Casey et al Flashcards

1
Q

What is the aim of this study?

A

to investigate if delay of gratification in childhood can predict impulse control and sensitivity to alluring social cues at the behavioural and neural age of 40

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2
Q

What is the research method for the study?

A

quasi experiment

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3
Q

Why is this a quasi?

A

because whether a person is a high or low delayer is naturally occurring and cannot be directly manipulated by the researcher

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4
Q

What are the strengths of a quasi?

A
  • behaviour is more natural as cannot be manipulated
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5
Q

What are the weaknesses of a quasi?

A
  • lack of control over EVs
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6
Q

What is the DV?

A

performance on the impulse control and cognitive go/ no go task

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7
Q

What are the two components of the DV?

A

accuracy (false alarms) and reaction times (speed)

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8
Q

What is the design for the study?

A

repeated measures

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9
Q

Why is it a repeated measures design?

A

same people doing tasks at different ages

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10
Q

What is a strength of repeated measures?

A
  • smaller sample needed
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11
Q

What are weaknesses of repeated measures?

A
  • order effects are more likely
  • demand characteristics are more likely
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12
Q

What scientific machinery was used in experiment 2?

A

fMRI scan

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13
Q

What type of methodology was used?

A

longitudinal

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14
Q

Why is using longitudinal methodology a strength?

A

can see the changes in delay of gratification over time

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15
Q

What was the original sample before the main study?

A

562, 4 year olds from Stanford’s Bing Nursery School

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16
Q

What was the task that the 4 year olds did?

A

Marshmallow test (delay of gratification task)

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17
Q

What was the sample when the same set of 4 year olds were in their 20s?

A

155

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18
Q

What was the task that the 20 year olds completed?

A

self-control questionnaires

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19
Q

What was the sample for the participants when they were in their 30s?

A

135

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20
Q

What was the task that the 30 year olds completed?

A

another self-control questionnaire

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21
Q

What was the method for some of the follow up tasks (20s & 30s)?

A

self-report (questionnaire)

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22
Q

What are the strengths of a self-report method?

A

quick and easy to complete

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23
Q

What are the weaknesses of a self-report method?

A

social desirability bias - lying to impress researcher

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24
Q

How many participants did Casey contact for the main study?

A

117

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25
Q

Why were the participants selected?

A

they were individuals who were consistently high or low delayers across all 3 tests

26
Q

How many of the 117 contacted agreed to take part in experiment 1?

A

59
- 23 male
- 36 female

27
Q

How many of the 59 from experiment 1 agreed to take part in experiment 2?

A

27
- 13 male
- 14 female

28
Q

Why was experiment 2 really only 26 participants?

A

one 41 year old man was excluded from all analysis as he had poor performance (an outlier)

29
Q

What are the strengths of the sample?

A
  • initially really large = representative & generalisable
  • no gender bias includes males and females
30
Q

What are the weaknesses of the sample?

A
  • high rate of attrition
  • ethnocentric (only USA)
  • lacks population validity
31
Q

What is experiment 1?

A

the longitudinal behavioural study

32
Q

What is experiment 2?

A

the functional neuroimaging study

33
Q

What was the purpose of experiment 1?

A

to test whether delay of gratification was a stable behavioural characteristic

34
Q

How were children who were low delayers expected to behave as adults?

A

show less impulse control

35
Q

What materials were the 59 participants given?

A

a programmed laptop to use at home and complete two versions of the go/ no go tasks

36
Q

What were the two versions of the go/ no go tasks called?

A

cool and hot

37
Q

What was the premise of the cool version?

A
  • male and female face
  • neutral face expression
  • participants told which sex was the ‘go’
  • press button every time they saw their target
  • other sex = no go and should NOT press button in response to this face
38
Q

What was the premise of the hot version?

A
  • identical to the cool version EXCEPT facial expressions
  • happy or fearful facial expression
  • alluring stimuli
39
Q

What were the timings for the procedure? How long were the faces shown for? What was the interval between pictures?

