AS core studies

Controlled Observation

Aim: To test the level of obedience when told by an authority figure to shock another person.

Sample: 40 men (aged 20-50) from the New Haven area. Collected by a volunteer sample.

Procedure: P's told they were taking part in a study looked at the effect of punishment on learning. Naive participant always 'randomly' selected as the teacher. Naive saw the confederate get strapped to a chair and have electrodes attached to them. Naive given a sample shock of 45. Naive read word pairs for the learner to remember. For wrong answer a shock was given. Electric shock generator had 30 switches 15-450 Volts. Experimenter gave standardised prods; Please continue, The experiment requires you to continue etc.

Results: 65% of participants gave up to 450 V. No participant stopped before 300 V. Some P’s showed signs of tension, sweating, one had a full seizure.

Conclusions: Disproved the Germans are different hypothesis

Experimental Case Study (using observations)

Aim: To investigate the conditions under which tyranny arises

Sample: 15 participants (reduced from 332 using three screenings.) Collected with a self-selecting sample.

IV's: Permeability of Roles. Legitimacy of roles. Cognitive Alternatives (trade union offical)

DV's: Social Variables (pyschometric tests,) Organisations (obeying rules) and Clinical Variables (stress measured by cortisone levels in saliva)

Ethics: 5 person committee monitoring the study throughout, paramedics on standby and guards on site.

Results: Prisoners depression decreased but guards increased. After promotion prisoners had group identity. 

Conclusions: Breakdown of groups creates tyranny. 

Field Experiment (using observations)

Aim: To investigate factors that affect helping behaviour.

Sample: 4450 men and women on the New York Subway. Oppurtunity Sample

Procedure: 4 students boarded the train. 2 females sat outside the critical area and recorderd data (no. of helpers, race and gender of helper, time taken to help and reaction of other passengers.) After passing the first station the victim collapsed (either drunk or ill, black or white) Laid still until help was given. Got off at the next platform and did it again.

Results: 81/103 trials help was given within 70 seconds. Cane victim given help-95% of the time. Drunk victim given help-50% of the time. Women said it's for men to help or I am not strong enough to help. No diffusion of responsibility.

Conclusions: Reasons for not helping based on the cost-reward model. Observing the emergency created arousal which can only be decreased by helping or moving away from the victim.

Field Experiment (using Participant Observations)

Aim: to find out if mental health professionals could diagnose the sane from the insane.

Sample: 8 sane participants ( 5 male 3 female) Pseudopatients

Procedure: Pseudopatients rang the hospital complaing of hearing voices. Gave a false name and job history but everything else kept the same. Admitted to the psychiatric ward and after being admitted they stopped showing symptoms. Wrote notes on what they observed. All released with schizophrenia in remission.

Results: Type 2 error calling a healthy person sick. Pseudopatients spent less that 7 mins a day with psychiatrists. Flushed roughly 2100 tablets. Pseudopatients felt powerlessness and depersonalisation.

Conclusions: Failure to detect sanity can result in healthy people being admitted and sick people being turned away. Stickiness of psychodyagnostic labels-harder to get rid of mental illness label than physical

Case Study (used Self- Report methods)

Aim: To provide an account of the treatment of a 25 year old women referred because of blinding headaches.

Sample: Eve White had three personalities Eve White, Eve Black and Jane

Procedure: Over 100 hours of interviews with Eve and her family over 14 months. Eve White was simple passive, Eve Black was childish and didn't like EW's daughter or husband, Jane was aware of both Eves. Eve saw a man get cut in half at age 4, her mother cut herself at age 3. 

Conclusions: Witnessed a real case of MPD- couldn't have been acting for 14 months

Quasi Experiment, Independent measures design (used observations)

Aim: to investigate the cognitive biases involved in gambling behaviour. 

Sample: 60 participants. 30 regular gamblers and 30 non regular gamblers. Collected using a self selected sample.

Procedure: Participants given £3 to gamble with, played a game called Fruit Skill. Two conditions thinking aloud and not. Measured cognitive activity (thinking aloud, recorded verbalisations,) perception of skill. Used a coding system.

Results: RG's gambled for longer and had a higher play rate. RG's produced more irrational verbalisations than NRG's. 

Conclusions: RG's were slightly more skilled. Gamblers play with money not for it. 

Quasi Experiment

Aim: to challenge Piagets findings by altering the method used by Piaget.

Sample: 252 boys and girls (aged 5 to 8.5) Divided into 4 groups. Collected using an Oppurtunity Sample

Procedure: Each child took part in three trials; number (counters,) mass (play-doh) and volume (liquid.) shown two versions and asked which has more. Three conditions, control (2 question method) one judgement (only asked after the transformation) and fixed control (child didn't see the transformation take place.)

Results: Children in the one judgement task made less mistakes. Older children could conserve better. Children made less mistakes on the number task than mass or volume.

Conclusions: Found children can conserve number before mass. Asking the question twice made it harder for children to give the right answer. 

