Psychology Case Studies

Buss (1989)

*Obtained questionnaire responses from 37 samples, representing over 10,000 individuals, from 33 countries located on 6 continents and 5 islands. He found: 1) 37/37 samples-males valued physical attractiveness and relative youth in potential mates more than did females. 2) 23/37 samples Males value chastity in potential mates more than women 3) 36/37 samples Females value the financial capacity of potential mates more than did males. 4) 29/37 samples Females valued the characteristics of ambition and industriousness in a potential mate to a greater extent than males

Qiu et al (2013)

A: designed a study to investigate the effectiveness of GCBT in treating major depression in Chinese women with breast cancer. P: Sixty-two breast cancer patients diagnosed with major depression were randomly assigned to the GCBT group (N = 31) or a waiting list control group provided with an educational booklet (N = 31). Pr: Data was gathered from self-reports of depression and it was found the GCBT group had a significant reduction in depression compared to the control group. R: of this trial suggest that GCBT is effective for treating major depression, as well as for improving quality of life and self-esteem in breast cancer patients.

Tuckey and Brewer (2003)

A: examined how a crime schema influenced the types of details witnesses recalled over several interviews. Some witnesses experienced a delay before the initial interview and some between subsequent interviews. R: Data showed that, in general, schema-irrelevant memories (memories that neither confirmed nor contradicted the crime schema) were more often forgotten than schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent memories after the initial interview. Delaying the initial interview negatively affected recall at the initial interview, but led to less decay over subsequent interviews. Witnesses used their schemas to interpret any unclear information and, as a result, made more schema-consistent mistakes and were more likely to report false memories about any ambiguous details.

Malala

A young Pakistani girl who was shot because of speaking of for gender equailty in education

Sacks (2007a,b)

A: undertook a case study of Clive Wearing (CW) who contracted herpes viral encephalitis in 1985. At the time CW was a musician. The disease destroyed parts of his central nervous system especially the hippocampus. Sacks wanted to understand how this illness affected CW's mental processes. R: To find areas of damage, brain scans were used. Sacks also observed and interviewed CW. C: He concluded that CW suffered from both anterograde amnesia (failure to store memories after the illness) and retrograde amnesia (failure to recall memories before the illness).

Festinger, Riecken, & Schachter (1956)

Aim: interested in why people join cults and what happens to members when end-of-the-world prophecies fail to happen. A cult is a small religious group that hold beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous. Procedure: In 1956 they published a classic study in social psychology of a cult based in the USA. Cult members believed that a massive flood would end the world on December 21st and only they would be rescued by flying saucers. The researchers conducted a covert participant observation study by pretending to be true believers of the cult's prophesy. Their hide their identity as psychologists was as they secretly recorded events. Midnight of the 21st came and went with no flood signalled the beginning of natural disasters, and no rescue by flying saucers. Results: After a stunned silence the leader of the cult explained that the world had been spared destruction because their fervent prayers had brought God's mercy. While the cult lost a few disillusioned members, the majority remained convinced that their prayers has saved the world from annihilation.

Maguire et al (2000)

Aim: To investigate whether or not the hippocampus plays a role in human spatial memory Procedure: London taxi drivers with a range of age and experience were the participants because their work requires the extensive use of spatial navigational skills, matched pairs design: participants were age and gender matched with a control group, and two different types of MRI scanning were used to assess how the brains of the taxi drivers differed from the control group. It was a quasi-experiment Results: showed significantly more grey matter in both left and right hippocampi of the taxi drivers compared to the control group Evaluation: •No researcher bias •No ethical implications •Only observed males •Only observed 16 matched pairs •Nature vs. Nurture debate: did the driving influence the change in the hippocampus, or did their larger than average hippocampus lead them to become taxi drivers?

Curtiss (1974)

Aim: carried out a case study to assess the linguistic development of Genie, Participant: a girl who was discovered by the authorities in Los Angeles at the age of 13 having been cruelly neglected by her parents and subjected to physical and verbal abuse by her father and brother. Genie was confined to a room from the age of 1, where she was kept restrained at various times in either a potty chair or a crib. Consequently, upon discovery, Genie walked awkwardly and made a very little sound, having been beaten for making a noise. The majority of information for the case study was gathered from observing Genie and working with her in regular sessions. Information about her early life was collected primarily from Genie's behaviour itself and the few comments she would make. Procedure: Daily doctor's medical reports, as well as videotapes and tape recordings, were made and catalogued. Psychological testing was also used with observations and language tests. Curtiss was one of the psychologists assigned to help Genie and was especially interested in seeing if Genie could learn the language. Genie provided scientists with the chance to attempt to test the Critical Period Hypothesis—a theory proposed by linguist Eric Lenneberg (1967). This is the hypothesis that humans are unable to learn the use of grammar correctly after early childhood because of the lateralization of the brain. Results: However, in spite of initial progress, Genie never recovered completely from her privation. Although Genie was able to show some modest progress in her language development, her seeming inability to develop normal language was seen as evidence that the critical period for learning language was from two years to puberty. If that critical time was missed, as it had been for Genie, then it was claimed that it was not possible to develop full use of language. Conclusion: The research reports on Genie form a richly-detailed case study with extensive quantitative and qualitative data. However, caution must be exercised in attempting to generalise from case studies. There was also a strong suggestion that Genie may have had developmental problems in infancy, so it was not possible to say that her subsequent failure to develop normal language was due solely to her experience of deprivation.

Suderman et al. (2014)

Aim: demonstrated that adults who had suffered childhood abuse were more likely to show methylation in their DNA compared to a control group. Results: In particular, the study showed that there was increased methylation of the gene PM20D1 in the sample who had suffered abuse. This supported previous research that links this gene with childhood abuse and increased obesity as an adult. Conclusion: This finding, therefore, shows how an environmental trigger like abuse can contribute to switching off a gene which contributes in some way to a person's food intake. The precise causal factors in these observed links between eating behaviour, methylation and abuse are however difficult to determine and further research is needed.

Draganski et al (2004)

Aim: investigated whether after learning a new motor skill, there would be both structural and functional changes in the brain. Procedure: The researchers used MRI scans to determine if changes occurred in the brains of people learning to juggle over a span of three months. The participants had their brains scanned three times: before learning to juggle, after three months of learning to juggle, and three months after they had ceased juggling. These scans were compared to a control group of non-jugglers. Results: Whilst there was no difference in brain structure between the two groups after the first scan, the second scan, at three months, showed that the group of jugglers had two areas of the brain that were significantly different in size to the control group. This difference became smaller after three months of no juggling, at the third scan. Conclusion: The conclusion was that the action of watching balls in the air and learning to move in response to them strengthened the neuronal connections in the parts of the brain responsible for this activity. However, the differences were temporary and relied on continuing the activity.

Martinez and Kesner (1991)

Aim: to determine the role of ach. on memory Comparative study Rats were trained to go through a maze and reinforced with food. After learning the maze, they were injected with a chemical. Group 1-Scopalamine (drug that blocks release of Ach.) Group 2-Physostigme (drug that increases Ach.) Group 3-Placebo (control) They then ran the maze again. Group 1 was slowest with the most errors, and group 2 was fastest with the least errors.

Hans Van Dongen

Aim: wanted to understand how people were affected when they did not sleep for the recommended 7 to 8 hours per night. He worked with other psychologists to design an experiment to investigate this question (Dongen et al. 2003). Their study compared the effects of total sleep deprivation and severe sleep reduction. Participants:They used an electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure waking and sleeping brain activity of 48 adults. These participants were randomly divided into four groups. Three groups each received either 4, 6 or 8 hours of sleep per night for fourteen nights. The severe sleep deprived group received no sleep at all for 3 nights. Results:The results showed that those receiving only 4 or 6 hours of sleep did not perform cognitive tasks well and their performance worsened over the three weeks of the experiment. The participants did not know that they were performing these thinking tasks poorly and did not report feeling tired or sleepy. Getting 6 hours or fewer of sleep per night for fourteen nights had the same cognitive effect as 2 nights with no sleep, but again the participants were not conscious of this. Conclusion:The researchers concluded that participants were not aware that a lack of sleep reduced their ability to think. Those who are often sleep deprived dismiss advice that they should get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night.

Pedersen et al (2006)

Aim: wanted to understand how the hormone oxytocin influenced mothering behaviour. Participants: They used laboratory rats in their study as they believed animal studies can inform our understanding of human behaviour. They divided rat mothers and their offspring into three groups: one group of rat mothers received a dose of oxytocin; one group received a dose of an oxytocin-antagonist, that reduced oxytocin in the brain; and the control group received salty water. Results: Compared to the control group, the mothers with the reduced oxytocin did not spend as much time grooming their babies and instead spent more time grooming themselves. These mothers did not feed their babies and some mothers even lay onto of their offsprings. The mothers with increased oxytocin spent more time grooming and feeding the babies, compared to the control group. Conclusion: The researchers concluded that oxytocin influences mothering behaviour in rats. They hypothesized that oxytocin has a similar influence on human mother-infant bonding, as it is released during childbirth and breastfeeding.

