pre-dp ps3 studies

for the Finnish pre-dp program!

Wedekind (1995)

Step1: all the participants had MHC(Major histocompatibility complex) alleles identified Men wore t-shirts for 2 nights w/o scenty products A group of women were requested to rank smell of 7 t-shirts worn by men by intensity, pleasantness and sexiness 3 w/ similar immune sys 3 w/o 1 placebo Findings: women ranked differne t immune system shirts more pleasants. Reversed when they took oral contraceptives so suggests we have biological drive to find those who we can have healthy offspring with lol xd lmao crayzy

Hölzel et al. (2011)

Aim: see how mindfulness-based-stress-reduction (MBSR) affects neuroplast
Sample:
Treatment group: 16 meditation naïve participants form us
Ctrl: 17 who did not partake in mbsr
Procedure
Pre test: MRI
Test: 8 wk mbsr program
Post: second MRI
Findings
Treatment had more grey matter density in hippocamp cerebellum and cingulate cortex (under cerebral cortex liked to emotions(amygdala) attention, motivation etc). Provides evidence for biolog benefits of mbsr

Levine et al (2001)

True experiment = iv manipulation can determin ecausetaintg

Sample: 2 separate samples of man utd fans
Iv: essay topic and shirt
Exp1:
Paritcipants completed questionnaire and wrote essay abt being man utd fan
They moved to another building, on the way saw a confederate who pretended to be nilkkanyrjähdys and then iv was the shirt of confederate Man utd shirt Liverpool (rival) shirt Nautral t-shirt shirt

Exp2: the participants completed similar survey/essay but about general football stuff, not specific team
Other steps were same


Findings: vast majority helped man utd fan but liverpool/neutral was only halped 30% of time

In 2nd exp neutral was only helped in 22% of cases

Strack and Mussweiler (1997 and 2001)

Aim: study if anchoring bias affects decision making

Procedure: Group 1 of participants was asked if gandhi died before or after the age of 9, group 2 was asked if he died before or after 140. Both were quite implausible

They were then asked to present an exact estimate of gandhi’s age.

Results: A lower anchor led to a lower estimate of his age, and vice versa.

the study was repeated in 2001, with more plausible anchors. it was found that the effect of the anchor is stronger when plausible.

Asch Paradigm 1956

aim: see to what extent humans would agree to an incorrect answer when everyone else answers incorrectly lab exp. procedure: confederates deceived participants control group was made of participants, 99% correct confederates answered most incorrectly and some correctly 3/4 agreed with confederates at least one time 1/3 half the time about 24% never conformed

Bandura's bobo doll study (1961)

aim: figure if kids imitate the behavior of adults
aim 2: figure if same-sex adults influence more

procedure:
kids saw adults interacting with objects
group 1: adults assaulted the dolls physically and psychologically
group 2: just building non aggressively

control: no model present

kids were told NOT to play to make them angry

result:

girls imitated verbal aggression more
same sex influenced mroe
boys were more physical
boys who saw women beat the doll called the women "unladylike"

issues:
validity, reliability
ethical concerns

Draganski et al (2004)

aim: see if juggling grows grey matter in brain, and if it decreases after juggling stops procedure: treatment group learned juggling, ctrl did not sample and method were young women, young men never juggled before participans got mri'd and then "treatment" aka juggling practice started once mastered, participants informed researchers, 2nd MRI, 3 month break, 3rd MRI findings: MRI 1: no diff in gray matter MRI 2: sig. more gm density in the mid-temporal areas linked to visual memory MRI 3: pruning occurred, gm was decreased in density, skill loss neuroplasticity: mid-temporal area had more dendritic branching while learning since it was necessary localization: juggling seems to heavily rely on visual memory by dendritic branching scan

Maguire et al (2000)

Aim: To investigate whether or not lifestyle influences brain and hippocampus neuroplasticity Procedure: london taxi drivers made to navigate city by memory, civilians too, quasi-experiment, all right-handed, taxi drivers passed qualify exam and had had licence in past 1,5y scanned by MRI and used voxel-based morphology to analyze grey matter density in brain. findings: posterior hippocampus inv. in recalling info (bigger in taxi drivers) and anterior inv. in encoding new env. layouts (bigger in civs) no causation since people were not measured before the study correlation btwn driving exp. and posterior hc size generalizable since job is same and brain is same single-blind control reduced researcher bias

Harris and Fiske (2006)

Aim: investigate the brain's response to extreme outgroups to find the cause of stereotypes and prejudices

Procedure: fMRI scans of students who were shown pictures of extreme outgroups and also objects

Result: people viewed the outgroups as objects limitations: f

Loftus & Palmer (1974)

Aim: To investigate how the wording of questions influences memory recall of an event.

procedure: participants allocated to "hit", "smashed" and control groups.

 

Shown a video of car accidents, asked to describe

 

"hit" and "smashed" groups were asked "about how fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed into each other?", ctrl group was not asked.

 

A week later, participants returned and they were asked more questions, the key question being "did you see broken glass?"

 

Results: "smashed" condition reported higher speed estimates and saw broken glass

"hit" was milder

 

Evaluation: IV was manipulated (true exp.), participants randomly allocated

 

Highly artificial, no one does this in their everyday lives, speeds are not estimated etc

Real life accidents may carry personal and emotional significance

 

The participants were undergrads, no driving experience so may be harder to evaluate speed.

Hillard & Liben (2010)

Aim: how does social category salience affect formation of gender stereotypes and inter-group behavior?

 

Sample, pre-test: kids first took an attitude test to measure "gender flexibility", done by showing them pictures of boys/girls engaging in activities like being a firefighter (masc) or playing with dolls (feminine) and flying a kite (neutral), had to pick whether men, women, or both should engage in activity. "Both" andwers were measured, less boths = higher number of stereotypes

 

Kids also measured on who they play with in terms of gender (male or female) before and after procedure

 

Post-test: both gender attitude and playtime with gender measured after 2 weeks

 

 salience = being aware of gender as means of categorizing

Procedure: kids divided into (1) high salience and (2) low salience conditions for two weeks

 

(1) high salience: school teachers emphasized gender salience

Gender-specific language, sex-based selection, etc

(2) low salience: no instructions given, gender-specific language avoided by policy

 

 

Results: pre-test: salience did not matter in "both" responses

Post-test: high salience had more stereotypes, decrease in "boths"

 

Inter-group behavior: low salience - no change in behavior

High salience: large drop in playtime with out-group (boys played with boys, girls with girls)

 

Lepper & Nispett (1973)

true exp

children told to draw, one group rewarded one not one surprise rewarded

rewarded kids drew less after task

→ overjustification = intrinsic motivation decreases if there is an extrinsic motivator