Psychology Studies - Paper 1

1.
Social Identity Theory

Tajfel et al.
Aim: To show how our social identity can affect our behavior towards
ingroups and outgroups
- Investigated whether intergroup discrimination would take place due
to being put into different groups
Proceduce: Laboratory Experiment

● Took a sample of boys from ages 14 to 15
● Asked them to rate paintings by 2 different artists: Klee and
Kandinsky
○ Boys weren’t told which painting was made by which artist.
● Boys were randomly allocated into two groups
○ Each group was told that they preferred a specific artist
● Boys had to go through two point allocation systems
○ In the first , they had to give points that totaled to fifteen. They
had to rate the members in their own group and the remaining
points would be given to the other group’s members.
○ The second system involved three options:
■ The first being that they could give their group high points,
but that would give higher points to the other group
■ The second being that they could give a medium amount
of points to their group resulting in the other group
receiving the same amount of points
■ The third being that they could give their own group fewer
points so that the other team only gets 1 point.
Findings:
- In the first point allocation system the boys gave their group members
more points and hence fewer points went to the outgroup.
- In the second method, instead of maximizing their ingroup points, the
boys were willing to maximize the difference in the points between
the two groups, hence giving the members in their ingroup fewer
points.
Conclusion:
- Members in an ingroup will show ingroup favoritism or bias, even
when grouped randomly.
- However, when it comes to competing with the outgroup, then
out-group discrimination is prevalent, all that is required is a minimal
group.
- Even when people are grouped randomly, they still believe in positive
distinctiveness and raising self-esteem by comparing themselves to
the outgroup by displaying favoritism towards the ingroup and
discriminating against the outgroup.
- They were socially categorized into preferring one of two artists
based on their social identification which was that they all seemingly
rated their artists higher.
- This led to the formation of ingroups and outgroups.
Evaluation:
● Tajfel et al.’s study is a highly controlled experiment, which allows for
it to have high internal validity.
● Causal relationship due to manipulation fo variables
● Highly artificial task and may not reflect how the boys would have
interacted in a more natural setting. This lowers the ecological validity
of the study.
● Highly standardized, so it is replicable in order to establish reliability.
● Boys were aware of being in an experiment and may have interpreted
the task as supposed to be competitive. They could have thought that
they were expected to act in a competitive manner instead of being
discriminative thus showing demand characteristics.
● Study was done using British schoolboys - so it may be difficult to
generalize the findings of this study to females, other ages, as well as
other cultures due to sampling bias.
Abrams et al.
Aim: To determine if in-group identity would affect one’s willingness to

conform
Procedure: Laboratory Experiment with Independent Measures Design

● Independent samples design that included four groups and
manipulated two different independent variables.
○ One independent variable was whether the confederates were
from the participant’s in-group (undergraduate psychology
students) or out-group (undergraduate ancient history
students).
○ The second independent variable was whether the participant’s
responses were public or private.
● Much like the Asch Paradigm, the participants and confederates had
to match one of three lines to a target line.
● In half of the trials, the confederates answered correctly and in the
other half, they didn’t.
● In the public condition, all the members of the group gave their
judgments out aloud.
● In the private condition, the experimenter asked the participant to
note down the group’s responses, which allowed them to privately
give their answer.
Findings:
- Conformity was maximized in the in-group public condition and
minimized in the out-group public condition.
- The results of the in-group private and out-group private conditions
did not differ significantly.
Conclusion:
- Social categorization can play a key role in one’s decision to conform
publicly
- Social categorization – public conformity exceeded the usual level in
the in-group condition but was far below normal in the out-group
condition.
- We tend to exaggerate the difference between our ingroup and
out-group
- We feel that members of our own group share a common set of
traits
- In-group members may be seen as more correct, while out-group
members are seen as less likely to be correct.
- Social identification – we are more likely to conform to the behavior of
our ingroup to raise our self-esteem.
Evaluation:
● The manipulation of the independent variable and the high level of
control in the experiment allows us to see a causal relationship
○ Between group membership and the dependent variable (the
rate of conformity to an incorrect response).
● This increases the internal validity of the study
● However, the situation in which the participants found themselves
was highly artificial and there may be many factors that affect
conformity, hence the study has low ecological validity and may not
predict what would happen in a naturalistic situation.
● The study was made up of university students, so the results may be
difficult to generalize to all age groups due to the fact that samples of
university students tend to be YAVIS: young, affluent, verbal,
intelligent, and social.
● The study follows a standardized procedure, hence it can be
replicated and its reliability can be tested.
● Culturally biased
○ Done in an individualistic society
● Ethical concerns about use of deception
2. Social Cognitive Theory
Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment
Aim: To see if children would imitate aggression modeled by an adult and

also if children were more likely to imitate same-sex models
Procedure: Laboratory/Controlled Experiment

● The sample consisted of 36 boys and 36 girls of ages 3-6
● Divided into groups according to their aggression levels
○ Based on an interview previously conducted with parents and
teachers.
● There were three groups
○ one group was exposed to adult models who showed
aggression by either bashing an inflatable “Bobo” doll or using
verbal aggression toward the Bobo
○ a second group observed a non-aggressive adult who
assembled toys for 10 minutes
○ a third group served as a control and did not see any model.
● Children were then placed in a room with toys
● Taken out of the room, being told that those toys were for other
children
● Put into the room with the Bobo doll
○ Done so that all of the children experienced some level of
frustration that may lead to them showing aggression.
Findings:
- Children who had observed the aggressive models were significantly
more aggressive—both physically and verbally.
- Boys were more likely to show physical aggression whereas the girls
were more likely to show verbal aggression.
- Boys were more likely to imitate the male role models and vice versa
for the girls.
Conclusion:
- Aggression is a modeled behavior that is affected by the gender of
the role model
- Because the kids identify with them as a part of an ingroup
- Seen through the behavior of the children and how they resulted in
acting aggressively towards the bobo doll
- Because they observed a role model performing the activity
- This is evidence of social learning.
- The children observed the role models, who were adults and hence
authority figures, which helped the children pay more attention to
them.
- Attention was given by them for a good ten minutes which allowed
the behavior to be reinforced and hence retained by the children.
- When they were taken away from the room with the toys, they had
the motivation to be aggressive towards the bobo doll
- Had the potential to show their aggression towards the bobo doll
when they were faced with the same situation as the role model.
- Social learning was performed by the children learning by imitating
the observed behavior that they saw from the role model.
Evaluation:
● Conducted in a laboratory with a controlled environment, a causal
relationship is formed and the study has high internal validity.
● However, that also means that the ecological validity of the
experiment is fairly low due to the artificial environment.
● The children showed aggression towards a doll, not a living being, so
the real-life application is limited. There are many other factors that
affect aggression in a real-life setting.
● The replicability of this study is also low, not only because of the
violated ethical considerations but also because the aggression
modeled by the adult was not completely standardized, so the
children may have observed slight differences in the aggression
displayed.
● Observations made by teachers and parents in terms of aggression in
the kids were anecdotal (qualitative) and hence may not have been
completely accurate.
● Demand characteristics as the children may have acted aggressively
because they thought it would please the researcher. = social
expectancy bias
● Generalizability
● Reliability
Joy et al
Aim: To find the impacts on aggression levels seen in elementary school

children due to the introduction of television violence in three small towns in
Canada
Procedure: Naturalistic covert observation

● Prospective
○ To establish the preexisting levels of aggression in the children
the researchers observed them a year before exposing them to
television
○ Second evaluation was done two years after the exposure.
● One of the communities was completely new to television
● Whereas the other two communities were only introduced to new
channels
● The researchers saw how the children behaved on the playground
when evaluating their behavior.
● Teacher and peer ratings of aggressive behavior and information
about what television shows the children were watching were also
taken into account
○ Data Triangulation
Findings:
- The children had higher levels of aggression and displayed more
violent behaviors both physical and verbal after they began being
exposed to T.V.
Conclusion:
- Through the use of social learning, the children observed violent
actions on TV
- Began to imitate those actions through their behavior
- Proving that the social cognitive theory plays a role in the explaining
the cause of aggressive behaviors
Evaluation:
● Since this was a naturalistic observation, it has a high ecological
validity as the children were observed in a natural environment
instead of a laboratory environment in a covert manner so that the
children don’t change their behavior.
● However, due to the high ecological validity, it is low in internal validity
as the extraneous variables cannot be controlled, hence making it
difficult to form a causal relationship. This is a correlational study.
● It might be hard to replicate the study due to this as extraneous
variables such as type of interaction in the playground was controlled.
● The study was longitudinal and prospective so it allows the
researchers to see change over time but this means that replication is
more difficult as the study is prone to more extraneous variables.
● Confounding variables: no knowledge if this was only due to
television introduction or other factors
● Construct validity: difficulty of measuring "aggressions"
● Self-reported date by parents and teachers (demand characteristics
where they give answers that they think the researchers want)
● The study was a participant observation, so that may have caused
researcher bias.
● It is also difficult to generalize the data because only elementary
schools in three small communities in Canada were tested, the
sample may not have enough representation of all ethnicities and
cultures.
3. Stereotypes
- FORMATION
Hilliard and Liben
Aim: To determine how social categorization can be accelerated via the

salience of social groups and lead to the development of inter-group
stereotypes in elementary school children
Procedure: Field Experiment with pre-test/post-test design

● Took place at two preschools
● Participants were 57 US children around 3-5 years old.
● The study used a pre-test/post-test design.
● First, each child completed a test to measure their gender
stereotypes
○ Shown pictures of activities or occupations, and for each item
asked if boys, girls, or both boys and girls should perform it.
○ The more responses answering "both", the lower the children's
gender stereotypes.
● Children were randomly allocated to:
○ The high salience condition
■ Teachers made gender salient by, for ex, using
gender-specific language and letting children line up by
sex.
○ Low salience condition
■ Teachers were not instructed to change their behavior.
This served as the control group.
Findings:
- In the pre-test, both groups had a similar number of "both" responses
when looking at images of activities/occupations on the test.
- After the two-weeks of high gender salience, there was a significant
decrease in the number of responses answering "both" = more
gender stereotypes.
Conclusion:
- The study supports SIT because it shows the role of social groups
salience in social categorization and its subsequential effect on
intergroup stereotyping.
- When environments make social-group membership salient, children
will be particularly likely to apply categorization processes to social
groups, thereby increasing stereotypes and prejudices.
Evaluation:
● low internal validity
● hard to measure the level the salience
● ethical issue
● field experiment -> high ecological validity
● Low generalizability due to sampling bias
○ Only preschoolers used
○ Small sample size
○ Western so not all cultures represented
Schaller et al.
Aim: To determine how group membership may lead to stereotyping
Procedure: Interview
● Participants were randomly assigned to be members of a group
● Presented with a series of statements that described members of
their ingroup(the group they had been assigned to) and their outgroup
● The statements described both desirable and undesirable behaviors
Findings:
- When participants were asked about their own group, they recalled
stereotyping statements that favored their own group - in group bias
- Showed negative stereotyping of their out group
Conclusion:
- When participants were asked about their own group, they recalled
stereotyping statements that favored their own group - in group bias
- Showed negative stereotyping of their out group
Evaluation:
● Individuals are not choosing their group, but are arbitrarily being
assigned to it.
○ This is a rather superficial approach to identity, although the
minimal group paradigm is often used in Social Identity Theory
research.
● Because of its artificiality, it is questionable whether this study
predicts how stereotypes are formed in real life.
○ Low ecological validity
- EFFECTS
Steele and Aronson
Aim: To investigate the effect of stereotype threat on test performance of

