AS Level Core Studies
Cognitive Psychology Social Psychology
Savage-Rumbaugh et al Milgram
Baron-Cohen et al (1997) Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin
Loftus and Palmer Reicher and Haslam
   
Deregowski Tajfel
Gardner and Gardner Haney, Banks and Zimbardo
Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith
   
Developmental Psychology Psychology of Individual Difference
Samuel and Bryant Thigpen and Cleckley
Bandura, Ross and Ross Rosenhan
Freud Griffiths
   
Hodges and Tizard Gould
Hraba and Grant
  Savage-Rumbaugh et al
Savage-Rumbaugh's longitudinal case study is a report on the naturally occurring use of symbols by two pygmy chimpanzees, brother and sister Kanzi and Miluka. The report is based on all data collected over a period of 17 months and demonstrates how both chimps were able to spontaneously use lexigrams (symbols) to communicate with the researchers. This was assessed on a day-to-day basis journeying around the research centre (the chimps would indicate by symbol where they wished to go and what they wanted) and also through a formal test that involved pairing spoken words photographs and lexigrams in varying combinations. The researchers compared the data to that collected on two common chimps using the same equipment and conclude that pygmy chimps (pan paniscus) are better predisposed to acquiring language than other great apes.

Baron-Cohen et al (1997)
The study investigated theory of mind in adults with autism and Asperger Syndrome. In previous studies these people passed second-order theory of mind tests, although the tests were designed for those with a mental age of up to 6 years. Therefore the task used in this study was designed for very high functioning adults and required them to identify the mental state of a person based on photographs of the person's eyes. Participants were matched on age and completed the eyes test and Happé's strange stories task (both second-order theory of mind tests), along with two control tasks: recognising gender from the eyes and recognising basic emotions from the whole face. Participants with autism or Asperger Syndrome performed significantly worse than controls on the theory of mind tests, but were not impaired on the control tasks, suggesting there are subtle mind reading deficits (lack of theory of mind) in high functioning adults with autism or Asperger Syndrome.

Loftus and Palmer
The aim of this study was to investigate how reliable memory is. This was done by asking participants to complete a questionnaire after witnessing videos of staged and real car crashes. The first part of the experiment asked the participant to estimate the speed of the cars, and changed the verb in the question to see if it influenced memory. The second part of the study asked the participants if they saw broken glass. In both cases more dramatic verbs led to memories of a more serious accident, and therefore higher estimated speeds / more likelihood of remembering broken glass. The researchers concluded that memory of an event is not reliable, as it can be distorted. This is because a memory is created from what actually happened plus information that is added to it afterwards.

Deregowski
This study reviewed various pieces of scientific and anecdotal evidence from different cultures to assess whether visual perception of depth in flat images in innate or acquired. The evidence included African subjects' responses to projections, photographs, perspective drawings, split style drawings, images containing depth cues and whether they could copy a trident that looks three-dimensional but isn't. The evidence suggests that Western cultures have far greater three-dimensional perception, and this made it difficult for the African subjects to interpret the images as they did not understand the depth cues. It also made it easy for those who didn't understand the depth cues to copy the trident as it didn't confuse them. Some subjects were also asked to assemble a cube from a diagram and two-dimensional perceivers recreated a flat model. This suggests that perception is acquired dependent on what is required within the culture, as all cultures would share the same perceptions if it was innate.

Gardner and Gardner
The aim of this study was to investigate language - whether it is innate or acquired, whether it is specific to humans and if it is possible for a chimpanzee to learn a language. A young chimp by the name of Washoe was taught American Sign Language using operant conditioning, modeling and imitation. Using strict judgement criteria it was found that Washoe learnt a number of signs and could also combine them to create new words / meanings, although she never got as far as making full sentences. This suggests that it is possible for a chimp to learn to use language, although it is impossible to conclude whether she actually understood or was just using clever copying in response to positive reinforcements. This indicates that language acquisition is both innate and acquired.

Baron-Cohen, Leslie and Frith
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether autistic children's social problems were due to a lack of theory of mind, which allows us to understand other people's thoughts, feelings and beliefs, even if they are different to what we think, feel or believe ourselves. This was done using the Sally-Anne Test, where the researcher has 2 dolls (Sally and Anne). Sally leaves the experiment room, Anne takes Sally's marble out of her basket and puts it in her own box. The child is then asked where Sally will look for her marble. If the child understands that Sally will still believe the marble is in her basket, then they show theory of mind. Compared to normally developing children and children with Down's Syndrome, autistic children were far less likely to have a theory of mind, with only 20 percent recognising what Sally would believe.

Bandura, Ross and Ross
This study investigated whether learning can take place by simply watching role models and imitating their behaviour. Boys and girls in a nursery witnessed men and women being physically and verbally aggressive towards an inflatable doll. The researchers then observed the children's response to a small version of the doll after they had seen the aggressive role models, passive role models or no role model at all. It was found that children who witnessed the aggressive role models were more aggressive than those who hadn't. Boys were more aggressive than girls, and this was even true after matching children in each of the three groups based on how aggressive they were to begin with so that the groups were similar.

