Psychology

moray sample 2

12 participants, 6 participants in each condition as it was an independent measures design. One group of participants had instructions with their name, the different group of participants had instructions with no name.

lee et al sample

120 Chinese children: 40 7-year-olds, 40 9-year-olds, and 40 11-year-olds (M age = 11.3years, 20 male, 20 female). 108 Canadian children: 36 7-year-olds , 40 9-year-olds , 32 11-year-olds

Bocchiaros sample

149 undergraduate students took part in the research in exchange for either €7 or course credit. NB. A total of 11 participants were removed from the initial sample of 160 because of their suspiciousness about the nature of the study. A comparison group of 138 students were used who predicted obedience, disobedience and whistle blowing, but did not participate in the actual study.

Loftus and palmer sample 2

150 students were divided into 3 groups with 50 participants in each group.

simons and Chabris procedure

21 experimenters tested the participants. To ensure standardisation of procedures a written protocol was devised and reviewed with the experimenters before data collection. All participants were tested individually and gave informed consent in advance. Before viewing the video tape, participants were told they would be watching two teams of three players passing basketballs and that they should pay attention to either the team in white (the White condition) or the team in black (the Black condition). They were told to keep either a silent mental count of the total number of passes made by the attended team (Easy condition) or separate silent mental counts of the number of bounce passes and aerial passes made by the attended team (Hard condition). After viewing the video tape and performing the monitoring task, participants were immediately asked to write down their count(s) on paper. They were then asked the following additional questions: (i) While you were doing the counting, did you notice anything unusual in the video? (ii) Did you notice anything other than the six players? (iii) Did you see a gorilla/woman carrying an umbrella walk across the screen? After any "yes" responses, participants were asked to provide details of what they noticed. If at any point a participant mentioned the unexpected event, the remaining questions were skipped. After questioning, participants were asked if they had previously participated in a similar experiment, heard of such an experiment or heard of the general phenomenon. If they said "yes" they were replaced and their data were discarded. Participants were debriefed; this included replaying the video tape on request. Each testing session lasted 5-10 minutes.

Moray sample 3

28 participants - 2 groups of 14 participants as it was an independent measures design. This is because 1 group of participants received a direct instruction, and a different group of participants had no instruction.

simians and Chabris materials

4 video tapes, each 75 seconds in duration were created. Each tape showed two teams of three players, one team wearing white shirts, the other black shirts. The members of each team passed a standard orange basketball to one another in a standardised order: player 1→ player 2 → player 3 → player 1. Passes were either bounce or aerial. Players would also dribble the ball, wave their arms and make other movements consistent with their overall pattern of action. After 44-48 seconds of action either of two unexpected events occurred There were two styles of video: in the Transparent condition, the white team, black team and unexpected event were all filmed separately , and the three video streams were rendered partially transparent and then superimposed by using digital video-editing software. In the Opaque condition, all seven actors were filmed simultaneously and could thus occlude one another and the basketballs. In a separate Opaque-style video recording, the gorilla walked from right to left into the live basketball-passing event, stopped in the middle of the players as the action continued all around it, turned to face the camera, thumped its chest, and then resumed walking across the screen.

Milgrams sample

40 male participants aged between 20 and 50 years, from the New Haven area were obtained by a newspaper advertisement and direct mail solicitation which asked for volunteers to participate in a study of memory and learning at Yale University. There was a wide range of occupations in the sample. Participants were paid $4.50 for simply presenting themselves at the laboratory. The experimenter was played by a biology teacher and the victim was an accountant called Mr Wallace.

Evaluation of Milgram's weakness

40 male participants from the USA, the findings on obedience levels could be difficult to generalise to the whole population The use of self-selected and snowball sampling increases the likelihood of an unrepresentative sample The use of a lab for the obedience task reduces ecological validity, however, to many of the participants the experience appeared very real (realism) due to the fact that they were deceived. Extremely unethical, participants were deceived about the true aims of the study and were at risk of psychological harm due to believing they had possibly killed someone.

Loftus and palmer sample. 1

45 American students were divided into 5 groups with 9 participants in each group. Used Self-selected sample - advertised at he university - could potentially earn course credit.

Kohlberg sample

75 American boys who were aged 10-16 at the start of the study were followed at three-year intervals through to ages 22-28. Moral development was also studied in boys of other cultures including Great Britain, Canada, Taiwan, Mexico and Turkey.

Bocchiaro's procedure

8 pilot tests, involving 92 undergraduates from the VU University in Amsterdam, were conducted to ensure the procedure was credible and morally acceptable. These tests also served to standardise the experimenter-authority behaviour throughout the experimental period The comparison group was provided with a detailed description of the experimental setting. They were then asked "What would you do?" and "What would the average student at your university do?" Participants were informed about what their task was, about the potential benefits/risks of participation, and about their right to withdraw at any time with no penalty. They were also assured of the confidentiality of the information collected. Each participant was greeted in the laboratory by a male, Dutch experimenter who was formally dressed and stern. The experimenter proceeded with a (seemingly unjustified) request for each participant to provide a few names of fellow students and then presented the cover story. The gist of the cover story: The experimenter and an Italian colleague were investigating the effects of sensory deprivation on brain function. A recently conducted experiment on 6 participants in Rome who spent some time completely isolated, unable to see or hear anything, had disastrous effects - all panicked, their cognitive abilities were temporarily impaired, some experienced visual and auditory hallucinations. 2 participants asked to stop because of their strong symptoms but were not allowed to do so because invalid data may then have been collected. The majority said it had been a frightening experience. The experimenters wanted to replicate this study at the VU University using a sample of college students as there was currently no data on young people but some scientists thought that their brains may be more sensitive to sensory deprivation. A University Research Committee was evaluating whether to approve the study and were collecting feedback from students to help them make their decision. The experimenter left the room for 3 minutes for thinking time. Participants were then moved to a second room where there was a computer for them to use to write their statement. Participants were told to be enthusiastic when writing their statements and had to use two adjectives among "exciting", "incredible", "great" and "superb". If a participant believed the proposed research on sensory deprivation violated ethical norms he/she could anonymously challenge it by putting a form in the mailbox. The experimenter told participants to begin and left the room for 7 minutes. After the 7-minute interval the experimenter returned and invited the participant to follow him back to the first room where he/she was administered two personality tests, fully debriefed and asked to sign a second consent form, this time fully informed. The entire session lasted approximately 40 minutes.

Evaluation of Milgram strengths

A strength of Milgram's study was the use of both quantitative and qualitative data. This is a strength because it means we can make more valid conclusions about obedience. Solely looking at voltage we may infer that people are uncaring. But by also looking at qualitative behaviour we can conclude that not only do people obey, but they found the experience highly stressful. The measure was highly reliable/consistent. This is known as internal reliability i.e. consistency of the procedures or materials. Has external reliability i.e. when the results are found to be the same when repeated. Milgram's study has been replicated many times and found very similar obedience levels. Understanding why people obey destructive orders can be used as a preventative measure and therefore has useful applications. The features of the study are highly comparable to the Nazi officers e.g. respectable environment with uniform to signify authority, participants were told that the study would enhance science, the electric shocks increased in small increments.

