Research Methods & Stereotypes

Question 1

Give an example of a longitudinal study by Snowden 1986?

Answer 1

The nun study:

• group of nuns in their 70s followed until the end of their life,
• all agreed to have their brains donated
• Homogenous group: generally don’t do drugs, alcohol, similar reproductive histories

Question 2

Give 3 advantages to a longitudinal study

Answer 2

1. determine developmental trajectories to determine if and when there is a decline in certain developmental characteristics.
2. can establish patterns of development
3. they’re robust

Question 3

What are 4 disadvantages to longitudinal studies?

Answer 3

1. cost & time
2. cross-generational problem
3. practice effects
4. selective attrition

Question 4

What is a cross-generational problem? What effect is this similar to?

Answer 4

The group you’ve spent decades studying is truly unique. ex: they lived through the great depression which makes them fundamentally different than you or I. Similar to the cohort effect.

Question 5

What are practice effects? Particularly important when measuring…

Answer 5

If you’re testing a group people multiple times, your participants might just get better at what they’re doing.

An increase, decrease or stability can be due to practice effects.

Important when testing intelligence

Question 6

What is selective attrition ? How could this be applied to a graph

Answer 6

over time people may drop out of your study for a host of your study for a host of different reasons, so you’re losing data and its changing what you’re measuring.

Graph example: you are studying a cognitive ability and measuring 4 times every 5 years. Uptick in performance at time 4 for the blue line. You may conclude that the cognitive ability gets better. When the red line is gone, the average jumps up so therefore it’s the wrong conclusion.

Question 7

What is the most efficient design proposed by Scaie (1965)?

Answer 7

the sequential design

Question 8

What does the sequential design combine?

Answer 8

longitudinal and cross-sectional designs

Question 9

What is the sequential design layout? Give an example

Answer 9

In 1980 you measure 40,50,60 year olds = cross-sectional. But you then measure that group every 10 years = longitudinal.

Question 10

What are 2 advantages of sequential designs?

Answer 10

1. allows you to cut down on time (from the last example you’re covering 50 years in 30 years)
2. Can determine cohort effects: if performance is similar across 50 year olds can rule it out, if different you can to consider it

Question 11

How would you test for cohort effects in this situation? Whitbourne was interested in the stability of personality. He tested groups every 11 years by bringing in another group of 20 year olds

Answer 11

Compare the 20 year olds

Question 12

What are the pros to sequential designs? (3)

Answer 12

• Benefit of longitudinal design, but lower cost, takes less time
• Can test for cohort effects
• Can compare patterns of development across cohorts

Question 13

What is still a con to sequential designs?

Answer 13

cross-generational problems

Question 14

Why is it a big MAYBE to make causal claims in experimental research

Answer 14

If you have a group of 80 and 60 year olds. And person perception is lower for the 80 year olds, you cant say person perception declines with age because you didn’t manipulate age. You can’t randomly assign someone to be 80 or 60. Non-randomly assigned groups cannot be compared

Question 15

What is a stereotype?

Answer 15

• A widely help but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing

Question 16

What is priming?

Answer 16

• Used in cog psych a lot

- its a stimulus influencing the behavioural output but this is usually unconscious since the priming is subliminal

Question 17

Explain the study by Bargh 1996 about how stereotypes can affect young people’s behavior

Answer 17

• Young participants primed (or not) with “elderly” stereotype
• No words about slowness or speed, ex: worried, Florida, old, lonely, grey, wise, bingo, rigid, traditional
• A confederate timed how long it took them to walk down the hallway
• Those who has no elderly stereotypes it took them about 7.5 seconds vs, 8.3 seconds which is significant
• Essentially turning young adults into old adults by priming them with these words, shows how powerful stereotypes can be
• Replicated with other DVs (ex: memory test)

Question 18

Explain the Baltimore Longitudinal study of aging relating to stereotypes and our cardiovascular health

Answer 18

• 40-year study
• had to be under the age of 49 and no history of cardio health issues
• Measured their stereotypes of old people at time one (positive & negative)
• Then they marked when they had their first cardiovascular event over 40 years. Those who had positive stereotypes had significantly less cardiovascular events than those who has negative stereotypes.
• There is a significant effect – correlational

Question 19

Explain the Ohio longitudinal study? Dont forget about the mortality rates.

Answer 19

 adults (50+) with no signs of dementia
 Data collected at 6 time points
 Measures: self-perception of aging (ex: Things keep getting worse as I get older or I have as much pep as I did last year)
 Measures: Functional Health (ex:Which of the following are you able to do? Work full time, walk up & down stairs, heavy work around the house, walk a half mile)
 There is a different base line of functional health between positive and negative even at 50 years’ old
 Both decline but the decline is more rapid for those with negative stereotypes
 Using the same data, they looked at mortality rates – wanted to see how old they were when they died and mortality rate is lower for those who have the high positive self-perception of aging

Question 20

Explain the study using stereotype threat to affect performance on math tests between men & women

Answer 20

Men & women in a lab half were told that they’re doing a math task, the other half they said you’re going to do the math task but there is gender difference in performance
o In those told about the gender difference, women did worse than men on the test
o w/o the stereotype threat men and women performance was equal. Men actually dropped in performance without the stereotype threat. Women got better without it

Question 21

Why would stereotype threat affect performance? (3)

Answer 21

1. Decreased motivation
    Women might feel because of their history they assume it’s going to be harder
    Might relieve stress/stereotype threat on the men (which increases WM) and impose stereotype threat on the women (decrease WM)
2. Distraction leads to decreased Working Memory capacity
3. Increased need for emotion regulation leads to decreased resources

Question 22

Explain the study by Mazerolle 2016 on stereotype threat and pre-dementia screening

Answer 22

IV: stereotype threat (high vs low)

Measures:
o Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE)
o Mental Cognitive Assessment (MoCa)

DV: Proportion scoring positive for pre-dementia

Results: Those under reduced threat performed significantly better than those under threat which can have a major effect of someone’s life being told they are at risk

Later… Brought them for a second study – gave them a full debriefing
o No difference between either groups in performance now that threat is removed from one of the groups

Question 23

What was the finding from Levy et al when he used age stereotypes and a will to live questionnaire

Answer 23

after flashing positive or negative words on a screen, there was no effect on younger people’s will to live but for older people the negative primes led to a significant reduction in their will to live

Question 24

Thomas and Dobois 2011 in a using a memory test and a high threat condition (a paragraph saying older people have memory declines) found what?

What does this mean?

Answer 24

That in a low threat condition there was not difference in the # of critical lures claimed to be remembered between the old and young adults. but in the high threat older adults claimed they remembered the critical lures more than the younger adults

Sooooo, older adults are relying on the relational memory, and a threat will change their schemas in trying to retrieve those from memory