all studies recall

Jenness (1932) — Informational Social Influence

Topic: Conformity (ISI). Procedure: Participants estimated number of beans in a jar individually → then discussed in groups → then estimated again. Findings: Most changed their estimates towards the group average. Conclusion: People conform when unsure — supports informational social influence.\n\n

Asch (1951) — Normative Social Influence

Topic: Conformity (NSI). Procedure: Male participants judged line lengths in groups with confederates giving wrong answers on critical trials. Findings: 36.8% of responses conformed; 75% conformed at least once. Conclusion: People conform to fit in — normative social influence.\n\n

Asch’s Variations

Topic: Variables affecting conformity. Variations: Group size, unanimity, task difficulty. Findings: Larger group → more conformity (up to 3); One dissenter → conformity dropped sharply; Harder task → more ISI.\n\n

Zimbardo (1971) — Stanford Prison Experiment

Topic: Social roles & obedience. Procedure: Volunteers randomly assigned as guards or prisoners in a simulated prison. Findings: Guards became aggressive; prisoners became submissive. Outcome: Study stopped after 6 days due to extreme behaviour. Conclusion: Social roles strongly influence behaviour.\n\n

Milgram (1963) — Obedience to Authority

Topic: Obedience. Procedure: “Teachers” instructed to give increasing electric shocks to a “learner”. Findings: 65% obeyed to maximum 450V. Conclusion: People obey authority even against personal morals.\n\n

Milgram’s Variations

Topic: Situational variables. Findings: Proximity ^ → obedience ↓; Location prestige ↓ → obedience ↓; Uniform removed → obedience ↓.\n\n

Elms & Milgram (1974)

Topic: Authoritarian personality. Findings: Participants who obeyed in Milgram’s study scored higher on F‑scale → more authoritarian traits.\n\n

Hofling et al. (1966) — Nurses Obedience

Topic: Obedience in real-world settings. Procedure: Nurses ordered by a fake doctor (over phone) to administer overdose. Findings: 21/22 obeyed. Conclusion: Obedience occurs in real-life hierarchical settings.\n\n

Altemeyer — Right-Wing Authoritarianism

Topic: Dispositional factors in obedience. Procedure: Participants ordered to shock themselves. Findings: Higher RWA → higher obedience. Conclusion: Personality influences obedience.\n\n

Bandura (1961) — Bobo Doll (Original)

Topic: SLT, modelling, imitation. Aim: Investigate imitation of aggression. Procedure: Children observed adult model behaving aggressively toward Bobo doll. Findings: Children imitated physical + verbal aggression; same‑gender model increased imitation. Conclusion: Aggression learned through observation. AO3: Controlled lab → reliable; low ecological validity.\n\n

Bandura (1963) — Film Study

Topic: Vicarious reinforcement. Procedure: Children watched film of aggressive model: rewarded / punished / no consequence. Findings: Rewarded or no consequence → more imitation; Punished → less imitation. Conclusion: Motivation influenced by vicarious reinforcement.\n\n

Peterson & Peterson (1959) — Duration of STM

Aim: To investigate how long information stays in STM without rehearsal. Procedure: Participants shown trigrams (e.g., XQF); Immediately asked to count backwards in 3s from a random number (preventing rehearsal); Recall tested after delays of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 seconds. Findings: 80% recall after 3 seconds; <10% recall after 18 seconds. Conclusion: STM has a very short duration (18–30 seconds) unless rehearsal occurs. AO3: Artificial task → low ecological validity; strong control → high internal validity.\n\n

Miller (1956) — Capacity of STM

Findings: STM capacity = 7 ± 2 items; Capacity can be extended through chunking (grouping items into meaningful units). Conclusion: STM is limited but flexible.\n\n

Bahrick et al. (1975) — Duration of LTM

Aim: To test very long-term memory in a naturalistic setting. Procedure: 392 participants aged 17–74; Tested memory for classmates using photo recognition, name recognition, free recall. Findings: Recognition remained high even after 50 years (90% accuracy); Free recall declined more (30% after 48 years). Conclusion: LTM can last a lifetime, especially for meaningful information. AO3: High ecological validity; uncontrolled variables (e.g., continued contact).\n\n

Shallice & Warrington (1970) — KF

Case study: Motorcycle accident → brain damage. Findings: Verbal STM severely impaired; Visual STM intact; LTM largely unaffected. Conclusion: STM is not a single store → supports Working Memory Model and challenges MSM.\n\n