African Americans
Procedure: Standardized Test

● The sample was 76 male and female, black and white, participants
from Stanford University.
● The participants were given a standardised verbal test.
○ Either told it was a test to diagnose intellectual ability or it was a
test of problem solving skills.
● Participants were randomly assigned to one of these conditions.
○ There was an equal number of participants for each condition.
Findings:
- There was no significant difference between male and female
participants.
- African Americans did poorly on the test when they thought it was a
diagnosis of their intellectual ability.
- African Americans did just as well as white Americans when they
believed it was a test of problem solving skills.
Conclusion:
- Stereotype threats cause performance to deteriorate.
- In the non-threat environment, performance wasn’t affected since the
African Americans did as well as their white counterparts.
- Believing in stereotypes can harm the performance of individuals on
tests.
Evaluation:
● Cultural bias
○ Only American university students were used for the study.
○ Difficult to apply the results to the general population.
● Sample size
○ The sample is small and so, not representative of the
population.
● High ecological validity
○ Standardized tests are things that people generally give,
especially as university students
● High Internal Validity
● Experimental design:
○ Independent samples design was used.
■ The verbal scores of participants’ SATs were collected
before the study.
■ This was done to ensure that all participants were
average in their verbal performance.
■ Independent samples means there were different
participants for each condition of the experiment.
○ Matched pair design would have been a better approach.
■ This means that each condition uses different
participants, but they are matched in terms of important
characteristics (like gender, age, intelligence etc.).
● No stereotype threat may have been experienced:

○ Though there is a difference between the two average scores
(of the conditions), it doesn’t necessarily indicate that
participants experienced stereotype threat.
○ Salience about their racial identity and stress levels weren’t
measured. (only for this variation of study)
■ Low construct validity
Martin and Halverson
Aim: To investigate the role of gender schema on a child's ability to recall

information that was not consistent with their gender schema.
Procedure: Lab Experiment

● 48 children (24 boys, 24 girls) aged 5-6
● Each child's knowledge of traditional sex-roles was assessed
● Then each child was individually shown 16 pictures for ten seconds
○ Asked to identify the sex and age of the actor in the picture who
was either a woman, man, girl, or boy.
○ Half the pictures displayed the actor doing something consistent
with a traditional gender stereotype, and the rest of the pictures
something inconsistent with a traditional gender stereotype.
○ Answers were recorded
○ For each picture, the child was asked to rate how similar the
actor was to him/herself.
● One week later the child was tested for memory for the pictures
○ Asked to remember any of the pictures and were then asked:
■ "Do you remember seeing a picture doing [activity] in the
picture I showed you last week?"
○ Child rated how confident he/she was of having seen that
activity in the remembered pictures.
● Child was asked whether the activity was performed by a woman,
man, girl, or boy and to show how confident they were in their
answer.
Findings:
- Both boys and girls were more likely to misremember the sex of an
actor on inconsistent pictures than on consistent pictures.
- Both boys and girls were more confident in their recollection of the
actor's sex on consistent pictures than on inconsistent pictures.
- 84% of the errors were made on pictures with a sex-inconsistent
activity
Conclusion:
- The participants were more susceptible to remember
classic/stereotypical gender roles
- Less likely to remember those that they have not been taught
- Childhood is a critical phase of development as biases and prejudices
are hard to get rid of at an older age
- This shows how stereotypes can lead to memory distortion
Evaluation:
● Both males and females participated, the study is more generalizable
despite the relatively small sample ∴ there is no gender bias
● Not completely generalizable as only children participated in this
experiment
● The task has low ecological validity as the task is very artificial and
the study is highly controlled.
○ The study may not reflect how children process information
about gender in the real world.
● Highly standardized and can be replicated to determine its level of
reliability.
○ High Internal Validity
4. Culture + influence on behavior/cognition
5. Cultural Dimensions
Berry’s study
Aim: To measure the level of conformity in two types of societies, one being
individualistic and the other being collectivist
Procedure: Etic Laboratory Experiment

● As the collectivist culture, Berry used the Temne of Sierra Leone
○ society that is based on rice farming
● As the individualistic culture, he used the Inuit people of Baffin Island
in Canada
○ who survive by hunting and fishing.
● Each group was made up of people who had never had a western
education and maintained the traditional way of life as well as people
who were "in transition".
● Used Scots as a reference or control group made of both urban and
rural Scots.
● Berry used an etic approach, meaning that he viewed and evaluated
the culture from outside the culture.
● Berry’s experiment was a replication of Asch’s experiment
○ Participants had to identify lines of equal length
■ In some trials, participants were told that members of their
culture had chosen one specific line, however this was
evidently the incorrect answer
Findings:
- The Temne had the highest rate of conformity when told what other
temne people had answered (even if it was incorrect)
- The Inuits had the lowest rate of conformity.
- There was no significant difference within the groups.
Conclusion:
- This proves that cultural dimensions do exist and give rise to different
behaviors.
- When participants were reminded of their cultural identity, the cultural
dimension played a role in whether or not the participant would
conform.
- Because the Temne people have to cooperate in order to grow
a successful yield of crops to feed the community.
- For them, prioritizing the group is crucial, so they learn that
conformity and compliance are an important part of their culture
from an early age.
- Inuits must be able to track, hunt and fish on their own, so children
learn the value of independence from a young age
- Cultural dimensions in the form of individualism and collectivism have
a strong influence on whether an individual will conform to a group
norm or not.
Evaluation:
● The study is a controlled lab experiment, the IV of whether conformity
is induced is manipulated to get a a dependent variable of level of
conformity.
○ High internal validity
● There is also low ecological validity due to the experiment being done
in an artificial and laboratory setting meaning that this may not be
how the subjects react in a natural setting
● When it comes to generalizability and reliability, this study is quite
outdated (1967) and hence with culture being a dynamic subject, it is
likely that the results can change.
● Also, there are only two cultures studied causing cultural bias, and
that too cultures that are highly individualistic or collectivist (most
cultures are not so extreme). This makes the study’s results harder to
generalize to all cultures.
● Construct validity is also quite high as they effectively measured
conformity rates in the two groups.
Kulkofsky’s study
Aim: To see if there is any difference in the rate of flashbulb memories in
collectivistic and individualistic cultures
Procedure: Questionnaire
● 274 'middle class' adults from various different countries were tested
● Participants were given five minutes to recall as many memories as
they could of public events occurring in their lifetime from over a year
ago
● They were then given a memory questionnaire in their native
language based on the events they described
○ for example, "What time of day was it?", "How did you learn
about it", etc.
● Participants were asked to answer questions about the importance of
the memory to them personally
○ how many times they spoke about it
○ how it affected them personally
Findings:
- The researchers found that collectivistic cultures like China
subconsciously place less importance on themselves and their
emotions when forming flashbulb memories
- as compared to individualistic societies such as the USA, who placed
greater emphasis on an individual's personal involvement and
emotional experiences.
- National importance were equally linked to FBM formation across
cultures
Conclusion:
- Collectivist cultures paid less attention to personal importance than
individualistic cultures
- Because they focus more on group efforts rather than personal
experiences.
- Therefore, these flashbulb memories are less likely to be formed for
the collectivist cultures as there would be less recollection of the
triggering event.
Evaluation:
● The study is quite generalizable and reliable as people from many
different countries and hence cultures from around the world were
chosen to be a part of the study.
● The questionnaire was also given in their native language and was
back-translated from English so that differences in dialect were
controlled.
● Construct validity was quite low as memory is difficult to
operationalize
○ Distortion of memory could have occurred resulting in
inaccurate results.
● Risk of ecological fallacy.
○ People are different and don’t necessarily follow the norms of
their culture.
● The study was also more lab based, meaning that there was high
internal validity and a cause and effect relationship could be created
● Also quite qualitative in nature due to the method triangulation
between questionnaires and interviews = improves the reliability.
6. Enculturation
Martin and Halverson
Aim: To investigate the role of gender schema on a child's ability to recall

information that was not consistent with their gender schema
Procedure: Lab Experiment

● 48 children (24 boys, 24 girls) aged 5-6
● Each child's knowledge of traditional sex-roles was assessed
● Then each child was individually shown 16 pictures for ten seconds
○ Asked to identify the sex and age of the actor in the picture who
was either a woman, man, girl, or boy.
○ Half the pictures displayed the actor doing something consistent
with a traditional gender stereotype, and the rest of the pictures
something inconsistent with a traditional gender stereotype.
○ Answers were recorded
○ For each picture, the child was asked to rate how similar the
actor was to him/herself.
● One week later the child was tested for memory for the pictures
○ Asked to remember any of the pictures and were then asked:
■ "Do you remember seeing a person doing [activity] in the
picture I showed you last week?"
○ Child rated how confident he/she was of having seen that
activity in the remembered pictures.
● Child was asked whether the activity was performed by a woman,
man, girl, or boy and to show how confident they were in their
answer.
Findings:
- Both boys and girls were more likely to misremember the sex of an
actor on inconsistent pictures than on consistent pictures.
- Both boys and girls were more confident in their recollection of the
actor's sex on consistent pictures than on inconsistent pictures.
- 84% of the errors were made on pictures with a sex-inconsistent
activity
Conclusion:
- The participants were more susceptible to remember
classic/stereotypical gender roles
- Less likely to remember those that they have not been taught
- Childhood is a critical phase of development as biases and prejudices
are hard to get rid of at an older age
- This proves the idea that children are actively seeking out information
to confirm and develop their gender schema.
Evaluation:
● Both males and females participated, the study is more generalizable
despite the relatively small sample - there is no gender bias
● Not completely generalizable as only children participated in this
experiment
● The task has low ecological validity as the task is very artificial and
the study is highly controlled.
○ The study may not reflect how children process information
about gender in the real world.
● Highly standardized and can be replicated to determine its level of
reliability.
Fagot et al.
Aim: To observe parental reactions to behaviour that wasn't deemed

appropriate for the child's gender, at least according to American culture at
the time.
Procedure: Overt Non-Participant Observational Study

