predicted psychology paper 1

🧡 SPE procedure (7)

• 24 🙋🏻‍♂️, 🇺🇸 college students

• Assessed before the study to make sure they were mentally and physically healthy

• Randomly assigned

• Took place in the basement of Stanford Uni psychology department → turned into a simulated prison

• Not allowed to use physical violence

• Arrested at 🏡 by real police

• uniform, id, strict routines : whistles, nightsticks, reflective sunglasses, number = deindividuation

🧡 SPE findings (12)

• Prisoners resistance faded

• They became anxious, withdrawn and passive

• 5 released early → severe mental breakdowns

• Guards adapted rapidly to their roles

• Imposed increasingly harsh punishments

• Removed privileges & tightened control

• Harassed prisoners

• Punished small disobedience

• 2 week study had to be stopped after 6 days

• Guards became increasingly cruel and sadistic

• Guards were disappointed when ended early → enjoyed having power

• Revealed how strongly social roles can influence behaviour → its not just who we are (our personality) but the situations we’re placed in

🧡 5 evaluation points for the SPE

(help q → the prisoners were asking for help + q is p backwards)

✅ 🎮High level of control over variables

• Participants were carefully screened before → ensure emotional stability + free from psychological issues → reduces risk of individual differences

• Random allocation → helps reduce participant bias → behaviour is due to role assigned and not personality type

• Good internal validity

• Behaviour confidently linked to influence of social roles + simulated prison environment

❌ Ethical issues

• While they gave informed consent → could not have fully anticipated the intensity and emotional strain involved

• Raises questions about whether their consent was truly informed

• Caused significant psychological harm → several experienced extreme emotional distress

• Some reported that they felt they were unable to leave, compromising their right to withdraw

❌ 🌍Lack of generalisability

• Male 🇺🇸 college students

• Findings may not reflect how individuals from different backgrounds, cultures or age groups would behave in a similar situation

❌ Presence of demand characteristics

• Since participants were aware that they were taking part in a study → may have altered their behaviour to fit in with what they thought was expected of them rather than acting naturally

• This concern is heightened by the fact that Zimbardo himself conformed to a role → failed to maintain objective researcher

❌ Questioned in terms of ecological validity

• Although environment was designed to resemble a real prison, it remained an artificial simulation

• Participants were aware that it was a study and could technically withdraw at anytime → unlike the inescapable long term nature of actual prisons

• Raises questions about how far the findings can be applied to real life

(PP) A group of employees were attending a team meeting at a large company. During the meeting, most of the team agreed with the management that working overtime at weekends was necessary to meet the project deadline. Sam refused to agree and stated that working overtime at the weekend was unfair and he said he would not be working the additional shifts.

Outline two reasons why Sam may have resisted social influence in this situation. Refer to Sam in your answer. (4)

• One reason Sam may have resisted social influence is because of internal locus of control. People with an internal locus of control believe that their behaviour is determined by their own decisions rather than by external pressures. This means Sam may have felt personally responsible for his actions and so was more confident in refusing to work unpaid weekend shifts

• A second reason is social support. Social support means that the presence of other people who do not conform reduces the pressure to conform. As the question says that “most” employees agreed, this suggests that not everyone agreed, so Sam may have gained confidence from knowing that some others also disagreed with management. This would reduce the effect of NSI

❤ Resistance to social influence

D: ability to withstand, or hold out against , the pressure from others

👯‍♀Social support

• The presence of other people resisting can help you do the same

• They act as models to show us that resistance is possible

Asch 1951:

• when Asch added just 1 dissenter: 32% → 25% (whether they gave the right or wrong answer)

• Unanimity was broken

• Gave participants more confidence to trust their own judgement + freed them from the fear of standing alone

Milgram 1963:

• When participants sat with 2 disobeying confederates: 65% → 10%

🎛 Locus of control

• The amount of control we perceive to have over situations in our lives

• Internal LOC: believe they are in control for what happens to them, believe they can succeed in difficult situations (self confident, less need for approval)

• External LOC: believe that things are outside of their control, feel helpless in difficult & challenging situations (less likely to resist, more likely to give in)

Holland 1967:

• Replicated Milgram’s experiment, but before he measured whether participants had an internal/ external LOC (i: 37%, e: 23%)

Oliner & Oliner 1988:

• Interviewed people who had lived through Nazi Germany during holocaust

• 2 groups: 406 people who actively helped rescue Jews / 126 who did not get involved → rescuers were much more likely to have an internal LOC

❌ Critisism in the way it is measured

• Measured using questionnaires

• Rotter’s scale: participants pick between 2 statements

• These self-report methods can be effected by social desirability bias, people answer in ways they think is socially acceptable rather than giving true thoughts

• Although research is supportive we should remain cautious about how accurately we’re measuring LOC and how valid the findings are

(PP) Following the meeting, a psychologist wanted to investigate employees’ behaviour in the workplace. The psychologist asked employees to estimate how many days over the last six months they had worked weekend overtime. The psychologist compared the responses of full-time employees with those of part-time employees.

