psychology ap3

what type of study did freud conduct?

case study that started when hans was 3 and ended at 5

what features of horses reminded hans of his father?

dark around the mouth and blinkers

what was hans’ phobia?

being bitten by a white horse

what happened in the giraffe fantasy?

there was a big and crumpled giraffe. big one called out after crumpled one was taken away. stopped calling out and hans sat on crumpled one. freud said big giraffe was father and crumpled one was mother. he wants to take his mother away

what is the plumber fantasy?

hans was in the bath and a plumber unscrewed it. then took a big borer and stuck it in his stomach. freud said it’s hans identifying with father/resolving oedipus complex

what is the family fantasy?

hans married mother and had children. his father was the grandfather so no longer a rival. fantasises about taking children to toilet to widdle and wipe their bottom (took pleasure when happened to him). freud linked to him experiencing oedipus complex

what did hans develop an interest in?

widdler

what was the background of freud’s study?

hans was cheerful and straightforward until he bcame ‘ill’ (developed phobia). freud believed was because things going on in unconscious mind of which he was unaware. hans referred to freud by father (max graf). freud interpreted behaviour in explaining reasons for phobia using psychoanalysis. documented case to show his fear/dreams symbolic of unconscious mind through phallic stage of psychosexual development

what was the aim of freud’s study?

to support his ideas about the origins of phobias, his theory of infantile sexuality, oedipus complex and belief in the effectiveness of psychoanalytic development

how long did phase 1 of bandura’s study last?

10 minutes

what did phase 3 of bandura’s study contain?

(non) aggressive toys: bobo doll, cars, doll, mallet

what type of study did bandura conduct?

controlled observation

what type of experiment did bandura do?

lab

what experimental design did bandura use?

matched pairs

what was a result from bandura’s study?

children in the aggressive condition showed significantly more imitation of physical and verbal aggression than those in the non-aggressive condition

what was the background of bandura’s study?

previous research shown children readily imitate behaviour shown by adult model if they are present (bandura and hudson 1961). until study, little known about how behaviour displayed by models affects individual in novel settings when model is absent. study exposed children to aggressive/non-aggressive adult models then tested amount of imitative learning demonstrated aggressive behaviour can occur in absence of model

what was the aim of bandura’s study?

to demonstrate learning can occur through mere observation of model and imitation of learned aggressive behaviour can occur in absence of model

what are the principles and assumptions of the behaviourist perspective?

all behaviour is learned from the environment
only behaviours that can be readily observed should be studied
the mind is irrelevant
behaviour can be changed through reinforcement

what is SLT?

children learn behaviour from observing role models who they will then imitate

what are the 4 elements of SLT?

attention
retention
reproduction
motivation

what are the assumptions and principles of the psychodynamic perspective?

personality is interplay of 3 forces - id, ego, supergo
behaviour/feelings influenced by unconscious motives/conflicts
adult behaviour is influenced by childhood experiences
two powerful instinctive drives governing behaviour are eros and thanatos (both from id)

what are the practical applications of the behaviourist perspective?

helps researchers understand how aggression/violence can be transmitted through observational learning. gain better understanding of factors leading to children acting aggressive
use SLT to understand ways that positive role models can encourage desirable behaviours

what are the practical applications of the psychodynamic perspective?

psychotherapy (dream analysis/free association to understand unconscious conflicts)
personality research (insight into development of traits/defence mechanisms and impact of early experiences)
clinical psychology (understanding psychodynamics can assist in assessing psychological disorders)

what are the strengths of the behaviourist perspective?

reliable as uses lab experiments and standardised procedures
provides evidence for nurture debate which investigates effect of environment on behaviour - useful practical applications (therapy)

what are the weaknesses of the behaviourist perspective?

reductionist as ignores influence of biological/cognitive factors on behaviour so reduces validty - reduces accuracy of measuring complex behaviour
ethical issues as learning experiences can be damaging to participants - breaches ethical guidelines as encourages children to behave anti-socially

who was the sample in milgram’s study?