● 24 families (12 with a boy and 12 with a girl)
○ Each family had only one child between 20 and 24 months.
● Both parents lived at home and both parents were between 20 and
30 years old.
○ All the families were white.
● Five families lived in university housing and six in apartments.
● The rest lived in private homes.
● The sample was varied in income; some parents were still students.
● Observers used an observation checklist of 46 child behaviours and
19 reactions by parents.
● There were five 60-minute observations completed for each family
over a five-week period.
● The observer used time sampling
○ making note of the child's behaviour every 60 seconds and then
noting the parents' response.
● Two observers were used to establish inter-coder reliability.
● After the observations were finished, each parent was asked to rate
the 46 behaviours as more appropriate for girls, for boys or neutral.
● Each parent also filled out a questionnaire on the socialization of sex
roles
Findings:
- Boys were more likely to be left alone by their parents than girls.
- Parents gave boys more positive responses when they played with
blocks than they did girls.
- Parents gave girls more negative responses when they manipulated
an object than they did boys.
- Parents gave more positive responses to girls than boys playing with
dolls and more negative responses to boys.
- Parents criticized girls more when they participated in large motor
activities - e.g. running and jumping.
- Parents gave more positive responses to girls than boys when they
asked for help and a more negative response to boys.
- Fathers were more concerned with appropriate sex-typing than
mothers
- Both parents found more behaviours appropriate for girls than for
boys only.
Conclusion:
- Parents reacted significantly more favorably to the child when the
child was engaged in same-sex preferred behavior
- Children were more likely to receive negative responses to
cross-sex-preferred behaviours.
- Parents gave girls more positive responses when they engaged in
adult-oriented, dependent behavior.
- On the questionnaire, parents did not see asking for help as a
sex-preferred behavior
- however, they were more likely to act positively to a girl than a
boy asking for help.
- Suggests that the parents were not fully aware of the
methods they use to socialize their children.
Evaluation:
● The study was naturalistic, done in the natural environment of the
family, rather than in a lab.
○ The study has high ecological validity.
● The use of two observers means that we can verify that the
observations are not influenced by personal biases.
○ Avoids researcher bias
○ There is high inter-rater reliability, meaning that they both
recorded the same data during the observations.
● Suffers from sampling bias
○ Families were all linked to the university, they were all white and
they were all American.
○ Ability to generalize from this sample is limited.
● Families knew that they were being watched
○ Demonstrated demand characteristics
■ In reality, there may be more or fewer behaviours that the
parents would normally criticize when they are not being
observed.
7. Acculturation
Luek and Wilson
Aim: To investigate the variables that may predict acculturative stress in a

sample of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans
Procedure: Semi-structured interviews

● The sample consisted of approximately half of the participants being
first generation Asian Americans and the rest being second
generation.
● The researchers carried out semi-structured interviews for
participants from different Asian countries such as China, Vietnam,
Malaysia, etc.
● The interviewers had cultural and linguistic backgrounds similar to
those of the sample population.
● The interviews measured the participants’ level of acculturative stress
as well as the impact of variables such as language proficiency,
language preference, discrimination, social networks, family cohesion
and the socioeconomic status on acculturative stress.
Findings:
- 70% of the sample had acculturative stress.
- Several factors affected the level of stress
- for example, bilingual language preference contributed to lower
acculturative stress.
- When the individuals were treated negatively due to prejudice,
xenophobia, harassment and threats, they had higher acculturative
stress.
- When families shared similar values and beliefs, they had lower
acculturative stress.
- Those who were satisfied with their economic opportunities in the US
had lower levels of acculturative stress
Conclusion:
- We can see some of the different strategies at play here
- assimilation is when individuals chose to speak only english
(this increased acculturative stress).
- Integration is seen by the bilingual speakers
- Separation by those who chose to stay with family values
- Marginalization is not clearly shown here as the Asian
Americans are still settling into the cultures.
Evaluation:
● Demand characteristics
○ The participants may have shown demand characteristics and
acted differently to be liked by the researcher.
○ They may not have answered truthfully.
● Researcher bias
○ The interview was semi-structured
■ Rsearcher may have asked specific questions to confirm
their beliefs about Asian Americans.
○ Reduces the reliability of the study because questions have
been manipulated to obtain certain answers.
● Representative sample
○ The sample was Asian Americans from a variety of Asian
countries including Filipinos, Vietnamese and Chinese.
○ This increases generalizability as the population was correctly
represented
■ First and Second Generation asian americans were also
considered
Miranda and Matheny
Aim: To investigate which factors in the lives of Latino immigrants to the

United States would decrease the level of acculturative stress
● A random sample of 197 Spanish-speaking American immigrants
from two social services agencies
● Participants completed a questionnaire and tests to assess
○ family cohesion
○ level of acculturation
○ acculturative stress
○ coping strategies for stress
Findings:
- Immigrants with good coping strategies, a proficiency in English, a
good family, and spent a longer time in the US were shown to have
experienced less acculturative stress.
Conclusions:
- There are protective factors that can influence the extent to which
one acculturates and the effect of this on his or her mental health.
- The results of this study support views of researchers such as Berry
(1990
- Contend that acculturative stress is influenced by multiple
factors
Evaluation:
● Sample:
○ Random yet relevant
■ Used social services relevant to the study's aim
● Study was cheap, easy, and time efficient
● Study is both etic (cross-cultural research and some questions might
not have accounted for the participants' culture) and emic (the study
isolates individuals in the US in which an emic questionnaire was
developed)
● Sampling Bias:
○ The study is ethnocentric as it only focuses on Latino families in
the USA
● Questionnaire:
○ there were no follow-up questions
■ no guarantee of response or correct response or correct
interpretation
● Social Desirability:
○ Participants may have given certain answers to please the
researcher and look good
● Implications:
○ It does not account for the pre-immigration status of the
participants so there is nothing to compare with
● Confirmation Bias:
○ The questionnaire might have had leading questions,
influencing how the participants answered
8. Globalization
Norasakkunkit and Uchida (-)
Aim: To investigate the relationship between an individuals attitude towards

collectivism & conformity (which were valued in Japan) to the risk of
hikikomori.
- Hikikomori is a culture-bound syndrome found primarily in Japan
where an individual may lock themselves in their rooms and refuse to
come out for a very long time
Procedure: Correlational Study

● The researchers used a sample of Japanese university students
● Took a standardised test to see whether they were at high risk or low
risk for hikikomori.
● The researchers measured their attitudes about social harmony and
conformity by looking at their perception of their current self, their
ideal self and general Japanese society.
● Also took a test to measure their sense of local identity (high on
social harmony and collectivism) and global identity (high on
individualism and achievement).
Findings:
- Both groups agreed that social harmony and conformity were highly
valued by Japanese society.
- However, when assessing current self and ideal self, the students at
high-risk for hikikomori ranked social harmony values much lower
than the low-risk students.
- High-risk students scored lower than low-risk students on both local
identity and global identity.
Conclusion:
- The local culture may alienate many Japanese youths
- Who may then decide not to conform to the cultural norms and
do not identify with or know how to access the globalized
culture
- so they withdraw from society.
- This is marginalization because they are confused about their identity
as they do not want to conform to either culture (not local, nor global).
Evaluation:
● This was a correlational study that used a survey and hence was
self-reported.
○ There was no cause & effect established
○ Lowering the internal validity.
● Due to the data being self-reported, there are also demand
characteristics of social desirability
○ Participants filled out a survey & may want to present
themselves as more desirable.
● We do not know if the students were actually diagnosed with
hikikomori
○ Results are not that applicable.
● Bidirectional ambiguity
○ as we do not know if the feeling of alienation or isolation lead to
hikikomori or if being a hikikomori leads to that marginalization
● Sampling bias because hikikomori affected adults as well and all
participants were Japanese university students which lowers the
generalisability of the results.
● However, since the test was standardized there was a slightly higher
construct validity
○ was still not as strong because people have different opinions
on the levels of the factors that affect hikikomori.
Nesdale and Todd (+)
Aim: To test the contact hypothesis by using an intervention strategy to

promote contact between international (Malaysian) and Australian students.
Procedure: Field Experiment

● This was a field experient so two groups were made.
○ One group had 70 Australian and Malaysian students residing
together in a university residential hall as a part of a program for
interaction.
■ They took part in activities to prompt intergroup contact.
○ The other group had 71 students from another university and
they did not attempt to integrate.
○ This happened over the course of 7 months.
Findings:
- The findings showed that those who attempted to integrate had a
higher intercultural acceptance and appreciation.
- It was deduced that more engagement and interaction leads to less
acculturative stress for foreign students.
- Acculturative stress is caused when you move to another
country and are finding it hard to fit in with the cultural normas.
Conclusion:
- Povides significant support for contact hypothesis
- It was seen that with more intergroup contact, there was less
acculturative stress for the Malaysian students
- The Australian students seemed to have more acceptance
towards the international students.
- This happened because of globalisation and introduction
to new cultures due to travel.
Evaluation:
● In this case we saw that the independent variable was manipulated
and the groups were randomly assigned, this is characteristic of an
experiment and helped it become more causal.
● It was a longitudinal study and a field experiment
○ Internal validity was low
■ We could not control for variables such as whether they
had previously met or existing relationships.
● Longitudinal studies, though thorough, are open to extraneous
variables
○ making it hard ot standardize as replication could yield different
results.
● The construct validity is low
○ Aquestionnaire was used and this is highly open to
interpretation
○ Dependent variable of acceptance is hard to measure as
everyone has a difference perspective on how acceptive and
tolerant they are being.
■ These are very subjective traits.
Becker et al (-)
Aim: To investigate the effect of prolonged exposure of TV on attitudes to

eating and eating behaviours in Fijian adolescent girls
Procedure: Natural Experiment

● TV was introduced to Fiji in 1995
● Researchers studied the behavior of a sample of girls before the
introduction of TV
● There were two samples of girls agaed 16-18
○ one was tested in 1995 (served as the control group)
○ the other was tested in 1998 (experimental group)
● Both groups had to complete an EAT-26 survey that measured
behaviours associated with eating disorders
○ Interviewed to confirm the results of the survey
○ Their BMI was measured
● The second sample of girls received extra questions about:
○ Body image
○ Dieting
○ What they thought about their parents’ views
Findings:
- There was a significant difference between the two samples.
- The girls in the 1998 sample scored higher on the EAT-26 survey
- They were at higher concern and they reported dieting and
self-purging
- In 1995, none of the girls reported self-purging behavior.
- More girls in 1998 thought:
- They were “too big or fat”
- Reported that TV made them think different about themselves.
- That losing weight would help their job prospects
- That their parents were feeding them too much.
- This was not the case in 1995
Conclusion:
- We can conclude that participants were introduced to TV which made
them globalized
- they got access to other cultures through the media and they
admired TV personalities
- Hence wanting to be more or look more like them.
- In other words, cultural values about dieting/weight were changing
between the girls due to globalization.
Evaluation:
● This was a prospective study
○ Good because the researchers could then clearly see the affect
of the TV on the girls
■ Had a baseline to compare the behavior and observe the
change.
● Was a cross-sectional study (even though it spanned 3 years)
○ Saved more time while researching as they did not have to
continuously test the participants
● Took an etic approach
○ Used a standardized survey, EAT-26
■ Western survey
● May not have considered cultural differences.
○ This is known as an imposed etic bias
■ Reduces the reliability and generalizability of the results.
● Construct validity was low
○ Since none of the participants were diagnosed with eating
disorders
■ hard to tell whether the survey correctly represented the
reason for their eating behavior
● The population of the study was adolescent Fijian girls
○ sample correctly represents the population so the results are
fairly generalizable to the population only
■ (the results are culture specific).
● Naturalistic study = experiment is difficult to replicate exactly and this
further reduces the reliability
○ You cannot check whether the results are valid.
● Low internal validity
○ A causal relationship cannot be formed
● Bidirectional ambiguity
○ We don’t know if the TV is affecting the development of eating
disorders or whether they are encouraging the use of TV.
● Method triangulation
○ Used experimentation, surveys and interviews
■ Raised the reliability of of the study because they
received similar data from all methods that prove the data
to be valid.
● Data was self-reported
○ May have caused the expectancy effect
■ They knew what they were expected to answer and did
that.
○ Sensitive topic
■ some girls may not have answered honestly, once again
reducing the reliability.
Novonty and Polovsky (+)
Aim: To investigate the attitudes towards Muslims in the Czech Republic