Bocchiaro's Background

A whistleblower is a person who exposes/informs on a person or organisation regarded as engaging in unlawful and immortal activity in most situations, when some disobeys, it is assumed that there would be a lower level of whistleblowing then disobedience because it involves a potential direct confrontation of the person and authority

Loftus and palmer procedure 2

All participants were shown a one-minute film which contained a 4-second multiple car crash. They were then given a questionnaire which asked them to describe the accident and answer a set of questions about the incident. There was a critical question about speed: - One group was asked, "About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" - Another group was asked, "About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" - The third group did not have a question about vehicular speed. One week later, all participants, without seeing the film again, completed another questionnaire about the accident which contained the further critical question, "Did you see any broken glass - Yes/No?" There had been no broken glass in the original film.

Loftus and palmer procedure 1

All participants were shown the same 7 film clips of different traffic accidents which were originally made as part of a driver safety film. After each clip participants were given a questionnaire which asked them firstly to describe the accident and then answer a series of questions about the accident. There was one critical question in the questionnaire: "About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" One group was given this question while the other 4 groups were given the verbs "smashed', 'collided', 'contacted' or 'bumped', instead of 'hit'.

Moray research method

All tasks were laboratory experiments. In all tasks, the headphones used had one output going to each of the earpieces of a pair of headphones. Matching for loudness was approximate, by asking participants to say when two messages that seemed equally loud to the experimenter were subjectively equal to them.

Milgram. Research Method

Although Milgram refers to this study as an experiment, it is generally considered a controlled observation as there was, in fact, no independent variable. Prior to the study, 14 Yale Seniors, all psychology majors, estimated the percentage of participants who would administer the highest level of shock. Estimates ranged from 1-3%

moray procedure 1

Before each experiment the participants were given four passages of prose to shadow for practice. All passages throughout the study were recorded by one male speaker. A short list of simple words was repeatedly presented to the participant's right ear 35 times. Whilst a verbal message (story) was presented to the left ear. The participants had to verbally repeat the message in their left ear, out loud (shadowing) The participant was then asked to report all they could of the content of the rejected message (the list of words in the right ear). The participant was then given a recognition test where they were displayed with a list of words and had to pick out the words that they recognised from both the right ear (list of words, rejected message) and the left ear (the story, that they shadowed). The recognition test included 7 words from the story passage, 7 words from the word list and 7 control words that were not in either the word list or the story passage. The control words were used to ensure that the participants weren't just making wild guesses about the words they heard. The gap between the end of shadowing and the beginning of the recognition test was about 30 seconds.

Moray background

Broadbent (1958) argued that humans cope with the flood of available information, by selectively attending to only some information and somehow 'tune out' the rest There are two main methods of studying attention: (i) Selective attention - here people are presented with two or more simultaneous 'messages', and are instructed to process and respond to only one of them. The most popular way of doing this is to use shadowing in which one message is fed into the left ear and a different message into the right ear (through headphones). Participants have to repeat one of these messages aloud as they hear it. (ii) Divided attention - this is a dual-task technique in which people are asked to attend and respond to both (or all) the messages. Cherry's (1953) method of 'shadowing' found participants who shadowed a message presented to one ear were ignorant of the content of a message simultaneously presented to the other ear.

bandura results

Children in the aggressive condition showed significantly more imitation of physical and verbal aggressive behaviour and verbal responses than children in the non-aggressive or control conditions. Children in the aggressive condition showed more partial imitation and non-imitative physical and verbal aggression than those in the non-aggressive or control conditions. Results here were however not always significant. Children in the non-aggressive condition showed very little aggression, although results were not always significantly less than the control group. Children who saw the same sex model imitated the model's behaviour significantly more in the following categories: (i) Boys imitated male models more than girls for physical and verbal aggression, non-imitative aggression and gun play. (ii)Girls imitated female models more than boys for verbal imitative aggression and non-imitative aggression. However results were not significant. • The behaviour of the male model exerted greater influence than the female model. • Overall boys produced more imitative physical aggression than girls.

Grant background

Context-dependent memory refers to improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and recalling information are the same. The environment around us acts as memory cues that help to trigger the information that was learned at a specific place (Tulving)

Levine Procedure

Data was collected by students who were either travelling to foreign countries or returning to their home countries for the summer, or by cross-cultural psychologists and their students in other countries who volunteered to assist the authors. All experimenters were college men and dressed neatly and casually in order to control for experimenter gender effects. To ensure standardisation in scoring and to minimise experimenter effects: (i) all experimenters received both a detailed instruction sheet (ii) the experimenters practised together (ii) no verbal communication was required of the experimenter. The three helping measures were taken and coded as helped or no help: Dropped pen. Walking at a moderate pace (15 paces/10 seconds), experimenters walked toward a solitary pedestrian passing in the opposite direction. When 10 to 15 feet from the participant, the experimenter reached into his pocket and accidentally, dropped his pen behind him, in full view of the participant, and continued walking past the participant. Hurt leg. Walking with a heavy limp and wearing a large and clearly visible leg brace, experimenters accidentally dropped and unsuccessfully struggled to reach down for a pile of magazines as they came within 20 feet of a passing pedestrian. Helping a blind person across the street. Experimenters, dressed in dark glasses and carrying white canes, acted the role of a blind person needing help getting across the street. They stepped up to the corner just before the light turned green, held out their cane, and waited until someone offered help. A trial was terminated after 60 seconds or when the light turned red, whichever occurred first, after which the experimenter walked away from the corner.

Piliavin's background

Diffusion of responsibility is where the responsibility for the situation is spread (diffused) among the people present. This implies that the more people present, the more the bystander believes the responsibility is spread out so they feel less personally responsibility and are therefore less likely to help. Another explanation for not helping a victim in need is that a bystander may believe that someone else will do what's necessary so there is no need for them to offer assistance. This is known as 'bystander apathy'. Since the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 (a woman stabbed to death over a period of 30 minutes in front of a reported 38 unresponsive witnesses), many social psychologists believed that this was an example of diffusion of responsibility. Research by Darley and Latané (1968) found that bystanders hearing an epileptic fit over earphones, led to those who believed other witnesses to be present being less likely to help the victim than bystanders who believed they were alone.

evaluation of bandura weaknesses

Due to the use of a lab the study lacked realism, hitting a Bobo doll is very different from hitting a person and therefore the researchers should be cautious when applying results to real life. Only collecting quantitative data meant that the researchers were not able to understand what the children were thinking or feeling during the study. Use of children can raise ethical issues as they cannot give consent and they find it more difficult to withdraw. Consent was gained from the school as they were doing activities usual of nursery day to day life. However, children were deliberately annoyed by researchers as part of the second stage of the experiment, this could raise potential issues of distress. Playing with a strange adult in an unfamiliar room is not a typical everyday task, ecological validity can be questioned. The study had a large sample size, however, when they were broken down into the conditions, there are only 6 participants, any confounding variables could have quite a large effect on the validity of the results.

