...Outline and evaluate research into Privation Privation is the failure to form an attachment, this may be due to extremely poor parenting or prolonged stays away from a potential attachment figure, e.g. whilst in hospital. One famous study on extreme privation is the case study of Genie: Genie was locked in a room by her father until she was thirteen and a half years old and never fully recovered and proceeded to lack social responsiveness. Her lack of recovery may be due to the fact that she was found beyond the sensitive period or because of the physical deprivation she experienced. Additionally, another well-known case study on privation is the Czech twins whom spent the first seven years of their life locked up by their stepmother and were unable to talk. Once they were found they were then cared for by two sisters and by the age of fourteen they were socially and intellectually stable and had no problems with relationships and intelligence. The two studies both demonstrate privation; however, they both differ in terms of recovery from the privation. The negative effects of privation were more easily reversed with the Czech twins than Genie; this could have been due to the fact they went to a stable loving home which gave them sufficient emotional care. They were also younger when discovered; this may also contribute to the ease of recovery. The Czech twins were together; this means they could recover better socially as they were not alone, unlike Genie who was secluded and...
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...Outline and evaluate research into conformity: (12 marks) Asch carried out a key study in the field of conformity in 1951, looking at whether people will conform to the group and give an incorrect answer to a simple question. Asch used 50 male college students overall, and in each group there were 7 students - one oblivious participant, and 6 confederates of the experimenter. Asch showed each group a series of cards in pairs - one card had a vertical line on it, and the second card had 3 lines of differing lengths on it, one of which matched the line on the first card. One by one, the students were asked aloud which line matched the one on the first card - A, B or C. The six confederates of the experimenter gave the same wrong answer, and Asch observed whether the oblivious participant conformed to the group and gave the incorrect answer. Asch found that around 75% of participants conformed to the incorrect answer at least once, showing that even in situations where the correct answer is obvious, there is still huge pressure to conform, especially when the group is unanimous. A weakness of this study is that the sample was small, unrepresentative and biased - Asch used only male students, all the same age and all from the same college, meaning that the results can’t be generalized to females or older or younger people. Another issue is that the task was artificial, meaning that the study had low ecological validity and the findings can’t be generalized to other real-life...
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...Outline and evaluate definitions of abnormality The first definition of abnormality is deviation from the social norm. This means that the person is not conforming to the expected and accepted patterns of behaviour in society. There are two types of social norms which can be broken by ‘not normal’ patterns of behaviour, Implicit and Explicit. Implicit rules are those which are implied, for example using cutlery to eat a roast dinner. Whilst there is no law stating that this must be done, it would be deemed unusual by other members of society. The other rule, explicit, refers to stated rules, for example the law. One example of an individual breaking an explicit rule would be committing Murder. There are however several issues with using deviation from social norm to determine abnormality. The first being cultural relativism, meaning social norms vary between cultures. For example in many African-American tribes, hearing the voices of the recently deceased is seen as a blessing. In the west, it is diagnosed as schizophrenia. Further to this, the definition does not allow for eccentric behaviour, which does not necessarily mean a person is mentally ill, ie. A rugby streaker may not be abnormal, but may just seek attention. A final drawback to this approach is that it does not define the difference between a criminal and a person with a mental health issue. A burglar, for example, may simply have a criminal mind but not be abnormal. The second definition of abnormality is...
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...Describe and evaluate research into circadian rhythms (8+16) Research into circadian rhythms has assessed the effects of isolating participants from external time cues (exogenous zeitgebers) on our 24 hour cycles, and suggesting that an internal body clock (endogenous pacemaker) creates a free running sleep/wake cycle rhythm of 25 hours. Siffre (1975) * Case study of his own experiences in an underground cave for 2 months. Without any exogenous zeitgebers such as light or cues to guide him, his sleep/wake cycle generally adjusted to a 25 hour cycle, though sometimes changing dramatically up to 48 hours. Aschoff and Weaver (1976) * Designed a temporal isolation study by placing participants in an underground ww2 bunker without an environmental or time cues. * They found that the free running cycle persisted with a sleep wake cycle of 25 hours, sometimes increasing to 29. Weakness into research of circadian rhythms * Lack internal validity. * They removed natural light sources, artificial light from torches and cameras have been shown to reset the endogenous rhythms, thus interfering as an extraneous variable. Exemplified through Czeisler et al (1999) * Altered participants’ circadian rhythms down to 22 hours and up to 28 only using dim lighting to alter his release of melatonin from the pineal gland. * Findings do not reflect true isolation and have lower internal validity, so his rhythm may not have adjusted so well if he had been truly...