Mamede et al (2014)

A: Determine whether "educated intuition" led doctors to make more accurate estimations about the survival probabilities of patients compared to more deliberate thought. Type of study: Experiment P: 86 medical experts and 57 novices selected by purposive sampling from internal medicine of academic and non-academic hospitals and from a university medical centre in the Netherlands between April 2009 and May 2011. Pr: The participants were presented with four fictitious medical case histories. The four case histories were presented by computer in the form of statements and clinical test results. Half of the participants were encouraged to engage in conscious thought for four minutes about the patient's life expectancy. The other half were distracted by performing an anagrams task for four minutes. The participants were then asked to estimate the probability that each patient would be alive in 5 years' time. R: There was a significance difference in task performance between novices and experts. There was no significant difference in accuracy between the conscious and unconscious thinking conditions. C: Unconscious, intuitive thought did not lead to better performance compared to deliberate conscious thought.

Tajfel, Billig, Bundy and Flament (1971)

A: The A of the laboratory experiment was to discover the minimum requirements for P to identify themselves as members of a group through the process of social categorization. Their research question was: Can social categorization lead to intergroup behaviour which discriminates against the out-group and favours the in-group? P: Forty-eight 14-15-year-old schoolboys from a British school were the P of the study. They were randomly assigned to members of a "Klee" group or a "Kandinsky" group. (Klee and Kandinsky are abstract painters of the 20th Century). Pr: Though the assignment to the groups was arbitrary, they were told they had been assigned to the group based on their preferences for the art of either painter. The boys had no contact with each other and all personal details were anonymous. Each participant was given a code number. All tasks in the experiment were completed in private.

Simons et al (2014)

A: This study was taking place in Georgia and Iowa and Aed to establish the long-term effects of family and neighbourhood relationships on health and development in African American families. P: who were also taking part in an ongoing longitudinal study called the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS). The P in the FACHS study had already been tested at ages 10.5, 12.5, 15, 18, 20 and 23 years and of the 897 individuals who started the study, 699 were still taking part. R: The R showed that parental behaviour with regard to parenting style and modelling of behaviour had some influence on the style of their children's behaviour in their adult romantic relationships. More specifically, a secure childhood attachment fostered by supportive parenting was correlated with warm and loving behaviour in adult relationships. Conversely, there was some evidence that poor attachment experiences in childhood were correlated with hostility and aggression towards adult partners. It is possible to argue therefore that a romantic relationship could be affected in the formation stage by such hostility and aggression and this could dissuade a potential partner from wanting to continue with the relationship.

Adachi et al (2014)

A: asked Canadian university students to cooperate with a partner playing a violent video game for 12 minutes. P: The P were 154 Canadian undergraduate students at Brock University of which 56% were female with a mean age of 18 years and 9 months (16 suspicious P were excluded, leaving 138). Pr: The 'partner' was either a member from their in-group (same Canadian university) or was an outgroup member (from the University of Buffalo in the USA). The game required P to work together to shoot and kill attacking zombie-like enemies. R: They found that intergroup cooperation with an American participant led to a reduction in prejudice towards students from the University of Buffalo and towards Americans in general (there was no change in attitudes towards ingroup members). Thus, the post-game level of prejudice was significantly reduced compared to the pre-game level after they had worked towards a shared superordinate goal. C: In addition, Adachi et al was also able to demonstrate that discrimination was positively affected after playing cooperatively with the outgroup member in that P would typically decline the opportunity to discriminate against their partner when they were offered the opportunity to administer a negative outcome.

Uhls et al (2014)

A: carried out a field experiment to determine if preteens' ability to recognise non-verbal emotions could be improved by restricting access to digital devices and encouraging more face-to-face interaction. P: The sample consisted of fifty-one preteens who spent five days at an overnight nature camp where television, computers and mobile phones were not allowed; this group was compared with school-based matched controls that retained their access to digital devices. Pr: All P attended a US school. Both groups took pre- and post-tests that required P to infer emotional states from photographs of facial expressions and videotaped scenes with verbal cues removed. In the first test, P were shown 48 pictures of faces that were happy, sad, angry or scared. P were asked to identify the feelings. They also watched videos that depicted scenes typical of student life. They were asked to describe the characters' emotions. R: After five days interacting face-to-face without the use of any screen-based media, preteens' recognition of nonverbal emotion cues improved significantly more than that of the control group for both facial expressions and videotaped scenes. The findings applied equally to both boys and girls. C: The researchers concluded that the short-term effects of more opportunities for social interaction, combined with time away from screen-based media and digital communication tools, may improve a preteen's understanding of nonverbal emotional cues.

Ronay and von Hippel (2010)

A: conducted a field experiment with young male skateboarders. They hypothesized that the presence of a female observer would increase physical risk-taking behaviour. R: They observed that increased risk-taking led to more successes but also to more crash landings in front of a female observer. Later analysis suggests that this increase in risk-taking is caused in part by elevated testosterone levels of men who performed in front of females. C: Ronay and von Hippel argued that men use physical risk taking as a sexual display strategy.

Read and Bentall (2010)

A: conducted a meta-analysis of studies on the efficacy of electroconvulsive therapy [ECT] for the treatment of depression. Pr: Using databases of studies and previously conducted meta-analyses they identified all studies that compared ECT with simulated-ECT [SECT]. (Simulated ECT acted as a placebo.) R: They found that there was minimal support for the effectiveness of ECT compared to simulated ECT. They argued that the cost-benefit analysis for ECT is so poor that its use cannot be scientifically justified. They noted that there was strong evidence of persistent, and for some, permanent retrograde and anterograde amnesia.

Ferrari et al (2003)

A: conducted a study of the literature in order to present a global summary of the prevalence and incidence of MDD, accounting for sources of bias, and dealing with heterogeneity. Pr: They undertook a systematic review of prevalence and incidence of MDD by searching electronic databases like Medline, PsycINFO and EMBASE. R: suggested that there were over 298 million cases of MDD globally at any point in time in 2010, with the highest proportion of cases occurring between 25 and 34 years of age. Prevalence was very similar across time (4.4% in 1990, 4.4% in 2005 and 2010), but higher in females (5.5%) compared to males (3.2%) in 2010.

Small et al (2009)

A: conducted a study to see if internet searching can stimulate brain activity in middle-aged and older adults. P: Twenty-four adults (age 55-76 years) were divided into two groups based on their experience with computers and the internet: one group had extensive experience and the other minimal. Pr: Each group performed two different tasks: in one task, they used the computer to read a book, using the keyboard for simple tasks like advancing the page. In the second task P used Google to research a particular topic. As they performed these tasks, a functional MRI (fMRI) recorded their brain activity. The P with minimal digital experience showed the same levels of activation for both tasks. R: The R for the P with more extensive computer and internet experience showed no difference in brain activation in the reading task compared to the P with little experience. When these P were engaged in an internet search, higher levels of activation in the parts of the brain associated with complex reasoning and decision-making were recorded. C: Small and Moody concluded that though the findings needed to be interpreted with caution, internet searching may engage more neural circuitry than just reading but only in people with prior computer and internet search experience. For middle-aged and older adults prior experience may alter the brain's responsiveness in neural circuits controlling decision-making and complex reasoning.

Duman and Aghajanian (2012)

A: conducted research into the changes in the neurons and in the synaptic gap during MDD. Pr: They conducted a meta-analysis of clinical studies that demonstrate that depression is associated with reduced size in brain regions that regulate mood and cognition, including the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, and decreased neuronal synapses in these areas. Antidepressants can block or reverse these neuronal deficits, but typical antidepressants have limited efficacy and delayed response times of weeks to months. R: They comment that a notable recent discovery shows that ketamine produces rapid (within hours) antidepressant responses in patients who are resistant to typical antidepressants. Basic studies show that ketamine rapidly induces synaptic gap action and reverses the synaptic deficits caused by chronic stress.