Evaluation of Bocchiaro, weakness

Ethical issues can be raised, people were put into a situation facing a moral dilemma and this can cause potential stress. Also participants were deceived in order to avoid demand characteristics and achieve high validity. Using students from a Dutch university meant that the sample was unrepresentative of the general population and other age and cultural groups.

moray procedure 3

Experiment 3 wanted to see if instruction compared to no instruction would alter the chances of material in the rejected message being recalled. This is because in experiment 2 participants were given a warning at the start of the passage to expect instructions to change ears i.e. Listen to your right ear: You will receive instructions to change ears. Moray thought this pre-warning may have increased the chances of the participant hearing the rejected message. Therefore, he wanted to test to see if this was the case. Two groups of 14 participants shadowed one of two simultaneous messages, just like in the first 2 experiments. Digits were inserted to each passage in a random way One group of participants was provided no instruction and were told that they would be asked questions about the content of the rejected message at the end, the other group was specifically instructed to remember all the numbers/ digits that they could.

Levine findings

Experimental Results: combining results of all 3 helping measures: Most helpful: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil San Jose, Costa Rica Lilongwe, Malawi Calcutta, India Vienna, Austria Least helpful: New York City, United States of America Singapore, Malaysia Amsterdam, Netherlands Sofia, Bulgaria Taipei, China

simons and Chabris sample

For the experiment: 228 participants (referred to as 'observers' throughout the original study), almost all undergraduate students. Each participant either volunteered to participate without compensation, received a large candy bar for participating, or was paid a single fee for participating in a larger testing session including another, unrelated experiment. Data from 36 participants were discarded. This is because they had heard about the study previously, and a number of other reasons. Therefore, results were used from 192 participants. These were equally distributed across the 16 conditions.

lee et al materials

Four types of stories were used for each of the 4 conditions: The independent variables (IVs) were: Pro-social Behaviour/Truth-Telling stories (physical and social stories) Pro-social Behaviour/Lie-Telling stories (physical and social stories) Anti-social Behaviour/Truth- Telling stories (physical and social stories) Anti-social Behaviour/Lie-Telling stories (physical and social stories) In the physical stories the children took pages out of a book, so there was no social issue, just a physical act. In the social stories a person is either hurt (anti-social) or helped (pro-social) The children were randomly allocated to one of the conditions as outlined above. Each participant was tested individually and were first instructed about the meaning of the words and the symbols for rating the deeds and verbal statements on a 7-point rating chart. These were: very, very good (3 red stars), very good (2 red stars), good (1 red star), neither good not naughty (blue circle), naughty (1 black cross), very naughty (2 black crosses), very, very naughty (3 black crosses). Participants were then read either all the four social stories, or all four physical stories. The story's 'deed' section was read first and then they would indicate their rating either verbally, non-verbally or both on the rating chart. They were then read the second section of the story and would then indicate, in the same way, their rating for the character's verbal statement. For example: Pro-social - Truth telling - Physical: Here is Jenny. When Jenny went out at recess, she saw that the school yard was littered with garbage, so she picked up all the pieces she could find and put them in the bin (Question 1: Is what Jenny did, good or naughty?) So Jenny cleaned the school yard, and at the end of recess, the teacher then asked Jenny 'Do you know who cleaned the yard? Jenny said 'I did it' (Question 2: Is what Jenny said to her teacher, good or naughty?) For example: Anti-social - Lie telling - Social: Here is Paul. A new boy called Jimmy had just joined Paul's class, and Paul decided that he did not like him. Paul went over to Jimmy, and when the teacher was not looking, Paul pushed Jimmy to the ground and made him cry (Question 1: Is what Paul did naughty or good?) So the teacher came over to see if Jimmy was okay and said 'Paul, do you know who just hurt Jimmy' Paul said 'I did not do it' (Question 2: Is what Paul said naughty or good?) The meaning of each symbol was repeated every time a question was asked. The words 'good' and 'naughty', in the two questions were altered within subjects so that the researchers knew the child wasn't just saying the first option every time. The fact that participants were read four scenarios (two prosocial and two antisocial) and asked to apply the same rating scale to both the character's deed and its response in each story means the study had elements of a repeated measures design within it. To control for order effects, for each condition, counterbalancing was used so that about half of the participants in each condition were read the stories in one predetermined order, and the other half were read them in the other order. Participants were then involved in post-experimental discussions.

lee et al procedure

Half of the Chinese children participated in the social story condition and the other half were placed in the physical story condition. The children were randomly assigned to each condition. From the Canadian sample: 19, 7-year-olds, 20, 9-year-olds and 17, 11-year-olds were randomly assigned to the social story condition and the other children were assigned to the physical story condition.

evaluation of Chaney strength

Highly controlled for a filed experiment. For example matching the questionnaire responses after each inhaler so that responses were directly comparable. Quantitative data was collected such as number of asthmatic children that complied with Funhaler compared to breath-a-tech, and parents were phoned and randomly checked about adherence of inhaler. This allowed for easy comparisons between the inhalers to be made. Consent is provided by parents, they were briefed on the aims of the study and ensured confidentiality. High ecological validity as carried out in their own homes. Researchers tried to minimise bias by not giving any extra instructions on the Funhaler's usage. The study used a random sampling method which reduces bias and ensures a fairly representative sample. It also covered a wide range of areas including Perth and Western Australia which increases the generalisability of the results on the Funhaler. Knowing that children's adherence is improved by positive reinforcement can reduce risks of asthma attacks and serious health risks.

Chaney's conclusions

Improved adherence, combined with effective delivery characteristics, suggest that the Funhaler may be useful for management of young asthmatics The use of the Funhaler could possibly be used to improve adherence The use of functional incentive devices such as the Funhaler may improve the health of children More research is recommended in the long-term effectiveness of the Funhaler

Moray conclusions 3

In a situation where a participant directs his attention to a message from one ear, and rejects a message from the other ear, almost none of the verbal content of the rejected message is able to penetrate the block set up. A short list of simple words presented as the rejected message shows no trace of being remembered even when presented many times. Subjectively 'important' messages, such as a person's own name, can penetrate the block: thus a person will hear instructions if they are presented with their own name as part of the rejected message. While perhaps not impossible, it is very difficult to make 'neutral' material important enough to break through the block.

Lee et al conclusion

In the realm of lying and truth telling, a close relationship between socio-cultural practices and moral judgement exists. Specific social and cultural norms have an impact on children's developing moral judgement, which in turn, are modified by age and experience in a particular culture. Both Chinese and Canadian children show similar moral evaluations of lie telling and truth telling related to antisocial behaviours, this is because across all cultures we have the same view that hurtful behaviours are wrong. The emphasis on self-effacement and modesty in Chinese culture increasingly exerts its impact on Chinese children's moral judgements, this is because they are brought up to believe that collectivism is a positive attribute that contributes to their cultural society.

simons and Chabris conclusions

Individuals have a sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Individuals fail to notice an ongoing, unexpected event if they are engaged in a primary monitoring task. The level of inattentional blindness depends on the difficulty of the primary task. Individuals are more likely to notice unexpected events if these events are visually similar to the events they are paying attention to. Objects can pass through the spatial extent of attentional focus and still not be 'seen' if they are not specifically being attended to.

