Exam Questions Flashcards
Read the following descriptions of behaviour:
A Sarah is terrified of lifts because she was trapped in one for 5 hours. She cannot go in a lift now.
B Jerry watches as his brother James is given sweets for cleaning their pet hamster’s cage. The next day, Jerry’s mum finds Jerry cleaning out the hamster cage.
How can the behaviours described in A and B above be explained by learning theories?
a: EITHER an example of classical conditioning/associative learning/temporal learning/Pavlovian learning OR an example of operant conditioning. elaboration eg reference to EITHER elements of Pavlovian conditioning - association between a UCS and a CS leading to a learned response
b: f social learning/observational learning/modelling/vicarious reinforcement/imitative learning
Use your knowledge of genotype and phenotype to explain the data in Table 1
The genotype for tooth decay is the same for all the twin pairs as they are all MZ/identical so for each pair their teeth would be expected to decay in exactly the same way.
The fact that some twin pairs have different decay to each other (52) indicates their phenotypes differ and something other than genes affected tooth decay e.g. diet/brushing teeth.
Which of the following best describes the aim of cognitive neuroscience? Shade one box only.
A to relate mental processes to brain structures
Explain how reinforcement might be used to encourage primary school children to pick up litter in the playground.
Use a ‘token economy system’ with respect to litter-picking. Use of a positive reinforcement strategy – for ‘x’ amount of litter, a reward of ‘y’ and exchange of ‘y’ for something pleasant the children will value.
primary reinforcement (e.g. deliberately rewarding children who pick up litter).
use of vicarious reinforcement (e.g. watching a film or seeing teacher deliberately rewarding children who pick up litter)
Credit other relevant application (e.g. negative reinforcement, behaviour shaping)
Adil has just started studying the cognitive approach in psychology but does not understand when his teacher tells him that cognitive psychologists use the results of experiments to make inferences about behavior.
Write a brief explanation of inference that would help Adil to understand what his teacher means.
inference suitable for a new psychology student: make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed/going beyond the immediate research evidence
Samira and John are talking. Samira says, ‘Look at your little sister. She’s pretending she’s got a mobile phone like yours and is making a call.’ John replies, ‘Yes.
But when she saw me get told off for using my Dad’s favourite pen, she never copied me doing that!’
Describe and evaluate social learning theory. Refer to the conversation above as part of your answer.
Samira is commenting on how John’s little sister has copied how John uses a mobile phone. This illustrates any number of possible SLT behaviours: observational learning, imitation, modelling, identification and even internalisation
John is commenting on how behaviour can be learned by indirect reinforcement/vicarious reinforcement – seeing someone punished for a behaviour decreases the likelihood of that behaviour being imitated.
A psychologist carried out a study of social learning. As part of the procedure, he showed children aged 4-5 years a film of a 4 year-old boy stroking a puppy.
Whilst the children watched the film, the psychologist commented on how kind the boy was. After the children had watched the film, the psychologist brought a puppy into the room and watched to see how the children behaved with the puppy.
Outline what is meant by social learning theory and explain how social learning might have occurred in the procedure described above.
in the procedure children observed the actions of the boy in the film
the psychologist exposed the children to a role model, the boy
using role model/boy of the same age encouraged identification
after exposure the children would model/imitate the boy’s behaviour, stroking the puppy
the psychologist’s comments acted as vicarious reinforcement making learning more likely
A cognitive psychologist investigating how memory works gave participants the same word list to recall in one of two conditions. All the words were of equal difficulty.
Outline one problem of studying internal mental processes like memory ability by conducting experiments such as that described in Question 03 above.
Direct observation of memory is not possible and must be inferred from the results/behaviour of the participants – this inference could be mistaken.
The task given is rarely how normal memory functioning occurs because it is specifically designed to make measurement possible – the researcher therefore collects data that is only related to memory processing under experimental conditions.
