core studies

Question 1

studies in the social approach

Answer 1

milgram 1963, bocchiaro 2012, pillavin 1969, levine 2001

Question 2

studies in the cognitive approach

Answer 2

loftus and palmer 1974, grant 1998, moray 1959, simons and chabris 1999

Question 3

studies in the developmental approach

Answer 3

bandura 1961, chaney 2004, kohlberg 1968, lee 1997

Question 4

studies in the individual differences approach

Answer 4

freud 1909, baron-cohen 1997, gould 1982, hancock 2011

Question 5

studies in the biological approach

Answer 5

sperry 1968, casey 2011, blakemore and cooper 1970, maguire 2000

Question 6

milgram and bocchiaro

Answer 6

responses to people in authority; obedience, disobedience and whistleblowing

Question 7

pillavin and levine

Answer 7

responses to people in need; subway samaritan, cross-cultural altruism

Question 8

loftus and palmer and grant

Answer 8

memory; eyewitness testimony, context-dependent memory

Question 9

moray and simons and chabris

Answer 9

attention; auditory attention, visual inattention

Question 10

bandura and chaney

Answer 10

external influences on children’s behaviour; transmission of aggression, funhaler

Question 11

kohlberg and lee

Answer 11

moral development; moral stages of development, evaluations of lying and truth-telling

Question 12

freud and baron-cohen

Answer 12

understanding disorders; little hans, theory of mind

Question 13

gould and hancock

Answer 13

measuring differences; bias in IQ testing, the language of psychopaths

Question 14

sperry and casey

Answer 14

regions of the brain; split-brain study, neural correlates of delay and gratification

Question 15

blakemore and cooper and maguire

Answer 15

brain plasticity; impact of early visual experience, taxi drivers

Question 16

studies in the behaviourist perspective

Answer 16

bandura 1961, chaney 2004

Question 17

studies in the psychodynamic perspective

Answer 17

freud 1909, kohlberg 1968, hancock 2011

Question 18

milgram 1963

Answer 18

studied obedience in a lab setting. his volunteer sample of 40 men were asked to give increasing electric shocks to a stranger in a ‘lab experiment’. they were unaware that the ‘learner’ was a confederate and that the shocks were fake. 65% of participants reached the highest 450V level. anyone can be obedient to authority and that the tension witnessed was due to the conflict between the desire to obey and the desire not to hurt another.

Question 19

bocchiaro 2011

Answer 19

looked at whistleblowing using 149 students and a comparison group of 138. they were individually greeted by a stern researcher and asked to endorse an ethically unsound study to their friends. 76% did as asked and only 9% were whistleblowers. the comparison group said that most would not comply. behaving morally against authority is hard even when it seems easy, and people are not good at predicting behaviour. individual characteristics seem to have little effect on the situation.

Question 20

pillavin 1969

Answer 20

investigated a situational explanation of bystander behaviour. he looked at the race and state of the victim and number of bystanders. field study that took place on the new york subway and staged a fake emergency involving a drunk or ill victim who was black or white that staggered forward and collapsed. more help was given to the ill victim. failed to find diffusion of responsibility, but concluded that bystander behaviour is linked to arousal-cost-reward model.

Question 21

levine 2001

Answer 21

looked at whether helping varies across different cultures. conducted studies in 23 cities across the world. three non-emergency situations- a dropped pen, someone with a bad leg dropping magazines and a blind man crossing the road. helping rates in each city were stable across the three measures. huge cross cultural differences- 93% in rio to 44% in new york. simpatico cultures helped more.

Question 22

loftus and palmer 1974

Answer 22

wanted to see if words affect memory recall. two studies using video clips of car crashes on groups of 45 and 150 students. participants were asked a question with a critical verb and then the effect on estimate of speed or recall of broken glass was measured. information making up memory is received during and after an event.

Question 23

grant 1998

Answer 23

studied context-dependent memory using recall and recognition. 40 participants wearing headphones read an article in noisy or quiet conditions. found context-dependency effects because they performed better in matching conditions. context clues are important in retrieving newly-learned, meaningful information. students who study in silence may perform better in exams.

