Biological Approach

Ethics
To protect participants and ensure negative impact on participants are minimal.
❏ Deception and debriefing
All participants are fully debriefed at the end and all deceptions are explained
(where some information is withheld due to demand characteristics)
❏ Protection from harm
The participants should be protected from any physical, mental and/or emotional
harm
❏ Right to withdraw
Participants have a right to withdraw themselves and all their data from a study at
any time

❏ Informed consent
Written agreement to participate in a study made by an adult who has been
informed of all the risks that participation may entail. Participants under age of 16
must have their informed consent signed by their parents.

Important because it reduces potential stress and emotional harm, allows

participants to maintain personal autonomy.

This may affect participant bias (consciously or unconsciously try to confirm or

deny the researchers’ expectations), informed consent could violate the validity of
the experiment; some participants (due to age, cognitive disabilities and etc) may
not be able to give informed consent.

Solution to informed consent dilemmas; debriefing, where participant is informed

of what will happen to their results and of what their rights are (including right to
withdraw)

❏ Confidentiality and anonymity

Personal information should be kept confidential. All data will be anonymous and
cannot be able linked to the participants

★ Martinez and Kesner (1991)

○ Martinez and Kesner aimed to find how the acetylcholine has an effect on the
memory. Martinez and Kesner conducted a laboratory experiment using rats as
their test subjects. The rats were placed in a maze individually with food placed
at the end. This was done only once to consolidate the memory of the trails.
Afterwards, the rats were put into three different conditions. The first group of rats
were injected with scopolamine, the second group was injected with
 physostigmine and the third group was injected with a saline solution. The control
variables for this experiment were that the rats were in the same condition, the
amount of substance injected were equal and the complexity of the mazes were
to be the same. It was found that the first group took the longest to finish the
maze, and the second group were the fastest. In conclusion, it was found that
scopolamine had an effect on slowing down the memory as it blocks the
acetylcholine receptors.

Techniques used to study the brain in relation to behavior

★ Maguire et. al (2000): MRI scan on London taxi drivers

○ Used MRI scans to compare the brains of licensed London taxi drivers, who have
to remember the map of the streets of London in order to gain their license, to a
control group of non-taxi drivers.

Type of study:
Correlational study

Aim:
To see whether the hippocampus was responsible or played a role in managing spatial memory

Participants:
50 non-taxi drivers and 16 taxi drivers from London

Procedure:
➢ The period of time the taxi drivers had been doing their job was recorded. (There were
age gaps between 32-62 years).
➢ Biological approach of using MRI technique was used; produced static 3-D images of the
brain.

Results:
➢ The posterior part of the hippocampus in the taxi-driver’s was far larger than the
hippocampi in the non-taxi drivers.
➢ Anterior part of the hippocampus in non-taxi drivers were larger.
➢ Volume of the hippocampus also correlated with how long the subject had been a taxi
driver.

Conclusion:
➢ Evidence supports the theory that the posterior hippocampus in each side of the brain
stores a spatial representation of the environment and is ‘plastic’; being able to change
depending on the need of the function, responding to the individual’s needs in response
to their environment.
➢ Provides evidence of localisation therefore by illustrating brain locations dedicated to
spatial mapping of the environment.
Evaluation:
+ Strengths
➢ Offers good knowledge about the ‘localisation of function’ in the brain; how spatial
memory could be linked to the hippocampus.
➢ MRI scans does little damage to patients and is extremely accurate most of the time.

- Weaknesses
➢ Ecological validity decreased as only right-handed males were used as participants, and
taxi-drivers only from London; other regions and females are discounted.
➢ Correlation study; unable to determine clear cause and effect relationship of the size of
the hippocampus.

Localisation of function

Refers to the theory that the mechanism for thought, behaviour and emotions are located in
different areas of the brain.
To what extent are certain functions located in their own areas, and activity in this area
can therefore be seen as evidence of behavior, thought or feeling, which is the subject of
localisation of brain function.

Maguire et al. (2000) - Localisation is shown as the specific brain locations (posterior
hippocampus) is dedicated to spatial mapping of the environment.

★ Schiltz et al. (2006): fMRI scans to study brain activity of P.S

Aim:
To study the brain activity of a participant names P.S.

Participants:
P.S suffered a head injury that caused damage to her fusiform gyrus and occipital cortex.

Procedure:
➢ P.S was compared to a control group that was age and gender matched.
➢ Used fMRI scans and five different categories of stimuli (black and white photos of faces,
cars, chairs, boats and birds) with 24 objects in each category.
➢ P.S was had to perform a matching task with the items.

Results:
➢ P.S was unable to match faces accurately and perceived different faces and identical
when compared to a control group; she knew what a face was but couldn’t match them.
➢ P.S performed normally with other types of stimuli

Conclusion:
 ➢ Fusiform gyrus and occipital cortex are activated by seeing a face and identifying them.
➢ Individual recognition of faces critically depends on both areas being in tact.

Evaluation:

Neuroplasticity

Neural pruning = synaptic pruning; when we lose synaptic connections

Neurons have dendrites, branch like things that connect with other neurons; connections
between two dendrites is called a synapse; connections between synapses is how information
travels around our brains.

