AS Psychology

1
AS Psychology

• Themes and Perspectives

Core studies 2 - 1 hour examination Section A
Answer ONE from 2 questions. Questions about
methods, themes and perspectives of ONE KEY
STUDY. Section B Answer ONE from 2 questions.
Questions about methods, themes and perspectives
of ALL KEY STUDIES. YOU MUST LEARN ALL KEY
STUDIES
2
Ethics

• Most Ethical Studies
• Gardner Gardner abuse of animal rights.
• Hodges Tizard lack of consent.
• Tajfel fun, harmless activity paid.
• Samuel Bryant consent from children? Testing
  stressful.

• Least Ethical Studies
• Zimbardo . Withdrawal difficult. No informed
  consent and confidentiality. Arrest and torture
• Milgram. Difficult withdrawal. Deception and
  upsetting.
• Bandura. encouraging aggression. Consent from
  child?
• Piliavin deception and upsetting.

• Problems with trying to be ethical
• Need to deceive e.g Milgram
• Not possible to get consent e.g Piliavin
• Not always possible to predict behaviour e.g.
  Zimbardo
• If follow guidelines would miss out on some
  behaviour e.g. anti-social.
• Also could have low ecological validity
• N.B. Ethical studies could be used un-ethically.
  Hodges Tizard social control

3
Ethics

• Think how to make ethical, studies that are
  unethical.
• Zimbardo
• Experimenter should not be involved. Should have
  an independent observer.
• Observe real guards and interview witnesses and
  families.
• Make the experiment as natural to real life as
  possible and carefully consider all participants
  and effects on results.
• Choose one of the following and make suggestions
  to make it more ethical
• Milgram, Bandura, Gardner Gardner and Piliavin

4
Ethnocentric biasThe tendency to interpret human
behaviour from the viewpoint of our own ethnic,
social or other group.Scientific racism.To
favour our own group over another.

• Ethnocentrism
• Tajfel
• Maximum difference in points in favour of own
  group.
• British boys capitalist and individualist. May
  not apply to collectivist society in East.
• Milgram
• Americans could be cultures less obedient. Also
  historical time.

• Problems
• All research takes place in social and cultural
  context.
• Samples need to be representative
• Cross-cultural studies are difficult to conduct.
  Expensive and time consuming. Therefore
  Psychology tends to have a Western bias.
• Test material must be appropriate e.g.
  instructions and interview questions.
• Due to all of the above it is difficult to give
  universal explanations for human behaviour.

5
Individual Situational explanationsBehaviour
can be explained by individual differences or due
to situations which may alter individual
behaviour.
Individual
Situational
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Individual Situational explanationsBehaviour
can be explained by individual differences AND
due to situations which may alter individual
behaviour.
Both Situation
Individual
Problems

• Difficult to separate these variables.
  Individual differences e.g Milgram - 35
  disobeyed.
• Bias for people to give situational explanations
  for own behaviour and individual explanations
  for the behaviour of others. Known as the
  Fundamental attribution error
• Could be low in ecological validity and
  unethical. Situation and individual therefore
  not natural.

7
Nature vs. Nurture
Problems

• Difficult to isolate factors, many behaviours
  are both.
• If isolate factors may be unethical and have low
  ecological validity.
• Environment can affect biology
• Relationships between data , difficult to
  interpret. Intelligent parents have intelligent
  children?
• Research - case study or small sample.
  Difficult to generalise.
• Ethical implications. E.g. intelligence is
  genetic. Eugenics The study of hereditary
  improvement of the human race by selective
  breeding

8
Ecological Validity true to life
High
Low

• Hodges Tizard real lives of real families.
  However data collection were people truthful?
• Piliavin real people on real trains. However
  observers could influence behaviour.
• Zimbardo Realistic arrest and prison procedures
  and conditions.