Identify a suitable statistical test for this study. Explain three reasons for your choice in the context of this study. (4)

• a suitable statistical test is the Mann-Whitney U test

• One reason is that the psychologist is looking for a difference between two groups, not a correlation

• A second reason is that the study uses an independent groups design, because the full-time and part-time employees are two separate groups of people

• A third reason is that the data can be treated as ordinal, because employees estimated how many days they worked over time, so the data can be ranked but the intervals between values cannot be assumed to be equal

(PP)

• Team A shows a negatively skewed distribution because the mean and median are lower than the mode

• Team B shows a positively skewed distribution because the mean and median are higher than the mode

💚 Conformity and the factors affecting conformity (procedure and findings)

(Background knowledge on baseline study)

• 123 🇺🇸 male college students

• Gave wrong answers 12/18 trials

• 75% conformed at least once

• 32% conformed on critical trials

• NSI, knew the correct answer

Variations

😣 Task difficulty:

• Conformity shot up

• Situation became more ambiguous, we naturally look to others for answer

👯‍♀ Group size:

• With just 1-2 confederates participants stuck to their own views

• By adding a 3rd confederate → conformity jumped significantly to about 32%

• Increasing group beyond 3 barely made a difference

🫱🏼‍🫲🏾Unanimity:

• One confederate gave different answer, correct or incorrect

• Social support: even a single ally → makes it easier to resist pressure to conform

💚 Conformity and factors affecting conformity AO3 (evaluation of Asch’s research)

CLEPT

✅ 🎮Conducted in a highly controlled environment

• He could carefully control variables such as the number of confederates/ order of responses

• This control made it possible to replicate the study reliably + isolate specific factors that affect conformity

• Allows researchers to establish cause and effect in a scientific way → boosting studies internal validity

❌ 🥼Low ecological validity

• The situation in the experiment is simple + artificial

• Lacks complexity & emotional stakes in real life social pressures

• Irl, conformity involves meaningful decisions such as yielding to peer pressure related to drugs + bullying → these situations carry real consequences and emotional involvement

• Findings may not be applicable outside lab environment

❌ Ethical issues

• Participants were misled to believe that the study was about visual perception

• This prevented them from fully giving informed consent → did not know true purpose

• Some argue this level of deception was necessary to maintain the study’s integrity → if participants knew the true aim they may have altered their behaviour → undermines validity of findings

• Asch did debrief

❌ 🌍Population bias

• All participants were male American students

• Cannot confidently assume that the findings would apply to women, older adults or individuals from different cultural backgrounds

• Research has indicated women may be more focused on social relationships → show conformity in different ways compared to men

• Therefore… generalisability

❌ 🕰Temporal validity

• Conducted in the 1950’s → results could reflect the social attitudes of that time period

• Eg: pressure to conform may have been higher after WWII with a cultural emphasis on cooperation and agreement

• Some have argued that since then social norms have shifted towards greater individual expression + skepticism of authority

• Asch’s findings may not fully represent how people conform today

💚 The agentic state ao1+ao3

DIC

When we act as an ‘agent’ for someone else, seeing them as the authority

Agentic shift → when we perceive someone as a legitimate authority figure

Binding factors: remain obeying/ in the agentic state

→ fear of disrupting the social order, fear of judgement or negative punishment, gradual escalation

❌ Cannot explain disobedience

• Does not fully account for the variation in obedience between individuals

• In Milgram’s original study → 35% did not obey up to 450v → despite being under the same situational pressures

• This suggests that factors beyond entering an agentic state may also influence behaviour

• → the AS explanation alone cannot fully explain why obedience levels vary

❌ Ignores dispositional factors

• Such as personality traits that contribute to obedience

• Theory focuses on situational pressures → evidence from Adorno suggests certain individuals are more likely to obey authority figures due to traits shaped by upbringing

• Indicates that any explanation of obedience needs to consider that some people may be predisposed to obedience (regardless of situation)

• Offers partial explanation

❌ Difficult to measure

• … or distinguish between the reasons why obedience occurs

• Challenging to tell whether someone is obeying because they are in an agentic state, because they are genuinely respecting authority or due to personality factors

• These explanations often overlap making it hard to pinpoint exactly what causes obedience

• Lack of clear measurement reduces the scientific validity of the explanation

💚 Authoritarian personality AO1

• Highly respectful and submissive towards authority figures

• Harsh, hostile or prejudiced towards people they see as lower in status

• Contempt for those seen as inferior

• Dogmatic: see the world in ⬛-and-⬜ terms

• Rigid and conformist: valuing order, tradition and discipline above all else

Causes:

• Grow up with parents who are very strict and controlling, demand absolute loyalty, set impossibly high standards, critical when child fails, parental love is often conditional

→ creates a deep inner conflict, child feels 😡 and resentment towards parent

→ 😡 is repressed + displaces repressed hostility onto weaker/lower status people

Adorno et al. 1950:

• Surveyed over 2,000 white, middle-class 🇺🇸 → using F-scale (questionnaire)

• Participants rated agreement with statements

• Findings: higher F-scale scores correlated with higher prejudice against minority groups

Elms and Milgram 1966:

• Followed up with participants

• One group that had obeyed up to 450V and another group who had not

• They completed Adornos F-scale

• Found that obedient participants scored higher

💚 Authoritarian personality AO3

(OCG)

❌ Overlooks situational variables

• Eg: Milgrams own studies showed that obedience changed dramatically depending on factors such as uniform

• Reduces overall explanatory power of AP as it fails to account for the full range of factors that influence obedient behaviour

❌ 📈Correlational data

• Both adorno + elms/milgram only identified a relationship between authoritarian traits + obedience without proving causation

• Cannot be certain that an authoritarian personality causes obedience

• Possible that other factors are influencing: some studies found that people with lower levels of education score higher on authoritarianism + more likely to obey → 3rd variable could be responsible for link

