Psychology Paper 1 Combined
AO1 Bullying
- 1/5 of UK students bullied in 2019 - 29% of headteachers in England reported bullying at least once a week in their school - Linked to suicide and mental health issue - Leads to issues in the workplace - Can oppress free speech
Milgram's findings
- 100% obedience up to 300V - 65% obedience up to 450V - Participants showed signs of distress, such as sweating and trembling
Tafel experiment 2 (1971) findings
- Boys favoured maximising the profit for the in-group - Wanted to create a larger difference as possible - Categorising people into groups leads to discrimination.
Sherif et al. stage 1 findings
- Boys in each group formed their own 'norms' and rules. - Called themselves the 'rattlers' and the 'eagles' - Formations of 'us' and 'them' attitudes - Demanded competitions
Disadvantages of animal lab studies
- Generalisation may not be justified - Pain may not be justified - Guidelines may not be effective
Episodic and Semantic Memory Strengths
- Godden and Baddeley's scuba diver research suggests and supports episodic memory's retrieval is cued. - Patient C.C. progress supports semantic memory can be influenced less
Strengths of content analysis
- Good for summarizing large quantities of mediated information - Unobtrusive- Does not require interaction with participants - Systematically study historical events/media
Bandura Validity
- Good internal validity; lab experiment, well controlled - Low ecological validity, not natural setting - Low population validity, only 3-6 y/o - Bobo doll's purpose is for punching
Bandura Application
- Helps put watershed on TV - Age requires on films - Explains importance of good role model
Disadvantages of CAT scans
- High radiation - No information about activity
Weaknesses of thematic analysis
- Highly subjective data as it requires interpretation, so unscientific - Open to researcher bias, not very reliable
Tajfel et al evaluation points
- Lab experiment so high control - Cause and effect established - Lacked ecological validity, not an everyday task - Easy to replicate - Demand characteristics, as thought in terms of teams and competition
Baddeley (1966b) generalisability
- Lab research, not generalisable to everyday context - Volunteer sample, motivation, may of been good at tests - Both genders - 72 participants but then only 18 per group
Disadvantages of covert observations
- Lack of consent - Invasion of privacy
Burger (2009) validity
- Lacks ecological validity, artificial task - Participants paid in advance, so no cost/benefit for them - Huge presumptions that those who went to 150V would of gone to 450V
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil Validity
- Lacks ecological validity, artificial test - Participants matched to task, no learning disabilities - Lacks mundane realism, not everyday use of memory
Advantages of field experiments
- feels more natural - participants not always aware of being studied, avoids demand characteristics
Advantages of lab experiments
- high control, minimises extraneous variables - easy replication
Disadvantages of field experiments
- less control, reduces validity - more time consuming - may be ethical issues, e.g. consent
Advantages of a mean
- most sensitive, uses all values
disadvantages of correlational research
- no cause and effect - intervening variables, leading to false conclusions - Reliability of a variable may be poor
Advantages of a median
- not affected by extreme values
Disadvantages of a median
- not as sensitive as mean - not used for interval data
Disadvantages of a mode
- not useful where there are many modes
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil's method
- part one sample had a list of digits read aloud, one per second - Each time the participants record the list in order, one more digit was added -Digit span equals greatest number of digits recalled correctly - this data is then compared with part two sample's secondary data
Two types of defence mechanisms
Displacement and reaction formation
Hofling et al 1966
Doctor calls a nurse and gives wrong medication order, observer stopped nurse actually administering medication. 21/22 nurses prepared to give medication.
Bandura (1961) conclusion
Social learning theory was demonstrated in the study because the children showed signs of observational learning. Imitation more likely when observer and model are of same sex.
Milgram variation 7
Telephonic instructions, given over phone by experimenter
In-group favouritism
Tendency for group members to see individuals in their group as unique and different and in a favourable light.
Negative out-group bias
Tendency to view members of the out-group as all the same and in an unfavourable light.
Palambo et al 2012 study
Tested 598 participants with a likert scale. Those who had low semantic memory also had low episodic memory. You either have good or bad memory.
How does presence of buffers affect obedience?
The presence of buffers between participants and victim increased obedience.
Flooding
a treatment for phobias in which clients are exposed repeatedly and intensively to a feared object and made to see that it is actually harmless. Learn to associate object with lack of emotion rather than fear.
double-blind procedure
an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo.
Phobia
anxiety that is related to a specific situation or object
Extraneous variables
any variable other than the independent variable that seem likely to influence the dependent variable.
social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1972)
the idea that ingroups consist of individuals who perceive themselves to be members of the same social category and experience pride through their group membership
Median
the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it
Cognitive Pratical Improvements
- Used a more varied set of participants - Included more males as was female dominated
Baddeley (1966b) ethics
No significant ethical issues, some deception as participants didn't know all the study's aims.
Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory Strengths
- Bower et al (1979) supports schema theory with statistics - Explains why eye witness testimonies often vary - Explains false memories
Sherif et al. stage 2
- 2 groups brought together - Took part in a tournament - Boys-rated activities e.g. tug of war and basketball - Researcher-judged activities e.g. cabin inspections and treasure hunt - Each individual group member can contribute to group points - Both groups subjected to orchestrated situations blamed on other group - Stereotypes, behaviours and attitudes noted - Self reports on who the boys were friends with
Bandura reliability
- 2 observers; therefore inter-rater reliability - Aggressiveness controlled, ratings given by teachers - Observers didn't know what groups children were in so no bias
Burger 2009 experiment 2
- 2 teachers; 1 confederate and 1 participants - At 70V, confederate hesitates - At 90V, teacher 1 stops - Teacher 2 prompted to continue
Sherif et al. participants
- 22 boys (age 11+12) - Middle class protestant families - Never met before study - Divided into equally matched groups based on info from parents and teachers
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil's sample 2
- 25 older healthy participants - 25 participants with alzheimers - 9 frontotemporal dementia patients - Secondary data
Biological key question AO1
- 30% of domestic violence occurs at start of pregnancy - 7% of people think it's okay to be violent if a partner is cheating - Catley & Claydon checked the outcome of 84 appeals in England and Wales which presented neuroscientific evidence Only 22 of the appeals were successful
Capafons (1988) Procedure
- 47 adults with fear of flying - Matched pairs - Fear assessed; anxiety scales and psychological measurements - Volunteer sampling - Randomly assigned - Treatment: - 12-15hr sessions - In vivo and in vitro techniques - Taught breathing techniques, muscle relaxation and visual techniques
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil's Sample 1
- 570 volunteers - 5-17 y/o - Spanish - Primary data
Burger 2009 experiment 2 results
- 63% went to 150V - 6 males went to 150V and 13 females went to 150V
Bandura (1965) procedure
- 66 participants; 3-6 y/o - 3 conditions; - Model rewarded; chocolate and drink - Model punished; adult scolded and spanked with magazine - No consequence condition
Bandura (1961) Procedure
- 72 children, aged 3-6 y/o from Stanford University Nursery - DV: level of aggression displayed - IV: model of aggression (modelling type, gender + same/different sex) - Ratings of children aggression done before hand - Matched participants - Aggression group- Punching and Kicking bobo doll - Non-aggressive group- model assembles toy - Control group- no model 1- Children secretly observed while playing with toys 2- Children taken to new room with new toys, they couldn't plat with so leads to frustration 3- Children taken to room with Bobo doll and observed
Key Issue Learning AO1
- 91% of American kids play violent video games - 50% of top 40 video games contain violence - 2017-2018: 4,500 knife and weapon offences committed by children in UK - more than 400 studies revealed a significant link between exposure to violent media and aggressive behaviour
Disadvantages of the range
- Affected by extreme values - Doesn't reflect distribution
Systematic Desensitisation Appropriateness
- Aims to change the association bond between anxiety and phobic object so only appropriate if phobia was learned through classical conditioning. - Assumes if phobia can be learned it can be unlearned
Tafel experiment 1 (1971) findings
- All groups showed significant favouritism towards the in-group - More likely to give a bigger reward to a member of the in-group - Putting people into groups is sufficient enough for people to discriminate in favour of their group
Cialdini et al. (1976)
- Analysed US University football scores and looked at clothing worn after a big game. - Interviewed people after a big game. - Found people more likely to wear a shirt after the game if they had won. - Called team 'us' if won and 'they' if lost
Burger (2009) ethics
- Approved by University's ethic panel - Stopped at 150V - Experimenter was clinical psychologist so could stop if participant was disturbed - Deceived participants of study's aims
Noradrenaline
- Associated with emotion, particularly mood control - Involved in functions, such as sleeping, dreaming and learning
Seretonin
- Associated with mood control - Limbic system - Involved in feeling pain, sleep and hunger
Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory Shortcomings
- Barlett War of Ghosts study had poor methodology with little relevance to everyday use of memory - Barlett had no scoring system to measure change - Doesn't explain how memory is reconstructed
Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory Evidence
- Barlett, War of Ghosts, participants changed unfamiliar phrases to phrases used within their culture, to make more sense to them. - Bower et al (1979), found that their was considerate agreement when participants were asked questions, 73% mentioned sitting down
Disadvantages of Opportunity Sampling
- Biased because only drawn from a part of the target population - Refusal means it becomes a volunteer sample
How could an experimenter impact research?
- Biased interpretation of research - Demand characteristics - Hawthorne effect
What does a hypothesis need to contain?
- Both conditions of IV - DV - Word 'significant' - Difference, relationship or association
Tafel experiment 2 (1971) procedure
- Boys shown slide of 12 paintings by 2 artists - Told to rate paintings (didn't know who painted them) - Boys preferences scored and randomly assigned to a group - Boys told what group they're in - Given opportunity to give cash rewards to different subjects via matrices, all anonymously. - One row for in-group and one row for out-group - Boys could choose; maximum joint profit, maximum in-group profit, maximum difference.
Raine (1997) conclusion
- Brain scans showed dysfunctions in a real linked in previous research to violence such as prefrontal cortex. - Impaired functioning in areas of brain such as thalamus linked to violent behaviour. - Dysfunction in single brain area cannot explain violent behaviour but most likely networks of interacting brain areas. - Create a predisposition to violence that is only expressed when conditions are right.
Burger (2009) application
- Can be used to increase obedience in schools, workplaces and prisons
Advantages of Cross-cultural research
- Can study nature vs nurture - Takes psychology beyond middle-class behaviour
Why are individual differences a limited explanation for prejudice?
- Cannot explain how whole societies and cultures become prejudiced. - Can't explain how prejudiced attitudes develop over a relatively short time period.
