Psychology Core Studies + Assumptions

Milgram Background

Germans are different theory- inspired to prove or disprove that Germans had a more obedient disposition

Agency theory- agentic and autonomous states

Legitimate authority figure- has power to punish

Milgram Procedure

- Participant chose two pieces of paper deciding if they would take the role of learner or teacher.

-Participant was always the teacher and Mr Wallace always the learner.

- Mr Wallace received a test shock to avoid demand characteristics

- Teacher (ppt) tested mr Wallace on words recalled (ppts thought it was a memory test) and shocked him each time an answer was wrong increasing by 15 volts each time

- Responses by Mr Wallace were pre- recorded and at 300 volts he always banged on the wall and stopped responding

- Jack Williams was the experimenter and he gave standardised procedures e.g please continue when the participant wanted to stop

- Study ended when the participant stopped or reached 450 Volts.

Milgram Aim

To investigate what level of obedience would be shown when participants were told by an authority figure to administer electric shocks to another person.

Milgram Sample

40 males, aged 20-50, from New haven area USA , paid $4.50, self-selected (volunteer sampling)

Milgram results

100% reached 300v.

65% reached 450v.

Signs of extreme stress such as nervous laughing

Milgram Conclusions

-No such thing as an obedient person

- everyone enters agentic state disproving Germans are different theory

Bochiaro Background

-Social Power- influence an individual has to change another's thoughts, feelings and behaviour

-Whistleblower-someone who reports unethical behaviour to an A.F

- Gaps from Milgram- no woman, no research into individual characteristics of those who obey/disobey, research into disobedience and whistleblowing.

Bochiaro Aims

1) investígate rates of obedience, disobedience and whisteblowing when given an unethical request

2) investigate accuracy of people's estimations on results

3) investigate role of individual factors in obeying/ disobeying/ whistleblowing.

Milgram research method

Controlled observation at Yale University

Bochiaro research method

Scenario study in V.U university Amsterdam

Bochiaro Sample

149 undergraduate students from VU university in Amsterdam, more female, given course credit

Bochiaro Procedure

- Ps greeted by Dutch experimenter (stern demeanor) and gives Ps unethical request of recommending 3 friends to a unethical study into sensory deprivation (fake story)

- 8 pilot tests conducted to ensure this was believable

- Ps told about University ethics committee giving Ps chance to whistleblow and report study

-Ps given 3 mins in a room alone to make choice, obey (recommend 3 friends) disobey (do nothing) or whistleblow (report to committee)

- Ps did two personality test HEXACO and SVO

- Comparion group -> day before actual study bocchiaro asked a different group of students what they'd do and what they thought others would do

Bochairo Results

- people who whistleblew tended to have a faith

- 76.5% actually obeyed, 9.4% whistleblew

- Comparion group only 3.6% thought they would obey

Bochiaro Conclusions

1) People tend to obey even if authority is unjust

2) we estimate we are more ethical than we are

3) very few personality traits dictate obedience

Piliavin Aim

To investigate how the nature of a situation would affect the helping behaviour of those present

Piliavin - Background

Bystander effect- presense of others can reduce the chance that people will help someone in need. Two types: pluralistic ignorance- people think nobody else seems bothered by this so why should I be and diffusion of responsibility- ''loads of people around why is it up to me''

Murder of kitty Genovese- brutally murdered in NYC in the front of her apartment but no one helped her due to bystander effect

Latane and Darley- lab experiment found that bystanders hearing an epileptic fit did not report it due to diffusion of responsibility. Piliavin wanted to test this in a real life setting

Piliavin Research Method

Field experiment, NYC subway, journey lasting 7.5 mins

Piliavin Sample

4500 men and women using NyC subway between 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM. 45% black, 55% white

Piliavin Procedure

Experimenters- 2 female observers and 2 male actors, all general studies students 26-35

Two actor conditions- drunk victim- smelled of liquor carrying liquor bottle but done less as actors didn't like it and Ill cane victim- appear sober and carried a black cane.