• Weakens AP as an explanation as evidence lacks experimental control needed to establish clear cause and effect relationship

❌ Greenstein (1969)

• Argued that F-scale suffers from serious methodological flaws

• Pointed out issues such as response bias: many of the items on F-scale were worded in the same direction making it a leading questionnaire

• People who agree with statements in general (acquiescence bias) are more likely to score as authoritarian regardless of actual beliefs

• Undermines F-scales validity as it may not be accurately measuring authoritarianism but rather a general tendency to agree

• F-scales lack of scientific rigour cast doubt on adorno’s conclusions → weakening the credibility of the authoritarian personality as a reliable explanation of obedience

🧡 Minority influence (AO1) not for research

Consistency:

🕰 Diachronic: holds same position over time

👯‍♀Synchronic: all members share the same view

→ this draws attention + creates doubt in the minds of the majority + challenges the majority to reconsider their views

Commitment:

How dedicated the minority is to their position, often demonstrated through personal sacrifice

→ when people see someone willing to suffer for their cause, they are more likely to take that person seriously

🤸🏼Flexibility:

Too rigid or dogmatic → likely to be ignored

Persuasive minority strikes a balance, standing firm but open to dialogue

☃ Snowball effect: how small actions or events can initiate a process where they grow increasingly larger + more significant over time

🧡 Minority influence (AO3) not for research (NoW - not instant)

✅ Nemeth 1986⛷

• Explored the role of flexibility in a more realistic context

• Participants in a group of 4 had to decide how much compensation to award victim of ski-lift accident (one member was a confederate)

• Flexible condition: confederate was flexible and offered a compromise → more influential

• Inflexible condition: confederate stuck rigidly to low amount → less influential

• Supports the idea that flexibility is crucial in minority influence

✅ Wood et al 1994🪵

• Meta-analysis of nearly 100 studies: minorities who were consistent in their views were significantly more influential than those who were inconsistent

• Suggests consistency is a key factor in successful minority influence → signals confidence + commitment

🧡 Minority influence research + AO3

🟦Moscovici et al 1969: Effects of consistency

• 36 slides, different shades of blue

• Each group had 2 confederates + 4 participants

• Consistent condition: said slides were ‘green’ on all 36 slides = 8% of participants were influenced

• Inconsistent condition: green x24, blue 12x = only 1% gave the same answer

❌ Lacks population validity

• Sample consisted of entirely 🙋🏻‍♀️ students → findings may not generalise to other groups such as males or people from different age ranges, cultures or educational backgrounds

• Therefore, study may not accurately represent how minority influence operates in wider population → reducing external validity

❌ Lacks ecological validity

• Task used of identifying slides is highly artificial → bears little resemblance to the emotionally and socially complex issues involved in real life minority influence

• Minority often face personal risk when challenging the majority

• Undermines minority influence research as it may not accurately explain how MI operates in real world

❤ The cognitive interview (AO1)

Questioning technique designed to improve the information that an eyewitness can retrieve about crime

🌳 Reinstate the context:

• Based on the encoding specificity principle: cues available at recall need to be similar to the cues that were there when the memory was encoded

• Cues can trigger recall of certain memories

• Emotional and environmental

Report everything:

• Anything and everything they can recall from the event should be described

• Smaller, seemingly irrelevant details could trigger the recall of other more important memories

🔄 Reverse the order:

• Schema can lead to errors with our memories → what we say we remember happening may actually have been altered or changed to fit in with what we expected to happen

Change perspective:

• Also designed to disrupt the affect of schemas + provide cues for the recall of other information

Enhanced cognitive interview - Fisher & Geiselman 2010

• Police interviewers must invest time at the outset of the interview to develop meaningful, personal rapport with the witnesses

❤ The cognitive interview (AO3) SKR (car crash + EWT)

SKR (car crash + EWT)

✅ Supporting evidence

• Geiselman et al 1985 → participants watched police training films of simulated violent crimes + interviewed 48 hrs later using either the standard or cognitive interview

• Significantly higher difference in the average number of correct items recalled + no significant difference in number of incorrect items recalled

• Fisher et al 1989 → 7 experienced detectives were trained to use the cognitive interview, compared with 9 untrained detectives

• All interviews that took place were tape recorded and analysed → they found that detectives trained in CI produced 63% more information than untrained detectives with over 90% accuracy

• Demonstrate how CI can lead to better memory recall in eyewitnesses over standard interview

❌ Kohnken et al 1999

• Although the Cognitive Interview is designed to enhance the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, research suggests it may also increase the production of incorrect details

• Köhnken et al. (1999) conducted a meta-analysis of 55 studies and found that whilst the CI produced more correct information than standard interviewing, it also generated a significantly higher amount of inaccurate information

• This is problematic because in real police investigations, officers may struggle to distinguish between accurate and false details provided by a witness, potentially leading to unreliable evidence being used in court

• Therefore, the Cognitive Interview cannot be considered a fully reliable investigative tool, as the increase in overall recall comes at the cost of also increasing errors, which may ultimately compromise rather than support the justice system.