• Loftus and Palmer Video crash and expected
  accident.
• Milgram Not usual activity, shocking somebody
  learning
• Freud bias of father, secondary evidence.
• Gardner Gardner Not wild chimp.
• Bandura Not natural environment. Not real
  aggression
• Tajfel totally artifical. Not discrimination
  but competition

9
Ecological Validity true to life
Problems

• If the study is realistic you lose control of the
  variables. You may not be testing your aim
• In real situation no chance to debrief
  participants and find out why they showed that
  behaviour.
• Difficult to replicate (repeat) if realistic
  study.
• Difficult to ask for consent (ethical) which
  makes experiment unrealistic.
• Need to protect participants by not upsetting
  them.
• Individual differences. Some people view
  situations as realistic whereas others may not.
• However the more realistic the experiment is ,
  the more useful it is to understanding behaviour
  and relevant to real life applications.

10
Application of studies to everyday life
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Problems in research

• Ecological validity.
• Ethics protection of participants.
• Generalisations not all went to maximum in
  Milgram
• Attrition lose participants in longitudinal
  studies.
• Laboratory experiments are unrealistic, low
  ecological validity.
• Demand characteristics people know they are in
  an experiment
• Questioning can be subjective and too
  qualitative
• Control groups will they ever match
  experimental groups
• Experimenter bias e.g. Freud
• Field studies high ecological validity but
  cannot control variables
• Observation difficult to separate cause and
  effect
• Case study impossible to generalise
• Ethnocentric bias need to be aware of cultural
  and time context
• Individual and situational explanations
• Nature vs Nurture
• Quantitative and Qualitative
• Reductionism

12
Quantitative and Qualitative measures
Quantitative
Qualitative
13
Reductionism

• The explanation of complex behaviour by reducing
  it to a simple level
• The use of reductionism in the following studies
• Bandura aggressive behaviour reduced to
  imitation
• Loftus Palmer memory reduced to leading
  questions
• Tajfel discrimination reduced to competition in
  a group
• Problems with reductionist explanations
• Reduces complex behaviour to something too
  simplistic
• Could overlook other causative factors. e.g. I.Q.
  not the whole person
• Strengths of reductionism
• Easier to study. Able to use scientific method
• Makes reasons for behaviour more understandable
• How could the following studies be explained with
  other interpretation?
• Bandura
• Upbringing
• Loftus Palmer
• Individual differences personality age
  memory differences
• Tajfel
• Group unity

14
Reinforcement Learning theory

• Reinforcer increases the likelihood of a
  behaviour occurring again. May be pleasure, such
  as praise or pain which causes avoidance of
  behaviour
• Classical conditioning
• Pavlov dog associates bell with food. Bell
  becomes reinforcer
• Operant conditioning
• Consequences of behaviour repeat if pleasant
  avoid if not
• How could the following studies be explained with
  these concepts?
• Milgram- Screaming meant avoidance, this overcome
  by authority
• Gardner Gardner - Praise for correct sign
• Freud - Phobia of horses after crash

• Weaknesses
• Type of reward could affect behaviour. Ethical?
• Reductionist explanation.
• Does not account for nature
• Ignores cognitive processes.

• Strengths
• Research scientific controlled
• Able to treat phobias
• Learning theory enables us to explain nurture
  and the environment in development

15
Psychometrics
Standardised tests that measure psychological
characteristics or abilities Hodges Tizard
Rutter A and B scale. Questionnaire on social
difficulty (Lindsay Lindsay 1982) Zimbardo
Students checked for personality abnormality

• Weaknesses
• Subjective decision on social desirability
  (Hodges Tizard)
• Reductionist - measuring only one aspect of
  person. - I.Q.
• Does not tell you if innate ability or learnt
  (nature-nurture)
• May not be reliable and valid
• Practice ,fatigue, motivation and anxiety
  effects
• Different responses to tests than real life

• Strengths
• Objective not just subjective view of
  experimenter
• Comparisons able to compare performance
• Easy and cheap
• Used by therapists and employers ( aptitude for
  work)