Doing Psychology 1.3

Question 1

Prior to becoming a fundamental psychological category after WWI, how had the word ‘learning’ been used by psychologists? (5 points)

Answer 1

• The gaining of new skills (occupational training)
• As the first stage of memorization (Ebbinghaus, 1885)
• The gaining of new knowledge (educational psychology)
• Was not a formal concept
• It referred to a conscious mental process

Question 2

What is behaviorism? (3 sentences)

Answer 2

The study of observable behaviour, not of mind
It aims to predict and control behaviour
It focuses on how behaviour can be adapted

Question 3

How is the concept of learning linked to behaviorism? (2 sentences)

Answer 3

Learning referred to adaptive behaviour, not a mental process
Included humans and animals to identify laws of learning

Question 4

What can memory be defined as? (1 sentence)

Answer 4

The storage of information

Question 5

What experiments did Ebbinghaus (1885) use to study memory? (2 sentences)

Answer 5

He studied memory as a performance of memorising
His experiments tested the ability to recall lists of nonsense syllables, to see how much meaningless information could be memorised accurately

Question 6

How did Ebbinghaus (1885) make memory quantifiable and experimental? (1 sentence)

Answer 6

He used equally meaningless units of measurement

Question 7

How did Barlett (1930) study memory differently to Ebbinghaus (1885) and studies of learning? (5 sentences)

Answer 7

• He did not study memory as a performance, but as a process (qualitative changes over time)
• He studied how we remember/distort meaningful information, not about the capacity to memorise neutral bits of information
• He used meaningful narratives closer to real-life events (not meaningless syllables)
• He showed memory as part of a wider social context, reconstructed in line with cultural expectations and individual views
• It was not ‘learning’ (effects of stimuli on behaviour)

Question 8

How did the cognitive revolution impact the study of memory and the shift away from behaviorism? (3 points)

Answer 8

• computer metaphor (information-processing):
• memory was seen as encoding, storage, retrieval
• a distinction between long-term and short-term storage

Question 9

Prior to becoming a fundamental psychological category after WWI, how had the word ‘attitudes’ been used in theatre, science, and psychology? (5 points)

Answer 9

• referred to as physiology
• the bodily expression of the inner state (art and theatre)
• the physical expression of emotion (Darwin, 1872)
• motor responses (psychophysiology)
• as a mental state (Titchener, 1909)

Question 10

How did the definition of ‘attitudes’ change when they became a fundamental psychological category after WWI? ( 4 point)

Answer 10

• it no longer referred to observable behaviour
• it was a mental disposition that caused behaviour
• it was acquired (not innate)
• it could be modified

Question 11

How did L.L. Thurstone (1928) measure ‘attitudes’? (5 points)

Answer 11

• defined them as individual mental dispositions
• assumed that opinions were expressions of these
• created ‘attitude variable’ based on psychophysics
• subjects responded to stimuli in terms of relative quantity
• attitudes defined as more or less

Question 12

Why was there a demand for knowledge about psychological ‘attitudes’ in the early 20th century? (2 points and 2 reasons)

Answer 12

• 1920s social issues in U.S. e.g. prohibition, religion, prejudice
  -> the assumption that attitudes caused behaviour + could be changed posed an interest to government + businesses
• WWI concerns about morale and propaganda
  -> established attitude measurement through scales (discrete individual mental entities causing behaviour, measurable by expressions)