Ib Psychology Hl - Case Studies (Core)

Front 1

Harlow (1848)

Back 1

Phineas Gage, damaged frontal lobe, localization of behavior. Resulted in loss of emotional control and intellectual abilities.

Front 2

Money (1974)

Back 2

David Reimer, theory of gender neutrality, roles are learned and not innate.

Front 3

Martinez and Kesner (1991)

Back 3

Effects of acetylcholine (neurotransmitter) on memory formation of rats trained to run a maze for food. One group as a control, one injected with scopolamine (blocks acetylcholine receptors), ran slower. Another group injected with physostigmine (blocks acetylcholine resting state), ran faster with fewer mistakes.

Front 4

Rosenzweig and Bennett (1971)

Back 4

Brain plasticity in rats, effects of deprivation. Rats placed in a stimulating environment had thicker cerebral cortexes (responsible for sensory input, memory, and learning).

Front 5

Bouchard et al. (1990)

Back 5

Minnesota Twin Study, longitudinal study of MZ twins reared together and apart, found equal chance of the pairs sharing personalities and interests. Differences must be due to the environment.

Front 6

Bouchard and McGue (1981)

Back 6

Reviewed 111 studies of IQ correlations between siblings, the closer the kinship, the closer the IQ.

Front 7

Grove et al. (1990)

Back 7

Twin study, MZ twins raised apart, anti-social behavior measured, it is found to be a hereditary trait.

Front 8

Schachter and Singer (1962)

Back 8

Two factor theory of emotion, three groups given epinephrine (hormone) injection, one given placebo. Some told about injection's effects, some not, and all are placed with a confederate who was either happy or angry. Participants not informed about effects were more likely to feel either happier or angrier than the informed.

Front 9

Broca (1861)

Back 9

Discovered that the left frontal lobe is responsible for making grammatically complex sentences. People with Broca’s aphasia are trapped in their bodies since they understand speech but cannot express themselves, patient can only say ‘Tan.’

Front 10

Wernicke (1874)

Back 10

Left posterior superior temporal gyrus is responsible for language comprehension. People with this type of brain damage can speak but not understand language, Wernicke’s aphasia.

Front 11

Kasamatsu and Hirai (1999)

Back 11

Accompanied monks on their pilgrimage to mountains, took blood samples before the trip. During the 72 hours of sensory deprivation (no eating, talking, drinking), they reported hallucinations. The blood samples after the trip showed increased serotonin (hormone controls sleep, mood, emotion, appetite).

Front 12

Ditzen (2009)

Back 12

Couples randomly assigned to two groups: one is administered oxytocin and the other has placebo. They are then asked to discuss a subject they often disagree about, oxytocin reduced stress hormones and increased positive communication behavior.

Front 13

Iacoboni (2004)

Back 13

Looking at human faces while having fMRI, first asked to imitate faces and then simply to watch. Limbic system stimulated, happy faces activate pleasure centres.

Front 14

Sacks (2007)

Back 14

Article on Clive Wearing: most extensive case of amnesia recorded, he only has a memory span of a few seconds and cannot record new memories, each moment is like the first waking one. He retains emotional memory and implicit memory (piano skills), but his hippocampus and frontal lobe are damaged.

Front 15

Milner and Scoville (1957)

Back 15

HM: epileptic whose hippocampus was removed at the age of 9 (only treatment at the time), he cannot form new memories but can hold a normal conversation. He does not remember magazines he just read, MRI reveals damage to the hippocampus, amygdala, and other areas close to these.

Front 16

Davidson (2004)

Back 16

Buddhist monks experienced in meditation and volunteers with one week of training, told to meditate on love and compassion. PET scan found that both had increased gamma waves (associated with higher reasoning), but monks’ did not go down after like the volunteers’.

Front 17

Brunner et al. (1993)

Back 17

Genetic mutation in 28 members of Dutch family with anti social behavior. Found mutation for MAOA, a neurochemical in the brain. Deficiency of this is associated with aggression, this was not found in the control group of normal males.

Front 18

Scarr and Weinberg (1974)

Back 18

No large difference between parent-child IQ correlations of natural and adopted children. Children were poorer with lower IQ parents that were adopted by wealthy white parents with high IQs. Intelligence must be influenced by environment.

Front 19

Fessler (2006)

Back 19

Investigated morning sickness in pregnant women, asked them to consider disgusting scenarios, women in first trimester more sensitive to disgust, self preservation and pickiness for food improve chances of survival.

Front 20

Curtis et al. (2004)

Back 20

Internet study, ranking 20 images by how disgusting they are, some are harmful to the immune system while some are just visually similar but harmless. Disgust reaction decreased with age, higher in women than men.