The development of neural networks through repetition and neural pruning (synaptic pruning) is
both genetic and subject to environmental influences. **Neural networks can change
developmentally, overtime or after injury, this is neuroplasticity.

**The brain is not static; research has shown that complex neural networks can also be modified
and changed in a process which is defined as neural plasticity. This usually occurs in young
children during early brain development.

Maguire et. al (2000) - You can grow the posterior hippocampus of the brain hence
demonstrating neuroplasticity.

★ Tierney et. al (2001)

Type of study:
Case study on their patient named M.A, who had a lesion in the left part of his brain.

Aim:
To find out if another part of the participant’s brain had taken over spoken language (usually
localised in Broca’s area); To find out if use of sign language from a young age might’ve affected
which part of his brain was responsible for speech.

Participants:
M.A who had a lesion in the left part of his brain and other fluent sign language users.

Procedure:
Used PET scans to compare M.A’s brain to the brains of other fluent sign language users.

Results:
M.A’s right hemisphere was highly active, suggesting that the right hemisphere had taken over
speech when the left hemisphere had been damaged; shows evidence of neuroplasticity.

Conclusion:
The brain structure had changed in the right hemisphere; more connections than normal in the
right frontal lobe to allow him to produce language, possibly at the expense of other skills
normally localised in the right hemisphere.

Evaluation:

★ Raine et. al (1997): PET scan to

Type of study:
Quasi-experiment; experimental design to establish a cause and effect relationship
Between an independent and dependent variable -- subjects are assigned to groups based on
non-random criteria.

Aim:
To detect whether murderers who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) exhibited
brain dysfunction compared to a sex-matched and age-matched group of non-offenders.

Participants:
➢ 41 murderers; 39 men and 2 women
➢ Mean age of 34 years old
➢ All participants charged with murder/manslaughter and plead NGRI.
➢ There were various types of neural disabilities present in the participants such as
schizophrenics (interpreting reality abnormally), history of brain injury and drug abuse
etc.

Procedure:
➢ Opportunity sampling
➢ Matched pairs design
○ Matched each murderer with a normal individual of the same sex and age
○ 6 schizophrenic were matched schizophrenics.
○ Other controls had no history of mental illness or significant physical illness.
➢ PET scan were used
➢ Participants were given ‘tracer’ fluorodeoxyglucose
➢ Participants were given continuous performance task
○ Practice CPT
○ Given FDG 30 secs after starting CPT
○ 32 mins after FDG PET scan taken
Results:
Murderers has less activity in left amygdala than non-offenders.

Conclusion:
Amygdala may play a role in aggression. Raine et. al speculated that an abnormality in this area
could be related to commit homicide in this group.

Evaluation:
➢ Methodology
○ Naturally occurring quasi-experiment, IV in NGRI or not, DV is brain differences --
Causal conclusions are not justified.
○ The study does not take into account of psychological, cultural and situational
factors that play an important role to violence.
○ Large sample and matches controls, however not matched for IQ or head injury
○ Ecological validity is low due to the sample being restrictive, Only murderers, not
typical of all violence and few generalisations can be made.
➢ Procedure
○ - Weakness; Data collected using PET -- previously relied on post-mortem
examinations. It can also be considered less accurate as small tumors may not
be detectable. Furthermore, high levels of blood sugar can cause the cells to
absorb the normal sugar, rather than the injected radioactive sugar.
○ + PET scan can be useful in revealing conditions such as cancer, heart disease
and brain disorders.

Neurotransmitters
Allow the impulse to cross a synapse (excitatory; causing) or stop the impulse and prevent from
crossing a synapse (inhibatory; prevent)

★ Walderhaug et al. (2007)

Aim:
To investigate a healthy participants’ response to decreased serotonin levels in the brain.

Participant:
83 participants
39 men and 44 women -- randomised, double blind (neither participants nor the researcher
know which treatment or intervention participants are receiving until experiment is over), parallel
group (subject is randomized to distinct treatment and intervention groups)
Procedure:
Researchers used a technique called acute tryptophan depletion to decrease serotonin levels
in the brain.

Results:
➢ Men exhibited more impulsive behaviour, but the decrease did not alter mood
➢ Women reported how their mood worsened and showed signs of more cautious
behaviour; response linked with depressive behaviour.

Conclusion:
➢ Women and men respond differently to neurochemical changes
➢ Reduced serotonin transmission contributes to the functional changes in the brain
associated with MDD (Major Depressive Disorder)
➢ Female participants, acute tryptophan depletion affected the region of SLC64A, gene
that influences the transporter in the synapse

Evaluation:

Hormones

★ Carré et al. (2017)

Aim:
To investigate the relationship between testosterone levels and aggression; to find out whether
aspects of personality affect aggressive responses to a game.

Participants:
Male participants were divided into two groups; one group received a placebo and one group
an injection of testosterone.

Procedure:
➢ All participants underwent a decision-making game that was designed to assess
aggression after social provocation within the game by a partner (actually the computer).
➢ Measures of personality according to level of aggression; regard to dominance and
impulsivity traits were assessed using questionnaires.

