IB EXAM: Research Studies Review

FINDINGS: Moreland & Beach (1992)

Did a study testing the mere exposure effect; there was a positive correlation between the number of times an average looking woman visited a class and how much she started being liked by participants

PROCEDURES: Buss (1989)

Questionnaires were used to collect data from over 10,000 men and women from 37 different cultures, to explore which things men and women value most in a potential mate

FINDINGS: Buss (1989)

1) Males valued physical attractiveness and relative youth in potential mates more than did females.

2) Males valued chastity in potential mates more than women did.

3) Females valued the financial capacity of potential mates more than did males.

4) Females valued the characteristics of ambition and industriousness in a potential mate to a greater extent than males did.

AIM: Markey and Markey (2007)

To investigate the extent to which similarity is a factor in the way people choose a partner

FINIDNGS: Markey and Markey (2007)

Across two studies involving heterosexual couples who had been together for a year, they found that people want partners who are more like themselves. They also found that the most loving and harmonious relationships were among couples who were similar in some characteristics but not all.

FINDINGS: Hazan and Shaver (1987)

Found there was a positive correlation between attachment type and later love relationship experiences

AIM: Wedekind (1995)

To determine whether one's MHC would affect mate choice.

PROCEDURES: Wedekind (1995)

49 female and 44 male students were typed for their MHC. The males were then asked to wear the same t-shirt for two nights and not use anything scented. No tobacco, alcohol, spicy food or sex was to be eaten/done. The women then had to smell 7 tshirts in the week following their menstrual cycles and rank them (1-10) according to intensity and according to pleasantness / sexiness

FINDINGS: Wedekind (1995)

Women in the study preferred the smell of t-shirts worn by men with dissimilar MHC, unless the women were taking oral contraceptives (in which case the preference was reversed).

CONCLUSION: Wedekind 1995

The dissimilar immune system genes would theoretically produce offspring better able to fend off more illnesses than if the MHC genes matched. This result suggests MHC may influence mater choice and could provide support for an evolutionary argument for mate selection in humans

AIM: Ronay and von Hippel (2010)

To investigate the hypothesis that physical risk-taking by young men increases in the presence of an attractive female; and that increased risk-taking in the presence of an attractive woman might be induced by elevated testosterone

PROCEDURES: Ronay and von Hippel (2010)

96 young adult male skateboarders were recruited in skateboard parks in Australia (21.58 mean age) - 43 participants were assigned to a male experimenter condition and 53 were assigned to a female experimenter condition. Skateboarders were asked to choose one easy trick and one difficult trick they had not yet mastered which they attempted 10 times each while being videotaped by the male or female experimenter (blind to the hypothesis). Saliva samples were collected at the conclusion of the experiment to monitor testosterone levels.

FINDINGS: Ronay and von Hippel (2010)

Participants took greater risks on the difficult tricks in the presence of the female experimenter and testosterone levels were significantly higher among men who skateboarded in front of the female experimenter.

CONCLUSION: Ronay and von Hippel (2010)

Young men take greater physical risks when in the presence of an attractive woman and increases in circulating testosterone partially explain this effect

AIM: Ditzen et al. (2009)

Aim: To investigate the effects of oxytocin on couples communication and cortisol levels

PROCEDURE: Ditzen et al. (2009)

Method: Lab experiment. 47 heterosexual couples either received oxytocin or a placebo intranasally. They were then instructed engaged in a discussion about a topic that would likely lead to conflict. The conflict session was videotaped and coded for verbal and nonverbal interaction behavior, and salivary cortisol was repeatedly measured during the experiment.

FINDINGS: Ditzen et al; (2009)

Oxytocin significantly increased positive communication behavior in relation to negative behavior during the couple conflict discussion and significantly reduced salivary cortisol levels after the conflict compared with placebo.

CONCLUSION: Ditzen et al (2009)

These results are in line with animal studies indicating that central oxytocin facilitates approach and pair bonding behavior. The findings imply an involvement of oxytocin in couple interaction and close relationships in humans.

AIM: Bradbury and Fincham (1992)

To explore the connection between communication patterns and marital satisfaction

PARTICIPANTS: Bradbury and Fincham (1992)

47 couples who were married, living together and had not been in marriage counseling, who were recruited to the study through local advertisements; as a sample, they averaged 8.5 years of marriage

PROCEDURES: Bradbury and Fincham (1992)

Couples filled out a questionnaire (in individual sessions) to determine marital satisfaction and to identify a common problem and a problem they thought their partner didn’t see as a problem. They asked each partner about the cause of the problem and who was responsible for it. Then, the couple was brought together to discuss (in a laboratory setting, while being videotaped) a possible solution to the common problem, for 15 minutes. 3 trained researchers each independently coded the videotape to identify communication patterns.

