What are some of the key criticisms of Rosenhan's landmark 1973 study, 'On Being Sane in Insane Places'?

Any question that asks you to evaluate a study, or assess the strength of a study, is looking for criticality. The first thing to remember is that being critical doesn't necessarily mean highlighting only the negatives, or weaknesses, of the study. So for Rosenhan's 1973 study there are a few key points you can cover. Weaknesses- It's a small sample size, which makes it harder to generalize. As well as this, it was conducted in the USA, and so it may not be applicable across cultures. As well as this, it was conducted in 1973- a lot has changed in the field of psychology and particularly in the treatment of mental health patients, so it may not be temporally valid. There are ethical considerations as well- it relies on extremely high levels of deception which would not be accepted today. However, there are positives that help assess the strength of the study overall- Although the study might not be generalizable across cultures, the study did use a mixture of both private and state hospitals, so it is representative across different socio-economic situations. Furthermore- the implications of Rosenhan's study in terms of changing the way we think about mental health diagnosis in terms of considering a socio-cultural approach and changes made to the DSM following this study in order to help mediate this issue, means that there was a significant benefit from the study. Therefore, the ethical issues at the time may be justified. You can use positive elements to mediate and evaluate the strength of other critical points in order to form a more complete evaluation of the strength of the study.