❌ (really)Time-consuming

• Not only does it take much longer to conduct than a standard police interview due a need to built up a rapport, it also requires time to train the police officers

• A study found that many officers do not have time to conduct a full cognitive interview

• Time pressure + limited resources of police can mean the full CI is rarely used → limiting its application

❤ The WMM

Baddeley & Hitch 1974

👂🏽Phonological loop

• Responsible for processing sound-based information

• Articulatory control process: inner voice → rehearses sound information

• Phonological store: inner ear → stores sound information

👁Visuospatial sketchpad

• Responsible for processing visual/ spatial info

👨🏿‍💼CE

• In control of PL + VSS

• Decides what we pay attention to

🏪 Episodic buffer

• Added by Baddeley in 2000

• Thought to act as a backup store

• Integrates information from all the components of working memory as well as from LTM

• Can store both visual + verbal STM

❤ WMM (AO3)*

(CCP) Chanel pls - work

✅ Case study of KF + other supporting evidence (visual/verbal)

• Accident resulted in damage to his STM → specifically with 👄l recall

• He was able to recall 👁 information but showed poor recall for 👄 information

• Suggests WM may have separate components; one for 👄 + one for 👁

• PPP: paulesu et al (1993) put volunteers in PET scan to measure 🩸 flow whilst they perform some memory tasks → different parts of the PL activated different 🧠 areas

• Suggests that WM contains separate components within phonological loop

• Dual task studies: many studies into working memory have found that if you carry out two 👁 or two 👄 tasks at the same time → you do them less well then if you did them alone

• However if you carry out one 👁 and one 👄 tasks → you do them as well as when you do them separately

• Provides support for separate components for WM

❌ Problems with research

• However, research behind the WMM can be criticised in a few ways → many of the dual task studies into WM are carried out in highly 🎮 settings + involve memory tasks that are artificial

• Do not reflect typical memory tasks

• Demand characteristics → know they are taking part in a study + wanting to perform really well in tests of their memory

• People behave in a different way then they normally would

• Weakens evidence for working memory model

❌ Criticisms of CE

• Despite it being the most important, little is known about the CE

• Its role in terms of attention and decision making in WM appears to be vague and untestable

• It has been suggested by some psychologists that CE could be divided into separate parts

• Therefore, the limited understanding of the CE suggests the working memory model is incomplete, weakening its validity as a full explanation of memory

🧡 Multi-store model AO1

Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968

• Separate stores for 3 types of memory: sensory register, STM, LTM

• Info by the 🌳 is received by the SR

• This info is then passed to our STM but this only happens when you pay attention

• If info is rehearsed we can temporarily keep it in our STM = maintenance rehearsal

• For info to go to LTM it needs prolonged rehearsal

• If we were then asked about the info we would retrieve it from LTM → STM for it to be temporarily used

• Linear model: processing of the memory happens sequentially, in a series of stages

💚 Coding, duration and capacity: sensory register

Coding: transforming incoming info into a form that can be stored in memory

Duration: length of time memory lasts for/ how long it is kept in that store before it is forgotten

Capacity: amount of information stored can hold

Sensory register:

Coding: modality specific (according to the sense/mode it is received)

Duration: iconic: ¼ seconds

Capacity: potentially unlimited

💚 Coding, duration, capacity: STM (+research)

STM capacity: Jacobs (1887)

• Participants were presented with a digit span task → required them to repeat back a series of numbers with length increasing by one each time

• Letters = 7.3

• Numbers 9.3

• Miller (1956) proposed 7±2 items

🔼 STM duration: Peterson & Peterson (1959)

• Participants given a trigram → asked to count backwards in 3s from a given number (prevent rehearsal) → recalled at intervals

• 18-30 seconds

STM coding: Baddeley (1966)

• Participants were presented with a list of words: acoustically similar/ dissimilar, semantically similar/dissimilar

• Acoustically similar group recalled the worst

• Predominantly coded acoustically

💚 Coding, duration, capacity: LTM (+research)

LTM coding: Baddeley 1966

• Same participants recalled same list but 20 minutes later

• Semantically similar group performed the worst

• Predominantly encoded semantically

🏫 LTM duration: Bahrick et al (1975)

• Photo recognition

• Graduated within last 15 years: 90% accuracy

• Graduated 48 years ago: 70% accurate

• Lifetime

LMT capacity:

• Unlimited

MSM AO3

POSS (🐱 the worse one)

✅ Supporting evidence

• Researchers found that when people are presented with a list of items to recall in order → begin by recalling items at the end of the list known as the recency effect because these items are still in STM

• Then people remember items at the beginning of the list known as the primacy effect → thought to have been transferred to LTM (some rehearsal)

• Primacy and recency effect demonstrates the idea of separate stores for STM/LMT + thus support the MSM

• HM: after an accident → hippocampus removed → unable to form any new LTM, STM was fine but he could not transfer info to LTM

• Provides further support for MSM

❌ Problems with research

• Can be criticised because of 🦾 tasks often used in lab experiments

• In trying to study memory in a way that is measurable and 🎮 → means tasks participants are given are often very different from how our memory typically functions (P+P)

• Limits the extent to which research can be generalised

• MSM could be questioned because its based on research that lacks ecological validity

❌ Oversimplifies LTM

• Presents LTM as a unitary store

• Criticised for being oversimplified as further research has demonstrated that there are separate parts to LTM: procedural, episodic, semantic

• Therefore, bc it lacks detail about separate types of LTM → ability to fully explain how memory works can be questioned

❌ Oversimplifies STM

• Case study of KF shows that there are separate components of STM

💚 Types of LTM (AO1)

Procedural (knowing how)

• Memories for motor skills and actions

• ❌👄

• Unavailable for conscious inspection

🎞 Episodic (knowing that)

