The three major things that differ experiments from the descriptive and correlational approaches.
Psychology When dealing with experimental methods you systematically vary one or more factors in order to see what effects the changes have on behaviour. An experiment is often performed in a laboratory because it's easier to control the factors which one systematically wishes to vary. There are three major things that differs experiments from the descriptive and correlational approaches. . As mentioned above you manipulate one or more variables. 2. Whereas most experiments are done in a laboratory, descriptive and correlational research is done in a more natural area. 3. Descriptive and correlational researchers are not able to keep extraneous factors constant in the way that experimenters can. The main advantage is that you can draw conclusions. You can't do that in the other two methods. One disadvantage is the ethical problem. You can only do experiments that don't affect the subjects in a negative way. Consider the belief that alcohol is a sexual stimulant, and that a few drinks can lower sexual inhibitions and increase sexual attraction towards someone else. Experimenters made a few decades ago an experiment about how alcohol affect ones sexuality. The researchers created two drinks that people could not separate apart from taste and the bartenders then fooled the costumers. There were those who thought they were drinking vodka and really drank it, but there were
Social Facilitation
Is Social Facilitation a result of feeling observed? Discuss in relation to available theory and evidence. This essay will discuss Social Facilitation, and if it has been proven to be the result of feeling observed. A number of theories and models explaining this phenomenon will be analyzed, along with studies which support these. These theories will be discussed in chronological order starting with the earliest, as this will help understand how these explanations have developed. Social Facilitation has been stated to be that 'An audience usually enhances the performance of an accomplished professional. But its effect on novices is not always beneficial therefore an audience can evidently inhibit as well as facilitate' (Allport, 1920 as cited in Gleitman, 1991, p.510). Social facilitation is the performance enhancing effects of an audience on a person's behavior. It refers to the tendency of people to perform better on tasks which are straightforward or well practiced when in the presence of an audience. Social inhibition is also defined as being the result of feeling observed, but is in contrast with facilitation, it is the tendency of people to do worse than they would do on their own at difficult or un- learned tasks. The earliest published research on social facilitation was conducted by Norman Triplett in 1898. He found that among bicycle racers, cyclist tended to
TV programmes such as; Big Brother and Im a celebrity get me out of here will be looked at, within this essay, to work out whether these shows are able to tell us anything about group behaviour and how it affects the individual.
Introduction At any one time everyone belongs to more than one group, whether it is; sports group, social group, business related, etc. Within these groups behaviour must change by conforming to group norms and values. As, stated by Professor Beattie, "Big Brother provides hours of footage of social interaction" TV programmes such as; "Big Brother" and "I'm a celebrity - get me out of here" will be looked at, within this essay, to work out whether these shows are able to tell us anything about group behaviour and how it affects the individual. Group Behaviour The definition of a group given by lecturer Wrennall is:- "A number of people interacting together with a common purpose and a psychological awareness that they constitute a group" People when entering groups feel the social pressure to conform. Conformity, as described by Bernstein is; "Changing one's behaviour or beliefs to match those of others, generally as a result of real or imagined, though unspoken, group pressure" Although there are those who would believe themselves as an individual it is said that to fit in with a group the individual's behaviour must change, by conforming to group norms and values. This can be seen in the reality TV shows as each goes in as an individual and as the weeks go by the contestants begin to conform as to fit in to that particular group. We can see this especially with
Critically evaluate psychological explanation of love
Critically evaluate psychological explanation of Love. The Triangular theory by Sternberg states that love contains 3 components: Passion, intimacy and commitment. Passion is the drive that leads to physical and romantic attraction or even sex. Intimacy is the feeling of closeness between the 2 partners which may involve the mutual understanding and emotional support. Commitment is the decision made to stay with this partner and give up relationships with other potential partners. These 3 components combine in different ways to form 7 types of love. The most perfect, yet the hardest to achieve, is the consummate love. It contains a balance of these 3 components. However, where there are 1 or 2 components largely/totally missing, different types of love occur. For examples, infatuate love only involves passion (e.g. a crush on someone). Sternberg believes each individual has 2 triangular loves: one is their ideal relationship and the other is the current one. If they are very similar, an individual tends to have a very successful love. However these 3 components suggested are rather vague. This is particular the case for "commitment" as it is difficult to judge the basis on which one person decides to love another (Hamma). Since there are no objective measurements, individuals may have their own standard to measure. This means it lacks the account for individual differences
Utilising cognitive theories, critically evaluate any 2 cognitive explanations for criminal behaviour".
Psychology Assignment 2 Over the years psychologists have become interested in the reasons why people commit crimes and how they process thoughts differently to others. Some psychologists have looked more into the cognitive, developmental, and personality factors that could contribute to criminal behaviour. When looking at humans and why they commit crimes, the cognitive reasoning is important to consider. This is because the average, 'normal', person processes thoughts before engaging in any actions, and this is something that some psychologists have discarded. Kohlberg and Dodge contributed separate research to support the cognitive theory, Bowlby looked into proving that maternal-deprivation can cause criminal behaviour, and others such as Freud and Eysenck looked at how the development of the personality can cause individual to engage in criminal behaviour. Kohlberg theory focuses on the area of morality in the thought processes of individuals. He believes that morality development occurs in stages throughout childhood. He proved his theory by assessing the moral reasoning of individuals through the use of moral dilemmas. These dilemmas generally involved the choice between two alternatives, both of which would be considered socially unacceptable. His most famous dilemma was the 'Heinz' dilemma, where a man who cannot afford the treatment to save his dying wife
The formation of relationships.
