Flashbulb memory
Flashbulb Memory Brown and Kulik proposed a theory of the formation and maintenance of FBMs. According to their theory, FBMs form in situations where we encounter surprising and highly emotional information. They are maintained by means of overt rehearsal (involving discussion with others) and covert rehearsal (private rehearsing or ruminating). They differ from other memories in that they are more vivid, last longer, and are more consistent and accurate. In order for them to be created, they require the involvement of a specialised neural mechanism which stores information permanently in a unique memory system. Brown and Kulik (1977) asked 80 American participants (40 white and 40 black) to answer questions about 10 events. Nine of the events were mostly assassinations or attempted assassinations of well-known American personalities (e.g. J.F.K, Martin Luther King). The tenth was a self-selected event of personal relevance and involving unexpected shock e.g. death of a friend or a serious accident. Participants were asked to recall the circumstances they found themselves in when they first heard the news about the 10 events. They were also asked to indicate how often they had rehearsed the information. These events were expected to cause FBMs. The assassination of J.F.K in 1963 led to the highest number of FBMs with 90% of the participants recalling its reception context in
Discuss the effect of the environment (light) on one seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
Discuss the effect of the environment (light) on one physiological process. I am going to discuss the effect that Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) has on the physiological process of the production of the hormone melatonin and its importance of its levels for the sustainability of bodily rhythms. SAD is a disorder which mainly causes depression. It is a disorder which is caused by seasons and the change in light in these seasons, making it a circannual rhythm. There are two different types of SAD - summer and winter (Boyce and Parker 1988). People who suffer from winter SAD have a longing for carbohydrates, gain weight and oversleep as well as severe depression. Furthermore, people with summer SAD lose appetite and weight and insomnia , again as well as depression. Melatonin, produced in the pineal gland effects mood and energy levels (For example melatonin produces serotonin which causes sleep) and is suggested by research to be the cause of this disorder. It is produced most in the dark so production is therefore controlled by light stimulation to the eyes. It has been suggested that winter SAD is caused by too much melatonin production in the winter months due to earlier and later ending production of the hormone, because it is dark for more time in the winter. Inextricably linked the SAD is the amounts of light in ones environment, this is supported by the
Example of a field experiment - Piliavin et al, 1969 A victim collapses on the subway
FIELD EXPERIMENTS Meaning: A field experiment means conducting a scientific experiment in naturally occurring environments, rather than in the laboratory. Method: Field experiments are conducted in natural environments with researchers manipulating the variables. Participants are drawn from random samples and divided into treatment and control groups. The findings for each group are compared. Pros: . Since people do not know they are participating in an experiment, demand characteristics are avoided – people do not alter their behavior to affect the outcome. So a field experiment has high ecological validity, meaning that the findings can be applied to real world situations. 3. Field experiments are the only practical research method in some scientific disciplines. For example, a population biologist examining an ecosystem could not transport the entire environment into the laboratory. Cons: . A field experiment has decreased reliability - the extent to which the experiment would give consistent results if repeated. This is because the researcher cannot control the external environment and must deal with confounding variables – extraneous variables that have an unintended effect on the dependent variable. 2. The cost of field experiments is often high; they tend to be very expensive. 3. The mortality rate – the rate of participants who drop out of the
Explain social identity theory
November 14, 2012 Psychology essay: SAQ:Explain SIT theory The social identity theory was first developed by Tajfel and his colleagues in 1979, in the context of trying to explain prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice and discriminations are basically a result of stereotypes.Prejudice is an attitude while discrimination is a behavior.According to the Realistic conflict theory by Sherif et al.(1961),prejudice arises as a result of a conflict of interests. Tajfel however disagreed with Sherif and argued that the mere fact of categorization is enough to cause ingroup bias. An example of minimal group experiment ,(an experiment where people are assigned to groups on the basis of very minimal identifications), that explains thoroughly the social identity theory is the following .Tajfel “et al” recorded a study where 14 and 15 year old school boys from Bristol were assigned to one of two groups. They didn’t know the other members of their team . The experimenter led them to believe that they were assigned to groups based on their preference between Klee or Kandinsky .Each of the boys worked on his own trying to make a decision about how to allocate points to a member of their own group and a member of the other group.The results were completely rational and justifiable .The boys showed an ingroup favoritism ,preferring to allocate more points to their ingroup instead of
Review of "The Social Animal" by David Brooks
Chris Olson Mr. Berg Ap Psych 29 May 2012 Social Animal Our society has blazoned an important dichotomy, free will versus destiny. Religious groups have been one of the main reasons we have this dichotomy. The other reason is simply how each idea is optimistic in its own way: free will because we actually have the power to decide what we want and there’s nothing else that tempts us and destiny because its nice to know that no matter how bad we screw up in life our final fate cannot get any worse. The problem with this dichotomy is that scientist like David Brooks are telling us neither of these is correct. The Social Animal by David Brooks is another cynical article. Incredibly cynical and as a result, I liked it just about as much as the past two. Brooks shows the reader that there is no such thing as free will. Everything in our personality, our tendencies, and even whom we love is governed absolutely by predictable biological processes in our brain. The implications of this finding are immense. Perhaps in the future we could predict every action and thought by simply taking into account all of the physiological changes that occur in a person. Imagine a world in which a website such as Eharmony could actually predict “true love” with samples of DNA. I fear this realization in humanity because this could put enormous power in hands of the few who could
Describe and Evaluate Crammer (1997) Personality and defence mechanisms in adolescents.