• Memories relating to a specific episode or event that happened in your life

• Have a particular time and place

• 👄

• Can be consciously 🧐

Semantic (knowing that)

• Fact-based memories for meaningful info

• General knowledge about the 🌍

• No reference to time and place

• 👄

Types of LTM (AO3)

✅ Supporting evidence

• Tulving et al (1994) reported data from studies that used PET scans

• Participants asked to think of a specific memory whilst blood flow in 🧠 was being measured

• When participants thought of episodic memories a different part of the brain was activated compared to when participants thought of semantic memories

• Demonstrated how there are different types of LTM that activate different areas of the 🧠

• 🦛 HM: anterograde amnesia → loss of ability to form new memories

• Had problems forming some types of memory but not all

• Studies found that he was able to store procedural LTMs but not episodic LTMs (Milner 1957)

• 🎼 Clive wearing (1985): anterograde and retrograde amnesia

• Lost episodic memory but his procedural memory remained intact as he could still perform complex 🎹 pieces

• 3rd piece of evidence

💚 Retrieval failure AO1

Tulving proposed encoding specificity principle

→ cues available at recall need to be same specific cues that were there at learning when encoding memory

Context-dependant forgetting: lacking external cues

State-dependant forgetting: lacking internal cues (physiological or psychological)

💚 Retrieval failure AO3

(SIP - 🥂changes internal state)

✅ Supporting evidence

• 🤿 Godden and Baddeley (1975) (context)

• Found recall was best when 🌳 was the same at learning and at recall + worst when context was different

• 💊 Carter and Cassady (1998)(state)

• They wanted to see if taking an antihistamine (which would change internal state) would affect memory recall

• Had participants free-recall a list of 20 words/ short passage of information

• Amount participants could recall was affected by the state they were in (recall was higher when they were in the same internal state at learning and at recall)

❌ Issues with research

• Dramatic difference → unlike many of the day-to-day experiences of forgetting

• Does not account for why we might forget in circumstances that aren’t so dramatic

• Limits ecological validity + reduces confidence in findings

✅ Practical application

• 👮Has also been applied to help improve EWT

• Now know that having same cue at encoding+recall → led to an improvement in the way police interview EW through CI

• Involves reinstating the context → helps to increase amount + accuracy

💚 Learning theory of attachment AO1

Attachment is learned through the environment

Baby learns to love whoever feeds them

🔔 Classical conditioning

• Infants learn to associate the caregiver with the satisfaction of their basic needs

🥇 Operant conditioning

➕ Infant: receive food → brings a feeling of pleasure

➖mother: crying stops

💚 Learning theory of attachment AO3

(CBA - cba to learn anymore)

✅ Based on an established theory

• Behaviourism is very well research and based on scientific principles

• Eg work of BF Skinner on OC was conducted in highly 🎮 settings so that cause+effect could be established

• Applying this to attachment behaviour is seen as a plausible explanation

• Additionally focus of stimulus+response allows it to be easily investigated/ observed

• → clear, straightforward explanation, 📈 confidence in findings

❌ Challenging evidence

• Schaffer+Emerson: one of the 🔑 findings from this study was that the person the child formed an attachment with wasn’t the person who spent the most 🕰, instead it was the caregiver who was most interactive/ sensitive

• Undermines the learning theory → not about who 👨🏾‍🍼 but the quality of interaction

• Harlow🐒

❌ Overemphasis on the role of nurture 🌳

• Learning theory ignores how 🧬 factors might be involved in forming attachment

• Eg Bowlby’s monotropic theory outlines how attachments are formed due to innate factors

• Suggests learning theory is limited in its ability to explain the formation

🧡 Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment AO1

ASCMI

🧬 Adaptive

• Bowlby sees 🔗 as an evolutionary behaviour that helps with survival

• Innate

• Eg rooting reflex

😊 Social releasers

• Behaviours or signals from the infant that draw in adult to give them attention

• Cooing, gripping ✋🏼

⏳Critical period

• The idea that there is a set 🕰 frame for a 👶🏽 to form attachment with 👩🏻

• Up to 2.5 yrs old

• If 🔗 is not formed during this 🕰 → lasting consequences for 👶🏽 development (s,e,i)

🥇Monotropy

• Bowlby puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of the 👶🏽 attachment to one 👩🏼

• More significant than the 🔗 they may form with other people

IWM

• As a result of the monotropic relationship that is formed with 👩🏾 → 👶🏽 forms a template for future 👩🏽‍❤️‍👨🏾, 🧑‍🧒

🧡 Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment AO3

SSoCial (ly sensitive)

✅ Supporting evidence

• Hazan & 🪒- 🩷 quiz (1988): ❓💨, measured current relationships and past 🔗 history

• They found a 📈 between 🔗 type and later 🩷experiences

• Eg those with secure 🔗 → relationships marked by trust, friendship, ➕ emotion | insecure avoidant → relationships marked by fear and lack of trust

• Support IWM

❌ Challenging evidence

• Shaffer + Emerson (1964): idea of monotropy is not evident

• Bowlby’s theory does not account for how babies formed multiple attachments

• Additionally, some cultures parent in such a way that multiple 👩🏻👩🏾👩🏼 are the norm from the moment 👶🏽 is born

❌ Socially sensitive

• Emphasises the importance of the formation of an 🔗 to one significant 👩🏾

• Arguably adds a terrible burden of responsibility to mothers to form 💪🏽 relationship with 👶🏽 + sets them up to take the blame for anything that goes wrong in the rest of 👶🏽 life