Question 24

moray 1959

Answer 24

moray conducted three lab experiments into dichotic listening. in the first a list of 35 words was read to one ear whilst a participants shadowed a message from their other ear. after 30 seconds they were asked to recall the list but could not. in the second experiment they were instructed in the non-attended message to change ear. some participants had their name called in the instruction- and these paid more attention. the third experiment had numbers in the messages- some participants were asked to remember the numbers and others just the content- but there was no significant difference in the numbers recalled. only subjectively important messages can penetrate the attentional block.

Question 25

simons and chabris 1999

Answer 25

studied visual attention and perception. 228 participants in an independent measures design lab experiment. they watched one of four 75 second tapes and were asked to count how many times the basketball players passed a ball. after 45 seconds either an umbrella woman or gorilla walked across the screen- 46% failed to notice the unexpected event. shows inattentional blindness as we may fail to notice certain aspects of the environment if we are focusing on another.

Question 26

bandura 1961

Answer 26

wanted to investigate social learning theory and the imitation of aggression. studied 72 children in four groups. they saw either an aggressive or non-aggressive model who was the same or opposite sex to them play with a bobo doll. there was a control group. children in the aggressive condition produced more imitative aggression and there was a tendency for same-sex imitation. supports social learning theory as children imitate the behaviour of role models.

Question 27

chaney 2004

Answer 27

compared adherence to asthma medication using either a traditional spacer or a funhaler. pilot study which involved questionnaires to parents of 32 asthmatic children, one at the beginning of the study and another two weeks after using the funhaler. it had a whistle and spinning disk to reinforce correct use. parents reported more success with the funhaler- 22/30 compared to 3/30. children’s willingness to cooperate improved. novelty and reward can improve adherence, and operant conditioning can be useful.

Question 28

kohlberg 1968

Answer 28

looked at moral reasoning by studying 75 boys from chicago over 12 years. he also studied boys in britain, canada, taiwan, mexico and turkey. they were presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas. he found three levels and six stages of moral reasoning- preconventional, conventional and post-conventional. not everyone achieves all stages.

Question 29

lee 1997

Answer 29

wanted to compare how lying and truth telling are regarded in pro and anti-social situations across cultures. chinese and canadian children aged seven, nine and eleven were given four stories. two stories had intentional good deeds and two had intentional bad deeds where characters told the truth or lied when questioned. children were then asked to evaluate the deeds. chinese children rated lying more positively in pro-social situations- suggesting emphasis on modesty can override lying. both sets of children rated truth telling positively and lying negatively in anti-social situations. there is a close relationship between sociocultural practice and moral judgement.

Question 30

freud 1909

Answer 30

studied a phobia of white horses in a five-year-old boy called little hans. he received letters from hans’ father and replied with his interpretations. He concluded that hans’ phobia was caused by the oedipus complex- a strong unconscious sexual desire for his mother. once hans identified with his father and took on his morals- he resolved the oedipus complex and his phobia disappeared. freud said this was evidence for his theory of psychosexual development.

Question 31

baron-cohen 1997

Answer 31

investigated theory of mind and autism. three groups- autistic, ‘normal’ and tourettes completed the eyes task in a lab experiment where they had to judge emotion from black and white photographs of eyes. they also completed other tasks to measure their ability to recognise emotion and establish concurrent validity. the study found that those in the autistic group lacked theory of mind skills.

Question 32

gould 1982

Answer 32

reviewed and challenged the validity of the yerkes IQ tests, which were used to test army recruits during WWI and affected immigration law. three types of tests- army alpha for literate recruits, army beta for illiterate recruits and an individual exam for those who failed both. results found that white americans adults had an average mental age of 13, russian immigrants 11.34 and black americans 10.34. inherent cultural biases in the tests and there were logistical difficulties giving them. systematic bias lowered the scores of black people and immigrants, therefore IQ is political, rather than biological.

Question 33

hancock 2011

Answer 33

statistically analysed the way psychopaths speak about their crimes. used two text analysis tools to look at narratives from 14 psychopathic and 38 non-psychopathic murderers. psychopaths included more rational cause and effect descriptors and focused on material needs rather than social needs. their speech had more disfluencies which suggests difficulty in describing powerful emotional events. they used more past tense than present tense verbs- suggesting detachment from the incident- and used less emotional language.