Results:
➢ Males that received additional testosterone and high score in dominance and impulsivity
traits exhibited higher levels of aggression than the control group not inhibiting these
personality characteristics.

Conclusion:
 ➢ Increase in testosterone levels alone did not invoke aggression; only men who received
additional testosterone and with high scores of dominance and impulsivity exhibited high
levels of aggression.

Evaluation:

Pheromones

★ Wedekind et al. (1995)

Aim:
Studying the influence of pheromones in human adults.

Participants:
93 total participants; 49 female and 44 male students.

Procedure:
➢ Prior to experiment, all participants were classified in terms of their immune system
similarity via blood test.
➢ Males were asked to wear the same shirt during two consecutive nights.
○ The t-shirts were kept in a plastic bag between nights
○ Men were asked to remain as odour-neutral as possible by refraining from certain
activities; smoking, sexual activity, using perfumed products etc
➢ Females were then asked to rate 6 shirts each for the pleasantness and odour intensity.

Results:
➢ Women consistently preferred the smell of men whose immune system was different to
their own.
➢ Women on contraceptive pills preferred the smell of men whose immune system was the
same to their own.

Conclusions:
➢ The results suggest that sweat contains a pheromone that can influence preference.
➢ Women on contraceptive pulls preferred odours of men will similar immune system; pill
use might disrupt adaptive preference for dissimilarity.
➢ Results reflect a hormonally-induced shift due to the pregnancy-mimicking effect of the
pill, leading to increased association with kin wo could assist in childcare.

Evaluation:
Genetics and behaviour

★ Suderman et al. (2014): Epigenetic study

Aim:
To study the methylation of genes in adults who had suffered from childhood abuse

Participants:
20 male adults who suffered from childhood abuse and control group

Procedure:
➢ Blood was extracted from 40 male adults and the mathylation of the DNA
➢ Extracted blood was studied and compared to the results from a control group.

Results:
➢ There was incresed methylation of the gene PM20D1
➢ Supports previous research that the methylation of this gene is caused by obesity as an
adults.

Conclusion:
➢ Environmental triggers could cause the methylation of the gene therefore resulting in the
change in eating behaviour; the alteration of methylation gene

Evaluation:

Genetic similarities
★ Bouchard et al. (1990)

Aim:
To determine how much intelligence can be attributed to genetics and the environment

Participants:
● 96 set of monozygotic (mz) twins raised apart (mza)
● Control group; dizygotic (dz) and mz twins and biological siblings raised together (dzt &
mzt)

Procedure:
➢ Longitudinal study
➢ Mza twins (raised apart); the group to assess the genetic influences were adopted
cross-culturally
 ➢ Concordance rate (measurement of similarity in behaviour) of the mza twins were
assessed through interviews and examinations; personality tests, amplitude tests and
intelligence tests.
➢ Concordance rates of mza twins were compared to the control group

Results:
➢ Mzt - 86%
➢ Mza - 76%
➢ Dzt - 55%
➢ Biological siblings raised together - 47%

Conclusion:
● Heritzability of intelligence - 70%
● Enviornment - 30%

Evaluation:

Evolutionary psychology
★ Curtis et al. (2004)

Aim:
To research if disgust was an evolutionary trait inherited to differentiate dangerous
objects/situations from harmless ones.

Participants:
40,000 people from different cultures and continents

Procedure:
➢ Participants were shown 20 pictures
➢ Participants were asked to rate the pictures for levels of disgust

Results:
Pictures representing a threat of disease were rated more disgusting

Conclusion:
➢ Disgust is an evolutionary mechanism for detecing disease; detection of a disease
through increased the rate of survival
➢ Showing disgust showed preparedness (organisms with this mechanism were more
biologically prepared to stray from potentially dangerous objects/situations)

Evaluation:
Cognitive Approach

Models of memory

★ Sacks (2007): Multi-store model of memory

Aim:
To investigate a case study of a musician, Clive Wearing, who contracted herpes viral
encephalitis in 1985 and how this illness affects his mental processes.

Participants:
Case study; Clive Wearings, a male musician with serious brain damage in the hippocampus
causing memory impairment.
Retrograde amnesia (failure to recall memories before the illness)
Anterograde amnesia (failure to store memories after the illness)

Procedure:
➢ Areas of damage of found through brain scans
➢ Observations and interviews

Results:
➢ Still had ability to talk, read, write and sight-read music (procedural knowledge)
➢ Could not transfer information from STM to LTM
➢ Memory lasted 7-30 seconds, and was unable to form new memories

Conclusion:
Short term memory and long term memory are separate stores
Short term memory has limited duration

Evaluation:
+ Strengths
+ Case study; realistic
+ In-depth information
- Weakness
- Cannot be guaranteed to the whole population; low ecological validity

★ Baddeley and Hitch (1976)

Aim:
To investigate if participants can use different parts of the working memory model at the same
time.

