paper 2 - theories and studies

Three memory stores. Sensory, STM, LTM To get information from Sensory to STM 🡪 PAY ATTENTION

To get information to remain in STM store 🡪 maintenance rehearsal

To get information from STM to LTM 🡪 Elaborative rehearsal

in the STM (short term memory)

yes

1. Ignores individual differences: e.g. some people have a large capacity

2. Oversimplified: oversimplifies the STM and LTM like its only one large store

3. Too much emphasis on rehearsal: doesn’t explain things like trauma

Wilson, Kopelman and Kapur (2008) intended to report on the case of Clive Wearing who suffered severe anterograde and retrograde amnesia.

A longitudinal case study covering 21 years was conducted. The research gathered qualitative and quantitative data

The researcher used neuropsychological tests: such as IQ tests, tests of verbal fluency and a digit span test to test his long and short term memory.

MRI scans were used to see the amount of damage to Clive’s brain

Unethical: repeatedly using him as a subject over the 21 years as it would have been very distressing to CW.

Non-confidential: Although the authors refer to the patient as CW, they identify him by his first name and give enough personal background to make it clear who CW is. Therefore his identity was not kept private.

Cannot generalise: Clive may not have truly understood the study on him due to the extent of his brain damage –cannot generalise results as unique case

The theory that memories are not exact copies of what is encoded and stored but are affected by prior experience and prior knowledge in the form of schema

making things up but not with the intention to deceive people.

Reductionist

Doesn’t explain how memories are processed

vague: The concept of schema is too hypothetical

Too many extraneous variables: during ‘war of the ghosts’ study standardised instructions not given

To see whether autobiographically-focused

advertising could directly affect how consumers

remember a prior childhood experience.

week 1: “life events inventory” and filler tasks

week 2: participants again were given either the

Disney advert or non Disney advert and “life events

inventory” again.

• 65% of participants in the experimental group

who received the autobiographical advert

mentioned memories of Disney world

• 90% of participants in the Disney advert group

showed an increase in their score on the life events

inventory in week 2 for the critical question

Age bias: students from USA

Not ethical: manipulated peoples memory

Study lacked ecological validity

To see whether false information in an advertisement could make participants think that those events had happened to them as a child

Participants in the experimental group were given 2 different types of false information.

first advert: suggested meeting Bugs bunny second advert: suggested shaken hands with Ariel The control group received a Disney advert which contained factual information

Participants then completed the life events inventory

The autobiographical adverts were more involving for participants than the non autobiographical one.

All three groups increased their confidence that they shook hands with their favourite TV character but higher in the experimental condition.

Situational factors theory: Proposes behavior is influenced by external circumstances rather than internal traits or characteristics. It emphasizes the impact of the environment on individual actions.

Dispositional factors theory suggests behavior is influenced by internal traits like personality, rather than external factors like situations.

Obedience= If a member of authority is present we are more likely to follow an instruction

Culture= Collectivist cultures are more pro-social. Individualistic cultures are less pro-social

Collective/crowd behaviour= Collective behaviour includes crowds, mobs, and riots. Crowds are a group of people who share a common concern in close proximity of each other. 🡪 leads to deindividuation

Normative/informational conformity= Normative conformity is you want to be liked. Informational conformity is you want to be right.

Self Esteem- the greater the self esteem the lower the chances of being influenced

Locus of Control- High internal locus of control (feel they control their lives)= Less likely to be influenced and vice versa

Authoritarian Personality- People with Authoritarian personality are more likely to be influence and show obedience

Morality- People are most pro-social during higher stages of moral development

The Brain- People with dysfunctional hippocampus (affects self-esteem) and pre-frontal cortex (affects morality) may affect how influenced they are by others.

over generalisations- Critics argue that the situational factors theory oversimplifies behavior by focusing solely on external factors, neglecting individual differences and personal agency.

over generalisations- Challenges the theory's oversimplification of behavior, neglect of situational influences, and failure to account for individual differences.

subjective- difficult to test

To see if social power is associated with uniform

Field experiment in New York – confederate either wearing guards uniform, milkman's uniform or dressed as a civilian. Pedestrians were approached and asked to : pick up a paper bag, give a dime to a stranger for parking or stand at another sus stop pole.