Freud
This case study investigates a little boy's phobia of horses. Most of the information came from letters between the boy's father and the therapist, and included dreams he had, things he said and other events, such as his response to horses and to his baby sister being bathed. The therapist concluded that the boy was going through a normal phase of sexual development, and that his dreams and other behaviour showed he was experiencing the Oedipus Complex (wants to be with mother and is frightened of father). He also suggested that this would pass as the little boy worked through the conflicts that arise during childhood between the unconscious mind and the conscious one. The little boy grew up to be a normal person in spite of dreams about being married to his mum and having an invisible friend with a very dodgy name!

Samuel and Bryant
The purpose of this study was to assess whether Piaget's concept of conservation was valid and reliable. This was done by replicating Piaget's experiment where children were asked to judge whether two identical objects remain the same size when one of them is changed to look different. Piaget had asked the children if the objects were the same, changed one of them and then asked again, and the researchers felt that this was why the children made mistakes and thought they weren't. However, when they replicated the study with two questions - the way Piaget did it - and then with just one question (after the child saw the object change shape) they found that although they made less mistakes when only asked once, they still got better at this as they got older. This is exactly what Piaget had suggested. A third condition was used where the children did not see the objects change and were asked once, and they made a lot of mistakes on this one. Also, whether the objects were containers of liquid, counters or playdoh / plasticine affected how well they could conserve.

Hodges and Tizard
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of being in institutional care at a young age. This was done because previous studies indicate that there is a critical period for emotional development that requires attachment to a significant person (such as a mum). The study compared a number of teenagers who had been in care and then been either adopted or gone back to their natural parents, to a control group who had not been in care. The data was collected longitudinally and from various people using various methods. It was found that although the adopted children coped better than those restored to their natural parents, all of those in care found emotional relationships more difficult than the control group.

Sperry
This study used people who had already had split brain surgery to control severe epilepsy in an attempt to identify where different processes occur in the brain, and how this surgery affects brain function. This was investigated by giving split brain patients tasks that were only presented to one side of the brain to investigate language, emotion, smell and touch. One of the findings was that split brain patients found it difficult to name objects that were only presented to their right brain. The study shows, for example, that the left hemisphere processes language, although the right hemisphere does understand it a little. It also showed the cross-lateral connections between the brain and all functions other than smell.

Maguire et al
This study investigated the differences between the hippocampi of taxi drivers and a control group of non-taxi drivers. This was to see whether the hippocampi, which are linked to navigation and spatial awareness, were different in London taxi drivers. The researchers used two different analysis techniques to measure the volume of the left / right anterior and posterior hippocampi in 16 London taxi drivers, all male, aged between 32 and 62. The results showed that the taxi drivers had a larger posterior hippocampus, whereas the control group had a larger anterior hippocampus. There was also a correlation between the size of the right posterior hippocampi and length of time spent as a taxi driver. The results suggest that the volume of the hippocampus changes relating to environmental stimuli, indicating that this region of the brain has plasticity and differences are acquired.

Dement and Kleitman
The aim of this study was to investigate whether there was any relationship between Rapid Eye Movement Sleep and Dreaming. This was achieved by asking 9 participants to record their dream recollections when awoken from both REM and non-REM sleep. The researchers predicted that there would be relationships between REM sleep and dream recall (more dreams when woken from REM than non-REM), the direction of eye movement and what the dream was about and the amount of time in REM sleep and how long the participants thought they had been dreaming. All three hypotheses were supported, although participants also recalled dreaming during non-REM (usually when woken within 8 minutes of going from REM to non-REM sleep).

Schachter and Singer
This study investigated emotional experience, and was based on testing the theory that an emotion is made up of cognitive appraisal (labelling the emotion) and physiological arousal (adrenaline and the physical changes it produces). This was done by giving 3 groups of participants an adrenaline injection (epinephrine) and 1 group a placebo, then putting them into situations designed to create an emotional response of anger or happiness. Some participants were misled or given no information and the researchers predicted that they would blame their physical state on the situation, therefore reporting higher levels of emotion. Other participants were told the effects of the injection and so would not blame the situation as they already knew why they felt that way. The results were as predicted, indicating that if someone feels physiologically aroused and doesn't know why they will look at their situation in order to label their emotion. This supports the theory that emotions need both cognitive and physiological elements.

Raine, Buchsbaum and La Casse
This study investigated whether there was any difference between the brain activity of murderers and non-murderers. This was possible because 41 violent murderers had claimed to be Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity and had to be assessed to see if this was the case. The researchers used a PET scanner and recorded the metabolisation of radioactive glucose in the brain (the more that is metabolised, the more activity). A number of differences in brain activity were seen in areas of the brain that previous studies have related to violence and aggression. These differences could be identified by comparing the scans of the murderers to a control group matched on age, gender and whether they were schizophrenic.