Participants:
➢ Lab experiment
Procedure:
➢ Participants were asked to perform two tasks at once (dual task technique); digit span
task (repear a list of numbers) and verbal reasoning task (answering true or false
questions)

Results:
➢ As the number of digits increased in the digit span task, participants took longer to
answer the reasoning question but not much longer time span.
➢ There wasn’t any more mistakes in verbal reasoning task as the numbers of digits
increased

Conclusion:
➢ Central executive (via the verbal reasoning task) and the phonological loop (via the digit
span task) can be used simultaneously

Evaluation:

Schema theory

Mental representations that organise our knowledge, beliefs and expectations. Studies have
shown that cognitive schemas influence memory processes in encoding, storage and retrieval.
This is seen as automatic and non-conscious which saves cognitive energy could lead to biases
in thinking and memory processing.

People use schemata to categorize objects and events based on common elements and
characteristics and thus interpret and predict the world.
New information is processed according to how it fits into the mental structures or rules.
Humans retrieve knowledge from various areas to draw conclusions about missing or
non-evidental information; rubrics, perceived social roles, stereotypes and worldviews.

★ Bartlett (1932)
Perceived organized knowledge as an elaborate network of abstract mental structures that
represent a person’s understanding of the world, he studied the impact of one’s cultural
background in rephrasing and memorizing certain events.

Aim:
To investigate how information changes with each reproduction and to find out why the
information changes.

Participants:

Procedure:
➢ ‘The War of Ghosts’ -- North American Indian folk tale from another culture to the
participants.
➢ First participants read the story twice (serial reproduction)
➢ Then the participant was asked to repeat their story another participant and then in a
chain of participants.
➢ For the repeated reproduction task, each participant was tested separately after reading
the story to themselves twice.
➢ 15 minutes later they gave their reproduction of it.
➢ They were asked again after 20 hours, 8 days, 6 months and 10 years, for different
participants.
➢ The participants did not know the aim of the study

Results:
➢ Few participants recalled the story accurately -- Bartlett ffound a following pattern of
errors; form (order of events), details (names and numbers were lost), simplification
(detailes are left out or made more familiar) and addition (inaccurate details were
included).

Conclusion:
Bartlett concluded that unfamiliar material changes when it is recalled; becomes shorter, simpler
and stereotyped-- this may due to the effect of schema on memory

Evaluation:

+ Strengths
+ Repeated and serial reproduction tasks were done many times to show that the
changes to the story followed the same pattern.
+ Other stories were also used and showed similar results.

- Weaknesses
- Unfamiliar material does not account for changes that would be in familiar
material.
- Bartlett did always test the repeated the reproduction participants after the same
time intervals, so changes over time cannot be compared fairly.

★ Cohen (1993)
Aim:
To investigate the effect of stress on the immune system

Participants:
➢ Lab experiment
➢ 394 healthy participants

Procedure:
➢ Participants were given questionnaires on the level of stress; score between 3-12;
‘stress index’
➢ Nasal drops containing strain of flue virus given to all participants

➢ High levels of stress has a negative effect on the immune system

➢ High levels of stress reduce the effectivess of the immune system; more susceptible to
illness. **Stress is immunosuppressive = reduction of the activation or efficacy of the
immune system.

Results:
➢ 82% of participants became infected with flu
➢ 7 days after, participants who developed strain into cold recorded.
➢ Higher score in ‘stress index’ correlated with the development of a cold

Conclusion:
➢ High levels of stress have a negative effect and reduce the effectiveness on the immune
system.

Evaluation:

Thinking and decision making

★ Mamede et al. (2014)

Aim:
To determine if unconscious (intuitive) led to better performance than conscious (rational)
thought

Participants:
Experienced doctors and medical students

Procedure:
➢ Participants were presented with 4 fictitious medical case histories presented by
computer in the form of statements and clinica test results.
 ➢ Half of the participant group were asked to engage in a ‘rational’ thought process for 4
minutes to gauge the life expectancy.
➢ Other half of participant group were doing anagrams for 4 minutes.
➢ The participants were then asked to estimate the probability that each patient would be
alive in 5 years’ time.

Results:
➢ Significant difference in task performance between novices and experts.
➢ No significant difference in accuracy between the conscious and unconscious thinking
condition.

Conclusion:
➢ Unconscious, intuitive thought did not lead to better performance compared to deliberate
conscious thought.

Evaluation:

Reconstructive memory
➢ Memory can be defined as a capacity to retain and store information.
➢ Memories are not a recording of an event, but rather a reconstruction that cones from
two sources; our actual memory of an event, and any information received after the
event.
➢ We try to fit past events into our existing representations of the world, so that our
memories are more coherent and make more sense for us.
➢ Elizabeth Loftus demonstrates how it is possible to distort a person’s memory of an
event through the use of leading questions (questions that hint that a particular answer is
required)

★ Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Aim:
To investigate how information supplied after an event (in the form of a leading question)
influences an eyewitness’ memory for that event.

Participants:
➢ Laboratory experiments; using an independent measures design.
➢ Experiment 1 - 45 students from the University of Washington.
➢ Experiment 2 - 150 students

Procedure:
➢ The IV in both experiment was the verb used.
 ➢ The DV in the first experiment in the participant’s speed estimate and the DV in the
second experiment is whether the participants believed they saw shattered glass or not.

