Core Studies-Psychology

Key information on all of the studies. Also useful for A2

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Dement & Kleitman- REM sleep in relation to dream

The Aim was to see if the physiological aspects of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep realte to the participant's (P) psychological experiance of dreaming.  The hypotheses 1.Will people be more likley to report if they were woken in periods of REM or periods of non-REM? 2.Can people accurately estimate the duration of their dream? 3. Is the direction of eyemovement during REM link to the content of a dream? There were 7 males and 2 females all from Chicago. 5 studied intensly and 4 to confirm findings. An EEG machine was used to measure brain activity and eye movement. A door bell was used to wake them up and they recoreded their dreams and essimated time of dream into a tape recoreder. They were told not to have alcohol or caffeine during the study. they were tested indivadually. The study took 61 nights and the Ps were woken 315 times. 1. they were woken either in REM or non-REM and asked if they could recall a dream them went back to sleep. 2.woken up at 5 or 15 mins after REM started and ask if they had been sleeping for 5 or 15 mins. 3. They were woken when eyes were moving and asked to record dream content.

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Dement and Kleitman-Results

Hypothesis 1. When woken in REM: 152 Yes to recalling a dream When woken in non-REM: 11 Yes to recalling a dream. Supported hypothesis

Hypothesis 2. More correct estimates of dream length than inccorectwere made overall. Supported hypothesis

Hypothesis 3Horizontal eye movement (left and right) 2 people having a tomatoe fight. Vertical (up and down) looking up and down a cliff. Both of the above link to looking at objects up close. No movement linked to looking at objects far away. Supported hypothesis.

Conclusion The measurement of REM during sleep can be used as an objective measure of dream.

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Sperry- Left & Right hemisphere of the brain

The Aim was to investiagte the effects of hemisphere deconnection and to further understand the funtions of the left and right hemispheres. The method was a quasi-experiment, and a series of case studies. There were 11 participants (male and female) with split brain. They had split brain because of their severe epilepsy which hadn't responed to drug therapy and were right handed. There were 4 different tests. 1. Visual Investigation- This was showing an image to either one or both visual fields. the image was flashed for 1/10th of a second. They were told to to look at the fixation point in the middle of the screen 2. Tactile Investigation This involved touch. The participant couldn't see their hands or objects they had been given to hold. They had to guess what they were holding, with their left hand. 3. Visual and Tactile Investigation This involved touch and site. An image was either visula to the left or right visual field (VF). They would then have to find the object. 4. Test of Right Hemisphere Geometric shapes were shown to both VFs. Then half way through the test a nude image was shown. The controls were the participants weren't allowed to speak during the tests and the image was only flashed for 1/10th of a second.

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Sperry-Results

1. Visual Investigation- Image shown to RVF: (right visual field) could be name and could point to the object with right hand. Image shown to LVF: could draw the image with left hand can find the object with left hand. Couldn't name the image due to language ability being in the left hemisphere.

 2. Tactile Investigation- Object in right hand: Could name and descirbe object. Could find the object again if placed in a bag. Couldn't find the same object with their left hand. Object in left hand couldn't name or describe the object could find it with their left hand if placed in a bag but couldn't find it with their right hand.

3. Visual & Tactile Investigation- Image shown to RVF: Could find the item using right hand but not with their left hand. Image shown to LVF: Could find item with left hand using left hand but not with their right.

4. Right Hemisphere Test- Participant would blush, giggle and seem embarrassed but not know why. This was a non verbal response and is believed the 'give away' what they had seen.

Conclusion- The dominant hemisphere is the left hemisphere. Information received by one hemisphere is not accessible to the other hemisphere in split-brain patients. Each hemisphere has their own stream of consciousness and own memories.

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Maguire-Size of hippocampus (Brain Plasticity)

The Aim was to show that the hippocampus is the region of the brain associated with spatail memory and naviagtion. It was a quasi experiment. The IVs were taxi drivers & non-taxi drivers. The DVs were volume of hippocamppus measured by VBM (voxel-based morphometry) 3D measure of grey matter density in MIR scan and pixel count volume. There were 16 right handed male taxi drivers, aged 32-62. 50 right handed, male, non-taxi drivers, aged 32-62. The controls were participants were all male and right handed. Also the person counting pixels was blind to who's brain it was.