and Slovakia due to intergroup contact
Procedure: Correlational Study

● The researchers collected undergraduate students from several
Czech and Slovak cities.
● Used a stratified random sample that divided the students based on
their specialties
● Had to fill surveys that used a Likert scale to check the students
○ Knowledge
○ Views
○ Geographic knowledge
○ Personal characteristics
■ on Muslims and Islam
Findings:
- The results showed a correlation between the amount of knowledge
and their perception of Muslims;
- the more they knew, the less the participants felt threatened
- Hence had more positive attitudes towards the Muslims.
Conclusion:
- The contact hypothesis is valid
- More intergroup contact and hence globalization (due to
interaction between the cultures) can effectively reduce
prejudice between majority (Slovakian) and minority (Muslim)
group members.
Evaluation:
● This was a correlational study
○ Level of contact was related to the level of tolerance
■ Internal validity was low
● Causal relationship could not be formed and no
independent variables were manipulated.
○ Demand characteristics like social desirability bias
■ The participants want to be accepted and desired so they
answer accordingly.
● Memory distortion
● Sample large but slightly biased
● Could only be generalized to the undergraduate students of the cities
● Construct validity was not that high
○ Though a standardized Likert scale was used, the constructs
are still highly qualitative and subjective from person to person
■ especially since a survey was used and the questions
could be interpreted differently.
● Clever to use a stratified sample to control for different areas of the
study
○ Some students who study political subjects may be more
open-minded.
○ Allowed it to be more generalizable to the university population.
● Was a cross-sectional study
○ Since globalization is an ongoing process you need a
longitudinal study to truly understand the process
1. Multi-Store Model of Memory
Glanzer and Cunitz
Aim: To investigate the serial position effect to show there are two
processes involved in retrieving information.
- Basically, short term memory and long term memory are two separate
stores in a free recall experiment.
Procedure: Laboratory experiment

● 240 army enlisted participants
● Researchers presenten them with a list of 15 words
○ Participants knew they had to memorize them
● Immediate free recall condition (IFR)
○ Half of the participants were instructed to recall the list straight
after presentation
● Delay free recall condition (DFR)
○ The other half recalled them after a delay of 30 seconds
■ To prevent further rehearsal of the list of words during the
delay, participants had to count backwards in threes from
a three-digit number.
Findings:
- From the first condition (IFR), participants were better at
remembering items at
- the start of the list (primacy effect)
- the end of the list (recency effect).
- In the second condition (DFR), participants were able to remember
items at
- the start of the list (primacy effect)
- but not the end
Conclusion:
- First items on the list tend to get rehearsed more
- They move to LTM which is unaffected by delay
- The last words on the list aren’t rehearsed as much
- Which is why they disappeared from the STM in the second
condition.
- This shows that STM and LTM have separate mechanisms behind
them.
- We saw that the behavior of memory recall was affected by the delay
time.
Evaluation:
● Low ecological validity & demand characteristics
○ The experiment was done in a lab which is an artificial
environment.
○ May have caused the participants to show demand
characteristics
● Sample bias
○ Only males were used for the experiment.
■ The results may not be the same for females.
○ Furthermore, the sample consisted of men from the army.
■ Their career may have affected their ability to memorise.
● Good that they controlled for rehearsal to make sure that the delay
was successfully adhered to
Milner and Scoville: HM’s Case Study
Background: Scoville performed experimental surgery on H.M.’s brain to

stop the severe epileptic seizures he had been suffering since a fall off his
bicycle many years previously. Specifically, he removed tissue from HM's
medial temporal lobes (part of his hippocampus as well). The seizures
reduced drastically but H.M. suffered from retrograde and anterograde
amnesia for the rest of his life.
Aim: To investigate the extent and nature of H.M.'s memory deficits and
how they relate to his brain damage. In particular, to investigate the
structure of memory and its relation to the function of brain structures like
the hippocampus.
Procedure: Longitudinal Case Study with Method Triangulation

● Psychometric testing
○ IQ test and his results were above average
● Directly observed HM’s behavior
● Interviews with both HM and family members
● Cognitive testing
○ Memory recall tests as well as learning tasks
● MRI later done to determine the extent of the damage to HM’s brain
Findings:
- HM could not acquire new episodic knowledge (memories of events)
not could he acquire new semantic knowledge (general knowledge of
world)
- HM had a capacity for working memory and had well maintained
procedural memories.
Conclusion:
- These results suggest that the brains structures that were removed
were responsible for transfer of information from STM to LTM.
- However the hippocampus is not relspinsible for storing STM as HM
could retain information for a while if rehearsed.
- Therefore, The study of HM supports the model because it shows
that the long term and short term memories are two distinct stores.
- After having his hippocampus accidently removed due to
surgery for epilepsy, his short term memory remained intact.
- However after the accident, HM’s long term memory had been
damaged as he was unable to form new memories.
- He couldn’t transfer new information into his long term
memory.
Evaluation:
● Longitudinal Case Study= change could be observed over time
○ open to extraneous variables
■ making it hard to standardize and replicate
● However, there are other case studies like this one
(such as Clive Wearing) that can confirm the results
○ Interviewing, Observation, brain imaging, questionnaires
■ Increases the credibility of the study as the results are
more valid due to several methods yielding similar results
to form a conclusion
● Some of the study was retrospective in nature
○ Not much data on HMs cognitive abilities before accident
● High Ecological validity as no variables were manipulated and HM
was observed in his natural environment
○ This is also means that there was low internal validity.
2. Working Memory Model
Landry and Bartling
Aim: To investigate if articulatory suppression would influence recall of a

written list of phonologically dissimilar letters in a serial recall.
- Articulatory suppression is the process of inhibiting memory
performance by speaking while being presented with an item to
remember.
Procedure: Laboratory Experiment

● 34 undergraduate psychology students
● Divided into an experimental and control group
○ In the experimental group, participants first saw a list of letters
that they had to recall while performing an articulatory
suppression task
■ saying the numbers '1' and '2' at a rate of two numbers
per second.
○ The control group saw the list of letters but did not carry out the
articulatory suppression task.
■ The experimenter showed control participants a printed
list for five seconds
■ Instructed them to wait for another five seconds
■ Then told them to write the correct order of the letters on
the answer sheet as accurately as possible.
● There were ten lists each consisting of a series of 7 letters randomly
constructed from the letters F, K, L, M, R, X and Q,
○ chosen because they didn't sound similar
● Participants got to practice one series before the experiment to get
familiar with the procedures of the experiment.
● This was repeated ten times.
● Each trial was scored as correct if the letters were in the correct
position
○ Average percent correct recall for both groups was calculated
Findings:
- Mean percent of accurate recall in the control group was significantly
more compared to the mean percent of accurate recall in the
experimental group.
Conclusion:
- Articulatory suppression prevents rehearsal in the phonological loop
due to the overload of information.
- Multitasking leads to impaired working memory
- Especially when both tasks utilize the same working memory
system
- (in this case, the phonological loop)
- Study provided support for the working memory model and how we
can multitask in some situations and not in others
- Because we have multiple stores of working memory
Evaluation:
● Well-controlled lab experiment
○ demonstrating a clear causal relationship between the
independent variable (single vs. multi-tasking) and the
dependent variable (recall of letters)
○ so the study is replicable and similar results can be collected to
establish reliability.
● Strong internal validity.
● Extraneous variables controlled
○ Considered the fact that some letters may sound phonetically
similar and affect memory recall
■ controlled for that by using letters that sounded different
● Low ecological validity
○ Involved memorizing random strings of letters
■ a task not normally performed in daily life
● Sampling bias as only psychology students were chosen
○ generalizability is hampered
● Psychology students may have predicted what the aim of the study
was
○ behaved a certain way to achieve certain results causing
demand characteristics
■ social desirability effect.
● Construct validity was high
○ Researchers effectively measured the recall of words and the
impact that an articulatory suppression task had on the ability
■ Was successfully related to multi-tasking as suggested by
the working memory model.
● Cultural bias
○ The experiment was done in the USA.
○ The findings may not be applicable to other cultures
■ i.e. may be an emic finding.
Warrington & Shallice (1970): KF’s Case Study
Aim: To investigate the impact of brain damage on short-term memory.
Procedure: Case Study

● A series of tests were done on Patient KF who had suffered from
brain damage due to a motorcycle accident.
● He was presented with information orally and then visually which had
had to recall.
Findings:
- Patient KF was able to remember visual information much better than
verbal.
- He could still transfer information from short-term storage to
long-term.
Conclusion:
- This supports the WMM because it shows there are different stores
for different kind of information.
- Patient KF could recognise visual and auditory information (e.g.
telephone ringing) but not verbal.
- Thus, there must be different components for information.
- Though KF’s phonological loop was affected, his visuospatial cortex
was functioning.
Evaluation:
● Case study
○ Difficult to generalise the findings.
○ Only one patient was used and he may have been exhibiting
emic behaviour.
● Longitudinal study
○ Allowing the researchers to be more precise in their
investigation and findings.
○ Allowed the researchers to find patterns over time in patient’s
memory.
○ Richer, more reliable data
● Researcher bias
○ The researchers developed a relationship with Patient KF due
to the study being longitudinal.
■ May have influenced the results
● Gotten too involved because they had become
emotionally attached.
● Ethical considerations
○ Since Patient KF suffered from brain damage, it is difficult to
know how well-informed he was about this study.
○ Patient KF may not have completely understood what he was
getting into.
○ This is important because we can’t be sure if gave consent to
the experiment or not.
● Method Trianglulation
○ The tasks the patient had to perform for ranging from
experiments to observations or interviews
3. Schema Theory
Brewer and Treyens (1981)
Aim: To investigate whether schemas affected the encoding and retrieval of

episodic memory
… by looking at whether memory for objects in an office is influenced by
existing schemas about what to expect in an office.

