Psychology IB Exam / Paper 1

Ogihara & Uchida (2014) - effects of globalization on individual behavior, effect of the interaction of local and global culture, research methods in globalization

AIM: Investigate the effect of working in an individualistic workplace would have on the subjective well-being of Japanese women. PARTICIPANTS: 334 adult Japanese women who worked for a large insurance company where performance and achievement-oriented goals were posted on the walls of the offices. PROCEDURE: The participants answered questionnaires as in the first study to understand whether they're more individualistic or collectivistic, well being, nature of their relationships. RESULTS: The results suggest that even in the study's achievement-oriented environment, Japanese participants who were achievement-oriented scored lower on subjective well-being and had fewer close friends. The lower levels of well-being in the Japanese sample may be due to the transition that Japan is currently experiencing, where globalization is leading to a movement toward individualism in the workplace while maintaining the traditional collectivistic values in general society.

Fagot (1985) - enculturation, social cognitive theory

AIM: Study how parents directly influence gender identity, which although dependent on biological sex, is shaped by cultural norms. PARTICIPANTS: Naturalistic observation: parental reactions to behaviours that weren't deemed appropriate for the child's gender, at least according to American culture at the time. RESULTS: Parents acted more favourably towards their child when they acted according to their gender norms and expectations. Boys were encouraged to play with toys that build strength while girls were encouraged to play with dolls or dress up. LINK (Enc.): Study demonstrates enculturation as it shows parents directly teaching and instructing children about what is and isn't appropriate behaviour according to their culture's gender norms. Parents were reinforcing culturally appropriate behaviours by influencing such things as choice of toys or ways of playing for their children. Parents further supported these norms by encouraging boys to be independent and active while girls were encouraged to be dependent and passive. These types of experiences and direct instruction shape our ways of thinking, or schemas as well as our personal identity.

Bandura - social cognitive theory, ethical considerations

AIM: They were trying to see whether children learned aggressive behavior from the way adults acted. PARTICIPANTS: Nursery school students; males, females predominantly white, from the U.S. PROCEDURE: - They evaluated children and their level of aggression, gave them a baseline if they or aren't aggressive, they asked teachers and parents about their behavior, had some type of conversion to evaluate anger and kids were assigned to different groups through matched pair design. - Match pair design is when subjects are matched on some variable that might be affecting the dependent variable and then split into two or more groups. - Participants observed an adult playing aggressively with a Bobo doll - When children were later allowed to play with the Bobo doll, those children who witnessed the Bobo doll, performed the same aggressive actions and improvised new ways of playing aggressively. RESULTS: - The results showed that all kids have some sort of aggression and that the ones who saw the aggression acted the most aggressively, those who had no viewing of the abuse had the least aggression. - Boys were the most violent (males tended to be aggressive with either a females/male adult), girls tended to follow everything girls did. 1 - aggressive (1), passive model (3), no model (2). Ethics: The study is ethically problematic - exposing children to adult violence against the Bobo. The study is cross-sectional, looking only at aggression exhibited as a result of seeing the adult hit the Bobo. It did not monitor long-term effects on the children. It can be argued that the children experienced undue stress and there was a potential for long-term psychological effects on their behavior. The situation is highly controlled and it is not normal for children to be left alone with strangers in this way.

Brewer and Treyens (1981) - Cognitive schema, Schema theory, reconstructive memory, reliability of cognitive processes