Participants listened more when the confederate was dressed as a guard

Field experiment testing obedience to authority. the two IV’s were surveillance vs non-surveillance.

Participants more likely to comply with a request from a person in a uniform.

A questionnaire was given with 29 different scenarios. Students were asked if the requests within the questionnaire were ‘legitimate’ or not depending on if it was asked by guard, civilian or milkman.

• Lack of generalizability

• Small sample sizes

• Potential bias in data collection

• Cultral Bias

• Gender bias

The study aimed to see what had triggered the riots and the extent and nature of the youth involvement

Data was gathered just 5 weeks after the riots had taken place Participants were interviewed individually, or in groups of 2 or 4. Full informed consent was gained and confidentiality was protected. 36 Tottenham participants were interviewed they varied in ages, ethnicities, work status and gender, with the vast majority still being in education.

4 categories were created of different people involved in the riots. Watchers, Rioters, Looters, Non-involved

Researchers identified ‘nudge’ factors (encouraging factors) and ‘tug’ factors (discouraging factors). The researchers then divided these nudge and tug factors into dispositional (individual) and situational (social) factors.

cant make generalisations- as only small proportion of people involved in riots - It was hardto recruit participants

Social desirable responses –Memory is unreliable

Freud believed dreams were repressed urges from the unconscious mind and that dreams were wish fulfilments of our deepest darkest wishes that couldn’t be fulfilled in real life. Freud claimed dreams have a manifest content and latent content.

manifest content is the actual content of a dream

latent content the underlying meaning of the dream.

too subjective- different interpritations on dreams

The theory is difficult to test –The theory id based on unreliable research and dreams are difficult to test

Reductionist–The theory only relates to wish fulfilment when dreams can be more than that e.g. nightmares or things we are worried about.

To try to reveal the latent content of the wolfman’s dream about wolves

Longitudinal case study with interviews

As a young child wolfman witnessed his parents having sex. The wolf symbolised his father. There was a Christmas theme surrounding the dream too e.g. white snow represented white bedsheets. Wolves represented the presents under the tree. Wolfman feared he would be castrated by his father

Freud suggested that the wolfman repressed his fears (being castrated) and wishes (wanting to be seduced by his father) and this latent content was displaced into the manifest content within his dreams.

Reductionist- Cant make generalisations as this case study is only about the wolfman

Cannot objectively test- wolfman is unrepresentative due to his mental health issues

Inaccuracies in wolfman's dreams –maybe wolfman didn’t accurately recall his dreams.

Dreams are meaningless. The only reason people have dreams is because of random brain activity.

Signals arise from the pons (bundle of neurons) 🡪 This activates the limbic system (emotions)

🡪signals travel to the occipital lobe (visuals) 🡪 Cerebral cortex stimulated (makes sense of brain activity by creating dreams)

It is a group of nerves that function as a connection between the cerebrum and cerebellum

the part of the brain involved in our behavioural and emotional responses

where you process visual stimuli from the external world while also assigning meaning to visual perceptions.

processing activities such as perception, language, memory, thinking and problem-solving.

Some people have recurring dreams of a similar theme, suggesting dreams aren’t completely random

This theory suggests that dreams are only activated in REM sleep but other research suggests dreamscan occur in non-REM sleep too.

too reductionist- dreams are complex and shouldn’t be reduced to just neuronal processes.

To try to reveal the latent content of the wolfman’s dream about wolves

12 participants (American students aged 23-45) – participants Kept a dream journal (self-report) - 60 daydreams and 60 night dreams collected according to the number of number of lines

Experiment lasted 1 term –The DV: bizarreness density was recorded according to locus and type of bizarreness –Three separate judges recorded the score in order to increase inter-rater reliability.

Significant difference between mean density scores for dreams and fantasies (the mean for dreams being 3X higher in bizarreness). -The most significant difference was on discontinuity. -The judges were 88.7% accurate on guessing if the report was a dream or fantasy (therefore the two must involve different cognitive activities)

The bizarreness of dreams correlates with brain activity during REM sleep which is why dreams contain more ‘bizarreness’ – night Dreaming and day fantasies involve two completely different types of brain activities. –Both during night dreaming or daydreaming individuals don’t register external stimuli

social desirability bias

lack of control over independent variable- (how can they only record dreams in REM sleep?) difficult to generalise- (12 participants and most were female)

lacks construct validity