4 model conditions- Critical early (stand in critical area which is close to actor and helped after 70 secs, Critical late (stand in critical area and help after 150 secs), adjacent early and adjacent late

Basically actors collapsed or needed help and models come in and help

DVS- frequency of help, sex of helper, race of helper,

IVS- drunk or ill victim, race of victim (black or white), effect of model

Piliavin findings

Help without model: 95% cane , 50% drunk

Help with model: 100% cane, 89% drunk

Qualitative: females said ''it's a man's job to help

Piliavin Conclusions

When escape is not possible diffusion of responsibility is less likely

A person who appears ill is more likely to get help than someone who is drunk

Levine Background

Urban Areas vs Rural areas- research has found more helping behaviour occurs in rural areas

Steblay- Steblay found helping rate decreased past 300,000 population size in urban areas

Collectivist- a culture which attends the needs and goals of the group

Individualist- focus on their own needs rather than needs of the group

Simpatia- cultures that value friendliness and helping others (Hispanic)

Inspiration- lack of cross cultural research into helping behaviour

Levine Aim

1) to see if helping behaviour is consistent in cultures

2) to see if helping behaviours is different across cultures

3) to see if any community variables impacted helping behaviour

Levine Sample

23 large cities. .

Levine: Procedure

4 community variables -> Population size, economic well being, cultural values, pace of life

Three emergency situations-> 1) Dropped pen: ps scored as helping if called back to experimenter or gave it back to him 2) Hurt Leg -> experimenter had a clearly visible hurt leg brace and limp. Ps counted as helping if offered help or did when dropped a magazine 3) Helping a blind person cross the street: held out cane at crosswalk waiting for help. Ps scored if informed experimenter the light went green

- Data was collected by students, experimenters were university age, all experimenters men to control EVs, all had detailed instructions and practiced together

Levine Results

Most helpful- Rio de Janeiro -> 100% blind, 100% dropped pen, 80% hurt leg

Least helpful- Kuala Lumpur-> 54% blind, 26% pen, 41% leg

Second to last was NYC

Economic well being only notable community varisble

Levine Conclusions

1) helping of strangers is consistent

2) lots of variations in helping behaviour across cultures

3) help inverse to economic wellbeing

Blakemore and Cooper Background

Brain Plasticity- the way our brain can change based on demands placed upon it.

Cats- physical structure of cats brain similar to humans and adapt like humans

Hirsch and Spinelli- raised kittens with one eye viewing vertical stripes and the other horizontal. All 21 eyes were monocularly (driven by one eye). B+C wanted to do using binocular vision.

B+C Aim

To investigate the development of the primary visual cortex in cats as if properties such as orientational selectivity (what shapes neurons respond to) were learned or innate.

B+C Sample

2 cats in critical period (where brain is most vulnerable to change)

B+C Research Method

Lab experiment with independent measures

B+C Procedure

- Kittens randomly allocated to be raised in horizontal or vertical environment

-Kittens housed in a fully dark room from birth, from the age of two weeks they were put into a specialist device for an average of five hours a day.

- Specialist device -> entire surface covered in high contrast black and white stripes either horizontal or vertical. There were no corners so basically a tall cyclinder. A black collar restricted their view of their own bodies.

- After 5 months, the kittens were to a normal room and visual and physical reactions were recorded

- After 7.5 months their neurophysiology was examined

B+C Results

'Behavioural Blindness' shown as kittens couldn't see orientation not exposed to (wouldn't play with rod if shaken in that orientation)

'Physical blindness' shown as either horizontal or vertical plane recognition cells weren't firing

B+C Conclusions

1) Visual experiences in kittens can cause brain plasticity

2) a kittens primary visual cortex may adjust itself during critical period based on environment

3) Environment can determine perception on a physical and behavioural level in cats

Maguire Background

B+C-> investigated functional brain plascity while Maguire was interested in structural brain plasticity

Hippocampus-> major structure in the limbic system (responsible for memory and emotion) and in some species its known the hippocampus may grow in matter volume in seasons where spatial seasons are needed the most

Gaps Maguire wants to fill-> will innate structure change in humans after environmental simulation, what's the precise role of the hippocampus

Maguire wants to clarify the role of the hippocampus in humans

Maguire aim

Aimed to investigate the differences in the brain of London taxi drivers and a control group who weren't taxi drivers by observing the volume of the hippocampus

Maguire Sample

32, 16 taxi drivers from London, 16 non taxi drivers from London. All men, all right handed mean age 44. Taxi drivers passed the knowledge.