AIM: To see whether a stereotypical schema of an office would affect memory (recall) of an office. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were taken into a university student office and left for 35 seconds before being taken to another room. They were asked to write down as much as they could remember from the office. PROCEDURE: Participants were seated in a room that was made to look like an office. The room consisted of objects that were typical of offices. There were some items in the room that one would not typically find in an office. Finally, there were items that were omitted. Each participant was asked to wait in the professor's office while the researcher "checked to make sure that the previous participant had completed the experiment." The participant did not realize that the study had already begun. The participants were asked to have a seat and all of the chairs except for one had objects on them. In this way, it was guaranteed that all participants would have the same vantage point in the office. The researcher left the room and said that he would return shortly. After 35 seconds the participants were called into another room and then asked what they remembered from the office. When they finished the experiment, they were given a questionnaire. The important question was "Did you think that you would be asked to remember the objects in the room. 93% said "no." The recall condition: Participants were asked to write down a description of as objects as they could remember from the office. They were also asked to state the location, shape, size and colour of the objects. They were asked to "Write your description as if you were describing the room for someone who had never seen it." After this, they were given a verbal recognition test in which they were given a booklet containing a list of objects. They were asked to rate each item for how sure they were that the object was in the room. "1" meant that they were sure it was not in the room; "6" meant that they were absolutely sure it was in the room. The questionnaire consisted of 131 objects: 61 were in the room; 70 were not. The drawing condition: In this condition, participants were given an outline of the room and asked to draw in the objects they could remember. The verbal recognition condition: In this condition, the participants were read a list of objects and simply asked whether they were in the room or not. RESULTS: The researchers found that when the participants were asked to recall either by writing a paragraph or by drawing, they were more likely to remember items in the office that were congruent with their schema of an office. The items that were incongruent with their schema of an office were not often recalled. When asked to select items on the list, they were more likely to identify the incongruent items. However, they also had a higher rate of identifying objects which were schema congruent but not in the room. In both the drawing and the recall condition, they also tended to change the nature of the objects to match their schema. Final conclusion: It appears that schema played a role in both the encoding and recall of the objects in the office.

Harris and Fiske (2006) - Social identity theory, Formation of stereotypes, techniques used to study the brain

AIM: investigate the brain's response to extreme outgroups to find the cause of stereotypes and prejudices PROCEDURE: - half the group seeing images of people and a half seeing images of objects Before being put into the scanner, participants used a computer screen to practice rating a series of neutral photos for each of the four emotions: pride, envy, pity, disgust. - Once in the fMRI, participants were shown various photographs. The participants have used a joystick to choose which of the four emotions that they felt toward the image that was just displayed. RESULTS: - They found that there was a clear difference in brain activity when participants rated pictures of addicts or homeless people - activation of the amygdala: their brains associated both groups w/ disgust. - The insula was activated, which is usually a response to non-human objects such as garbage and human waste. - The medial prefrontal cortex- part of the brain activated when we think about other people or ourselves was not activated. In the case of the homeless, their brains did not react to them as people. fMRI = expensive piece of equipment = sample size is small to keep the cost down: (generalizability + reliability) The study gives support to the research of both Social Identity Theory and stereotyping; it appears that our brain categorizes people and responds differently, depending on their group. However, the study did not look at the response of homeless people to other homeless people. Therefore, it is not absolutely possible to state that the brain response is a result of observing a member of an out-group.

Milner et al (1957) - Memory models: multi store memory model, ethics in cognitive research, ethics of biological research, research methods, techniques used to study the brain, localization of function

AIM: to better understand the effects that the experimental surgery had on patient HM. PARTICIPANTS: HM PROCEDURE: Method triangulation may be used in a case study: - Psychometric testing: IQ testing was given to HM. His results were above average. - Direct observation of his behaviour; Interviews with both HM and with family members. - Cognitive testing: memory recall tests as well as learning tasks - such as reverse mirror drawing. - Corkin later did an MRI to determine the extent of the damage done to HM's brain. (The use of the MRI made it possible for researchers to localize function and determine that the hippocampus plays a critical role in converting memories of experiences from short-term memory to long-term memory and that it does not store short-term memory as HM was able to retain information for some minutes if he rehearsed it.) RESULTS: Could acquire: long term memory w/ implicit memory (procedural, emotional), had working memory, since he was able to carry on a normal conversation Could NOT acquire: long term memory with episodic or semantic memories = The hippocampus plays a critical role in converting memories of experiences from short-term memory to long-term memory. Background: HM is perhaps the most famous participant in a psychological study ever. It is a longitudinal case study and many different data collections methods have been used over the years. He was born in Manchester, Connecticut in 1926 and fell off his bicycle at age 7, resulting in a cracked skull and severe seizures starting at age 10. At age 27, he had become so incapacitated by his seizures that he could not lead a normal life. Hence, renowned neurosurgeon William Scoville performed an experimental surgery on HM where he removed tissue from the medial temporal lobe (including the hippocampus) on both sides of HM's brain. Brenda Milner (neuropsychologist) studied HM until his death in 2008. She noticed that HM forgot daily events as fast as they occurred. Nevertheless, his personality remained unchanged, he could still remember important events from his childhood, while his IQ improved after his seizures stopped. He suffered from anterograde amnesia.