Kohlberg key findings

Kohlberg analysed the answers that the children gave in the moral dilemmas and used them determine a child's level of morality Motive Given for Rule Obedience or Moral Action: Kohlberg found that his stages (outlined above in the table) were reflected in scenarios. Results showed that about 50% of each of the six stages, a participant's thinking was at a single stage, regardless of the moral dilemma involved. Participants also showed progress through the stages with increased age. Not all participants over the period of the study progressed through all the stages and reached Stage-6. A child at an earlier stage of development tends to move forward when confronted with the views of a child one stage further along and they seem to prefer this next stage. Cross-cultural findings: Taiwanese boys aged 10-13 tended to give 'classic' Stage-2 responses. Mexico and Taiwan showed the same results except that development was a little slower. At the age of 16, Stage-5 thinking was much more noticeable in the US than either Mexico or Taiwan. In these three divergent cultures, middle-class children were found to be more advanced in moral judgement than matched lower-class children. No important differences were found in the development of moral thinking among Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, or atheists.

Kohlberg background

Kohlberg was inspired by Piaget's pioneering effort to apply a structural approach to cognitive development rather than linking it to personality traits. The typology contains three distinct levels of moral thinking, and within each of these levels distinguishes two related stages Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Everyone progresses through the levels and stages in order.

evaluating Loftus and palmer strengths

Loftus uses quantitative data in her study which is highly reliable and objective. For example Loftus collected speed estimates. This is a strength because it means that due to the objectivity of quantitative data Loftus can easily see if the numerical data bears any differences in the different verbs that Loftus used in the study with little influence of researcher bias. Unlike qualitative data which is rather subjective and requires the researchers to make assumptions about the data which may not necessarily be valid. Loftus can be considered highly reliable as she used standardised procedures such as having the same video clip of car accidents and asking the same critical question. This is a key strength because it means that extraneous variables are reduced due to the standardised procedures which ensured that the measure was consistent. Therefore the researchers can be more confident that the IV - the verbs, effected the DV - speed estimates. Loftus can be considered ecologically valid as parts of the study can be seen to reflect real life. For example Loftus used real life car accidents in the films that the participants observed. This is a strength because if the participant experiences the study in a realistic manner, they may act in a way which better presents how their memory would be influenced in real life, thus increasing the validity.

Evaluation of Grant weaknesses

No qualitative data which reduces validity as the interpretations of behaviour are subjective and not necessarily what the participants were actually thinking. Not everyone had the same amount of time to read the article therefore they maybe issues with reliability. The sample started off with 8 psychology students and a snowball sample was collected. It could have lacked generalisability due to having a group which would largely have the same characteristics. The students were given 30 minutes to study the material and therefore may not reflect the studying habits to times when students study all day and night?

Milgram Background

Obedience involves (a) being ordered or instructed to do something, (b) being influenced by an authority figure of superior status, (c) the maintenance of social power and status of the authority figure in a hierarchical society. From 1933-45, millions of innocent people were systematically slaughtered on command. Such inhumane actions may have originated in the mind of one person, but they could only have been carried out on such a massive scale because large numbers of people obeyed. Germans are different hypothesis, implied that obedience was an individual difference, unique to the German culture. When given extreme commands by legitimate authority figures, subordinates adopt an agentic state where they become the instrument for carrying out another person's

Bocchiaro's results

Of the 138 comparison students e.g. prediction group: - Only around 4% indicated they would obey the experimenter. Most believed they would be either disobedient, around 32% or whistleblowers, around 64% Of the 149 participants in the actual laboratory situation: - 114 obeyed the experimenter , 21 disobeyed and 14 blew the whistle. Results for individual differences found that the only significant difference that was found was in relation to faith, with results suggesting that people with higher faith were more likely to be whistle-blowers.

Levine sample

Opportunity samples from each of the 23 cities. Over 200 men and women were tested.

Sperry's sample

Opportunity sampling - Sperry asked a patients who had undergone hemispheric disconnection and had the surgery more than 4 years prior to the study. 11 patients from America who had undergone 'an extensive midline section of the corpus callosum in an effort to control severe epileptic convulsions that could not be controlled by medication'. The other 9 patients had their surgery at varying times but not long before the study was conducted.

Sperry background

Other research by Sperry on both humans and monkeys who had undergone surgical section of the corpus callosum suggested the behavioural effects of this surgery may be less severe than other forms of cerebral surgery e.g. frontal lobotomy i.e. severing the connections of the pre-frontal lobe. More recent research by Sperry et al using appropriate tests has actually shown a large number of behavioural effects that correlate directly with the disconnection of the corpus callosum in man as well as animals. Sperry therefore set out in this study, using split-brain patients, to show that each hemisphere: (i) Possesses an independent stream of conscious awareness. (ii) Has its own separate chain of memories that are inaccessible to the other.

Simons and Chabris key findings

Out of all 192 participants across all conditions, 54% noticed the unexpected event and 46% failed to notice the unexpected event. More participants noticed the unexpected event in the Opaque condition than the Transparent condition. More participants noticed the unexpected event in the Easy (64%) than the Hard (45%) condition. The Umbrella Woman was noticed more often than the Gorilla overall. The Gorilla was noticed by more participants who attended to the actions of the Black team than those who watched the White team (Black 58%, White 27%, per condition).

moray procedure 2

Participants listened to two different pieces of verbal material simultaneously in each ear. Once again they were asked to shadow one of the messages (repeat it out loud). The rejected (non-shadowed) message included instructions for the participant to change ears. Before the listening tasks began, the participants were given the following instruction:Listen to your right ear: You will receive instructions to change ears. Participants' attention was measured by the participant successfully hearing the instruction and then shadowing the message (repeating the message out loud) in the ear that they were instructed to change to. The responses that the participants made were recorded.