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Maguire- Results

VBM: Taxi drivers had an increased posterior hippocampus. Non-Taxi drivers had an increased anterior hippocampus.

Pixel Counting: Overall the hippocampus voulme didn't differ significantly

Correlation: There was a positive correlation between the time as a taxi driver and the volume of the posterior hippocampus. However there was a negative correlation between the length as a taxi driver and the volume of the anterior hippocampus.

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Piliavin- Diffusion of Responsibility

The Aim was to see if they type of victim (drunk/ill) and race of victim (black/white) effects behaviour to help them. The hypotheses were 1. the drunk victim would receive significantly more hek than an ill victim 2. A bystander will be more likely to help a vitim of their own race than a person of another race. 3. Seeing another person (model) help would lead to more helping behaviour from bystanders than when a model didn't step in to help. It was held in the New York subway 59th st - 125th st. Between 11:00am - 3:00pm. There were 4.450 people and the racial composistion was 45% black, 55% white. It was opportunity sampling and was a field experiment. 103 trials were carried out; 38 drunk and 65 ill. The victim would alway be in the cirtical area and would collapse after 70 secs of the train leaving. When he was drunk he smelt of alcohol and had a bottle in a brown bag.When he was ill he had a black cane. The model would either step in after 70 secs of victim collasping or 150 secs. He would either come from critical area or adjacent. 2 females would sit in the adjacent area. The controls were that the victim was always in the critical area and the victim and model were always male. 

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Piliavin- Results

Quantitative data: Gender was 90% male 10% female. 21/103 trials people left the critical area. Spontaneous help received for the ill victim was 62/65 (95%) and for the drunk victim was 19/38 (50%). The mean time for the ill victim was 5secs and 109secs for the drunk victim.

Qualitative data: Black victims received help less quickly than the white victim in the drunk condition. In the drunk condition there was a slight 'same race' effect- whites were slightly more likely to help whites than to help blacks.

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Milgram

The aim of the study was to investigate what level of obedience would be shown when participants were told by an authority figure to administer electric shocks to another person. The method was a controlled observation. 40 males for USA took part in the study and they were aged between 20-50. The study was done at Yale university usinf 2 adjoining rooms. One room had a electric shock genorator that range from 15 to 450 volts (going up in 15volts). In the other room there was an "electric" chair where the "learner" would get apparent shocks. Participant was always the teacher and would always experiance a 45 volt shock before the experiemnt started. Teacher would then sit in the other room to the learner and say a word from a word pair and the learner would have to say the word that matched (this was scripted), if they got it wrong the would be shocked. The voltage increased by 15v for every word pair they got wrong. At 300v the teacher would hear pounding on the wall

The Prods 1."please go on/ continue" 2. "the experiment requires that you continue" 3."It's absolutely essential that you continue" 4."You have no choice, you mst go on"

Special Pords 1."Although the shocks maybe painful, there is no permanent tissue damage" 2."Whether the learnwer likes it or not, you must go on until he has learnt all the word pairs correctly, so please go on"

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Milgram-Results

Quantitative data 40/40 gave a shock to 300v 65% were obedent and 35% were disobedent

Qualitative data Signs of extreme nervouness, sweating, bite their lip and dig their fingernails into their flesh and nervous fits of laughter. Also three participants had seizures.

Comments were made such as "Oh I can't go on with this" and "This is crazy"

Reasons for obedience Location of study (prestigious) Yale University, the insentive of money and there was no obvious point where they could stop shocking the learner.

Behaviour is influenced by the situation the person is in.

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Reicher and Haslam

Aim Investigate when tyranny develops in a situation where groups of people have unequal powers

Participants 15 participants, all male and a range of backgrounds and jobs (5 guards and 10 prisoners) collected by self-select smapling. Screening test 1. Completed psychometric test that measured both social and clinical variables 2. Had a full weekend with independent clinical psychologists who assessed them 3. Medical and character references were obtained and police checks were done.

