Psychology Revision - Unit 1 - Research Methods, Developmental Psych and Cognitive Psych

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What is a lab experiment?
A controlled & scientific one, with the aim to control all variables except for the INDEPENDENT variable that you alter to see what the effect is.
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What are the ADVANTAGES of a lab experiment?
High level of control (extraneous variables are minimised); Replication (strict controls means you can repeat the study to confirm findings); Causal Relationship (possible to establish whether one variable causes another)
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What are the DISADVANTAGES of a lab experiment?
Artificial (lacking in external validity) therefore the studies don't match real-life behavious, thus lacks ecological validity; Demand characteristics(pps may respond according to what they think is being measures ); Ethics (deception)
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What is a field experiment?
This is where behaviour is measured in a NATURAL enviroment such as: school; a key variable is altered so its effect can be measured.
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What is a CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP?
This is when one variable causes a change in another
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What are the ADVANTAGES of a field experiment?
You can establish causal relationships; High ecological validity; Demand characteristics are avioded if pps don't know they're in a study
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What are the DISADVANTAGES of a field experiment?
Less control so counfounding variables are more likely; Ethics (pps who didn't agree to take part become distressed. Observation must respect privacy)
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What is the difference between an EXTRANEOUS variable and a CONFOUNDING variable?
Extraneous = Any variable that COULD affect your results; Confounding = If these things ARE affecting results.
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What is a natural experiment?
A study that measures variables that are NOT manipulated by researcher (e.g. comparing behaviour in a same-sex school to a multi-sex school)
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What are the ADVANTAGES of a natural experiment?
Ethical - you can study variables that would be unethical to manipulate
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What are the DISADVANTAGES of a natural experiment?
You can't randomly allocat pps to each condition, and therefore you have no way of spotting confounding variables; Some groups of interest are hard to find; Ethics (informed consent/ deception)
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What is correlational research?
Correlational research, is research that looks for relationships between variables.
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What are the advantages of a correlational study?
If no correlation exists, then causal relationship can be ruled out; Ethics (can study variable that would unethical to manipulate) e.g. smoking effects on lungs.
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What are the disadvantages of a correlational study?
Causal relationships can't be assumed; Ethics (minsintepretation) sometimes media infer causality from a correlation
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What are the advantages of a questionnaire?
Practical (one can gather large amounts of information quickly & cheaply); lack of experimenter bias as they don't have to be present.
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What are the disadvantages of a questionnaire?
Bad questions such as: leading questions can be a prob; biased samples: some people are more likely to respond; Ethics - confidentiality can be an issue.
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What is the difference between a structured and an unstructed interview?
Structured interviews may have a fixed set of questions for all pps. Unstructured may have a set of topics, but not set about how convo goes
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What are the advantages of an interview?
Rich data - one can get detailed info, as there are fewer constraints as with a questionnaire; Pilot study - useful to get infor prior to a study
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What are the disadvantages of an interview?
Self report (social desirability bias); Impractical as time-consuming
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What is a null hypothesis?
This is what you're going to assume is true during the study. If the data doesn't support your null hypothesis, you reject it & go with the alternative hypothesis.
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What is meant by an independent groups design?
This means that there are different pps in each group. For example doing the same task doing with a differenct scenario.
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What are the advantages of an independent groups design?
No order effects - no one gets better through practice or worse through fatigue.
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What are the disadvantages of an independent groups design?
Ppt variables - differences between the people in each group might affect results; you need twice as many pps
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What is a repeated measures design?
This is where all pps do the task both with an audience and without. You can compare performances in each condition, knowing the differences weren't due to ppt variables
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What are the advantages of a repeated measures design?
Ppt variables - now the same people do the test in both conditions, so these are ruled out; Fewer pps needed
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What are the disadvantages of a repeated measures design?
Order effects - practice, fatigue etc
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What is a matched pairs design?
Different oos in each condition, but matched according to important variables such as: sex, age etc
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What are the advantages of a matched pairs design?
No order effects, they're different people in each condition; ppt variables are minimised through matching
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What are the disadvantages of a matched pairs design?