Piliavin's sample

Participants were about 4,500 men and women who used the New York subway on weekdays between 11.00 am and 3.00 pm

Kohlberg procedure

Participants were presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas in the form of short stories to solve. The stories were to determine each participant's stage of moral reasoning for each of 25 moral concepts/aspects. Aspects assessed included: Motive Given for Rule Obedience or Moral Action The value of human life: tested by asking the participants dilemmas such as 'Should a doctor 'mercy kill' a fatally ill woman requesting death because of her pain', or the Heinz situation: "Heinz's wife is dying of cancer. Doctors said a new drug may save her life. The drug had been discovered by a local chemist and Heinz tried to buy some, but the chemist was charging ten times the money it cost to make the drug and Heinz could only raise half of the money. He explained to the chemist that his wife was dying and asked if he could have the drug cheaper or pay the rest of the money later. The chemist refused, saying that he had discovered the drug and was going to make money from it. The husband was desperate to save his wife, so later that night, he broke into the chemist's and stole the drug. The boys were asked questions such as: 1. Should Heinz have stolen the drug? 2. Would it change anything if Heinz did not love his wife 3. What if the person dying was a stranger, would it make any difference? 4. Should the police arrest the chemist for murder if the woman died? Taiwtanese boys, aged 10-13, were asked about a story involving theft of food: "A man's wife is starving to death but the store owner won't give the man any food unless he can pay, which he can't. Should he break in and steal some food? Why?" Young boys in Great Britain, Canada, Mexico and Turkey were tested in a similar way.

moray sample 1

Participants were undergraduates. Participant numbers are not given

Piliavin's conclusions

People may or may not help because: An emergency situation creates a sense of empathy in a bystander. This empathy is increased if someone feels a sense of identity to the victim, or if they are physically close to them. The emotions felt can be reduced by directly helping or rationalising reasons to not help. Helping is also determined by a cost-reward model. If the possible cost of helping e.g. risk to self are greater than the reward e.g. praise, feeling good about yourself, then someone is less likely to help.

bandura procedure

Phase 1: • Children in the experimental conditions were individually taken into a room and sat at a table to play with potato prints and picture stickers for 10 minutes whilst: - The aggressive model began by assembling a tinker toy set but after about a minute turned to a Bobo doll and spent the remainder of the period physically and verbally aggressing it using a standardised procedure. tinker-toys - The non-aggressive model assembled the tinker toys in a quiet manner, totally ignoring the Bobo doll. - The control group did not participate in Phase 1. Phase 2: • All the children were then taken individually to an another room and subjected to mild aggression. Initially they were allowed to play with some very attractive toys including a fire engine, doll set and spinning top, but after about two minutes the experimenter took the toys away saying they were reserved for other children. spinning-top2-02 g5p-fire-engine-side-angle Phase 3: • Children were then taken individually into a third room which contained both aggressive and non-aggressive toys e.g. 3ft high Bobo doll, a mallet, dart guns and non-aggressive toys e.g. tea set, cars, dolls. bobo_doll_image They were observed through a one-way mirror for 20 minutes whilst observers recorded behaviour with inter-scorer reliability of .90 i.e. A very high concordance rate - therefore high reliability, in the following categories: (i) Imitative aggression (physical, verbal and speech that was exactly the same as the model). (ii) Partially imitative aggression (similar to the model) (iii) Non-imitative physical and verbal aggression (behaviour that was completely different to the model) (iv) Non-aggressive behaviour

Levine background

Pilavin found high rates of helping in New York Responsibility-pro-social value orientation: holds that a strong influence on helping behaviour is a feeling of and belief in one's responsibility to help, especially when combined with the belief that one is able to help the other person (Staub, 2003). Simpatico cultures are said to be more defined by the above theory.

Milgram's results

Quantitative data: All participants (40/40) / 100% continued to 300 volts. 26/40 / 65% of participants continued to the full 450 volts. 14 were disobedient and walked out. Distribution of break-off points (/40 participants) No. of participants Voltage / shock level 26 - 450 1 - 375 1 - 360 1 - 345 2 - 330 4 - 315 5 - 300 Qualitative data: Many participants showed signs of extreme stress whilst administering the shocks e.g. sweating, trembling, stuttering, laughing nervously. 3 had full blown uncontrollable seizures. Milgram offered 13 possible explanations for the high levels of obedience shown by participants e.g. The fact that the study was carried out in the prestigious university of Yale influenced participants as to the worthiness of the study and the competence of the researcher; the participants were told the shocks were not harmful; the situation was completely new for the participant so he had no past experience to guide his behaviour. In a follow up study 84% of the participants felt glad they had participated and only 1 said that he he felt sorry he had participated.

Lee et al background

Researchers disagree with Piaget's claim that the use of intention emerges at only around 11 years of age. There is now a general consensus that preschool children and young school-aged children are distinctly capable of distinguishing lying from behavioural misdeeds and can make consistent and accurate moral judgements in a similar way to that of older children and adults. Sweetser (1987) argued that the understanding of lying is greatly influenced by the cultural norms and moral values in which individuals are socialised. However, until this study, little systematic developmental evidence had been found to support this proposal. Kohlberg conducted cross-cultural research to support his theory of moral development, but did not specifically focus on the 'art of lying'. Therefore, this research aimed to find out whether lying behaviour is cross-cultural.

Loftus and palmer background 1

Schema theory proposes that memory is influenced by what an individual already knows, and that they use past experiences to deal with a new experience. Knowledge is stored in memory as a set of schemas - simplified, generalised mental representations of everything an individual understands that helps them to make predictions about the world. The schema forms part of Bartlett's theory of reconstructive memory which forms the basis for Loftus and Palmer's study into eye witness testimony.

evaluation of Chaney weaknesses

Self-reports were used, parents maybe influenced by bias, wanting to appear as good parents by saying they had medicated their children more than they actually have. No info was directly taken from the children, this means that they have assumed that positive reinforcement increased adherence, but if asked, the children may have provided other reasons. Use of drugs were ethical as tests were carried out to see if it delivered a satisfactory amount of medication. Children may have felt that they needed to participate to obey parents instructions. Right to withdraw maybe questioned. Repeated measures, easily guess the aim of the study and provide information that supported what the researcher wanted to find out. Environmental influences of their home would differ, therefore situational variables could alter the consistency of the measure. Ethnocentrism: Behaviourists believe that certain factors such as cultural influences can play a part in reinforcing desirable behaviours. Therefore, the results may not be applicable outside of Australia, as other cultures may have different views on medicine. For example, in some Asian and African countries, up to 80% of the population relies on home remedies that are not necessarily scientifically proven to help health. Therefore this research would not apply in these cultures.

Levine correlation analysis

Significant Negative correlation: Lower economic productivity Higher overall helping Insignificant Negative correlation: Greater walking speed Less likely to offer help Economic productivity was positively correlated with individualism Economic productivity was negatively correlated with walking speed i.e. faster pace had stronger economic productivity Individualism was also negatively correlated with walking speed i.e. faster pace were more individualistic. Correlations between economic status and overall helping showed that Simpatia countries (Latin American countries and Spain) are more likely to help than non-simpatia

Grants sample

Snowball sampling - 8 members of a psychology laboratory class served as experimenters. Each experimenter recruited five acquaintances to serve as participants. There were 39 participants from America ranging in age from 17 to 56 with a mixture of males and females.

Grants Procedure

Students were tested 1 at a time. The 4 conditions were: Learn in silence, recall in silence - matching learn in silence, recall in noise - non-matching learn in noise, recall in noise - matching learn in noise, recall in silence - non-matching Each participant wore headphones. Those in noisy conditions listened to the background noise of a cafeteria which consisted of occasional distinct words/phrases and movement of chairs and dishes. The participants read a two-page, three-columned article on psychoimmunology, they were allowed to highlight or underline. The time they took to read the article was recorded and after 2 minutes of finishing they completed to tests. The 10 short-answer test was always administered first to ensure that recall of information from the article was being tested and not recall of information from the 16 multiple- choice test (with 4 possible choices). Instructions, describing the experiment as a class project and stating that participation was voluntary, were read aloud. The entire procedure lasted about 30 minutes.