Milgram
This study investigated obedience to authority, by telling participants that they were to take the role of teacher to another participant (who was part of the study really) being the learner. Each time the learner got a question wrong they were to give an electric shock as a form of punishment. When the teacher asked to stop they were prompted by the researcher to continue giving increasingly high voltage electric shocks. The participants did not know it was fake and 65% gave the full 415V shock because they obeying the researcher (ie the authority figure).

Piliavin, Rodin and Piliavin
This study investigated prosocial behaviour (helping others) by staging a collapse on a train. The person who collapsed either acted drunk or disabled. The observers recorded who helped and how long it took to help. There was also a member of the research team who offered help after a short or long time if no passengers offered help first. The researchers concluded that people go through a cost-reward analysis when deciding whether to help and will help if the rewards are greater than the costs. This was based on the findings that people preferred to help the disabled person, especially if that person was of the same ethnic group as themselves, and also that men were more likely to help than women.

Reicher and Haslam
The aim of the study was to investigate the factors underlying behaviour in institutional situations where groups have unequal power. This was done to revisit the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment, where paricipants conformed to their designated roles. Reicher and Haslam's study was also conducted in a simulated prison, with guards and prisoners, but they were less prescriptive about how the guards should behave and used psychometric tests to measure mental health, authoritarianism and other factors during the study. The findings suggest that individual behaviour is not entirely determined by the situation, as both the guards and prisoners fail to conform entirely to role. Personality and the extent to which they internalised their role also played a part.

Haney, Banks and Zimbardo
The aim of this study was to investigate how people conform to the expectations of a role they are given. This was done by setting up a mock prison in the basement of the university psychology department and then randomly assigning participants to the roles of guard or prisoner. The guards wore uniforms and worked 8 hour shifts. The prisoners wore smocks, sandals, no underwear and a ball and chain. Very quickly the power affected the guards who became quite brutal towards the prisoners, and the prisoners became helpless. The research team got sucked into the situation and the study, which should have lasted 2 weeks, had to be stopped after 6 days.

Tajfel
This study investigated how easy it is to create prejudice simply by grouping people on the basis of irrelevant differences. This was achieved by randomly assigning boys to groups but telling them they had been grouped according to whether a) they over or under-estimated dots, then b) whether they preferred one artist or another. The boys were then asked to decide how many pennies boys in their own group and boys in the other group would get. Overall it was found that the boys chose less for the other group even though it also meant they could not get the most themselves (for eg. 2 for you and 6 for me rather than 11 for you and 12 for me) to try and get the biggest difference and the greatest profit. This wasn't quite as bad as the researcher interpreted though, and often the boys made fair decisions.

Thigpen and Cleckley
This study focuses on Multiple Personality Disorder and whether it is a real illness. The subject was a woman who said she had blackouts and headaches but whose family said she became a different person during the blackouts. Most of the information collected was through the psychologists (her therapists) observations, which might be biased and were sometimes a bit unprofessional, but they did give her IQ tests and a Rorschasch Ink Blot Personality tests, as well as measuring the brain activity of the different personalities on an EEG machine. The two main personalities (who are named Eve White and Eve Black in the study) were different, and a third personality (called Jane) was more like Eve White.

Rosenhan
This study investigated the effects of labelling by placing 6 people in psychiatric hospitals - these 6 people reported symptoms similar to schizophrenia and once admitted observed the behaviour of hospital staff and patients. It was found that once labelled as mentally ill, all of their behaviour was interpreted by hospital staff as abnormal, and they were mostly ignored. The real patients recognised they were faking it, although when the hospital staff were told later that more pseudo-patients would be admitted and none were, they still picked out several people who they thought were pretending to be mentally ill.

Griffiths
The aim of the study was to investigate the cognitive biases held by regular gamblers on fruit machines. This was achieved by asking half of the participants to 'think aloud' whilst playing on a fruit machine. The results of regular gamblers were compared to non-regular gamblers. These results suggest that regular gamblers hold more cognitive biases than non-regular gamblers, perceive themselves to be more skilled on the machines and personify the machines. The findings also indicate that regular gamblers play fruit machines as a means of escaping from everyday life and for recreation purposes. Gould
This study reviewed the large scale IQ testing of recruits to the US army in WWI. Three types of test were used - a written one, a picture one and a spoken one. Most people failed the IQ tests, and immigrants (especially those who had migrated the most recently) did very badly. This led the researchers to conclude that Americans were not very intelligent, and that immigrants were even less intelligent. However the test used questions that required knowledge of the culture, and this is the issue that is being questioned in this review study.

Hraba and Grant
This study looked at ethnic identity and preference in black and white children. This was something that was originally investigated in the 1930s by Clark and Clark using black and white dolls, and the first study showed that black children identified with the black dolls but preferred the white ones. When the study was replicated both black and white children were asked. All of them identified with the dolls that were similar to their skin colour, and the black children preferred the black dolls, but not as much as the white children preferred the white dolls.
Physiological Psychology
Sperry
Dement and Kleitman
Maguire et al
 
 
Schacter and Singer
Raine, Buchsbaum and LaCasse
 
Click on titles of studies to view full summary