● University psychology students
● Arrived individually to the laboratory
● Asked to wait in an office containing typical office objects
○ (e.g. desk, typewriter, coffee-pot, calendar).
● There were also objects that did not conform to the office schema
○ (a skull, a piece of bark, a pair of pliers).
● After waiting for a set period of time, each participant was taken out
of the office and asked to write down everything they could remember
from the room.
Findings:
- Most participants recalled the schematic objects.
- Some participants reported things that would be expected in a typical
office but were not present in this one.
- Some participants also remembered certain objects incongruent with
their schemas, like a skull, which was a very unusual object.
Conclusion:
- Schemas affect the reconstruction of memory
- shown by how the participants recalled objects that were
typically in an office even if they weren’t present.
- We have a tendency to recall objects that don’t fit in our schemas
- because they stand out from what we expect to see.
Evaluation:
● There is a historical bias
○ the study was done in 1981
○ schemas might have changed since then
■ Low temporal validity
○ Experiment was done in an artificial environment
■ not regularly asked to perform such a task of
remembering items in a room.
● High internal validity.
● The experiment is reliable
● Easily replicated due to standardized instructions and controlled
variables.
● There is no way to verify the schema of the participants prior to the
experiment
○ But the researchers did a pilot study by using a questionnaire
with students to determine schema consistent objects.
● Biased sample
○ reduces generalizability
○ only university students were used
○ not representative of the population.
○ shown demand characteristics
■ knew what to expect from a psychology experiment
Anderson and Pitchert
Aim: To investigate the inuence of schema on the encoding and retrieval of

information from long-term memory.
… wanted to see if people would remember more details about a story
based on their assigned perspective - either a robber or a house buyer.

● Introductory psychology students who were participating in order to
fulfil a course requirement.
● Participants were assigned either a homebuyer or a burglar
perspective.
○ Asked to read a story as a prospective burglar or a prospective
home buyer and the passage contained a total of 73 ideas,
some of them being potentially interesting to a burglar and
some to a home buyer.
● 12 minutes to take an 84 item vocabulary test.
○ This was both a distractor task and control for their language
proficiency.
● Then asked to write down as much of the exact story as they could
○ Emphasized that they needed to write down every bit of the
story that they could remember
● When they finished writing, they were given five minutes to do a
spatial puzzle test.
● Asked to recall the story a second time
○ Half were told to do some from the same perspective that they
used in the first recall
○ half were told to use the other perspective
Findings:
- Burglar information was better recalled than homebuyer information.
- Students do not have a well-developed homebuyer schema.
- Likely that the schema influenced encoding
- The group that had the burglar perspective recalled more burglar
information.
- The group that had the homebuyer perspective recalled more
homebuyer information.
- Likely that the schema influenced retrieval.
- Participants who changed their perspective recalled an additional
7.1% of the information relevant to their new perspective.
- The group that did not change perspective recalled 2.9% less
information relevant to their perspective.
Conclusion:
- Schema processing has an effect on encoding as well as retrieval of
information
- The new schema could only have influenced recall at the
retrieval stage.
- People encoded info which was irrelevant to their prevailing schema
- Those who had the buyer schema at encoding were able to
recall burglar information when the schema changed and vice
versa
- The study supports the idea that schemas influence the process of
encoding and retrieval of information from memory.
Evaluation:
● Highly controlled and rather artificial
○ High internal validity and low ecological validity
● Participants understood the hypothesis of the study and engaged in
expectancy effect
○ When asked to redo the task from the other perspective, they
did not write down details from the first recall of the story
because they did not think that they were relevant.
■ We do not know if they were forgotten or simply excluded.
● Order effects could also play a role.
○ A greater period of time between the two recall conditions may
have led to different findings.
● Fatigue effects may have played a role in the amount of detail
recalled.
● It is assumed that the homebuyer details were recalled less
frequently because students do not have the schema for home
buying as they do for burglaries.
○ It could be, however, that the story was written in such a way
that the burglary ideas were more engaging than the
homebuyer details
■ Reason for the higher recall rates.
Bartlett et al. 1932
Aim: To investigate memory reconstruction and if cultural schemas

influence recall

● British participants were allocated into two groups and told a Native
American legend
○ Unknown concepts and names reflecting other conventions and
beliefs
● Tested their memory of the story using serial reproduction and
repeated reproduction
○ Serial reproduction
■ First participant recalls original story
■ Second participant has to reproduce the first
● Participants had to tell the story to another person
○ Repeated reproduction
○ Asked to recall it six or seven times over various retention
intervals
Findings:
- No significant difference in the results between the first and second
group.
- Researchers found that the story became shorter over time because
the participants omitted information which they felt wasn’t important.
- Participants changed unfamiliar parts of the story to make them more
in line with their schemas.
- Participants tended to change the order of the events of the story to
make it more coherent.
- Added detail and emotions to better fit their own cultural frameworks.
Conclusion:
- People weren’t good at remembering a story from another culture.
- Tended to reconstruct the story to fit their own cultural schemas.
- Suggested we tend to do this because schemas help us make sense
of the world.
- If something doesn’t fit our cognitive schemas, we lose that
sense of understanding.
- Remembering is an active process.
- Our memories aren’t exact copies of experiences.
- Rather, they are reconstructions and are susceptible to error.
- So, Memory is always subject to reconstruction based on pre-existing
schemas
- Participants relied on schematic knowledge, acquired within their
culture to understand and later recall a story from a different culture
- Explains the understanding of schemas when people remember
stories, they:
- Typically omit details
- Introduce rationalisations and distortions
- Reconstruct the story to make more sense in terms of:
- Their knowledge
- The culture in which they were brought up in
- Experiences
- in the form of schemas
Evaluation:
● Cultural bias
○ The sample consisted of only British participants.
○ Behaviour of memory reconstruction may not be an etic
behaviour.
● There is a historical bias
○ the study was done in 1932
○ schemas might have changed since then
■ Low temporal validity
● Ecological validity
○ The research was an experiment in an artificial setting
● High Ecological validity
○ However, Bartlett’s memory reconstruction theory is applicable
to other real-life situations
○ In addition, not all variables were controlled.
● Design - Low Internal Validity due to methodological errors
○ The method was not rigorously controlled.
○ No standardised instruction or time after which the participants
had to recall the story.
■ Affects the reliability of the results
● Extraneous variables may have affected the
reconstruction of memory.
● Participants weren’t told to reproduce the story as accurately as
possible.
● No control group to ensure that memory distortion doesn’t happen to
members of the same cultural group.
● Cause-effect relationship not established
○ The manipulated variable was the type of recall
○ But there was no control so the independent variable of recall
was not correctly manipulated to get the dependent variable of
whether recall is affected by cultural schemas
● Easily replicated to establish reliability
4. Emotion and Cognition: Flashbulb Memories
Brown and Kulik (supports)
Aim: To investigate whether surprising and personally significant events

can cause flashbulb memories
● 80 male participants (age 20-60)
○ 40 were Caucasian
○ 40 were African American
● Asked to answer questionnaires about:
○ how vividly they recalled
○ how they felt
○ where they were
■ when they found out about important public events
● Assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and John F.
Kennedy.
● Also asked to remember if they had any memories of personal events
○ such as the birth or death of a family member.
Findings:
- People had very vivid memories, FBM, about the circumstances of
receiving the news.
- Most participants had very detailed memories of the death of a loved
one.
- There was a difference in their memories of the assassination of
public officials
- based on the personal relevance of the event to the participant.
- There was a lower rate of FBM in white people about
assassinations of Martin Luther King than black people
- vice versa for John F. Kennedy
Conclusion:
- Personal importance of an event is very important to create a FBM.
- Surprise and emotional arousal led to the formation of a FBM.
- Supports importance-driven model
Evaluation:
● Cultural and gender bias
○ Only American males were used
■ Reduces the generalizability as the sample is not
representative of the entire population
■ there may be cultural differences in the ways that emotion
affects flashbulb memories
● based on the cultural dimensions that a culture
follows.
● Wasn’t a cross-cultural study
● Behavior shown by the participants may have been emic.
● Lack of empirical evidence
○ Participants' accounts cannot be confirmed.
● Construct validity is low
○ There is no way to test the level of surprise
■ it is assumed that surprise what there
■ but we cannot measue it.
○ Memory of the individual and could not be verified.
○ Demand characteristics like social desirability bias
■ Participants want to be accepted and desired so they
answer accordingly by adding executive detail to be more
liked by the researcher.
■ They also need to seem like they remember such
important historical effects so they might lie.
● High in reliability
● Standardised instructions and questionnaires were used.
● Therefore, the experiment is easily replicable.
Neisser and Harsch (against)
Aim: To investigate whether flashbulb memories were susceptible to

distortion
… by looking at the extent to which memory for a shocking event (the 1986
Challenger disaster) would be accurate after a period of time.

● 106 students in an introductory psychology class of a university
● Given a questionnaire
○ Asked to describe how they heard news of the Challenger
disaster less than 24 hours after the event.
● Questionnaire included seven questions related to
○ where they were,
○ what they were doing, etc.
○ what emotional feelings they experienced at the time of the
disaster.
● 44 of the original students answered the questionnaire two and a half
years later
○ Asked to rate their confidence on a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of
the memory accuracy.
○ Asked if they had filled out a questionnaire on the subject
before.
● After the last questionnaires, researchers performed a
semi-structured interview
○ To test if participants could remember what they had written
previously.
Findings:
- A lot of the participants had distorted memories
- their second questionnaire didn’t match the first one
- for example, their memory of how they learned of the
event changed over.
- However, the participants claimed that they were very confident that
their memories were correct.
Conclusion:
- Results of the study challenge the theory of flashbulb memory and
the reliability of memory
- Participants were highly confident they remembered the event
correctly
- They could not explain the difference between their first and
second accounts.
- Emotional intensity was associated with higher confidence about a
memory but not the accuracy.
- Suggested that memories are vivid because the event is rehearsed
and reconsidered many times.
- Post-event information may have affected the reconstruction of
memory
- through the misinformation effect
- causing false memories to be created.
- Flashbulb memories are not accurate
- they are perceived to be accurate due to high levels of
confidence.
Evaluation:
● Case study, it was longitudinal and prospective
○ Study spanned over a long time
○ Researchers could conduct their research in far more detail.
○ replicating this is difficult, it is low in reliability as it is time
consuming
○ Questionnaires and interviews used
○ Increases the credibility of the study as the results are more
valid
● Low Internal Validity but High Ecological Validity
○ Naturalistic study
■ Researchers didn’t manipulate variables
■ Participants’ behaviour wasn’t controlled in any way.
● Uncontrolled/Extraneous variables may have affected the results
○ no control over how much post-event information the
participants were exposed to
○ How much media they were exposed to about the event
● Sampling bias
○ only university students were used
■ findings cannot be generalised to the entire population
○ only psychology students were used
■ demand characteristics
● psychology students may understand the aim of the
study
● social desirability effect to please the researchers
○ Sample is not representative of all cultures
■ Proved by Kulkofsky et al. that flashbulb memory
formation changes from culture to culture based on
cultural dimensions
● Confidence levels were higher than they should have been
○ due to demand characteristics (social desirability effect)
■ participants may have claimed to remember the event
with confidence for fear of being judged or unliked
● because the event was an important one for the
country
● There is transferability of results to other situations as there are
several such studies
5. Reconstructive Memory
6. Reliability of Cognitive Processing
Lauftus and Palmer (-)
Aim: To investigate whether memory recall was influenced by leading

questions
… specifically in the estimation of speed of cars in an accident
- To ultimately test their hypothesis that the language used in
eyewitness testimony can alter memory.