Piliavin's key findings

The cane victim received spontaneous help 95% of the time compared to the drunk victim 50% of the time Help was offered more quickly to the cane victim (a median of 5 seconds compared to 109 seconds delay for the drunk victim). 90% of the first helpers were males. There was a slight tendency for same race helping especially in the drunk condition. No diffusion of responsibility was found, in fact response times were faster with larger groups than smaller, and the more passengers that were near the victim the more likely that help was given. More comments were made by passengers in the drunk than the cane condition and most comments were made when no help was given within the first 70 seconds.

Evaluation of grant strengths

The collection of quantitative scores on the 16 multiple choice test and the 10 short answer test allowed the researchers to analyse and compare data between the conditions so that they could easily see that matching conditions achieved the most accurate memory recall. High reliability as Grant had standardised procedure i.e. the same article, the same environment, all heard material through headphones etc. This allows the study to be easily replicated to assess consistentcy of results. Useful applications are apparent. The study found that matching environments improve memory recall. Therefore, as students will be completing their exams in silence, they should match this with silent revision in order to enhance their chances of better memory recall, and help to increase academic grades. The students were given material that was very similar to course material they would receive at university. They were also told to 'treat this as a class assignment. Therefore the study has increased ecological validity. This is a strength as it can be better generalised to students educational settings. Highly ethical study, informed consent was given by the 8 psychology students gathering their friends to participate. Students had as much time to read over the pscyhoimmunology material, therefore limited amount of stress caused.

Moray results 1

The difference between the words recalled from the rejected message (word list in the right ear) compared to the verbal message (story message in the left ear) was significant at the 1 per cent. level. Therefore, participants recalled far less words from the rejected message compared to the shadowed message. These findings support those found by Cherry (1953).

Levine conclusions

The helping of strangers is a cross-culturally meaningful characteristic of a place. There are large cross-cultural variations in helping rates. Helping across cultures is inversely related to a country's economic productivity. Countries with the cultural tradition of simpatia are, on average, more helpful than counties with no such tradition. Although faster cities tend to be less helpful than slower cities, the link between economic health and helping is not a by-product of a fast pace of life in a uent societies. The value of collectivism-individualism is unrelated to helping behaviours.

moray results 2

The mean number of instructions heard when presented in the rejected message was calculated, and the difference between the 'names' and 'no names' was significant at the 1 per cent. level. When participants heard their name in the instruction, they were able to hear and follow the instructions 20 out of 39 times. When participants had instructions with no name, they were able to hear and follow the instructions only 4 times.

Evaluation of Bocchiaro, strengths

The procedure takes place in a highly controlled environment and therefore it is possible to control for extraneous variables and be reasonably confident that the authority figure effected the participants obedience levels. It is also highly standardised and therefore easy to replicate. The procedure was very lifelike because the situation investigated was a psychologist carrying out a study, and this is exactly what happened, there was nothing artificial about the procedure therefore increasing the ecological validity. Large sample of 149 participants, this reduces the chance of participant extraneous variables. The fact that religion was considered to play a role in disobedience meant that some cultural influences were considered, making the study less ethnocentric. Practical applications are important. Because of the publicity of whistle blowing, more and more people are coming forward and standing up to unethical treatments and procedures e.g, health care, Jimmy Savile case. Only collected quantitative data which allowed direct comparisons of obedience, disobedience and whistle blowing.

moray results 3

The results showed no difference in the mean number of digits recalled correctly between the two set conditions, even at the 5% level. This was concluded to be due to the fact that numbers are less important than a persons own name, therefore not strong enough to break though the block.

lee et al key findings

The results that were not significant showed that children of both cultures rated the prosocial and antisocial behaviours similarly in truth telling scenarios. The Chinese children rated truth telling less positively and lie telling as more positively in pro-social settings, compared to Canadian children, indicating that the emphasis on modesty in Chinese culture overrides evaluations of lying in pro-social situations. Chinese and Canadian children rated truth telling positively and lie telling negatively in anti-social situations, reflecting the emphasis in both cultures on the distinction between misdeed and truth/lie telling. Overall, negative ratings increased with age, irrespective of culture

evaluation of Loftus and palmer weaknesses

The sample in Loftus and Palmer are unlikely to be truly representative of the population. In the study Loftus only used students to study memory distortion. The participants are less likely to be drivers than the whole population due to their age range. This is a major weakness because their speed estimates might have been less accurate as a result of their lack of experience with cars. This therefore questions the validity of the study as it may have been participant variables that effected speed estimates and not the verbs. Loftus may be unethical as due to the use of students they may have felt obliged to take part. This is weakness because the informed consent given may not be genuine. This could be overcome by asking the students on numerous occasions throughout the study if they still want to take part and informing them that the have the right to withdraw at anytime.

Milgrams Procedure

The study took place in a laboratory at Yale University where participants were told that the study was about how punishment effected learning. The 40 participants in the experimental group were always given the role of teacher (through a fixed lottery) and saw the learner (a confederate) strapped into a chair with (non-active) electrodes attached to his arms. They were given a trial shock of 40 volts to simulate genuineness. • The 'teacher' then sat in front of an electric shock generator in an adjacent room. He had to conduct a paired word test on the learner and give him an electric shock of increasing intensity for every wrong answer. The machine had 30 switches ranging from 15-450 volts, in 15 volt increments. • The 'learner' produced (via a tape recording) a set of predetermined responses, giving approximately 3 wrong answers to every correct one. At 300 volts he pounded on the wall and thereafter made no further replies. At 315 volts the learner pounded on the wall again and then fell silent. • If the 'teacher' turned to the experimenter for advice on whether to proceed, the experimenter responded with a series of standardised prods eg' "Please continue / Please go on.". If the participant asked if the learner was in pain he would respond 'Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage' • The study finished when either the 'teacher' refused to continue (was disobedient) or reached 450 volts (was obedient). • The participant was then fully debriefed. • Data was gathered through observations made by both the experimenter who was in the same room as the participant and others who observed the process through one-way mirrors. Most sessions were recorded on magnetic tape, occasional photographs were taken through the one-way mirrors and notes were made on unusual behaviours.

Piliavin's research method

The study was a field experiment. The field situation was the A and D trains of the 8th Avenue New York Subway between 59th Street and 125 Street. The journeys lasted about 7 1⁄2 minutes. The experiment had four independent variables (IVs): Type of victim (1. drunk or 2. carrying a cane). Race of victim (3. black or 4. white). Effect of a model (5. after early - 70 or 6. late - 150 seconds, from the critical or adjacent area), or no model at all. 7. Size of the witnessing group (a naturally occurring independent variable).The dependent variables (DVs) - recorded by two female observers seated in the adjacent area - were: 1. Number of helpers. 2. Speed of help. 3. Race of helper. 4. Sex of helper. 5. Movement out of critical area. 6. Verbal comments by bystanders. 7. Verbal comments by helpers.