Number of ppts = need twice as many; it's not always practical to find who to match
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What is counterbalancing?
This is mixing up order of tasks, so order effects can be minimised.
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What is random allocation?
This ensures everyone has an equal chance of doing either condition.
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What is random sampling?
When every member of the target group as an equal chance of being selected for the sample.
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What are the advantages of random sampling?
It is 'fair', and the sample is likely to be representative.
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What are the disadvantages of random sampling?
A representative sample cannot be guaranteed.
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What is opportunity sampling?
This is when the researcher uses whoever is available and willing to be studied. Often students, as most studies are done in a university complex.
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What are the advantages of opportunity sampling?
It is a quick and practical way of getting a sample
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What are the disadvantages of opportunity sampling?
The sample is unlikely to representative of a target group or population as a whole. Meaning the results won't be generalisable.
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What is volunteer sampling?
This is when people volunteer to be part of a study by responding to a request. The researcher then uses the most suitable. Milgram used it.
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What are the advantages of volunteer sampling?
If prominently advertised, it can produce a large number of pps. The allows more in-depth analysis and more accurate statistical results.
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What are the disadvantages of volunteer sampling?
Unrepresentative because only people who see add will sign up;
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What is the Hawthorne Effect? (Think the opposite of 'Screw You' and think attention seekers)
This is when people are interested in something, and the attention they get from it, so act more positive and try harder in certain tasks than they would in real life. therefore results are artificially high; or the opposite if disinterested.
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What are the advantages of using the mean?
It uses all scores in a data set; it's used in further calculations
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What are the disadvantages of using the mean?
It can be skewed by extremely high or low scored making it unrepresentative and therefore misleading; unrealistically precise, e.g. 2.4 children, but what's 0.4 of a child?...
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What are the advatages of using the median?
It's relatively quick & easy to calculate; it's not affected by high or low scores, so it can be representative of a sample.
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What are the disadvatages of using the median?
You don't use all the scores; it has little further use in data analysis
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What are the advantages of using the mode?
It shows the most common or important score; it's always a result from the actual data set, so can be more useful i.e. 2 children, not 2.4
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What are the disadvatages of using the mode?
Not useful if there are several modal values; little further use in data analysis
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Define attachment...
Attachment is a close emotional bond between infants and their caregivers. Attached infants show a desire to be close to their primary caregiver, and show distress when seperated from them
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Learning Theory (or cupboard love theory) focuses on the baby wanting its needs fulfilled. Explain how classical conditioning is given as an explanation for attachments
Classical conditioning - occurs where a stimulus becomes associated with a response. Getting food pleasures the baby, the baby's desire for food is fulfilled when mum around, so mum around = baby pleasure
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Explain how operant conditioning is given as an explanation for attachments and who advocates the theory?
Dollard & Miller (1950) claimed that babies feel discomfort when they're hungry and so have a desire to remove this. If they cry, the mum feeds it & discomfort goes (negative reinforcement). Mother associated with food and baby will attach.
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How did Schaffer & Emerson (1964) disprove Learning Theory?
They asked mothers about the babies' protests in various seperation situations. The babies were clearly attached to people not involved in their physical care (notably fathers), suggesting feeding = not primary reason for attachments.
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What was the aim of Harlow's monkey experiment?
To test learning theory by comparing attachment behavior in monkeys given a wire surrogate mother producing milk with those given a soft towelling mother with no milk.
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What was the procedure of Harlow's monkey experiment?
The amount of time the baby monkeys spent with each mother was recorded.
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What were the findings of Harlow's monkey experiment?
The monkeys preferred to cling to the towelling morhter when given a choice, regardless of whether milk was available. Monkey's with only a wire mother had diarrohoea, showing stress.
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What were the conclusions of Harlow's monkey experiment?
Monkeys have an innate, unlearned need for contact and comfor suggesting emotional security is more important that food.
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What are some positive evaluation points of Harlow's monkey experiment?
Unlikely to be affected by an unknown variable as it was a lab experiment; applied to real life as they led to a change in hospital procedure human babies in incubators now have soft blankets.