● 45 American university students, similar age, similar backgrounds
● Participants watched a clip of a car crash
● Participants were split into 5
○ 9 participants in each group.
● Participants then answered a series of questions about the car crash
○ Some were filler questions
● One question was the critical question.
○ "About how fast were the cars going when they _____ into each
other?"
● The ____ could have been
○ Smashed
○ Hit
○ Collided
○ Bumped
○ Contacted
■ These were the words that made this a leading question
● Participants only experienced one of the verbs in the question.
Findings:
- The critical question where the words had a more intense connotation
had a higher estimate of speed.
- Smashed was the highest speed and contact was the lowest.
- This is interesting because the participants all watched the same film.
Conclusion:
- There were two interpretations of the findings.
- Response bias
- Using a verb with higher intensity such as “smashed”
biases the response to a higher estimate.
- Memory change
- The question may have caused the participant’s memory
representation to change.
- Ex. verb of higher intensity such as “smashed” may
have caused the subject to remember the memory
as being more severe than it really was.
- To choose between these conclusions, a follow-up study was done
- One week later participants were asked the critical question:
- “whether there had been any broken glass.”
- The more intense the verb, the more likely it was that the
participant answered “yes” to the broken glass question
- Concluded that there was actually a change in memory.
- Suggested that memory was influenced by their perception of
the event AND post-event information.
- Post-event information was integrated into the memory
- Impossible to tell where the information had come
from
- whether it was part of perception of post-event
info.
- Relates to Bartlett’s theory of reconstructive memory i.e. people
change the details of an event when they recall it.
Evaluation:
● Sample bias (sample is small too - reduces generalizability)
○ Only students were used
■ Not representative of the entire population
■ Argued that they don’t have enough experience behind
the wheel
● which may have affected their responses.
○ Done in an artificial environment where variables could be
controlled.
■ Ex. films shown had been created for the purpose of this
experiment.
● May have affected the ability of the participants to
recall because no emotion was connected to the
task.
● Clearly defined variables
○ Independent variable
■ intensity of critical word
○ Dependent variable
■ estimated speed
● Cause-effect relationship could be established
● Ethical concerns (undue stress and harm)
○ May have caused stress in the participants.
○ May have had traumatic incidents with car accidents
■ Experiment could have caused them to recall those.
Yuille and Cutshall (+)
Aim: To investigate whether leading questions affected the memory recall of

eyewitnesses of a real crime scene

● Used witnesses who had seen a shooting in Vancouver Canada
● 21 witnesses interviewed by police immediately after the event.
○ 13 of those agreed to take part in a research interview 4-5
months later
● In both sets of interviews, the eye witnesses were asked to give their
account and then follow up questions were asked.
● There were two leading questions. Half were asked if there was a
yellow panel on the getaway car. The other half, whether there was a
broken headlight on the getaway car.
● The witnesses were then asked to rate their degree of stress of a
scale of 1-7.
● Also asked if they had any emotional problems since the event.
Findings:
- The majority of the eyewitnesses answered the leading questions
correctly.
- The misleading information had little effect on the witnesses.
- 10 out of 13 of them said there was no broken headlight or
yellow quarter panel, or that they hadn’t noticed those particular
details.
- The eyewitnesses were quite reliable and accurate in their answers.
Conclusion:
- The research contradicts Loftus and Palmer’s findings.
- The eyewitnesses weren’t influenced by the leading questions.
- BUT… Eyewitnesses associated a lot of emotion with this event
which may have helped with the accuracy of the memory.
Evaluation:
○ Field study therefore the setting wasn’t artificial.
○ Real-life situation so better captured people’s behaviour.
● Low reliability
○ No standardised instructions.
○ Can’t be replicated easily
● Sample is small and since its a case study it only represents the
canadian population
○ Isn’t generalisable to all cultures
● Was a purposive sample.
○ Only eyewitnesses were used
○ Results will be relevant towards the study and there won’t be
false data.
● There was archival evidence to confirm the participants’ accounts.
● Uncontrolled variables
○ Extraneous variables which couldn’t be manipulated or kept
track of by the researchers.
■ Don’t know how much research participants did prior to
answering the questions
● Could be an example of Flashbulb memory
○ Eyewitnesses associated a lot of emotion with this event
■ which may have helped with the accuracy of the memory.
○ It can’t be compared to Loftus and Palmer’s study
■ which didn’t at all look at the impact of emotion.
● Researcher bias
○ While converting the qualitative data to quantitative, there may
have been researcher bias where the data was manipulated to
disprove the theory
7. Thinking and Decision Making
Stroop Effect
Aim: To investigate the level of interference in the reaction time of a task.

● Literate participants were given a list of colour words
● Were allocated to one of two conditions.
○ In the first condition, participants had to name square patches
of colour.
○ The second condition had to name the colour of the words
written in ink which didn’t match the word
■ e.g. yellow written in green
FIndings:
- Participants had no difficulty in the first condition.
- The second condition proved harder and the participants found it hard
not to read the word and say the color instead
Conclusion:
- First task was simple and straightforward
- Participants used System 1 thinking
- However in the second condition, since word reading is a more
automatic process than colour naming, the participants tried to use
System 1
- this did not work out as they could not perform the task correctly
- Colour naming takes more effort to do and it is easy to give in to
heuristics rather than use System 2
- Once the participants began to emply System 2, they could do the
task
- Took a longer time since System 2 is more conscious and takes
more effort than System 1
Evaluation:
○ The experiment was done in an artificial environment
○ Variables were highly manipulated
● Demand Characteristics due to artificial environment
○ Researchers may not have captured the “true” behavior of
participants as this was not their natural environment
● Difficult to generalise findings and apply to real-life situations
○ Due to arbitrary task not done in daily life
● Internal Validity is high
○ Increases reliability
■ Standard instructions and controlled variables make it
easily replicable
Wastson Selection Task
Aim: To investigate how logical reasoning affects decision-making.

● Participants were shown cards. They had to answer the following
question:
○ Which card(s) must be turned over to test the idea that if a card
shows an even number on one face, then its opposite face is
red?
● For example:
○ There were 4 cards:
■ Two of them showed numbers
● One even and one odd
■ The other two were faced down
● Either brown or red
○ Participants did not know what was on the other side of the
cards.
Findings:
- Most participants chose card with an even number, and a red card.
- The correct answer was the even number card and the brown
card.
Conclusion:
- Participants use matching bias to solve problems.
- This means we are influenced by the wording of the question.
- Most people used System 1 to answer the question.
- In later trials, it was found that when the task wasn’t abstract, most
- participants could choose the right cards to turn over.
Evaluation:
● Low ecological validity and High Internatl Validity
○ Not an everyday activity, arbitrary/abstract task
○ Not in natural setting it was artifical
○ The study was an experiment done in a lab
○ Variables were highly manipulated.
● Reliable
○ Standardised instructions
■ Easy to replicate.
● Further studies show similar results
○ Studies such as Goel et al (2000) had similar results
■ Also found that different parts of the brain were activated
when using S1 and S2.
● Biological support
*Goel et al.
Aim: To provide biological basis of how different types of memory

processing take place in different parts of the brain

● Participants were asked to carry out a logic task similar to Wason
(1968).
○ In some cases, the task was abstract in nature
■ Participants were shown cards. They had to answer the
following question:
● Which card(s) must be turned over to test the idea
that if a card shows an even number on one face,
then its opposite face is red?
○ In contrast, some of the tasks were "concrete" in nature
■ Drinking beer and under 18
● Participants had to decide on their choices while in an fMRI machine
Findings:
- When the task was abstract,
- he parietal lobe was active
- When the task was concrete
- the left hemisphere temporal lobe was active
Conlusion:
- The parietal lobe is often associated with spatial processing.
- When the task is concrete,
- we have more experience and knowledge
- May be a reson for this being a simpler taks
- even though the tasks are principally the same
- This seems to indicate that the brain processes these two types of
information differently
- supports the dual processing model
Evaluation:
● Biological support
○ Independent variable of abstract and concrete tasks as control
affected dependent variable of brain activity
● Lack of ecological validity
○ FMRI is high unnatural and artificial
■ may cause claustrophobia
● impact results as people could not thing
● Standardized instructions and controls make it easily replicable and
reliable
8. Bias in Thinking and Decison Making
Strack & Mussweiler: Anchoring Bias
Aim: To test the influence of anchoring bias on decision-making
Procedure:
● German undergraduate students were allocated to two conditions.
● They had to answer a questionnaire.
○ Each question had two components.
■ The first asked for a comparative judgement
● this question acted as the anchor
○ "Did Mahatma Gandhi die before or after the
age of 9?"
■ Low anchor and is implausible.
○ "Did Mahatma Gandhi die before or after the
age of 140?"
■ High anchor and is also implausible.
■ The second asked for an absolute estimate.
● "How old was Mahatma Gandhi when he died?".
Findings:
- High anchors led to higher absolute judgements compared to low
anchors.
- Anchoring effect took place for both anchors and that low implausible
anchors appear to have more influence than high implausible
anchors.
- This anchor influenced the final value offered
Conclusion:
- Participants were affected by the most recent information presented
to them.
- The anchors given to them affected their estimate.
Evaluation:
● Sample bias
○ Only undergraduate students were used
■ aren’t representative of the whole population with different
ages
● Cultural bias
○ Only German students were used for the study.
■ Behaviour they displayed may have been an emic
behaviour.
● Extraneous variables
○ Some undergraduates may have had prior knowledge which
influenced the results.
■ No variable controlled where only students who didn’t
know anything about the information of the questions
were chosen for the study.
○ This is a methodological error that reduces the internal validity
as replication becomes difficult
○ Since it was an experiment, the study was done in an artificial
environment.
○ The task given to the participants was also unrealistic
■ We don’t often encounter people asking us to predict the
age that someone passed away
Tversky & Kahneman (1974): Anchoring Bias
Aim: To test the influence of the anchoring bias on decision-making

