Grade: A Year: Jun Section A: 57/60 Section B: 36/36 Section C: 24/24

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1 AS G542 Core Studies Grade: A Year: Jun 2010 Section A: 57/60 Section B: 36/36 Section C: 24/24 Section A 1a One of the word pairs was serious or playful 1b On the eyes task participants with apergers syndrome identified less mental state terms correctly than participants with normal brain functioning or Tourettes syndrome 2a Quantitative data was collected because Savage Rumbaugh recorded the number of lexigrams correctly identified by Kanzi and Mulika on the computer if they were indoors or by hand if they were outdoors 2b One example is the number of spontaneous utterances made by the pygmy chimpanzees. Another example is the number of correct or incorrect utterances made by the pygmy chimpanzees 3a One experimental group had 50 participants who were asked How fast were the cars going when they smashed each other? The other group had 50 participants and were asked How fast were the cars going when they hit each other? 3b Participants in the first group How fsat were the cars going when they smashed each other? Were more likely to falsely remember seeing broken glass after watching a video of a car accident than participants asked the same question but with the verb hit rather than smashed. 4 One of the experimental conditions was the one judgement condition where a participant was asked one question after they had seen a display and then seen it being transformed. Another condition was the fixed array condition. This was control condition. Participants did not see a transformation of a display, they only saw the end product of a display and they were asked one question about it. 1/2 4/4

2 5a Little Hans father recorded events and conversation of /with Little Hans, collecting qualitative data. He then sent these regularly to Freud and they both offered interpretations of Little Hans behaviour. 5b it may not be valid because the qualitative data collected was highly subjective. It could not be measured objectively and both Freud and Little Hans father were keen to put Freud s ideas into practice. They would have interpreted what Hans did to fit in with the theories and Hans may have shown demand characteristics to please his father. 6a Bandura studied 72 participants (32 boys and 32 girls) from Stanford University Nursery 6b You cannot gain informed consent from children as they may not understand what they are consenting to. Therefore you must ask parents of teachers but it is considered unethical to not have permission/consent from participants you are studying. 7a One variable is the volume change in the right posterior hippocampus. The other variable is the time in months spent as a taxi driver. 7b The scattergraph shows there is a positive correlation between volume change in the right posterior hippocampus and the time spent in months as a taxi driver. As the time as a taxi driver increases so does the volume change in the right posterior hippocampus 8a The study lacked ecological validity because participants slept in a lab not their normal beds and were woken up by a loud doorbell at various times in the night. This may have changed their sleep patterns from normal so findings are ungeneralisable to how they sleep in everyday situations. 8b It is appropriate because the study was laboratory based. There was no other way to register eye movement or monitor brain wave activity during sleep than by attaching electrodes near the eyes/n the scalp although these are not the conditions of sleep one would experience in everyday life. 9a Hemisphere deconnection is having the two hemispheres of the brain disconnected from each other by severing the corpus callossum so that messages can not be transferred from one hemisphere to another

3 9b If a picture was presented to the left visual field, it would be received by the right hemisphere. A participant with hemisphere deconnection could not say or write what they had seen but would be able to draw that they ve seen with their left hand. 10a groups Tyranny is the oppressive power shown by people when there is a breakdown of social 10b Permeability was manipulated. There was the opportunity for a participant to advance from being a prisoner to being a guard. 11a Diffusion of responsibility is when, if there is an emergency situation, the more people who are witnessing the incident the less likely an individual is to help the person or people suffering in the emergency 11b Diffusion of responsibility was not found because participants were continually visually presented with the emergency which increases chances of helping and the unpleasant feeling of arousal 12a 65% of participants in the study administered all the electric shocks to the learner (up to 450volts) 9/40 participants stopped administering shocks at 315 volts. 12b People were obedient not because evil is in their disposition but because of the situation they were in. There was a conflict of 2 deeply ingrained behaviours the tendency to not do harm and the tendency to obey those we belief to be legitimate authority figures. Participants obeyed the man in a white lab coat they believed to be an authority figure 13a Rosenhan s study was a field experiment. Participants in his study (doctors/nurses) were unaware they were being watched and studied. Therefore this study was unethical because they did not give informed consent, did not have the right to withdraw nor were they protected from psychological harm. Another ethical issue is sending sane people to an environment with insane people. This is a problem because the sane confederates could have developed the behaviour of the insane and could develop problems with their mental health. They were not protected from psychological harm. 1/2 1/2 4/4

4 14a A longitudinal study is one where participants are studied/examined over a long period of time, for example Thigpen and Cleckley studied Eve White over 14 months. 14b Because longitudinal studies are carried out over a long period of time, participants are more likely to drop out of the study leaving the researcher with incomplete findings or invalid and biased results. 15a A large sample of 30 gamblers and 30 non gamblers were studied which is more representative and generalisable than a sample of 1 person for instance 15b In Griffiths study the people were only taken from one area of Britain and only Fruit Machine Gamblers were studied. This means the sample may not be representative of other types of gamblers or gamblers in other areas of Britain or the world. 57/60

