Bennett-Levy + Marteau

• what is evolutuion? Evolutionary psychology - evolution through nat selection+adaptation, through t inheritance of genes. suggests it makes evolutiona sense 2 be fearful of certain animals - biological preparedness (predispositioned to be afraid of certain animals).
• Seligman proposed the idea of B.P - 3 main reasons=
  • distributuion of animal phobias is non random - feared of certain animals but not others.
  • fears are not matched by traumatic experience.
  • fears often appear early in life (usually around 4 years)
• Mineka found that wild monkeys showed considerable fear of real and toy snakes while lab monkeys showed a milder response. BL+M tested this and sugg that it was the movement fearful of - not actual snake itself.
• Hinde sugg that characteristics evoke the feared response. + that it is a discrepancy between the stimulus and the organisms model of the world causes the fear - supp by BL+M experience of treating people with phobias.
• Aim - investigate the underlying mechanism of BP. BL+M predicted that perceptual characteristics of small harmless animals should be related to the distribution of ratings of fear and avoidance of said animals.

• Research method= questionaires with correlational analysis.
• Participants - 113 that were assigned to the study by an opportunity sampling method which was used - means used whoever turned up at the doctors surgery (in which it took place) was used in the study. each ppt was randomly assigned one of the two questionaires to fill out.
• The questionaires concerned 29 small and harmless animals.
• Questionaire 1 - 34f and 30m mean age=35.designed to measure self reported fear and avoidance of the animals. ppts rated them on two scales:
  • fear - 3 point scale - 1=not afraid 3 = very afraid
  • Nearness - rated avoidance on a 5 point scale - 1= enjoy picking it up 5= will only stand 180cm away. ppts instucted to imagine that the animals were injured as some animals may be harder to pick up in the wild. (controll)
• Questionaire 2 - 25f and 24m mean age=35. designed to measure self reported ratings of the same 29 animals used in Q1. asked to rate them on 4 dimensions: slimy, ugly, speedy and suddeness on a 3 point scale. 1 = not 3= very.
• Results/correlations - numerous correlations were carried out to check for relationships between Q1+2 to see if perceptual characteristics of the animals triggered a fear response + thus supporting a biological prepardeness hypothesis.

• Sex differences -
  • men more likely to pick up jellyfish, cockroach, ants, moth, crow, worm, beetle, slug, mouse and spider.
  • Men also scored less in fear.
  • men and women agreed on ratings of ugly, slimy, speedy and suddeness.
• It was Correlation coefficient - scale of -1 to +1. -1=perf neg correlation.+1= perf pos correlation and 0=no correlation.
• Correlation matrix - speediness and sudden movements = high correlation. (+0.95) various significant correlations found between correlations and fear.
• Thus as expected all 4 ratings of perceptual characteristics are related to both fear and nearness.
• supports idea that biological prepardeness works through key  characteristics rather than the animal itself.
• conclusions - clinical phobias
• CP is refferred to excessive fear that has been diagnosed by a health proffessional as a mental disorder.
• Discripency principle - what is feared is the discripency of the human form.
• Aversive stimulus configurations - collection of stimulus.
• 

Mr Evs

•   the method used was correlations ad questionaires.
• Questionaires - probs  -
  • questions can be misleading or participents could get the wrong ned of the stick (think animals harmful).
  • Social desirability bias - tend to give the desirable answer - we assume the person is telling the truth (self report)
  • Screw you effect - is effort really being put in?
• Questionaires - advantages - it tried to control it by making sure they were informed.
  • quantative data (make sit easier to analyse + it makes the findings and conclusions subjective)
• Correlations - Problem -
  • Cant make a cause and effect judgment based on correlation - all it shows is that there may be a link between the subjects.
• Sample - not representative of entir population - area age people at work. reliability - replicable?
• Validity - Merkelback repeated research.

• Sex differences -
  • men more likely to pick up jellyfish, cockroach, ants, moth, crow, worm, beetle, slug, mouse and spider.
  • Men also scored less in fear.
  • men and women agreed on ratings of ugly, slimy, speedy and suddeness.
• It was Correlation coefficient - scale of -1 to +1. -1=perf neg correlation.+1= perf pos correlation and 0=no correlation.
• Correlation matrix - speediness and sudden movements = high correlation. (+0.95) various significant correlations found between correlations and fear.
• Thus as expected all 4 ratings of perceptual characteristics are related to both fear and nearness.
• supports idea that biological prepardeness works through key  characteristics rather than the animal itself.
• conclusions - clinical phobias
• CP is refferred to excessive fear that has been diagnosed by a health proffessional as a mental disorder.
• Discripency principle - what is feared is the discripency of the human form.
• Aversive stimulus configurations - collection of stimulus.
• 

Mr Evs

•   the method used was correlations ad questionaires.
• Questionaires - probs  -
  • questions can be misleading or participents could get the wrong ned of the stick (think animals harmful).
  • Social desirability bias - tend to give the desirable answer - we assume the person is telling the truth (self report)
  • Screw you effect - is effort really being put in?
• Questionaires - advantages - it tried to control it by making sure they were informed.
  • quantative data (make sit easier to analyse + it makes the findings and conclusions subjective)
• Correlations - Problem -
  • Cant make a cause and effect judgment based on correlation - all it shows is that there may be a link between the subjects.
• Sample - not representative of entir population - area age people at work. reliability - replicable?
• Validity - Merkelback repeated research.