Watson and Rayner (1920) validity
- Careful controls; e.g. Waston hid when making loud noise as to not be associated with it and Albert's reactions tested before conditioning. - Lacks ecological validity, away from familiar environment - Construct validity; fits with the theory of classical conditioning
Bandura (1963) results
- Cartoon had highest mean aggression at 99 and control group had lowest mean aggression at 54 - Nearly 2x more aggressive if shown aggressive behaviour. - Boys showed more physical and non-imitative aggression - Boys who watched male model, had more gunplay than those who watched females. - Sex appropriateness of behaviour displayed.
Amygdala
- Centre for emotions - integrates internal and external stimuli causing us to react to the environment. - We stimulate the amygdala using an electrical current. - If removed, animal would be passive
Dopamine
- Chemical precursors to noradrenaline, therefore similar functions - Related to emotion, cognitive function, posture and movement control
Key Issue Learning Impact
- Child to parent violent offences - Everyone in society affected by violence - Reducing aggressive behaviour in schools, improves education - Nicolás Cruz gunned down 17 people at a high school in Florida, aged 19 and played up to 15hrs of violent video games each day.
Bandura (1961) results
- Children who witnessed aggressive behaviour, imitated. - Children who witnessed non-aggressive behaviour were less aggressive and 70% not at all. - Children in aggression group showed more non-imitative aggression - Boys more likely to imitate physical aggression
Elliot (reported in 1980)
- Class of 3rd grade pupils divided by eye colour - 1st week told blue eyes were superior - 2nd week told brown eyes were superior - Looked at different performance measures - 'Superior' group performed better academically
Social Learning Theory Alternative
- Classical and operant conditioning, we learn through direct experience
Multistore memory model evidence
- Clive Wearing supports existence of different stores and info needs to be rehearsed to be passed onto LTM - Glanzer and Cunitz primacy and recency effect supports existence of LTM and STM
Advantages of Volunteer Sampling
- Committed participants - Specialised group
Systematic Desensitisation Ethics
- Compared to medication, less/no side effects - If relaxation doesn't work, situation may be exagerrated - But patients can remove themselves in uncomfortable - more ethical than flooding - Prolonged stress
Agency theory measurements of concepts
- Concepts of autonomy and agency theory - Agency is a state of mind we switch to when given an order by an authority figure. Can't be directly measured
Diane Baumrind criticism of Milgram
- Concerned for welfare of participants as stress deliberately caused - Didn't stop anxiety inducing conditions as many experiments - Participants caused embarrassment at debrief - Deceived about study's aims
Advantages of animal lab studies
- Conditioning processes are the same in all animals - Fewer ethical issues - Easier to study complex behaviours over generations
Baddeley (1966b) Reliability
- Conducted in a control laboratory environment with a standardised procedure - Therefore, replicable and reliable - Could use slides instead as some participants may have hearing issues
BPS 1993 guidelines
- Consent - Deception - Debriefing - Withdrawal - Confidentiality - Protection of participants - Observational research - Giving advice - Colleagues
Advantages of adoption studies
- Controls extraneous variables of environment - Twin studies have been shown to overestimate genetics
Advantages of matched pairs
- Controls participant variables - Avoids order effect - Less chance of demand characteristics
Advantages of repeated measures
- Controls participant variables - Fewer participants needed
Advantages of Opportunity Sampling
- Convenient and quick - Only option if can't list whole population
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil Application
- Could aid teaching in primary schools - Helps us understand development of phonological loop in children
Brendgen et al. (2005) participants
- From Quebec newborn twin studies all born between November 1995-July 1998 - 234 twins used in data - Mix of same sex pairs and mixed pairs
Central executives storage capacity
No storage capacity, limited
HCPC Guidelines 2009
- Criminal convictions must be revealed and character reference required - If health affects judgement, should be declared - Standards of proficiency - Standards of conduct, performance and ethics; confidentiality maintained - Standards for continual professional development - Standards of education and training; have BPS qualification in area of practice - Standards for prescribing
Brendgen et al. (2005) method
- Data gathered at 5,18, 30, 40 and 60 months old - Age 6 data focused on - Data consisted of 2 ratings of each twins behaviour - Teacher ratings; social and physical aggression on 3 point scale (never, often, sometimes) - Peer ratings; gathered for the twins level of social and physical aggression. Given photos of classmates and told to circle photos of three children who best fit description.
Method of thematic analysis
- Deductive - Researcher starts with pre-set themes - Usually generated by previous research/studies - Researcher usually wants to see whether the aim of the data are consistent with the previous theoretical standpoint
Disadvantages of overt observation
- Demand characteristics
Milgram Application
- Demonstrates how obedience and authority works could be used in schools, prisons and workplaces - Findings linked to My Lai Massacre, 800 inhabitants killed by US soldiers in Vietnam
Ego
- Develops afterwards - Reality principle - Norms and rules of society begin to be learnt - Some knowledge of when to be aggressive - Nurture - E.g. I can't
Superego
- Develops around 3-5 y/o - Morality principle - Child develops a conscience and sense of what is right - Controls urge for aggression - Nurture - e.g. I shouldn't
Disadvantages of Open Questions Questionnaire
- Difficult to draw conclusions - Subjective intepretation
Weaknesses for psychodynamic theory
- Difficult to falsify, cannot be tested to be wrong. - For example, the view that all men have repressed homosexual tendencies cannot be tested.
Agency theory individual differences
- Doesn't explain why some obey and others do not - Disobedience can occur for many reasons e.g. personality type - Obedience is more complex process than agency theory
Multistore memory model Weaknesses
- Doesn't refer to how memory relates to areas of the brain - Doesn't provide individual differences - Doesn't show most effective rehearsal methods - Solely, represents nature - Could be used to radicalise individuals
Pavlov (1927) method
- Dog receives food and bell rings - Amount of saliva secreted measured - Repeated several times - Bell sounded with no food - Amount of saliva secreted measured
Advantages of quantitative data
- Easier to analyse - More objective
Advantages of Structured Interviews
- Easily repeated - Easy to analyse - Can answer respondent's questions
Advantages of Closed Questions Questionnaire
- Easy to analyse - More objective
Evidence for the role of hormones on aggression
- Edwards (1968) found that injecting neonatal female rodents with testosterone made them act more aggressively when given testosterone as adults compared to control females. BUT... - rats have different brain structure and aren't capable of higher order thinking - There is evidence that testosterone links to aggression e.g. Mazur (1983) showed a marked increase in inter-male fighting at puberty when testosterone rapidly increases.
Strengths of thematic analysis
- Encourages researcher to derive themes, so achieves better validity - Large data sets, many researchers can apply their interpretation to the data
Episodic and Semantic Memory application
- Episodic, so learn exam info in similar setting to where you will be tested, as jogged by context cues - Semantic, flashcard key facts and keep going over key info
Bandura generalisability
- Ethnocentric; all Californian - Age; all 3-6 y/o still developing - Both genders; representative - Most have educated parents
Disadvantages of fMRI scans
- Expensive - Person has to stay very still - Time lag may cause interpretation difficulities
Things that can affect internal validity
- Experimenter bias - Experimental design - Demand characteristics
Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory Application
- Eye witness testimony, can't be reliable always, as memory can be manipulated - Trauma, information may be lost as to effect individual less - Lie detector test, may not be accurate as they forget
Burger 2009 findings
- Females are slightly more obedient - Similar results to Milgram - Time and societal changes don't affect obedience
Burger (2009) reliability
- Filmed so adds interrupter reliability - Standardised procedure - Replicable
Advantages of Structured observations
- Focus on specific behaviours and test hypothesis - Easier to make conclusions
Advantages of Open Questions Questionnaire
- Free range for self expression, increases validity - Unexpected answers
Process of catharsis
- Freud believes we deal with our aggressive instincts by redirecting them into other activities. - It is a way of 'letting of steam' in a safer way than responding to situations in an aggressive manner.
Strengths for psychodynamic theory
- Freud's explanations reflect the complexity of human behaviour and our experiences, highlights difference between biological explanations and a more complex mind that biology doesn't. - However, much of the interpretations of Freudian treatments are subjective.
Examples of realistic conflict theory
- Hitler and Nazi's playing the Jewish people for a poor economy and high unemployment in Germany - American's blaming Mexicans for high-crime rates, trafficking and poor economy
Advantages of qualitative data
- Holistic approach - Free range for expression
Key question social psychology
- How can social psychology help prevent and explain bullying?
Raine (1997) Application
- If brain defects could be prevented, may stop people developing a murderous predisposition - Early intervention for children with brain injuries or who abuse drugs - Counselling for people with brain defects or drug therapy
ID
- If dominant, may lead to aggression - Primitive, present from birth - Wants immediate gratification - Aggression shown at any point - Nature - e.g. I want
Application for Brendgen et al. (2005)
- If social aggression is linked to environment you can reduce worst affects by using early intervention - Educate parents to be better role models
What were the Burger 2009 participants screened for?
- If they'd studied psychology - Medical questions - Questionnaires - Awareness of Milgram
Bandura (1961) response measures
- Imitation of aggression - Imitative partially - Imitative of non-aggressive behaviour
Sherif et al. stage 1
- In-group tasks requiring cooperation to encourage in-group formation - Two groups of boys kept seperate - At end of stage the boys made aware of each others existence - Researchers observed verbal and non-verbal communication - Sociometric data gathered on how the boys rated each other's popularity
Amphetamines
- Increases dopamine and noradrenaline in the synapse, by reversing uptake process - Forces release of neurotransmitters, blocks reuptake and in high dose can inhibit breakdown by enzymes.
Advantages of meta-analysis
- Increases sample size - Variety of samples
Disadvantages of independent groups
- Individual differences - Needs more participants (time and cost)
Method of grounded theory
- Inductive - Categories/themes that emerge are rounded in the data. - That then creates a theory/explanation
Milgram ethics
- Informed consent; participants deceived it was a memory test - Deception; Participants believed they were real shocks but 83.7% of participants said they were glad to be in experiment and only 1.3% wish they weren't involved - Debriefing; Milgram debriefed participants and also checked on them time after experiment - Right to withdraw; verbal prods pressured them to continue but 35% did withdraw - Protection of participants; Very stressful situation led to visible distress but only short term
GABA
- Inhibitory neurotransmitter - Makes it difficult for messages to be transmitted across synapses - a depressant
Alcohol
- Inhibits neural transmission by increasing action of GABA - Depressant effect
Disadvantages of PET scans
- Interpretation difficulties - Can't pinpoint locations - May damage tissue
Disadvantages of Structured Interviews
- Interviewer bias - Respondents may not reveal information face to face
Phineas Gage
- Iron rod through his skull - 1994 neuroimaging reconstructed his skull and determined he damaged his pre-frontal lobes and caudate nucleus. - Struggled estimating money and emotional problems, like lack of patience
Working Memory Model Strengths
- It can be applied to real life such as reading, problem solving and navigation - Evidence for different STM stores
Shortcomings and Strengths for role of brain structure in developing aggression
- It can be difficult to isolate areas of the brain responsible for aggression. The brain is very complex and so it is hard to measure the impact of connected areas on the development of aggression. - However, scientific methods are used e.g. pet scan to provide an objective measure to areas of the brain which may have some impact on aggression. - The explanation is, however reductionist e.g. it provides simple organic causation for aggression. - That said, it is important to be reductionist as it is difficult to research and theories on all behaviours that lead to aggression.