● A sample of highschoolers
● Participants were asked to compute within 5 seconds the product of
the numbers one through eight
○ Either in ascending order or descending order
■ The product is still the same
● They didn't have time to finish the calculation
○ They had to make an intuitive numerical calculation based on
the first few calculations they made
Findings:
- The median estimate of the ascending group (512) was less than the
median estimate of the descending group (2250)
Conclusion:
- The first number seen by the participants seems to have biased the
final estimate.
- The first number served as the anchor
- Students used System 1 thinking and applied a cognitive bias where
the anchor affected their estimate
- Since they had no time to calculate in 5 seconds, they had to make
an estimation based on the first few multiplications.
- When those numbers where smaller, the estimate was smaller.
Evaluation:
● This is a laboratory experiment
○ There are standardized instructions
○ The study is fairly simple to replicate
■ Allows establishment of reliability of resutls
○ BUT… There was no control for students that were
considerably better at math that might have impacted the
results of the study
● Low Ecological Validity
○ The task is still one that is artificial as it is not something done
on a daily basis
● Independent Samples Design
○ Reduces demand characteristics
■ Participants are less likely to guess the hypothesis of the
experiment
○ But participant variability may have playedarole in the results.
● Lab experiment
○ Conducting lab experiment increases the internal validity of the
experiment.
● Sample Bias
○ Only highschool students were used, this doesnt not represent
the entire population
Kahneman et al. (1993): Peak-End Rule
Aim: To investigate how peak-end rule affected the recollection of an

experience.
Procedure:
● Male university students.
● Subjected to two versions of an unpleasant experiment.
○ In the first trial, participants had to submerge their hand into
14℃ water for 60 seconds.
○ In the second trial, participants had to submerge their hand into
14℃ water for 60 seconds, and an additional 30 seconds in
15℃ water.
● Participants were asked which trial they would want to repeat
Findings:
- Majority of the participants were more willing to repeat the second
trial
- even though it meant submerging their hand in the water for a
longer time.
Conclusion:
- The researchers concluded that subjects chose the longer trial
because it ended on a positive note.
- The participants didn’t make an evaluation of the experience based
on an overall assessment.
- instead they chose the peak of the experience which was also
at the end
Evaluation:
● Low Ecological Validity
○ The task was artificial and not something done in daily life
■ Hard to generalize results to everyday behavior
○ There were standardized instructions, the variables were
correctly manipulated and confounding variables were not
significantly present
● Sampling Bias
○ Only male university students were used
■ Results cannot be generalized to females nor to all age
groups
● BUT… this was a repeated measures design
○ participants may have felt familiar with the cold water from
condition 1
○ would not have been fazed by condition 2
■ Duration may have felt shorter
● Results would then not based on peak-end rule
9. Localization of Function
Milner and Scoville: HM’s Case Study
Background: Scoville performed experimental surgery on H.M.’s brain to

stop the severe epileptic seizures he had been suffering since a fall off his
bicycle many years previously. Specifically, he removed tissue from HM's
medial temporal lobes (part of his hippocampus as well). The seizures
reduced drastically but H.M. suffered from retrograde and anterograde
amnesia for the rest of his life.
Aim: To investigate the extent and nature of H.M.'s memory deficits and
how they relate to his brain damage. In particular, to investigate the
structure of memory and its relation to the function of brain structures like
the hippocampus.
Procedure: Longitudinal Case Study with Method Triangulation

● Psychometric testing
○ IQ test and his results were above average
● Directly observed HM’s behavior
● Interviews with both HM and family members
● Cognitive testing
○ Memory recall tests as well as learning tasks
● MRI later done to determine the extent of the damage to HM’s brain
Findings:
- HM could not acquire new episodic knowledge (memories of events)
not could he acquire new semantic knowledge (general knowledge of
world)
- HM had a capacity for working memory and had well maintained
procedural memories.
Conclusion:
- These results suggest that the brains structures that were removed
from the temporal lobe were responsible for transfer of information
from STM to LTM; a localized function of those structures.
- However the hippocampus is not responsible for storing STM as HM
could retain information for a while if rehearsed.
- Therefore, this study suggests that localization of function of the
hippocampus has to do with the conversion of memories of
experiences from STM to LTM.
Evaluation:
● Longitudinal Case Study= change could be observed over time
○ open to extraneous variables
■ making it hard to standardize and replicate
● However, there are other case studies like this one
(such as Clive Wearing) that can confirm the results
○ Interviewing, Observation, brain imaging, questionnaires
■ Increases the credibility of the study as the results are
more valid due to several methods yielding similar results
to form a conclusion
● Some of the study was retrospective in nature
○ Not much data on HMs cognitive abilities before accident
● High Ecological validity as no variables were manipulated and HM
was observed in his natural environment
○ This is also means that there was low internal validity.
Maguire et al.
Aim: To investigate how the brain structure of London taxi drivers is

different from the average brain.
Procedure: Quasi-Experiment (comparison of two pre-existing groups);

Correlational Study (IV not manipulated)
● 16 right-handed male London taxi drivers compared to 50 right-handed
males who didn’t drive taxis (control group).
○ Sample included a range of ages so that age would not be a
confounding variable
● MRI scans were compared between drivers and non-drivers.
● Correlated the number of years of taxi driving experience with results
of the MRI scans.
Findings:
- Taxi drivers had increased grey matter volume in the posterior
hippocampus, compared to the control group subjects.
- Control subjects had increased grey matter volume in the anterior
hippocampus.
- A correlation was observed between the number of years of taxi
driving experience and grey matter volume in the hippocampus
- the longer they drove a taxi, the larger the volume of their
posterior hippocampus
- the opposite was true for anterior hippocampus.
Conclusion:
- It appears that the posterior hippocampus is involved when previously
learned spatial information is used where that info is localized.
- The anterior hippocampal region may be more involved during the
localization of the information when encoding of new environmental
layouts.
- All in all, Maguire et al. found that spatial memory in London taxi
drivers is localized in the hippocampus.
Evaluation:
- Although the study appears to have sampling bias, it is a reality that
the vast majority of london taxi drivers are male.
- Still does make it difficult to generalize the findings.
- The sample consisted of males of a range of ages
- Made sure that the results could be better generalized and that
age wasn’t considered the factor that caused the changes in
brain anatomy (confounding variable)
- No cause-effect relationship
- Quasi-experiment = cannot establish a cause and effect
relationship between the IV and DV
- IV was not manipulated due to the nature of the research
method used because there was a preexisting difference
between the sample
- IV (brain of taxi drivers) was naturally occurring.
- However, this study establishes a relationship between grey
matter and the number of years of driving experience.
- The sample size is specific to London taxi drivers so it lacks population
validity.
- Researcher bias is reduced as it is a single blind study
- Did not know whether they the scan was of taxi driver or control
- Some might argue that those with larger hippocampi might be more
spatially talented and thus chose to be taxi drivers
- Disproven by the correlation between the size of the
hippocampus and the number of years driving.
- The study did not involve any artificial tasks, and the MRI does not
reduce the ecological validity as it simply measured the brain anatomy.
- Internal validity was low however as there wasn’t much control or
manipulation of variables.
10. Neuroplasticity
Draganski et al. (2004)
Aim: To investigate whether structural changes in the brain would occur in

response to practising a new skill – in this case a simple juggling routine.

● A self-selected sample of male and female volunteers with no prior
experience of juggling was chosen.
● They made sure that both groups had no experience of juggling
before the start of the experiment.
● Each had participant an MRI scan at the start of the study to serve as
a base rate for grey matter and brain structure.
● The sample was randomly divided into two groups:
○ Jugglers
■ Spent three months learning a classic juggling routine
with three balls
● Once it was mastered, the jugglers had a second
MRI scan.
■ Followed by three months in which they were instructed to
stop practising.
● Third MRI scan taken
○ Non-jugglers
■ Never practised juggling but had their brains scanned
three times like the experimental group
Findings:
- There were no differences in brain structure between jugglers and
non-jugglers before the experiment.
- After three months of practice, the jugglers had signicantly more grey
matter in the mid-temporal area of the cortex in both hemispheres.
- These areas are known to be responsible for coordination of
movement.
- After three months of non-practice, the differences decreased.
- However, the jugglers still had more grey matter in these areas
than at the first brain scan.
Conclusion:
- Grey matter:
- grows in the brain in response to environmental demands
(learning)
- shrinks in the absence of stimulation (lack of practice).
- This shows that there is cause-and-effect relationship between
learning and brain structure.
- learning a simple juggling routine increases the volume of grey
matter in the mid-temporal area in both hemispheres - Long
Term Potentiation
- lack of practice makes this area shrink, but not to the original
size as some neural pathways still remain - Neural Pruning
- Neuroplasticity is a mechanism of learning where neural pathways
are made and broken.
Evaluation:
● The study used a pre-test, post-test design
○ Shows differences in neural density over time
● The study was experimental
○ Helps create a cause and effect relationship
● There was a control group that didn't juggle
● These traits made the study have high internal validity as there was a
control group to
○ However, the study has some problems with internal validity as
the participants were practicing in their home environments
■ The study would need to be replicated to establish its
reliability
○ Nonetheless, there was a control group to rule out certain
extraneous variables and there were standardized instructions
followed by the participants = moderate internal validity.
● The sample size was very small so it is possible that the data may not
be reliable.
Maguire et al. - NOT FOR NEURAL PRUNING
Aim: To investigate how the brain structure of London taxi drivers is

different from the average brain.
Procedure: Quasi-Experiment (comparison of two pre-existing groups);

Correlational Study (IV not manipulated)
● 16 right-handed male London taxi drivers compared to 50 right-handed
males who didn’t drive taxis (control group).
○ Sample included a range of ages so that age would not be a
confounding variable
● MRI scans were compared between drivers and non-drivers.
● Correlated the number of years of taxi driving experience with results
of the MRI scans.
Findings:
- Taxi drivers had increased grey matter volume in the posterior
hippocampus, compared to the control group subjects.
- Control subjects had increased grey matter volume in the anterior
hippocampus.
- A correlation was observed between the number of years of taxi
driving experience and grey matter volume in the hippocampus
- the longer they drove a taxi, the larger the volume of their
posterior hippocampus
- the opposite was true for anterior hippocampus.
Conclusion:
- Redistribution of grey matter occurred in the hippocampus of taxi
drivers, from the anterior to the posterior.
- Occurs in response to gaining navigational experience
- The posterior hippocampus involved in using previously learned spatial
information.
- The anterior hippocampus responsible for learning new spatial info
- Demonstrates that hippocampus may change in response to
environental demands.
Evaluation:
- Although the study appears to have sampling bias, it is a reality that
the vast majority of london taxi drivers are male.
- Still does make it difficult to generalize the findings.
- The sample consisted of males of a range of ages
- Made sure that the results could be better generalized and that
age wasn’t considered the factor that caused the changes in
brain anatomy (confounding variable)
- No cause-effect relationship
- Quasi-experiment = cannot establish a cause and effect
relationship between the IV and DV
- IV was not manipulated due to the nature of the research
method used because there was a preexisting difference
between the sample
- IV (brain of taxi drivers) was naturally occurring.
- However, this study establishes a relationship between grey
matter and the number of years of driving experience.
- The sample size is specific to London taxi drivers so it lacks population
validity.
- Researcher bias is reduced as it is a single blind study
- Did not know whether they the scan was of taxi driver or control
- Some might argue that those with larger hippocampi might be more
spatially talented and thus chose to be taxi drivers
- Disproven by the correlation between the size of the
hippocampus and the number of years driving.
- The study did not involve any artificial tasks, and the MRI does not
reduce the ecological validity as it simply measured the brain anatomy.
- Internal validity was low however as there wasn’t much control or
manipulation of variables.
11. Neurotransmitters and behaviour
Antonova et al. - Excitatory (Acetylcholine [ACh])
Antonova et al. - Antagonist (Scopolamine)
Background: Scopolamine is an antagonist drug which blocks the receptor

sites for the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine (ACh). ACh is a major
excitatory neurotransmitter involved in enabling muscle action, learning, and
memory. So Scolpolamine reduces the availability of ACh impacting encoding
of memory and learning.
Aim: To see if scopolamine affected hippocampal activity in the creation of

spatial memory.
Procedure: Laboratory Experiment - Repeated Measures + Double Blind