Describe and Evaluate Crammer (1997) Personality and defence mechanisms in adolescents. (12 marks) Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate a relationship between identity, defence mechanisms, and self-esteem. Crammer wanted to test the idea that the greater an identity crisis, the more the person would use defence mechanisms. The study was carried to see if the findings of a previous study (Crammer 1995) would be replicated, and to see if by having a different sample (aged 23 instead of a mean age of 18,) different results would be found. Procedure: The participants were 46 females and 45 males, who were part of a longitudinal study. Data had been collected from the age of 3 years. They came from a mixture of backgrounds and were all 23 years old. The identity personality (diffused, moratorium, foreclosed or achieved) was tested using the Q-sort prototype for Ego Identity Status. The test was set up to include cards with statements on them, and the participants were asked to sort the cards/statements according to what they felt applied to them. The statements were planned to match the four personalities, so the researcher could identify from the statements what participants felt about their state of mind. A score was calculated for each participant. Defence mechanisms were measured by using the TAT (thematic apperception task) The participants were shown the pictures
The Reliability of Memory. Theories of Freud, Bartlett and Loftus.
MEMORY RELIABILITY Memory is a mental process that allows humans to store information so that information is not lost but remains preserved and can be present to be remembered, it also enables us to learn and makes possible for humanity to move forward. Our entire civilization has been constructed upon memory, but how reliable memory really is? Before psychology ever existed and psychologists began trying to understand the mysteries no person had questioned the possibility of its errors. Freud was a pioneer in studying affectations in memory; he was particularly interested in analyzing the reasons that cause some things to be forgotten. He proposed the theory that those memories were repressed and trapped in the subconscious because of the negative effect they would have on the awaken mind. After several studies he came to realize yet another fault of memory, he discovered that some techniques used to retrieve those memories can create false memories instead, this was named the False Memory Syndrome and it gave one of the most important insights on the possibility the memory is not entirely perfect. Two other researchers tried experiments on memory. The fist, Frederic Bartlett argued that memory is reconstructive and that previous knowledge influences what is recalled. He conducted an experiment based on serial reproduction in which he presented a Native American story for
Outline how one study demonstrates principles of the cognitive level of analysis. Bartlett investigated the role of culture in schema processing in his classic study The War of the Ghosts in 1932.
Question: Outline how one study demonstrates principles of the cognitive level of analysis. (The command term "outline" requires you to "Give a brief account or summary.") Answer: The mind can be conceptualized as a set of mental processes that are carried out by the brain. Cognition is a concept referred to any cognitive processes like memory, perception and attention. One of the fundamental principles that define the Cognitive Level of Analysis (CLOA) is that cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors. And "one of the first to say this was the British psychologist Fredric Bartlett, who coined the term schema, which is defined as a mental representation of knowledge." Bartlett investigated the role of culture in schema processing in his classic study "The War of the Ghosts" in 1932. The aim of his experiment was to see if the culture of the participants had any influence on schema processing and the effect of schema on participants recall of a story. And in order to find out, he came with a Native American legend and asked the participants to read through the story twice. None of the participants knew the purpose of the experiment. He then asked them to reproduce the story after different time intervals (minutes, days, etc.), and noticed how each participant's memory of the story changed with each reproduction. It appeared that the story "The War
Using one or more Examples, Explain Effects of Neurotransmission on Human Behaviour
Using one or more Examples, Explain Effects of Neurotransmission on Human Behaviour (8-Marks) Neurotransmission is when an electrical impulse from a neurotransmitter causes a chemical messenger to be released across a synapse and bind to the dendrites at the other side of the synapse, and once absorbed, a new electrical impulse (carrying the same message) is sent out and this process repeats until the message has reached its target. Humans depend on neurotransmission to produce thoughts, feelings and actions, with the neurotransmitters governing the brain’s chemical functions. And when all is working as it should be, humans exhibit ‘normal’ behaviour, e.g: If the body has sufficient levels of the serotonin neurotransmitter, a sense of content and happiness is promoted. However, there are ways that neurotransmission can go wrong, e.g: If too much or too little of the neurotransmitter is present or if the receptors are overly or insufficiently sensitive, and this could result in abnormal behaviours. To investigate how neurotransmitters can affect human behaviour, scientists have been researching one of the most common mental issues, depression. It is suspected that the neurotransmitter, serotonin is responsible for managing the mood of a human, whether the human is content or depressed. It has been learned that when a person becomes overly stressed, that person’s
There are two types of long term memory: Explicit (declarative) Memory and Implicit (non-declarative) Memory.
Grade 11 Psychology Evaluate a model or a theory of one cognitive process (e.g. Memory, perception, language, decision making), with reference to research studies. There are two types of long term memory: Explicit (declarative) Memory and Implicit (non-declarative) Memory. First we will explore explicit memory and the breakdown of it. Explicit memory consists of Episodic (biographical events) and semantic (which includes words, ideas, and concepts.) · Episodic- memories that you experience at a specific time and place · Semantic- the system in which you use to store your knowledge of the world Implicit (non-declarative) memory is expressed by means other than words. This is broken down into four categories which include procedural (skills), emotional conditioning, priming effect and conditioned reflex. · Procedural memory- enables people to acquire motor skills and gradually improve them · Emotional conditioning- related to our emotions · Priming effect- we do this on a regular basis in which we relate things to something we already know from a previous experience. Conditioned reflex- a classic example of this is the study conducted by Pavlov when he showed a dog a piece of meat and the dog started to salivate, the next time when he showed the dog meat he included the sound of an alarm in which it caused the dog to salivate so then when the dog heard the alarm