Neural mechanisms of eating behaviour

Outline and evaluate the role of neural mechanisms involved in the controlling of eating and satiation Our diet is essential to the maintenance of a constant internal environment- or homeostasis. One of the most obvious signs of homeostasis is that humans need to regulate their body weight within very narrow limits; so in order to do this people have to regulate their eating behaviour and food intake. Psychologists have undergone a lot of research into how we regulate eating behaviour. Early studies have shown that lesions to the Lateral Hypothalamus (LH) resulted in aphagia- failure to eat when hungry. Further evidence such as electrical stimulation of this particular area of the brain has lead researchers to believe that the LH acts as feeding centre in eating behaviour. Ranson et al found that a lesion in the VMH of rats would result in overeating and obesity. They concluded that the VMH was a satiety centre in the brain, its role to inhibit feeding behaviour. This research lead to the formation of the dual centre model of feeding: The first stage in eating behaviour is often characterised by feelings of hunger which prompts feeding to start. It has been suggested that the hormone Ghrelin is a key component in the feeding process and researchers say that increased ghrelin production may result in feelings of hunger. Cummings et al investigated the changes in blood

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Describe what psychologists have learned about environmental disaster and/or technological catastrophe.

Essay on environmental disaster and catastrophe a) Describe what psychologists have learned about environmental disaster and/or technological catastrophe An environmental disaster is a natural disaster that few people will experience in their lifetime. These are relatively infrequent natural events that are the product of natural physical forces governing the earth and atmosphere. A technological catastrophe is a human made disaster, the result of some human error or miscalculation. These events are usually called disasters when there is a substantial degree of destruction and disruption and the events are uncontrollable either because they are natural disasters or because they represent the occasional loss of control over something which humans normally control very well. Psychologists have studied disasters and catastrophes in an attempt to ascertain what characterises a disaster and what the psychological effects of disaster and catastrophe. It has been found that the characteristics of a disaster effect how people react. One important characteristic is the amount of warning available. Fritz & Marks (1954) found that a lack of warning about a disaster can make the consequences worse, however Drabek & Stephenson (1971) found that the effectiveness of repeated warnings of flash floods was undermined by factors such as families being separated at the time of warnings

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Mate Selection and Preferences Across Decades

Running head: MATE SELECTION AND PREFERENCES ACROSS DECADES Mate Selection and Preferences Across Decades Michelle Varnum Saint Martin's University Abstract Mate selection and preferences will be explored from various participants throughout the World Wide Web and through previous research conducted by professionals using 15 professional journal articles. 100 participants filled out an online survey on what characteristics they look for in selecting a potential partner. Participants responded to what type of person they'd rather be with and the number one characteristic they look for when selecting a mate. It is predicted that not only physical attractiveness, depending on gender, is the main characteristic that people look for when selecting a potential partner, but so is personality. Various studies and former research regarding physical attractiveness and personality will be discussed. The results proved that a non-physical aspect such as personality is just as important, if not more, as attractiveness to most people when selecting a romantic mate. Mate Selection and Preferences Across Decades Psychologists and researchers have spent many dedicated hours studying the characteristics that people look for when selecting a potential mate. The results have been surprising in some cases; stereotypes have even been exhausted in that looks alone are not truly the

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Outline and evaluate research into obedience (12)

Outline and evaluate research into obedience (12) In Milgram's original obedience to authority study, his aims were to set up a situation in which single individuals were ordered to act against a stranger in an inhumane way and to see at what point they would refuse to obey the order. Milgram advertised for male volunteers by placing an advert in a local paper, which offered $4.50 as payment for taking part in a study of 'punishment and learning'. 40 respondents from a range of backgrounds were selected and were told to attend the laboratory in Yale University. They were greeted by the experimenter, and were introduced to a 'supposedly' participant, Mr Wallace, but actually he was a confederate. They were both experienced to a role-assignment but it was rigged so that the real participant was the teacher. The experimenter explained to the teacher that it was his job to teach the learner a series of word pairs and then test their recall. If an error was made in the answer, an electric shock was made, starting from 15V working upwards each time. As the shocks became higher, the learner screamed and became more dramatic, and complained of a weak heart at around 180V. The participants showed signs of extreme tension, even showing nervous laughing fits, but they were still told to 'please go on' even though they didn't want to continue. Along side that, when the teacher refused

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Freud and his contributions to Psychology

Freud and his contributions to Psychology Sigmund Freud physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and the father of psychoanalysis is generally recognised as one of the most influential and authoritative thinkers of the twentieth century. Sigmund Freud was born in Freiberg, Moravia in 1856. When he was four years old he and his family moved to Vienna where he lived until the last year of his life. He was the 1st child of his mother but not of the father. Therefore his mother spoiled him and the relationship to his father was a bit hostile. From 1873-1881 he attended medical school at the university of Vienna. He specialised in the treatment of nervous disorders. Afterwards he studied the "taking cure" under the Viennese physician Joseph Breur. He also studied hypnosis under the French psychiatrist Jean-Martin Charcot. In 1881 he received his medical degree shortly after which he got engaged to Martha Bernays. They married in 1886. His marriage was extremely happy and gave him six children, the youngest, Anna, became a distinguished pyschoanalysist, too. For over 40 years Freud explored the unconscious mind by free association (this is a technique used in psychology, devised by Sigmund Freud. In it, patients are asked to continually relate anything which comes into their minds, regardless of how superficially unimportant or potentially embarrassing the memory threatens

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Outline and evaluate at least two theories of aggression

