM to 150 women from hereditary breast/ovarian cancer (HBOC) families; three different investigators have successfully administered this tool. The preliminary findings from the exploratory study were confirmed in the larger sample. Engaging in the interactive, insight-promoting CEGRM process provides a novel tool for assessing the social context of genetic testing, and helping high-risk women better understand and integrate genetic information into their personal and family identities, health beliefs, and decisions.     

“Social Separation” Among Women Under 40 Years of Age Diagnosed with Breast Cancer and Carrying a BRCA1 or BRCA2 Mutation

We conducted an exploratory, qualitative study investigating experiences of women who had developed breast cancer under the age of 40 and who were identified as BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers. These germline mutation carriers face an increased lifetime risk of a second primary breast cancer and an increased risk for a primary ovarian cancer. Thirteen women who fit this criteria participated in three focus groups conducted at a major cancer center in the UK during Spring 2003. We asked broad, open-ended questions that allowed for a wide range of responses about their cancer and genetic testing experiences, physical and psycho-social concerns, family and partner reactions and their need for social support. The women expressed feelings of devastation, loneliness, feeling different and isolation, ambivalence about having to support family members, worries about partner’s anxiety and depression, and anxiety about talking to family members, especially children. These feelings were stronger after the cancer diagnosis and compounded by the genetic test results that occurred at a later time. We also found that, at least temporarily, the women experienced what we call “social separation”—emotional distance from, or dissonance with groups they interact with or are part of, e.g., family and friends, frequently leading to a reduction in communication or a change in previously unstated, but accepted normal interaction. We concentrate on a few characteristics of social separation—feelings of aloneness, isolation and separation, use of silence and verbal discretion, the relationship between estrangement and kinship interaction and norm disruption, and are looking at social patterns of interpersonal relationships that may occur when risk and illness statuses are new and framing and feeling rules have not as yet been clearly developed due to a cultural lag.     

Opioid modulation of Fos protein expression and olfactory circuitry plays a pivotal role in what neonates remember

Paradoxically, fear conditioning (odor-0.5 mA shock) yields a learned odor preference in the neonate, presumably due to a unique learning and memory circuit that does not include apparent amygdala participation. Post-training opioid antagonism with naltrexone (NTX) blocks consolidation of this odor preference and instead yields memory of a learned odor aversion. Here we characterize the neural circuitry underlying this switch during memory consolidation. Experiment 1 assessed post-training opioid modulation of Fos protein expression within olfactory circuitry (olfactory bulb, piriform cortex, amygdala). Odor-shock conditioning with no post-training treatment (odor preference) induced significant changes in Fos protein expression in the granule cell layer of the olfactory bulb and anterior piriform cortex. Post-training opioid receptor antagonism (odor aversion) prevented the learning-induced changes in the anterior piriform cortex and also induced significant changes in Fos protein expression in the central nucleus of the amygdala. Experiment 2 assessed intra-amygdala opioid modulation of neonate memory consolidation. Post-training infusion of NTX within the amygdala permitted consolidation of an odor aversion, while vehicle-infused pups continued to demonstrate an odor preference. Overall, results demonstrate that opioids modulate memory consolidation in the neonate via modulating Fos protein expression in olfactory circuitry. Furthermore, these results suggest that opioids are instrumental in suppressing neonate fear behavior via modulating the amygdala.     

On the failed institutionalization of German comparative psychology prior to 1940

Despite an illustrious history marked by the work of Wolfgang K?hler and Mathilde Hertz, among others-the significance of which still resonates in different fields of animal behavior research-and the fact that interesting work in the field continues, comparative psychology has no official status within German psychology. A partial explanation for this lack of official representation might derive from unsuccessful attempts historically to secure institutional status. "Gifted" animals served as much of the impetus for the beginning of a scientific animal psychology in Germany and contributed to its institutionalization by providing the incentive for the establishment of organizations dealing with animal psychology. Although initially serving as a catalyst for an interdisciplinary exchange on animal psychology, the case of Clever Hans was also exploited to help psychology gain institutional status in the field, albeit without lasting success.