AS Psychology: Aims and Conclusions

Flashcards detailing the aims and conclusions of various psychological studies.

Milgram (obedience) Aim

To investigate how far individuals would go in obeying an authority figure when instructed to perform an action that conflicts with their personal conscience.

Milgram (obedience) Conclusion

Individuals are willing to obey authority figures even when it involves harming others.

Piliavin et. al. (subway Samaritains) Aim

To study bystander behavior in emergency situations in a subway setting.

Piliavin et. al. (subway Samaritains) Conclusion

the study found that in a natural setting, many people would offer spontaneous help to a stranger, even in a group situation.
the study found no evidence of diffusion of responsibility, but did identify several factors which may determine decisions to help:
- the type of victim (ill > drunk)
- the gender of the helped (men are more likely to help than women)
- people may be more likely to help people of their own race (especially when drunk)
- the longer an emergency continues, the less likely it is that anyone will help, and the more likely it is they will find another way of coping with arousal

Perry et. al. (interpersonal) Aim

To investigate the effect of oxytocin on preferred interpersonal distance for those scoring high or low in empathy traits.

Perry et. al. (interpersonal) Conclusion

1. Oxytocin affects preferred interpersonal distance dependent on empathy level. High empathy individuals prefer closer distances after oxytocin compared to the placebo.

2. Preferred interpersonal distance increased with the use of oxytocin for individuals with low empathy scores compared to the placebo.

Andrade (doodling) Aim

test if doodling aided concentration on a boring task

Andrade (doodling) Conclusion

-doodling aids concentration on primary tasks
--> in monitoring performance and recall task
-not clear if doodling led to better recall bc noticed more info or actually aided deeper processing

Baron-Cohen et. al. (eyes test) Aim

1. To test whether a group of adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) or High-Functioning Autism (HFA) would be impaired on the revised version of the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' task.
2. To test if there was an association between performance on the revised 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' task and measures of autistic traits, and to investigate if there were sex differences in those without autism on this task.

Baron-Cohen et. al. (eyes test) Conclusion

- Ps with AS/HFA have a deficit in a cognitive process that allows a person to identify emotions in other individuals
- lack of a theory of mind, or ability to attribute emotions to another person - strongly linked to autism spectrum disorders
- evidence of a sex difference between males and females in the comparison groups (with males showing more autistic traits and performing worse on the Eyes Test than females)

Pozzulo et. al. (line-ups) Aim

• To investigate the role of social and cognitive factors in children’s identification accuracy in lineups.

• To assess whether children are less accurate and more prone to false positives than adults.

Pozzulo et. al. (line-ups) Conclusion

• Cognitive Factors: Children and adults recognized familiar cartoon faces more accurately than unfamiliar human ones, showing that familiarity boosts identification accuracy.

• Social Factors: Children had more false positives, likely due to social pressure to choose someone even when unsure.

• Developmental Differences: Children were less accurate than adults at rejecting incorrect options, making them more prone to errors in lineups.

• Implications for Legal Practices: Caution is needed with children’s testimony, especially in target-absent lineups, to avoid unreliable identifications.

• Law Enforcement Training: Legal professionals should be trained to reduce social pressure on child witnesses and use child-appropriate procedures.

Saavedra & Silverman (button phobia) Aim

examine the role of classical conditioning in relation to fear and avoidance of a particular stimulus.

Saavedra & Silverman (button phobia) Conclusion

Researchers concluded that the treatment was successful. (exposure therapy)
Emotions and cognitions relating to disgust are important when learning new responses to stimuli.
Imagery exposure can have long term effects on reducing distress as it tackles negative evaluations of specific phobias.

Dement and Kleitman (dreams) Aim

To study the relationship between rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and dream recall.

Dement and Kleitman (dreams) Conclusion

1. Dreams likely occur only in REM
2. Dreams occur in real time, not instantly
3. Eye movement patterns corresponded to dream content

Fagen et. al (elephant trunk wash) Aim

To investigate whether secondary positive reinforcement can be used to train elephants to voluntarily complete a trunk wash, allowing them to be tested for TB.

Fagen et. al (elephant trunk wash) Conclusion

Secondary positive reinforcement is effective for training juvenile, traditionally trained elephants to voluntarily and reliably participate in a trunk wash..

Bandura et. al. (aggression) Aim

- whether a child would learn aggression by observing a model
- if the child would reproduce this behavior in the absence of the model
- whether the sex of the role model was important

Bandura et. al. (aggression) Conclusion

The results suggest that imitation and observation can lead to children learning specific acts without reinforcement from the model or observer. All 4 hypotheses were supported.

Holzel et. al. (brain matter) Aim

Tto investigate whether practice of 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme results in increase in grey matter in the hippocampus and insula regions of the brain.

Holzel et. al. (brain matter) Conclusion

• Brain Changes: MBSR led to increased gray matter in key brain areas, showing it—not time—caused structural brain changes.

• Mental Functioning: The brain areas affected by MBSR are linked to memory, emotion regulation, and self-awareness, suggesting improved mental health.

• Mindfulness Skills: MBSR boosted mindfulness traits like awareness, observation, and non-judging, proving its effectiveness in enhancing mindfulness.

Hassett et. al. (toy preferences) Aim

To investigate whether sex differences in children's toy preferences are due to biological factors (i.e., exposure to high levels of prenatal androgen) rather than socialization

• To investigate whether male and female rhesus monkeys have similar toy preferences to human children despite having no experience socialising with human toys.

Hassett et. al. (toy preferences) Conclusion

1. Sex-typed preferences in humans may be due to biological differences because even without differences in socialisation, monkeys showed preferences similar to human infants.
   Male monkeys similar to boys, have a strong preference for masculine-type toys. Whereas, female monkeys are more variable in their toy preferences.

2. Toy preferences reflect behavioral and cognitive biases which have been influenced by hormones.