Describe and evaluate theories of hypnosis

Theories of Hypnosis Describe and evaluate theories of hypnosis (25 marks) Frank Mesmer was an Austrian physicist who believed in magnetism and was one of the first hypnotists. He claimed that illnesses were caused by an imbalance in the body's own magnetic field. A process known as mesmerism came about. Patients would hold on to an iron bar in a dark room and sit around wooden barrels filled with water, ground glass and iron filings. Mesmer would play soft music, wearing a lilac robe and would tap the patients with his bar. They would often suffer convulsions and enter a trance-like-state. Mesmer claimed to be able to cure minor ailments with this method. This may have been true magnetism or the patients could just believe they are feeling the effect but it is due to their own imagination which is known as the placebo. A British physician amputated a man's leg using nothing more than hypnosis. This can be used nowadays to help people quit smoking, lose weight and go through painful dental treatment. Hypnosis is usually carried by asking the patient to stare upwards and focus on a target, and are then made suggestions about relaxation, tiredness and sleepiness. The patient's eyes should naturally close and if not then they are told to close them after 10 minutes. The individuals will sit quietly and show little or no activity unless it is suggested. Post-hypnotic amnesia

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 868
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

Describe and evaluate the Multi-store Model of memory.

Mos Albayaty - LKP Psychology - IGB THE MULIT-STORE MODEL OF MEMEORY Question: Describe and evaluate the Multi-store Model of memory. The multi-store model of memory was the idea of Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968/71. Atkinson and Shiffrin suggested that memory was compromised of three separate stores - the Sensory Memory store, the Short-term Memory (STM) store, and the Long-term Memory (LTM) store. They presented a diagram to show this. According to this model, memory is characterised as a flow of information through a system. The system is divided into a set of stages, and information passes through each stage in a fixed sequence. There are capacity and duration limitations at each stage and transfer between stages may require recoding. When a stimulus impinges our senses (such as reading these words, which are of course, received by the eyes) it goes through the Sensory Store, passing onto the STM store, and then possibly onto the LTM store. This is the order. Much of this information will be lost en route. To recall the information, such as what you have just read, it is needed to pass back from the LTM, to the STM (in reverse order). The Sensory Memory holds information for a very short time. It takes rapidly passing impressions of light, sound, smell etc. and preserves them just long enough for them to be recognised. It is the attention system. Any

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 2262
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

Memory research

Much of the traditional laboratory research on memory conducted in the past century has followed Ebbinghaus (1895) in using tightly controlled experiments that facilitate the quantification of memory (see Baddeley, 1990; Schacter, 1989). This tradition has been strongly criticized in the past two decades, however, most notably by Neisser (1978), who provocatively dismissed the laboratory research of the past 100 years as largely worthless for answering "the important questions about memory," and called for a shift to the "realistic" study of memory. Since Neisser's call, there has been a growing number of studies on such varied topics as autobiographical memory, eyewitness testimony, prospective memory, "flashbulb" memory, memory for action, memory for faces, memory for places, etc. (see, e.g., Cohen, 1989; This new wave of everyday memory research has resulted in a proliferation of research methods that are quite removed from those traditionally employed in the laboratory. The rift between proponents of naturalistic and laboratory memory research, as well as efforts at reconciliation, may be seen in the lively debate) sparked by Banaji and Crowder's (1989) paper. It is apparent from the commentaries that "everyday memory" is an ill-defined category (Klatzky, 1991), and that the dimensions of the controversy are not simple to specify. In general, the battles appear to be

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 1395
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

The Biological model

Outline & evaluate the Biological/Medical Model and consider its strengths and weaknesses. The biological model assumes that all mental illnesses have a physiological cause. One assumption of the biological model is genetic inheritance; it assumes that genes have a major effect on the likelihood of developing a mental illness. Illnesses can be inherited by parents and relatives. Kendler et al found that relatives of SZs were 18 times more likely to develop the illness than a matched group. Another assumption is biochemistry, this is chemical imbalances in the brain are involved in certain disorders; neurotransmitters play an important role in behaviour. It has been found that an excess of the neurotransmitter dopamine has been linked to SZ. Finally infection is a common cause for physical illness; Barr et al found a significant link between mothers who had influenza whilst pregnant and their child developing SZ. As there are physiological causes of abnormality therefore the treatments are physiological these are Drugs, ECT, which involves a small electric shock being sent to the brain causing a small seizure/convulsion and psychosurgery. Where electrodes are inserted into the brain and the infected part of the brain tissue is 'burnt' away. There are many strengths and weaknesses with this approach, firstly it is a humane approach unlike the cognitive approach, and the

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 515
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

Outline the multi store model of memory with evidence to support it

Multi Store Model The multi store model of memory (or MSM) proposed by Atkinson and Schifrin (1968), was the first explanation of memory in terms of categorical stores. This model explains memory in terms of three stores: sensory, short term and long term memory. The first stage of the store is environmental stimuli; this consists of everything in our environment that has the potential of being perceived. This enters the sensory memory store, which is encoded in either iconic (visually) or echoic (auditory) forms. These are stored for less than a second, and unless attention is given to these stimuli will be lost through decay. By paying attention these stimuli enter the short term memory store, it is encoded acoustically and sometimes visually. Short term memory has a very limited capacity of 7+- 2. This means we can remember 5-9 items at a time. If we want to increase this we can chunk them. For example instead of remember 0 1 9 2 has four separate pieces of information, we can remember it as 0192, chunking them together as one piece, expanding what we can remember. However we can only keep this new information in our short term memory for 18 - 30 seconds based on rehearsal, where you keep the memory active by rehearsing it. This is called the rehearsal loop, by rehearsing the new information it stays in our STM, and if rehearsed enough it will enter the long term memory