HM (Henry Molaison) — Role of Hippocampus

Procedure: Hippocampi removed to treat epilepsy. Findings: Could recall old LTM (pre-surgery); Could not form new LTM (anterograde amnesia); STM intact if rehearsal allowed. Conclusion: Hippocampus essential for transferring STM → LTM. AO3: Unique case → cannot generalise; foundational for memory research.\n\n

Baddeley & Hitch (1976) — Dual Task Performance

Aim: To test WMM’s claim of separate slave systems. Procedure: Participants completed two tasks simultaneously: verbal reasoning task + digit span task (repeating 3-8 digit sequences). Findings: Performance unaffected when tasks used different systems (e.g., PL + VSSP); Performance dropped significantly when tasks used same system. Conclusion: Strong evidence for separate, limited capacity components in working memory, especially phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad.\n\n

Godden & Baddeley (1975) — Context-Dependent Forgetting

Aim: To test retrieval failure due to environmental context (retrieval failure theory). Procedure: Divers learned 36 word lists underwater or on land; recalled in same/different context. Findings: Matching contexts → better recall by 40%. Conclusion: Environmental cues aid retrieval - supports retrieval failure as an explanation for forgetting.\n\n

Loftus & Palmer (1974) — Leading Questions

Procedure: Participants watched car crash videos; asked “How fast were the cars going when they smashed/hit/contacted?” Findings: “Smashed” → higher speed estimates; Follow-up: “Smashed” group more likely to report broken glass (none present). Conclusion: Memory is reconstructive and influenced by wording.\n\n

Gabbert et al. (2003) — Post-Event Discussion

Procedure: Participants watched crime from different angles; discussed. Findings: 71% in discussion group reported details they hadn’t seen. Conclusion: Memory conformity occurs due to ISI and NSI.\n\n

Yuille & Cutshall (1986) — Anxiety in Real EWT

Procedure: Real shooting witnesses interviewed 4–5 months later. Findings: High-stress witnesses recalled more accurately (88% vs 75%). Conclusion: Anxiety may enhance memory in real-life situations.\n\n

Köhnken et al. (1999) — Cognitive Interview Meta-analysis

Findings: CI increases correct recall by ~81%; Also increases incorrect recall slightly. Conclusion: CI is effective but requires careful use.\n\n

Meltzoff & Moore (1977) — Interactional Synchrony

Procedure: Adult displayed facial expressions (tongue protrusion, mouth opening) or hand gestures; Infants’ responses filmed and judged by independent observers. Findings: Infants as young as 2 weeks imitated expressions. Conclusion: Synchrony is innate and forms basis of attachment.\n\n

Tronick (1972) — Still Face Experiment

Procedure: Mother interacts normally → then maintains still, unresponsive face for 2 minutes. Findings: Infant becomes confused → distressed → withdrawn; Recovers when interaction resumes. Conclusion: Infants actively seek reciprocity.\n\n

Field (1978) — Role of Fathers

Findings: Fathers as primary caregivers show same sensitive responsiveness as mothers. Conclusion: Attachment depends on responsiveness, not gender.\n\n

MacCallum & Golombok (2004) — Fatherless Families

Findings: No differences in social/emotional development in children from fatherless or same-sex families. Conclusion: Father is not essential for healthy development.\n\n

Schaffer & Emerson (1964) — Stages of Attachment

Procedure: 60 Glasgow infants studied monthly for first year + follow-up at 18 months. Findings: Primary attachment formed by 7 months (usually mother); Attachments formed with sensitive, responsive carers, not those spending most time

• By 10 months → multiple attachments (mother, father, siblings, extended family)

• At 18 months → mother primary for ~50%, father for most others

Lorenz (1935) — Imprinting

Procedure: Split 14 goose eggs: half hatched with mother, half with Lorenz. Findings: Goslings imprinted on first moving object; Within a critical period of around 12-17 hours. Conclusion: Imprinting is innate and irreversible - forming a long-lasting attachment to first moving object seen in critical period.\n\n

Harlow (1958) — Contact Comfort

Procedure: Infant monkeys given wire mother (food) vs cloth mother (comfort). Findings: Monkeys preferred cloth mother (spent 18 hours a day clinging to cloth mother, briefly visited wire mother for feed); Wire-mother monkeys developed social deficits - aggressive, mating struggles, neglectful/abusive towards their own offspring. Conclusion: Contact comfort > feeding in forming attachments. Lack of sufficient care (comfort + nutrition) ---> long-term emotional and social damage.\n\n