Chaney results

The use of the Funhaler was associated with improved parental and child compliance. • When surveyed at random, 38% more parents were found to have medicated their children the previous day when using the Funhaler, compared to their existing small volume spacer device/ • 60% more children took the recommended four or more cycles per aerosol delivery when using the Funhaler compared with the standard/small volume spacer. • Significantly more parents reported they were 'always' successful in medicating their child using the Funhaler (22/30), compared to their existing device (3/30).

Loftus and palmer conclusions

The verb used in a question influences a participant's response i.e. the way a question is phrased influences the answer given. People are not very good at judging vehicular speed. Misleading post event information can distort an individual's memory. It is proposed that two kinds of information go into our memory for a 'complex occurrence' such as this. Firstly, the information gleaned during the perception of the original event. Secondly, the post-event information that is gained after the fact. Information from the two sources will integrate over time and we will be unable to decipher which source the information comes from. We are therefore unable to tell whether our memory is accurate.

Grants conclusion

There are context-dependency effects for newly learned meaningful material regardless of whether a short-answer test or a multiple-choice test is used to assess learning Studying and testing in the same environment leads to enhanced performance. Students are likely to perform better in exams if they study for them with a minimum of background noise because, although there was no overall effect of noise on performance, the fact that there was evidence for context-dependency suggests they are better off studying without background noise as it will not be present during actual testing

Kohlberg's conclusion

There is a developmental sequence in an individual's moral development. Each stage of moral development comes one at a time and always in the same order. An individual may stop at any given stage and at any age. Moral development ts with Kohlberg's stage-pattern theory. There is a cultural universality of sequence of stages. Middle-class and working-class children move through the same sequence but middle-class children move faster and further. This 6-Stage theory of moral development is not significantly affected by widely ranging social, cultural or religious conditions. The only thing that is affected is the rate at which individuals progress through the sequence.

Grant's results

There was no significant difference between matching and mismatching conditions on the performance of the two types of test (recall: 10 short answer questions and recognition: 16 multiple choice questions). Godden and Baddeley opposed this as they suggested that people use context dependent memory more in recall tests. Performance on both tests were better when participants learned and retrieved information in matching environments There was no overall effect of noise on performance. Mean average score in the multiple choice test when the participants were in matching silent study and silent test = 14.3 Mean average score in the multiple choice test when the participants were in mismatching noisy study and silent test= 12.7 Mean average score in the short answer test when the participants were in matching silent study and silent test = 6.7 Mean average score in the short answer test when the participants were in mismatchin noisy study and silent test = 4.6

Piliavin's Procedure

There were 4 teams of 4 researchers: 2 female observers, 2 males - one acting as victim, one the model The victims (3 white, 1 black) were all male, General Studies students, aged 26-35 years, and dressed alike. They either smelled of liquor and carried a liquor bottle wrapped tightly in a brown bag or appeared sober and carried a black cane. In all aspects they acted identically in both conditions. The victim stood near a pole in the critical area. After about 70 seconds he staggered forward and collapsed. Until receiving help he remained on the floor looking at the ceiling. If no help was offered, the role model would step in and help after either 70 seconds or 150 seconds. The point of this was to see if this affected helping behaviour. If no one helped up until the train stopped the model would help the victim up. After each trial, they then changed platforms to repeat the process in the opposite direction. The observers recorded the dependent variables as stated above. Both observers recorded comments spontaneously made by nearby passengers and helpers.

Bocchiaros conclusions

There were no differences in terms of religion and personality traits People tend to obey authority figures Behaving in a moral appears to be challenging even when it appears to be easy People are not very good at predicting what they or others will do.

simons and Chabris research method

This is primarily a laboratory experiment that used an independent measures design. The independent variables (IVs) were whether the participant took part in: (i) The Transparent/Umbrella Woman condition (ii) The Transparent/Gorilla condition (iii) The Opaque/Umbrella Woman condition (iv) The Opaque Gorilla condition. For each of the four displays there were four task conditions: (i) White/Easy (ii) White/Hard (iii) Black/Easy (iv) Black/Hard. Overall there were therefore 16 individual conditions. The dependent variable (DV) was the number of participants in each of the 16 conditions who noticed the unexpected event (Umbrella Woman or Gorilla).

Sperry's research method

This is usually considered a quasi/natural experiment because the independent variable (IV) - having a split brain, was not directly manipulated by the researchers. Participants with split-brains had already undergone hemisphere disconnection to reduce severe epilepsy. No actual control group was necessary for comparison in the study because the functions and abilities of the visual fields and hemispheres in non split-brain individuals was already known. The dependent variable (DV) was the participant's ability to perform a variety of visual and tactile tests. It has, however, been argued that because such extensive tests were carried out on a very small sample (11 split-brain patients in total), this study can be considered a collection of case studies. A case study is a process of research into the development of a particular person, group, or situation over a period of time.

Levine research method

This was a field experiment that used an independent measures design. The field situation was 23 large cities around the world including Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Calcutta (India), Madrid (Spain), Shanghai (China), Budapest (Hungary), Rome (Italy), New York (USA) and Kuala Lampur (Malaysia). The dependent variable (DV) was the helping rate of the 23 individual cities.

Grant research method

This was a laboratory experiment using an independent measures design. The independent variables (IVs) were: (i) whether the participant read the two page article under silent or noisy conditions (ii) whether the participant was tested under matching or mismatching conditions. Therefore there were 4 conditions. The dependent variable (DV) was the participant's performance on (a) a short-answer recall test and (b) a multiple-choice recall test.

lee et al research method

This was a laboratory experiment which used an independent measures design was used in terms of the ethnicity of the child and the condition they were placed in.

Kohlberg research method

This was a longitudinal study which followed the development of the same group of boys for 12 years. The aim was to show how, as young adolescents develop into young manhood, they move through the distinct levels and stages of moral development proposed by Kohlberg in his theory of moral development. Kohlberg also studied moral development in other cultures using hypothetical moral dilemmas. This study therefore has a cross-cultural element.

Loftus and palmer research method 2

This was also a laboratory experiment using an independent measures design.

Simons and Chabris background

To overcome the fact that previous research did not systematically consider the role of task difficulty in detection, and no direct comparisons were made between performance with a superimposed version of the display with a live version, for this study several video segments with the same set of actions, in the same location, on the same day were filmed. A large number of naive observers were asked to watch the video recordings and later answer questions about the unexpected events.

evaluations of bandura strengths

Used a lab experiment and therefore very standardised reducing the chance of extraneous variables. All participants went into the same rooms, used the same toys and were in each room for the same amount of time. Quantitative data was collected and therefore is was easy to compare the level of imitated aggression across the conditions i.e. same sex model (control, aggressive, non-aggressive) opposite sex model (control, aggressive, non-aggressive) etc. The experiment was set out as a play room, very similar to their own nursery, therefore increased ecological validity. From this study there is a great understanding of how easily aggressive behaviours are imitated. This could lead to practical applications such as putting violent TV programmes to later times at night or changing age certificates on certain films etc.

