psychology as level unit 1

What was this study inspired by?

Lomboroso (1876) who linked physiological features to criminal behaviour and that they were throwbacks to less evolved humans, this was called atavism and was discredited.

After the CPT where was the group of murderers found to have a lower glucose metabolism?

Lateral and medial prefrontal cortex in both hemispheres

Where was a reduced activity for the group of murderers?

Left angular gurus and corpus callosum also found amygdala, thalamus and hippocampus but only in the left hemisphere

Where was an increase in activity found for the group of murderers?

Cerebellum, occipital lobe and amygdala, thalamus and hippocampus in the right hemisphere.

Where showed no significant differences in murderers? And why was this expected?

Midbrain, Caudate, Putamen, Globus pallidus and cerebellum because they have not been found to link to violence

What were the overall findings?

Reduced activity in parts of the brain previously associated with violence, reduced activity in left half of brain and increase in the right especially areas associated with violence (amygdala, thalamus, hippocampus) and No differences in areas not associated with violence

What were some differences in control group that were not accounted for?

6 left handed, 14 non white and 23 experienced a head injury previously

What were the Key conclusions from Raines study?

Reduced glucose metabolism in prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex and corpus callosum, Abnormal assymetries in the amygdala, thalamus and hippocampus with left activity lower than right hemisphere

Where did murderers show less activity and how can we conclude that?

Prefrontal cortex, so damage to this area can cause impulsivity, loss of self-control, immaturity and the inability to modify behaviour so leads to aggressive behaviour.

What makes up part of the ____ system? What can we conclude?

Amygdala, hippocampus and thalamus which governs expression of emotions and murderers showed lower activity so can have abnormal emotional responses.

What system is important for memory? What can be concluded from damage to this system?

The limbic system damage can lead to offenders not being able to learn from mistakes.

What happens when amygdala is destructed in animals? What can we conclude for humans

Destruction leads to lack of fear so we can assume in offenders reduced activity in amygdala results in reduced fear so they are less likely to fear consquence.

What happens if angular gyrus is damaged? What can we conclude?

Leads to a reduction in glucose metabolism so offender may experience reduced verbal, arithmetic and reading ability, which can lead to academic failure and predispose crime.

What is the corpus callosum responsible for? What can we conclude when it is damaged?

Transfers information between two hemispheres, damage leads to lack of regulation of aggressive emotions

What was the methodology?

Research method - Quasi experiment, matched pairs design. Participant - experimental group 41 participants 39M 2F average age 34.3, control group same amount of sex, 31.7 age, referred by university of California after head trauma and NGRI, sampling method was opportunity

Procedures

PET scan of both murderers and control, involved using fluorodeoxyglucose as when brain is active it uses glucose, continuous performance task.

What are the weakness

PET scans are still being developed and new, CPT does not showcase violent acts, quasi experiment so not random sample, nature over nurture

What are the strengths?

control group matched on variables such as age and sex, PET scans are useful, results are reliable scientific method so replicable. can be generalised

Quirk (1995)

Tested the effects of neurofeedback treatment on 77 dangerous offenders who suffered from deep brain epileptic activity and found a reduction in their criminal recidivism (reconviction)

James Fallon

Analysed his own genes and found he had genetics and brain characteristics of a violent criminal but it doesnt mean you will carry out a crime

Carter (2000)

Ask do addicted and mentally ill people have the capacity to make autonomous decisions regarding treatment.

What are some social implications of the study?

Can take away individuals free will, can be used successful in restorative justice and anger managment, social environments play a role in criminality

Ethical issues of the study

No issues with confidentiality, some not sound of mind to consent, Injected with radioactive glucose could be distressing, may not understand right to withdraw, lowered self esteem psychological harm, reduces everything to biology.

Watson and Rayner (1920)

Wanted to see if they could use classical conditioning to condition a healthy baby boy to fear a neutral stimulus (a white rat) by manipulating his environment.

What is the methodology of the Research?

Participant - Little boy Albert B, mother was a nurse at Harriet lane home, 9 months old. Research methods - Not a case study (one focus albert) Not an experiment (only one condition) best known as a controlled observation (took place in a well lit dark room)

What are the procedures of the research?

Emotional test - tested at 9 months to find neutral stimulus (white rat, rabbit, dog, monkey, masks without hair and with etc) and a negative stimulus (metal bar). Sessions - 1 Establishing a conditioned emotional response (steel bar hit when reaching for NS 11 months) 2 Testing conditioned emotional response (Same procedure with joint stimulation 11m 10d) 3 Generalisation (transferred to fluffy objects) 4 Changing environment (well lit lecture room), 5 effect of time (12m 21d tested again but no joint stimulations)

Finding of Watson and Rayners

Emotional test - No fear to NS but fear to loud noise, Sessions - 1. Bar struck when reaching, jumped violently and whimpered, 2. Hesitant to touch rat with no sound, but sound again and fell and cried with joint stim, 3. Generalised to furry objects and Watson hair but none to blocks or room. 4. Reactions less strong but still violent he could discriminate between blocks, 5. Still showed response but not as severe and desired to touch or avoid.