Experiment 1 -

1. 45 participants were shown the same seven film-clips of traffic accidents; 5-30 seconds
long.
2. They were then asked to write an account of the accident they had just seen and asked
to answer some specific questions, one of which was the critical questions; the speed of
the vehicles involved in the collision.
3. 5 conditions; each 9 participants
4. IV manipulated by the means of wording the questions.
5. The condition depended on the word the participants heard when being asked the critical
question.

Critical question: “About how fast were the cars going when they
smashed/collided/bumped/hit/contacted each other?”

6. Experiment lasted about an hour and a half and a different ordering of the films was
presented to each group of participants.

Experiment 2 -

1. 150 participants were shown a short 1 minute film which contained a 4 second scene of
a multiple car accident, and then were questioned about it.
2. 3 conditions and the IV was manipulated by the wording of the question.
3. 50 participants were asked “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”
4. 50 participants were asked “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each
other?”
5. 50 of the participants were not questioned about the speed of the vehicle; the control
group.
6. One week later, the participants returned and were asked a series of questions about the
accident they viewed the week before. The critical question was, “Did you see any
broken glass?”
7. The DV was whether or not the participants said they had seen broken glass. **There
was not broken glass in the video.

Results:

Experiment 1 -
➔ Mean speed given for each of the different verbs
◆ Smashed: 40.8 mph
◆ Collided: 39.3 mph
◆ Bumped: 38.1 mph
 ◆ Hit: 34.0 mph
◆ Contacted: 31.8 mph
➔ Conclusion; the results show that the phrasing of the question brought about a change in
speed estimate. Verb, ‘smashed’ elicited a higher speed estimate than the verb
‘contacted’
◆ Could have been due to memory distortion of the participants, caused by verbal
label that was used or the way in which the critical question was asked.
◆ Response bias factors in which case the participants are not sure of the exact
speed and so adjust their answers to fit in with the expectations of the questioner
(demand characteristics)
Furthermore, experiment 2 was carried out to see which of the above explanations was correct;
has the participants memories actually been changed? Or were they simply just responding to
the questions they though the experimenters wanted? **Increased participant bias

Experiment 2 -
➔ In the ‘smashed’ condition, 16 participants said yes and 34 of the participants said no.
➔ In the ‘hit’ condition, 7 of the participants said yes and 43 of the participants said no.
➔ In the control group, the 6 participants said yes and 44 participants said no.
➔ Results show that the verb in the original question about speed had an effect on the
misperception of glass in the film.

Conclusion:
➢ Loftus and Palmer (1974) argue that two kinds of information goes through into a
person’s memory of an event; the information obtained from perceiving an event and the
information supplied to us after the event.
➢ Over time, the information from these two sources may become so integrated that we
are unable to tell from which source they originally came from, all we have is one
memory (reconstructive hypothesis).

Evaluation:
➢ There are other factors that can influence the memory of an event, not just the type of
question you are asked.
➢ Some psychologists disagree that post-event information changes the witness’ original
memory, never to be retreived again; they suggest that witnessses merely follow the
questioner’s suggestions, leaving the original memory intact for retrieval under
appropriate conditions such as the cognitive interview technique.

+ Strengths
+ Loftus and Palmer (1974) suggest a wider implication to the judicial eyewitness
testimony in courts; judges are now required to instruct the jury that it is not safe
to convict on a single eyewitness testimony alone. Loftus and Palmer (1974)
reconstructive hypothesis has also meant that police and lawyers are urged to
use as few leading questions as possible, although in reality this practice may still
be carried out.
 + Precise control of variables, allowing the researchers to confidently conclude that
it is the IV that is affecting the DV and nothing else. Ex) Loftus and Palmer (1974)
were able to control the age of the participants ___find the age?___ and use the
same video, location and the questions asked; increases the replicability and
therefore reliability of the experiment which can be tested using the test-retest
method.

★ Yuille et al. (1985)

Aim:

Participants:
Procedure:
Results:
Conclusion:
Evaluation:

Bias in thinking and decision making

★ Hill et al. (2008)
Aim:
To investigate the role of confirmation bias

Participants:
65 participants and 45 participants

Procedure:
➢ Study 1, participants were asked to make questions for the suspects on whether if they
cheated on a task. Also told whether if the suspects were likely to be guilty or innocent
➢ Study 2, participants were accused of cheating ona task and were interviewed with
either guilt-presumitive or neutral qustions.
➢ Study 3, participants listened to recordings of the participants in study 2 and were then
asked to rate the suspects’ verbal behaviour

Results:
➢ Participants in study 1 who had guilt expectations from the suspects formulated
questions that were guilt-preseumtive questions which would then support heir own
expectations

Conclusion:
Evaluation:

★ Hamilton and Rose (1980): Illusory correlations

Aim:
Participants:
Procedure:
Results:
Conclusion:
Evaluation:

The influence of emotion on the cognitive process

★ Talarico and Rubin (2003)
Aim:
Participants:
Procedure:
Results:
Conclusion:
Evaluation:

Sociocultural Approach

Social Identity Theory

→Social identity theory, investigates the behaviour between personal and social
identities. Social identity theory aims to specify and predict the circumstances under
which individuals think of themselves as individuals or as group members.