Application for psychodynamic theory
- It highlights fact that childhood is critical period in development and we are greatly influenced by childhood experiences. - Freud greatly influenced therapies to treat mental disorders. - Used to help people overcome psychological problems
Raine (1997) Validity
- Lacks ecological validity; continuous performance task doesn't cause stress comparable to killing someone BUT... - It would be unethical to create conditions representative of murder Bufkin & Lutrell (2005): - Carried out meta-analysis on 17 studies inc. Raine - Linked impulsivity to defects in prefrontal cortex/amygdala - Adds construct validity - Natural experiment, can't show cause and effect - Very reductionist
Advantages of secondary data
- Large data set - Saves time in design and checking
Generalisability of Brendgen et al. (2005)
- Large sample, 234 twin pairs - So any unusual children would be 'averaged' out - Sample is representative - 2% rate of attrition - Most likely those whose parents saw high levels of aggression - Only looked at ages up to 6 y/o but representative age group as they're going through shift from physical to social aggression - Ethnocentric, only looks at Canadian twins
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil Generalisability
- Large sample, 570 - Part 2 sample only a 59, more females than males - All from Madrid, Spain, so ethnocentric
Working Memory Model Shortcomings
- Lieberman criticised WMM as it implies all spatial information is first visual but blind people have spatial awareness without visual information. - Little direct evidence for central executive - Doesn't include sensory memory and long term memory - Doesn't explain individual differences
Corpus Callosum
- Linked with negativity - Needed for decision making and reactions
Multistore memory model strengths
- Lots of supporting evidence e.g. Glanzer and Cunitz (1968) - Can be used to improve revision and learning methids - Supported by brain damaged patients
Disadvantages of twin studies
- MZ;s treated more similar, may overestimate genetic influence - Can't identify specific genes
Hypothalmus
- Maintains homeostasis through the regulation of hormones, including those that regulate sexual function - Linked to aggressive behaviour in males, via production of testosterone
Bandura ethics
- May be distressed by aggressive behaviour - BPS: 'normalises unhelpful behaviours' - Presumptive consent - No debrief - Benefits outweigh risks?
Capafons (1988) ethics
- May exaggerate anxiety if relaxation techniques don't work - Can cause stress and fear
Disadvantages of Structured observations
- May feel contrived, low ecological validity - Demand characteristics
Disadvantages of standard deviation
- May hide extreme value
Disadvantages of secondary data
- May not exactly fit current aims - May waste time on inappropriate data
Disadvantages of quantitative data
- May restrict expression - Reductionist
Biological key question AO3
- Mazur, 1983, aggression increases at puberty when mating begins. Hence, domestic violence against women. - Brendgen, identical twins may be stereotyped if one behaves in a certain way if its due to nature. - Those with brain injuries may be seen as 'dangerous'
Sherif et al. stage 3 findings
- Mere contact alone didn't reduce hostility - After tasks, noticeable reduction in hostility observed - Significant increase in number of boys who were friends with the 'out-group'
Milgram locus of control analysis
- Milgram asked 118 pots from experiment 1-4 who was responsible for the shocks the learner received. - Disobedient participants were more likely to blame themselves so have internal locus of control. - Obedient participants were more likely to blame the learner so have external locus of control.
Agency theory evidence
- Milgram, 65% went to 450V and obeyed authority figure but only 20% went to maximum shock level when given instructions by ordinary man - Hofling et al 1966, 21/22 nurses followed doctors orders and displaced responsibility onto doctor - Holocaust, Eichmann: 'I was only following orders'
Disadvantages of non-participant observation
- Misinterpretation - May see less
Working Memory Model Application
- Model has been used to understand more about amnesia. - Shallice and Warrington conducted case study of patient 'KF' who had amnesia after brain injury. Had poor STM for auditory info but could process visual info, supporting 2 separate sim stores.
Bandura (1965) findings
- Model punished, significantly less aggression - Model rewarded; more imitation - No consequence; no difference
Disadvantages of Unstructured/Semi-structured Interviews
- More affected by interviews bias - Needs well trained interviewer
Advantages of Unstructured/Semi-structured Interviews
- More detailed information collected - Can reveal unexpected information
Disadvantages of qualitative data
- More difficult to detect patterns - Subjective
Advantages of covert observations
- More naturalistic behaviour
Advantages of standard deviation
- Most precise, uses all values - Just use calculator
Advantages of Stratified Sampling
- Most representative - Select subgroups, reduces extraneous variables
Raine (1997) findings
- Murderers had significantly lower glucose metabolism than controls in lateral + medial prefrontal areas; left angular gyrus; left + right superior parietal areas. - Murders had higher metabolism in occipital lobe, right amygdala, right medial temporal lobe and right thalamus. - Murders had lower glucose in corpus callous, left amygdala, left medial temporal love.
Disadvantages of case studies
- Poor generalisability - Recollection from past - Low objectivity - Ethical issues
Process of synaptic transmission
- Neurotransmitters are made in the axon and stored in vesicles. - Action potentials cause vesicles to fuse to the presynaptic membrane and release their contents into the synaptic gap. - Neurotransmitters is terminated by re-uptake, enzyme deactivation or auto reception. - Released neurotransmitters bind to postsynaptic receptors - If neurotransmitter is not taken up by postsynaptic neurone, it's destroyed by enzymes in the gap.
Advantages of Independent Groups
- No order effect, no fatigue/practice effect - Avoids demand characteristics
Weaknesses of grounded theory
- Not possible to generalise findings as specific time-frame with specific participants. - Impossible to code and categorise data without some theory in mind - Not appropriate to ignore previous research to generate a new model or theory. Original question is likely to come from previous research. - Engaged theory is another idea, focus on generating concepts from data but uses existing theory to help analyse.
What did Blass (1999) find out about culture and obedience?
- Obedience isn't universal - People are less likely to hurt someone they can relate to
Advantages of Ranked Scale Questionnaire
- Objective way to express views - Easy to draw conclusions
Advantages of non-participant observation
- Objectivity - Unobtrusive
Ember and Ember (1992)
- Observed tribal societies - Found warfare was more likely in times of famine and natural disaster - Ecologically valid - Correlative evidence, no cause and effect established.
Disadvantages of participant observation
- Observer bias - Difficult to record behaviour unnoticeably
Disadvantages observing people/animals
- Observer bias - Understanding what people think may be important
Raine (1997) Generalisability
- Only 2 females out of 41 so study was androcentric but it's proportional representation as 45% criminals are male - Study only uses participants from California, ethnocentric - NGRI's not 'usual' offenders, they are too confused to stand trial and typically more violent killers but not always
Capafons (1988) generalisability
- Only adults, therefore cannot be applied to children - Only looks at flying, a specific phobia. Not applicable to social phobias and agoraphobia
Disadvantages of repeated measures
- Order effects, e.g. score improves with practice - May guess aims of the study
Baddeley (1966b) application
- Other cognitive psychologists have built on Baddeley's research and investigated LTM at greater depth - Helped build Working Memory Model - Explains why we can't listen to two things at once e.g. conversation and TV
Burger 2009 experiment 1
- Participant and confederate introduced and given $50, didn't need to return even if they withdrew. - Procedure explained similar to Milgram - Rigged teacher/learner draw - Consent forms signed - Electrodes attached to learner - Learner reveals heart issue - Participant given 15v shock - Learning task begins with same prods as Milgram - 75V prerecorded learner feedback (grunts) - Stops at 150v - Debrief
Disadvantages of longitudinal research
- Participant effects - High drop out rates
Milgram's procedure
- Participant met my experimenter and mr Wallace - Rigged hat draw, so participant is teacher and mr Wallace is the learner - Participant given 45V test shock - Mr Wallace taken to another room and strapped in an electric chair - Paired-associate task given - Every time Mr Wallace gets the wrong answer, the participant gives a shock, increasing 15V each time - Participant given prompts to continue - Stopped at 450V or if participant refuses to carry on - Debrief
Disadvantages of Cross-sectional research
- Participant variables not controlled - Participant effects
Advantages of overt observation
- Participants can give consent - Observer can be noticeable
Episodic and Semantic Memory Evidence
- Patient C.C., had damage to bilateral temporal lobe and both episodic and semantic memory damaged but intelligence still intact. Slowly regained ability to store info semantically - Kent Cochrane, had brain damage and could retain semantic info but not how he was taught it (episodic), suggesting they're separate stores
Brendgen et al. (2005) conclusions
- Physical aggression is mostly explained by nature - Social aggression is explained by nurture - As children grow, they tend to become socially aggressive because of social convections - As young children, they are only able to express aggression physically but as language and cognitive skills develop, so do their abilities to demonstrate aggressive behaviour in new ways.
When is the chi squared test used?
Nominal data and independent measures design
Ethics for Brendgen et al. (2005)
- Presumptive consent given by teachers and parents - Study does get classmates and teachers to judge participants, might have bad impact on friendships and goes against social responsibility - Understanding cause and development of social aggression is for common good and may benefit school children
weaknesses of content analysis
- Purely descriptive method, may not reveal the underlying motives for the observed pattern - Analysis is limited by availability of material, observed trends in media may not be an accurate reflection of reality.