Clarke et al (1999)

A: examined the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for depressed adolescents. Pr: Adolescents with major depression (N = 123) were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 eight-week conditions: adolescent group CBT (16 two-hour sessions); adolescent group CBT with a separate parent group; or control on a waiting list. Subsequently, P completing the CBT groups were randomly reassigned to 1 of 3 conditions for the 24-month follow-up period: assessments every 4 months with extra ("booster") CBT sessions; assessments only every 4 months; or assessments only every 12 months. R: The CBT groups yielded higher major depression recovery rates (66.7%) than the control (48.1%), and greater reduction in self-reported depression. Outcomes for the adolescent-only and adolescent + parent conditions were not significantly different. Rates of recurrence during the 2-year follow-up were lower than those found with treated adult depression. The booster sessions did not reduce the rate of recurrence in the follow-up period but appeared to accelerate recovery among P who were still depressed at the end of the acute phase.

Baumeister, Chesner, Senders, and Tice (1988)

A: hypothesised that leaders experience more prosocial behaviours than ordinary group members. P: They provided male and female P (N = 32) with the cover story that they were allocated to a four-person group and one group member was randomly assigned to act as the leader. The task of the group was to decide which survivors of a nuclear war should be allowed to join the group in its bomb shelter. While the assistants/followers could make recommendations, the leader had to make the final decision. Pr: P were tested individually, and the group discussion was simulated over an intercom system. The independent variable was whether the individual participant was told that they were a leader or a follower. During the discussion, each participant was exposed to a simulated emergency, when the voice of a male group member faltered and said, "somebody come help me, I'm choking!'. He then had a coughing fit and went silent. The dependent variable was the response to the request for help from the male. R: the designated leaders were much more likely to help. In fact, 80 % of the leaders helped and only 35 % of the followers did so. C: acting as a leader can bring a generalised responsibility that goes beyond the immediate requirements of the task and can increase the likelihood of engaging in the prosocial behaviour.

Brown and Kulik (1977)

A: investigate whether shocking events are recalled more vividly and accurately than other events. P: Questionnaires asked 80 participants to recall circumstances where they had learned of shocking events R: emotionally shocking events were remembered well, researchers thought this was because of increased physiological arousal (amygdala)

Burr (2002)

A: investigated how cultural stereotypes of women from South Asian communities affected mental health care professionals' explanations for patterns of suicide and depression. P: Burr noted that low rates of treated depression and high rates of suicide in women from some South Asian communities are evident in data from the UK. Burr argued that explanations for these apparent differences are likely to be located in stereotypes of "repressive" South Asian cultures. Pr: She conducted qualitative research using focus groups and individual interviews to determine if there were cultural stereotypes about South Asian communities. P were mental health carers from a UK inner city area of relatively high social deprivation. Focus group interviews were conducted with a range of mental health care professionals who worked in both inpatient and outpatient mental health care services. In addition, individual interviews were conducted with consultant psychiatrists and general medical doctors. C: Analysis of data from the interviews suggests that health carers held cultural stereotypes. The South Asian culture was perceived as repressive, patriarchal (patriarchal = dominated by males) and inferior to a western cultural ideal. Burr contended that these stereotypes have the potential to misdirect diagnosis.

Manago et al. (2012)

A: investigated how using Facebook impacted life satisfaction and perceived availability of social support. P: They designed an online survey for eighty-eight undergraduate students from an American university with a diverse ethnic population. The ages of the 67 female and 21 male students ranged from 18 years to 28 years. Ethnic make-up was 36% Asian/Southeast Asian American, 27% European American, 19% Latino American, 8% Middle Eastern American, 2% Pacific Islander American, and 8% mixed ethnicities combining Asian, European, and African ancestries. Pr: P answered questions about how often they used Facebook and how many friends they had. Questions also focused on status updates to determine their frequency, their nature and how many of their friends they estimated viewed these updates. For 20 of their friends, the P were asked how they would classify the friendship (e.g. acquaintance, family member, etc.), how often they communicated with that friend on Facebook, and whether they saw that friend in person. P also responded to psychological tests designed to measure life satisfaction, self-esteem and perceived availability of social support. R: R showed a correlation between larger Facebook networks and audiences for status updates and life satisfaction and perceived availability of social support. There was no correlation between the number of close contacts and life satisfaction and perceived availability of social support. C: The researchers argued that personal disclosures on Facebook were being used by students as a way of building a sense of intimacy with others which resulted in a greater sense of connection with friends. The researcher concluded that emerging adults are adapting psychologically to social network site tools.

Hamilton and Rose (1980)

A: investigated illusory correlations in the maintenance of social stereotypes in three experiments with P: 73 male and 77 female high school and undergraduate students and adults. Procedure: In the first experiment, participants read sets of sentences that described different occupations with pairs of adjectives. For example doctors (thoughtful, wealthy), and salesmen (enthusiastic, talkative). Other non-stereotypical traits were including such as boring, clever, demanding and courteous. In the second experiment, the trait adjectives were either consistent with stereotypic beliefs about one of the occupational groups or unrelated to the group's stereotype; in the third study, traits were either inconsistent with or unrelated to a group's stereotype. Participants estimated how frequently each of the trait adjectives had described members of each of the occupational groups. Each study revealed systematic biases in the participants' judgments so that the perceived correlation between traits and occupations was more congruent (congruent = similar to or in agreement with something) with existing stereotypical beliefs than the actual correlation. C: Findings indicate a cognitive bias in the processing of new information about social groups that are influenced by existing stereotypes.

Schwnek et al (2010)

A: investigated the concerning prevalence of depression and suicidal thoughts among medical students, a group that may experience poor mental health care due to stigmatization. P: The study was conducted in 2009, covering all students enrolled at the University of Michigan Medical School. A little more than 65% participated in the survey—505 students out of 769 enrolled. Their A was to examine the perceptions of depressed and non-depressed medical students regarding the stigma associated with depression. R: Outcomes of the study revealed that 14.3% of the students were identified as having moderate to severe depression, higher than the 10-12% range found in the population at large. The R also revealed that 53.3% of medical students who reported high levels of depressive symptoms were worried that revealing their illness would be risky. Almost 62% of the same students said asking for help would mean their coping skills were inadequate.

Lovell and Lee (2011)

A: investigated the effect bullying had on the emotional and physical health of both the victim and a witness to the bullying. P: P were employed by a company in Canada. The method used was a longitudinal case study comprising semi-structured interviews conducted over a period of two years. Pr: The interviews were transcribed, analysed, and arranged in chronological order. The researchers concluded that the victim felt targeted because they represented a threat to the bully. The victim and witness both experienced negative health outcomes. C: The researchers suggested that wellness programmes should place greater emphasis on mental health and discourage workplace bullying.

Mendel et al. (2011)

A: investigated the process of diagnosis to determine how prone mental health professionals are to confirmation bias. Pr: They observed that errors can have tremendous consequences with one wrong decision leading to others. P: A decision task was given to 75 psychiatrists and 75 medical students. R: They found that 13% of psychiatrists and 25% of medical students showed confirmation bias when searching for new information after having made a preliminary diagnosis. A significant number of P were less likely to change their original diagnosis after searching for conformity information than those who searched for information that challenged the original diagnosis. C: that confirmatory information search carries with it the risk of wrong diagnostic decisions. Psychiatrists should be aware of confirmation bias and instructed in techniques to reduce bias.

Hill et al. (2008)

A: investigated the role of confirmation bias in interviewing a suspect to a crime. They designed a study to examine whether an expectation of guilt on the part of the interviewer influenced their behaviour. P: Sixty-one undergraduate students were asked to make up questions they wanted to ask a person suspected of cheating. Pr: Before they wrote their questions they were lead to believe that the suspect was either guilty or innocent. R: Those participants who had heard that the suspect was guilty formulated more questions that presumed the suspect was guilty than presumed the suspect was innocent. C: These results indicate that expectations of guilt can have an effect on questioning style.

Asch (1995)

A: laboratory study Aed to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could influence a person to conform. P: An opportunity sample of 123 male college students of approximately the same age took part in the study. Pr: P were told they were participating in a vision test. Asch created a line judgement task where a vertical target line was presented on one card and the second card with three vertical lines was shown. P were asked to choose the comparison line on the second card which was most like the target line. The answer was always obvious. The naïve participant was put in a room with six confederates (people working with the experimenter) who had already been told by Asch what their answers would be in each trial - correct or incorrect. Each person was required to state their choice out loud, with the participant always being the last but one to speak. 18 trials were conducted. 12 of these trials were "critical trials" where the confederates gave the wrong answer. A control group was simply asked to write down their answers for the comparison line. The IV was whether all confederates stated the number of the correct line or all confederates state the number of the incorrect line. The DV was whether the comparison line chosen matched or did not match the confederates' responses. (The number of times each participant conformed to the majority view). R: Asch found that approximately one third (32%) of the P conformed to the incorrect confederates in a majority of the trials. Approximately 75% conformed to the incorrect confederates in at least one trial. Approximately 25% of the P never conform at all. Approximately 98% of the control group responded with the correct answer. C: Asch concluded that peer pressure to conform has a powerful influence on behaviour.

