psychology paper 1 evaluation - all topics

Question 1

agency theory

Answer 1

• bickman (civilian milkmaid and guard)
• Blass and Schmitt ( students blamed the experimenter)
• Milgram (ordinary man less obedient)
• agentic and autonomous states not measurable
• orme and holland (criticised ecological validity)
• symbols of authority for application

Question 2

social impact theory

Answer 2

• milgrams telephone variation (obedience fell)
• milgrams ordinary man ( no authoritative figure so less obedient)
• formula = predictive power
• hofflings surses ( 21/22 obeyed over the phone)
• application to crowd control

Question 3

brain functioning and structure for aggression

Answer 3

• brain scans are objective
• animal studies control EV’s CA anthropomorphism
• practical application of antipsychotics
• can be used in courts for diminished responsibility
• only relationship no cause and effect
• gender bias (not low seretonin in aggressive females)

Question 4

evolution and natural selection for aggression

Answer 4

• daly and wilson (motive behind murders was status victims with low status and single)
• hill and hurtado ( che of paraguay 5 times more likley to die without a mother)
• cultural differences (kung san aggression = reputational damage)
• deterministic
• hypothesise behaviour many years ago which is unfalsifiable

Question 5

hormonal explanation of aggression

Answer 5

• results are correlational
• dabbs and hargrove ( 87 female inmates saliva, more dopamine = more aggression)
• hard to measure testosterone levels (from base level)
• mazur and booth = testosterone varies across lifetime e.g. less when married
• animal research
• could manafacture drugs
• harlow = male rhesus monkeys take part in more rough and tumble than sisters

Question 6

freud to explain aggression

Answer 6

• case studies S+W
• psychoanalysis as treatment which is better than ECT
• explains different types of aggression cold blooded is ego trying to control id
• abstract measures
• trying to prove a theory so may be issues with interpretating data

Question 7

twin studies

Answer 7

• can show influence of genes on behaviour good cause and effect
• twins treated the same
• may not be representative (only 1.5% of births are twins)
• twin births increasing due to IVF
• identification of zygoticity is difficult
• biological determinism
• make them feel unusual

Question 8

adoption studies

Answer 8

• studies can be longitudinal for trends
• only certain types of families allowed to adopt (tend to be similar to biological e.g. race)
• may not be representative e.g traumatic life
• environmental determinism
• may create a rift in families

Question 9

social learning theory

Answer 9

• phillips ( daily homicide rates increased week after boxing match)
• better than operant because it can explain behaviour in absence of direct reinforcement
• can explain cultural diff. e.g kung san has absence of aggressive role models
• alternative of frustration aggression hypothesis
• ethical issues of exposing people to aggressive behaviour in studies
• Cook and Mineka (monkeys watched another be scared of snakes and so they were too)

Question 10

sysetmatic desensitisation for phobias

Answer 10

• flooding is quicker
• relatively cheap and available on the NHS
• support from capafons
• evaluate capafons
  barlow and durand ( overexposure to phobic stimulus can make the phobia worse)
• no physical side effects
• fairly ethical as hugely patient centered
• masks symptoms
• easily measurable by the stage on the fear hierachy

Question 11

flooding

Answer 11

• cheaper than psychoanalysis
• wolpe (a girl sacred of cars on a drive until she calmed down)
• traumatic = high drop out rates
• no physical side effects
• masks symptoms
• quicker than SD but hard to predict due to different severities
• highly context dependant so may just transfer to another fear