★ Tajfel et al. (1971)

https://quizlet.com/40901908/tajfel-et-al-1971-flash-cards/

Aim:
To test whether the simple act of grouping was enough to produce prejudice between groups if
very similar people even when there is no history or competition between the groups.

Participants:
 ➢ Opportunity sampling; 64 14-15 year old boys from a Bristol comprehensive school was
used, who supposedly already had a cohesive (one) group identity.

Procedure:
➢ Tested in a laboratory in eight separate groups of eight boys.
➢ Taken to a lecture room and told that the study was investigating visual judgements
➢ Shown 40 different dot clusters on a screen and asked to estimate the number of dots in
each cluster.
➢ Then divided into two experimental groups.
○ Condition 1 - over-estimators
○ Condition 2 - more accurate-in
➢ They were then told thet were required to take part in further investigation on other kinds
of decision-making
➢ Assigned to groups according tot eh judgements they had made about the number of
dots.
➢ They were randomly allocated to groups and in condition 1, bots were designated as
‘overestimators’ or ‘underestimators’, in condition 2 they were split into ‘better’ or ‘worse’
accuracy groups.
➢ They were told that the task involved money in rewarding and puncishing the other boys
and they had to choose how much to reward or punish the other boy, whether they were
in their own group or the other group, or whether one was in his group and the other was
not.
➢ They were taken to separate cubicles and in each cubicle there was booklet with a
matrix which had two rows each with 14 numbers, with each number in a box.
➢ The numbers represented the amount of money they were either rewarding or taking
from the other boys.

Matrices:

There were three kinds of matrices.

1. In group choices - when the boys in both rows were members of the participants own
group
2. Out group choices - when the boys in both rows were members of the other group
3. Inter group choices - when the boy in one row identified a member of the participants
own group and the other row was from the out-group..

➢ One row referred to one boy and one to the other boym so they had to choose which
pair they wanted that would affect them both
➢ If they gave as much as possible to one boy, this was given a score of 14 and a score of
1 if they had given the boy as little as possible.
➢ Fair score was 7 because that would mean they had allocated rewards/punishments
fairly.
Results:

Experiment 1 -
➢ When decisions involved boys in the same group, the choices were fairer than when
decisions were made about 2 boys in different groups.
➢ When decisions involved boys from different groups (in-group/out-group), the results
were closely distributed around the point of fairness, with the average score being 7.5
for intergroup decisions.
➢ Tajfel et al. (1971) found that the large majority of teh participants gave more money to
members of their ingroup, with the average being 9-14.

Conclusion:

Experiment 1 -
➢ The boys knew each other well.
➢ Groups were defined by ‘’filmsy and unimportant criteria’.
➢ The boy’s interests were not much affected since no one knew what their actual choices
were.
➢ The amount of profit was not trivial - each left with the equivalent of about $1.
➢ They could have gone for maximum joint profit (all the boys would end up with the most
money), or choose maximum fairness when their choices were inter-group ones.

In order to analyse their choices further a second study was conducted.

Experiment 2 -
★ Klee and Kandinsky (Year not said)

Aim:
To investigate factors that lead to in-group favouritism.

Participants:
3 new groups with 16 boys each.

Procedure:
➢ Participants shown 12 slides of 6 paintings by Klee and 6 by Kadisnky and were
randomly allocated to two groups based on their preference.
➢ Half were assigned to Klee and other half to Kadisnky.
➢ They were then given rewards allocation task where they were asked to award points to
two other boys (one from each group) at a time. They only knew what group they were
in,
➢ The matrices they had to use were arranged so that when a participant chose a score for
one boy, the other boy would get the score that was tied to it.
 ➢ There were 3 conditions in the way the boys could allocate money to two other boys,
either to two boys from the other group (outergroup) or two boys from their own group
(inter group) or one boy from their group and one boy from the other group (inter-group)
➢ Researchers were interested whether the boys would choose the matrix that gave both
groups the greatest possible reward (maximum joint profit), the matrix that gave in-group
the greatest reward regardless of what this meant for the out-group (maximum in-group
profit), or the matrix that created the biggest difference between the in-group and the
out-group (maximum difference)

Results:
➢ The boys typically awards more points to members of their in-group even though this
meant they ended up with less money themselves.
➢ Maximum ingroup profit and maximum difference in favour of the ingroup worked against
maximum joint profit.
➢ If they had a choice between giving the most money to everyone and giving the most
money to their own group, they favoured their own group. Even if giving more to the
other group did not mean giving less to their own group, they still gave more to their own.
Conclusions:
➢ Categorising the boys into meaningless groups caused them to identify with their
in-groups and generate a positive social identity by giving their group more points. They
did this even if it meant ending up with fewer points, as long as their own group came out
on top.
➢ This ingroup favouritsm can be explained by the social identity theory proposed by Tajfel,
which suggests that the boys made themselves superior by boosting their group’s status
by awarding themselves more money.
➢ The theory suggests that to boost ones own self-esteem, your own group needs to seem
better than other groups, so you try to engineer this by making other groups look worse
in comparison.
➢ This ingroup favouritism and discrimination stems from prejudice caused by grouping.