Lueck & Wilson (2010) - acculturation

AIM: - The purpose of this study was to investigate which linguistic and social constructs predict acculturative stress PARTICIPANTS: - Asian immigrants and Asian Americans. PROCEDURE: - The participants took face-to-face interviews, which were conducted with computer-assisted interviewing software in different languages. - Data was analyzed using a logistic regression model, which is a statistical method for analyzing a dataset- RESULTS: - The results show that English language proficiency, native language proficiency, discrimination, family and the context of migration exit are the strongest predictors of acculturative stress.

Miranda and Matheny (2000) - assimilation, acculturation

AIM: - To investigate which factors in the lives if Latino immigrants to the United States would decrease the levels of acculturative stress. PARTICIPANTS: - A random sample of 197 Spanish speaking American immigrants. 52% had a legal residency. The average age was 28.7 and the average length of residence in the US was 3.9 years. PROCEDURE: - Completed a questionnaire and tests to assess family cohesion, level of acculturation, acculturative stress, and coping strategies for stress. RESULTS: -Immigrants with effective coping strategies, good proficiency in English, and a strong family bond were less likely to experience acculturative stress. In addition, immigrants who spent a longer time in the US were less likely to demonstrate stress and showed higher levels of acculturation - The study shows that there are many protective factors that may influence the extent to which an individual acculturates and the effect that this will have on mental health. LINK: -Acculturative stress is caused by multiple factors.There exist protective factors that may influence how (well) and individual acculturates. The closer they get to integration, the less stress they experience

Kulkofsky (2011) - cultural influences on cognition, research methods in the cognitive approach, influence of emotion in cognitive processes, flashbulb memory, cultural dimensions on behavior, cultural groups

AIM: - To see if there was any difference in the rate of flashbulb memories in collectivistic and individualistic cultures. PARTICIPANTS: Middle class adults from five different countries. PROCEDURE: - First, the participants were given five minutes to recall as many memories (1 year) as they could of public events occurring in their lifetime. - The researchers then used this list of events to create a "memory questionnaire." They were asked five questions about how they learned about the event. They were then asked to answer questions about the importance of the event to them personally. RESULTS: - The researchers found that in a collectivistic culture, personal importance played less of a role in predicting FBM, compared with more individualistic cultures that place greater emphasis on an individual's personal involvement and emotional experiences. - Because focusing on the individual's own experiences is often de-emphasized in the Chinese context, there would be less rehearsal of the triggering event compared with participants from other cultures - and thus a lower chance of developing a FBM. - However, it was found that national importance was equally linked to FBM formation across cultures. Evaluation: A) Avoids interviewer effects: representative of the culture administered the test and the questionnaires were given in the native languages of the participants. It also meant that since they were responding in their native language - and the language in which these memories were mostly created - the participants were more likely to recall these memories. B) The study used back-translation to make sure that the translation of the questionnaires was not a confounding variable. >> increases the credibility of the study. C) Danger of ecological fallacy - just because the participants come from the culture being studied, this does not mean that they necessarily share the traits of the culture's predominant dimensions D) Etic approach = Self-reported: It cannot be verified in this study whether those personal memories actually exist but were not reported. E) Questionnaire: research instrument consisting of a series of questions for the purpose of gathering information from respondentsThis study found that in collectivist cultures, personal relevance and intensity of emotion played less of a role in predicting flashbulb memories, compared with more individualistic cultures that place greater emphasis on an individual's personal involvement and emotional experiences.