Front 21

Atkinson and Shriffin (1968)

Back 21

Multi-store model of memory, simple theory. Sensory memory to short term memory to long term memory.

Front 22

Stroop (1935)

Back 22

Stroop effect, people take more time to identify colors of a word in a different color than when it is the same color. Attentional processes.

Front 23

Bartlett (1932)

Back 23

Using serial reproduction (broken telephone), people were asked to read through a Native American story twice and then retell it later. It became distorted as people tried to fit it into their schemas.

Front 24

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Back 24

Asked participants to see video of a car crash, changed one word in the leading question to see its effect on the responses of participants regarding the cars’ speeds. Also asked if they saw any broken glass, this increased the speed.

Front 25

Curtiss (1981)

Back 25

'Genie,' case study of girl deprived of language until age 13

Front 26

Anderson and Pichert (1978)

Back 26

Participants hear story of a house from different perspectives (burglar or house-buyer), then distracted. Half are given a different schema, then have their recall tested. Changed schema people recalled more, but experiment had low ecological validity (controlled lab conditions).

Front 27

Baddeley (1966)

Back 27

Participants given lists of words with similar sounds, similar meaning, or lists of dissimilar words. Over the short term, there were many errors with acoustically similar words, but in the long-term, mistakes were made for semantically similar words. Concluded that STM uses acoustic processing, and LTM uses semantic processing. Limited in that visual processing is not accounted for.

Front 28

Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

Back 28

Asked participants to read prose while remembering sequences of numbers, multitasking caused impairment but was not devastating to completing both tasks, supports that STM has more than one store (working memory model), working memory model.

Front 29

Brown and Kulik (1977)

Back 29

Flashbulb memories, asked participants about events like the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. People had very clear memories of the place, ongoing event, informant, and feelings surrounding the event. The relevance or emotional significance of an event to a person's life increased its likelihood of being stored as a 'flashbulb memory'. 75% of black people asked were able to recall the assassination of Martin Luther King, while just 33% of white people could.

Front 30

Lazarus (1990)

Back 30

Emotional appraisal theory, an emotion-provoking stimulus triggers a cognitive appraisal, which is followed by the emotion and the physiological arousal. He suggested we initially make a brief analysis of a situation which he called a cognitive appraisal. This appraisal determines the level of physiological arousal and the specific type of emotion to be experienced.

Front 31

Speisman et al. (1964)

Back 31

Support for Lazarus' emotional appraisal theory, manipulating emotional reactions, unpleasant genital surgery with trauma, control (silent), and positive narration. Participants in the trauma group reported more stress.

Front 32

Asch (1951)

Back 32

Participants enter room with 6 men in suits (confederates playing a role for the experiment), asked to match line lengths on cards. Confederates answered incorrectly for most trials, even though it was clear they were wrong. Most participants conformed to this, although some did not conform to any of the responses. In the debriefing, participants reported self-doubt. The experiment has been replicated many times, and that larger groups of confederates up to a certain point increased conformity. When all the confederates agreed, conformity increased. Confidence and self esteem were also factors.

Front 33

Zimbardo et al. (1995)

Back 33

Stanford prison experiment, people have collective and social identities which will determine their behavior, conceptions of a prisoner and a guard will affect the way people behave towards them. investigated the effects of putting ‘normal’ people in difficult situations. Volunteers were randomly assigned to either prisoner or guard in a prison simulation, and within 6 days the experiment had to be suspended as a result of guard brutality and prisoner rebellion. Zimbardo concluded it was the situation the guards were in (empowerment) rather than any negative personality traits that explained their brutal behavior.

Front 34

Milgram (1963)

Back 34

Electrical shock experiment on authority and obedience. Ordinary people fulfilled orders to administer what appeared to be fatal electric shocks to a confederate of the experimenter. Milgram argued it was situational cues (such as the prestigious setting, and authority of the experimenter) that compelled participants to administer dangerous shocks.

Front 35

Lee et al. (1977)

Back 35

Game show fundamental attribution error, the participants mistakenly attributed intelligence to dispositional factors, even though it should have been situational. People randomly assigned roles as contestants, game show host, or audience. Host designs question, audience watches contestants answer them. People then asked to rank the intelligence of participants, host consistently ranked higher. However, all participants were students (conditioned to obey authorities)

Front 36

Lau and Russel (1980)

Back 36

American professional athletes and coaches attribute 80% of their wins to internal factors (e.g. ability, skill, professionalism). Losses are far more likely to be attributed to external factors (e.g. bad luck, unfair refereeing).

Front 37

Cialdini et al. (1976)

Back 37

Social identity theory, observed college football supporters on the days immediately following inter-college games. If their team won college scarves and insignia were much more in evidence around the college campus than if their team lost. The victory gave a sense of positive-distinctiveness for the group and therefore enhanced self esteem.