Loftus and palmer Results 1

a) Speed estimates for the verbs used in the critical question Verb Mean speed estimate (mph) Smashed 40.8 Collided 39.3 Bumped 38.1 Hit 34.0 Contacted 31.8 Smashed produced the fastest speed estimates and contacted the slowest.

Loftus and palmer results 2

a) Speed estimates for the verbs used in the question about speed Response Smashed Hit Control Yes 16 7 6 No 34 43 44 More participants in the 'smashed' condition than either the 'hit' or control groups reported seeing broken glass. The majority of participants in each group correctly recalled that they had not seen any broken glass.

Bocchiaros Aim

a) who are the people that disobey or blow the whistle b) why do they choose the challenge moral path c) do they have personal characteristics that differentiate them from those who obey

Bocchiaro's research method

like Milgram, there was in fact no independent variable (IV) so the study may be best viewed as a laboratory study. The laboratory study took place in a loboratory at. the VU university in Amsterdam.

Chaney sample

• 32 children with asthma • The children's parents provided informed consent and also participated in the study through completing questionnaires and taking part in a phone interview. They also helped (where necessary) in the use of the inhalers.

Bandura Sample

• 72 children (36 boys, 36 girls), aged 37-69 months (mean 52 months), from Stanford University Nursery School. • Participants were matched through a procedure which pre-rated them for aggressiveness. They were rated on four, five-point rating scales by the experimenter and a nursery school teacher, both of whom were well acquainted with the children. These scales measured the extent to which participants displayed physical aggression, verbal aggression towards inanimate objects (i.e. toys), and aggressive personality. On the basis of these scores, participants were arranged in triplets and randomly assigned to one of the two experimental groups or to the control group. There were 24 in each.

Chaney background

• Behaviour therapy and behaviour modification (based on classical and operant conditioning) have been major approaches used by both clinical psychologists and health practitioners to improve adherence to prescribed medical regimes. • Poor adherence to prescribed frequency and technique remains a major problem for paediatric asthmatics on inhaled medication (Chaney et al, 2004). • Rates of compliance for offering medication regularly to asthmatic children range from 30% to 70%, while paediatric compliance rates for the correct pressurised metered dose inhaler (pMDI) technique range from 39% to 67%. Adherence does not necessarily improve with rising severity of illness (Chaney et al, 2004). • Although reasons for poor adherence are varied, Watt et al proposed that a positive interplay of adherence considerations with aerosol output factors would improve medication adherence in young asthmatics. • The aim of this study was therefore to show that the use of a novel asthma spacer device, the "Funhaler", which incorporates incentive toys isolated from the main inspiratory circuit by a valve, whilst not compromising drug delivery, can provide positive reinforcement which leads to improved adherence in young asthmatics.

bandura conclusions

• Children will imitate aggressive/non-aggressive behaviours displayed by adult models, even if the model is not present. • Children can learn behaviour though observation and imitation. • Behaviour modelled by male adults has a greater influence on children's behaviour than behaviour modelled by a female adult. • Both boys and girls are more likely to learn highly masculine-typed behaviour such as physical aggression from a male adult rather than a female. • Boys and girls are likely to learn verbal aggression from a same-sex adult.

Chaney procedure

• Firstly, a comparison was made between the aerosol output of the standard/small volume spacer device (235ml Breath-a-Tech) and the 225ml Funhaler. Overall no significant differences were observed. The comparison was therefore complementary, indicating that the use of a Funhaler rather than a standard inhaler does not compromise drug delivery. • Participants were then asked to use a Funhaler instead of their normal pMDI and spacer inhaler to administer their medication. • Matched questionnaires were competed (by parents) after sequential use of the Breath-a-Tech inhaler and the Funhaler. • The first questionnaire was completed at the beginning of the research before the Funhaler had been used. After 2 weeks of using the Funhaler a second questionnaire was done. • Data collected from the self-report related to how easy each device was to use, compliance of parents and children, and treatment attitudes. Furthermore, during the course of the study each parent was called at random to find out whether they had attempted to medicate their child the day before. The Funhaler incorporates a number of features to distract the attention of children from the drug delivery event itself and to provide a means of self reinforcing the use of effective technique. The Funhaler makes spacers appealing to children in the following ways: (i) It isolates incentive toys (e.g. spinner and whistle) in a separate branch to the standard inhalation circuit, placing them outside the expiratory valve of the spacer to avoid problems of contamination and interference of drug delivery. (ii) The inhaler is easy to use in the correct way. (iii) The design attempts to link the optimal function of the toys to the deep breathing pattern related to effective medication. (iv) Children may get bored of the toys. However, the design allows the incentive toy module to be replaced with a range of different toys.

Milgram's conclusion

• Inhumane acts can be done by ordinary people due to being in agentic state • People, will obey others whom they consider legitimate authority figures even if what they are asked to do goes against their moral beliefs. • People obey because certain situational features lead them to suspend their sense of autonomy and become an agent of an authority figure. • Individual differences, such as personality, influence the extent to which people will be obedient.

Bandura background

• Previous research has shown that children will readily imitate behaviour demonstrated by an adult model if the model remains present (Bandura & Hudson, 1961). • However, although such research has provided convincing evidence for the influence and control exerted by role models on the behaviour of others, until this study, little was known about how the behaviour displayed by a model might affect an individual in novel settings when the model is absent. • This study therefore firstly exposed children to aggressive and non-aggressive adult models and then tested the amount of imitative learning demonstrated by the children in a new situation in the absence of the model. • The aim was to demonstrate that learning can occur through mere observation of a model and that imitation of learned behaviour can occur in the absence of that model. • There were four hypotheses: (i) Children shown aggressive models will show significantly more imitative aggressive acts resembling those of their models than those shown non-aggressive or no models. (ii) Children shown non-aggressive models will show significantly less aggressive behaviour than those shown aggressive or no models. (iii) Boys will show significantly more imitative aggression than girls. (iv) Children will imitate same-sex model behaviour to a greater degree than opposite-sex behaviour.

Chaney research method

• This was a field experiment, conducted in the participants' home settings in Australia, which used a repeated measures design. • The independent variables (IVs) were: (i) whether the child used a standard/small volume spacer device - the Breath-a-Tech (Scott-Dibben, Australia) (ii) whether the child used a Funhaler (InfMed Ltd, Australia). • The dependent variable (DV) was the amount of adherence to the prescribed medical regime.

Bandura research method

• This was a laboratory experiment which used an matched-pairs design. • The independent variables (IVs) were: (i) Whether the child witnessed an aggressive or a non-aggressive adult model in the first phase of the experiment (a control group was not exposed to an adult model). (ii) The sex of the model (male or female). (iii) The sex of the child (boy or girl). • The dependent variable (DV) was the amount of imitative behaviour and aggression shown by the child in phase three.