Conclusions of research

Given conditioned fear response, If sound was louder less joint stim required. Demonstrated emotional transfer, Watson states Albert was weak willed. Did not remove response but would have done it via flooding, replacing response, recondition with sweets or encourage play.

What are the strengths of the Research?

High level of control, baseline test, study filmed so reliable and replicatible

Weaknesses of research?

Low ecological validity, methodological issues, only one participant, Albert may have just feared the situation he was in, Albert’s thumb being forcibly removed could lead to fear response.

McAllister et al (1969)

Increase in ‘teacher praise’ and ‘teacher disapproval’ led to a decrease in the incidence of inappropriate talking in class, however using conditioning on school children does not always yield positive implications for society

Lepper et al (1973)

Supports McAllisters criticism nursery children who were promised a reward showed less time taken into drawing than those not promised, risk of generations with no intrinsic motivation.

Supernanny Jo Frost

Used the naughty step to connect inappropriate behaviour, when a child is naughty mother may shout but this is the attention the child views as a positive reinforcement.

Morris (2014)

Naughty step can have long term emotional effects children dont have the same ability to reflect on own behaviour as adults, naughty step may have a negative affect on development

Lovaas (1987)

Applied behaviour analysis to increase the frequency and quality of social interactions for children with autistic spectrum disorder

Ethical issues of the research

Did not remove conditioned fear so led to psychological harm, no confidentiality as it was filmed, consent was not given by Albert but by his mother, Albert couldn’t say he wanted to withdraw and his mother may have felt under pressure due to working there.

Methodology and procedures

Not really a study due to use of secondary data, It is a literature review, methods gathered included interviews, questionnaires, observations, correlations and meta analyses

What did Inglehart (1990) find?

Survey of 170,000 from 16 different countries and found; people of all ages were equally happy 80% satisfaction, different countries 10% happy in Portugal and 40% in Netherlands, 80% of men and women fairly satisfied with life

What did McCrae and costa (1990) find?

People do experience crises but these are not restricted to particular ages such as midlife crisis in early 40s

What does Robins and Regier (1991) find?

Women are twice as likely than men to suffer from disabling depression and anxiety and men 5 times more likely to develop alcoholism and anti social personality disorder.

What did Diener et al (1993) find?

African Americans report nearly as twice as much happiness as European Americans and are less vulnerable to depression, correlation between wealth and happiness is only modest -0.12, even people who win the lottery only report brief increase in happiness

What does Austin et al (1987) find?

In 1993 75% of American college students selected ‘being financially well off’ as an essential life goal compared to 39% in 1970

Costa et al (1987)

Found that people in a study of 5000 who were happiest in 1973 were still relatively happy ten years later.

Magnus and Diener (1991)

Trait-happiness correlations are not yet fully understood, it may be that happiness produces outgoing behaviour which may explain why they get married sooner, better jobs and more friends

Burt (1986)

People who could name several close friends are happier than people who dont have such friendships

Lee et al (1991)

39% of married people were happy compared with 24% of unmarried people.

Witter et al (1985)

Happiness is related to religious affiliation and frequency of worship attendance

What conclusions are made?

Happiness must recognise the importance of adaptation, Happiness is cultural worldview, Values and goals are important for happiness, knowing a persons age race sex and income does not tell us how happy they are.

How can we evaluate methodology and procedures?

Literature review can pose potential research bias, self report data participants may lie, social desirability, subjectivity, lack of insight, reliability, Correlations can lead to causation and intervening variables, samples most from USA or Europe may be collectivist or individualistic cultures.

What are ethical and social implications?

Self report data could cause unwanted psychological harm and violate privacy as well as observations, socially sensitive research, assumes specific countries are unhappy and could cost the governments.

Key terms of acknowledgment of free will

Acknowledges other roles that approaches mention but suggests the greater role of free will, humans are in charge of their own emotions and free will, other approaches are deterministic e.g biological, psychodynamic and behaviourist. Happiness isn’t a result of good genes or luck, but a result of recognising strengths, Theory of signature strengths we inherit 24 traits and we nurture these to transform our lives

Seligman and Diener (2000)

Look at ties students had to friends and family in terms of how much time they invested in these relationships, they found that students who had the strongest ties to friends and family were happier.

