16 marker planning points

Question 1

Discuss the effects of institutionalisation, referring to the studies of Romanian orphans in your answer.

Answer 1

A01:
Zeanah et al and Rutter studies
- Zeanah et al used the strange situation to asses attachment styles of Romanian orphans - found only around 19% were secure, whereas a larger minority were disinhibited.
- Rutter used adoption studies - comparing a group of Romanian orphans adopted to the UK and UK children adopted in the UK - finding that those from Romania that were adopted after 6 months old showed significant deficits in IQ and disinhibited attachment. - those adopted before 6 months did not show these signs.
+: Rutter study was longitudinal - so effects of institutionalised children could be better assessed over a longer time, giving more conclusive results of attachment style/IQ and preventing jumping to conclusions
+: studies have had real life application - eg setting up foster care systems instead of orphanages to help incorporate one main caretaker instead of several. Shows that research may have enabled reduce rates of disinhibited attachment in the future.
-: newer data is only assessing relationships for orphans now in their 20s - might not tell us about earlier or future impacts of institutionalisation

Question 2

Outline and evaluate Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory

Answer 2

A01:
- involves a mother showing continuous care for child and that prolonged separation from mother is very harmful for emotional and intellectual development.
- 44 thieves study outline and link to maternal deprivation and emotionless psychopathy.
- critical period
A03:
-: 44 thieves study ignores the difference between deprivation and privation (inability to form an attachment in the first place) - which might make it unclear which one of the two may be correlated with emotionless psychopathy.
-: parent blaming and economic implications - may have stopped several mothers from working, thus might have caused economies to suffer. Shows that Bowbly’s theory may have had much wider impacts than just within families.
+: support for critical period shown with animal studies, but not necessarily applicable to humans, but showed several emotional defecits in monkeys after separation. Shows that critical period might be important in forming attachments and future attachments.

Question 3

Outline and evaluate the behavioural approach to treating phobias

Answer 3

A01:
- systematic desensitization - involves building a fear hierarchy and slowly working up when anxiety decreases
- flooding - direct exposure to phobia
- (use examples)
A03:
+: flooding is more cost efficient as it takes less sessions - makes therapy more accessible as compared to CBT for phobias for instance.
+: systematic desensitization might help patients more ethically - as the patient is not placed in direct place of potential psychological harm. Shows that there needs to be individual consulting on which treatment to choose.
Alternative: CBT, can help change irrational thoughts, and may help as a transition to one of the behavioural approaches.

Question 4

Discuss the cognitive approach to explaining depression.

Answer 4

A01:
- idea that our thoughts and cognitions are responsible for our depression
- eg negative thoughts - glass half empty always
- black and white thinking
- faulty thought processing
- Beck’s negative triad - negative thoughts of self, world and future.
- ABC model (action, belief, consequence)
A03:
+: had lead to effective therapies like CBT, which involves altering cognitions. shows that the cognitive explanation can real world application instead of just being theories
-: patient blame - own thoughts seem to cause depression, but there might be alternative, eg biological explanation. Shows that cognitive explanation alone can’t provide full explanation for depression.
+: research support by Kwon et al shows that cognitive model was better at explaining depression after traumatic events compared to competing models like the linear mediation model. Adds validity to Beck’s model.

Question 5

Outline and evaluate explanations of resistance to social influence.

Answer 5

A01:
- social support - less fear of ridicule/rejection
- LOC - internal more likely to resist social influence
- Authoritarian personality- less likely to resist.
A03:
+: Asch’s study - saw conformity decrease with a dissenter compared to without one - showing that people are more likely to conform with some sort of social support.
+: Albrecht et al study with adolescent smokers who were paired with a ‘buddy’ in the fresh start USA campaign were more likely to stop smoking than those without a buddy - shows that social support is effective even outside of lab studies.
-: LOC is a very non-empirical idea, and doesn’t necessarily take into account the changes - eg study found that we become more external as we grow, but still resist social influence. Shows that LOC might be an inconsistent explanation for social influence.

Question 6

Outline and evaluate the biological approach to treating OCD.