Ainsworth (1970) — Strange Situation

Procedure: 8 episodes testing separation, reunion, stranger anxiety. Findings: Secure (70%), Insecure-avoidant (20%), Insecure-resistant (10%). AO3: High reliability; culture-bound; lab setting.\n\n

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) — Cultural Variations

Procedure: Meta-analysis of 32 studies across 8 countries. Findings: Secure most common globally; Japan → more resistant; Germany → more avoidant. Conclusion: Attachment is universal but shaped by culture.\n\n

Bowlby (1944) — 44 Thieves

Findings: 14/44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths; 12 had prolonged separation from mothers in early years; Out of 44 non-thieves (controls) from child guidance clinic who were emotionally maladjusted 2/44 had prolonged maternal separation at young age. Conclusion: Supports idea that emotional separation from mother during critical period impacts psychological development.\n\n

Rutter et al. (2011) — Romanian Orphans

165 Romanian children who spent early lives in Romanian institutions - 111 adopted by British parents before 2; 54 by the age of 4; 52 British children adopted around same time (control). Tested at regular intervals to determine physical, social cognitive development + interviews with orphans' teachers and adoptive parents. Findings: Physically - smaller, weighed less + delayed intellectual development; Adopted before 6 months → caught up with control group development by 4; Adopted after 6 months → disinhibited attachment (attention seeking, clinginess, overly friendly to strangers), cognitive delays. Conclusion: Supports sensitive period.\n\n

Hazan & Shaver (1987) — Love Quiz

Analysed 620 responses to love quiz: 56% securely attached; 35% insecure avoidant; 19% insecure-resistant. Findings: Positive correlation between attachment style and romantic relationship experiences; Secure attachment style → long-lasting, trusting relationships. Conclusion: Internal working model influences adult relationships.\n\n

Beck (1967) — Cognitive Theory of Depression

Components: Negative schemas; Cognitive biases; Negative triad (self, world, future). Conclusion: Depression maintained by faulty thinking patterns.\n\n

Watson & Rayner (1920) — Little Albert

Procedure: Paired white rat (NS) with loud noise (UCS). Findings: Albert developed fear of rat → generalised to similar objects. Conclusion: Phobias can be learned through classical conditioning.\n\n

Skinner (1953) — Operant Conditioning

Procedure: Rats in Skinner box learned behaviours through reinforcement/punishment. Lever = reward (food pellet) - positive reinforcement; Lever = stops unpleasant stimulus (electric shock) - negative reinforcement. Conclusion: Behaviour shaped by consequences.\n\n

Nestadt et al. (2010) — Genetic OCD

Findings: MZ twins: 68% concordance; DZ twins: 31%. Conclusion: Strong genetic component.\n\n

Soomre et al (2008) - meta analysis SSRIs vs Placebo treating OCD.

Soomro G. M. et al. (2008) found that a strength of drug treatments for OCD is that SSRIs are supported by strong scientific evidence showing they are effective.

Evidence:

Their meta-analysis of 17 studies involving 3,097 participants showed that SSRIs were significantly more effective than a placebo in reducing OCD symptoms. On average, symptoms reduced by 3.21 points on the Y-BOCS. Patients taking SSRIs were also almost twice as likely to show clinical improvement compared to those taking a placebo (RR = 1.84).

Analysis:

Because this was a meta-analysis combining many studies and a large sample, the findings are more reliable and less affected by bias from individual studies. This gives strong scientific support for using SSRIs as a first-line treatment, especially in the short term.

Link:

Therefore, drug treatments for OCD are considered credible and effective, supporting their widespread use in clinical practice.

Little Hans (1909) — Psychodynamic

Procedure: Freud analysed boy’s fear of horses. Findings: Horse symbolised father → displacement; Linked to Oedipus complex. Conclusion: Supports role of unconscious conflict.\n\n

Pavlov (1897) — Classical Conditioning

Paired NS (bell) with UCS (food) repeatedly. Dogs learnt the bell predicted food. Learned association of CS (bell) and UCS (food). Eventually Bell alone produced salivation (CR). Learning through association.\n\n

Skinner (1953) — Operant Conditioning

Findings: Reinforcement increases behaviour; punishment decreases it.\n\n

Bartlett (1932) — War of the Ghosts

Procedure: British participants recalled unfamiliar Native American story. Findings: Story became shorter, more conventional; Details changed to fit cultural schemas. Conclusion: Memory is reconstructive.\n\n