Question 34

what is the social approach?

Answer 34

behaviour is caused by interactions with individuals and groups. different types of social interaction influence daily behaviour- prejudice, attraction, conformity, obedience, minority/majority influence.

Question 35

what is the cognitive approach?

Answer 35

behaviour is the result of mental processes, which are similar to a computer process- input, conversion, output. soft deterministic approach, as behaviour is caused by mental process, but there is a limited choice in the information they had before the behaviour.

Question 36

what is the developmental approach?

Answer 36

behaviour changes over time because cognitive, social, and physiological abilities change. changes fastest during childhood, which has a long term effect on behaviour. more holistic because it focuses on multiple developmental causes of behaviour.

Question 37

what is the individual differences approach?

Answer 37

looks at differences between individuals, not what we have in common. focus on difference in personality, normality, and abnormality. categorise and measure differences, e.g., introvert-extrovert, IQ tests.

Question 38

what is the biological approach?

Answer 38

behaviour is dispositional not situational- internal factors, not external. brain and genetics are key factors, and brain abnormalities can cause deviant behaviour. human body is a complex machine and hormones- serotonin, genes, and CNS all interact to cause behaviour.

Question 39

what is the psychodynamic perspective?

Answer 39

unconscious processes have important influences on behaviour. psychodynamic conflict- different parts of the mind are in constant dynamic struggle with each other, and consequences of this help us understand behaviour. behaviour motivated by sex and aggression. personality is particularly shaped during childhood.

Question 40

what is the behaviourist perspective?

Answer 40

all behaviour is learned, we are born a blank slate. learning occurs through life experiences- classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning. learning through association, learning through consequence, and learning through imitation.

Question 41

sperry 1968

Answer 41

investigating the function of independent hemispheres in patients who had their corpus callosum severed to treat severe epilepsy. devised a test to isolate the visual field and hand controlled by each hemisphere. left hemisphere has language capabilities whereas the right hemisphere can understand language, but not communicate with words. concluded that patients had 'two minds in one body'.

Question 42

casey 2011

Answer 42

delayed gratification using 60 individuals in their mid-forties that completed the marshmallow test as a child- and either resisted, or gave in. completed a hot and cold go/no-go task using faces. children with low self control showed this as adults, and vice versa. 26 participants did a go/no-go task in a brain scanner. low delayers had lower activity in the right, inferior frontal gyrus (delays responses) in no-go trials. ventral striatum (immediate reward) showed more activity in happy no-go trials for low delayers. neurological basis for differences in people's ability to show self-control and delay gratification.

Question 43

blakemore and cooper 1970

Answer 43

kept kittens in the dark from birth- and at the age of two weeks were put in a special apparatus looking at either vertical or horizontal stripes for five hours a day. at five months old they were tested and unable to see the orientation that they had not experiences. by studying the neurons from two cats that experienced different orientations it revealed an abnormal distribution of the preferred orientation. visual experience had modified their brains, with profound perceptual consequences.

Question 44

maguire 2000

Answer 44

studied navigational ability in london cabbies. a sample of 16 healthy right-handed male taxi drivers were given brain scans, which were compared with 50 scans from the MRI database of similar men that were not taxi drivers. the posterior hippocampus had greater volume in the taxi drivers and the anterior hippocampus had greater grey matter volume in non-taxi drivers. positive correlation between the time a taxi driver had been qualified and the grey matter volume. suggests the idea of brain plasticity which can be altered by experience.

Question 45

strengths of milgram's study

Answer 45

qualitative and quantitative data provides comparison and depth; can be compared/highly replicable; male age range represents soldiers so is generalisable to the aim of the study; high levels of face validity

Question 46

weaknesses of milgram's study

Answer 46

low ecological validity as lab experiment creates an unrealistic environment; extremely unethical through harm to participants; self-selected means higher chance for demand characteristics which is unrepresentative

Question 47

strengths of bocchiaro's study

Answer 47

comparison group improved its reliability; demand characteristics removed to increase validity; qualitative and quantitative provides comparison and explanation; large sample allows consistent findings