Cohen (1981)

A: performed an experiment to determine whether stereotypes can affect people's memories. Pr: P were told that the woman in a video they watched was either a waitress or librarian. When P were asked to recall details about the video, they remembered information more consistent with the commonly accepted stereotypes of these two careers. R: The P who thought the woman in the video was a librarian were more likely to remember she wore glasses, and those who thought she was a waitress were more likely to remember her drinking alcohol. C: Cohen concluded that stereotypes can affect the type of information we focus on and what information we remember.

Angel and Thoits (1987)

A: show how cognitive interpretations of symptoms vary between different cultures, and affect the reporting and subsequent diagnosis of mental disorders. Pr: they describe three stages of illness definition: pre-symptom (when emotional changes are noticed), labelling, and course of action. It is at these last two stages that reporting bias can be observed.

Rosenhan's famous 1973

A: study Aed to determine whether the sane can be distinguished from the insane and if the salient characteristics that lead to diagnosis reside within the patients themselves or within the environments and contexts in which observers find them. P: The P were the staff and the patients of twelve psychiatric hospitals in a variety of US states. Prs: Eight pseudopatients (pseudopatients = not real), including Rosenhan, attempted to gain admittance to 12 psychiatric hospitals in a variety of states by calling the hospital for an appointment and then complaining they had been hearing voices saying "thud", "empty" and "hollow". In four of the hospitals, the pseudopatients carried out an observation of the behaviour of staff towards patients that illustrated the experience of being hospitalised on a psychiatric ward. The pseudopatients approached a staff member with a request, which took the following form: "Pardon me, Mr/Mrs/Dr X, could you tell me when I will be presented at the staff meeting?" or "Can you tell me when I am likely to be discharged?" C: This study revealed that the diagnostic process is prone to errors. The diagnosis appears not to depend on the sanity or insanity of the patients themselves but on where they find themselves. Once labelled with schizophrenia, it was impossible for the pseudopatients to rid themselves of this label. The label profoundly affects the way others regarded them and treated them. Rosenhan concluded that once a person is designated as abnormal, that diagnosis colours all other perceptions of that person and his/her behaviour. The pseudopatients' normal behaviour was overlooked or misinterpreted. A psychiatric label has a life and influence of its own. The behaviour of the patients was attributed to their own pathology, not to the routines and restrictions of hospital life or the way they were treated by staff. Even note taking was seen as a symptom of a psychiatric disorder.

Neisser and Harsch (1992)

A: test FM for accuracy P: 106 psychology students asked to write about how they heard news of "Challenger spacecraft disaster," asked specific questions about it: done 24 hours after and 2.5 yrs later again by 44 of them F: 1 day after, 215 said they saw it on TV, 2.5 yrs later, 45% said they saw it on TV C: memories deteriorated over time, suggests FBM aren't reliable, say that FBM may just be ordinary memories E: may not have been a significant event, only psych students, but naturalistic, lots of uncontrollable variables

Konijn et al. (2007)

A: tested the hypothesis that violent video games are especially likely to increase aggression when players identify with violent game characters. P: 112 Dutch adolescent boys with low education ability were randomly assigned to play a realistic or fantasy violent or nonviolent video game. Pr: Next, they competed with an ostensible partner (seemingly a true partner, but in reality, a confederate who was employed by Konijn to act in a certain way) on a reaction time task in which the winner could blast the loser with loud noise through headphones (the aggression measure). P were told that high noise levels could cause permanent hearing damage. Habitual video game exposure, trait aggressiveness, and sensation seeking were controlled for. R: As expected, the most aggressive P were those who played a violent game and wished they were like a violent character in that game. These P used noise levels loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage to their partners, even though their partners had not provoked them. C: These R suggest that identifying with violent video game characters makes players more aggressive. Players were especially likely to identify with violent characters in realistic games and in games in which they felt immersed.

Blacker, Curby, Klobusicky and Chein (2014)

A: theorised that video games could expand the capacity of VWM. Of interest were action video games as they provide the player with a complex and changing visual environment in which accurate visual memories often decide the player's success or failure in the game. The hypothesis of the experiment was that exposure to games with rich visual environments over an extensive period would enhance VWM performance compared to games that did not involve rich visual environments. P: Thirty-nine male undergraduates with a mean age of 20 were randomly assigned to an action game group or control group. Pr: The action game group played video games like "Call of Duty", while the control group played games like "Sims". Both groups played their games for one hour per day for 30 days. R: After training, the P' VWM was tested. Individuals who played on an action game showed significant improvement on measures of VWM capacity compared with those who played the control game. C: The investigators concluded that exposure to rich visual environments over an extensive period is a distinctive form of training that may allow individuals to extend the capacity of VWM.

Darley and Batson (1973)

A: to identify the effects of cognitive busy-ness on helping behaviour. P: were asked to present a talk to a group of people in another building. Pr: The independent variable was the degree of cognitive busy-ness. This was manipulated by telling one-third of the P that they had adequate time to reach the other building. Another third were told that they were right on schedule and had just enough time to get to the building. The other third were told that they were late for the speaking engagement. As they walked to the other building where the participant was supposed to give a talk, a stranger (actually a research assistant) was slumped in a doorway, coughing and groaning. The dependent variable was the number of P that helped within each group. R: the degree of prosocial behaviour decreased with increases in cognitive busy-ness (or time pressure), whereby those who thought they were late helped the least. C: factor influencing bystander behaviour was when the individual failed to notice an emergency because they were preoccupied with other concerns, they are relatively less likely to attend to events in their surroundings and so are less likely to help a person in need.

Rueter and Koerner (2008)

A: to investigate whether negative family communication patterns would have a more adverse effect on adopted children than biological children in terms of their social adjustment. P: 592 families from the Minnesota area in the USA who were already taking part in a longitudinal study on how siblings influenced drug and alcohol use. The families consisted of two parents, a target adolescent (the child would be investigated in Rueter and Koerner's study) and a younger sibling. In 35% of the families, both children were biologically related to the parents, in 17% of the families the target adolescent was adopted and in 48% of the families, both children were adopted Pr: Each family underwent a range of tests in a laboratory-based setting including a 5 minute taped video of the family's interactions, surveys and interviews. In 69% of the families, a teacher at the target adolescent's school rated the adolescent's behaviour at school. Two of the main measures in the study were conversation orientation and conformity orientation. Conversation orientation is a measure of spontaneous interactions within a family and, according to Rueter and Koerner, helps to establish a shared social reality. Conformity orientation is a measure of how far attitudes are shared within a family. These attitudes are usually influenced by parental authority figures to create the social reality within a family. R: hat target adolescents (biological and adopted) were more likely to be well-adjusted if their families regularly used conversation and conformity. However, adopted target adolescents were more vulnerable to being less well-adjusted compared to biological target adolescents if the families were high in conformity, i.e., very protective, or low in both of these measures, i.e., laissez-faire families. These R suggest that positive family communication helps both adopted and biological children but adopted children are more adversely affected by negative family communication than biological children. According to Koerner and Floyd (2010), these R suggest that biologically-related family members are more likely to shared similar inherited thinking patterns than non-biologically related members so conversation is less important in establishing a shared social reality. This is why biological children are more resilient to negative family communication. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense because inherited thinking patterns serve to cement the family group thus helping to ensure their survival.

Chekroud, Everett, Bridge, and Hewstone (2014)

A: to provide a narrative review of the literature investigating the link between the amygdala and prejudice and discrimination (a narrative review summarises key findings and Cs from a selection of topic-relevant papers. R: They argue that culturally based stereotypes linking black males with more negative behaviours (e.g., violence and criminality) may also explain the observed pattern of amygdala activity. Thus, our amygdala (which is involved in the flight or fight response), may become activated when presented with outgroup members because of fear or threat to the individual.

Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961)

A: to test if children will imitate aggression modelled by an adult and, if so, to examine if children were more likely to imitate same-sex models. Pr: This was a laboratory experiment. The IV was the aggression of the model and the DV was the observed aggressive behaviour of the participant. An opportunity sample used 36 girls and 36 boys from the nursery of an American university from an age group ranging from 3 years to 6 years, with the average age being 4 years and 4 months. The children were matched for their level of physical and verbal aggression and aggression towards objects. Each child in Condition 1 was exposed for about 10 minutes to a model showing physical and verbal aggression towards an inflatable Bobo doll. Children in Condition 2 were exposed for a similar period to a non-aggressive model who assembled toys. Children in the control group did not see any model. All the children were then taken individually to play in a room full of toys. After a short while, the child was told that the toys were for other children and not for them. The child was then taken to a third room filled with toys, including a Bobo doll. The child was allowed to play in this room for 20 minutes while the researchers observed the children from behind a one-way mirror. Measures were taken of physical and verbal aggression that imitated the earlier model. Researchers also measured the child's non-imitative aggressive behaviour. C: The researchers concluded that children exposed to aggressive behaviour imitated the same aggression physically and verbally. This indicated the role of observational learning. P exposed to the non-aggressive model and those in the control group did not demonstrate these aggressive behaviours.