Berry (1967) - Cultural influences in behavior, cultural dimensions on behaviour

AIM: - To see to what extent individuals conformed based if the cultural dimension was more individualistic or collectivistic. PARTICIPANTS: - Tribal based societies and divided them into three groups: the Temne, which came from Sierra Leone, were rice producers (labor intensive) and collectivistic, the Inuits, which came from Canada, were hunters and fishers and were more individualistic and the control group which were the Scots, which came from both rural and urban areas. - They divided them into traditional and transitional, which meant they had no or had Western influence. PROCEDURE: - They brought each individual independently and made them do the Asch Paradigm test. - The first two trials were freely chosen, but the third trial was influenced by the researcher. The researcher suggested one line of their group members also chose, this happened from 4-6 times and each time they went 5 times further. - This test aimed to see conformity. They measured it from 0-15, 15 being the highest conformity. RESULTS: - The results showed that the Temne traditional conformed the most with an average score of 9, then came the Scots with a score of 4 and then the Inuits with a score of 2.

Sherif et al (1961) - social groups, ethical considerations, social identity theory

AIM: - To see whether conflict between groups could be diminished if they worked together on a superordinate goal. - Superordinate goals are defined as goals that are achieved by the contribution and co-operation of two or more people, with individual goals that are normally in opposition to each other, working together. - PARTICIPANTS: - young boys, Matched to share common characteristics of healthy, socially well adjusted, somewhat above average intelligence and from stable, WEIRD- None of the boys knew each other before the study. PROCEDURE: - Before the experiment began, the boys were randomly allocated to one of two groups. - The researchers organized a regular summer camp in the Robbers Cave Park - At the camp the groups were kept separate from each other and did a lot of group bonding and created an identity > The Eagles and The Rattlers. - They introduced conflict through games. Situations were also created so that one group benefited at the expense of the other. - Ingroup favoritism and outgroup hostility or discrimination, confirming that conflict and between groups can arise from group identity and fighting for resources. - Initial attempts to reconcile the groups were not successful so they developed different ways to reach a common goal and encourage a positive relationship between the groups. - They created a series of situations and introduced superordinate goals to ease the tension between groups. Results: Less negative ratings of the other group and there was no longer any intergroup hostility. Sherif : use of deception in this study. In addition, participants were not protected from physical and psychological harm. Sherif's team note symptoms of anxiety among some of the boys, including bedwetting, running away and homesickness

Becker et al - effects of globalization on individual behavior, effect of the interaction of local and global culture, research methods in globalization, research methods in sociocultural

AIM: - To study if the introduction of television would lead to an increase in disordered eating attitudes and behaviours among Fijian adolescent girls. PARTICIPANTS: - Two samples of Fijian school girls between the ages of 16 and 18, approximating 60 participants. The first group was tested only a few weeks after television was introduced. The second group was tested three years late. The study was looking at girls - Fijian culture focuses on having a large appetite; a larger body mass is not seen as unattractive, but rather, desirable. PROCEDURE: - The study was a prospective study - that is, the behaviours of the participants were measured prior to the introduction of television into their culture. - The study was also a natural experiment - television was not a manipulated variable by the researcher, but the researcher took advantage of something that was happening in Fiji. - The girls were given the EAT-26 test, a standardized test to determine eating attitudes. It was assumed by the researchers that this test could be administered to determine eating habits, in spite of cultural differences. This is an "etic" approach to research. - Since all participants spoke fluent English, the test did not need to be translated into the local language. - After the completion of the test, they did a survey, and then semi-structured interviews were used to confirm the test results if there was evidence of binging and/or anorexic behaviours. Weight and height were also measured. - The next group also took the EAT-26 test with the follow-up interview, but they were also given additional questions with regard to dieting practice, body image and difference in generational values. RESULTS: - The researchers found that there was a significant difference in the EAT-26 scores of the two groups. The 2 group scores = greater - correlated with dieting and self-induced vomiting. - None of the girls reported this behaviour prior; Binge-eating did not change significantly -Findings: -results showed an increase in dieting and self-induced vomiting to control weight from 0% (1995) to 11.3% (1998) -increasing globalization and exposure to western media could explain an increase in symptoms related to eating disorders in non-western countries -combination of binge eating and purging to control weight (core symptom of bulimia nervosa) only appeared after the introduction of TV -supports that bulimia as a culture-bound syndrome -questionnaires revealed clinical signs (vomiting and body dissatisfaction) associated with eating disorders and in particular bulimia Limitations: -did not use clinical diagnoses -the tendency to report symptoms in anonymous self-reports but a clear diagnosis cannot be made -the study only included girls (sample bias)