FINDINGS: Bradbury and Fincham (1992)

Couples that reported lower levels of marital satisfaction had more frequent distress maintaining communication patterns (seeing the partner as behaving intentionally and selfishly). The interaction between such couples was rated as more hostile and rejecting of the partner's positive approaches (making external attributions).

CONCLUSION: Bradbury and Fincham (1992)

This may indicate that the kinds of attributions made about their partner, and the communicatIon pattern, influence the behavior of the couple (rather than the behaviors of the couple influencing the attributions and communication patterns)

FINDINGS: Collins and Miller (1994)

People who disclose information about themselves are ore liked than those who don’t; people tend to disclose more personal information to those they like; if people disclose information to someone, they tend to like that person more

AIM: Carerre and Gottman (1999)

To determine whether psychologists could accurately predict if a couple in marriage counseling would end up divorced, after only a few minutes of conversation

PARTICIPANTS: Carrere and Gottman (1999)

In this prospective study, 124 newlywed couples were recruited using a purposive sampling method - meaning that sampling included an attempt to stratify the sample; couples reflected a range of economic and ethnic demographics in the Seattle area.

PROCEDURES: Carrrere and Gottman (1999)

Each couple completed a survey (separately) and then discussed the results with a researcher in order to identify one or two problematic issues in their relationship. These issues were then used as the basis for a 15-minute discussion which was video recorded and then coded using the SPAFF system (positive, negative and neutral affects). Couples were then checked once a year for six years to find out if they were still married.

FINDINGS: Carrere and Gottman (1999)

SPAFF scores from the first 3 minutes of the originally recorded discussion were compared for husbands and wives who were still married after six years and those who were not, focusing on the differential between negative and positive affects in communication: Still married husbands (+52.2), Divorced husbands (-13.8), Still married wives (+45.9), Divorced wives (-20.9)

CONCLUSION: Carrere and Gottman (1999)

Communication styles play a key role in the maintenance or dissolution of a relationship, since they may lead to a vicious circle. Example: The husband’s stonewalling makes the wife more dissatisfied; her negative affect increases; in turn, this makes her husband feel less satisfied with the relationship, increasing his withdrawal from intimacy.

AIM: Flora and Segrin (2003)

To test the role of the following variables in the well-being of a relationship: common interests, the desire to spend time together, negative feelings toward the partner.

PARTICIPANTS: Flora and Segrin (2003)

The sample consisted of 66 young couples who had dated for at least six months and 65 young couples who had been married for around four years (262 participants in total).

PROCEDURES: Flora and Segrin (2003)

 It was a longitudinal study. They interviewed all participants about the emotional aspects of their relationship - for example, the degree of positive and negative feelings, contentment, or disappointment with their partner. After one year, the couples were contacted again. Those who were still together were asked to fill out a new questionnaire to get an idea of their satisfaction with the relationship, as well as their personal well-being.

FINDINGS: Flora and Segrin (2003)

The most important factor that attracted the participants to their partners was the common interests and activities, as well as a desire to spend time together. This was particularly true for men. For the women, there was also a positive correlation among these factors, but the most important factor in predicting satisfaction was the frequency of their own negative feelings toward the partner they had felt at the beginning of the study. The more negative feelings they had at the start, the less satisfied they were a year later.

CONCLUSION: Flora and Segrin (2003)

There may be a gender difference in men’s and women’s ideas of what constitutes a good relationship. Men seem to favor common interests and a desire to be together. For women, satisfaction with the relationship was to a large extent dependent on the degree of their own negative feelings about their partner.

AIM: Hatfield et al (1979)

To investigate the validity of the assumption that extramarital affairs are a result of an imbalance in the perceived equity of a relationship

PROCEDURES: Hatfield et al (1979)

The sample came from 2,000 responses to a magazine questionnaire of U.S. couples that were either married and living together at the time. The questionnaire asked information about partner traits (desirability, appearance, character, financial status, etc), nature of the relationship (whether they were under-benefited or over-benefited), and extramarital affairs (if they had occurred, how many and how long they lasted).