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What are some negative evaluation points of Harlow's monkey experiment?
This study involved animals, and therefore we can't necessarily generalise to humans; ethical issues such as seperation of baby monkeys and causing stress to them; unreplicable due to BPS guidlines now in place.
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What was Lorenz's study in the 1930s that was the basis for Bowlby's evolutionary theory?
Lorenz found that geese automatically attach to the first moving thing they see after hatching, and follow it everywhere, as Lorenz found with his geese. This is known as imprinting.
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Explain briefly Bowlby's evolutionary theory...
He claimed that attachments have evolutionary connotations, in that in the distant past, when we were faced with predators, it wass essential we stayed close to our care-givers, thus getting protection. We becamse genetically made to form attachement
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Bowlby called these social releaserss - what are social releasers?
Crying (to attract parents' attention); looking, smiling and vocalising (to maintain interest); clinging or following (gain closeness to parents)
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Apart from protection in early years, what do attachments (according to Bowlby) help teach children later in life?
How to form later adult relationships which are vital for reproduction.
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What is the critical period? (Bowlby's theory)
Mothering must take place within a certain time period if children are to form attachments. Useless for most children after 12 months, and all after 2 and a half years.
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What is monotropy? (Bowlby's theory)
An innate tendency to become attached to one particular adult, who interacts with them most sensitively, usually the biological mother.
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What support is there for Bowlby's theory?
The continuity hypothesis, where there's a consistency between early emotional bonds and later relationships; Harlow's monkey experiment; Lorenz's geese
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What criticisms are there for Bowlby's theory?
Imprinting mainly applies to precocial animals, therefore attachments may not be a human form of this; Schaffer & Emerson found multiple attachments are formed not just one; fathers can be 'mothers' too
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What are the characteristics, and the other name, for a 'Securely-attached' child?
AKA 'Type B' - Strong bond between child & caregiver; willing to explore; high stranger anxiety; easy to soothe; distressed at seperation from care-giver; excited at care-giver's return
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What are the characteristics, and the other name, for an 'Insecure-avoidant' attached child?
AKA 'Type A' - Indifferent to seperation; willing to explore; low stranger anxiety; avoid contact at return of care-giver
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What are the characteristics, and the other name, for an 'Insecure-resistant' attached child?
AKA Type C - Distressed at seperation; high stranger anxiety; unwilling to explore; sought & rejects contact at care-giver's return.
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Mary Ainsworth developed the 'Strange-Situation' experiment. What was the aim of this study?
To see how young infants between 9 & 18 months behave under conditions of mild stress & novelty, in order to test stranger anxiety, seperation anx and secure base concept.
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What was the method of the 'Strange-Situation'?
In a controlled observation, 12-18 month old infants were left in a room with their mothe, followed by different scenarios, e.g. mother leaving, stranger entering. Infants reactions = observed constantly.
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What were the results of the 'Strange-Situation'?
15% displayed insecure-avoidant; 70% displayed secure; 15 % displayed insecure-resistant
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What was the conclusion from the 'Strange-Situation'?
Infants showing different reactions to their carers, have different types of attachment.
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What support/ good points are there for Ainsworth's 'Strange-Situation'?
Lab experiment, therefore variables highly controlled, therefore results reliable & replicable. Ljzendoorn suggest Ainsworth's studies are most importnat because their findings that parents sensitivity causing attachment disruptions = supported
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What negative points are there for Ainsworth's 'Strange-Situation'?
Lab exp = artificial, therefore reduces ecological validity and generalisablity; Brofenbrenner found attachments are stronger at a home enviroment; parents knew they were being observed = demand characteristics; ethics; Type D (insecure disorganised)
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Explain the concept of cultural variations in attachment...
Child-rearing styles vary considerably across cultures & also views on how attachment types are perceived; e.g. here insecure is negative, but in Germany it is positive as independence is value, and there insecure types are greater.
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What did Grossman and Grossman (1991) find with relation to cross-cultural variations in attachment?