McGuffin et al. (1996) — Depression Genetics

Findings: MZ: 46%; DZ: 20%. Conclusion: Genetic vulnerability to depression.\n\n

Nevis (1983) — Humanistic Cross-cultural

Findings: In China, belongingness needs more important than physiological; Self-actualisation defined in collectivist terms. Conclusion: Maslow’s hierarchy is culturally biased.\n\n

Maguire — Biological Approach

Findings: Taxi drivers had enlarged hippocampi → neuroplasticity.\n\n

Phineas Gage (1848)

Findings: Damage to frontal lobe → personality changes. Conclusion: Frontal lobe involved in decision-making and impulse control.\n\n

Broca (1861)

Findings: Patient “Tan” had lesion in left frontal lobe. Conclusion: Broca’s area responsible for speech production.\n\n

Sperry & Gazzaniga (1967) — Split Brain Research

Procedure: Studied patients who had undergone corpus callosotomy to treat epilepsy. Participants completed visual tasks (stimuli presented to one visual field at a time) and tactile tasks (objects placed in one hand without visual input). Findings: Information presented to the left visual field (processed by the right hemisphere) could not be verbalised, but patients could identify or draw the object with their left hand; Left hemisphere excelled at language, right hemisphere specialised in spatial and visual tasks. Conclusion: Strong evidence for hemispheric lateralisation — different hemispheres have specialised functions.\n\n

Maguire et al. (2000) — London Taxi Drivers

Procedure: Used MRI scans to compare the brains of 16 male London taxi drivers with matched controls. Findings: Taxi drivers had significantly larger posterior hippocampi; Hippocampal volume positively correlated with years spent driving (experience). Conclusion: Demonstrates experience‑dependent plasticity — the brain structurally adapts to environmental demands.\n\n

Elbert et al. (1995) — Musicians

Procedure: Used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine somatosensory cortex activity in string musicians vs non‑musicians. Findings: Musicians showed enlarged cortical representation for the fingers of the left hand; Degree of enlargement correlated with years of practice. Conclusion: The brain reorganises with repeated practice, supporting neural plasticity.\n\n

Gray (1988) — Freeze Response

Findings: Gray argued that the traditional “fight‑or‑flight” model was incomplete. Animals (including humans) often show a freeze response — becoming still and hyper-alert when threatened. Conclusion: The freeze response is an adaptive survival mechanism, allowing organisms to avoid detection and assess danger before acting.\n\n

DeCoursey et al. (2000) — Endogenous Pacemakers (SCN)

Procedure: Destroyed the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in 30 chipmunks, then released them into the wild and monitored survival. Findings: Chipmunks with damaged SCN showed severely disrupted sleep‑wake cycles; More likely to be killed by predators, reducing survival rates. Conclusion: The SCN is essential for maintaining circadian rhythms and adaptive behaviour.\n\n

Siffre (1962) — Exogenous Zeitgebers (Light)

Procedure: Michel Siffre lived in a cave for 2 months with no natural light, clocks, or external cues. Findings: His circadian rhythm drifted to around 25–30 hours, showing a natural tendency to extend without light cues. Conclusion: Light is a key zeitgeber, needed to entrain the biological clock to a 24‑hour cycle.\n\n

Russell et al. (1980s) — Infradian Rhythms (Menstrual Synchrony)

Procedure: Collected pheromones from donor women’s sweat and applied them to the upper lip of other women over several months. Findings: The women’s menstrual cycles synchronised, shifting closer to the donor’s cycle. Conclusion: Pheromones influence infradian rhythms, supporting the role of exogenous factors in biological cycles.\n\n

Randy Gardner (1964) — Ultradian Rhythms / Sleep Deprivation

Procedure: Randy Gardner stayed awake for 11 days (264 hours) as part of a sleep deprivation study. Findings: Experienced memory problems, mood changes, hallucinations, impaired concentration; After recovery sleep, functioning returned to normal. Conclusion: Highlights the importance of sleep cycles (ultradian rhythms) for cognitive and emotional functioning.\n\n

March et al (2009) - support for CBT in treating depression - cognitive theory support.

• Strength of CBT: Strong research evidence for effectiveness

• March et al. (2007): Studied 327 adolescents with depression

• Conditions compared: CBT alone, antidepressants alone, CBT + antidepressants

• Results after 36 weeks:

  • 81% of CBT group significantly improved

  • 81% of antidepressant group significantly improved

  • 86% of combined treatment group significantly improved

• Conclusion: CBT is as effective as antidepressants, and combining CBT with medication may be most effective