As I said before, without experimental control this cannot be any sort of experimental design; single subject or otherwise. As it is, it is best classified as a case study -- a naive observation.
At 12:23 PM -0600 2/19/08, Linda M. Woolf, Ph.D. wrote: ><mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >>I am not sure how familiar you are with experimental design.There >>is a design classified as an ABAB where A stands for baseline and >>B the intoduction of the treatment.Behavior will be different under >>those two conditions.The second A designates a return to >>baseline.It is obvious that the shooter had returned to baseline >>due to the absence of the treatment condition(his medication). >> > >As so aptly pointed out by Paul Brandon, this is not a valid (or >even close to valid) ABAB design. At best, according to Michael >above, this is an ABA design -- off meds, on meds, off meds. Of >course, I don't recall reading that the individual under question in >this case, committed a mass murder under the first condition or had >been previously arrested for planning such a murder. Therefore, this >would be at best an AB (on meds; off meds) design. > >Michael also wrote: > >>Not if you use the subject as his or her own control. The >>interactional variables(ironically) are held constant. >> > >Hmmmmm . . . what would Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2001) say about this? My personal single case gurus are Johnston and Pennypacker (1993, Lawrence Erlbaum), and I know what they would say. >Michael suggests that this individual lived in a vacuum whereby the >only environmental factors impacting the individual are unique to >the individual. However, history can act as an experimental >treatment and threatens the internal validity of any study that >occurs over time without appropriate experimental controls. It could >have been the freaky weather that the midwest was experiencing, the >historical presidential campaigns, an odd alignment of planets, etc. >or a host of factors not unique to the perpetrator that may have >lead to the shooting. As Chris Green posits, "this situation is FAR >more complicated than whether one takes drugs." > >Moreover, as stressed by Steven Specht, the issue of variability is >an issue. There are vast numbers of individuals who go off meds and >don't shoot people, vast numbers of folks not on meds who don't >shoot people, and vast numbers of folks on meds who don't shoot >people. > >Perhaps, a more important question is why are so many mass shootings >are going on in the United States currently? The key term is *mass*. Of course, the ownership of automatic and semiautomatic firearms couldn't have anything to do with it. The data do show that people are more likely to kill people when they have guns. >Just in the past couple of weeks, there was a shooting a block or so >from my house (one dead, one wounded). Hypothesized rationale is >that it was a drug related shooting. In the suburb next to the >university, a man shot and killed five individuals at a city council >meeting. Hypothesized rationale was that he recently lost a court >case in a long standing dispute with the city council. The Lane >Bryant shootings--hypothesized rationale is a robbery gone bad. The >NIU shooting--hypothesized rationale is the medication theory. These >are complex situations and one single variable rarely is the sole >cause of a set of behaviors. In each case, other choices in the >situation could have been made that would not have included shooting >the victims. > >The common thread for each of these situations was the easy access >each shooter apparently had to weapons. In the United States, we >seem to do a poor job of monitoring who gets weapons, poorly >prosecute those caught with illegal weapons, protect loopholes in >gun laws to make weapons freely available without background checks >at gun shows, etc., etc., etc. > >Now before someone else states the obvious, let me add that I >recognize that "guns don't kill people; people kill people." To reference the above discussion, people may be the remote (historical) cause, but guns are the immediate (mechanistic) cause. Remove that and fewer people are killed. >To which I add, "guns just make it easier." > >To Peace, > >Linda > > >Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2001). Experimental >and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. >Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. > > > >-- >tag Linda M. Woolf, Ph.D. >Professor of Psychology and International Human Rights >Past-President, <http://www.peacepsych.org>Society for the Study of >Peace, Conflict, & Violence (Div. 48, APA) >Steering Committee, <http://www.psysr.org>Psychologists for Social >Responsibility (PsySR) >Secretary, Raphael Lemkin Award Committee, ><http://www.isg-iags.org/>Institute for the Study of Genocide >Coordinator - Holocaust & Genocide Studies >Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights >Webster University >470 East Lockwood >St. Louis, MO 63119 > >Main Webpage: ><http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/>http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/ ><mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's (and woman's) best friend. . . . >Inside a dog, it's too dark to read." > - Groucho Marx > >--- >To make changes to your subscription contact: > >Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) -- The best argument against Intelligent Design is that fact that people believe in it. * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University * * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * * http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ * --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