FINDINGS: Hatfield et al (1979)

Those who felt under-benefited from their relationships had extramarital sex sooner in the duration of the relationship, and with more partners compared to those who felt equally benefited or under-benefited. Those who felt equally benefited were more likely to see their relationship surviving long-term. Those who felt over-benefited or under-benefited were more likely to doubt the future of their relationship.

CONCLUSION: Hatfield et al (1979)

The results suggest that in order for a relationship to last long-term there needs to be the perception of equity between the two parties, and balance should be restored as soon as possible after it has been thrown off.

AIM: Tversky and Kahneman (1974)

To test the effect of anchoring upon people's estimated answers to a mathematics problem.

PROCEDURES: Tversky and Kahneman (1974)

Participants (who were high school students) in the "ascending condition" were asked to estimate the value of 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 X 5 X 6 X 7 X 8 in five seconds. Those in the "descending condition" were asked to quickly estimate the value of 8 X 7 X 6 X 5 X 4 X 3 X 2 X 1, also in five seconds' time.

FINDINGS: Tversky and Kahneman (1974)

As the researchers had expected, the median answer for the ascending group (low anchor) was 512, while the median for the descending group (high anchor) was 2,250

CONCLUSION: Tversky and Kahneman (1974)

Participants demonstrated anchoring bias, as the low anchor (1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8) produced notably lower estimates than the high anchor (8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1); this was likely due to the time limitation, which prevented careful System 2 thinking

AIM: Tversky and Kahneman (1986)

To test the influence of positive and negative framing on decision making

PROCEDURES: Tversky and Kahneman (1986)

A self-selected sample of 307 American college students. were asked to make a decision between one of two options in a hypothetical scenario where they were choosing how to respond to the outbreak of a virulent disease. For some of the participants, the information was framed positively while for others it was framed negatively - however, the two options were actually the same (just presented differently).

FINDINGS: Tversky and Kahneman (1986)

72% of participants given the positive frame decided to support the first option, while only 22% of those with the negative frame version chose that program. 78% of those with the negative frame chose the second option instead, while only 28% of those in the positive frame condition decided the same.

CONCLUSION: Tversky and Kahneman (1986)

Where information was phrased positively (the number of people who would be saved) people took the certain outcome, and avoided the possibility of a loss in the less certain option. By contrast, when the information was phrased in terms of people dying (a negative frame) people avoided the certain loss and took a chance on the less certain option.

AIM: Brewer and Treyens, 1981

To investigate the role played by schema in the encoding and retrieval of memory, as determined by their recall of items in an office

PARTICIPANTS: Brewer and Treyens, 1981

86 college Psychology students

PROCEDURES: Brewer and Treyens, 1981

It’s more involved than this, but participants were seated in a makeshift office to theoretically wait for the researcher to get them and start the experiment. However, the experiment had already begun, as participants (after 35 seconds in the office were then brought to a different room where they were asked to remember the items located in that office, in one of 3 conditions (the recall condition, the drawing condition, and the verbal recognition condition)

FINDINGS: Brewer and Treyens, 1981

When the participants were asked to recall either by writing a paragraph or by drawing, they were more likely to recall items in the office that were congruent with their schema of an office. When they were only asked to select items from a list, they were more likely to identify the items that were incongruent with their office schema (such as the skull) - but those participants also had a higher rate of recalling objects that matched their schema but were not actually in the office.

CONCLUSION: Brewer and Treyens, 1981

Pre-existing schema for “an office” appear to have played a role in both the memory encoding and retrieval of the objects in the office

AIM: Loftus and Palmer, 1974

To investigate whether the use of leading questions would affect the estimation of the speed cars were going when they crashed

PROCEDURES: Loftus and Palmer, 1974

45 college students were divided into five groups. 7 films of traffic accidents were shown and the length of the films ranged from 5 to 30 seconds. Each participant watched all 7 films and then answered a questionnaire with several questions, but the critical question was when they were asked to estimate the speed of the cars involved in the accident. While 1 group was asked “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” the critical word hit was replaced by collided, bumped, smashed, or contacted in the other conditions.

FINDINGS: Loftus and Palmer, 1974

The mean estimates of speed were highest in the ‘smashed’ condition (40.8 mph) and lowest in the ‘contacted’ group (31.8 mph)

CONCLUSION: Loftus and Palmer, 1974

It appears that participants’ memory of an accident seen on video can be changed by using suggestive or leading questions

AIM: Brown and Kulik, 1977

To investigate whether surprising and personally significant events can create flashbulb memories

PARTICIPANTS: Brown and Kulik, 1977

40 White American males and 40 African American males from the United States (80 total participants)

PROCEDURES: Brown and Kulik, 1977

Researchers used a retrospective questionnaire that tested their memories of ten major events, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy 14 years earlier, and Martin Luther King Jr., 9 years earlier, plus the death of a loved one. They asked questions to specifically determine: (1) level of emotion felt about the event; (2) personal consequence of the event; (3) amount of rehearsal of the event before the study.