A

1) Photos shown for 500ms
2) Interval = 1s

40
Q

How many trials were there total and what was the ratio of go and no-go?

A

160 total trials (pseudorandomised) 120 go & 40 no go

41
Q

How can the procedure be criticised?

A
  • Lacks mundane realism
  • Causality CANNOT be established (took place at participants home) = less control (EVs)
42
Q

What are the strengths of the procedure?

A

Extremely standardised = more reliable & replicable

43
Q

What was the purpose of experiment 2?

A

to examine the neural correlates of delay of gratification

44
Q

What was predicted before experiment 2?

A

That low delayers would show diminished activity in the inferior frontal gyrus and amplified activity in the ventral striatum compared to high delayers

45
Q

What version of the go/no-go task did participants in experiment 2 complete?

A

hot

46
Q

Why was only the hot version of the go/no-go task used in experiment 2/

A

To see the differences between high and low delayers as they performed similarly on the cool version

47
Q

What was different from experiment 1 in regards to the task?

A

there was a jittered interval ranging from 2-14.5 s (rather than the standardised 1s)

48
Q

How did participants complete the go/no-go task whilst in the fMRI scanner?

A

A Neuroscreen five-button response pad (recorded responses and reaction times)

49
Q

How many trials were run in experiment 2 and what was the ratio of go and no go?

A

48 total trials - 35 go and 13 no-go

50
Q

How was the task viewable to experimenters?

A

a projector screen

51
Q

What type of data was gathered (across all 4 experiments)?

A

quantitative

52
Q

What are the strengths of quantitative data?

A
  • objective
  • easy to compare and analyse
53
Q

What are the weaknesses of quantitative data?

A
  • no reasoning behind behaviour
54
Q

What were the key findings from experiment 1 in context of the ‘go’ trials?

A
  • there was no effect of being a high or low delayer on reaction times
  • participants performed with a high level of accuracy for both cool (99.8%) and hot (99.5%)
55
Q

What are the key findings for experiment 1 in the context of the ‘no-go’ trials?

A
  • Low delayers made more false alarms therefore were LESS accurate (false alarms in cool = 10% & hot= 12%; more difficulty suppressing immediate response from ventral striatum
  • Low and High delayers performed similarly on cool tasks
  • Low Delayers performed poorly on the hot tasks - difference more pronounced when shown happy faces (emotional hot cues)
  • Low delayers found no-go trials more difficult than high delayers
    SHOULD BE NOTED: high delayers still make notable mistakes however low delayers were more significant
56
Q

What are the key findings from experiment 2 in the context of the ‘go’ trials?

A
  • high and low delayers did not differ significantly in reaction times
  • Overall accuracy rates for the ‘hot’ condition were uniformly high
57
Q

What were the key findings from experiment 2 in the context of the ‘no-go’ trials?

A

similar results as experiment 1 with low delayers committing more false alarms than high delayers

58
Q

What were the key findings of the fMRI scans in experiment 2?

A
  • identified that the inferior frontal gyrus was involved in accurately withholding a response (low delayers have diminished recruitment)
  • Low delayers have diminished recruitment for ‘happy’ faces compared to ‘fearful’ faces
  • identified the ventral striatum (rewards) was involved in immediate responses (low delayers had increased recruitment)
59
Q

What conclusions can be drawn from the study?

A
  • individuals at 4 years old who have difficulty delaying gratification continue to show self-control abilities and have more difficulty suppressing responses to positive social cues
  • Resistance is a stable characteristic (criterion validity)
  • The capacity to resist varies by context
  • Sensitivity to environmental hot cues play a significant role in an individuals role to suppress actions towards alluring cues
60
Q

What are the ethical issues within the study?

A

STRENGTHS:
- informed consent
- ethical (non-harmful or risky) procedure
WEAKNESS:
- socially sensitive - creates self fulfilling prophecy (act up to labels)