40 males aged 20-50 from varying backgrounds

how was milgram’s sample recruited?

volunteer sample from a newspaper ad - paid $4.50

what type of study did milgram do?

controlled observation

what did the learner do in milgram’s study?

mr wallace prerecorded responses giving approx 3 wrong answers to each correct one. at 300v - pounded on wall and made no replies

how were participants encouraged to continue the experiment in milgram’s study?

given verbal prods - standardised procedures

what are the conclusions of milgram’s study?

inhumane acts can be done by ordinary people
dispositional hypothesis of ‘germans are different’ was rejected. instead situational explanation accepted as it was the role volunteers occupied/setting that caused them to be obedient

what is agentic shift in milgram’s study?

diffusion of responsibility - leaves it to a superior person even if it goes against their own morals they will do it anyway

what was the predicted percentage of people who would obey in milgram’s study?

1-3% (mean 1.2%) predicted to go to 450v

what are the principles/concepts of the developmental area?

behaviour is learned/developed which occurs throughout lifetime

learned in a series of stages

influenced by the environment and early childhood experiences

what are the principles/concepts of the social area?

understanding human behaviour in social contexts
human behaviour influenced by others/context
deals with factors leading to behaviour in presence of others
thoughts/feelings are constructed and how psychological factors affect interactions with others

what are the principles/concepts of the biological area?

behaviour influenced by biological processes like brain functioning/biochemicals/faulty genes
hard biological determinism argues any behaviour due to psychological factors (mental illness) must be physical in nature first

what are the principles/concepts of the individual differences area?

everyone is unique in terms of their life experiences/characteristics like personality
we are different from each other and no such thing as an ‘average’ person

what are the strengths of the psychodynamic perspective?

helps understand workings of unconscious mind and can explain why individuals behave unusually - treat symptoms of mental illness
considers both nature (innate instincts) and nurture (environment in form of parenting) - less reductionist as looks at more than one aspect of psychological functioning

what are the weaknesses of the psychodynamic perspective?

difficult to assess scientifically due to using constructs to explain behaviour as not directly observable - doesn’t support psych as science/doesn’t produce objective data to understand behaviour
reliance on case studies (limited sample) results in small sizes/patients under psychological distress - problems generalising findings to wider population without therapy

how are the behaviourist and psychodynamic perspective different?

behaviourist is falsifiable as can determine cause + effect (objective), psychodynamic is subjective as measures thoughts/unconscious mind which doesn’t physically exist
behaviourist is reductionist as ignores influence of biological factors on behaviour, psychodynamic is holistic as considers both
behaviourist supports situational as looks behaviour as learned in environment, psychodynamic supports both. individual - different reasons for mental illness therefore psychoanalysis tailored to everyone’s needs. situational - early childhood environments causing fixations in later life

how are the behaviourist and psychodynamic perspective similar?

support nurture: behaviourist provides evidence allowing investigation into effects of environment on behaviour (classical/operant conditioning), psychodynamic considers innate instincts and environment. develop 3 elements of personality/must pass through psychosexual stages
both are socially sensitive: behaviourist uses parenting classes/age restriction in media, psychodynamic uses psychoanalysis/psychotherapy

what is the nature debate?

behaviour is due to biological processes like genetic inheritance and biochemistry. innate and internal factors that could be dispositional

what is the nurture debate?

behaviour is due to how we’ve been brought up and influence of others over our lifetime - external and environmental factors

what is free will?

we have control over how we behave and choose which path to take so therefore are accountable for our own actions

what is determinism?

behaviour is due to internal/external forces that we have no control over. either biological/environmental determinism

what is reductionism?

behaviour can be explained using oversimplified explanations for complex behaviour and basic explanations while ignoring other possible factors

what is holism?

behaviour is due to several factors interacting together

what does it mean to be socially sensitive?

studies that have the potential to have a negative impact on specific groups within society

what is psychology as a science?

meets features of objectivity/replicability/falsifiability

what are individual explanations for behaviour?

behaviour is due to internal/individual factors or dispositional like brain dysfunction

what are situational explanations for behaviour?

behaviour is due to circumstances we find ourselves in (external factors like environment)

what was the mean age of participants in bocchiaro’s study?

20.8

what was the experiment on in bocchiaro’s cover story?

sensory deprivation on brain dysfunction

what adjectives were participants told to use in bocchiaro’s study?

exciting, incredible, great, superb

how were participants recruited in bocchiaro’s study?

volunteer via flyers

what type of study did bocchiaro conduct?

lab study - not lab experiment as there was no IV

why were 11 participants removed from the original sample in bocchiaro’s study?

suspicious nature

how many participants were in the experimental group in bocchiaro’s study?

149

how many participants were in the comparison group in bocchiaro’s study?

138

how many pilot tests were done and why in bocchiaro’s study?