They discovered that German infants tended to display more insecure attachment types; the culture requires 'distance' between parents and children, indicating cross-cultural variation.
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What are some evalution points for cross-cultural variations in attachments?
Different patterns of reaction to the Strange Situation reflect cultural values such as Germany having higher insecure children; the fact that attachment patters vary from culture to culture suggest attachment theory is culture bound
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What is the Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis (MDH)?
Bowlby saw the lack of maternal care as the common factor leading to negative outcomes, like poor IQ scores. The disruption of a mother-child bond results in negative outcomes.
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What is some research into MDH?
Goldfarb (1943) compared children raised in isolation in institutions with 15 children who'd gone from mum to foster home. @ 3, the isolated ones lagged behing the others in thinking, social maturity and IQ.
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What are some evaluation points of the MDH?
Goldfarb's study didn't use random samples, therefore the fostered children could be naturally brighter and more sociable.
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Short-term deprivation consists of brief, temporary seperations from attachment figures, such as day care or short-term hospitilisation. Bowlby described different components of distress caused by short-term what are they?
Protest; Despair; Detachment ('PDD model')
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Explain 'protest' in greater detail...
This is the immediate reaction, involving crying, screaming, kicking, trying to escape, and trying to prevent mother from leaving. This is outward expressions of anger, fear, bitterness & confusion
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Explain 'despair' in greater detail...
Despair replaces protest, and this is calmer, more apathetic behaviour. Anger & fear are still felt inwardly however. Little response to comfort, and attempts to comfort itself, e.g. thumb sucking.
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Explain 'detachment' in greater detail...
The child begins to respons to children again, but treats people warily. Rejection of the care-giver is common, as are signs of anger.
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What did Robertson & Robertson show in terms of short-term deprivation?
They made a series of films, one of John, who spent 9 days in a residential nursery while his mother was in hospital for 9 days. He had a stable relationship with his mother. It was a 'naturalistic observation'
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What were the results from Robertson & Robertson's study?
John first showed signs of protest, then despair trying to get attention from other busy nurses, but he gave up, showing detachment, more active and content by was reluctant to so affection on his mother's return
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What did Douglas(1975) show in terms of short-term deprivation?
He found that seperations of less than 1 week in children below 4 years were correlated with behavioural difficulties.
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What are some positive and negative points of the research into short-term deprivation?
It shows seperation should be avioded, and has changed daycare,Barrett argued that individual differences haven't been considered. E.g. securely attached children cope well with seperations, implying that only some experience distress and detachment.
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Long-term deprivation consists of prolonged periods of seperation, e.g. death of a parent, adoption, imprisonment. Name on type of care that is associated with Long-term deprivation...
Institutional Care
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Bowlby did research into long-term deprivation. What was the method of his study into the 44 juvenile thieves?
Case studies were completed on the backgrounds of 44 children who had been referred to his clinic because they'd been stealing. There was a control group of emotionally disturbed youths who didn't steal.
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What were the results of Bowlby's study into the 44 juvenile thieves?
17 of the theives who has experienced frequent seperations from their mothers before 2, compared with 2 in the control group 14 of thieves were labelled as 'affectionless psychopaths' 12 of these has experienced seperation from their mothers
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What was the conclusion of Bowlby's study into the 44 juvenile thieves?
Deprivation of the child from its main carer early in life can have very harmful long-term consequenes
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What evaluation points are there for Bowlby's study into the 44 juvenile thieves?
Results indicate a link between deprivation and criminal behaviour; however, you can't say one causes the other, there may be other factors. Study relied upon retrospective data, possibly unreliable.
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What is meant by 'privation'?
When a child has NEVER formed an attachment to its mother or any caregiver.
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What did Rutter hypothesise in 1981?
That the effects of maternal privation are far worse than maternal deprivation
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What studies support Rutter's claim? (Curtiss/ Genie)
Curtiss reported the case of Genie (a girl who suffered horrible abuse from her parents, never forming attachments) She was discovered at 13 yrs, physically under-developed and inarticulate, her social or intellectual skills never fully developed.
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& Koluchova?