Maguire Procedure

DV-> Volume of hippocampus

Correlation analysis-> was used. Co variables are volume of hippocampus and time spent driving

- All ps took MRI scan of the brain. Scans analysed by an experienced person who was blind to the conditions.

- Also, two highly unbiased software used VBM (measures volume of the whole brain) and Pixel counting ( measuring volume in sections)

- Anterior hippocampus -> responsible for new navigation

- Posterior hippocampus-> responsible for familiar navigation

Maguire Results

- VBM and Pixel counting showed taxi drivers had a posterior campus of larger volume than regular people and that normal people had a larger anterior hippocampus

- The correlation was positive, the longer spent taxi driving the larger the posterior hippocampus

Maguire Conclusions

Regionally specific structural differences between taxi drivers and non taxi drivers show evidence for structural brain plasticity

Sperry Background

Lateralisation of function-> idea that the two hemispheres have different functions. Left controls language and right controls movement.

Contralateral control-> that the brain is cross wired, left hemisphere controls right side of the body and vice a versa.

Hemispheric de connection-> for people with severe epilepsy can stop it by cutting the corpus callosum which controls connection between hemispheres. Sperry wanted to how people with Severed corpus callosum behave differently

Sperry aim

To record physiological effects of hemispheric reconnection and find evidence for lateralisation for function in normal brains

Sperry research method

quasi-experiment

Sperry Sample

11 people who previously had split brain procedure, were readily available

Sperry Procedure

DV-> Performance on visual and tactile tasks

Appratus-> tachistoscope used to project visual stimuli, projected to the right or left to target right/left visual field

- One or both visual field tasks -> shown images every 0.1 seconds while Ps fixating on point in centre

- Tactile tasks -> One hand-> participants given an object in one hand and asked to say or write it, right hand could write it and left would draw it. Both hands-> given two objects in hand out of site asked to retrieve item

Sperry Results

One visual field-> images shown in right visual field they could say and draw (as left hemisphere responsible for language) while images shown in left visual field they could draw not say

Both visual fields-> would draw image from LVF and they said image from RVF

Tactile One hand-> If placed in right hand could write it, if left draw.

Tactile two hand-> could only retrieve item with hand that originally grabbed it

Sperry Conclusions

- Split brain patients appear to have two independent streams of consciousness so supports laterisation of function

-Split brain patients have two separate inner worlds

- Split brain patients lack cross integration (one hemisphere isn't aware of other)

Casey Background

Delayed gratification- Walter Mischel's concept of being able to resit temptation and hold off for a greater reward

Mischel's marshmallow test- researched at Stanford university. 562 children were presented a marshmallow and told if they didn't eat for 15 minutes they could have another. Only a third of those who attempted to delay lasted and some used strategies that can be learned

High delaying- (resisting temptation) has been linked to other positive outcomes in life like academic success.

Inspiration- Casey inspired to test delayed Gratification in adults to see if high/ low delaying in childhood would correlate to adulthood

Casey Aim

To assess whether delayed gratification in childhood predicts impulse control activities when participants were older

Casey Sample

59 adults who took part in the marshmallow test in childhood, all from the same nursery (Stanford uni) ethnocentric

Experiment two-> 27 participants from study 1

Casey Procedure

Experiment one-> participants completed a 'cool' no/go task (go for male, nogo for female, pressed a button for male) with all unemotional faces and completed a more emotional 'hot' task (happy and fearful faces and go/nogo reversed).