Key terms of authenticity and goodness and excellence

Psychology is too focussed on negative aspects of personality and fixing what’s wrong with people, in reality positive aspects of a persons personality commonly exceeds that of the negative, feelings of happiness and goodness are as natural as feelings of anxiety and stress. Approach offers way to alleviate illness such as depression by being altruistic.

Christopher Peterson (2006)

The most basic assumption that positive psychology urges is that human goodness and excellence are as authentic as disease, disorder and distress.

Seligman (2002)

Believes that the view that traits such as virtue and happiness are less authentic than negative traits such as anxiety and depression are obstacles in psychological research.

Peterson and Seligman (2004)

VIA classification of character strengths and virtues has developed into an online self report questionnaire to identify character strengths.

Focus on ‘The Good Life’

One primary aspect of positive is the good life and factors that contribute most predominantly to a life well lived, Pleasant life, Good life and Meaningful life, combines elements of positive connection to others, positive individual traits, and life regulation qualities.

Seligman (2003)

The pleasant life - happiness comes from pursuing positive emotions in relation to past present and future, The good life- Happiness comes from pursuing activities which positively absorb and engage us, The meaningful life- Happiness comes from a deep sense of fulfilment we get from using our character strengths for deeper purpose.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Concept of ‘flow’, means reaching the state of being fully engaged in an activity, different activities lead to flow, engaging in activities help us achieve a flow state and are one example of the good life.

Positive relationship formation

We strive for the good life, place of happiness and work, positive connections to others. Relationships with family friends and romantic relationships help us achieve this, having more relationships leads to happiness. Friends help us reach flow, friends encourage authenticity and act as a buffer during difficult times, we form relationships to better ourselves against stresses and strains.

Diener and Seligman

Found that people judged as very happy spent less time alone and more time socialising than those rated as average or very unhappy. The veery happy group also rated their social relationships as being of good quality.

What is mindfulness?

Uses meditation and breathing techniques to help people focus on the moment and increase their well-being, many of the examples we use focus on the moment and increase wellbeing. Alleviation of suffering caused by mental illness can be used by anyone

What are the main components of mindfulness?

Involves breathing and meditation techniques, focus on a particular task like eating, Gain control of thoughts, Meditation is the best way to focus on the here and now, it can take a while. Body posture and sensations from the body to tune out thoughts, it is not just restricted to a few minutes it can be done constantly by being fully engaged.

Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR)

Developed by Jon Kabat-Zion in 1970, individual is trained in the the techniques in series of classes, participants given educational material alongside practicing mindfulness meditation and yoga, they will also be given home practice assignments to complete.

Evaluation of mindfulness

Regulates emotions and control stress, can be applied to education settings to help children who find it hard to concentrate, mindfulness is becoming increasingly incorporated into other therapies like psychoanalysis and cognitive behavioural therapy

Participants need to possess a degree of calm and patience, May not obtain informed consent, not suitable for everyone, many studies are small.

Davidson et al (2003)

Conducted a study into the effects of mindfulness meditation on the immune system and brain function, 25 employees offered 8 week mindfulness and given influenza jab, produced higher antibodies of the jab than others, and increased activity in brain

Kuyken et al (2013)

Compared children in secondary schools who took part in mindfulness in schools programme to those who took part in the usual school curriculum, mindfulness students had less stress and greater wellbeing

Teasdale et al (2000)

Evaluated the effectiveness of MBCT among 145 depressed patients over 60 weeks, number of relapses had reduced and risk of relapse in future reduced

Tang et al (2007)

Therapists who practice mindfulness meditation scored higher on measures of self-reported over the therapist who did not meditate.

What was the aim of the study?

to test whether early separation from the mother can be the cause of disturbed behaviour in children, habitual delinquency, Bowlby argued the cause of delinquency was mother separation.

What was the methodology of the research?

Case study, 44 thieves referred by child guidance clinic, 31 boys and 13 girls in the group 5-17yrs. average IQ 100, half were grade 4 thieves, 10 grade 3, 8 grade 2 and 4 grade 1. The mothers were also involved for background information. Control group of 44 children similar age and from same clinic but not thieves.

What were the procedures of the research?

sample obtained using opportunity sampling, mental tests given to each child, mothers interviewed by social workers, children met psychiatrist weekly over 6 months.

What were the findings of the study?

diagnosis of thieves; 2 normal, 9 depressed, 2 circular, 13 hyperthymic, 14 affectionless, 4 schizoid.

Strong association between affectionless and stealing and more frequently (grade 4)

12 affectionless had mother separations and others only had 3.

27 thieves had poor relationships with mother.

traumatic events later in childhood account for some delinquent behaviour as well as genetics 4 thieves had psychotic parents.

Conclusions of bowlbys study

Genetic factors could be an explanation due to the incidence of parent and grandparent mental health, however we cannot conclusively state this. Early home environment plays a role in the development of superego. obsession with possession of things is an indicator.