Application for role of brain structure in developing aggression
- Raine also showed that understanding of the brain can be used in justice system, however, individual still has free- will - Raine found prisoners in New Mexico who had structural differences was a predictor for later reoffence, so therefore provide greater support. BUT... - Some may use brain dysfunction as an excuse to commit violent crime
Advantages of case studies
- Rare cases - In-depth data, complex interactions
Opioids
- Reduces GABA activity - Leads to overactivity of dopaminergic neurotransmitters in brain's reward pathways - Feelings of intense pleasure and euphoria
Social Learning Theory Strengths and Shortcomings
- Reductionist; suggests children only imitate behaviour from people but in Bandura 1963, they imitated a cat cartoon's behaviour - Scientific; control groups and lab experiment - Generalisability; Bandura studies only look at children - Empreical evidence; Manipulated, measured and observed - Experimenter bias; study and theory all done by Bandura
Strengths of correlation coefficient
- Relationship between variables can be measured - Large amounts of data can be used
Systematic Desensitisation Praticalness
- Relaxation techniques are fairly easy and can be done in patients own home - But individuals with anxiety and other mental health disorders may not respond to treatment as well
Pavlov (1927) evaluation
- Reliable, consistent and replicable - High internal validity; good control - Low external validity; dogs aren't capable of higher order thinking - Ethics; Dogs in confined space
Home office regulations animals
- Replacement, avoid use of animals - Reduction, minimise number of animals used - Refinement, minimise animal suffering and improve welfare
Sherif et al (1954, 1961) Ethics
- Researchers stopped any 'serious fights' - Boys could withdraw, 2 left in first week - Boys didn't give valid consent - No debrief, boys weren't aware of study - Autonomy not respected - Parents' weren't informed over everything going on e.g. fighting
Disadvantages of Cross-cultural research
- Researches often Westerners - Imposed etics (western methods)
Disadvantages of Ranked Scales Questionnaire
- Response set - Social desirability bias
Disadvantages of Closed Questions Questionnaire
- Restricts self expression - Oversimplifies reality
Advantages of Questionnaires
- Reveal thoughts and feelings - Easy data collection - More anonymous than interview
Advantages of CAT scans
- Reveals structural features
Disadvantages of peer review
- Reviewers may not be impartial - Publication bias
Disadvantages of meta-analysis
- Sample bias - Studies may not be comparable
Classical Conditioning Strengths and Shortcomings
- Scientific research, conducted in labs with good controls. Every step is observable. - However, research isn't very generalisable on animals and children, - Research isn't always ethical and can cause distress to participants or the animals involved are kept in confined spaces.
Operant conditioning strengths and shortcomings
- Scientific; Skinner was controlled lab experiment - Animal research; animals aren't capable of higher order thinking - Ethics; Giving an electric shock to animals
Disadvantages of Stratified Sampling
- Selection of subgroups may be biased - Lengthy process and some may decline
Disadvantages of adoption studies
- Selective placement - Adoptive parents tend to be better educated etc.
War of Ghosts Method
- Serial reproduction - Showed britains a story from unfamiliar Native American culture - asked them to reproduce the story 15 minutes later - Next participant given new version of story -steps two and three repeated
Sherif et al (1954, 1961) Validity
- Several different research methods - Ecological validity, summer cam- - Lacked mundane realism, such as allowing boys to fight - Lacked control group
Sherif et al (1954, 1961) Generalisability
- Sherif screened boys to remove any troubled backgrounds - 22, small sample - Can't be generalised to females, mixed groups or adults - Ethnocentric, to American culture - All white even though at time America was only 50% white
Advantages of PET scans
- Shows brain in action - Can identify specific brain areas linked to behaviours
Advantages of fMRI scans
- Shows brain in action - No radiation, so safer - Clear picture, to the millimetre
Sherif et al (1954, 1961) Application
- Shows common goals reduce hostility so could be used in schools to reduce bullying - Basis for left wing thinking
Advantages of twin studies
- Shows genetic influences - Twin registries can provide large data sets
Advantages of observing people/animals
- Shows what people do instead of saying what they'd do, higher validity
Multistore memory model application
- Use different stimuli when revising - Use both visual and audio at same time - Keep rehearsing to move to LTM and continue to practice recall - Highlight words, as STM only has capacity of 7 1/2 items, so only what goes into STM can go into LTM - Chunk information to remember more
Bandura (1963) method
- Similar method to 1961 - Divided into 4 groups: - Live aggression; adult aggressive towards Bobo doll - Filmed realistic aggression - Cartoon aggression; a black cat - Control; nothing watched - Then placed in room and put in mildly frustrating situation - Children then allowed to play freely in toy room including with Bobo doll and toy weapons and observed.
Milgram validity
- Similar to holocaust where events are unusual and strange - Lacks ecological validity - Some claim demand characteristics - Some participants wrote to Milgram saying they could tell the cries of Mr Wallace were prerecorded - Participants were suspect of the shabby electrodes on chair - At time there was popular US TV programmed called Candid Camera and some participants may have thought it was part of show
Disadvantages of Questionnaires
- Social desirability bias, affects validity - Sample may be biased - Motivation
Shortcomings for the role of evolution in aggression
- Sometimes aggression stems from jealousy, can be attractive to a partner but not too much. - We have evolved a prefrontal cortex so we can resists our jealous impulses. - Irrational jealousy is a s sign of weakness and we have evolved to find it unattractive. - Does not explain cultural differences in aggression, traits may be influenced by societal norms. - Doesn't explain polyamorous relationships
Advantages of participant observation
- Special insights - May see more from inside
Ways of checking internal reliability
- Split half method; two forms of same test prepared and you should yield same scores - Inter-rater method; two people conduct observations independently using same measures
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil Reliability
- Standardised procedure - Good controls - Reliable and replicable - Possible extraneous variables such as environment as took place in school, decreasing reliability
Raine (1997) Reliability
- Standardised procedure - PET scan is reliable, objective and replicable results BUT... - Rained admits there were problems with the reliability of PET scans in 1990's, sometimes needed to be interpreted leading to subjectivity and low reliability
Watson and Rayner (1920) reliability
- Standardised procedure, carefully documented snd filmed. - Easily replicable; but for ethical reasons can't be - Inter-rater reliability; surviving film of procedure
Acetylcholine
- Stimulates muscle contraction - Necessary for memory and cognitive functions such as attention - Involved in expressions such as anger and sexuality
Episodic and Semantic Memory Weaknesses
- Stores are in similar areas of brain, suggested by C.C.'s damage to medial temporal love - No evidence from brain scans to suggest they're different stores - Vague description
Watson and Rayner (1920) ethics
- Stress deliberately caused to Albert - Didn't extinguish his fear, ignoring principle of reducing harm - Chose Albert as he wasn't easily frightened - Argued stress is equal to that of nursery - After 1 month, fear response dropped - Valid presumptive consent - Albert's mother could withdraw him at any time
Capafons (1988) validity
- Strong ecological validity, duplicate of systematic desensitisation given - Lacks external validity as cannot be applied to other phobias - Questionnaires could lead to social desirability
Katz and Brady (1933)
- Students attending Princeton University completed a questionnaire - Had to pick 5-6 traits to represent each ethnic group - Majority of American students classified African Americans as superstitious and ignorant and Jews as shrewd. - But maybe they just responded in a socially desirable way for these times.
Advantages of longitudinal research
- Studies the effects of age and development - Participant variables controlled
Raine (1997) method
- Study looked at differences between 41 NGRI murderers (2 women + 39 men) and 41 non-murderers - Matched pairs design - 41 participants free from medication for 2 weeks before their brain scan - Control patients had physical examinations and psychiatric interview - PET scan, injected with radioactive tracer to light up glucose metabolism in brain - Completed continuous performance task to induce stress, scan conducted 32 minutes after test. - 10 images
Content analysis
- Study of qualitative data (e.g. pictures, newspapers etc.) - Form of indirect observation - Categories selected from sample - Frequency of each event is then counted
Advantages of primary data
- Suits aims of study - First hand participants, authentic
Sherif et al. stage 3
- Superordinate goals introduced to encourage cooperation and reduce hostility - Fixing shared water tank - Joint camp over, had to work together for food and sleeping gear - Starting broken down camp bus - Raising money to pay for a movie - Observations by researchers - Researchers reassessed their friends
Advantages of Cross-sectional research
- Takes less time to study age effects - Enables comparison between groups
Disadvantages of Random Sampling
- Takes time - May be biased if some decline to take part
Disadvantages of primary data
- Takes time and money - May end up with flawed data
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil Ethics
- Target group U16 and Alzheimer's patients, therefore vulnerable - Proper informed consent in doubt
Nicotine
- Targets aspects of dopamine pathway by increasing amount and transmission of dopamine by blocking enzyme that breaks it down. - Mimics acetylcholine and binds to nicotinic receptors
Ways of checking external reliability
- Test-retest method; administer same test twice and should yield same results - Replication; an experiment is repeated using same standardised procedure to see if findings are the same
Social Practical improvements
- Use interview so you could ask people about how obedient they perceive themselves to be a swell - Use a wider age group than students
Shortcomings for the role of hormones on aggression
- The studies are often natural studies so IV can't be isolated and cause + effect can't be established - High levels of testosterone, don't determine aggressive behaviour as it could be channeled into something such as boxing. Other factors play role. - Horace Williams, a body builder beat a man to death after taking 2000x the recommended dosage of steroids.
Alternatives for role of brain structure in developing aggression
- The theory does not take into account the role of nurture e.g. social learning theory would suggest that.. - This means that this theory of aggression is somewhat incomplete.
Application for the role of hormones on aggression
- There have been cases where convicted sex offenders have been castrated and this led to a removal of sex drive (Hawke, 1951). - This study supports hypothesis that testosterone has influence on aggressive behaviour. - However, it lacks control group and not all convicts didn't reoffend. Dabbs et al. 1987: - Found higher levels of testosterone in prisoners convicted of violent assault and the same in women.
Disadvantages of matched pairs
- Time-consuming - May not control all participant variables - More participants required
Capafons (1988) Aim
- To asses the effectiveness of systematic densitisation in the treatment of fear of flying. - To see whether the fear of flying reduced spontaneously without treatment.
Evidence for psychodynamic theory
- To find out whether acting aggressively is cathartic for an individual. - Participants were placed in a frustrating situation - Half of the participants got to act in an aggressive way by pressing a shock button. - Half of the participants got to act in a non-aggressive way - by pressing a non-shock button. Results: The half that behaved aggressively by pressing the shock button saw a reduction in their aggression as measured by heart rate - this would suggest that aggressive behaviour is cathartic. BUT they were more aggressive in their response to the blast of hot air than the control group. Conclusion Acting aggressively by pressing the shock button reduced tension (shown by decrease in heart rate) but it did not reduce the aggressive drive, in fact this increased as a result of acting aggressively. This provides an objective method to study a mechanism that is working on an unconscious level and provides some support for psychodynamic explanations of aggression.
Milgram's aims
- To investigate whether ordinary people would follow orders and yield to an authoritative figure. - To establish under what conditions people are more likely to obey/dissent. - Test the 'Germans are different' hypothesis
Bandura (1961) aim
- To see whether aggressive behaviour could be acquired through observations of aggression. - If children are more aggressive after watching aggressive behaviour. - Whether they selectively imitate same-sex models and if boys are more prone to imitating aggression.