8 containing 92 participants to ensure the procedure was credible and morally acceptable

what was the experimenter like in bocchiaro’s study?

dutch male dressed smartly with stern facial expression

how long were participants left in the room to decide to write the statement in bocchiaro’s study?

3 minutes

what were the results of bocchiaro’s study?

76.5% obeyed, 14% disobeyed, 9.4% whistleblew

what were the conclusions from bocchiaro’s study?

people obey authority figures even if they are unjust
what people say they and others would do in given situations and what they actually do is different

how long did bocchiaro’s study last for?

40 minutes

what was the background of bocchiaro’s study?

milgram’s obedience study had little understanding on nature of disobedience to unjust authority. therefore little known about who disobeys/whistleblows, why they choose challenging moral paths and if they have personal characteristics that differentiate them. study aimed to investigate if individual/situational factors influence (dis)obedience and whistleblowing

what were the aims of bocchiaro’s study?

to investigate whether individual/situational variables influence (dis)obedience or whistleblowing
to show the difference in people’s predictions of what they say they would do to what they actually do ((dis)obedience)

what was the background of milgram’s study?

moral question of ww2 was how it happened/could be prevented in future. popular belief that atrocities committed by nazi soldiers may have been caused because germans had personality ‘defect’ making them more likely to obey - ‘germans are different’ hypothesis. dispositional view of behaviour (behaviour is influenced by personal traits) rather than sitautional (influenced by external factors)

what were the aims of milgram’s study?

to test ‘germans are different’ hypothesis
to investigate levels of obedience to authority figure by administering electric shocks to another person

what is the background of loftus and palmer’s study?

jury in courtroom think eyewitness testimonies are reliable source of information. research in area has found that EWT are unreliable as they are affected by many factors

what are the aims of loftus and palmer’s study?

to investigate accuracy of EWT in particular the effect of leading questions on what people can remember (1st exp)
to see if leading questions changed a person’s subsequent memory of even they have witnessed (reliability) (2nd exp)

what was the procedure of experiment 1 in loftus and palmer’s study?

watched same 7 videos of car accidents (5-30 secs)
3 were real, 4 staged
did questionnaire after each clip - gave account of accident
asked series of questions including critical question: ‘about how fast were the cars going when they…into each other?’

what was the procedure of experiment 2 in loftus and palmer’s study?

1 min film showing multiple car crash
given questionnaire asking to describe accident/questions about it
same critical question as exp. 1
3 IV conditions: smashed, hit and no verb (control)
week later - asked Ps (without seeing clip again) to complete questionnaire and another critical question: ‘did you see any broken glass?’
no broken glass in original film

what were the results of experiment 1 of loftus and palmer’s study?

speed estimates:
smashed - 40.8
collided - 39.3
bumped - 38.1
hit - 34
contacted - 31.8

what were the results of experiment 2 of loftus and palmer’s study?

yes: smashed (16), hit (7), control (6)
no: smashed (34), hit (43), control (44)

what is the conclusion from experiment 1 of loftus and palmer’s study?

difficult to estimate speed accurately so a more serious sounding verb makes people estimate higher. ‘smashed’ is most severe so had highest speed estimates compared to ‘contacted’. leading q’s can distort memory

what is the conclusion from experiment 2 of loftus and palmer’s study?

misleading post event info can distort memory - info gained at time of original event/post event info gained after event. info from 2 sources will integrate over time and unable to decipher which source info came from. unable to tell if memory is accurate

what is the background for grant’s study?

interested in determining whether environmental context dependency effects would be found with the type of material/test (recall or recognition). focus is more than on differences in classroom testing conditions because they believe students have more control over study environment than test environment

what was the aim of grant’s study?

to test for context dependency effects caused by the presence or absence of noise during learning and retrieval of meaningful material

who was the sample of grant’s study?