Evaluation:

+ Strength (Reliability)
+ Laboratory experiment had the advantage of enabling him to control the
environment in terms of what the participants experienced including the
information and instructions given to them and ensure that no other factors could
influence their behaviour.
+ Manipulation of the environment in this way enables cause and effect
relationships to be indicated and use of standardised procedures makes
replications possible.

- Weakness (Generalisability)
- The sample could be said to be biased as the participants were all male, of
similar and from one particular school and one particular area of the country.
 - Difficult to generalize; small ecological validity to other groups such as
females, other age groups or people from other geographical areas.
- Can be argues that these teenage boys were simply displaying the
competitiveness typical of boys this age and not discrimination.

Validity

+ Strengths
+ Data generated was quantitative in that it involved calculating the number of
participants who selected the different options in the matrices. This data allowed
for comparisons to be made and statistical analysis to be carried out.

- No qualitative data was provided by Tajfel et al (1971) and Klee and Kadinsky to show
how the boys behaved or why they made the choices they did; hence there is lack of
validity.

Ecological validity
- The study can be criticised for its low ecological validity because of the unusual task
performed in an artificial environment and it can argued that it produced unnatural
behaviour on the part of the participants. There is also a strong possibility that they were
influencecd by the demand characteristics of the situation and acted in the way that they
though were expected of them (participant bias).

Reductionism
- Weakness
- Tajfel’s social identity theory reduced the complex human behaviour of
discrimination to a very simple level, focusing just on minimal groups and
performance of a simple experimental task.

Application
+ Deals with destructuve and anti-social, but very common feature of society in examining
the causes of prejudice and discrimination. A such can be seen as a very useful piece of
reserach that could be used to improve everyday life.
- Applications are restricted by the methodological limitations such as low ecological
validity and unrepresentative sample and the reductionist principles adopted.

★ Haworth (2002)
Aim:
Participants:
Procedure:
Results:
Conclusion:
Evaluation:
Social Cognitive Theory

★ Bandura and Ross (1971): Bobo doll

Aim:
To demonstrate that if children were passive witnesses to an aggressive display by an adult they
would imitate this aggressive behaviour when given the opportunity.

Participants:
➢ Lab experiment
➢ 72 total participants; average age of 4 years old matched on levels of aggression
(matched pairs design)

Procedure:
➢ Subjects (children) were taken to an observation room for 20 mins and were observed
through 1 way mirror
➢ 2 observers (inter-rater reliability) recording responses every 5 seconds looking for
behaviour similar to the adult model.
➢ Quantitative data was collected; recorded every 5 seconds (240 data points per child)
looked for 3 types of imitation behaviour.
○ Imitation of physical aggression, verbal aggression, and non-aggresive
responses.
➢ Three conditions
○ Aggressive condition - 24 children observed adult being aggressive to the bobo
doll (6 boys with same sex model, 6 boys with opposite sex model, 6 girls with
same sex model and 6 girls with opposite sex model)
○ Non-aggressive condition - 24 children observed adult playing and ignoring bobo
dolls (same model structures)
○ Control group - 24 children
■ Participants of 1 and 2 saw the model and then were taken to another
room and observed for aggression

Results:
➢ Children in Agressive condition imitated more aggression behaviour than children in
non-aggressive condition
➢ Boys responded more aggressively than girls
➢ Boys in aggressive condition showed more physical aggression with male models than
female
➢ GIrls in aggressive condition showed more physical aggression with male models but
more verbal aggression with female model

Conclusion:
 ➢ Children tend to imitate aggression when exposed to it, especially with a same sex
model
➢ Boys are more aggressive than girls

Evaluation:
+ Strengths
+ Participants matched according to levels of aggression (matched pair)
+ HIgh level of control because of lab environment
+ Can be more confident in IV directly affects DV, ensure that there are no other
contri to the results.
+ Large amounts of quantitative data
- Weakness
- Low ecological validity; artificial setting
- Low mundane realism/decreased realistic nature of the study; adults beating and
playing with toys
Ecological validity
- Weakness
- Children exposed to model who were strangers who they had no interaction with
before or during the experiment
- Artificial setting

Ethics
- Weakness
- Unethical; children were exposed to aggressive behavior and could cause long
term psychological problems

Stereotypes

★ Cohen (1981)

Aim:
To investigate if stereotypes affect memory

Participants:

Procedure:
➢ Participants were shown a video of a man and woman eating in a restaurant.
➢ Half the participants were told the woman was a waitress and the other half of
participants were told the woman was a librarian.
➢ The participants were then asked to describe the woman’s behaviour and personality.

Results:
 ➢ The two groups of participants gave entirel different descriptions, which matched
stereotypes of a waitress and of a librarian.

Conclusion:
➢ Stereotypes will reduce the accuracy of accounts of people.

Evaluation:
➢ Watching a film/video of an even isn’t the same as in real life; decreased realistic nature
of the study. In the video, the situation you are prepared for what is about happen and
are in a safe environment. In contrast to real life, you usually aren’t prepared and takes
you by surprise, the situation may also be dangerous for you. This impacts how you are
able to recall.
➢ Other factors can cause eyewitness accounts to be unreliable

Practical applications
- Interviewers should avoid giving too much information about a suspect as this can lead
to stereotypes which influences the intervieww and their recall of the suspect and event.