Outline and evaluate at least two theories of aggression- The two theories of aggression I have focused on are social learning theory and deindividuation. Social learning theory Bandura (1965) claims that aggressive behaviour is learned either through direct experience or vicarious experience. The social learning theory suggests that we primarily learn to be aggressive by observing the aggressive behaviour of those around us, in particular someone significant in our lives. The idea of direct experience is taken from Skinners principal of operant conditioning. For example if a child pushes another child and gets rewarded for it, the behaviour is encouraged and is likely to be repeated. Vicarious behaviour is learned through observational experience. Theorists say that for behaviour to be adapted it must be reinforced in order to be rewarding in some way. In order to demonstrate the importance of modelling in aggressive behaviour Bandura et al carried out a series of experiments involving children exposed to aggressive behaviour of an adult model towards a doll. His study of the 'Bobo doll' was to investigate aggressive behaviour through direct and vicarious behaviour. The procedure of the experiment was done by dividing 66 children in 3 groups with 3 different conditions: Condition 1- aggressive model was neither rewarded or punished Condition 2- aggressive model was

  • Word count: 697
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Describe and evaluate psychological research into conformity and obedience in humans, and consider ways in which this research can be applied to real life.

Joleen Moret 25th November 2002 Access to H.E. Psychology Coursework Describe and evaluate psychological research into conformity and obedience in humans, and consider ways in which this research can be applied to real life. Conformity is a change in behaviour or beliefs as a result of real or imagined group pressure; the feeling that others are putting pressure on us to change our beliefs or behaviour. Asch (1956) compiled a study to see how many subjects would conform and give an incorrect answer to a simple unambiguous task. Apart from one naïve participant, all other members of the group were confederates of the experimenter. The group were sat around a table and asked what line (with a choice of three) matches the single line in a box. The lines were easy to distinguish and if tested on their own, observers made few if any errors. The confederates were instructed to give the same wrong unanimous answer to see if the naïve participant would conform. Thirty-two percent conformed to the group's answer, and seventy-four percent conformed once; thus denying the evidence of their own eyes, giving the wrong answer when it was their turn. During post-experimental interviews with his participants, Asch found that conformity occurred at three levels. Few conforming participants experienced distortion of perception, most conforming participants experienced a distortion

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  • Subject: Psychology
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Philip Zimbardo - A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment (1971)

Philip Zimbardo - A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment (1971) In 1971 Philip Zimbardo, a professor of social psychology at Stanford University, conducted a remarkable experiment. The Subjects used were 21 healthy male undergraduate volunteers. Each person was to receive $15 a day for 2 weeks. Nine of the students were randomly selected to be "prisoners," while the rest were divided into three shifts of "guards," who worked around the clock. Some subjects were designated as "prisoners" with a flip of a coin and the rest served as "guards." Within a brief time, the "guards" and "prisoners" became totally absorbed in their respective roles. As the guards grew more aggressive, the prisoners became passive and apathetic. Prisoners are violent because of the type of people they are: antisocial criminals who have little regard for other people. Guards are brutal because only brutal people are attracted to such an occupation in the first place. They spent only a tenth of their conversation talking about subjects unrelated to imprisonment. The rest of the time they talked about escape, the quality of the food, and the causes of their discontent. Zimbardo wondered whether the structure of the prison situation played a part in turning prisoners and guards into mean and violent people. With the help of several colleagues, Zimbardo created a fake, simulated prison

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Outline and evaluate research (theories/studies) into life changes as a source of stress (Holmes & Rahe), and discuss potential stressors and ethical issues in research on obedience.

Outline and evaluate research (theories/studies) into life changes as a source of stress (Holmes & Rahe), and discuss potential stressors and ethical issues in research on obedience. Because social psychology is primarily concerned with the behaviour of humans, researchers often need to use techniques such as deception and uninformed consent in order to obtain ecologically valid results. How ethically acceptable these methods are depend on any long-term effects of the research, and exactly what the research has discovered. The potential influence of these stressors are addressed in the second part of this essay. The British Psychological Society (BPS) has ethical guidelines which include deception, informed consent, protection from harm and right to withdraw, all of which must be adhered to in a piece of research. Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority used staged electric shocks in order to test how far participants (pps) would follow orders. Deception was a major part of this experiment, in many ways. The pps in the study were told from the outset that it was an experiment concerning punishment and learning, when in fact it was observing obedience. The pps therefore, could not give informed consent, and were not aware of what tasks they were really undertaking. Milgram argued however that without deception, the experiment would have been impossible. The results

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Culture Bias

There are two types of cell division: Mitosis and Meiosis. During mitosis an exact replica of the parent cell is produced, these are known as 'daughter cells', essentially copies of the parent cell - as they contain the identical genetic information. This type of cell replication allows for the replacement of damaged/old cells, tissue repair, and growth - these cells are sometimes referred to as 'somatic cells'. In sexually reproducing organisms, cells known as 'sex cells' are able to divide by another called meiosis. This type of cell division results in the production of gametes. Meiosis involves two subsequent divisions of genetic material. Gametes are referred to as haploid (n), as they contain half the number of chromosomes as the parent cell that they were created from. The testes (male gonads) and the ovaries (female gonads) are the sites of gamete formation, the processes are known as gametogenesis, spermatogenesis and oogenesis. Meiosis explanation: Gamete formation occurs in sexually reproducing organisms. During this type of cell production the diploid (2n) number of chromosomes is halved; then is then referred to as a haploid (n), effectively half the number of chromosomes present in the organic cell, the diploid number. Meiosis is a process which not only halves the number of chromosomes in the parent cell; it also introduces genetic variation into the

  • Word count: 1285
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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