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...The security of attachment in infants was investigated by Mary Ainsworth in the 'strange situation' study, in order to determine the nature of attachment behaviours and styles of attachment. In the ‘strange situation’, infants and their mothers were observed in a range of situations, which allowed the researcher to see the different types of behaviours shown. The infants were observed through video cameras in a purpose-built laboratory playroom with their mothers. The room contained two comfortable chairs and a play area with a set of toys suitable for young children. The procedure in Ainsworth’s research consisted of a series of situations, which were standardised for all the infants who took part. 1. Mother and infant enter the room. Mother sits in one of the chairs and reads a magazine. Child is placed on the floor and is free to explore the toys. 2. After about three minutes, a stranger enters, sits on the second chair and talks briefly with mother. 3. The stranger approaches the infant and attempts to interact and play with them. 4. Mother leaves the room so the infant is alone with the stranger. The stranger comforts the baby if they are upset and offers to play with them. 5. After around three minutes mother returns and the stranger leaves. 6. Three minutes after mother departs again leaving the baby briefly alone in the room. 7. The stranger re-enters and offers to comfort and play with the baby. 8. Mother returns and the stranger leaves. Using this procedure...
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...Outline and evalute the breakdown of relationships A01- Duck skills maintenance A02-Shavier, Rofhling IDA- gender bias PA- ccet - china A01-rollie and duck -stages of breakdown A02 - Tashiro and Frazier A03- methological flaws IDA - determinsitic Duck suggested that relationships breakdown due to various of reasons, such as lack of skills. This means that people in the relationships have a lack of interpersonal skills to make eachother mutally satisfyimg, if a person lacks interpersonal skills or social skills have poor conversational skills and are bad at indicatomg they like a particular person it could lead the other partner to believe they are unintresting, unrewarding in their interactions. This then leading to the breakdown of a relationship. Additionally, Duck suggested that if a raltaionship is lacking in stimulation then breakdown will occur. Lack of stiumulation is when you expect the relationship to change and develop but does not. This results in the partner being unsatisfied thus forming the relationship to stop. Maintenance diffulties is another reason why relationships breakdown. This is where there is a strain caused in a realtionship e.g if a couple can not see eachother for various of reasons. This may be due to not living close together or that their jobs causes them to find it difficult to spend time with eachother. Therefore if a relationship has maintenance difficulties Duck suggests it will lead to a breakdown in the relationship. ...
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...Obedience is complying with an order from another person to carry out an action. Many studies have been conducted into looking at obedience in people and what factors in a certain situation lead people to obey. In 1963, Milgram carried out a study among 40 American males between the ages of 20 and 50 years old, with the study aim being wanting to find out under what conditions would different people obey to authority under. The participants were deceived into thinking they would be emitting electric shocks, to inflict pain onto an individual when they gave a wrong answer to a question; the question being a word matching query. The participant here played the role of a teacher and the learner in this case was in fact the confederate. The shock meter went up in pain voltages as the experiment went on and more wrong answers were issued. However, there was no real pain being inflicted, just the sound of the learner acting as if he was hurt. The experiment carried on until the participant refused to obey the orders being given to them, or until the highest shock voltage of 450 volts was reached. However, stern encouragement was given to the participant by the leader of the experiment to carry on going and issue out the shocks, even though it was putting the learner through a great deal of audible pain. The experimenter would tell the teacher ‘it’s absolutely essential that you continue’ or ‘you have no choice, you must go on’. It seemed that in fact these instructions from an authoritative...
