People with Personality Disorders Participate More in Psychological Studies and That’s a Problem
People often take part in psychological studies either for payment or as part of their university course, but there might be more to the story.
A group of researchers from Poland proposed the idea that joining psychological studies could be seen as a cheap alternative to acquire some professional help. To test this, they aimed to confirm whether individuals participating in such studies are more prone to having a personality disorders, depression, or anxiety.
The results of the study are published in the PLOS ONE journal.
“Researchers often take for granted that the way they advertise their studies and who they recruit do not appreciably affect their outcomes” — The study author
A group of researchers from Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw, Poland, led by Izabela Kaźmierczak, conducted several studies involving a total of 947 participants, with 62% of them being women. They compared individuals who had previously engaged in psychology studies with those who had never participated in such studies.
They found that participants who had previously taken part in studies exhibited symptoms found in those with personality disorders (borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder), as well as symptoms of depression or anxiety.
Why Is This An Issue
This recent study has shed light on a concerning phenomenon known as self-selection. Because participants in research studies have the freedom to choose which studies they participate in, the research results might be unfairly influenced by a certain type of participants. This kind of bias in studies is a big problem.
In psychology, research is mainly done in universities, unlike many other scientific fields. However, psychology uniquely requires human involvement, making students a convenient source for research subjects. This has made people wonder if research done mostly on 18 to 22-year-old students from Western countries can really give us useful information that is applicable beyond this specific demographic.
For research to be trustworthy, we need to ensure that our findings apply to a larger group (which is called “generalizability”). The concern raised by this recent study is that our results might be affected by the psychological traits of the individuals we’re studying.
Unfortunately, we can’t really control who participates in our studies, like we can’t put a poster that says: “People with personality disorder symptoms should not join”. However, we do have the responsibility to be more cautious and deliberate in how we choose our participants.
What Can We Do About It
To tackle this issue, our aim should be to carry out studies with a large number of people involved. These studies should be designed in a way that allows them to be repeated by other researchers, ensuring that the results are reliable and consistent.
This approach will give us more confidence that what we discover isn’t limited to just one place. By including a wide variety of individuals in our research and making sure our methods are strong, we can strive for findings that are useful and meaningful beyond our specific setting.