Antonova et al (2011) - Neurotransmission (inhibitory) - acetylcholine / scopolamine, Neurotransmission (excitatory) - acetylcholine

AIM: To determine how blocking the acetylcholine receptors with scopolamine affects spatial memory PARTICIPANTS: 20 healthy male adults PROCEDURE: 1. Participants were randomly allocated between 2 conditions, either injected with scopolamine or placebo and were placed in an fMRI and scanned. while playing a virtual reality game 2. After they learned where the pole was located, screen would go black for 30 seconds and after they were to actively rehearse how to get to the pole. 3. When the game reappeared they were at a new starting point and now needed to use spacial skills to determine to get back to the pole. 4. The procedure was repeated after 3 weeks and each participant was given the other treatment. RESULTS: The researchers found that when participants were injected with scopolamine, they demonstrated a significant reduction in the activation of the hippocampus (A region pertaining to limbic system with high number of receptor sites for acetylcholine and believed to have an important role in encoding of LTM) compared to when they received a placebo. Scopolamine results in the reduction of activation of the hippocampus and acetylcholine helps with the encoding of spatial memory

Loftus and Pickrell (1995) - ethics in cognitive research

AIM: To discover whether it is possible to implant an entirely false memory for an event that never happened PARTICIPANTS: -24, 21 females, 3 males no one younger than 18no one older than 53opportunity sample-recruited from university of Washington students PROCEDURE: - A parent or sibling of the participant was contacted and asked two questions. First, could you retell three childhood memories of the participant? Second, do you remember a time when the participant was lost in a mall? - The participants then received a questionnaire in the mail. There were four memories that they were asked to write about and then mail back the questionnaire to the psychologists. Three events were real and one was "getting lost in the mall." They were instructed that if they didn't remember the event, they should simply write "I do not remember this." - The participants were interviewed twice and they were asked to recall as much information as they could about the four events. Then they were asked to rate their level of confidence about the memories on a scale of 1 - 10. - After the second interview, they were debriefed and asked if they could guess which of the memories was the false memory. RESULTS: - About 25% of the participants "recalled" the false memory. However, they also ranked this memory as less confident than the other memories and they wrote less about the memory on their questionnaire. This study found that false memories of being lost in a mall as a child could be implanted and "recalled" by 25% of participants. There are ethical concerns about the deception used in this study.

Bailey and Pillard (1991) - genes & behaviour

AIM: To find whether sexual orientation is biologically determined, socially learned, or resulted from some type of interaction PROCEDURE: - The researchers recruited monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins as well as adoptive brothers through gay publications. - All of the samples were voluntary and male. - All twins in the study were raised together - which means that we can reasonably assume that the environment was highly similar.- The sexual orientation of relatives was assessed either by asking relatives directly, or when this was impossible, asking the gay participant who had volunteered for the study.- Researchers also used questionnaires to assess the participants' level of Childhood Gender Nonconformity (CGN) RESULTS: - Bailey & Pillard found that 52% of MZ twins were both self-identified homosexuals, 22% of DZ twins were so, 11% of non-related adopted brothers were so. - A later study showed that non-twin brothers had a rate of 9.2%. - This evidence shows that the more closely genetically linked a pair is, the more likely they both are to exhibit gay or straight tendencies. - The researchers found that the participants' self-reported history of childhood gender nonconformity did not predict homosexuality in any of the three samples. - Thus, childhood gender nonconformity does not appear to be correlated with the development of homosexuality. - However, monozygotic pairs were very similar in their level of childhood gender nonconformity.