● 20 healthy male adults with a mean age of 28 years old
● Participants were randomly allocated to one of the two conditions
○ Participants either injected with scopolamine or a placebo
■ 70-90 minutes before taking part in the experimental task.
● Participants were then put into an fMRI
○ Scanned while playing the "arena task" (virtual reality game)
■ Observed how well the participants were able to create
spatial memories.
● Goal:
○ Participants navigate around the arena and reach a pole
○ After they reached it the screen would go black for 30 seconds
○ Asked to rehearse direction to pole during this time
○ Had to use spatial memory to determine how to get back to pole
when new arena appeared
● Six trials per participant and 3-4 weeks later the experiment was
repeated with the opposite treatment given to the groups.
○ Participants trained before starting on how to play the game
Findings:
- When injected with scopolamine, participants demonstrated a
significant reduction in the activity of the hippocampus compared to
when they received the placebo.
Conclusion:
- It appears acetylcholine could play a part in the encoding of spatial
memories in humans.
- As an excitatory neurotransmitter, acetylcholine allows impulses to
cross the synapse, produce stimulating effects on the brain and
allowing encoding of the spatial memories and learning to occur.
- As an antagonist drug, scopolamine counteracts the neurotransmitter
ACh to prevent a signal from being passed further and reduce the
ability to ecode the spatial memories and learn.
Evaluation:
● Double blind procedure controlled for experimenter bias
● Counterbalancing controlled for the practice effect as participants
faced both conditions at different times
● Repeated-measures design
○ All participants had to do both conditions.
○ Controlled for participant variability
■ Same participants were used for both conditions.
● There was a small sample size so the data was unreliable therefore it
needs to be repeated to establish reliability.
● The participants expressed that they felt stressed during the
debriefing session
○ Ethical issue of undue stress and harm
○ Could also interfere with functioning of hippocampus and memory
● High generalizability
Crockett et al. - Inhibitory (Serotonin)
Crockett et al. - Agonist (Citalopram)
Background: Serotonin is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that is involved

in sustaining stable mood and regulating sleep cycles. This study shows that
neurotransmitters affect not only behaviours that are obviously biologically
based (such as mood or fatigue), but also behaviours that seem to be the
result of free will, such as prosocial acts.
Aim: To investigate the effect of serotonin on prosocial behaviour.
Procedure: Laboratory Experiment - Repeated Measures + Double Blind

● 30 healthy volunteers
○ In condition 1 participants were given a dose of citalopram (an
SSRI).
○ In condition 2 they were given a placebo.
● Participants given moral dilemmas based on the classic “trolley
problem”:
○ there is a runaway trolley moving along the tracks
○ you see that it is about to hit and kill five people;
■ you have a choice between doing nothing and interfering
Two types of aversive scenarious
● In impersonal scenarios:
○ interfering implied pulling a lever that diverts the trolley onto
another track where it kills one person.
● In personal scenarios:
○ interfering implied pushing a man on the tracks
■ the man’s body will slow down the trolley and prevent it
from hitting the five workers
● Choice is between killing one person or letting five people die
○ But in personal scenario, killing is a more direct and emotionally
aversive act.
Findings:
- In the impersonal scenario participants’ responses were
- unaffected by citalopram.
- In the personal scenario citalopram made participants less likely to
interfere
- Participants were less likely to push the man off the bridge than
participants in the placebo condition.
- Citalopram participants were pposed to the idea even more
strongly
Conclusion:
- Citalopram reduces the acceptability of personal harm and in this
sense promotes prosocial behaviour.
- Increased levels of serotonin in the brain may cause people to be more
opposed to the idea of inflicting harm on someone.
- Modulates reactions of the brain to emotionally salient situations
- Inflicting harm on other people is judged as less
acceptable.
- As an inhibitory neurotransmitter, serotonin stop certain impulses
preventing the impluse from reaching the next neuron resulting in
these calming effects that cause more opposition to harm.
- As an agonist drug, citalopram enhances the action of the
neurotransmitter, serotonin resulting in a stronger opposition to harm.
Evaluation:
● Citalopram intake induced slight nausea
○ Participants could work out what condition they were in on that
trial.
■ But not possible to estimate the extent to which this
might have inuenced the results
● Order effects reduced due to counterbalancing
● Repeated-measures design
○ All participants had to do both conditions.
○ Controlled for participant variability
■ Same participants were used for both conditions.
● Due to the double blind technique there was:
○ reduction of demand characteristics for the participants
○ reduction of researcher bias
● Low ecological validity as this is not something that is actually being
faced by the participants it is hypothetical
○ Isn’t something natural that happens on a daily basis, task is
artificial
● It has high internal validity as it is a lab experiment with standardized
instructions for each participant
○ variables are effectively controlled to form a cause and effect
relationship which increases generalizability
12. Brain-Imaging Techniques
Draganski et al. (2004) - MRI
Maguire et al. - MRI
Conclusion Draganski:
- MRI used to determine changes in brain structure in response to
learning a simple juggling routine for three months.
- Grey matter:
- grows in the brain in response to environmental demands
(learning)
- shrinks in the absence of stimulation (lack of practice).
- This shows that there is cause-and-effect relationship between
learning and brain structure.
- learning a simple juggling routine increases the volume of grey
matter in the mid-temporal area in both hemispheres - Long
Term Potentiation
- lack of practice makes this area shrink, but not to the original
size as some neural pathways still remain - Neural Pruning
- Neuroplasticity is a mechanism of learning where neural pathways
are made and broken.
Conclusion Maguire:
- Compared MRI scans between London taxi drivers and controls to
- see if hippocampus played a role in spatial memory.
- Redistribution of grey matter occurred in the hippocampus of taxi
drivers, from the anterior to the posterior.
- Occurs in response to gaining navigational experience
- The posterior hippocampus involved in using previously learned spatial
information.
- The anterior hippocampus responsible for learning new spatial info
Freed et al. - PET
Aim: To investigate the effects of dopamine on the behavioural symptoms of

Parkinson’s disease.
Procedure: Laboratory Experiment - Independent Measures Design.

● 40 patients with severe Parkinson’s disease
○ In the experimental group nerve cells containing
dopamine-producing neurons were taken from aborted embryos
and transplanted into the patient’s putamen.
● a structure of the limbic system involved in
movement regulation
■ Four holes were drilled through the skull and the tissue
was transplanted through long needles.
○ The control group underwent sham surgery
■ holes were drilled in the skull but the tissue was not
transplanted
● All patients were followed for one year.
● PET scans were made to estimate changes in the brain
○ clinical observations and interviews were used to register
changes in symptoms
ETHICS:
The protocol of the study and the consent form describing the risks and
potential benets were approved by the ethics committee. A separate
written informed consent form was used for the women who donated fetal
tissue from abortions.
The state of the patients may not have been well enough to evaluate the
risks of the experiment (due to the extent of Parkinson's Disease).
Findings:
- Irrespective of age, PET scans revealed signicant growth of dopamine
producing cells in the putamen of participants in the transplant group.
- However, transplantation of dopamine-producing neurons in the
putamen of patients with severe symptoms of Parkinson’s disease leads
to an improvement in younger but not older patients.
- This shows the influence of dopamine on behaviour.
Conclusion:
- PET scans used to study dopamine-producing cells in the brains of
Parkinson’s disease patients.
- Transplantation of dopamine-producing neurons in the putamen of
patients with severe Parkinson’s disease results in some clinical benfit
in younger but not older patients.
- Less response to treatment in the older patients despite successful
growth of dopamine neurons may be attributed to lower neuroplasticity
of the brain.
Evaluation:
● Method Triangulation + Performed Before and After surgeries
○ Observations, interviews, and scans were conducted both before
and after the experiment
■ Allows for more accurate judgment of the effects of the
surgeries

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1.

Social Identity Theory

Proceduce: Laboratory Experiment

Aim: To determine if in-group identity would affect one’s willingness to

Procedure: Laboratory Experiment with Independent Measures Design

Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment

Aim: To see if children would imitate aggression modeled by an adult and

Procedure: Laboratory/Controlled Experiment

Aim: To find the impacts on aggression levels seen in elementary school

Procedure: Naturalistic covert observation

Hilliard and Liben

Aim: To determine how social categorization can be accelerated via the

Procedure: Field Experiment with pre-test/post-test design

Aim: To determine how group membership may lead to stereotyping

Steele and Aronson

Aim: To investigate the effect of stereotype threat on test performance of

Procedure: Standardized Test

● No stereotype threat may have been experienced:

Aim: To investigate the role of gender schema on a child's ability to recall

Procedure: Lab Experiment

Procedure: Etic Laboratory Experiment

Martin and Halverson

Aim: To investigate the role of gender schema on a child's ability to recall

Procedure: Lab Experiment

Aim: To observe parental reactions to behaviour that wasn't deemed

Procedure: Overt Non-Participant Observational Study

Luek and Wilson

Aim: To investigate the variables that may predict acculturative stress in a

Procedure: Semi-structured interviews

Aim: To investigate which factors in the lives of Latino immigrants to the

Norasakkunkit and Uchida (-)

Aim: To investigate the relationship between an individuals attitude towards

Procedure: Correlational Study

Aim: To test the contact hypothesis by using an intervention strategy to

Procedure: Field Experiment

Aim: To investigate the effect of prolonged exposure of TV on attitudes to

Procedure: Natural Experiment

Aim: To investigate the attitudes towards Muslims in the Czech Republic

Procedure: Correlational Study

Glanzer and Cunitz

Procedure: Laboratory experiment

Background: Scoville performed experimental surgery on H.M.’s brain to

Procedure: Longitudinal Case Study with Method Triangulation

Landry and Bartling

Aim: To investigate if articulatory suppression would influence recall of a

Procedure: Laboratory Experiment

Aim: To investigate the impact of brain damage on short-term memory.

Procedure: Case Study

Brewer and Treyens (1981)

Aim: To investigate whether schemas affected the encoding and retrieval of

Procedure: Laboratory Experiment

Aim: To investigate the inuence of schema on the encoding and retrieval of

Procedure: Laboratory Experiment

Aim: To investigate memory reconstruction and if cultural schemas

Procedure: Laboratory Experiment

Brown and Kulik (supports)

Aim: To investigate whether surprising and personally significant events

Aim: To investigate whether flashbulb memories were susceptible to

Procedure: Case Study