- A face appeared every 500 miliseconds

Experiment two -> objective e prime software, neuroscan 5 and button response pad used and fmri scan used to record brain activity during 'hot task' repeat

Casey Results

Experiment 1-> Low delayers performed worse in hot task. 15.7% errors on happy face compared to 11.2% for high delayers. Happy face caused most false alarms

Experiment two-> High activity in prefrontal cortex in high delayers. Low delayers showed increased activity in ventral striatum, hot part of the brain responsible for emotion

Casey Conclusions

-Resistance to temptation is a relatively stable trait

- the more alluring social cue (happy face) the harder is it to resist

- delayed gratification in children can predict impulse control in adults

Loftus and Palmer Background

Memory and schemas-> memory is the structure and process involved in storage and retrieval of information. Knowledge is stored in schemas which are mental representations of events and things

Reconstructive memory-> involves interpreting what is seen or heard and reconstructing this as a memory. Can be influenced by: Expectations (our expectations influence what we recall) and Post event influences (stored information can still change via leading questions

Problems with eye witness testimony-> can be unreliable as memory can change this interested Loftus and palmer

Loftus and Palmer Aim

To investigate effects of leading questions on an individual's accuracy to recall events

Loftus and Palmer Research method

Lab experiment with independent measures

Loftus and Palmer Procedure

Experiment 1

IV-> Wording of a ''critical question'' is high was ''About how fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed/collided/contacted/bumped with eachother

DV-> estimated speed in mph

-Ps shown 7 clips of different traffic accidents then given a questionnaire which contained the critical question

Experiment 2

Why?- two explainations for results in experiment one: Response bias -> May estimate higher due to hints in the word or actually changed memory

Procedure-> shows one clip of Car accident and asked same critical question but only smashed/ hit + control condition. One week later they given another critical question. '' did you see any broken glass'' There was no broken glass.

Loftus and Palmer Sample

Experiment 1-> 45 of Loftus's students from Washington University

Experiment 2-> 150 different students from Washington university

Loftus and Palmer Results

Experiment 1-> Smashed 40.5 mph (highest estimated speed.

Contacted 31.8 mph (lowest)

Experiment 2-> 16 said yes in smashed condition and 7 in hit and 6 in control

Loftus and palmer conclusions

Experiment 1- the way a question is phrased influences answer given

- eye witness testimony may not be reliable sources of information especially if leading questions are used

- memory is constructed from two sources ''what we perceive at the time'' and ''infomation later recieved''. These integrate and become our memory

Grant Background

Context dependent memory-> if you learn (encode) information in a similar environment as when you remember (recall) it, memory will be improved

What effects this-> memory is greater in recognition tasks than recall (recognition has prompts)

Effecting students -> grant interested if this applies to students (focus on study conditions matched or mismatched with exam conditions

Grant Aim

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

Grant Research method

Lab experiment, independent measures

Grant Sample

39 participants (17-56 years) 17 females, 23 males. Opportunity sampling ( 8 members recruited 8 others.

Grant Procedure

Matched conditions-> silent/silent and noisy/noisy

Mismatched conditions-> silent/noisy and noisy/silent

-Ps assigned random conditions (one of 4)

- Each P wore their own headphones playing background sounds at a moderately loud level or silent if silent condition

- Attempted to to learn article of psycho-immunology (meaningful material)

- 16 multiple choice questions and 10 short answers questions (asked first to re sure recall is from text not mcqs)

-All had R2W

Grant Results

- Silent/ Silent 81%

- Silent/ noisy 68%

- Everyone spent equal time studying material

Grant Conclusions

- Context dependency effects-> is similar context leads to enhanced performance

- Students are better off revising in quiet conditions to match exam setting

Moray Background

Selective listening-> involves an individual listening to two or more simultaneous messages and attending to one

Broadbent-> investigated selective listening through aviation industry highlighting importance for air traffic controllers

Cherry-> made Ps do dicotic listening task found attending set up a block against rejected message and moray wanted to replicate this

Moray Sample

Experiment 2 - 12 undergraduate students

Experiment 3- 14 undergraduate students

Moray research method

All Lab experiments

1 and 2- repeated measures

3- independent measures

Moray Procedure

Experiment 1-> asked to shadow of passage of prose (light fiction) and rejected was a list of words repeated 35 times, then a 30 second break to prevent retrieval from STM