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...Outline and evaluate two explanations of conformity. Normative social influence is a type of conformity compliance, where people behave in a way in which the majority are. This is where a large majority of people are able to indirectly control other people by making it difficult to oppose their views or opinions, thus making the minority feel pressured into complying. Although it may not change the minority’s opinions, some still conform to avoid social judgement and rejection of a large group. Asch’s study “Research into Majority Influence” (1996) clearly showed that 36.8% of the responses in 12 critical trials were incorrect due to the participants conforming under the pressure of 5 other confederates. This showed that humans have a tendency to fall under social pressure and conform to beliefs (their public beliefs, not their private) that they themselves do not believe. Informational social influence is similar to normative although the participants in Asch’s study were found to change their public and private beliefs, an example of internalisation. Informational social influence is most likely seen when the situation is unclear to the participant, where the situation is of great importance that occurs quickly so rapid decision making is needed and where the participant is to believe an expert’s opinion – where humans are more likely to believe someone that knows what to do or say. Wittenbrink and Henly’s (1996) found that when participants were exposed to negativity toward...
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...Outline and evaluate research into types of attachment. The Strange Situation was devised by Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues in order to test the nature of attachment by placing an infant in conditions of mild distress which was caused by the presence of a stranger and separation from the caregiver. This also allowed the observers to measure stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. The procedure consisted of eight episodes with each episode designated to behaviour for example episode 3 the entrance of the stranger measured the stranger anxiety. With respects to the Strange Situation, Ainsworth found out that there were three types of attachment. One of these being secure attachment, these infants were in a happy relationship with their caregiver, however were distressed by the presence of the stranger and separation from the caregiver. They happily greeted their caregiver on reunion. The second type of attachment was insecure- avoidant, these infants avoided social interaction and intimacy. They were unaffected by the presence of the stranger and separation from the caregiver. Lastly, the third type of attachment was insecure- resistant, in which the infant had high levels of stranger anxiety and separation anxiety and they rejected the caregiver on reunion. The Strange Situation has provided means through which we can study attachment types and later correlated them with behaviours in the future as done by Prior and Glaser who conducted a longitudinal studies and found...
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...Outline and evaluate the Working Memory Model. The Working Memory Model (WMM) is a model of the STM. The WMM was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch when they carried out a Dual-task method experiment only to find that the MSM was too simple as it stated that the STM is only one store. The model shows that information is first received by the Central Executive. The Central Executive has overall control of the STM and it is multi-modal meaning it can process information from different senses. This information can then go to one of two stores. If it is speech-based information it will be transferred to the Phonological Loop. It has two subcomponents, phonological store and articulatory control process. The phonological store is the inner ear and contains snippets of sounds either from the outside world or recalled from long term memory. The articulatory control process is the inner voice which essentially is our own voice inside our heads as it constantly repeats or rehearses information so therefore preventing forgetting by decay. The visuo-spatial sketch pad is visual short term memory, or the inner eye. It can manipulate images in two and three dimensions. The WMM shows memory as an active process as the Central Executive can store and retrieve information from either slave store. As this is a model of the STM, all three stores have a limited duration and capacity. A good thing about the WMM is that it’s pioneering. This model is the first of its kind to explain STM as having separate...
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...Outline and evaluate the behavioural approach to psychopathology (12 marks) One assumption of the behavioural approach is that only behaviour is important and that this behaviour is learned through experience. The processes of this learning include classical conditioning where associations are made between one thing and the other. Operant conditioning where abnormal behaviour is reinforced or the social learning theory (SLT) where abnormal behaviours are learnt vicariously. For example, a child may observe its mother obsessively cleaning the house and being praised by the father for doing so. This consequence (e.g. praise) may be enough to initiate the same abnormal behaviour (e.g. OCD) in the child. The behaviourist approach assumes that abnormal behaviours that have been learnt can be unlearnt using the same processes (operant conditioning, classical conditioning and SLT). So, undesirable or abnormal behaviour e.g. a phobia, can be replaced with more desirable or normal behavior using therapies such as systematic desensitisation. One strength of the behavioural approach is that therapy can focus directly on the client's maladaptive behaviour. For example, if a patient suffers from arachnophobia then the treatment can be directed solely towards getting rid of the fear of spiders instead of referring to the client's previous or medical history. This shows that changing the behaviour from maladaptive to adaptive is sufficient for a cure. One...