This is the case of Czech twins. Mum died soon after they were born, and their father remarried and step-mum treated them poorly. Were often beaten and kept in a cellar. They were found at 7 with rickets, and undeveloped socially and intelectually.
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The Czech twins recovered well after they were taken out. Suggest reasons why those two did, but Genie didn't
The twins were much younger when they were discovered than Genie was. The twins were kept together, so may have attached to each other, twins were adopted, Genie went from psychologist to psychologist; individual differences?
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What are the weaknesses of Koluchova and Curtiss' findings?
They didn't just suffer maternal privation, they had no social or intellectual stimulation, and were treated horribly; Can't really generalise from two case studies; More controlled evidence is needed, but ethically wrong to replicate in a lab.
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What are some arguments against day care?
Seperation from the primary care-giver results in deprivation leading to short- and long-term damage to social development; inferior to home care, as it is more loving; negative outcomes from DC, research supports this.
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What are some arguments for day care?
Quality day care is run by motivated, well-qualified people where a stimulating enviroment is provided; +'ve affects on social development and any -'ve effects are due to poor quality DC; mothers are free to work therefore less stress, frustration...
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What did Durkin find in terms of the -'ve effects of day care upon aggression?
He reported that pre-schoolers who had been in day care since infancy were prone to aggresiveness, negative social adjustment, hyperactivity and anxiety that those who started earlier, thus the age children begin day care is important.
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What did Doherty find in terms of the +'ve effects of day care on aggression?
S/he found that there is less likelihood of aggression if a child attends regular day care, though the importance of high-quality care such as: ratios is essential.
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What did Gunnar find in terms of the -'ve effects of day care on peer relations?
Measured cortisol levels as a stress indicator, finding that day care was more challenging for less socially competent children who had -'ve interactions with peers, this showing day care harms peers relations in certain children
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What did Clarke-Stewart find in terms of +'ve effects of day care on peer relations?
Found that children with the greatest ability to negotiate with peers were those who experiences group-based day care rather than home care, suggesting that day care is superior in fosterting good peer relationships.
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Suggest reasons for why research into day-care varies so much...
The studies focus on different things (age of child etc); Methodological probs such as: Clarke-Stuart saying Strange Situation isn't good for kids in day-care, because they're used to seperation & may be wrongly classed as 'insecure';
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Scarr (1998) identified several factors that constitute good-quality day-care, what are they?
Good staff training; adequate space; minimisation of staff turnover; good ratio of staff to children; younger kids mixing with older kids etc
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Who developed the Multi-Store model of memory (MSM)?
Atkinson & Schiffrin (1968)
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Describe the THREE components of the MSM...
Sensory Memory (SM); Short-term memory (STM); Long-term memory (LTM)
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How does information get from the Sensory Memory to the Short-term memory?
Attention
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How does information get from the Short-term memory to the Long-term memory?
Rehearsal
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Explain the Sensory Memory in as much detail as you can...
This is a short-duration store; retains impressions of info received through the senses; seperate store for each sense: iconic, echoic & haptic; if info is payed attention to then it passes to the STM
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What did Crowder (2003) find in terms of the Sensory Memory?
He found that SM retains information for a few milliseconds within the iconic store, but 2-3 secs in the echoic store, supporting the idea that there is a seperate sensory store for each sensory input
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How is information encoded in the STM?
Info can be encoded in three different ways, e.g., if the input is the word 'ambulance' then you can visualise it, acoustically encode it (i.e. saying ambulance repeatedly) or semantically (meaning) e.g. thinking of a van with blue lights
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What is the dominant form of encoding in the STM?
Acoustic
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Baddeley (1966) conducted an experiment to examine whether encoding in STM was primarily acoustic or semantic; what was his procedure?
75 pps were presented with one of four word lists repeated 4 times i.e. 1 was acoustically similar words, another was acoustically dissimilar, another semantically similar and one semantically dissimilar. Pps had to rearrange the words in correct ord
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What were the findings from Baddeley's experiment?
Pps given acoustically similar words performed the worst, with a 10% recall. Recall for other lists was good at between 60 to 80 per cent.