• Also underestimates the role of 💁‍♂

❤ The strange situation - procedure + findings

Ainsworth

SS → designed to assess the quality of the child’s attachment to their caregiver

100 🇺🇸 infants, 12-18 months

Procedure:

• Infants behaviour was observed using behavioural categories: proximity seeking, exploration + secure base behaviour, stranger/ separation anxiety, response to reunion

• 8⃣ episodes in total, each lasting 3 minutes

1. Mother and child enter playroom

2. Child encouraged to explore and play with toys

3. Stranger enters the room and attempts to interact with the child

4. Mother leaves whilst stranger is present

5. Mother reenters, stranger leaves

6. Mother leaves again

7. The stranger returns

8. Mother returns and interacts with child

Attachment types

Secure attachment

• Child uses mother as a safe base from which to explore the unfamiliar environment, checking in with her regularly

Insecure avoidant

• Explores but does not return to mother → does not use her as safe base

• Low separation and stranger anxiety

• Response at reunion: no joy, indifferent

• Develops from caregivers not responding to a childs attempt to seek comfort during times of distress → child learns to avoid seeking comfort from them

• As an adult: emotionally distant + avoiding intimacy in relationships

Insecure resistant

• Little willingness to explore, tend to stay close to mother (clingy)

• High separation + stranger anxiety

• Little joy, not easily comforted by the mother BUT also reject mothers attempt to comfort = ambivalent

• Develop from inconsistent behaviours from the caregiver

• Unpredictability of caregivers behaviour towards them makes it hard for them to know when they will receive/ be neglected

• As an adult: needy of affection from a partner, overly distraught when a relationship ends

Ainsworth findings:

• 70% securely attached

• 15% insecure resistant

• 15% insecure resistant

❤ The SS AO3

(mary✝, cruc)

✅ 🎮 observation

• Enables procedure to be standardised, including the episodes, timing and strangers behaviour

• This means that it can be easily replicated

• Bc conditions remain the same, researchers are able to make direct comparisons between cultures

• This makes it a particularly useful tool for cross-cultural research into attachment

✅ Reliability

• Bick et al. (2012) assessed inter-rater reliability by having multiple observers independently code the same footage, finding a correlation coefficient of 0.94 between raters

• This high level of agreement indicates that different observers consistently reach the same conclusions when classifying infants’ attachment behaviour, meaning the results are not dependent on the subjective judgement of one individual

• Therefore, the Strange Situation can be considered a reliable tool for assessing attachment quality, which strengthens confidence in the findings it produces

❌ Unfamiliar room

• Childs behaviour is observed in a highly 🎮, unfamiliar room

• Behaviour may not represent attachment type they display when the infant is at home, may act differently

• Study might not generalise to other situations → lacks ecological validity

❌ Cultural issues

• SS was a way of measuring attachment designed in 🇺🇸, by 🇺🇸 researcher, studying 🇺🇸 infants

• Raises questions about how well it applies to other cultures + whether it is culturally relative

• Eg children in 🇩🇪 are encouraged to be more independent, in 🇯🇵 children rarely separated from mother

• Argued that the SS is limited to a specific part of westernised culture

• Limiting its validity as a universal measure of attachment quality and meaning findings cannot be generalised across all cultures

❤👩🏽‍🍼 Stages of attachment AO1

Schaffer and Emerson (1964)

• Observed 60 infants, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

• Recorded attachment behaviours between 6 weeks + 18 months

Asocial stage (0-6 weeks)

• Can form bonds with anyone

• Reacts similarly to 🧸 + 💁🏼‍♀️

Indiscriminate (6 weeks-7 months)

• Preference for 💁🏽‍♀️ company

• Still respond positively to strangers who show them attention

Specific (7-9 months)

• 💪🏽 bonds with specific individuals (usually primary caregivers)

• Show stranger/ separation anxiety

Multiple (10-18 months)

• Form attachment to multiple individuals

❤👩🏽‍🍼 Stages of attachment AO3

CRRD

✅ Carried out by parents at home

• observation did not take place in controlled, lab conditions

• this means that babies were not distracted by the presence of unfamiliar researchers

• this means that its more likely that the infants were acting naturally

• high external validity of the research

✅ Real-world application

• stages of attachment can be applied practically to daycare settings such as nurseries/ preschools

• parents can use stages of attachment to help understand the development of their child

• they may avoid starting their child in daycare during specific or multiple stage to avoid stranger and separation anxiety

❌ Relied on mothers making observations

• mothers were unlikely to be objective observers

• for example: some mothers may be less sensitive to their childs distress and so report findings differently with less accuracy

• some mothers may have under-reported what they perceived to be the less positive aspects of the child’s experience

• data may be unreliable

❌ Data collected was from a biased sample

• S + E only used families from a working class population from Glasgow (individualistic culture)

• findings may not apply to other socioeconomic and cultural groups

• findings may not be generalisable beyond the immediate demographic

(PP)

A and D

🧡 🌎Cultural differences in attachment AO1

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg - Meta-Analysis (1988)

• Analysed 32 studies, from 8 countries, with 1990 participants → all made use of SS to measure 🔗

• Secure 🔗 was the most common

• Higher rates of insecure avoidant 🔗 in 🇩🇪→ value independence

• Higher rates of insecure resistance 🔗 in 🇯🇵🇨🇳🇮🇱→ prioritise groups

• Difference within cultures were 1.5x greater than the variation between cultures

