psychology core studies

• The principle of the social area


  How people behaviour due to external influences and how the presence of others influence our behaviour
• How is the social area similar to developmental area 


  They share methods and approaches to the study off people such as both focus on the whole person and their emotion and behaviour.
• How is the social area different to the biological area 


  the sodial area is affected by culture whereas the biological area is more universal.
• strengths of the social area 


  high control of variables which means conclusions are valid.

  provides insights into behaviour and help us understand how we are influenced by others
• weaknesses are the social area 


  uncontrolled extraneous variables which can affect the findings such as piliavin’s study took part on a New York subway whee many factors could affect the behaviour.

  Research cannot take place in unrealistic settings which means participants know they are being studied (has to be taken in a lab) creating demand characteristics.
• How does the social area link to the behaviourist perspective 


  social behaviours may be learned through reinforcements such as individuals may learn obedience is rewarded by observing role models
• how does the social area link to the individual/situational debate 


  arousal in the piliavin cost reward model is infulenced by situational factors
• Background to Milgram


  Milgram wondered if German obedience in the word war ii was dispositional, and wanted to pilot a procedure to assess obedience.
• what is the aim of milgram 


  to investigate the obedience and how the power of a person in authority can influence obedience.
• Sample of milgrams study 


  40 American men ages 20-50. Varied occupational and educational backgrounds.
• how was milgrams sample collected 


  volunteer sampling. Recruited via a newspaper article. Participants were paid $4 plus 50c for transport.
• In milgram study of obedience, describe what the study found in relation to people in authority. 


  The results showed that 26/40 were obedient and all 40 continued to give shocks up to 300v . Therefore people are likely be obedient to auothirty even if it goes against their beliefs.
• what are the results of Milgram 


  quantitative-

  all 40 gave shocks up to 300v

  26/40 gave the full 400v

  14/40 were disobedient

  Qualitative-

  signs of sweating, trembling, fainting

  three had seizures

  distress
• what is the theory of moral development 


  children’s thinking about moral decisions changes as they age as a consequence of maturation.
• aim of kohlberg


  sought further support for his theory, with a particular focus on whether everyone went through stage 5
• what was the aim for Casey's study


  to investigate whether the ability to delay is a consistent personality trait and whether it can be linked to differences in the way brain behaves in resisting temptation.
• Casey's design 


  • longitudinal study over 40 years.
  • 2 experiments.
  • independent measures
• Caseys sample

  experiment 1:

  • 59Ps 32 high delayers 27 low delayers

  experiment 2:

  • 27 of the experiment 1 but one left due to poor performance therefore 26
• main procedure of casey exp 1


  particpants were given a go/no go task which they had to press a button on the photos that matched the target and not press if it didnt.

  • 500 miliseconds
  • 160 trials
  • there was two runs; hot versions of faces with emotion and cold run with neutral faces
• main procedure of Casey exp 2 


  only hot version was run with 70 go and 26 no go trials for each expression (fearful and happy)
• what was used to assess brain activity in Casey


  An fMRI scanner
• caseys results exp 1


  • those who were high delayers as children were better at impulse control as adults
  • on the no-go trials, low delayers performed less well than high delayers on the hot trials.
• caseys results exp 2


  • low delayers committed more false alarms
  • on the no-go trials, low delayers had reduced activity in their right inferior frontal cortex and more activity in their ventral striatum.
• what conclusions can be made in Caseys study


  • adults who delayed gratification as a child continue to be able to delay as adults
• similarities of the biological and developmental area


  Both areas use a scientific approach to measure behaviour