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What was the conclustion from Baddeley's experiment?
List A (acoustically similar) was recalled least efficiently, therefore it seems there is an acoustic confusion in STM, therefore STM is encoded on an acoustic basis.
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What are some evaluation points of Baddeley's experiment?
The finidings make 'cognitive sense', e.g. if you need to remember a shopping list, you'd probably repeat it aloud; Lab exp therefore shows cause & effect, but lacks ecological validity; can be replicated though
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What is the capacity of the STM?
Limited capacity, at 5-9 items.
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STM can be investigated with the digit span technique. What is this technique?
Pps are presented with increasingly long sequences of digits, to be recalled in order (26478, 968423 etc.), when pps fail on 50% of trials, it's said they've reached their digit span capacity.
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How can capacity be increased in the STM?
Chunking
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What did Miller conclude from his meta-analysis in terms of chunking in the STM?
Capacity of STM was between 5 & 9 iterms, but that the chunk was the basic unity of STM. This means between 5 & 9 chunks could be contained in STM, increasing its capacity
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What is the duration of the STM?
Fairly limited, and less than 30 secs. Research also indicated that info is lost rapidly from STM if it is not rehearsed.
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What did Peterson & Peterson do/ find in terms of duration of the STM?
Read nonsense trigrams (e.g. XQF) to pps & then got them to count back in threes from a large 3 digit number for between 3 & 18 secs to prevent rehearsal. 90% of trigrams were recalled after a 3 sec interval, but only 5% after and 18 sec interval
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How is information encoded in the LTM?
With verbal material, it appears that coding in the LTM is mainly semantic, but some research suggests visual and acoustic as well.
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What did Baddeley do in 1966 as research into encoding in LTM?
He used the same procedure as his STM study (pg 4 in yellow book), but left a 20min gap before recall, during which pps performed another task. Pps with semantically similar words only had 55% recall, while other lists had 70-85& thus it is semantic.
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What is the capacity of the LTM?
Potentially unlimited.
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What did Linton do in terms of research into capacity of LTM?
Spent six years creating a diary of 5,500 personal events. She tested herself for recognition, and found she had excellent recall for dates, demonstrating the colossal potential capacity of LTM.
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What is the duration of the LTM?
Memories can last a lifetime; older people tend to have clear childhood memories.
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What did Shephard do in terms of research into duration of the LTM?
Found that pps were able to recognise pictures seen an hour earlier when viewed amongst other photos and were still able to recall about 50% of the photographs 4 months later, again suggesting duration of LTM to be long lasting.
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What are some evaluation points of the MSM?
It lead to a greater understanding of memory; evidence (e.g. brain scans) for different memory stores (sm,stm,ltm); Over-simplified in assuming there there is a single STM and LTM. Research suggests different types of STM, one for verbal etc.
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In terms of evaluating the MSM, what is the case study of K.F., and how does this study support the MSM?
K.F. suffered an accident, and had a reduced STM of only 1 or 2 digits, and a recency effect of 1 item. His LTM though for events post accident was normal, supporting idea of seperate long and short term memory stores as proposed by the MSM
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In terms of evaluating the MSM, what was the case study of HM, and how does this study support the MSM?
Scoville (1957) treated HM for epilepsy by removing his hippocampus, resulting in him being unable to encode new long-term memories, although his STM was unaffected, again supporting the idea of seperate memory stores.
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In terms of evaluating the MSM, what does Cohen (1990) suggest that goes against the MSM?
He believes that somethings are simply easier to recall than other, for example there are other ways in which we remember such as shocking scenarios, etc.
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Why did Baddeley & Hitch come up with the Working Memory Model?
They argued that the STM was more complex than just being a temporary store as the MSM proposes, and they see it as an active store while information is being worked on, hence the name: WMM
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What is the role of the Central Executive?
This processes info in all sensory forms, directs info to other 'slave' systems and collects responses.
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The CE is supposedly limited in capacity, and can only deal with one strand of info at a time. What did Baddeley do to support this?