Cole and Scribner (1974) - cultural influences on behavior, cultural influences on cognition

AIM: To investigate the influences of education in the development of memory processes and strategies and free recall in children in two different cultures: USA & Kpelle PARTICIPANTS: - They looked at both Liberian children in school and those that were not attending school. PROCEDURE: Free recall test and presented words to participants, asked to memorize all 20, 2nd part: researcher presented objects in a meaningful manner and P's asked to recall these F: Liberian school children performed similarly to US children of the same age- used similar memory techniques, but in 2nd part, non-schooled children performed best by using a technique of grouping the objects according to roles they played in the story C: People learn to remember things in ways that are relevant to their everyday lives: dependent on schooling. E: Only 2 nationalities used, no clear C-E relationship- how much culture/school affects memory SO: study supports that culture affects memory (a cognitive process)- influences schemas RESULTS: - The researchers found that unlike the children in school, the children who were not attending school showed no regular increase in memory performance after the age of 9 or 10. - These participants remembered approximately ten items on the first trial and managed to recall only two more items after 15 practice trials. - The Liberian children who were attending school, by contrast, learned the materials rapidly, much the way schoolchildren of the same age did in the United States. - School-children in Liberia and the United States not only learned the list rapidly but used the categorical similarities of items in the list to aid their recall. After the first trial, they clustered their responses. - The non-schooled Liberian participants did very little clustering, indicating that they were not using the categorical structure of the list to help them remember.

Rogers and Frantz (1962) - norms, formation of stereotypes, social identity theory

AIM: To see if people new to Rhodesia would adopt the stereotypes & feelings of prejudice about the local African population PARTICIPANTS: 500 white Europeans aged 20+ years, living in Rhodesia for a period of fewer than 5 years to 40 years. PROCEDURE: -The sample was a stratified sample according to sex, country of birth, age, & length of residence-Researchers felt that the sample was highly representative of the local white community-Method was a survey containing 66 examples of laws & customs in which white Europeans and Africans were treated differently -Four response choices were provided with 0- important to maintain the current system, the 2-weak feeling of importance, 4-preference for discontinuing the law & 6-very important to discontinue the law. -This was a Likert scale survey but w/ only 4 options, making gravitation towards the mean less likely. RESULTS: Correlation between the amount of time they have spent in the country and the desire to keep the norms - The Europeans who support the status quo least strongly were those who had been living in Southern Rhodesia for fewer than 5 years-The longer they lived there, the more prejudice they became - Scores indicate that new arrivals would inevitably change their attitude over time-Compared to newcomers, residents who were there for 5-9 years were 27% more conservative about maintaining segregated social & recreational facilities

McGaugh and Cahill - flashbulb memory, hormones and behavior

AIM: To study the role of emotion and the amygdala on the creation of memories PROCEDURE: -first group: participants were read a boring story about a woman and her son who paid a visit to the son's father in the hospital where the staff was practicing a disaster preparation drill -second group: read a story about a boy who was involved in a car accident that caused his feet to be severed, he went to the hospital and his limbs were reattached -After two weeks, participants were brought back to answer questions about the plot of the story they were read-same procedure was done again but the new participants who heard the traumatic story, were injected with propranolol (heart rate control) RESULTS: -the participants who heard the traumatic story remembered details of it better than those who heard the boring story-In the second part of the study, those who received propranolol had the same performance as the participants who heard the boring story-showed that the amygdala plays a very important role in memory