THE FORMATION OF RELATIONSHIPS. Attraction can be defined as an individual's tendency to evaluate someone in a positive way. Attraction is a multifactorial emotion. That is, several factors have an influence on interpersonal attraction. Four main explanations have been developed to account for why we develop particular relationships. Proximity - this is the single most important predictor in who we will develop relationships with, and is termed the 'propinquity effect'. We develop a certain familiarity with people we see regularly, which is positive, in that it allows us to get to know more about their behaviour. Also, the more frequent the interaction, the less effort has to be made within it. From a sociobiological perspective, it benefits us to socialise and co-operate with others who are close to us, because if we are pleasant, and give favours to others, we are more likely to receive them back. Research into proximity - this includes Segals' 1974 study in which he monitored the friendships made by police cadets, who were made to sit next to each other in alphabetical order of their surnames in the classroom. People whose names were close together in the alphabet, formed relationships with each other, more readily than those who were far apart alphabetically. Festinger (1950) interviewed married students living in apartments, and found they were 10 times more
here if document is corrupted DESCRIBE RESEARCH INTO 2 OR MORE ENVIROMENTAL STRESSORS ON AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR?
DESCRIBE RESEARCH INTO 2 OR MORE ENVIROMENTAL STRESSORS ON AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR? The two environmental stressors I have chosen to discuss are temperature and over-crowding. A theory that best describes environmental stressors on aggressive behaviour is the negative affect escape (NAE) theory; this claims that when the unpleasant stimuli increases so does the negative affect (the mood) and this leads to an increase of aggressive behaviour or an increase in the escape behaviour, if a person cannot escape they will become more aggressive and this can relate to temperature because it is something we cannot escape, so when the unpleasant stimuli becomes extreme people rather focus on their escape or they will become passive. Temperature can play an important role with aggression, Baron and Bell did research involving the effects of heat on aggression by seeing how willing a participant would be to give electric shocks to another, they found that temperatures within the range of 92-95F generally increased the level of aggression. However when the temperatures became too extreme they found the levels of aggression decreased, in these conditions the participants were stressed and did not want to handle the person's angry reactions, because they didn't want the hassle of the added stress. Baron and Bell's study showed a curvilinear effect (where the relationship between heat and
It is often claimed that scientific results must be replicable. Is this possible or desirable in other Areas of Knowledge?
It is often claimed that scientific results must be replicable. Is this possible or desirable in other Areas of Knowledge? As the worldly wisdom suggests always think twice and try to ascertain if you are right. The replication of scientific results makes them reliable, if it weren't so, we couldn't rely on any results, because then lots of errors would have occurred and no perception which results are right would be found. People are in need of generalizations, they imply that it is easier to live when everything is orderly put into drawers, so they are trying to divide everything in groups and decide, whether the information is reliable or not and the more replications are done the bigger reliability of results is. However, can we always do the replication and why do the results differ? In natural sciences experiments are made frequently, the science is more or less based on the results of experiments and whether the hypothesis is proved or not and it is not so hard to repeat the experiment once more, however the identical results hardly occur, just the trend of the results. For example, biologist investigates whether the temperature has the effect of the rate of cell respiration. After he had replicated his experiment three times, his results showed that the temperature fasters the cell respiration, but he actually didn't received exactly the same numbers in every
Investigate the effects of age on body perception, by asking teenage girls and women over forty
Results Tally Chart for Results Body perception Similar Different Total Below 35 years of age 7 32 39 Above 35 years of age 5 23 38 Total 22 55 77 Similar- All three indicated marks must be within two points on the chart. Table For The Chi Square Test BP S D T BP S D T A.35.Y.O.A 7 32 39 B.35.Y.O.A 5 23 38 T 22 55 77 A, B, C and D are called cells. After analyzing my research the results the x[CS1] value worked out to be 4.38. The x value was above the critical level there for my hypothesis can be accepted. Discussion My aim in this investigation was to find weather or not body perception becomes more relaxed with age. I asked participants to indicate on a range of images where they feel their current and ideal body shape or size is and which image they feel is the most attractive to the opposite sex. Women of a more mature age tended to put each fairly close together where as the young girls spaced them more part with a great difference between ideal and current shape or size. Copper (1994) investigated women who travel from one culture, where images of slim women are few and far between, to another culture where they a frequent. Copper (1994) found these women felt more body conscience. As teenager you tend to pay more attention to images in the magazines, where as with age you read different magazines (which feature these
Discuss the concept and implication of Schizotypy as a personality trait.
Discuss the concept and implication of Schizotypy as a personality trait. Gruzelier (1996) suggest that "schizotypy consists mainly of impulsive non-conformity, social anxiety, positive features such as unusual perceptions, and negative features such as introversions." (Cited in Miller P, et al. 2002, p.179). In this essay one would like to explore the definition given to 'schizotypy' and to give a brief discussion on this concept and whether schizotypy is a single trait or whether there are more factors to be considered, for it was conceptualized by Eysenck as a single personality trait named psychoticism, however it was Claridge's work that suggested that this personality trait was much more complex, and that such scales, namely Ensenck's psychoticism scale (P), "tap up to four different components that map onto the clinical heterogeneity of schizophrenia (and potentially other forms of psychosis)" (Mason, O. 1995, P.272). And so therefore this leads onto another question of, if it is not a single trait then what are the other factors? This essay will also look into the differences with other similar constructs such as schizophrenia, and whether there are aspects of schizotypy that predict future schizophrenia? Finally discussing evidence in coherence to these questions and the types of instruments used, e.g. questionnaires and structured interviews, and how reliable