Tafel experiment 1 (1971) procedure
- Told experiment was on different types of judgement - Asked to estimate how many dots flashed up on screen - 4 groups told: 'some people overestimate and some people underestimate, but that this does not reflect accuracy' (neutral condition) 4 groups told: 'some people are more accurate than others' (value condition) - Boys judgement scored and randomly assigned to a groups - Boys in neutral condition either: over-estimators or under-estimators - Boys in value condition either: accurate or inaccurate - Boys then told which group they were in - They then had opportunity to give cash rewards to different subjects by filling in matrices, all boys were anonymous. - One row in-group and one row out-group
Raine (1997) Ethics
- Tracer is invasive but necessary for brain scans - Repetitive task causes stress could be distressing to those with mental health issues BUT... - Stress produced by task is significantly less harmful than involvement in crime - NGRI's gave consent or had presumptive consent - May invite us to 'screen' prospective partners or job candidates, social responsibility questioned
Capafons (1988) Conclusion
- Treatment successfully reduced fear of flying in 90% of patients - No reduction of fear in control group, time alone doesn't reduce fear
Validity for Brendgen et al. (2005)
- Twins studies are valid way of studying nature vs nurture - MZ share 100% of genotype - DZ share under 50% of genotype - Both share same homelife - Natural experiment, doesn't establish cause and effect - MZ twins may get mistaken for one another and stereotyped on other twins behaviour - Avoids reductionist views
Advantages of Random Sampling
- Unbiased - Can use a subgroup of the population
Risk management
- Understanding implications of study - Be suitably qualified and know guidelines - Seek advice if unsure of anything - Adhere to data protection act and know how to store data - Adhere to safe practice
Watson and Rayner (1920) generalisability
- Unrepresentative; but Albert was selected for his emotional stability - Cash 2012: - Albert died from hydrocephalus at 6 years-old so can't be generalised to healthy child. - Digdon and Powell (2014): - Cash wrongly identified Little Albert so can be generalised.
Raine (1997) aim
- Use brain scanning technology to identify brain impairments in people charged with murder who had pleaded not guilty by insanity.
Biological Practical improvements
- Use wider sample, only 16-17 year olds - Can't determine physical aggression
Baddeley (1966b) validity
- Used controls, such as word order to reduce risk of words being hard to remember because they're unfamiliar - Ecological validity is poor; artificial not repressing everyday memory - Cause + effect established, high internal validity
Reliability for Brendgen et al. (2005)
- Used established questionnaires to measure aggression, can be replicated - 2 researchers visited each classroom, therefore, inter-rater reliability - Strong correlation between teacher and peer ratings, scores are reliable and inter rater reliability - Questions translated might have slightly different meanings so unreliable - Allocation of zygocity was based largely on appearance and was not 100% reliable
Sherif et al (1954, 1961) Reliability
- Used scoring systems - Tried to tape boys convos - Bean-counting and other tests could be replicated - Observers only with boys for 12 hours a day - Couldn't view everything - Inter-rater reliability, used several observers - Certain situations can't be replicated
Strengths of grounded theory
- Validity as coding is carried out carefully and developed into wider concepts. Participants' own thoughts and feelings are used to drive analysis - Specific terms to explain how it is done. Grounded theory puts forward a theory to explain the data - Richness and detail of qualitative data.
Milgram Reliability
- Very reliable, can be replicated e.g. Burger 2009 - Parts of study filmed, interrupter reliability - Prescripted prods - Mr Wallace, tape recorded response - Gina Perry 2012; criticised Milgram only used prescript prods in variation 1
advantages of correlational research
- View relationship between two continuous co-variables - Permits preliminary analysis
Clive Wearing Case Study
- Viral encephalitis - Couldn't remember normal day-to-day activities - moment to moment conciousness - intelligence intact - memory damaged
Disadvantages of Volunteer Sampling
- Volunteer bias (highly motivated) - More likely to respond to demand characteristics
Capafons (1988) reliability
- Volunteer sampling, a lot of motivation - Standardised procedure - Can't control participants external factors at home, such as hearing flying stories - Objective tests e.g. heart rate - Randomly assigned to groups, no bias
Burger 2009 sample
- Volunteers - $50 for two 45min sessions - Advertised - 70 participants - Mean age 43 - 29 males and 41 females
Milgram Generalisability
- Volunteers tend to listen to instructions and take procedure seriously - Sample of 40 quite large - In total, all variations had 780 participants - Original only men but variation #8 found women had same obedience as men - Ethnocentric to america - Done in 1960's may be locked in time
Classical Conditioning Evidence
- Watson and Rayner found that it is easy to condition a response to a neutral stimuli via classical conditioning but this was on a child. - Pavlov found that you can easily condition a response to a neutral stimuli but this was in dogs.
Strengths for the role of evolution in aggression
- We can see evidence of how males and females behave now BUT... - Difficult to assess how humans lived and interacted thousands of years ago - Explains why females are not physically aggressive as research shows that they're more verbally aggressive, evolutionary research suggests they're trying to protect their offspring by not getting injured.
Social Learning Theory Application
- When educating children use role models to teach them. - When a 'popular' child behaves badly, the peers are likely to copy
Internal validity
- Whether a test/study does measure what it intended to measure. - May be extraneous variables
Burger (2009) generalisability
- Wider age range than Milgram - Mixed genders - 70 participants - Ethnocentric to USA - Excluded people with emotional issues
Working Memory Model Evidence
- Working memory model presents idea that central executive assigns information to one of the sub-systems. - Supported by research with Alzheimer's patients, where their central executive cannot function properly. Find it hard to process both visual and auditory information. - Baddeley's dual task, shows how individuals cannot process multiple auditory/visual information as we have limited resources.
Disadvantages of a mean
- affected by extreme values - only uses interval data
Sherif et al. stage 2 findings
- boys fought - Eagles burned Rattler's camp flag - Boys showed signs of hostility and demanded competitions - Leaders emerged and became territorial - Strong sense of in-group favouritism - Camp raids - 93% of boys said their friends were exclusively from their group
Disadvantages of lab experiments
- contrived situation, behaviour may not be natural - Demand characteristics
Hippocampus, amygdala and hypothalamus role in human behaviour
- controls our temperature - Role in self preservation - Fight or flight response
Advantages of the range
- convenient - easy to calculate
Advantages of peer review
- ensures only high quality work was published - part of scientific process, enables criticism
When is a sign test used?
Nominal data and repeated measures design
code of conduct for psychologists
- respect and dignity for all the individuals in terms of their differences - provide privacy and confidentiality - gain informed consent - avoid deception - offer right to withdraw - Competence; Level of professionalism held by psychologist conduction research, maintain subject knowledge and seek support if necessary - Responsibility - To public, participants, profession and science - Restate white to withdraw - Not given incentives to do study - Brief Integrity: - Not exploit people and be honest and fair
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil's aim
- to investigate the development of the phonological loop and digit span - to investigate if digit span declines in older people - to investigate whether language affects digit span
Advantages of a mode
- useful for nominal data - can use for all data
Milgram's sample
- volunteer sample - male - 20-50 y/o - $4 per hour
Cortex
Outer layer of the brain
Skinner's ABC model
Antecedent; the Skinner box would present a stimulus triggering a behaviour. Behaviour; response made by animal and can be observed. Consequence; reward/punishment given
Schedules of Reinforcement
A 'rule' which dictates the situation is which a behaviour will be reinforced.
Skinner box
A box often used in operant conditioning of animals; generated lights, sound and electric shocks in response to e behaviour.
Hawthorne effect
A change in a subject's behavior caused simply by the awareness of being studied
Duration of sensory register
0.25 to 0.5 seconds
by 2025 how many people are expected to have dementia in the UK?
1 million
Stereotypes
An overgeneralised belief about someone or something typically based on limited information.
Features of systematic desensitisation
1- Functional analysis; a conversation to understand the fears and triggers 2- Subject given training in deep muscle relaxation techniques 3- Hierarchy of fear formed, most frightening stimulus at end 4- Gradual exposure; Working with the agreed hierarchy, the stimulus is gradually introduced.
Social Learning Theory process
1- Learning occurs through observation of someone you identify with 2- Mental representation needs to occur, they need to understand the behaviour an store it as mental images. 3- Consequences of behaviours observed, vicarious learning 4- Their assessment of future outcomes of displaying behaviour, if positiver repeat t the behaviour.
Dual task experiment's tasks
1- Trace a light moving around a screen with a pointer 2- Imagine a letter F and mentally track letter's edges, while counting how many angles are at the top and bottom.
Baddeley's method
1. Each list is presented on a projector in an order 2. Participants complete a distraction digit memory task 3. recall word list in correct order in one minute 4. Words were invisible in the room and it was all about the order 5. after four trials a 15 minute interference task 6. Surprise retest
Brendgen et al. (2005) aim
1. Investigated aggression in monozygotic, identical twins and dizygotic twins, non-identical twins. 2. The extent to which social and physical aggression are explained by genetic and environmental influence. 3. Whether the overlap between social and physical aggression is explained by the direct effect of one type of aggression on the other.
Duration of STM store
18-30 seconds
When was Baddeley's study
1966b
When was the dual task experiment?
1976
When did Baddeley divide the phonological loop?
1986
Sherif et al. duration
2 weeks (parents paid $25 incentive not to visit the boys)
Milgram variation 13 findings
20% went to 450V
When did Baddeley add the episodic buffer to the WMM
2000
Milgram variation 7 findings
22.5% participants took shock to maximum level and many lied about increasing the voltage
What age did HM have surgery?
27
The amount of medical funding in UK in 2016/2017 spent on dementia research?
4.5%
Tafel experiment 2 (1971) participants
48 boys from a comprehensive school in Bristol
Milgram variation 10 findings
48% went to 450V
8 Mark Evaluate
4AO1 4AO3
8 Mark Discuss
4AO1, 4AO2
12 Mark Evaluate with application
4AO1, 4AO2, 4AO3
8 Mark Assess
4AO1, 4AO3
Tafel experiment 1 (1971) participants
64 boys from comprehensive school in Bristol
12 Mark Evaluate without application
6AO1 6AO3
12 Mark, To What Extent
6AO1 6AO3
Capacity of STM store
7 +/- 2 items (more if chunking is used)
Burger 2009 experiment 1 results
70% went to 150V
How many people are affected by dementia in the UK?
850,000 people in the UK
Interview
A face-to-face or telephone questioning of a respondent to obtain information.
Hierarchy
A few people at the top give orders to the rest of us.
In-Group
A group we have membership to
Out-group
A group which you're not a part of
internal reliability
A measure of the extent to which something is consistent within itself
Schema
A mental representation which is built up from past experiences and provides ways of understanding future experiences.
Schema
A mental representation which is built up through past experiences, organise our past experiences and help us understand future ones
Agentic state
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure.
Natural selection
A process in which individuals that have certain inherited traits tend to survive and reproduce at higher rates than other individuals because of those traits.
Researcher effect
A researcher's expectations may encourage certain behaviours in participants
Fixed Ratio
A response is reinforced only after a specified number of responses
Opportunity sampling
A sample of whoever happens to be there and agrees to participate
Predictive Validity
A test score should forecast performance on some other measures of the same behaviour.
Cofounding variables
A variable that is not under the experimenter's control. Often not recognised by researcher but can emerge from critical inspection of the study.
Defence mechanism
A way to protect ourselves from our instinct towards self-destruction.