Landry and Bartling - working memory model (phonological loop

AIM: investigate if articulatory suppression would influence recall of a written list of phonologically dissimilar letters in serial recall PARTICIPANTS: 34 undergraduate psychology students PROCEDURE: - Articulatory suppression task: experimental group: recall a list of letters while saying the numbers one and two at a rate of 2 numbers per second -participants randomly allocated into two-group control group- didn't perform an articulatory task, saw the list for 5 seconds and waited for another 5 before answeringexperimental group - the preformed task with articulatory suppression task -participants tested individually -asked to recall list of letters -10 lists each consisting a series of 7 random letters that didn't sound alike, each series presented one at a time -had answer sheet with 7 blanks in a row RESULTS: Scores from the experimental group were much lower than the scores from the control group.

Englich and Mussweiler - thinking and decision making, biases in thinking and decision making, intuitive thinking, rational thinking

AIM: to investigate if anchoring bias (that sentencing demands can serve as anchors) could play a significant role in determining sentencing in courtrooms PARTICIPANTS: 4 German law students in their senior year (32 male, 12 female) PROCEDURE: - The participants were given a case of an alleged rape. The prosecutor in one condition demanded a sentence of 12 months vs. 34 months. - To develop the case materials, advice was sought from highly experienced trial judges. The average recommended prison term suggested by the law students was 17.21 months. This was then used as a basis for determining the anchors. They participants were asked to read through the materials and form an opinion about the case. - Half of the participants were told that the prosecutor demanded a 34-month sentence; while the other half were told that he demanded a 12-month sentence. RESULTS: - When presented with the low anchor of twelve months, the average sentence was 18.78 months. in the high anchor condition of 34 months, the average sentence was 28.70. -experience does not impact the influence of anchoring bias in the courtroom; thus, judgmental anchoring bias has a strong effect on criminal sentencing decisions

Draganski et al (2004) - neuroplasticity, neural networks, neural pruning, neurons

AIM: to see whether learning a new skill would have an effect on the brain PARTICIPANTS: -24 participants, 21 girls, and 3 boys were non-jugglers PROCEDURE: - To start the study, the researchers carried out an MRI on all of the participants. They were then allocated to one of two conditions - learning juggling and not learning juggling (control). - The learners were asked to practice their juggling lesson until they had mastered it. - Then they had a second MRI scan. RESULTS: - There were no significant regional grey matter differences, but there were grey matter differences regarding visual memory. - After 3 months without juggling, there was a significant decrease in grey matter. - Jugglers relied more on visual memory than procedural memory.

Martin and Halvorson (1983) - enculturation, effect of stereotypes, schema theory, stereotypes

AIM: researchers wanted to see if gender stereotyping would influence recall in 5 and 6-year-old children. PARTICIPANTS: Each child was shown 16 pictures, half of which depicted a child performing gender-consistent activities (for example, a boy playing with a truck) and half showing children displaying gender-inconsistent behaviours (for example, a girl chopping wood). One week later, they tested the recall of the children to see how many of the photos that they could recall accurately. RESULTS: The results showed that children easily recalled the sex of the actor for scenes in which actors had performed gender-consistent activities. But when the actor's behaviour was gender inconsistent, the children often distorted the scene by saying that the actor's sex was consistent with the activity they recalled - that is, they would remember that it was the boy playing with a truck, when in fact they had been shown a photo of a girl playing with a truck.