Experiment 2->

-Conducted to see if any information could get past block set up during selective listening

-Two pieces of large fiction, one in each ear. 3 had an affective cue with instruction (name), 3 had no affective cue with instruction and 4 had no instructions

-Instruction would be like 'Josh listen to other passage'

Experiment 3

- conducted as moray didn't know if name or instruction broke the block

- Ps either hear instruction to listen out for digits or not. Digits were in rejected message

Overall

- Brenell Mark |V stereophonic tape recorder used with matched volume

- volume was always 60 db

-150 words a minute and male speaker

Moray Aims

Exp 1 -> investigated amount of information recognised in rejected message

Exp 2 -> to investigate effect of hearing one's own name in rejected message

Exp 3-> investigate effect of instructions to identify specific targets in rejected message

Moray Results

Exp 1-> Shadowed 4.9/7 words remembered

Rejected 1.9/7 words remember

Exp 2-> 4 x times more likely to hear instruction with your name

Exp 3-> instruction made no difference

Moray Conclusions

No unimportant info can break through block

Affective cue can break through block

Unimportant info can't break through block even if primed before

Simon and Chabris

Background

Moray-> moray recorded auditory attention while S+C is visual

Inattentional blindness-> when attention is diverted so objects unexpected fail to be seen. S+C wanted to investigate this

Mack and Rock-> P's presented with a computer screen using computer based displays displaying stars and crosses with a smiley face (unexpected event) going unrecognised

Neisser-> saw Mack and rock as unrealistic so Neisser further investigated by presenting participants with a video of basketball players and a women with umbrella walks by unnoticed (unexpected event). S+C saw it as too unrealistic so investigated further

Simon and Chabris sample

228 participants almost all undergraduate students

Only data from 192 participants used

Research based at Harvard universiry

Simon and Chabris Aim

1) to investigate whether events particularly unusual are more likely to be detected

2)to investigate the level of difficulity (would a more difficult task increase Inattentional blindness?)

3) to investigate the effect of superimposition, would a more realistic task give similar of different finding

Simon and Chabris research method

Laboratory experiment with independent measures design.

Simon and Chabris Procedure

IV conditions were - transparent/opaque, black team/ white team, umbrella/ gorilla and easy/hard task (count number of passes/ count number of bounce passes and Ariel passes)

DV- number of participants in each of the 16 conditions

Controls-> all videos had the same actors, recorded at the same location, each video lasted 75 seconds, players passed ball in standard order, unexpected event lasted 5 seconds, ps tested individually

Procedure-> watched video depending on iv, then asked surprise questions like ''did you notice anything other than the 6 players' If yes they were asked to give details to protect for demand characteristics

Simon and Chabris Results

36 ps dismissed as they have heard of the experiment

Overall: 46% didn't see unexpected event

Easier,opaque, umbrella women, black team increased chance to notice unexpected event

Simon and Chabris Conclusions

(Match with aim)

1) observers more likely to nice unexpected event if these events are similar to what they're paying attention to

2). Degree of intattentional blindness depends on difficulty of primary task

3) Innatentional blindness occurs more frequently in cases of superimposition over live action

Freud Background

Freud's psychodynamic theory-> mind is made up of the conscious, preconcious and unconscious mind.

Structure of the personality-> made up of the ID (pleasure principle), ego (reality principle) and superego (morality principle). Ego stops conflict between Id and superego.

Defence mechanisms-> if unable to resolve conflicts in unconscious. May displace emotions onto less frightening objects or repress feelings in the unconscious.

Psychosexual stages-> innate stages where our libido focuses on things which develop our personality. E.g phallic stage 3-5

Freud Aim

To report the findings of the treatment of a 5 year old boy for his phobia of horses and to find evidence for Freuds theory of psychosexual development and the Oedipus complex.

Freud Sample

A boy known as little hans from Vienna, Austria. He was aged 3-5 years during study. (In phallic stage). His father supported Freud.

