A. Describe one cognitive explanation of human behavior making reference to one empirical study (4 marks) and B. Describe one strength and one limitation of this explanation of human behavior (4 marks).
- Describe one cognitive explanation of human behavior making reference to one empirical study (4 marks).
Elizabeth Loftus found out that people’s memory is not so accurate as it has been thought. We cannot accurately re-create what we have experienced. Instead, we rather reconstruct an actual event. This reconstructive memory is combined existing information with the new one to fill in the gaps. By her studies, she proved that the wording of a question using a false presuppositions can add new and false information to the knowledge about the event over time. In her studies she asked questions such as “How many people were in the car that was speeding?”. It falsely presupposes that the car was actually speeding and after some period of time the same people were asked was the car speeding with bigger results in yes answer than before the falsely presupposed question was asked.