Front 38

Tajifel (1970)

Back 38

Schoolboys from Bristol were randomly allocated into groups (told it was because of a preference for the art of Kandinsky or Klee), boys tended to favor members of their own group and maximized similarities between themselves, but did not actually actively dislike the other group.

Front 39

Aronson (1995)

Back 39

African American and White college students who took a difficult verbal exam under one of two conditions: stereotype threat (told that their performance on the test would be a good indicator of their underlying intellectual abilities) and non-threat (the test was simply a problem solving exercise and was not diagnostic of ability). Performance was compared in the two conditions and results showed that African American participants performed worse stereotype threat condition, but in the non-threat condition their performance equaled the whites.

Front 40

Spencer et al. (1977)

Back 40

Difficult mathematics test given to women strong in maths, they underperformed compared to men. Stereotype threat about women’s poor ability in maths. When tested in literature skills, men and women were equal because the threat was not there.

Front 41

Snyder and Swann (1978)

Back 41

Told participants they were to meet an extroverted or introverted person, asked to come up with questions for them, questions confirmed participants’ opinion of each personality type.

Front 42

Bandura (1963)

Back 42

Bobo doll experiment, 72 children, equal numbers female and male between 3 and 6 are divided into 3 groups, first is exposed to adults being violent towards Bobo dolls, second watches adult assemble toys for 10 minutes, third has no model (control group). Some children watched same sex models, and some watched opposite sex models. Afterwards, the children are placed in the room with the Bobo doll. First group are also aggressive, second are not, girls more likely to be verbally aggressive and boys physical, children more likely to imitate the same sex model.

Front 43

Gergely et al. (2002)

Back 43

14 month old infants observed adults light up a box by bending over and pressing the box with her forehead, with hands on the table. The second group observed the same action, but with hands occupied holding a blanket. After a week, the infants were given the opportunity to play with the box, and many used their head to imitate the model, second group used their hands. Even very young infants can imitate a model’s behavior and infer their intentions, supporting social learning theory.

Front 44

Dickerson et al. (2002)

Back 44

Team wanted to see if university students could be convinced to take shorter showers. Researchers asked them to sign a poster supporting this, and most agreed. They were then asked to take a survey to make them think about their own water usage, and shower times were monitored, were shorter across the whole dormitory. Participants felt committed to the cause, supports foot in the door compliance technique.

Front 45

Burger and Cornelius (2003)

Back 45

Caller asked if students would donate $5 to a scholarship fund, first group told they would receive a free smoothie coupon, but were told they ran out and asked if they still wanted to donate. Second group told there were no more coupons before they had made a choice, third group asked to donate with no mention of coupons (control). Therefore supports low balling technique, but is based on making a public commitment so is only effective then.

Front 46

Hogg and Vaughan (1995)

Back 46

Asch experiment repeated, with confederates as a minority, they were able to influence participants’ responses to identifying a color. Minorities can influence the group because their dissenting opinions produce uncertainty and show that other options exist. Second study lends weight to Asch’s theory, different situation also evaluated, greater chance for generalization.

Front 47

Harlow (1956)

Back 47

Attachment in infant monkeys, cloth mother for comfort and as a source of security, and wire mother for food. Monkeys spend most time with cloth mother when not feeding. The isolated monkeys suffered serious emotional deprivation (privation) resulting in delinquent and anti-social behaviour, as infant monkeys had an innate need for comfort.

Front 48

Cole and Scribner (1974)

Back 48

Study of children from Kpelle tribe in Liberia (educated and uneducated) and American children in memorizing lists of items. Americans were best (where 'chunking' items is taught in school for memorization), then the educated Kpelle children.

Front 49

Hofstede (1973)

Back 49

Asked over 100,000 employees in 50 countries of the multinational company IBM to fill in surveys about morale in the workplace, carried out a content analysis and found that over half of the variance between countries was accounted for by five dimensions, including collectivism vs. individualism and short term vs. long term orientation

Front 50

Bond and Smith (1996)

Back 50

Meta-analysis of different conformity studies across the world, countries with more collectivist cultures were more likely to conform than individualist cultures

Front 51

Chen (2005)

Back 51

Investigated short term vs. long term orientation with 47 Singaporean ‘bicultural participants’ exposed to Singaporean and American culture. Selectively activated one or the other of the two cultures by presenting half with a collage of easily recognizable photos relevant to Singaporean culture and other half with US culture. Impatience tested by having participants perform an online shopping scenario in to purchase a novel. The book could be delivered either within four working days for a standard fee or next day for an additional charge. The extra money participants were willing to pay for faster delivery of the book was used as a measure of impatience. US-primed participants valued immediate consumption more than the Singaporean- primed participants.