• 🇺🇸 46% securely 🔗 + 90% securely 🔗

🧡 🌎Cultural differences in attachment AO3

(SUE - 🇯🇵will sue bc of high levels of stress)

✅ Standardised methodology

• All 32 studies included in the meta-analysis used the SS → highly 🎮 observation that uses same 8 🎞 and clear set of behavioural categories

• Researchers can accurately compare 🔗 behaviours across different cultures without issue of extraneous variables messing with way 🔗 was studied

• Increases reliability

❌ Unrepresentative samples

• Eg 🇯🇵= very large country with many sub-cultures

• Ijzendoorn & Sagi (2001) found differences in attachment types between city of🗼+ rural parts of 🇯🇵

• Suggests that you cannot make comparisons between countries if you do not know the specific culture of the sample being studied

• Limits 🌍

❌ Ethnocentric

• SS was used to access quality of 🔗 but this was designed in 🇺🇸 (westernised, individualistic) using entirely 🇺🇸👧🏽

• When researchers observe behaviour of children they are using a set of behavioural categories that were created through the 🔍 (l,p) of 🇺🇸 set of values

• Takahashi: when 👩🏻 left they had to stop study for 90% of 👧🏼 because of how extreme anxiety became →💪🏽 suggests high levels of insecure resistant seen in 🇯🇵may be due to rare separation

• Using SS outside of 🤠 cultures means it’s hard to know what it is measuring + more culturally relative measurement of 🔗 are needed

❤🕷: characteristics and explanation + AO3

SPID - 🕷)

Characteristics

Behavioural: 😱 + 🏃🏽‍♂️

Emotional: 🥺 + fear → intense persistent dread or worry

Cognitive: irrational beliefs + selective 🚨

2⃣ process model

→ acquired through 🎻 conditioning

• A person associates a NS with a UNS → UNR of fear

• Previously NS → now triggers fear, becomes CR

→ maintained through 🏃🏽‍♂️ behaviour

• When a person 🏃🏽‍♂️ feared object/ situation, they experience relief (➖reinforcement for 🏃🏽‍♂️)

✅ Supporting evidence from Watson & Raynor 1920

• Study of Little Albert

• Exposed to ⚪🐀(NS) 🫱🏼‍🫲🏾 with 💥(UNS resulted in fear)

• Developed fear of ⚪🐀 → CR

• Showing how 🕷can be acquired through association

• well 🎮 increases validity

✅ Practical application

• Systematic desensitisation → treatment for 🕷, involves 😎ation training + gradual exposure

• Over 🕰, this process helps replace the fear association with a 😎ing one

• Shows real life value

❌ Does not account for the fact that not all 🕷 are learned

• 🧬 explanations → Seligman’s 🧬preparedness suggests that we may be predisposed to develop certain 🕷 due to genetic factors

• Challenges 2⃣ process model, highlighting that some 🕷may have a 🧬 basis rather than being solely the result of experiences

• Reduces explanatory power

❌ Ignores 🧠⚙ factors

• 🧠⚙ explanations highlight the role of irrational💭 (over-generalising or catastrophising)

• Distorted 💭 patterns can crease excessive 🥺 and reinforce fear response

• Suggesting 🧠⚙ factors play a crucial role in 🕷 which 2⃣ process model doesn’t account for

• Reductionist, more complex

❤🕷 treatment + AO3

(SEC)

SD

Counter-conditions 🕷 by gradually exposing a person to their fear while teaching them to stay 😎, associating fear with 😎 over 🕰

1. 😎ation: person learns techniques such as deep 😮‍💨

2. 🥺 hierarchy: step by step list of fear triggering situations ranked from ⬇ to ⬆ scary → gradual exposure process

3. Gradual exposure: 🐌 works through 🔼, facing each fear level while staying relaxed, until 🕷 weakens

🌊 Flooding

• Immediate intense exposure → exposed to most frightening version of it right away

• No escape: stay in the situation until their 😱 response naturally fades

• Body can’t stay in a high-anxiety state forever, over 🕰 realise that nothing 👎 happens

• Extinction of fear: fear response is weakened because feared object no longer leads to danger

✅ Supporting evidence

• Lang & Lazovik (1963): participants who underwent SD for a 🐍 phobia → showed ⬇ fear compared to control group, improvement was still present after 6 months suggesting LT effectiveness

• Shows effectiveness in real life cases

❌ Ethical issues

• ⬇ traumatic than 🌊, gradual exposure at patients pace + allows them to feel in 🎮

• ⬆ accessible for wider range of people

• 🌊 can cause significant emotional distress + may reinforce 🕷 if not conducted properly

❌ Comparison with 🧬 treatments

• 🧬 treatments provide quick, ST relief by reducing the body’s physiological fear response BUT do not address root cause of 🕷 + side effects

• Combined approach may be ⬆ effective

💚 depression: Beck’s 🔼, 💊 (treatment)

Beck’s 🧠⚙ theory of depression

• ➖🪞🖼: ➖view of 🪞based on past experiences (cause 🧠⚙ distortions)

• 🧠⚙ distortions: create cognitive biases (eg overgeneralisation & catastrophizing) → ➖ interpretations of life events

• ➖🔺: ➖view of the 🌍, 🪞, 🔮

Beck’s treatment

• Focuses on identifying & changing ➖💭 patterns that contribute to depression

• 💭 catching: identifying & ❓irrational beliefs → replacing them with more realistic + ⚖ 💭

• Patient as 👩‍🔬: generates hypothesis to test how accurate their irrational 💭 are

• Behavioural activation: encouraging engagement in activities that improve mood (hobbies/ social interaction)

• Homework assignments: keeping 💭 📒 or testing ➖beliefs in real-life situations to develop more ➕💭 patterns

• One definition of abnormality is failure to function adequately, which means a person is unable to cope with the demands of everyday life. James may not be considered abnormal by this definition because he can hold down a full-time job and says he is content with his lifestyle. However, the fact that he did not go for a promotion because it involved networking suggests that his anxiety does affect his functioning to some extent.