Questionnaire
A written set of questions to be answered by a research participant
Memory
Ability to store, recall and retain information.
4 lists in Baddeley's study
Accoustically similar; accoustically dissimilar; semantically similar; semantically dissimilar
Discrimination
Actively excluding an individual or group from things they are entitled to such as employment.
Volunteer sampling
Advertise for willing participants
Application for the role of evolution in aggression
Allows us to understand the differences between male and female choices and their behaviour BUT... this doesn't;t explain how people choose their partners in homosexual relationships and those who choose to be childless.
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil's part 2 results
Alzheimers patients digit span- 4.2 Healthy ppts digit span- 4.4
Testosterone
An androgen, this means its a chemical messenger that develops/maintains male characteristics. Impacts behaviour such as aggression. Has an organising effect on developing brain leading to increased spatial ability and competitive aggression.
Confounding variable
An extraneous variable that varies systematically with the IV so we cannot be sure of the true source of the change to the DV.
Prejudice
An extreme, unfavourable attitude associated with three negative components.
Social identification
An individual identifies themselves by their membership groups
Who created the multi-store memory model and when?
Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968
4 criteria of social learning theory
Attention, retention, reproduction, motivation
How does status of authority affect obedience?
Authority figure needs to seem legitimate.
How status of authority effects obedience?
Authority figure needs to seem legitimate.
2 states in agency theory
Autonomous and agent
Solutions to manage risk
Avoidance (eliminate) , reduction, transference (insurance), retention (cost-benefit)
Behavioural prejudice
Avoidance, assault, joke-making and discrimination
Cognitive classic study
Baddeley 1966b
Who did the dual task experiment?
Baddeley and Hitch
Biological Practical construct validity
Bailey and Hurd, 2005: Finger length ratio correlates with physical aggression in men but not in women.
Social Learning Theory Evidence
Bandura found when a model is punished, the children displayed significantly less aggression. When model is rewarded, the children displayed significantly more aggression.
Key Issue Learning Theories
Bandura, 1963: Cartoon, 2x more aggressive than control group - Operant conditioning; by receiving points for killing/injuring other players its positive reinforcement.
Who carried out the war of the ghosts study
Barlett
Token economy
Based on principle of operant conditioning, aims to encourage desirable behaviour through a rewards system.
Competition for resources
Become more aggressive to compete for shelter, land and food.
Classical Conditioning equation
Before conditioning: - Unconditioned stimuli → unconditioned response - Neutral stimuli → no response During conditioning: - Unconditioned stimuli and neutral stimuli → unconditioned response After conditioning: Conditioned stimuli → conditioned response
Physical aggression
Behaviour causing/threatening physical harm towards others. e.g. hitting and kicking
External personality type
Believe their behaviour is largely beyond their control and are more likely to be influenced by others.
Internal personality type
Believe they are responsible for their own actions and are less influenced by others around them.
Central Nervous System
Brain and spinal cord
Biological contemporary study
Brendan et al. (2005)
Social contemporary study
Burger (2009)
Why do we try to achieve a positive personal identity?
By having a positive personal identity, it achieves high self-esteem which is important for mental well being.
How does evolution happen?
By natural selection
How does momentum of compliance affect obedience?
By starting with small and trivial requests and then gradually increasing these, the person feels duty bound to complete larger tasks.
Capafons (1988) application
Can be used to help treat those with fear of flying and support need for funding
Forgetting information in the STM store
Can retain information if maintenance rehearsal is used otherwise new info displaces old info.
Weaknesses of correlation coefficient
Cannot claim a cause and effect relationship
Learning contemporary study
Capafons et al. (1998)
Neuron
Carries messages through an electrochemical; process. Information is received by the dendrites and an electrical impulse travels down the axon to the axon terminal buttons.
Participant variables
Characteristics of a participant that might influence the outcome of the study.
Hormones
Chemical messengers that transmit information around the body through the blood stream and they are produced and secreted by glands in the endocrine system.
Wolpe 1988
Claims 80-90% of patients are cured or much improve after an average of 25-30 sessions. However, not effective with conditions such as schizophrenia.
Operant conditioning alternative
Classical condition; a fear response is obtained by a fear stimulus becoming associated with a neutral response
Three negative components of prejudice
Cognitive, affective and behavioural
Inter-rater reliability
Compare data from more than one interviewer
Test-retest reliability
Compare test scores over time
Cross-cultural research
Compares behaviours of cultures
Cross-sectional research
Compares sections of the population
Ecological validity
Concerns to the extent to which the findings can be generalised beyond the particular study. Affected by the task, sample and setting.
Pavlov (1927) conclusion
Conditioned response to bell produced.
Reliability
Consistency of measurement
Allen (2016)
Correlated environmental conditions over long periods with archaeological evidence from prehistoric graves. Found in times of famine and drought there were more violent deaths. Females less violent and invested in bringing up their children.
Time sampling
Count behaviours at regular intervals
Event sampling
Count behaviours in a specified time period
Primary data
Data collected by researcher, solely for purpose of investigation
Meta-analysis
Data from many studies combined
Phonologial Loop
Deals with verbal info; inner ear
Visuo-spatial sketchpad
Deals with visual and spatial information; navigation; enables us to interact with objects
Thanatos
Death instinct, self destruction
Negative punishment
Decreasing behavior by stopping or reducing positive stimuli, e.g. stopping playtime.
Positive punishment
Decreasing behaviour by presenting a negative stimuli, such as giving a detention.
CAT scan
Detailed picture build up from X-ray slices
Case study
Detailed study of one person, group or event, involves psychological tests, experiments, interviews, observations etc.
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil's part 1 results
Digit span increased with age: - Age 5: 3.7 - Age 17: 5.9 Sig. increase between 5 and 8
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil's findings
Digit span increases with age and dementia does not affect digit span
in vivo desensitization
Direct contact with fear
Flooding ethics
Highly traumatic and causes extreme levels of stress
Random sampling
Each person has an equal chance of selection
Forgetting information in the sensory register
Easily forgotten, no storage capacity.
Flooding appropriateness
Effective for specific phobias but less so for social phobia and agoraphobia
Why did HM have surgery?
Epilepsy
Two types of long term memory described by Tulving 1972
Episodic and Semantic
two types of long term memory
Episodic and semantic
Interval data
Equal intervals on a scale, can go into negative values
Repeated measures
Every participants takes part in every condition tested
Moral strain
Experiencing anxiety, usually because you are asked to do something that goes against your moral judgement otherwise you dissent an authority figure
Bandura (1963) conclusion
Exposure to any form of aggression increases likelihood of aggression in response to frustration.
Reaction formation
Expressing our views that are actually the opposite of our true feelings.
Behavioural Modification Shaping
Extinguish undesirable behaviour; replace original behaviour with desirable behaviour and reinforce it.
What part of the brain did Dr Scoville operate on in HM's brain?
Hippocampus
Situational variables
Factors in the environment that could act as extraneous variables
Affective prejudice
Feelings of hostility and hatred
Bandura 1963 name
Film Mediated
two types of information in reconstructive theory
Fixed and variable info
Two types of information schemas can make
Fixed and variable information
Ougrin (2011)
Flooding is significantly quicker than other techniques such as systematic desensitisation.
Menzies and Clarke
Found in vivo techniques better than in vitro techniques.
Masserman (1943)
Found that phobia could be developed in cats by giving them an electric shock every time they were put in a box. They then became anxious when placed in the box but then this became extinct if fed in the box.
Bower et al (1979)
Found there was considerable agreement about events when participants were asked a similar question.
Psychodynamic explanations for aggression
Freud suggests that we are born with two innate drives.
Nature of obedience
Innately prepared to be obedient
Semantic memory input
Input can be fragmented
How do you forget episodic memories?
Retrieval cue failure
Watson and Rayner (1920) application
Further research has been built of this into phobias and led to treatment techniques e.g. flooding.
Episodic buffer
General storage of acoustic and visual information; integrates information from all other 3 stores
Evidence for distance LTM and STM stores
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966): - Participants had to recall word list - Participants recalled more words from beginning of list (primary effect, long term memory) - Participants recalled more words from end of list (recency effect, short term memory)
How prejudice can arise from upbringing?
Harsh parenting can lead to children having respect for authority but also that they can be cruel to those weaker than them. Their hatred and resentment towards their parents is projected onto minority groups.
Phonological store
Holds information in speech based for 1-2 seconds
Cognitive psychology key question
How can Psychology help treat people suffering from dementia?
Duration
How long information can be stored in our memory.
Social impact theory; number
How many sources and targets
Capacity
How much information our memory can hold.
Encoding
How our minds make sense of information entering through our senses.
Retrieval
How we access information stored in our memory.
Cognitive Practical Procedure
IV- Acoustically similar/dismilar words DV- Number of words recalled Sample- Opportunity sample, class of students Controls- 30 seconds to learn word order, same number of words, each word had same number of letters Experimental design- Independent groups
Social Practical procedure
IV- Gender DV- How obedient that gender is percieved Sample- Opportunity, psychology class Controls- Used same questionnaire Experimental design- Independent measures
Biological Practical procedure
IV- Verbal aggression and Fq score Sample- Opportunity of psychology class Divided length of index finger by ring finger to determine finger quoter, Fq less than 1 is more masculine hand shape.
Three types of encoding in the sensory register
Iconic, echoic and haptic / visual, acoustic and touch
3 types of freud personalities
Id, Ego and Superego
Prospective memory
Imagination for future events
In vitro desensitisation
Imagine the stimulus
Milgram variation on personal responsibility
In a variation, participants signed a contract stating they took part in study of their own free will and relinquish any legal responsibility form Yale University. Obedience fell to 40%.
Cocaine
Increases activity in the dopamine pathway by blocking reuptake of dopamine
Negative reinforcement
Increasing behaviour by threat of punishment which then increases the required behaviour
Positive reinforcement
Increasing behaviours by presenting positive stimuli, such as chocolate.
Semantic memory time referencing
Independent to time referencing
Reconstructive theory
Individuals store info in a way that makes more sense to them and it is then reconstructed when retrieved
Forgetting information in the LTM store
Information can be lost with interference
Secondary data
Information someone else has collected, used by other researchers.
Caudate nucleus
Involved in inhibition
Concurrent validity
Involves comparing new test with an already established one that claims to measure the same variable. A high positive correlation should be gained between the results of the two tests.
Face/content validity
Involves examining the continue t of the test to see if it 'looks' like it measures what it claims to measure. (demand characteristics)
Operant conditioning
Involves learning through reward and punishment. People repeat behaviour if rewarded for it and stop a behaviour if punished for it.
Watson and Rayner (1920) conclusion
It is relatively easy to condition an emotional response to a neutral stimuli.