Longitudinal Case Study (used observations)

Aim: to provide evidence of the Oedipus complex and look at the treatment of a five year old boy with a phobia of horses.

Procedure: Hans father recorded events and conversations with Hans and sent them to Freud along with his own interpretation of his sons behaviour. Freud only met Hans once.

Findings: At age 3 Hans became interested in his widdler and others. Hans disliked his little sister beacuse she got more attention. Phobia of horses with black mouths and blinkers (like his dads moustache and glasses.) Had three fantasies about giraffes, plumber and children (his own children, his mother was their mother and his dad their grandfather)

Conclusions: Freud believed this was evidence for the Oedipus Complex and the stages of psychosexual development. 

Lab Experiment with a Matched Pairs design

Aim: to demonstrate that if children were passive witnesses of aggressive behaviour by an adult they would imitate that behaviour.

Sample: 72 children at the Stanford University Nursery- oppurtunity sample. 3 conditions- aggressive, passive and control.

Procedure: Children taken into a room one at a time and witnesses a modes on the other side of the room either aggressive (aggressive with a bobo doll- standardised) or non-aggressive (ignored the bobo doll and built the tinker toy) Arousal was created in the children by putting them in a room with toys and not allowed to play with them. Then left to play with the bobo, tinker toy etc.

Results: Children exposed to the aggressive model were a lot more aggressive. There was no difference between the aggression displayed by the passive and control group.

Conclusions: Learning can take place through imitation. Children are more likely to copy aggression from the same sex model 

Lab Experiment

Aim: to test whether the phrasing of a question about a car accident could change a participants memory of an event.

Sample: 45 of Loftus' students split into 9 groups. 

Procedure: Watched 7 films (5-30 seconds long) of car accidents from local safety police. P's then asked to fill in a questionnaire and answer the critical question; 'About how fast was ther cars going when they ________ each other' Gap filled with one of; Hit, Smashed, Collided, Bumper into and Contacted.

Results: Verb: Mean speed. Smashed: 40.8, Collided: 39.3, Contacted: 31.8

Conclusions: Leading questions shouldn't be asked in court because they can lead to false information. Therefore memory is malleable.

Longitudinal Case Study (used observations)

Aim: to investigate human language capabilities of pygmy chimps

Sample: 4 chimpanzees, two common two pygmy. 

Procedure: Used lexigrams (indoor- recorded automatically, outdoor- by hand,) Classification (classified responses into accurate, spontaneous, imitated or structured) and behavioural verification ( checking for appropriate responses)

Conclusions: Pygmy chimps had a higher capacity for human language than other species.

Quasi Experiment, Independent Measures Design

Aim: to investigate if high functioning adults with Asperger's Syndrome would have an impaired theory of mind. 

Sample: 50 'normal' participants, 16 with Aspergers and 10 with Tourettes

Procedure: Eyes Task-Mind Reading-25 photos of men and womens eyes and had to choose between two mental states. Strange Stories Task- Told a story and asked the participants on the mental state of the character. Control Task- Gender Recognition and Basic Emotions Task (sad, happy, angry, surprised, disgusted and afraid)

Results: Eye's Task (out of 25:) Aspergers 16.3, Normal 20.3 and Tourettes 20.4. 

Conclusions: Females performed better on the eyes task. For the general population women have better theory of mind.

Lap Experiment

Aim: to investigate the relationship between eye movement and dreaming

Sample: 9 participants 

Procedure: Participants reported to the lab before ther normal bedtime and were told not to have alcohol or anything else that could effect sleep patterns. Slept in a dark room and had electrodes attatched from an EEG to their head and eye movement was measured. Looked at dream recall and REM sleep periods

Results: All participants could choose the correct REM sleep duration, Vertical and Horizontal Eye Movements were rare. Horizontal eye movements reported a dream of two people throwing tomatoes at each other

Quasi and Independent Measures Design

Aim: to investigate the role of the hippocampus in spatial memory and navigation.

Sample: Experimental Group- 16 right handed taxi drivers all had healthy medical psychological reports. Control Group- Matched by age, health, right handedness and gender. (from pre-existing scans)

Procedure: MRI Scans, Voxel-Based Morphometry and Pixel Counting.

Results: VBM found more matter in both left and right hippocampi in the taxi drivers than not. Positive correlation between time spend as a taxi driver and volume of the posterior hippocampus.

Conclusions: Taxi drivers hippocampi may have changed because of studying for the knowledge. 

Quasi Experiment

Aim: to investigate the effect of hemisphere diconnection and show that each hemisphere has a different function.

Sample: 11 participant who all had severe epilepsy with severed corpus callosums

Procedure: Participants had one eye blindfolded and were told to fix their eye on a point, images were flashed on either side of the point for 1/10th of a second. Tactile tasks- an object was placed in one hand (not seen) and asked to pick the object from a bag with the same or other hand.

Results: When an object was shown on the left and then on the right the participant didn't remember seeing it before but then when it was shown on the left again they remembered. When an object was placed in the right hand the participants could describe it with speech and writing. 

Conclusions: Left hemisphere is the major and right is the minor.