Leder and Forgraz (2004)

Aim: conducted research into the obstacles and learning environment of mature students in Australian universities. Procedure: Although the study used a wide range of methods to investigate their aims, the first part of the study involved the use of a large-scale survey given to undergraduates enrolled in mathematics courses at five Australian universities. Participants: Ultimately, a sample of 815 students completed the survey of whom 61% were male, 12% were mature students and 37% were from a non-English speaking background. The survey consisted of both open and closed questions hence there was the opportunity to gather quantitative data from the closed questions. Closed questions assessing mood and perceptions of the learning environment were included in the survey questions. Results: Analysis of the results indicated that mature students from overseas were more likely to feel lonely, were less likely to have the security of a support network and were less familiar with the processes of the academic environment than local mature students. Conclusion: The authors, therefore, concluded that more active support networks and information services would be beneficial to overseas mature students in helping them cope with university study.

Darley and Latané (1968)

A: to test the diffusion of responsibility hypothesis by creating an emergency. Pr: They were asked to discuss their personal experiences and problems in starting university. The P were also told that to maintain their privacy they would be asked to talk openly about their experiences in a private booth using a microphone. They were told that each person in the discussion group could talk for 2 minutes and then next participant would have an opportunity to talk for 2 minutes and so on. Independent Variable: (number of people believed to be in the discussion). In condition 1, the P were told that they were in a group with only one other person; those in condition 2 believed there would be two other people in adjoining booths; while those in condition 3 were told that there were 5 other people participating in the discussion. In reality, the participant was alone and all the other voices they heard through the intercom were recorded. Dependent Variables: were the number and speed of the P who left their cubicle to get help. R: revealed that all of the P in Group 1 went for help within four minutes while only 85% of Group 2 and 60% of Group 3 did so within the four-minute period. Concluded: that they had demonstrated support for their diffusion of responsibility hypothesis: as the number of other 'bystanders' increased, the percentage who reported the seizure quickly decreased.

Levine, Norenzayan, and Philnrick (2001)

A: to understand differences in altruism in different cities around the world. Pr: The researchers measured many variables (such as population in the cities, religious influence, the degree of individualism and collectivism) to assess different cultural influences affect prosocial behaviour. This field research used three different situations to measure the spontaneous assistance offered by strangers. The three situations were: A pedestrian drops a pen on the street without noticing A pedestrian wearing a leg brace drops some magazines A blind pedestrian with a cane waits at traffic lights for assistance to cross the street. C: In closing, helping behaviour can be influenced by our genetics (kin selection theory), emotions (empathy-altruism theory) and our social environment (social cognitive theory and cross-cultural differences).

Fox (2006)

A: to understand how the availability heuristic (or in this case the unavailability of information) influences judgments about the quality of university courses. P: In this field experiment, 64 business students at an American college completed a mid-course evaluation form. Pr: They were randomly assigned to two conditions. Half of the participants were asked to list two ways the course could be improved before they provided an overall rating for the course from 1 to 7 with 7 being the highest. The other participants were asked to list 10 ways the course could be improved before they gave their overall evaluation. R: The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the mean score of 4.92 for the group asked to list two improvements and the mean score of 5.52 for the group asked to list 10 improvements. Fox explained this paradoxically (paradoxically = not what is expected) in terms of the availability heuristic. When participants struggled to think of 10 ways to improve the course they misinterpreted the difficulty of recalling problems with the course as evidence that there were not so many problems after all.

Wang and Mallinckrodt (2006)

A: to understand the process of assimilation. P: A sample of 54 (52%) women and 50 (48%) men were recruited to complete an internet survey. All were students at an American college. Pr: P answered three sets of survey questions to determine how they formed adult attachments, their attitudes toward their home culture (Chinese) and attitudes toward the host culture (American) and degree of difficulty that respondents encountered in everyday social situations because of cultural differences. R: suggested that attachment anxiety was negatively associated with students' acculturation to U.S. culture, and that attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, and acculturation to U.S. culture were significant predictors for students' psychosocial adjustment. C: that those who avoided social relationships and experienced anxiety about social relationships would not assimilate well and would experience more stress. Those who assimilated to the host culture while maintaining their identification with their home country would not experience stress.

Grant & Gino (2010)

A: to understand the role of gratitude as a motivator in prosocial behaviour. P: sixty-nine university students to edit a student's cover letter for a job application. Pr: P in the neutral condition than received email feedback (allegedly) from the student after this task that stated: "Dear [name], I just wanted to let you know that I received your feedback on my cover letter. I was wondering if you could help with a second cover letter I prepared and give me feedback on it. The cover letter is attached. Can you send me some comments in the next 3 days? (p. 948)". In the gratitude condition the P received a very similar letter with the addition of gratitude, this email read: "Dear [name], I just wanted to let you know that I received your feedback on my cover letter. Thank you so much! I am really grateful. I was wondering if you could help with a second cover letter I prepared and give me feedback on it. The cover letter is attached. Can you send me some comments in the next 3 days? (p. 948)". R: They found that the percentage of P helping to edit the second letter was significantly larger in the gratitude condition (23/35, 66%) than in the neutral condition (11/34, 32%). In other words, having received an expression of gratitude is one factor that influences prosocial behaviour. In addition to this, they discovered that the reason 'why' people respond positively to expressions of gratitude is because it affects their social worth. The subsequent studies found that people are more likely to help other people beyond the individual who expressed the gratitude.

Carrier and Kabbaj (2012)

Aim: discovered that a specific pathway in the hippocampus, the brain region involved in memory formation and control of stress responses, plays a major role in how testosterone, the main male sex hormone, affects men. Compared to men, women are twice as likely to suffer from an affective disorder like depression but men with hypogonadism, a condition where the body produces no or little testosterone, also suffer increased levels of depression and anxiety. Testosterone replacement therapy has been shown to effectively improve mood in these men. Procedure: To investigate further the process involved in this, the researchers performed many experiments on neutered adult male rats. The rats developed depressive-like behaviours that were then reversed with testosterone replacement. Results: During this research, they identified a molecular pathway in the hippocampus, whose correct functioning was necessary for the antidepressant effects of testosterone to occur. They argued that this pathway may be an area of the brain to target with antidepressant drug treatment.

Moore and Barker (2012)

A: undertook qualitative research to understand how the experiences of TCI affected their cultural identity and to examine the benefits and detriments from their experiences abroad. TCI P were recruited through snowball sampling and all had spent at least 3 years of their developmental years (age 6-18) outside of their passport country. P: Six nationalities and 23 countries of residence, including all continents, were represented in this study. The sample consisted of 11 females and 8 males, 18-44 years old, who resided in their passport country or another host country. Six of the P were children of missionaries, twelve were children of business employees, and one was a diplomat's child. Pr: The P were interviewed using a semi-structured approach and the data analysed for themes. The study employed a qualitative data collection method known as life story interviewing to capture the lived experience of P from their own descriptions or stories. R: indicated that TCIs are more apt to possess multiple cultural identities or a multicultural identity, rather than a confused cultural identity. The majority of TCIs in the study described themselves as having a blended cultural identity or multiple cultural identities that they shift between. Many P believed their intercultural experiences enhanced their childhood and enriched their lives as adults. C: The main benefits of the TCI lifestyle articulated by these TCIs include adaptability, cultural awareness, fluency in multiple languages, and open-mindedness. Whereas some have a sense of belonging to one or several countries, others do not feel that they belong in any particular country. Additionally, R suggest that while they lack a clear sense of belonging, they are competent intercultural communicators and perceive their experiences as mainly beneficial.

Phillips et al (2001)

A: wanted to determine if stress was a factor in cardiac mortality (death from heart attack or heart disease). They focused on cultures that believed particular days were "unlucky" on the assumption that these days would be more stressful. For example, Chinese and Japanese consider the number 4 unlucky. They hypothesized that cardiac mortality among these groups would be higher around the 4th day of each month compared to the same day of the month for Americans. Pr: The researchers examined cardiac and non-cardiac mortality on and around the fourth of each month in 209,908 Chinese and Japanese P and compared this with the mortality rates of 47,328,762 American control P in the US between 1973 and 1998. R: They found that cardiac mortality in Chinese and Japanese P peaked on the fourth of the month. The control group, matched on age, sex, marital status, hospital status, location, and cause of death, showed no similar peak in cardiac mortality. C: The researchers concluded that cardiac mortality increases on psychologically stressful occasions.

