Biological Approach Studies - HL Psychology

Ferguson et al. 2000

Social familiarity in rodents was studied with mice with Oxytocin and without. The mice with it showed greater social familiarity compared to without oxytocin. Lab exp. independent and repeated measures

Rozenzweig, Bennet, and Diamond 1972

Studied 3 male rats, randomly allocated to either an enriched, control, or impaired condition for 30-60 days. The brains of each changed as a result of the environments. Neuron activity was increased in the enriched and impoversished environments. There was also higher acetylcholine. Lab exp.

Cases et al. 1995

Studied transgenic mice, with low MAOA. Intruder-resident tests, transgenic vs. normal mouse. Autopsies showed increased seratonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. genetic variation led to MAOA deficiency

Middlemist, Knowles, Matter 1976

Unethical study of men recording urination lengths with increased/decreased interpersonal distance. Arousal (better peeing) increases when people have more space to pee. Lots of limitations with recording data, ethics, consent, etc..

H.M. (Scoville and Milner) 1966

Took out hippocampus, no episodic or semantic memory, but had muscle memory . used direct observation, interviews, cognitive testing, etc. ethics?

Maguire et al. 2000

London taxi cab drivers and control group MRI scans. Taxi drivers had larger posterior and smaller anterior hippocampi. grey from long term potentation and learning. Anterior is recall, so less of that and more of learning and storing and spatial in posterior.

Harris and Fiske 2006

in an fMRI particpants shown six sets of ten photos, people with disabilities, rich, poor, old, atheletes, homeless, etc. and rated on four emotions. Insula (trash activated digust brain area) activated for homeless, as well as amygdala and the prefrontal cortex was NOT activated (rational thinking) supports dehumanization. Lab exp with ind. measures and ocnvience sampling

Draganski et al. 2006

german students take exam and mri measured brain in control vs exam takers. 3 times over time. more gray matter in posterior hippocampus and inferior parietal cortex for test takers. Quasi exp. iv not manipulated (studying)

Crocket et al. 2010

placebo vs. SSRI given before trolley problem with personal and impersonal scenarios. SSRI reduces personal harm in the personal scenario and promotes prosocial behavior. Volunterr convience samlping, lab exp. double blind.

Antonova 2011

acetylcholine antagonizing drug scoplamine was used vs. a placebo with fMRI. studied effect on spatial memory. acetylchloine could play a key role in spatial memory encoding in humans, scoplamine made it worse. labe exp, double blind, repeated measures, convience sampling

Dr. Dreu et al. 2011

ingroup of dutch participants (one group on oxytocin and one not), shown outgroups (arab, german) and moral dilemma tests. On oxytocin, didn’t like arab people, less likely to sacrifice ingroup compared to outgroup. Oxytocin prefers ethnocentrism evolutionarially.

Cutler, Fieldman, and McCoy 1998

Synthesized phermone in aftersahves in one group and placebo, self reported sexual encounters 47% increase with the pheromone compared to 9.5% with the placebo. consent issue, reliability, placebo effect, etc.

McDermott et al. 2009

Hot sauce paradigm: choice to administer hot sauce to opponent who doesn tlike it. to fictional person who stripped the participants earnings from a previous test. 80% of earnings taken resulted in more hot sauce given. MAOA predicts behavioral agression. but may be influenced by environments as when 20% was taken, there was less violence.

Baumgartner 2008

fMRI on people during the trust game with oxytocin vs. a placebo. placebo more likely to trust less after briefed with trust. didnt matter for oxytocin, may descrease fear reactions (amygdala)

Kendler et al. , 2006

42,161 swedish twins across 60 years, DSM 4 tested depression through phone interviews. estimated heritability for depression was 37% on avergae. field exp. survey, confounding variables, etc.

Weismann 2006

161 grandchildren and parents and grandparents studied with clinicians, interviews, and triangulation. increased risk of any disorder in children if depression was in parents/grands. just parent, not shown in generations, both, yes.

Chang et al. 2011

random groups of college men and women rate womens age as attractive or unattractive, female rated masculinity and attractiveness and unnatractiveness on age, willingness to go to war on liket scale afterwards. males showed more militant actions under the attrafctive female condition than unnatractive. no diff in female ratings

Wedekind et al.

sweaty t shirt on men with different MHC’s. females prefered different MHC’s than their's which supports evolutionary explanation for mating with immune systems and survival of hte fittest as well as phermone evidence. Major Histocompatibility Complex, genes important in immune system