FINDINGS: Brown and Kulik, 1977

90% of the participants recalled a significant amount of detail about the day when these events occurred (where they were, what they were doing, and how they heard about the event). Most had very detailed memories of the death of a loved one. Personal consequence led to differences in memory: 75% of black participants had FBMs of MLK's murder, compared to 33% of white participants.

CONCLUSION: Brown and Kulik, 1977

Flashbulb memories are qualitatively different from other memories, allowing people to vividly remember minor details of an event that they would otherwise forget. The difference in memory between black and white participants shows the importance of the personal consequence and strong emotion (surprise) felt when learning about the event.

AIM: Neisser and Harsch, 1992

To test the theory of flashbulb memory by investigating the extent to which memory for a shocking event (the Challenger disaster) would be accurate after a period of time

PARTICIPANTS: Neisser and Harsch, 1992

106 college students in an introductory Psychology class

PROCEDURES: Neisser and Harsch, 1992

Participants were given a questionnaire less than 24 hrs after the space shuttle Challenger explosion and asked to write a description of how they had heard the news, and answer 7 questions about the details surrounding their hearing the news, including their level of emotion. 2.5 years later, 44 of the original students answered the same questionnaire, were asked to rate their confidence in the accuracy of their recall, and whether they had filled out the questionnaire before. This was followed by a semi-structured interview before they saw their original answers.

FINDINGS: Neisser and Harsch, 1992

Only 11 participants out of the 44 remembered that they had filled out the questionnaire before. There were major discrepancies between the details of their original account and their followup memories 2.5 years later. The mean score of correctness of recall of the seven questions was 2.95 out of 7. For 11 participants the score was 0, and 22 (half) scored 2 or less. The average level of confidence in accuracy for the questions, however, was 4.17 (out of 5).

CONCLUSION: Neisser and Harsch, 1992

The results challenge flashbulb memory theory and also question the reliability of memory in general. Participants were confident that they remembered the event correctly both times and could not explain the discrepancies between the first and second accounts they gave to the researchers.

AIM: Sharot et al, 2007

To determine the potential role of biological factors on flashbulb memories

PARTICIPANTS: Sharot et al, 2007

24 American citizens who had been in New York City on the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; some had been in downtown Manhattan (closer to the site of the attacks) and some had been in midtown Manhattan (farther from the attacks)

PROCEDURES: Sharot et al, 2007

3 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Manhattan, participants were placed in an fMRI machine and their brain activity was observed as they recalled a mix of personal memories from the summer of 2001 (before the attacks) or from the day of 9/11 itself. Personal event memories from the summer served as a baseline of brain activity for evaluating the nature of their 9/11 memories. After the fMRI session, participants rated their memories for vividness, detail, confidence in accuracy, and emotional arousal, and then wrote a description of their memories.

FINDINGS: Sharot et al, 2007

Only half of participants reported having vivid, detailed memories of 9/11, or with a great deal of confidence in them (hallmarks of flashbulb memories) - mostly those who did had been downtown (closer to the attacks). Amygdala activation was higher when they recalled 9/11 memories than for summer memories, but those in midtown (farther away) had equal levels amygdala response for both types. The level of amygdala activation at retrieval was shown to correlate with the flashbulb memories that had been indicated by their written accounts and ratings of their memories.

CONCLUSION: Sharot et al, 2007

These results suggest that close personal experience (and proximity to the event) may be critically important in engaging the neural mechanisms that produce the vivid memories characteristic of flashbulb memory. It also argues the amygdala is involved in flashbulb memories, and might be the neural mechanism for them.

AIM: Hilliard and Liben (2010)

To investigate the role that social category (gender) salience may play in the development of stereotypes and inter-group play behavior in pre-school children

PROCEDURES: Hilliard and Liben (2010)

57 American children between 3 and 5.5 years in age, in two different preschools participated in the study (which had a pre-test/post-test design). Before the experiment began, all students were given a gender attitude test (to determine the number of times a child would answer that “Both” boys and girls can or should do that activity; there were 22 culturally masculine, 20 culturally feminine and 22 neutral activities in the test. They were also observed during play to see how many times they played with same-sex peers versus opposite-sex peers. The schools were randomly allocated to 1 of 2 conditions that lasted for 2 weeks: low gender salience (in this control condition, teachers continued as normal, avoiding use of gendered language) or high gender salience (teachers used gendered language, lined up children by gender, posted art on different gendered bulletin boards, etc.)

