SUMMARIES FOR EACH CLASSIC STUDY Flashcards
What is the summary for Watson and Rayner?
Watson and Rayner aimed to demonstrate that it is possible to classically condition a simple emotional response such as fear in a human. This was a lab study with a 11 month old boy called ‘Little Albert’. In the first session they showed him the rat by itself which he had no reaction to, then struck the bar behind his head which caused him to cry and in session 2 paired them repeatedly again. In session 3 they introduced a range of other objects such as a rabbit, a dog and a fur coat. He had a fear reaction to the white furry objects (rat and rabbit) and a weaker fear reaction to the dog and was not scared of any of the other objects. In session 4 they took him to a different environment out of the lab and presented all the objects again and this occurred again in session 5 which took place a 1 month later. He was afraid reactions to both of them; however they were weaker in a different environment and after a period of time.
What is the summary for Baddeley?
To test the role of acoustic and semantic factors in LTM and to control for the role of STM in facilitating LTM. There was mixed groups of 72 men and women, and it was an independent groups design. There were 4 word lists were used semantically similar/dissimilar and acoustically similar/dissimilar. Each presentation of the lists was one word every 3 seconds and then participants had 1 minute to write out the list in order. 15 minutes after this ppts then asked to recall the word list again after a number sequence task. Neither acoustically similar or dissimilar word lists showed forgetting and semantic similar lists were harder to learn than semantically dissimilar word lists. Found that when STM is blocked learning of semantically similar words is more difficult showing the integrated role of STM and LTM.
What is the summary of Raine?
Raine et al aimed to see if there were brain structural abnormalities in murderers that pleaded NGRI, using brain scanning techniques. He had a sample of 41 murderers and 41 non-murderers (control group) that both underwent a PET scan of their brain. They then did a 32 minute CPT to help the uptake of the glucose tracer to the brain before undergoing another PET scan. They found that murderers that pleaded NGRI had higher levels activity in the right amygdala that controls aggression and impulse and lower levels of activity in the left amygdala that inhibits the aggression of the right and the PFC which inhibits negative messages from the amygdala. In conclusion this showed that there were brain abnormalities in murderers that pleaded NGRI.
What is a summary of Sherif?
Sherif et al looked to see if limited resources and competition would lead to prejudice. There were 22, 11 year old American boys that were spilt into 2 groups called the eagles and the rattlers. In stage 1 they took part in group building activities such as putting up a tent or making a campfire and they found that this increases ingroup solidarity and unity. In stage 2 the groups met and took part in competitions such as tug of war and football games as there are limited resources. They found that intergroup hostility and outgroup bias increased as well as prejudice. In the third stage they had to complete superordinate goals such as fixing a truck so that in order for one to win so does the other. This reduced prejudice overall and outgroup bias. This shows that limited resources do lead to hostility and prejudice and superordinate goals reduce it.
What is a summary of Rosenhan?
Rosenhan aimed to reveal flaws in the process of psychiatric diagnosis. 8 pseudopatients with a range of professions including psychologists and students presented themselves at the psychiatric hospital complaining of the same symptom, A same sex, unclear same sex voice saying ‘empty’, ‘hollow’ and ‘thud. In total the pseudopatients approached 12 hospitals in 5 states and once admitted the pseudopatients behaved normally. In order to be released the pseudopatients had to convince staff that they were sane. They KEPT RECORDS of their observations covertly. All pseudopatients were admitted to the hospitals, 7 were diagnosed with schizophrenia and 1 with bipolar disorder. The length of hospitalisation was on average of 19 days and about 30% of patients on the ward voiced suspicion about the pseudopatients. He concluded that ‘we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals’ and the hospital created situational factors of depersonalisation and segregation.