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 532
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

Outline the multi-store model of memory and consider its strengths and limitations

Outline the multi-store model of memory and consider its strengths and limitations (18marks) The multi store model of memory is an explanation of the flow of information through a series of stages. Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) believed that memory involved three different stores. These being sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. They believed that to transfer information into the short-term memory it needs to be attended to (attention is focused on the information in sensory memory) and to transfer information from short-term memory into long-term memory the information needs to be rehearsed. Atkinson and Shiffrin found that when information passes through these stores it can be lost by forgetting. Their findings were that in sensory memory information is lost through decay, in short-term memory information is lost through displacement and in long-term memory information is lost as an affect of interference. Atkinson and Shiffrin also believed that rehearsal is needed for information to be transferred to long-term memory and how well it is rehearsed will determine how effective recall is. There are many strengths to consider in terms of the multi store model of memory. Previous studies such as Milner (1966 study of HM) and Baddeley (1997 Clive Wearing) support the theory that long-term memory and short-term memory are very different and separate systems.

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 637
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

Psychology Revision Notes - list of major experiments

Sub-sections Characteristics of STM and LTM Summary of a study on encoding in STM and LTM Baddeley- Participants were divided into four groups which were acoustically similar, acoustically dissimilar, semantically similar and semantically dissimilar. Participants were presented with the list a total of 4 times and each time was interrupted to try to prevent rehearsing. They were then presented with a 20-minute interval task and afterwards were asked to recall their list. Semantically dissimilar words were recalled the most telling us that encoding in LTM is semantic. Summary of study on capacity of STM and LTM Summary of study on duration of STM Peterson & Peterson- Showed PPs a list of nonsense trigrams and asked them to count back from 400 in 3 second intervals for a duration ranging from 3 to 18 seconds. Found that duration of STM was 18-30 seconds maximum. Summary of study on duration of LTM Bahrick- 400 participants aged between 17 and 74 were tested using different methods including free-recall tests, photo-recognition test, name recognition tests and photo-name matching test. PPs performed less well on free recall tests (30% after 48 years) but were much better in the photo-name test (90% after 60 years). Models of memory Description of the multi-store model of memory, plus evaluation inc. research Atkinson & Shiffrin- Multi-Store Model which

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 1825
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

Describe and evaluate the humanistic approach in psychology.

Humanism is a psychological approach that incorporates Holism this is seeing the whole person rather than only certain aspects. Like behaviour cognitive processes. Humanism is unscientific because it rejects scientific methods as useful for psychology and thus evidences' credibility is questionable e.g. self-actualization is difficult to measure objectively. Humanism rejects the behaviorist approach of the world via stimulus-response links, rejects the view of determinism, and instead states than humans do possess free will. Humanism totally ignores biological factors e.g. Genetics Humanism assumes that for the main part, people are good and they strive to try to achieve self-actualization. Humanism ignores the unconscious mind, which does have part, as humans do not focus on all things at all times. Humanism has rejected scientific approaches claiming that science is unsuitable in the field of psychology as humans are not predictable animals, and their environmental style of learning cannot be reflected in a lab. Free will is contrary to the laws of science, which are in fact deterministic. Humanism also assumes that humans are fundamentally different from animals due to the ability to consciously think and overcome primal instincts. Humanism is biased towards the western culture and is difficult to generalize into other societies. Humanistic Psychology

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 620
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

Outline & Evaluate the Cognitive Interview

Outline & Evaluate the Cognitive Interview The cognitive interview was devised by psychologists in order to eliminate the effects of misleading questions and misleading information. The process consists of first reporting everything the witness can remember, even information they believe to be unimportant. Then the witness is asked to mentally instate their experience, where they mentally use their sense to recall information. After this the witness is asked to change the order in which they recall the event, for example going backwards, and finally the witness is asked to change the perspective from which they recall the data, telling the officer the situation from above or as an onlooker. Fisher and Geiselman found that reporting everything and mental reinstatement check for consistency of the eyewitness report, and changing the order and perspective helps to create a different route to recall, increasing the amount of information. The cognitive interview has strong supporting research; Kohnken et al for example, reviewed research into eyewitness testimony and found that the cognitive interview increased the amount of correct information recalled by 48%, compared to the standard interview. Also, Stein & Memon found that the cognitive interview is effective because people remember more when given cues. They made Brazilian female cleaners watch a video of an abduction, and

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 461
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay

Loftus and Palmer APFCC

Loftus and Palmer aimed to investigate whether the language used when interviewing an eye witness about an event can act as a leading question and therefore distort the reconstruction of the event in the memory system. They were interested in factors that can influence the accuracy of eye witness testimony, making it unreliable. Allport and Postman demonstrated how schemas already set in the memory system can affect the reconstruction of an event. Participants were shown a slide of a white man attacking a black man with a razor, and were told to report the scene to the second person, who then had to report it to the third and so on. The scene became distorted over time, and over 50% who received the final description had the razor in the hands of the black man. It seems that participants 'prejudice' schemas (blacks more violent than whites) cause them to distort the way they constructed and stored the information in memory. The study shows that we reconstruct our memory based on schemas already stored. Eye witness testimony is important to the judicial system, as witness accounts can often influence the outcome of a jury. It is well reported that people are often inaccurate at remembering faces, weapons and numerical data such as speed and time. It is therefore evident that there are a number of variables that can affect eye witness testimony, such as the way in which a

  • Ranking:
  • Word count: 869
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
Access this essay