★ Steele and arson (1995)

Aim:
Participants:
Procedure:
Results:
Conclusion:
Evaluation:

Culture and its influence on behaviour and cognition

★ Sanchez-burks and nisbet (2000): Cultural norms

Aim:
To investigate the differences between Mexican and Anglo-American preferences in work
groups.

Participants:
Volunteer sampling -- Mexican and Anglo-American university students

Procedure:
➢ Participants viewed one of four 4 min video of a language tutoring session.
 ➢ Two of the videos was solely task oriented, one with Anglo-Americans and one with
Mexican participants, whilst the other had a mixture of socioemotional and task-focused
components.
➢ Other had a mixture of socioemotional and task-focused components, one with
Anglo-Americans and one with Mexican participants.
➢ All four groups then had to fill out a questionnaire evaluating the session and suggesting
any improvements.

Results:
➢ Both groups rated the task-oriented session higher, but the Mexican participants rated it
less faviourably.
➢ The Mexican group emphasised socioemotional considerations more than
Anglo-Americans in their recommendations.
➢ They made the same recommendations regardless of the ethnicity of those in the video.

Conclusion:
➢ Anglo-Americans, the success of a task is more dependent on minimising
socioemotional concerns
➢ Mexicans consider the socioemotional aspects highly important for success.

Evaluation:

Cultural dimensions

★ Berry (1967): Individualism vs. Collectivism

Aim:
To investigate the impact of collectivist/ individualist cultures on conformity.

Participants:
➢ The Temne people of Sierra Leone, the Inuit people and Scottish people as a reference
group.
➢ 120 participants for each group

Procedure:
➢ Each participant group were shown cards with one ‘standard line’ and three different
‘comparison lines’
➢ They were all instructed to match the correct line together.
➢ However, there were hints for each of the cards, they stated that one of the groups
determined that the ‘standard line’ and number of ‘comparison line’ was the same which
it was correct.
➢ However, for the rest of three sets the hint was deliberately made incorrect.

Results:
 ➢ The Temne group resulted in the highest rate of conformity and the Inuit resulted in the
lowest rate of conformity.

Conclusion:
➢ It was due to their difference in cultures of producing food; the Inuit were hunters and
fishers which involved individual work decreasing conformity within the group
➢ The Temne group who are a rice farming society, they require more coordination,
increasing conformity within their group.

Berry (1967) shows culture does have an impact on behaviour; depends on cultural norms of
their group, which can increase or decrease their behaviour on conformity.

Evaluation:

Enculturation
★ Odden and Rochat (2004)

Aim:
To study the role of observational learning (based on social cognitive theory) in enculturation in
Samoa.

Procedure:
➢ Observational, longitudinal study (25 months) of 28 children in one Somoan village.
➢ Somoan culture, adults have a non-interventionist approach to their children.
○ Parents do not spend much time with their children, believing that children can
learn important skills and values on their own,
○ This culture provided a unique opportunity to assess the role of observational
learning.
➢ Observations were made of the children’s behaviour over 25 months, and at the end of
the study, children completed a multiple choice test that tested their knowledge of the
values of Samoan society, including the chief system.

Results:
➢ Children were not taught how to fish, as the supply of fishing equipment was limited.
➢ Children spend a great deal of time observing how adults fished.
➢ By the time children were 10, they began borrowing fishing equipment (without adult
supervision) and by 12 most were capable fishermen (despite never being taught how to
fish)
 ➢ The multiple choice test demonstrated that most children had a basic understanding of te
concepts, rites and rituals of their society, including the chief system, despite not having
been explicitly taught these by teachers and parents.
○ Children were able to learn the norms of their culture simply by observing and
overhearing the conversations of others

Conclusion:
➢ Observational learning plays a significant role in enculturation,
➢ Possible for children to learn the values, norms and behaviours of their culture simply by
observation and imitation

Evaluation:

+ Strength
+ Longitudinal design; collecting observations for a period of 25 months,
researchers were able to observe children acquire new skills (such as fishing)
over the course of the study.
- Weakness
- Study only involved participants from one Samoan village, so it is not certain that
observational learning plays a significant role in other cultures.
- Observational study without a standarized method for data collection; risk of
research bias -- researchers might have given more weight to observations that
confirmed their hypothesis, less weight to observations challenged it.

Acculturation

★ Lueck & Wilson (2010)

Aim:
To investigate the factors affecting acculturation stress.

Participants:
➢ 2,000 Asian-Americans; Asian immigrants who moved to America and children of
immigrants; Chinese, Vietnamese etc

Procedure:
➢ Participants were interviewed about their own experiences with semi-structured
questionnaires consisting of standardized questions and follow-up questions.

Results:
➢ 70% participants addressed experiences of acculturation stress.
➢ Cases of discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping were prevalent contributing factors to
stress.
Conclusion:
➢ Acculturation stress is common among Asian immigrants in America; different cultures,
language, food, clothing, social norms and etc.