Wedekind - pheromones, evolutionary explanations of behavior

AIMS: To see whether females would be able to identify males who had a genetic make-up which, in combination with her own, would boost the immune system of potential children. PROCEDURE: - The men were asked to wear a T-shirt for two nights and to keep the T-shirt in an open plastic bag during the day. They were given perfume-free detergent to wash clothes and bedclothes and perfume-free soap for showering. They were asked not to use any deodorants or perfumes, to refrain from smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol, to avoid all spicy foods and to not engage in any sexual activity. - Two days later, the women were asked to rank the smell of 7 t-shirts, each in a cardboard box with a "smelling hole." The women were tested whenever possible in the second week after the beginning of menstruation, as women appear to be most odour-sensitive at this time. - The women were also asked to prepare themselves for the experiment by using a nose spray to support the regeneration of the nasal mucous membrane if necessary - as well as a preventive measure against colds or flu. - Each woman was also given a copy of Süskind's novel Perfume to sensitize their smell perception. - Three of the seven boxes contained T-shirts from men with MHC similar to the woman's own; three contained T-shirts from MHC dissimilar men; and one contained an unworn T-shirt as a control. Alone in a room, every woman scored the odours of the T-shirts for intensity (range 0-10) and for pleasantness and sexiness (range 0 -10, 5 = neutral). RESULTS: - Women scored male body odours as more pleasant when they differed from their own MHC than when they were more similar. - This difference in odour assessment was reversed when the women rating the odours were taking oral contraceptives. - This suggests that the MHC may influence human mate choice.

Kearins (1981) - cultural influences on cognition

Indigenous Australians tend to score low on Western verbal intelligence tests. AIM: tested whether Indigenous Australians might perform better on tests that took advantage of their ability to encode visual cues. PARTICIPANTS: -Matched participants -44 Aboriginal adolescents aged 12-16 (27 boys, 17 girls). All from desert Aboriginal descent raised under semi-traditional tribal conditions, and spoke English as a second language.-44 white Australian adolescents (28 boys, 16 girls) from the inner suburbs of Perth. PROCEDURE: Kearins placed 20 objects on a board divided into 20 squares. Indigenous Australians and white Australian children were told to study the board for 30 seconds. The children were instructed that when the cover was removed, they should "look hard at all the things and try to remember where they all are," and that the subsequent task was a reconstruction of the board with the objects in the same arrangement. Then all the objects were heaped into a pile in the centre of the board. The children were asked to replace the items in their original locations. There were four variations of this task. 1. Artificial different (A/D), A collection of 20 small man-made objects likely to be familiar to white Australian children (knife, eraser, thimble, die, ring, scissors, matchbox), and differing from each other in at least one other way (colour, size, shape, usage). 2. Natural difference (N/D). A collection of 20 naturally occurring objects, likely to be familiar to desert children (feather, rock, bark, leaf, small skull, wildflower.). 3. Artificial same (A/S). Twelve small bottles arranged as a 4 x 3 matrix. Bottles differed in age, size, shape, colour, but were not labelled and not commonplace so that it would be difficult to verbally distinguish between the bottles. 4. Natural same (N/S). Twelve small rocks differ in size, shape, colour, texture. On all four tasks, the indigenous Australian children correctly relocated more objects than did white Australian children. The chart to the left shows the level of significance for each of the four conditions. R: Indigenous Australian children correctly relocated more objects than did white Australian children. RESULTS: the least difference between the two groups was on the artificial different tasks. The indigenous Australian children showed no significant difference whether the task was "artificial" or "natural." This means that the objects themselves did not affect the results of the study. For many indigenous, the 20-item arrays were apparently more difficult, although about one-fifth of performances were error-free. Perfect performances accounted for less than 5% of total performances on both 12- and 20-item arrays. 18% of the white Australian children managed one perfect score, and none obtained two or more perfect scores. Kearins found that the indigenous Australian children performed significantly better than the white Australian children in placing the objects into their original locations. She concluded that the survival of the indigenous Australians in the harsh desert landscape had encouraged and rewarded their ability to store or encode information using visual retrieval cues. These interesting results suggest that survival needs may shape and reward a particular way of encoding information in memory. EVALUATION: A) Quasi-experiment - that is, the independent variable - culture - cannot be manipulated. Therefore, the findings are correlational in nature and not able to establish a cause and effect relationship. B) Single sample: Replications of the study would have to be done with other indigenous groups in order to determine the extent to which this correlation is reliable.