Flashcards · 9990 · AS Topic 1

The core studies (AS Level) flashcards

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Biological approach

What are the main assumptions of the biological approach?: Behaviour, cognitions and emotions can be explained by the working of the brain and the effects of hormones, genetics and evolution. Similarities and differences between people can be understood in terms of biological factors and how they interact with other factors.
Which three core studies belong to the biological approach?: Dement and Kleitman (1957) on sleep and dreams; Hassett et al. (2008) on monkey toy preferences; Hölzel et al. (2011) on mindfulness and brain scans.
What did Dement and Kleitman (1957) investigate, and with which techniques?: The relationship between rapid eye movements (REM) and dreaming. They used EEG recordings of REM and non-REM sleep, experimental and correlational methods, and an interview technique when participants were woken.
What was the main finding of Dement and Kleitman (1957)?: Participants woken during REM sleep usually reported a dream, while those woken during non-REM sleep rarely did. Estimates of dream length related to how long REM had lasted, supporting REM as an objective indicator of dreaming.
Why did Hassett et al. (2008) study rhesus monkeys rather than children?: Monkeys are not exposed to human gender socialisation, so their toy preferences are assumed to be more biologically (hormonally) controlled. Children's data came from another study for comparison.
What did Hassett et al. (2008) find about toy preferences?: Male monkeys strongly preferred wheeled (stereotypically masculine) toys to plush toys, while females interacted with both kinds more evenly, paralleling children's sex differences and suggesting a role for hormones as well as socialisation.
What did Hölzel et al. (2011) study, and how?: Whether mindfulness practice changes brain structure. An experiment with a longitudinal design compared an 8-week mindfulness (MBSR) group with a control group, using MRI scans before and after, plus self-reports and correlations.
What did Hölzel et al. (2011) conclude?: Mindfulness practice was associated with increases in grey matter density in brain regions linked to learning, memory and emotion regulation (including the left hippocampus) in the mindfulness group but not the controls, supporting localisation of function and brain plasticity.

Cognitive approach

What are the main assumptions of the cognitive approach?: Information is processed through the same route in all humans (input – process – output), like a computer. People differ in their cognitive processing (attention, language, thinking, memory), and these processes help explain behaviour and emotion.
Which three core studies belong to the cognitive approach?: Andrade (2010) on doodling; Baron-Cohen et al. (2001) on the Eyes Test; Pozzulo et al. (2011) on line-ups.
What did Andrade (2010) investigate, and what did she find?: Whether doodling aids concentration and memory, in a laboratory experiment. Participants who shaded shapes while listening to a dull telephone message recalled more of it than those who did not doodle, suggesting doodling reduces daydreaming.
What did Baron-Cohen et al. (2001) aim to do?: Revise and improve the original 1997 Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, a measure of theory of mind (social sensitivity), and test adults including those with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism.
What did Baron-Cohen et al. (2001) find?: Adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism scored lower on the revised Eyes Test than the comparison groups, and Eyes Test scores correlated negatively with Autism Spectrum Quotient scores.
What did Pozzulo et al. (2011) investigate?: Factors affecting memory for target faces in line-ups, comparing children and adults with cartoon and human faces in a laboratory experiment, with interviews and questionnaires. The focus was false positive responses in target-absent line-ups.
What is a false positive response in a line-up, and who made more of them in Pozzulo et al. (2011)?: Choosing someone from a target-absent line-up, where the culprit is not present. Children made more false positive identifications than adults, which matters for how child eyewitnesses are questioned.

Learning approach

What are the main assumptions of the learning approach?: We begin life as a blank slate, and experiences and interactions with the environment shape behaviour in directly observable ways. We learn through operant conditioning, classical conditioning and social learning, understood using the stimulus-response model.
What did Bandura et al. (1961) test, and how?: Social learning theory: whether children imitate aggression they see in an adult model. Nursery-school children watched an aggressive model, a non-aggressive model or no model, then were observed playing with toys including a Bobo doll.
What did Bandura et al. (1961) find?: Children who saw the aggressive model imitated much more physical and verbal aggression than the other groups. Boys showed more imitative physical aggression than girls, and same-sex models tended to be imitated more.
What did Fagen et al. (2014) study?: Positive reinforcement training to teach working elephants in Nepal a trunk wash (used to test for tuberculosis), as an alternative to traditional training. Success was measured by observation with a behavioural checklist.
What are shaping and behavioural chaining, as in Fagen et al. (2014)?: Shaping reinforces successive approximations to the target behaviour. Chaining links learned steps into a sequence (here, the steps of the trunk wash). A whistle acted as a secondary reinforcer, paired with food as the primary reinforcer.
Exam trap: is negative reinforcement the same as punishment?: No. Negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant and so increases a behaviour. Punishment adds something unpleasant and decreases a behaviour.
What did Saavedra and Silverman (2002) study, and which method did they use?: A child with a specific phobia of buttons. A case study using interviews, various scales and observations. The treatment targeted disgust as well as fear, using evaluative learning alongside exposure.
What did Saavedra and Silverman (2002) conclude?: Treatment that addressed the child's disgust responses (imagery-based evaluative work with exposure) reduced his distress more than exposure aimed at fear alone, and the improvement was maintained at follow-up.

Social approach

What are the main assumptions of the social approach?: Behaviour, cognitions and emotions are influenced by social contexts, social environments and groups, and by the actual, implied or imagined presence of others.
What did Milgram (1963) investigate?: The conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience: how far a person would go in obeying an instruction to harm someone. It considered dispositional and situational hypotheses.
What did Milgram (1963) find?: All 40 male participants gave shocks to at least 300 volts, and 26 of the 40 (65%) continued to the maximum 450 volts, many showing signs of extreme tension.
Exam trap: did Milgram's (1963) main study have an independent variable?: No. Obedience was measured as a dependent variable, but there was no independent variable in the main study. In this version the teacher received no voice feedback from the learner.
What did Perry et al. (2015) investigate?: How oxytocin and empathy affect personal space (interpersonal distance), comparing oxytocin with a placebo. Experiment 1 used a computerised Comfortable Interpersonal Distance Scale; Experiment 2 asked participants to choose between pictures of rooms.
What did Perry et al. (2015) conclude?: Oxytocin made highly empathic individuals prefer closer interpersonal distance, but did not have that effect in low-empathy individuals: the effect of the hormone depended on an individual difference.
What did Piliavin et al. (1969) investigate, and how?: Bystander behaviour in a real-life emergency: a field experiment on a New York subway train in which a confederate collapsed, appearing either drunk or ill (carrying a cane), with observers recording who helped.
What did Piliavin et al. (1969) find?: The cane (ill) victim received spontaneous help on almost all trials and the drunk victim on about half. There was little evidence of diffusion of responsibility; the findings were explained by an arousal: cost-reward model.
Which core studies raise the use of children and of animals in research?: Children: Bandura et al., Pozzulo et al., Saavedra and Silverman. Animals: Hassett et al. (rhesus monkeys) and Fagen et al. (working elephants).