He discovered that pps found it difficult to generate lists of random numbers while simultaneously switching between numbers & letters, suggesting the 2 tasks are competing for the CE, therefore it's limited in capacity and can only cope with 1 info.
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The phonological loops (PL) & Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS) are two 'slave' systems - temp stores dealing with different kinds of incoming sensory info. What is the PL?
Similar to the rehearsal system of the MSM, with a limited capacity determined by the amount of info spoken aloud in about 2 secs. Deals with auditory info & order of info. Confusions occur with similary sounding words
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What two parts did Baddeley divide the PL into & what is the other name for each?
Phonological store & Articulatory process. PS = inner ear; AP = inner voice
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How did Baddeley use the word length effect to investigate the PL?
Pps recalled more short words in serial order than longer words, suggesting that the capacity of the PL is set by how long it takes to say words, rather than the actual number of words.
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What is the function of the VSS (inner-eye)?
This handles non-phonological information & is a temp store for visual and spatial items & the relationships between them.
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What have PET scans shown that supports the existence of the WMM?
They show different brain areas being activated during undertaking of verbal and visual tasks, thus supporting the theory that WM involves seperate components
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Why is this WMM possibly more plausible than the MSM?
Because it demonstrates STM in terms of temp storage and active processing.
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Why is the WMM not a comprehensive model of memory?
It only concerns itself with the STM
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Why do most studies into the WMM lack mundane realism?
They are lab-based studies.
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What did Loftus & Palmer do to investigate the effect of leading questions on EWT?
They asked pps to estimate speed of cards in a film showing car crashes; they asked the pps how fast they were going using verbs such as: 'contacted'. 'hit' and 'smashed', impying that leading question affect schema to give a desired answer.
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Anxiety is often associated with witnessing real-life crimes & can divert attention from important features. Deffenbacher used the inverted-U hypothesis to explain this. What does it state?
Moderate amounts of emotional arousal improve the detail and accuracy of memory recall up to a point, after which further anxiety leads to a decline in recall.
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What did Loftus find in terms of the effects of anxiety upon our ability to recall?
If a person is carrying a weapon, then a witness will focus on that rather than the person's face, -'vely affecting their recall for facial details of armed criminals, and thus supports the inverted-U hypothesis.
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There are indications that cognitive abilities diminish with age, thus affecting accuracy of EWT as people get older. Why, though, do some children's EWT vary in reliability?
Younger children are vulnerable to being misled by post-event information and leading questions.
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What did Roberts & Lamb find in terms of how age affects EWT?
Two-thirds of inaccuracies presented to children based on their reports went uncorrected, suggesting that children tend to accept inaccurate information for fear of contradicting adult authority figures.
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Name one way of improving accuracy of EWTs, and who developed it...
Cognitive Interview (CI), developed by Geiselman & Fisher
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What are the four components of the CI?
Change of narrative order (reverse order etc); change of perspective (from offender's point of view); mental reinstatement (remember smells, sounds etc); report every last thing
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Fisher suggested an amended version of the CI, known as the Enhanced Cognitive Interview; what were the extra features?
Minimising distractions; reduction of anxiety; getting the witness to speak slowly; asking open-ended questions
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What did Fisher and Geiselman find that works best for the CI?
It needs to be done ASAP after the crime rather than prolonging.
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What are retrieval cues, and what are the two types?
They act as a prompt to trigger recall. There are two types: internal and external
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What are external RCs?
The physical enviroment in which material is learnt can affect memory and research indicates that context-dependent cues facilitate recall.
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What are internal RCs?
The physiological state at the time of an event can affect memory. Research, such as Overton and drunk people, suggest that people have better recall if they're in the same state they were in as when they witnessed an event
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What are the ADVANTAGES of a lab experiment?

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High level of control (extraneous variables are minimised); Replication (strict controls means you can repeat the study to confirm findings); Causal Relationship (possible to establish whether one variable causes another)

Card 3

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What are the DISADVANTAGES of a lab experiment?

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Card 4

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What is a field experiment?

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Card 5

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What is a CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP?

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