How can semantic memory be forgotten
It's more robust and less susceptible to change
Pavlov (1927) results
Just with the bell, after conditioning the dog secreted as much saliva as he did with the food and bell.
Social Learning Theory
Learning through observation, imitation and modelling. Learned indirectly.
Validity
Legitimacy of the data collected
Storage capacity of episodic buffer
Limited
Symptoms of dementia
Loss of memory, cognitive deficits and exhaustion
Did males or females score higher in spacial memory in Palambo 2012's study?
Males
Defence against attackers
Males are more aggressive in order to protect their mate and offspring from predators and attackers, both guards their resources and genes. Brendan found males more physically aggressive than females. She claims 50-60% aggression comes from genes, therefore, stems from evolutionary past.
Survival of individuals offspring
Males are physically bigger and more aggressive than females. They have evolved to use aggression to compete with other males to protect their mates and offspring. Tend to be more aggressive towards snakes interested in his mate and are concerned about sexual infidelity.
Cognitive Practical Stats Test
Mann-Whitney U, as ordinal data and independent groups
Flooding practicalness
Many don't complete treatment as very traumatic and stressful but faster process than systematic desensitisation.
Italian study on obedience procedure and issue
Max. shock level was 330 volts and participants were students. Lower voltage, so less effect and students are known to be more compliant. Not a standardised procedure cross-culturally.
Evidence for the role of evolution in aggression
Mazur, 1983: - Testosterone levels increasing during early teens and there's a strong positive correlation with aggressive behaviour and intermate fighting.
Measures of central tendency
Mean, median, mode
Dabbs et al (1987)
Measured testosterone in the saliva of 89 male prisoners, some involved in violent crime and some in non-violent crime. 11 prisoners were found to have high levels of testosterone. Of those 11, 10 had committed a violent crime. They were also more likely to be rated as 'tough' by their fellow inmates.
Ratio data
Measurements on a scale, intervals of which are known and equal. Has a true value zero.
Semantic memory
Memory for meaning such as facts and knowledge; e.g. Paris is in France
How can episodic memory be changed?
Memory trace can be changed
Episodic memory
Mental diary: Personal memories of events
Semantic memory
Mental encyclopedia: Memory for meaning such as facts and knowledge
Milgram authoritarian personality analysis
Milgram compared Facist F-Scale scores of 20 obedient and 20 disobedient participants. Obedient participants had higher F-scale scores indicating an authoritarian personality.
Cognitive Practical hypothesis
More acoustically dissimilar sounding words will be recalled than acoustically similar sounding words
Social impact theory; division of impact
More targets = less influence
Type of encoding in STM store
Mostly acoustic but sometimes visual.
Episodic and Semantic Memory Alternative
Multi-store memory model
Working Memory Model Alternative
Multi-store memory model
Falsification
Need to be able to reject a null hypothesis
Systematic Desensitisation Effectiveness
Newman and Adams: - 17 year old with learning difficulties - Fear of dogs - Trained to relax and exposed to dogs in hierarchy - Initially successful but 18 months later still afraid of dogs off lead - After 26 sessions, he was able to remain relaxed in present of loose dogs. - Limited as he had learning difficulties
Retrieval of semantic memory
Not a cued retrieval
How do you end moral strain?
Obey or disobey
Non-participant observations
Observers are not a part of what is being observed, they sit away from the activity.
Primary reinforcer
Occur naturally and satisfy basic human needs such as food, water and shelter.
standard deviation
On average, scores vary from measures of central tendency such as the mean.
Sherif et al. recruitment/sampling method
Opportunity sample of 200 boys from schools in Oklahoma City
When is a Mann Whitney U used?
Ordinal/interval/ratio data and independent measures
Milgram variation 13
Ordinary man gives orders
Bandura 1961 name
Original
Is amygdala overactive or underactive when linked to aggression?
Overactive
Is hypothalmus overactive or underactive when linked to aggression?
Overactive
Counterbalancing
Participant sample divided in half, one half complete 2 conditions in one order and other half complete the 2 conditions in reverse.
Examples of extraneous variables
Participant variable (e.g. intelligence) or situational variable (e.g. time of day)
Overt observation
Participants aware of being observed
Godden and Baddeley
Participants learnt word lists on ground or underwater (scuba). Recall was best if the conditions were the same as during learning - whether back on ground or underwater
Matched pairs
Participants paired on key variables and placed in either group.
Stratified sampling
Participants selected from subgroups in proportion to frequency in the population.
Covert observation
Participants unaware that they're being observed
Reward pathway
Pathway within the limbic system that is associated with feelings of reward in day-to-day life and the feelings of pleasure that lead to craving and addition.
How does personal responsibility affect obedience?
People are more obedient in a situation where they feel personal responsibility is removed from them.
Authoritarian personality
People with this personality possess specific characteristics that mean they're more likely to be prejudice. e.g. rigid thinking, obedient to those in power and hostile to people they see as inferior.
Parietal lobe
Perception, spelling and knowledge of numbers
Episodic memory
Personal memories of events; when, where and emotions
Evidence for short term memory
Peterson and Peterson (1959) - Trigram recall - After 3 seconds: 80% recall - After 6 seconds, 50% recall - After 18 seconds, less than 10% recall - Therefore, if rehearsal is prevented info decays rapidly
Two Slave Systems
Phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad
Frontal lobe
Planning , control, our behaviour and emotions, problem solving and decision making
Watson and Rayner (1920) procedure
Preconditioning Testing: - To test Albert's baseline emotional responses, he was presented with a range of objects such as white rat, cotton wool and set of wooden blocks. He showed no fear response. - Albert's response to a loud noise was tested. Conditioning trials: - At 11 months old Albert is presented with a white rat - Every time he reaches for the rat a loud noise was made. - Process repeated many times over several weeks. - Relocated to lecture room, to measure effect of the surroundings on Little Albert's behaviour. End of Experiment: - Albert was tested again 1 month later, when he was 12 months and 21 days old. Final test involved the rat, fur coat and wooden blocks.
Social impact theory; immediacy
Proximity of source
Explain BPS giving advice
Psychological advice must only be given if the psychologist is qualified in the areas that the advice is requested in
Explain BPS colleagues
Psychologists should take action if they believe that any of the above principles are being violated by a colleague
fMRI scans
Radio waves measure blood oxygen levels
PET scans
Radioactive substances injected, which is taken up by active brain areas.
Biological classic study
Raine et al. (1997)
Evidence for role of brain structure in developing aggression
Raine: - Found that murders who pleaded NGRI had different brain activity to non murders. e.g. lower glucose metabolism in left angular gyrus and higher glucose metabolism in right amygdala. BUT... - Dysfunctions go single brain area can't explain violent behaviour Phineas Gage: - Showed damage to the caudate nucleus and frontal lobe can result in extreme aggression and inability to control his emotions - Suggests these areas control inhibition BUT... - Case study, lots of cofounding variables that can't be controlled - Injuries are unique
How does drugs work?
Recreational drug hijacks reward system and this is not an evolved response. The first time person has the drug neurotransmitter levels increase and initiate reward pathway. The brain then naturally reduces neurotransmitter levels so now need more of this neurotransmitter when drugs wear off. Person takes more drugs to increase reward again.
External reliability
Refers to how consistently a method measures over time when repeated
predicitive validity
Refers to whether a test predicts future performance
Dissent
Reflecting or disobeying the demands of an authoritative figure.
Bandura (1965) conclusion
Reinforcement most powerful influence on aggression and punishment does deter imitation of aggression.
vicarious reinforcement
Reinforcement which is received indirectly by observing another person who is being rewarded for a behaviour.
Reciprocal inhibition
Relaxation inhibits anxiety
Oxytocin
Released by posterior pituitary gland. Its role is to increase trust between people.
How to register with the HCPC
Renewed every 2 years: 1- HCPC will check that trainee has passed all elements of programme 2- Qualified psychologist would require a character reference and information about applicant
Codes of conduct
Respect, competence, responsibility and integrity
Blass (1999)
Reviewed the results from 10 obedience experiments. Obedience rates between men and women were consistent over 9 studies. However, in a replication of Milgram in Australia, male participants had 40% obedience with same sex learner and female participants with same sex learner had 16% obedience.
Variable Interval
Rewarding a first correct response at unpredictable time intervals.
Fixed Interval
Rewarding of a first correct response only after a preset amount of time has passed.
Sherif et al. setting
Robber's cave camp in Oklahoma
Milgram variation 10
Rundown office block
Social impact theory; multiplication
SIN has a multiplicative effect on target up to psychosocial law.
Operant conditioning application
Schools; house points are positive reinforcement and encourage good behaviour + detentions are positive punishment and reduce bad behaviour. Prisons; privileges such as tv are positive reinforcement, usually variable ratio.
Cognitive contemporary study
Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil
Side effects of HM's surgery
Seizures successfully reduced, however HM was unable to create new memory and couldn't pass information into his long term memory.
Type of encoding in the LTM store
Semantic information, must have meaning
Reconstructive Memory and Schema Theory Alternative
Semantic memory, support each other
Three stores in the multi-store memory model
Sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory
Watson and Rayner (1920) results
Session 1: - Reacted to loud noise and cried Session 2: - More cautious towards rat and pulled away when it nuzzled him. After further conditions, cried and crawled away. Session 3: - Albert cried and reacted I. fear to white furry objects. - Displayed mild fear towards dog and none to other objects. Sessions 4+5: - Albert's fear remained to white objects but became less extreme in new environment and after time.
Social classic study
Sherif et al. (1953,1961)
Key Issue Learning
Should teenagers under the age of 215 be allowed to play violent video games?
How did HM contribute to understanding memory?
Shows that there is short term and long term memory storage. Informs us that short term memories need to be transferred to long term storage to be able to be retrieved again. Revealed one area of brain is crucial for memory storage.
Non-directional hypothesis
Simply states that there is a difference but not what the difference will be between two variables
Operant conditioning evidence
Skinner: behaviour repeated if rewarded
Classical Conditioning Alternative
Social Learning Theory- we learn through observation, initiation and modelling.
Brendgen et al. (2005) results
Social aggression: - May be better explained by shared environmental factors as well as genes - Social aggression doesn't lead to physical aggression - Expression of aggression tendencies change as children grow Physical aggression: - May be caused by genetic factors - Physical aggression may lead to social aggression Directional affect: - Increased risk of physical aggressions led to social aggression - Gender differences in aggression; boys more physically aggressive and girls more socially aggressive.
Nominal data
The number of times something occurred in one category.
Nurture of obedience
Socialisation; upbringing and exposure to authority. Primary socialisation; family. Secondary socialisation; teachers and government.