Tierney et al (2001)

Aim: To evaluate, using PET scans, the bilingual language compensation following early childhood brain damage Background: 37 year old man (known as MA) with normal speech functions who was participating in a normal speech study It was discovered that he had a lesion in his left frontal lobe Probably as a result of encephalitis he suffered at the age of 6 weeks He had no significant long-term, clinically consequences Both his parents were deaf and he used sign language at home from a very young age. Researchers were curious to know if this might have had something to do with his ability to speak despite the brain damage (that should have prevented him from doing so. Methods: Researchers compared MA to 12 control participants, who were fluent in sign language PET scanning technologies were used while the participants produced narrative speech or signs Results: MA's right hemisphere was more active than the controls' during the production of both speech and sign language Conclusion: Language function seems to have developed in the right hemisphere instead of the left hemisphere as an adaptation following his early brain damage Connection of study to outcome Tierney utilised PET scans to investigate the cognitive processes of language and observe the areas of the brain (biological factor) that activated while MA produced language (cognitive process). The ongoing activity in the brain would not be able to be seen using other technologies such as EEGs or MRIs

Petanjaek et al (2011)

Aim: The researchers aimed to determine the extent of neural pruning during puberty and early adolescence. Procedure: They conducted a post mortem examination of brain tissue using the Golgi method of dendritic spine detection. (See here for an explanation of this type of procedure.) Participants: There were 32 subjects (9 females and 23 males) ranging in age from 1 week to 91 years old. All subjects lived under standard environmental and socioeconomic conditions. The brains were collected with the approval of the Ethical Committee of the University of Zagreb. The brains were examined by Golgi staining of prefrontal brain tissue followed by quantitative analysis to determine dendrite density. Results: The results showed that density increased significantly during infancy and reached its peak during childhood. Density diminished during late childhood and adolescence. Dendrite density stabilised around 30 years and remained constant between 38 to 65 years. Conclusion: The researchers concluded that plasticity of the frontal cortex continues into adulthood and provides the opportunity to acquire higher order cognitive abilities though there is a higher risk of abnormal circuitry that can be expressed in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Wedekind et al. (1995)

Aim: conducted a study into the influence of pheromones on human adults. Participants & Procedure: In this study, 44 male students were asked to wear the same t-shirt during two consecutive nights. The t-shirt was kept in a plastic bag between the two nights and the men were asked to remain as odour-neutral as possible by avoiding sexual activity, smoking, and the use of strongly perfumed products and foods that produced strong odours. The day after the men had worn their t-shirt for the second night, 49 female students were each asked to rate six t-shirts for pleasantness and odour intensity. Prior to the study, all male and female participants had been classified in terms of their immune system similarity via a specialised blood test. Results: Wedekind et al. discovered that women consistently preferred the smell of men whose immune systems were different from their own but only if they were not on the contraceptive pill. These results suggest that sweat contains a pheromone or pheromones that can influence preference. Women using the pill preferred odours of men with similar immune systems, indicating that pill use might disrupt adaptive preference for dissimilarity. Conclusion: Wedekind et al. speculated that this reflected a hormonally-induced shift owing to the pregnancy-mimicking effect of the pill, leading to increased association with kin who could assist in childcare.

Walderhaug et al. (2007)

Aim: conducted a study on healthy participants using a technique called acute tryptophan depletion, which decreases serotonin levels in the brain. Results: The study showed that men exhibited more impulsive behaviour as a result of the serotonin depletion but the technique did not alter their mood. Women, on the other hand, reported how their mood worsened and they also showed signs of more cautious behaviour, a response that is linked with depressive behaviour. This means that women and men appear to respond differently to neurochemical changes. Conclusion: It is already known from a significant amount of research in this field that reduced serotonin transmission contributes to the functional changes in the brain associated with a major depressive disorder (MDD) and this study, therefore, reinforces such findings. Furthermore, in the female participants, it was shown that the tryptophan depletion affected a region of the SLC6A4 gene, a gene which influences the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) in the synapse.

Miranda et al (2002)

Aim: conducted a study to evaluate the effectiveness of a programme for treating attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) carried out by teachers in a classroom context. Procedure: One of the methods used was direct observation of behaviour in the classroom. Participants: Fifty children with ADHD participated in the study. The teachers of 29 of the 50 students were trained in ways to reduce the symptoms of ADHD. The other 21 students formed the control group, and their teachers had no special training. Results: The results showed that increased academic scores and better classroom behaviour were observed in the group of children with trained teachers due to the teachers' improved knowledge about how to respond to the children's educational needs.

Talarico and Rubin (2003)

Aim: conducted a study to investigate FBM theory. Participants: On September 12th, 2001, 54 university students recorded their memory of first hearing about the terrorist attacks of September 11th in New York and also for their memory of a recent everyday event. Procedure: This is the first study into flashbulb memory that has used the memory of an everyday event as a control. Participants have interviewed again either one, six, or thirty-two weeks later. Consistency for the flashbulb and everyday memories did not differ, in both cases declining over time. Results: However, self-ratings of vividness, recollection, and belief in the accuracy of memory declined only for everyday memories. Initial emotion ratings correlated with a later belief in the accuracy, but not consistency, for these flashbulb memories. Initial emotional ratings also predicted later posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. The researchers concluded that flashbulb memories are not special in their accuracy, as previously claimed, but only in their perceived accuracy. Conclusion: In summary, the current view of FBT is that emotions enhance the vividness of the memory and confidence in the reliability of that memory. The true question is not why flashbulb memories are so accurate because they are not, but why people are so confident for so long in the accuracy of their flashbulb memories.

Schulze & Angermeyer (2003)

Aim: experiences of stigma by schizophrenic patients, their relatives and mental health professionals. Procedure: The research was carried out in Germany in four different towns and 12 focus group interviews in total were conducted, 3 at each centre. Participants: The focus groups consisted of either patents or relatives or mental health professionals, i.e., the participants were not mixed in the focus groups. All of the patients had received an ICD-10 diagnosis of schizophrenia and were out-patients during the period of the study. Relatives of the patients were contacted to see if they wanted to take part. The professionals' group considered a wide range of participants including psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses. The patient groups were asked to discuss what had changed in their lives since their diagnosis and the relatives and professional groups were asked to discuss how they viewed the situation of the patients. The interviews were video- and audio-recorded. Results: The main themes that emerged from the focus group interviews were that stigma was experienced at an interpersonal level, at a social structural level, via negative public images and in terms of employment. Conclusion: The authors concluded that stigma surrounding schizophrenia should be tackled at these four levels and offered some strategies for doing so.

Roberts et al (2008)

Aim: followed up on Wedekind's findings and tested directly whether taking a contraceptive pill altered odour preferences. Procedure: The procedure for the male participants mirrored that of Wedekind et al. and all participants undertook blood tests to assess immune system similarity. This study, however, used a longitudinal design with the females being divided into two groups. The first group of women were tested before and after using the contraceptive pill, whilst the second group of women formed a control group (no contraceptive pill use) but attended the testing sessions in comparable intervals to the contraceptive use group.

Pilliavin et al (1969)

Aim: interested in why people do/don't offer help to a stranger in need Participants: Took place in NY underground. 450 men and women participated as they travelled on subway trains during 11-3 on weekdays from 4/15-6/26 1968 Procedure: IV = type of victim; ethnicity of the victim; size of the bystander of the group and the presence or absence of a model. DV= speed of helping, frequency of helping and ethnicity of helper. Results: 136 trials, a confederate staggered forward and collapsed shortly after boarding a subway. He remained motionless on the floor. After a fixed time, another confederate acted as a model if no one else offered help. They were all males, 26-35. 3 = caucasian, 1=African American. Some trials they pretended to be drunk. Found that an ill person is more likely to receive assistance than a drunk person. Men were more likely to help and people tended to help more often to similar race. Conclusion: Researchers developed an Arousal: Cost-Reward model to interpret what their findings. Model argue that when people see an emergency they feel upset. Motivated to act to reduce this unpleasant arousal. People then weigh the costs of helping vs not helping.

Lam et al. (2012)

Aim: investigated the link between how much time parents spent with their children and the children's self-esteem. They were also interested if a birth order had any impact on how much time parents spend with their children. Participants: They focused on children and teenagers aged between eight and 18. Mothers, fathers, first-born and second-born children from 188 white families participated. Procedure: These participants were interviewed at home or by phone. Results: The researcher found that social time between parents and their children declined across adolescence. Second-born children's social time decreased more slowly than firstborn children's. Conclusion: They found that youths who spent more one-on-one time with their fathers, on average, had higher overall self-esteem scores.

Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

Aim: investigated whether it was possible to implant a false childhood memory in an adult. This memory was of being lost in a shopping mall. Participants: Twenty-four participants (3 men and 21 women) ranging in age from 18 to 53 completed the study. A booklet containing descriptions of childhood incidents was prepared. Three of these were descriptions provided by relatives and they were of real events. The fourth story was a false but plausible (plausible = believable) description of a trip to a shopping mall. In this story the child became lost. Procedure: Participants were told that they were taking part in a study on childhood memories and that the researchers were interested in how and why people remembered some things and not others. The participants were told that the four incidents in the booklets were provided by their relatives. They were asked to read the booklets and write what they remembered of each event. If they did not remember the event, they were told to write "I do not remember this." Results: The researchers found that 7 of the 24 participants 'remembered' the false event, either fully or partially. While two participants changed their minds, 5 participants out of 24 were convinced that they were lost in a shopping mall as a child.

Santtila et al (2008)

Aim: researched same-sex attraction and homosexuality in a large-scale study in Participants: Finland of 6001 female twins and 3152 male twins and found a concordance rate of over 50% for the measure of "potential for homosexual response" amongst identical (monozygotic) twins of either sex. Results: In addition, there was a concordance rate of 38% for male identical twins and 59% for female identical twins for overt homosexual behaviour, compared with very much lower rates for non-identical (dizygotic twins). Conclusion: The researchers, therefore, argued for a genetic role in determining behaviour, though this was still a fairly weak concordance rate and suggests an equally strong role for environmental factors.

Rutten et al (2007)

Aim: to assess how far organized youth sport was an influential factor in antisocial and prosocial behaviour. Participants: Using samples of adolescent soccer players and swimmers aged between 12 and 18 years of age from 10 sports clubs in the Netherlands, the researchers used a variety of methods to assess prosocial and antisocial behaviour. Procedure: These included two semi-structured interviews, the first of which was the Sociomoral Reflection Measure, a test designed to measure sociomoral reasoning competence. The second semi-structured interview was designed by Rutten et al to measure participant scores on fair play orientation. Conclusion: The use of these interviews and other measures of prosocial and antisocial behaviour led to the conclusion that young athletes with high sociomoral reasoning skills were more likely to be prosocial.

Pai and Kapur's (1981)

Aim: to construct a suitable interview technique to assess the burden placed on relatives of psychiatric outpatients at a clinic in India. Participants: The initial phase in this study involved conducting an unstructured interview with one relative of each of the 40 patients attending the clinic. Procedure: The purpose of this phase was to identify different categories of burden. Some of the categories identified included financial burdens and family routine burdens. Results: This categorisation was ultimately used for reliability and validity testing to devise an interview schedule that could be used in semi-structured interviews assessing burden levels across different settings and in different psychiatric illnesses.

Raine, Buchsbaum and Lacasse (1997)

Aim: used a quasi-experiment in which the aim was to detect whether murderers who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) exhibited brain dysfunction compared to a sex-matched and age-matched group of non-offenders. Participants: undertook a continuous performance task which was designed to be cognitively challenging for 32 minutes after which they underwent the PET scan. Results: It was found that murderers showed differences in brain activity compared to the controls in various brain regions. For example, the murderers showed reduced activity in the left amygdala. Conclusion: Given that research has shown the amygdala may play a role in aggression, Raine et al. speculated that an abnormality in this area could be related to the willingness to commit homicide in this group.

Bronzaft and McCarthy (1975)

Aim: were interested in the importance of quiet environments and whether noise makes learning more difficult. Participants: They located a New York City elementary school built close to an elevated train line. The train, which passed at regular intervals throughout the day, ran close by one side of the school building but not the other. Procedure: Teachers were assigned to classrooms and children to teachers in a somewhat random way at the start of each school year. This allocation of students to classes resulted in a strong natural experiment involving a treatment group of students on the noisy side of the school and a comparison group on the quiet side. Results: The researchers found that the mean reading scores of classes on the noisy side tended to lag three to four months (based on a 10-month school year) behind their quiet side. Conclusion: Educational officials used the study to justify the implementation of noise reduction initiatives.

Ineke Imbo and Jo-Anne LeFevre (2009)

Aim:They investigated how different cultural groups used their memories when adding, subtracting and multiplying. Participants:Sixty-five participants were selected for the study and they came from three different cultures living in Canada: Flemish-speaking Belgians, English-speaking Canadians, and Chinese-speaking Chinese. Procedure: Participants solved problems in a number of conditions. The problems were presented either horizontally or vertically. Some problems were easy, others were hard. In one condition, letter strings of four consonants (e.g. TKXL) had to be recalled after solving four maths problems. Results: One of their findings was that the Chinese participants were faster at solving problems than the Belgians, who were faster and more accurate than the Canadians. Conclusion: They concluded that these cultural differences in problem-solving were caused by differences in how participants were taught in elementary school.

Howarth (2002)

Focus groups Aim: to study how teenaged girls in Brixton describe and evaluate themselves, to see if it supports the SIT. Method: conducted focus group interviews with teenaged girls in Brixton. Results: the girls had a positive view of being from Brixton. This was different from what people living outside of Brixton said about people living in Brixton. Conclusion: can be seen as an example of creating a positive social identity based on group belonging. Evaluation: ❤️supports the SIT. ?gender biased--generalisation issues.

Sherif et al (1961)

P: Twenty 12-year-old boys at camp took part in the study which was in the form of a field experiment. Pr: Prior to the study, they were randomly assigned to one of two groups (the Rattlers and the Eagles) but at this stage, they were taken to the camp with their assigned group members but they were not aware that there was another group until a week later. When they were finally introduced to the other group, feelings of hostility arose as each felt the other was invading their territory. Over the next 4-6 days, competition between the groups was encouraged through a range of competitive activities and situations. For example, Sherif et al. arranged team games such as baseball and tug-of-war with prizes for the winners but none for the losers. Social situations were also manipulated such as the arrangement of a meal where the groups were left alone. Eventually, conflict arose between the groups and food was thrown around the mess hall. Ultimately, as the end of the 6 days approached, the situation escalated with acts becoming increasingly more aggressive. At one stage the boys even had to be physically separated. The social situation was then manipulated by the researchers once more to investigate whether cooperation between the groups could be instigated at this stage. To do this, Sherif et al. introduced tasks in which the groups had to work together to achieve a common goal (a superordinate goal in Sherif et al.'s terminology). One of these tasks was to fix a broken water supply system. Although this was set up by the researchers to appear faulty, the boys did not know this and therefore they became concerned that they would have to go without water, a situation that would be detrimental to both groups. Consequently, the friction between the groups reduced as they worked to repair the water supply.

Kaspersky Lab (2015)

P: conducted an internet survey of 6,000 consumers aged from 16 to over 55. Males and females were equally represented, with 1,000 participants from each of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Benelux. Pr: Participants were asked to recall important telephone numbers. They were also asked how and where they stored information they located online. R: An analysis of their data found that: More than half of adult consumers could recall their home phone number, 53% of parents could recall their children's phone numbers and 51% their work phone number. One in three participants reported they were happy to forget or risk forgetting information they can find - or find again - online. 36% of participants reported that they would turn to the internet before trying to remember information. 24% reported they would forget an online fact as soon as they had used it. The results were consistent across male and female respondents but higher rates of amnesia were prevalent in older age groups. C: The overall conclusion of the study was that connected devices enrich lives but they can result in digital amnesia.

Stephanou (2012)

P: recruited a sample of 386 undergraduate and postgraduate students (aged 18-25 years) from a range of six Greek universities (176 male, 210 female). The length of their current relationship ranged from six months to 3.5 years. Pr: To measure the students' attributional behaviour, Stephanou used the Causal Dimension Scale II, a well-tested questionnaire designed by McAuley et al. (1992) for this purpose. Before completing the scale, the P rated their satisfaction with their current relationship by completing four questions on a scale of 1-7 so that the researchers could categorise the students' relationships in terms of whether they were 'good' or 'bad'. The Causal Dimension Scale II scale was then completed by P in their university departments. R: students in good relationships, they tended to attribute the success of the relationship to internal factors both within themselves and within their partner. These internal factors included good communication, understanding, honesty and love. In contrast, the students who perceived themselves as being part of a bad relationship demonstrated external attributions such as lack of control of the situation and blaming their partner's behaviour. These findings have implications for communication within romantic relationships because partners in positive relationships who have an internal attributional style are likely to communicate more effectively with each other in general compared to those in negative relationships with external attributional styles.