Evaluation of study

No casual findings, biased data, lack validity due to researcher bias, no inter-rater reliability, no double blind (knew the groups), some parents asked to recall information from years ago, could lead to social desirability bias. sample not representative 60% M. only studied children caught thieving, psychological issues

High ecological validity, data is rich and in depth qualitative, minimal manipulation required,

Weisner & Gallimore (1977)

negative social implication is its negative impact on equality of women as it portrayed them as solely responsible for the care and development of a child.

Social implications

Family and childcare trust found it cost nearly £250 a week for nursery, parents are entitled time off work for birth. about .8 million single parents 90% women.

Key terms of The unconscious mind

Ruled by pleasure seeking, contains deep sexual and aggressive feelings, ego defence mechanisms; regression, repression, displacement, projection and denial, conscious, preconscious and unconscious

Frueds views on unconscious mind

Mind is like an iceberg; tip is conscious what we are aware of, level is preconscious what we could access and then our unconscious is the large part underwater what we cannot access. He believed our dreams are the via regia (royal road) to the unconscious

Key terms of Tripartite personality

mind is split into three parts, Id (instincts) ego (reality principle) and superego (moral principle). Pleasure principle, reality principle and morality principle.

Freuds views on tripartite personality

criminals are ruled by their id and their superego is suppressed, criminals particularly those who commit violent offences often lack a sense of morality and remorse and seek pleasure and gratification

Eysenck

Individuals who score highly in extraversion, neuroticisim and psychoticism are more likely to develop criminality

Key terms of the influence of early childhood experiences and relationships.

psychosexual stages; Oral (18m frustration leads to pessimism) Anal (18m-3yr frustration leads to stubborness and disorganised) Phallic (3-5yrs oedipus or electra complex fixation results in homosexuality) Latency stage (5-puberty little sexual motivation) Genital (puberty onwards)

What is the oedipus complex

Boy starts to desire his mother and wants sex, boy sees father as rival and wants to kill father, fears if father finds out he will castrate him, state of conflict he resolves by speaking to father which leads to superego development

what is Electra complex?

similar to oedipus but with father and develops penis envy,

Freud on childhood experiences

Fixations of oral stage can lead to an eating disorder in adult hood, anal leads to OCD and phallic confused sexuality, Freud case of little hans provides further support for the oedipus complex

Psychodynamic relationship formation

Chilhood has great influence on our adult lives, can be explained by psychosexual stages.

What is dream analysis?

dreams are the via regia to subconscious, manifest content of dreams is the real content whereas latent content is the symbolic meaning of the dream, dream analysis uses the latent content find deeper meanings.

What are the steps to dream analysis?

Step 1- dreamer recalls their dream to the therapist of the manifest content they remember

Step 2- Process of dreamwork is applied to understand the dream when latent content is transferred to manifest content

Step 3- dreamwork includes; condensation, displacement, representation, symbolism and secondary elaboration

Step 4- therapist reverses dreamwork to find underlying meanings.

Solms (2000)

Used PET scans to highlight the regions of the brain that is active during dreaming, rational part of brain is inactive during REM whereas forebrain centres concerned with memory are very active

Hopfield (1983)

Computer simulations mimic the activity of the brain, these show that neural networks deal with an overloaded memory by condensing memories (manifest content)

Grunbaum (1993)

Therapists power in relationship any benefit of psychoanalysis are results of a placebo effect, the action of being treated cures the patient rather than the technique.

Evaluation of Dream analysis

Conducted in sleep laboratories so ecological validity is questioned, could disrupt REM sleep and secretion of hormones which may act as a confounding variable, emotional harm, false memory, time and costly.

What is EWT?

eyewitness testimony is when witnesses give evidence in court when a crime has been committed.

Loftus

defined a leading question as a question that either by its form or content, suggests to the witness what answer is desired, or leads him to the desired answer

Filmore (1971)

The words smashed and hit may imply different rates of speed

What were the two experiments carried out?

1- to see if speed estimates were influenced by the wording of the questions asked, word hit or smashed with the same question

2- To see if leading questions changed responses given to the questions, whether participants memory altered.

What were the methodology of both experiments?

Both - Leading questions is IV, DV is speed estimate, independent measure was different group of participants used.

1- 45 students of washington university asked 5 diff questions

2- 150 students split into 3 groups

What were the procedures of each experiment?

1- shown seven clips of car crashes 5-30 secs long, asked to write an account of what they had seen, and answered how fast were the cars going when they (smashed/collided/bumped/hit/contacted)

2- Similar procedure but 150 divided into 3 groups viewed a short film and asked how fast they were going when they (hit/smashed/control) and a week later asked if they saw any broken glass (there wasnt)

Findings of experiment 1