Question 48

weaknesses of bocchiaro's study

Answer 48

undergraduates and women may be more likely to obey which reduces validity; lack of consequence reduces validity; self-selected sample may feel more obligated to the research and be more obedient, so unrepresentative

Question 49

strengths of loftus and palmer's study

Answer 49

isolation of key variables increases validity; reliability and random allocation improve validity by reducing participant variables; quantitative can be easily summarised;, ethical concealment reduces demand characteristics

Question 50

weaknesses of loftus and palmer's study

Answer 50

lacks ecological validity through lack of real life emotions; unrepresentative sample has low generalisability; quantitative gives no depth; leading question may affect memory

Question 51

strengths of grant's study

Answer 51

reduced situational variables; random allocation; quantitative can be easily summarised and compared; high validity and reliability as a controlled lab experiment; ecological validity through learning material in classroom

Question 52

weaknesses of grant's study

Answer 52

ungeneralisable sample; lab experiment lacks ecological validity; quantitative gives no depth; individual measures design increases participant variables; unrepresentative of exams by learning only minutes prior; opportunity sample creates bias which limits generalisability

Question 53

strengths of bandura's study

Answer 53

inter-rater reliability; qualitative enhances understanding of children's behaviour; controlled extraneous variables such as putting toys in same order ensures validity

Question 54

weaknesses of bandura's study

Answer 54

no informed consent; bobo doll would only be used in an aggressive context; lacked ecological validity through unnatural environment; limited representativeness

Question 55

strengths of chaney's study

Answer 55

informed consent from self report; repeated measures controls participant variables; quantitative allows easy comparisons and analysis; high ecological validity; reliability through standardised questionnaire

Question 56

weaknesses of chaney's study

Answer 56

difficult to operationalise due to semantics; parents could have demand characteristics; repeated measures was undermined by lack of counterbalancing; social desirability bias; extraneous variables reduces research validity

Question 57

strengths of freud's study

Answer 57

qualitative data provides research and comparison

Question 58

weaknesses of freud's study

Answer 58

his only case study of a child; social desirability bias; demand characteristics; leading questions

Question 59

strengths of baron-cohen's study

Answer 59

two control groups ensures validity; quantitative allows comparison; participants matched for mean age/intelligence increases validity; concurrent validity from happes strange stories; control for order effects;

Question 60

weaknesses of baron-cohen's study

Answer 60

lacks ecological validity through static images; extraneous variables through lack of standardised location; unclear ethics regarding debrief and harm

Question 61

strengths of sperry's study

Answer 61

controlled conditions ensures validity; qualitative allows description of function/difficulty; not ethnocentric through biological explanation

Question 62

weaknesses of sperry's study

Answer 62

lack of quantitative makes it hard to scientifically analyse; extremely small sample lacks generalisability; low ecological validity

Question 63

strengths of casey's study

Answer 63

strict control on extraneous variables allows high validity; longitudinal study allows for a stable conclusion; quantitative data allows comparison/summary/statistical analysis/replicability;

Question 64

weaknesses of casey's study

Answer 64

MRI and go/no-go task lack ecological validity, lacks reliability through longitudinal study not being time or cost effective to replicate; reduced sample size over time loses generalisability

Question 65

strengths of piliavin's study

Answer 65

quantitative and qualitative allows comparison and explanation; well controlled for a field experiment such as standardised timing, place and appearance of collapsing; ecological validity; reliability from 103 trials; sample of 4,450 establishes reliability

Question 66

weaknesses of piliavin's study

Answer 66

unethical through deception, lack of consent, harm; extraneous variables such as the typical carriage being full could affect responses to the emergency; time of study could make sample unrepresentative; ethnocentric from only showing american people's response

Question 67

strengths of levine's study

Answer 67

quantitative data allows comparison; highly standardised procedures ensures reliability; three different measures adds to the reliability of findings; large number of trials ensures consistent data findings; cross-cultural study

Question 68

weaknesses of levine's study

Answer 68

correlational study does not allow them to establish cause and effect; lack of qualitative does not explain motives behind behaviour; lack of consent/deception; lack of validity due to chance for demand characteristics; large sample makes it difficult to assess standardisation; ethnocentric from imbalance of continents