psych 100 exam 1 studies

neurotic symptoms study

• physical pain, no physical cause

• catharsis (unearthed hidden feelings) used to find that she was in love with her brother in law, but that was socially unacceptable so she coped by limping instead of dealing with guilt of love

• freud

personality stability study

• marshmallow experiment

• kids asked to wait to eat marshmallow to get two as a reward

• kids who waited were more attentive, less likely to do drugs, better handling emotions, and had higher SAT scores

authority/obedience case study

• MILGRAM STUDY

• participant told to teach confederate participant pairs of words

  • upon getting one wrong, they must electrically shock them

• how far will they go?

  • upon suggestion of quitting, experimenter says no

  • 65% went up to 450 V

cognitive dissonance study

• people all asked to turn pegs and put spools in box for an hour

• asked to lie to next confederate participant about enjoyment during experiment

  • one group paid 20 dollar

  • one group paid 1 dollar

  • control group not asked to lie, not given money

• later, asked real opinions

  • 1 dollar group did enjoy

  • 20 dollar one did not

  • no dollar did not enjoy

• 1 dollar felt uncomfortable that they lied for just one dollar, while 20 dollars was enough to justify the lie so they did not feel the need to remove any discomfort by actually coming to believe their lies

conformity study

• asch line study

  • 5 confederates, 1 real participant

  • asked to match line length to other lines

  • started off everyone says the obvious answer

  • confederates switch answer to wrong one later

    • 75% participant follow them to wrong answer at least once

• primary goal shifted from accuracy to fitting in
  
  OR

• hotel towel study

  • people asked to reuse towels

    • asked with simple request

    • asked with message that suggests a norm

  • people reused towels more when other people there

    • around 15% more

misattribution of attraction

• bridge study

• one group of people goes across tall bridge

• one group of people goes across low bridge

• woman confederate surveys them at the end, and gives her phone number for any questions

• 50% of tall bridge ppl called back, while only 15% of low bridge ppl did

• attributed calmly hands, fast heart rate, nervousness from height for attraction

classical conditioning study

• pavlov’s dog study

• dogs salivated at food

• added neutral stimulus (ticking metronome) whenever dogs ate

• dogs began salivating at just ticking metronome

discrimination example

• pavlov’s dogs were (accidentally) conditioned to salivate when the feeders approached

• didn’t salivate upon pavlov approaching

generalization study

• little albert

• shown many items and animals to play with

• loud hammer sound when white rat shown elicits fear

• related a few times

• albert exhibits fear even when shown other white fuzzy things like bunnies

operant conditioning study

• puzzle box study

• places a cat in a box

• cat must do something to escape

• does random things a lot at first but once it figures out what it is that is leading to the box opening (hitting lever), it hits the lever more and more to get out

• shows how rewards lead to more of the same behavior

shaping example

• pigeon does random things

• allowed to eat when it turns a bit

• eats, does that thing again but this time has to do it more

• repeat until full turn

cognitive learning study

• good player award study

• kids told to draw

  • one group told they will get reward

  • one group given reward, no warning

  • one group no reward

• kids who were told about their reward prior to getting it were less likely to draw in their free time later on

• the award had replaced the kids’ reason for drawing from they want to because they simply enjoy it to they will draw for a reward

latent learning

• rat study

• rats trained to go through a maze

  • group one: always given food

  • group two: never given food

  • group three: only given food after ten days

• no food and halftime food showed similar results until sometime food was given food, where their mistakes while running the maze decreased immediately

cognitive map study

• rats given food at the end of maze which they trained in

• after training, put in a maze with many openings at beginning

  • rats immediately went down the correct corridor

• had formed a map in their head of relativity of where food is