• A second definition is deviation from ideal mental health, which is when a person does not meet criteria such as coping with stress, forming positive relationships and self-actualisation. James may be considered abnormal by this definition because he feels anxious in social situations, avoids socialising and may not reach his full potential if he avoids promotion opportunities.

Outline two ethical issues which researchers must consider when studying patients with mental health disorders and what researchers must do when considering the issue (6)

• One ethical issue is informed consent

• This is important because patients with mental health disorders may not always fully understand the study

• Researchers should explain the study clearly and make sure participants have the capacity to consent, or get consent from a guardian if needed

• Another ethical issue is protection from harm

• People with mental health disorders may be more vulnerable to distress during research

• Researchers should reduce the risk of harm, monitor participants carefully and provide support or debriefing if necessary

💚 🧬 explanations of OCD - AO3

• One strength of the biological explanation of OCD is supporting evidence from twin and family studies. Research has shown that CR for OCD are higher among identical twins than non-identical twins, and that OCD runs in families. This suggests that there is a genetic component to OCD, as individuals who share more DNA are more likely to develop the disorder. Therefore, this supports the biological explanation for OCD and increases its validity as an explanation of the disorder

• A further strength of the biological explanation of OCD is the effectiveness of drug therapy. SSRIs, which work by increasing serotonin levels in the brain, have been shown to significantly reduce OCD symptoms in many patients. If biological treatment targeting serotonin is effective in reducing symptoms, this suggests that low levels play a role in causing OCD. Therefore, the effectiveness of SSRIs provide indirect support for the biological explanation, increasing its credibility

• One limitation of the biological explanation of OCD is that it is reductionist. It reduces a complex disorder to biological factors such as genetics or neurotransmitter levels, ignoring psychological and environmental factors such as traumatic life events or learned behaviours that may also contribute to OCD. This means that the biological explanation may only provide a partial account for OCD. Therefore, this limits the explanation as it is unlikely that biology alone can fully account for such a complex disorder

💚 statistical infrequency, deviation from ideal mental health, failure to function adequately

📊 INFREQUENCY

• Behaviours or traits that are rare or uncommon

• Found at the edges of distribution curves, x2 standard deviations away from the mean

✅ Objective → relies on clear numerical cut-off points rather than personal opinions, ensuring all mental health professionals use the same standardised measurements

❌ Desirable behaviour seen as abnormal → can label desirable traits, like high IQ as abnormal, despite not being linked to psychological distress

DEVIATION FROM IDEAL MENTAL HEALTH

• A person is considered abnormal if they lack certain characteristics associated with psychological wellbeing

• Jahoda’s criteria for ideal mental health: (ASPEAR) accurate perception of reality, self-actualisation, ➕ view of oneself, 🌳 mastery, autonomy, resistance to stress

✅ Comprehensive: outlines wide range of criteria that help identify mental health issues, set treatment goals, & provide support for individuals

❌ Culturally relative: ethnocentric as it reflects Western, individualistic values like personal growth & autonomy, making it less applicable to collectivist cultures that prioritise community and group well-being

FAILURE TO FUNCTION ADEQUATELY

• Refers to individuals who are unable to cope with the demands of everyday life

• Rosenhan & Seligman identified characteristics such as: personal distress, irrationality, inability to perform certain tasks

✅ Subjective experiences → considers an individuals subjective experiences, unlike si, which reduces people to numbers on a distribution without accounting for personal distress

❌ Misses some abnormal behaviour → fails to identify abnormal behaviour that does not cause distress (e.g. psychopathic behaviour) who function normally

💚 types of LTM AO3

Supporting evidence

• HM →🦛 was removed → anterograde amnesia

• This impaired his ability to form new episodic and semantic memories

• However, still able to form new procedural memories such as learning motor skills ⭐️

• Provided evidence that episodic, semantic and procedural memories are separate systems

• + Clive Wearing

Generalisability

• Research supporting the different types of LTM can be criticised for being based on individual cases which may not be representative of the general population

💚 studies of retrieval failure

Godden and Baddeley (1975) - context dependant forgetting

• Investigated by having scuba divers learn and recall words either underwater or on land

• They found that recall was better when the learning and retrieval context matched

Lowe (1983) - state dependant forgetting

• Participants had to memorise a map and directions and follow either in a drunk or sober state

• Study found that recall was better when participants were in the same state at encoding and retrieval

Process of systematic desensitisation [6]

• Systematic desensitisation is a behavioural therapy based on the principles of classical conditioning

• It aims to reduce phobic anxiety by replacing the fear response with a relaxation response through counterconditioning

• This works through reciprocal inhibition, where it is not possible to experience anxiety and relaxation at the same time

• The therapist and client work together to create an anxiety hierarchy, ranking feared situations from least to most anxiety-provoking

• The client is taught relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing or muscle relaxation