FINDINGS: Hilliard and Liben (2010)

Although both groups had a very similar number of “Both boys and girls” responses on the pre-test, there was a clear and significant drop in the number of “Both” responses on the post-test from children in the high gender salience condition, while the control group scores remained similar to before. In the low gender salience condition (control), after 2 weeks, play time with members of the other gender barely changed, while kids in the high gender salience condition played significantly less with the other-sex (out-group) peers than they had before.

CONCLUSION: Hilliard and Liben (2010)

When gender was made highly salient, it increased gender stereotypes and reduced playing with children from the opposite gender (possibly because children favored their gender as their in-group, while seeing the other gender as an out-group)

AIM: Steele and Aronson (1995)

To determine the extent to which stereotype threat might affect the test performance of African American students

PROCEDURES: Steele and Aronson (1995)

114 male and female students from Stanford University, both black and white, were given a test of verbal ability and randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the first condition, students were told it is a test of your intellectual ability, while those in the second condition were told it was a problem solving exercise.

FINDINGS: Steele and Aronson (1995)

There was no significant difference in performance between black and white students in the second condition (problem solving skills), but black students performed significantly worse in the first condition (when they were told it was a test of their intellectual ability); there was no significant difference in the performance of males and females as a whole

CONCLUSION: Steele and Aronson (1995)

African American participants performed noticeably worse (and answered fewer questions) than their white counterparts when tested in the stereotype threat condition, but performed equally well when in the non-threat condition; this indicates that stereotype threat is responsible for the performance differences between the two groups

AIM: Bandura et al (1961)

To investigate whether social behaviors (such as aggression) can be acquired through observation (of models) and imitation

PROCEDURES: Bandura et al (1961)

Researchers pre-tested 36 boys and 36 girls (ages 3-6) for aggression before they participated in a laboratory experiment. One third of the children observed aggressive role models (half with a same-gender model and half with an opposite-gender model), one third observed non-aggressive role models (same gender breakdown) and one third were the control group, and received no modeling. Aggressive adult models attacked a Bobo doll in specific ways, using specific words, while non-aggressive models ignored the Bobo doll and played with blocks for 10 minutes. Children were subjected to mild aggression arousal (told these were the best toys and were reserved for other children), and then they were observed through a one-way mirror for a 20-minute play session alone.

FINDINGS: Bandura et al (1961)

Children who observed aggressive models made far more imitative aggressive responses; boys were more likely to imitate same-sex models than girls were; boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than girls, but there was little difference in verbal aggression between boys and girls; girls showed more physically aggressive behavior if the model was male but more verbally aggressive behavior if the model was female; children with non-aggressive models or no modeling performed very few aggressive acts

CONCLUSION: Bandura et al (1961)

Children can learn and imitate social behaviors (such as aggression) through observing models

AIM: Maguire et al (2000)

To see whether hours of spatial navigation had changed the brains of London taxi drivers and whether there was a relationship between the number of years driving a taxi and the structure of the brain

METHOD: Maguire et al (2000)

Because the Independent Variable was not manipulated by the researcher and there was no random allocation of participants, it was a quasi-experiment

PROCEDURES: Maguire et al (2000)

16 right-handed, male London taxi drivers agreed to MRI scans of their brain, which were compared with pre-existing scans of a control group of 50 right-handed men from London who had never driven a taxi before. MRI data was measured two ways: pixel counting and VBM

FINDINGS: Maguire et al (2000)

The volume of the right posterior hippocampi in the taxi drivers was larger (more grey matter; more connections) than that of the control group's hippocampi, but the anterior hippocampi of the taxi drivers was actually smaller than those of the control group

CONCLUSION / IMPLICATIONS: Maguire et al (2000)

There is evidence for neuroplasticity (the taxi driver's brain structure changed as a result of years practicing spatial navigation, growing larger in the posterior hippocampus) and localization of function (the posterior hippocampus seems to be involved when previously learned spatial information is needed, while the anterior hippocampus seems more involved when learning new environmental layouts)

anterior hippocampus

Involved during learning and encoding of new environmental layouts