Boksem et al (2013)

P: used 54 female P in a double-blind Pr. Pr: Half the P were given a placebo solution and half given a testosterone solution to drink prior to undertaking a game based on investment judgements involving money. This was called a 'trust' game and had been developed previously by Berg et al. (1995). Each participant played with an anonymous partner. In one condition, the partner was the 'trustee'. The participant (or 'investor') was given $30 and had the opportunity to invest a portion or all of the money with the trustee. Whatever the amount that was invested, this was tripled to $90 by the trustee and then the trustee decided how much to give back to the participant. P also played the role of the investor with the consequence therefore that they could keep the full $90 should they wish to. R: showed that when P were investors, they were more likely to be antisocial if they were in the testosterone group because they saw the trustee as a threat to their financial resources. However, what was surprising was that when P were trustees, they were more likely to be prosocial if they were in the testosterone group. C: The researchers suggested that when a person is in a high-status position (trustee), higher testosterone increases cooperation in situations where no threat is perceived, in this case to the trustee's financial position. We can see therefore that higher testosterone levels are not always associated with negative outcomes and can, in fact, promote cooperative prosocial behaviour.

Toi and Batson (1982)

Task: Subjects asked to evaluate tapes of new radio program. Listen to interview with student whose legs were broken and is falling behind on Psych 101 classwork. Experimenter gives subject envelope with letters from professor and student asking if they might be willing to help the student. IV 1: Before listening, subjects asked to (A) try to imagine student's situation or (B) listen objectively IV 2: Told that student was (A) in their 101 section or (B) in another section DV: Percentage of subjects agreeing to help student.

Deneua, Yanagita and Seevers (1969)

Procedure: carried out an experiment in which a large group of monkeys and rats were trained to inject themselves with an assortment of drugs, including morphine, alcohol, codeine, cocaine, and amphetamines. The point of the experiment was simply to understand the effects of addiction and drug use. Once the animals were capable of self-injecting, they were left to their own devices with a large supply of each drug. Results: The animals were very disturbed and some tried so hard to escape that they broke their arms in the process. The monkeys taking cocaine suffered convulsions and in some cases tore off their own fingers (possible as a consequence of hallucinations). One monkey taking amphetamines tore all of the fur from his arm and abdomen, and in the case of cocaine and morphine combined, the death of the animal would occur within two weeks. The public protests that greeted experiments like these were instrumental in changing the guidelines for experimenting on animals.

Berger et al. (2011)

Procedure: trained rats to learn a task, pressing one lever after another to receive water. In a series of tests, the rats pressed one lever and were then distracted. They had to remember which one they'd already pressed and therefore which lever to press next in order to receive the water. Then the researchers attached electrodes to the rats' brains and these were connected to two areas in the hippocampus, called CA1 and CA3. The team recorded the signals between these regions as the rats performed their tasks. They then drugged the rats so that the hippocampal regions could not communicate. The rats subsequently forgot which lever to press next. Finally, the researchers made an artificial hippocampus which worked like the real one and implanted it in the rats' brains. Even when drugged, so that their own hippocampus was not working, the rats could remember by using the connections of the artificial hippocampus instead. Results: Although this is a long way from being tested in humans, the research shows that if there is enough information about the neural coding of memories, the signal patterns can be recorded and duplicated, and restored later through a neural implant. This could be useful for people with mild dementia, helping them with simple functional memories and keeping them independent for longer.

Petrova et al (2007)

This study wanted to compare the rate of foot-in-the-door phenomenon between individualist and collectivist cultures. It found that participants from collectivist cultures were less susceptible to foot-in-the-door technique, possibly because those from individualist cultures care more about their self-image as "someone who helps" than collectivist cultures.

Sorokowska et al (2017)

conducted a study to compare preferred interpersonal distances from a wide range of countries. A: The team of researchers also Aed determine if factors other than cultural norms influenced this behaviour. Type of Study: Survey of 8,943 P from 42 countries. P were volunteers. Ages ranged from 17-88, with a mean of age of 39. There were 4,013 men and 4,887 women in the sample. Hypothesis 1: That there would be significant variability in preferred interpersonal distances across countries when approaching a stranger (i.e., social distance), an acquaintance (i.e., personal distance), or a close person (i.e., intimate distance") Hypothesis 2: That gender and age would influence the preferences P would have for interpersonal distance, with women and younger people maintaining closer interpersonal distances. Hypothesis 3: That some environmental and psychological factors could predict variability of interpersonal distance across countries. Lower population growth rate, higher ingroup favouritism, would be associated with closer interpersonal distance preferences and closer interpersonal distances would be seen in cultures of higher temperature. Prs: P completed a questionnaire consisting of demographic questions (age, sex) and three graphic questions concerning their preferred interpersonal distance. Three separate categories of preferred interpersonal distances were measured—distance to (a) a stranger, (b) an acquaintance, and (c) a close person. Main R: Mean comparisons showed significant variability in interpersonal distance across countries for different social interactions. The higher the annual temperature of a country, the closer was the preferred distance to strangers. Women on average preferred to maintain greater distance with acquaintances and strangers and older P also preferred greater distance. C: Individual characteristics (age and gender), as well as cultural norms associated with various regions, influence interpersonal space preferences and that some variation in R can be explained by the climatic temperature of given region

Liechti et al (2000)

investigated the psychological effects of ketanserin, a serotonin antagonist. Aim: The researchers aimed to understand if ketanserin could mitigate the effects of the drug MDMA ("Ecstasy"). Participants: MDMA releases serotonin and dopamine and produces enhanced mood with increased sense of well-being and extroversion, and slight perceptual changes. Fourteen volunteers (13 men, 1 woman) with a mean age of 26 years (range 21-41) took part in the double-blind placebo-controlled repeated measures design study. All volunteers provided informed consent and the study was approved by an ethics committee. Participants were debriefed. Procedure: Subjective effects experienced by the participants were rated by psychometric rating scales such as the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory the Altered State of Consciousness rating scale. Results: The results showed that Ketanserin reduced MDMA-induced perceptual changes, emotional excitation, and acute adverse responses but had little effect on MDMA-induced positive mood, well-being or extroversion. Conclusion: The investigators concluded that administering the antagonist ketanserin significantly reduced MDMA-induced perceptual changes, emotional excitation, and acute adverse effects, while having little effect on positive basic mood and well-being.

Carré et al. (2017)

lso noted that research into the link between aggression and testosterone levels has produced inconsistent results over the last few decades. Aim: In the study, the authors aimed to find out whether aspects of personality would affect aggressive responses to a game. Participants: Male participants were divided into two groups, where one group received a placebo and one group an injection of testosterone. Procedure: All of the participants underwent a decision-making game that was designed to assess aggression after social provocation within the game by a partner (actually the computer). Measures of personality with regard to dominance and impulsivity traits were assessed using questionnaires. Results: The researchers found that an increase in testosterone levels alone was not enough to provoke aggression. Conclusion: Only those men who had received additional testosterone and had scored highly in dominance and impulsivity exhibited higher aggression than the control group and the rest of the testosterone group not showing these personality characteristics.

Sanchez-Burks & Nisbet (2000)

theorised that Latins' (Mexicans and Mexican-Americans) strong interpersonal orientation would influence their preference for work groups. Type of study: An independent measures experiment. Hypothesis: Latins would evaluate task + interpersonal workgroups more favourably than would Anglo-Americans, and Anglo-Americans would evaluate task workgroups more favourably than would Latins. Recommendations by Mexicans for improvements to the performance of work groups would favour socioemotional aspects. P: Two groups were recruited by volunteer sampling. 110 Mexican university students (52 men, 58 women) and 108 American students (57 men, 51 women) who identified themselves as either "White" or "Anglo-American." Prs: P viewed one of two 4-minute videotapes of language tutoring sessions that were either task orientated or a mix of task orientation and socioemotional components. (The socioemotional session included such interactions as a hand shake, small talk and a discussion about a movie). One video depicted Mexicans the other Anglo-Americans. P then filled out a questionnaire that measured their evaluation of the tutoring sessions' effectiveness and made suggestions for improvement. R: Both groups rated the task orientated session more favourably but Mexican rated the task workgroup less favourably than did the Anglo-Americans. The ratings of both groups were not affected by the ethnicity of the people depicted in the video. When asked to analyse what might improve the tutoring, Mexicans emphasized socioemotional considerations more than did Anglo-Americans. Both Mexicans and Anglo-Americans made the same recommendations whether they believed the groups were composed of Anglo-Americans or of Mexicans. Cs: For Anglo-Americans, task success seems dependent on minimizing socioemotional concerns, whereas for Latins, socioemotional aspects underpin efficiency and success.