IVs (interventions) 1. Permeablitiy of boundaries- One prisoner had a chance to become a guard (this occurred on day 3) 2.Legitimacy of groups- Prisoners and guards were told there was no difference between them (never was completed) 3.Cognitive alternatives- On day 4 the 10th prisoner was introduced (was a trade unionist) gave a different veiw on how the run things (occurred on day 5)

DVs (SOC) 1.Social variables 2.Organisational variables 3.Clinical variables

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Reicher and Haslam- Results

Social identity Prisoners- Lower but increased Guards- higher but decreased over time

Group cohesiveness Prisoners- Lack of cohesiveness to begin with but increased through the study (went from "I" think to "we" think) Guards- Not cohesive at all

Depression Prisoners- decreased Guards- Increased

Stress & self efficacy Prisoners- slight increase (not significant) & self belief increased Guards- Increased from beginning of study & self belief decreased

Trade unionist introducted a forum (prisoners and guards met everyday to discuss issues). When he left prisoners in cell two broke out and occupied guards quarters

Conclusion Tyranny will occur when the groups aren't successful.

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Samuel and Bryant

Aim To show that children under the age of 7 can conserve & it was the way the question was asked that led to the results in Piaget study

Sample 252 boys and girls from Crediton in Devon. Age ranged from 5-8 1/2 years old.

Split into four groups of 63 (mean age being 5yr 3m, 6yrs 3m, 7yrs 3m & 8yrs 3m) They were then split into 3 different conditions (21 children in each group) The three conditons were Standard condition/2 qus, 1 question & Fixed array 9didn't see the transformation). Three different tasks Mass (playdoh), Volume (liquid) & number (counters)

Controls Each child did the tasks indivdually, The question was always worded the same and the cups were always the same size

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Samuel and Bryant- Results

8yrs 3m did the best becasue they only made 1.7 errors on averager int the standard condition where as the 5yrs 3m did the worst becasue they made 8.5 errors on average in the standard conditon.

They performed the best on the number task and worst on the volume task.

Children did the best in the 1 question and worst on the fixed array.

Conclusion Piaget was correct in saying that they get better as they get older but children can conserve earlier than the age of 7 yrs

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Bandura

Aim To see if children imitate aggressive behaviour when given the opportunity Hypothesis 1.Children who see an aggressive model will copy those aggressive acts 2.If children see a non-aggressive or no model it will reduce their agggressive behaviour 3.Children will imitate same sex models more than the opposite sex 4.Boys are more likely to imitate aggressive behaviour than girls

Participants 72 (36 boys and 36 girls) from Standford University nursery. Mean age was 4yrs4m and range was 3yrs1m - 5yrs9m

Three conditions Aggressive model, Non-aggressive model and no model. Three rooms: room 1 children did potato prints while model played with tinker toy set (non-aggreesive ignored bobo doll). If aggressive model then they started to beat bobo doll, be verablly aggressive and hit with a mallet. Room 2 Aggressive arousal there were "attractive toys" such as spinning top, plane, train and dolly with clothes which the children palyed with but after 2 mins had them taken away and told they weren't for them. Room 3 had the bobo doll in and other things such as a mallet, gun, dolly and bears. Children were observed in this room by a 1 way mirror it was also filmed. Took results every 5sec for 20mins. They looked for imitated aggression, imitated verabl aggression, imitated non-aggressive verable, non-imitated aggression and non-imitated verable aggression.

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Bandura- Results

Hypothesis 1.Children who observed aggressive model imitated the acts displayed by the model. 2.Children who saw non-aggressive model showed lower levels of aggression but was not significant (hypothesis not supported) 3.Boys imitated male models more than girls for physical and verable aggression, non-imitated aggression and gun play. Girls imitated female models more than boys for verable aggression. 4.Overall boys showed more imitated physical aggression than girls (except when they observed a female aggressive model)

Qualitative data One girl said "cut him" another child said "shoot the bobo" and 1 boy said "that's not what ladies do"

Concludion Boys are more physically aggressive and girls are more verablly aggressive

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