Freud Research method

longitudinal case study, used psychoanalysis.

Freud Procedure

-Little Hans developed a phobia of white horses derived from seeing a horse kicking its legs while pulling a carriage but he also dreamed a horse was going to bite him and didn't leave his house. Freud interpreted this as displaced fear for his father

- Also had a giraffe dream featuring a big giraffe and a crumpled giraffe. The big one called out because Hans took the crumpled one. Freud said crumpled giraffe represented his mother and big giraffe his father

- Had a dream at the end of phallic stage. Han's final fantasy was one where he had children. They called him mummy and daddy. Han's father said so then you'd like to be as big as me, married to mummy and have her children? Freud says this symbolises little Hans moving out of Oedipus complex to be a male.

Freud Conclusion

Proved theory of psychosexual development, proves problems are the product of unconscious anxiety displaced onto external objects

Baron and Cohen Background

-Autism-> where a person has difficulties in communications and relationships with others and imagination

-Theory of mind-> autistic people lack this. Refers to one's ability to understand their thoughts and feelings and that others have thoughts and feelings that differ from their own.

-Sally-Anne Test-> test for theory of mind. Sally has a marble in her box. Sally leaves and Anne steals the marble. Which box does sally look for her marble in. Autistic say Anne's box, normal say Sally's box. Conducted by baron and Cohen

- Happes Strange stories test-> told ambiguous story and told to finish it. Baron and cohen wanted to make a harder test for theory of mind.

Baron and Cohen Aim

To investigate if high functioning adults with autism or Asperger's syndrome would struggle with a new test of theory of mind called 'The Eyes Task'

Baron and Cohen Sample

16 people with high functioning autism and asbergers syndrome recruited via autism magazine

50 normal people from general population of Cambridge

10 people with Tourettes syndrome (to see if theory of mind was specific to autism)

Baron and Cohen research method

quasi-experiment in Cambridge university

Baron and Cohen Procedure

4 tasks with study, presented in random order (counter balancing)

1st task - Eyes task-> all shown same set of 25 pictures, all black and white, shown for 3 seconds, 2 options to pick from (target and formal term). 4 judges determined correct answer (emotion of eyes)

2nd task-> happes strange story task for controls

3rd task -> basic emotion recognition tasks (to check if difficulties on eyes task were emotion recognition)

4th task- basic gender recognition (to check if difficulties were in this area)

Baron and Cohen results

16.3/25 for autistic on eyes task

20.3/25 for normal

20.4/25 for Tourette's

No important results in control tasks

Baron and Cohen Conclusion

Lack of theory of mind is specific to autism

Gould Background

- Stanford- Binet and weschler created the first generation of IQ tests

-Yerkes- believed intelligence is innate and based on skin colour and could be measured objectively

- Yerkes tests- used his position as American kernel to test intelligence of US army using army alpha and army beta tests

-Gould was interested in intelligence testing and its problematic nature of psychometric testing (prejudice in society can distort intelligence views) and inspired to do a critical review on Yerkes

Gould Research method

Review article from Gould's book 'the mismeasurement of man'

Gould (Yerke's sample)

1.75 million recruits in the U.S army

Yerke's Procedure (Gould)

3 types of tests were used:

Army Alpha-> designed for literate recruits lots of questions of american culture so unfair

Army Beta-> given if failed army Alpha for illiterate men but written in English and based on culture so still highly unfair to foreigners

Individual examination -> individual test for if you failed army beta but rarely happened.

Main problem-> measured education level not natural intelligence.

Black people not given army beta

Every individual given grade from A+ to E-

Yerkes Results (Gould)

Average mental age of white Americans is 13 years

Eugenics movement said poor, black people are interbreeding lowering intelligence level

Average mental age for black Americans 10.4 years

Caused immigration restriction act where poor results stopped immigration

Yerke's conclusions + Gould's conclusions

Yerke's - Intelligence is innate and possible to grade by skin colour and average man is a moron

Gould- IQ tests are culturally biased, do not measure innate intelligence or produce valid results and can lead to tragic consequences (immigration restriction act)