Evidence for sensory memory
Sperling (1960,1963): - Recall high for 1 line - Most recall only 3/4 letters - Supports sensory register has short duration but larger capacity
Theory of prejudice 3 stages of development
Stage 1: Interviewed 2 American college students about their political beliefs, how they were raised and their attitudes to minorities. Stage 2: Designed personality questionnaires that would measure authoritarian personality Stage 3: Carried out 80 interviews, male and female, about their background, beliefs, feelings towards others and their religious/political ideology.
Learning Practical improvements
Standardise it so you do first 8 people see you rather than random. Sampling opportunity so may be biased and also only in one town so ethnocentric.
Operationalisation of variables
Stating how you will manipulate the independent variable and how you will measure the dependent variable
Social impact theory; strength
Status, authority and age of source
vicarious punishment
Stopping doing a behaviour after observing another person be punished for it.
vicarious extinction
Stopping doing a behaviour after observing another person receive no reward it.
Findings of War of Ghosts study
Story was transformed over time; became shorter and altered to participants culture
SIN
Strength, immediacy and number
Secondary reinforcer
Strengthen behaviour because they're associated with primary reinforcer, e.g. money.
Anger
Strong negative feeling of annoyance
Adaptive problems of social living
Survival of offspring; competition for resources; defence against attackers.
Alternative for the role of hormones on aggression
Testosterone explanations of aggressions do not take account of the role of nurture in the development of the behaviour.
What did Paulesu et al (1933) find
That different areas of the brain were activated when undertaking tasks involving phonological store and the articulatory rehearsal system, in brain scans.
Learning Practical Aim
The aim of this observation is to look at mobile phone usage in the street and factors such as age and gender.
Mean
The average value of all scores, calculated by adding all scores together in one condition and dividing by number of scores.
How does proximity of authority figure affect obedience?
The closer the authority figure, the higher the level of obedience.
Realistic conflict theory (Sherif)
The idea that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination.
Eros
The libido and the focus is on energy and the enjoyment of life (Life instinct)
dependent variable
The measurable effect or outcome in which the research is interested.
Baddeley's conclusion
The short-term memory encodes largely acoustically and the long-term memory includes mostly semantically.
Cognitive prejudice
The stereotypes we hold
Learning practical procedure
The study was an observation was conducted in a public place (e.g. a street of a café). The use of an observation was good because ? The observation will be covert and non- participant. The observation was also not structured. The use of a covert observation was good because? We observed 8 participants and this was an opportunity sample ? This was good because?
Alternative for the role of evolution in aggression
The theory does not take into account the role of nuture e.g. social learning theory would suggest that.. This means that this theory of aggression is somewhat incomplete.
co-variables
The variables investigated in a correlation
Biological Practical hypothesis
There will be a significant difference between the FQ score and verbal aggression.
Learning Practical Hypothesis
There will be a significant difference in recreational phone use if in a group or alone. There will be a significant differences between males and females aged 18 - 34 and those aged 50+ and their use of mobile phones.
Social Practical Hypothesis
There will be no difference in how obedient males are perceived to be compared with how obedient females are perceived to be measured as answers on a Likert scale, any difference will be due to chance factors.
Cognitive Practical null hypothesis
There will be no difference in the number of acoustically similar and dissimilar sounding words recalled, any difference found will be due to chance.
Obedience
This is a form of social influence. Yielding to the real or imagined demands of an authoritative figure.
Wolpe (1953)
Thought Masserman (1943)'s findings could be used to treat phobias because two things relaxation and anxiety can't coexist together.
Time referencing episodic memory
Time and context is referenced
Watson and Rayner (1920) aim
To demonstrate that simple emotional responses such as fear can be acquired through a process of classical conditioning.
Aim of systematic desensitisation
To extinguish an undesirable behaviour, fear by replacing it with a more desirable one, relaxation.
Cognitive Practical aim
To investigate the effect of acoustic word similarity on short term memory
Baddeley's study aim
To investigate the influence of acoustic and semantic word similarity on Learning and recall in short-term and long-term memory.
Biological Practical aim
To investigate the relationship between FQ score and verbal aggression
Social Practical aim
To investigate young people's perceptions of how obedient males and females are
Sherif et al. aim
To look at intergroup relations over a period of time and to investigate group formation, the effect of competition and the conditions under which conflict could be resolved.
Learning Practical Qualitative Aim
To observe the differences in mobile use in a group or not e.g. whether being alone meant you use phones for recreational purposes in comparison to being in a group.
Burger 2009 aim
To replicate Milgram's study adhering to ethical guidelines to see if time affects the results.
Bandura (1963) Aim
To see whether a child would be more aggressive if shown a realistic model in a film, an unrealistic model in a cartoon or a real person.
Pavlov (1927) Aim
To see whether a dog could associate a bell with it's food.
Learning Practical Quantitative aim
To see whether age and gender is associated with the use of mobile phones.
Bandura (1965) aim
To see whether reinforcement and punishment of behaviour of an aggressive model would influence behaviour of child observers.
Why has brain structure and function evolved?
To serve an adaptive function in the environment of evolutionary adaptation
When is spearman's rank order correlation coefficient used?
To test relationships, correlations
Classical Conditioning Application
Treatment for phobias, such as systematic desensitisation where you associate the phobia with relaxation, to turn conditioned stimuli to neutral stimuli.
Capafons (1988) Results
Treatment group: - Fear during flight: 25.6 to 13.3 - 90% reduction in symptoms of anxiety Control group: - Fear during flight: 26.0 to 35.8
Examples of individualistic cultures
UK, France and USA
Is caudate nucleus overactive or underactive when linked to aggression?
Underactive
Is corpus callosum overactive or underactive when linked to aggression?
Underactive
Sheridan and King 1972
Undergrad psychology volunteers had to shock a puppy if it failed to sit in the correct place, increasing 15V each time. Puppy jumped, market and dowelled. Participants cried and hyperventilated. 20/26 went to maximum. All women went to maximum voltage.
Temporal Lobe
Understanding language, facial recognition, hearing and speech.
Hostility
Unfriendly/conflicting behaviour such as hatred or spitefulness.
Personal identity
Unique qualities, personality and personal characteristics
Explain BPS observational research
Unless participants give their consent to being observed, observational research must only take place where those observed could normally be expected to be observed by strangers
Capacity of LTM store
Unlimited
Duration of LTM store
Unlimited, a lifetime
Milgram Experiment 8
Used 40 female participants, 65% obedience rate similar to mens.
Pre-frontal cortex
Used for planning
Articulatory Control Process
Used to rehearse and store verbal information
Verbal aggression
Using communication which is threatening. e.g. swearing or shouting
Mode
Value that occurs most frequently
Milgram variation showing status of authority
Variation 10: Rundown office blocks Variation 13: Ordinary man
Milgram variation showing presence of buffers
Variation 3: Learner both heard and seen, in same room as participant, decreased obedience
Milgram variation showing proximity of authority figure
Variation 7: Telephone instructions
Capacity of sensory register
Very limited, however, a lot of information passes through.
Bandura 1965 name
Vicarious Reinforcement
Occipital Lobe
Vision, colour identification and visual processing
Learning classic study
Watson and Rayner (1920)
Social categorisation (social identity theory)
We categorise people (including ourselves) in order to understand the social environment.
Agency theory
We're all capable of extreme obedience, people obey the demands of those in authority even if it means hurting others.
Collectivistic culture
Work as a group, behave collectively, and value interdependence, cooperation and compliance
individualistic culture
Work as individuals, more independent, and resist conformity and compliance.
Biological key question
What are the implications to society if aggression is a result of nature rather than nurture?
Multistore memory model alternative
Working memory model
Displacement
You take out your anger and frustration on a person/object not the actual target of your anger.
Social influence
When an individuals behaviour, attitudes and emotions are affected by a real or imagined pressure from another.
Dual task experiment's findings
When carrying out two tasks using same system, perfomance is poor because fighting for limited resources.
Autonomous state
Where individuals are seen as personally responsible for their actions
External validity
Whether the results can be verbalised if conducted in a different environment or using different participants
Construct validity
Whether the test or method can be used to support the underlying theoretical constructs concerning the variable that it is supposed to be measuring.
Gender and obedience
Women have been found to be more compliant than men, suggesting high obedience. However, women are more empathetic than men suggesting lower obedience.
directional hypothesis
a hypothesis that makes a specific prediction about the direction of the relationship between two variables
Classical conditioning
a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone.
Participant observation
a research method in which investigators systematically observe people while joining them in their routine activities.
Variable ratio
a response is reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses
correlation coefficient
a statistical index of the relationship between two things (from -1 to +1)
cross-sectional study
a study which compares sections of the population
Antagonists
bind but don't stimulate receptors instead they reverse or deactivate the effect of agonists (e.g. beta blockers)
Agonists
bind to receptors and stimulate them to increase the messages e.g. cocaine and heroin
Type of input in episodic memory
continuous input
social impact theory
the idea that conforming to social influence depends on the group's importance, immediacy, and the number of people in the group
Social identity
define ourselves in terms of group membership and the attributes of that group
Mundane realism
degree to which an experiment is superficially similar to everyday situations
Range
difference between highest and lowest values
Palambo et al (2012) four types of memories
episodic memory, semantic memory, spatial memory, prospective memory
Social comparison
evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others so that we have a positive social identity and increases our self esteem.
What does the theory of evolution suggest aggression as a result of?
evolving to serve adaptative problems in social living such as survival of offspring, competition for resources and defence against attackers
Type 2 error
false negative, accepting a null hypothesis that is not true; likely to happen when probability level is too strict.
Type 1 error
false positive, rejecting a null hypothesis that is true; likely to happen if significance level is too lenient
Bower et al (1979)
found considerable agreement about events when participants were asked to describe going to a restaurant. E.g. 73% mention sitting down and looking at the menu
Structured observations
in a controlled environment, e.g. laboratory
Empiricism
knowledge should be acquired through observation
Ordinal data
ordered but not at equal intervals, e.g. ranked scales
When is Wilcoxen signed ranks test used?
ordinal/interval/ratio data and repeated measures
Single blind procedure
participants are unaware of, or blind to, the types of treatment they are receiving, but the administrator knows
Two parts of the phonological loop
phonological store and articulatory control process
Measures of dispersion
range and standard deviation
Baddley's Findings
recall of acoustically similar words was worse than acoustically dissimilar words in the initial phase of learning. Significantly fewer semantically similar words on the retest were recalled.
counterconditioning
replacing an old conditioned response with a new one by changing the unconditioned stimulus
3 types of phobias
specific, social, agoraphobia
Spatial memory
the ability to recall where objects are in relationship to each other in space
Null hypothesis
the hypothesis that there is no significant difference between two variables, any observed difference being due to chance.
Central executive
the part of working memory that directs attention and processing; deals with cognitive tasks.
Locus of control
the tendency for people to assume that they either have control or do not have control over events and consequences in their lives
independent variable
variable that is manipulated