39 participants aged 17-56 (mean=23.4)
opportunity
1 P omitted from analyses

what was the procedure for grant’s study?

experimenter provided cassette player/headphones. 8 had background noise (recorded in uni cafeteria) played at moderately loud level
same two page, three columned article on psychoimmunology
P read aloud using SPs that experiment was class project, voluntary, had right to withdraw
Ps told to read article (reading times recorded) comprehension tested using SAQ and MCQ
all Ps wore headphones
2 min break before test
SAQ given before MCQ to ensure recall from article
Ps debriefed/procedure lasted 30 mins

what were the results from grant’s study?

no overall effect of noise on performance
performance significantly better on matching conditions
recall better when studying/testing done in similar environments

what are the conclusions of grant’s study?

studying/testing in same environment leads to enhanced performance
evidence for context dependency suggest students are better off studying without background noise as isn’t present in exam conditions

what are the practical applications of the social area?

advertising and marketing: help strategies that can be used to persuade others to make purchasing decisions
education: helps educators understand how to improve engagement and behaviour in classrooms and communal areas
workplace: leadership styles and group dynamics are best understood from a social psychology viewpoint

what is the practical application of sperry’s study?

neuro/brain therapy: right hemisphere is not completely word blind therefore we can encourage brain plasticity to ‘train’ the RH into recognising words

what is the practical application of casey’s study?

nurture delay of gratification in low delayers via cooling strategies when faced with ‘hot’ alluring situations. teach children to delay gratification and receive more rewards if they do

what is the background of sperry’s study?

believes studies involving split-brain patients reveal ‘true’ nature of hemispheres because of commissurotomy which disconnects hemispheres so they work independently. previous research on SB animals showed numerous behavioural effects. more research on SB humans/monkeys suggested behavioural effects of surgery maybe less severe than other forms of cerebral palsy. research by Akelaitis showed no important behavioural effects of surgical section of CC in humans provided other brain damagae was excluded

what was the aim of sperry’s study?

to investigate what each hemisphere of the brain was responsible for (to study each hemisphere independently of the other)

what was the background of casey’s study?

previous research showed children’s performance in delay of gratification task would also predict their inability to control their impulses in cognitive control task. findings suggested children’s performance could predict their capacity in ability to delay gratification (or not) in later adulthood

what is the aim of casey’s study?

to build on previous research to assess whether delayed gratification in children predicts impulse control abilities and sensitivity to alluring social cues (happy face) in later adult life (40+)

who were the sample of sperry’s study?

11 ex-epileptic patients with severed CCs

2 who had surgery 5 years prior were studied in detail

what was the research method and design of sperry’s study?

quasi experiment
self reports- p’s gave verbal accounts of experiences
case studies - 11 subjects studies, 2 in greater detail

what was the procedure for sperry’s study?

p’s had patch over one eye and sat in front of monitor looking at central fixation point on screen. images on 35mm transparencies flashed for 1/10th of a second to LVF/RVF/both
flashed briefly so there wasn’t enough time for info to change fixation point
subjects asked to say or draw what they had seen
stereognostic tests: objects placed in p’s hand out of sight behind screen/retrieve objects from behind screen that were presented to one of the VFs

what were the conclusions of sperry’s study?

people with SBs have 2 separate visual inner worlds, each with its own train of visual images
SB patients have a lack of cross-integration where the second hemisphere doesn’t know what the first has been doing

who were the sample of casey’s study?

117 contacted and 59 took part (27 LDs, 32 HDs)
original marshmallow sample: 562 4 year olds from stanford bing university nursery school (mischel)
27 p’s from exp.1 did exp.2

where did experiment 2 take place in casey’s study?

fMRI machine

what was the procedure for experiment 1 of casey’s study?

p’s tested self-control measured via go/no go task
task: press a button (go) when certain stimuli shows or don’t (no go)
‘hot’ - happy vs fearful face
‘cold’ - male/female neutral face
each P completed 4 tasks. faces shown on laptop screen delivered to homes (programmed)
faces shown for 0.5 seconds with 1 sec intervals. p’s instructed on which face was target stimuli

what was the procedure of experiment 2 of casey’s study?

aimed to investigate regions of brain they predicted would be implicated in self-control via fMRI scanner (shows how many parts of brain work whilst doing task)
27/59 took part
1 anomaly so 26
same ‘hot’ go/no task but 2-14.5 sec delay (mean=5.2s)
apparatus was different - stimuli presented on screen in scanner/different push button

what are the results of experiment 1 of casey’s study?

HD/LDs performed with high levels of accuracy on ‘go’ task for ‘cool’/’hot tasks
both made more errors on no go tasks. LDs made more errors on ‘hot no go’ task - couldn’t resist pressing button when happy face appeared

what is the result of experiment 2 of casey’s study?

LDs showed lower activity in right inferior gyrus than HDs on no go trials due to the region of brain dealing with ability to resist temptation
LDs showed higher activity in ventral striatum when happy were no go stimuli suggests alluring stimuli made reward region more active so more errorsw