5 Section B Thigpen and Cleckley 16a The aim of Thigpen and Cleckley was to provide treatment to a 25 year old woman, Eve White who was referred to them because of severe headaches/blackouts but was later found to have multiple personality disorder 16b The sample of 1 participant Eve was chosen after she was referred to Thigpen and Cleckley because of headaches and blackouts (but then found to have MPD) It was an opportunity sample because they carried out the research because they just so happened to have a patient with MPD. A disadvantage of the sample is that it is very small. Research was only carried out on 1 person, Eve, so all the findings were unique to her. Therefore the sample is unrepresentative and the results are difficult to generalise to other sufferers of MPD. 16c An advantage of the case study is that it provides rich, detailed data, for example Thigpen and Cleckley administered psychometric tests, (IQ), projective tests (human figure drawings), EEG (to measure brain wave activity) and carried out clinical interviews on Eve. Therefore the researchers obtained a lot of qualitative and quantitative data that was in depth and allowed them to uncover new insights. A further advantage is that case studies are high in ecological validity. Thigpen and Cleckely carried out clinical interviews with Eve about her life and there was no need to create any hypothetical situations. Therefore the findings could be generalised beyond the research to everyday life and everyday situations. 16d A disadvantage of case studies is that the samples are often small. Thigpen and Cleckely studied only 1 person, Eve, so the findings are unique to her. Therefore we can t generalise the results to all sufferers of multiple personality disorder as this sample is extremely unrepresentative. Another disadvantage is that case studies are often open to researcher bias. Before this case study, multiple personal disorder was not recognised as a disorder. It was a rare phenomenon. It may not have been that Eve suffered from this but that it was an iatrogenic disorder (condition planted by the doctors). Therefore this decreases the validity of the results. Were they examining what they claimed to (MPD) or something they wanted to see? 16e Eve White (the core personality) revealed an alter, Eve Black. Clinical interviews showed that eve White was reserved, shy and had warm love for her daughter and that Eve Black was extrovert, loud, selfish and denied relationships with her husband and daughter. The psychometric tests showed that Eve White had an IQ Of 110 higher than Eve Blacks which was 104. Eve White s memory was superior to Eve Black. The projective tests (Rorschach Ink blot test and human figure drawings) revealed that Eve White had obsessive compulsive disorder. The EEGs also showed differences in the brain wave activity of Eve White and Eve Black. Eve White (11 cycles per second), Eve Black (12.5 cycles per second). After more clinical interviews focusing on traumatic childhood experiences, the personality of Jane was revealed. She had the same brain wave activity as Eve White, but her personality was an approximate balance between Eve White and Eve Black. She was mature, assertive and showed compassion towards Eve White s daughter. 6/6 6/6 6/6 8/8

6 16f One way it could be improved would be to carry out a study on a bigger sample. 50 men and women suffering from MPD from different countries. I would use a shorter procedure but use structured interviews, projective and psychometric testing and measure their brain wave activities. I would then cross check the results of all p0articpatns to see if the findings correlate and can proved concurrent validity. The study would be improved because a bigger sample of MPD sufferers is more representative than a sample of 1 person. Therefore we could generalise the results to all people suffering from MPD and also cross culturally and to both genders. The findings would also be more reliable if we used structured interviews because the questions are predetermined and all the same. This high level of control means the study is easily replicable. 24/24 8/8

7 18a It is reductionist as it reduces everything to biology rather than taking cognitive factors into account. 18b The physiological approach looks at the brain and its functions as a means of describing behaviour and experiences. In Dement and Kleitman s study about dreaming they distinguished how the physiological aspects of rapid eye movement are associated to the psychological behavioural experience of dreaming. They concluded that more dreams take place during periods of rapid eye movement during sleep. 18c One similarity between Dement & Kleitman's study and Maguire s study was that they both used precise measuring equipment to obtain objective data. In Dement and Kleitman s study they attached electrodes to the scalp of participants to measure and monitor brain activity. IN Maguire s study they administered MRT Scans of the participants brains to establish a comparison basis for the average hippocampi. A difference between Sperry s and Dement and Kleitman s study is the sample used. Sperry s participants had (a typical) abnormal brain functioning. They had undergone hemisphere deconnection (Corpus Callosum cut). Dement & Kleitman studied the relationship between rapid eye movement and dreaming in people with normal brain functioning. 4/4 18d A strength of the physiological approach is that it uses precise,measuring equipment to measure things objectively and scientifically for example in Dement and Kleitman s study they attached electrodes near participants scalps to measure and monitor (EEG) brain wave activity. Therefore this provides valid results because the findings cannot be influenced by demand characteristics. It also offers objective data which can be analysed statistically on graphs and charts (easy to analyse). A further strength of the physiological approach is that the experiments conducted are laboratory based and have high levels of control. If we refer again to Dement and Kleitman s study participants slept in a laboratory were all awoken by a loud doorbell and at various times in the night. A standardised procedure with high levels of control means we can replicate the study and therefore we can determine the reliability of the results. Physiological approach also provides strong counter arguments for the nurture side of the nature vs nurture debate. Sperry s study showed that brain structures are predetermined. Therefore we can scientifically discover things in more detail. A weakness of the physiological approach is that it tends to be reductionist. It reduces complex phenomena to simple things. For example in Sperry s study he concluded that split brains (where the hemisphere is deconnected by severing the corpus callosum) is the sole reason for lateralisation of functioning. Other factors such as social factors and past behaviour and experience are ignored disallowing us to have greater in depth insights into concepts. A further weakness is that laboratory experiments lack ecological validity. In Dement and Kleitman s study participants slept in a laboratory not their everyday beds and were told to avoid caffeine /alcohol which they may judge regularly. Therefore the findings cannot be generalised beyond the artificial setting to how (specifically in this study) we sleep and dream in real life. 6/6 12/12 36/36

8 117/120 Grade A