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...Outline and Evaluate the Behavioural Approach to Psychopathology The behaviourist approach assumes that all behaviours are learnt. It suggests that there are three ways in which this learning can happen, these are classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning. The first method is classical conditioning this is when behaviour is learnt through association; via a stimulus and a response. This is an explanation for phobias, an abnormal behaviour can be learned by associating an environmental stimulus; a dog, with a biological response; fear and pain when bitten by the dog. Therefore, every time a person previously bitten by a dog sees a dog, they experience the same fear they felt when being bitten. Thus, the person would develop a phobia of dogs. Another example is, the fear of small spaces, this may develop if fear is felt in a situation involving a small space – an elevator for example. Therefore a past distressing event in the elevator may lead to associating fear with small spaces. The second way is operant conditioning, this is when behaviour is learnt through positive reinforcement; rewarded by a pleasant outcome or a negative reinforcement; rewarded by the removal of the unpleasant condition. This can be associated to abnormalities like anorexia for example. If a person is dieting and they then begin to gain compliments from the weight loss, these compliments act as a positive reinforcement and they will carry on behaving the same way. If this were to...
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...Outline and Evaluate the Working Memory Model The working memory model (WM) explains why we can do two different tasks at the same time, but not two similar tasks. It replaced the idea of a unitary short term memory (STM) in the working memory model information is passed from STM to the central executive and this decides if the information is visual or auditory. Information is then passed to the corresponding store. The central executive is a key component of the WM. It directs information from STM to one of the "slave systems" It also has a very limited capacity and duration so can't attend to too many things at once. The first "slave system" is the phonological loop. This deals with auditory information and maintains the order of the information. It consists of two stores, the phonological store which is like an inner ear and deals with sounds and the articulatory process is used for words which are heard or seen. These words are silently repeated (looped) like an inner voice. The next "slave system" is the visuo-spatial sketchpad. This deals with visual information and spatial information is the relationship between this information. This store is used when you have to plan a spatial task such as getting from one room to another or counting the number of windows your house has. Hitch and Baddley showed support for the WM by conducting an experiment where they gave participants two tasks to do at the same time. They found participants were slower completing these tasks...
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...Essay Questions Outline and evaluate the learning theory of attachment The Learning theory states that babies form attachments in the same way any behaviour is acquired: it is learned. There are two different ways of learning, according to the theory: Classical conditioning (learning through association) and Operant conditioning (learning through repetition or punishment). The first type, Classical conditioning, is a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occuring stimulus. If, for example, we were to use an infant and a primary care giver (PCG): * Food is an unconditioned stimulus that produces an unconditioned response (pleasure). * At the start, PCG is a neutral stimulus who produces no response (pleasure.) * However, because the PCG is continually paired with the unconditioned stimulus (food), she becomes associated with it until eventually the PCG alone can produce pleasure. * PCG has now become a conditioned stimulus and the pleasure she brings is a conditioned response. The second type, Operant conditioning, is a learning process that occurs through rewards and punishment for behaviour. Through this conditioning, an association is made between a behaviour and the consequences for that behaviour. If, for example, we were to use an infant and a PCG: * When hungry, the infant feels uncomfortable and experiences a drive state. * This drive motivates the infant to find some way to lessen...
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...Outline and evaluate the working memory model In the working memory model, there are four main components; The central executive is the most important component as it is involved in problem solving and decision making. It controls attention and plays a vast part in planning and processing information from subsidiary systems and LTM. It is flexible and can process information. It has a limited capacity and can only contain a limited amount of information at one time, Secondly the phonological loop stores a limited amount of speech-based sounds for quick periods. It contains two components. The phonological store (inner ear) allows acoustically coded items to be stored for a brief timing. The articulatory control process (inner voice) allows subvocal repetition of the items stored in the phonological store. Repetition can be prevented by a technique known as ‘articulatory suppression’. The visuo-spatial scratch pad (inner eye) stores visual and spatial information. It is responsible for setting up and manipulating mental images. It has a limited capacity but the limits of the system are independent. The episodic buffer interrogates and manipulates material in the working memory. It has a limited capacity, depending a lot on executive processing. It is capable of binding together information from different sources into chunks/episodes. It interrogates material from LTM to meet the requirements of working memory. The working memory model has many advantages which are that it...
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