Psychology AS survey July 2013

Please can you take a few minutes to fill out the following survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VPSQZ86

Thanks - your responses will help students in future years

Cheney psychology conference 2013

A reminder about next week's psychology conference. You need to have gathered all your data and finished your poster by 8.30 on Thursday morning (18th). On Thursday come to R23 at 8.30 as normal and we will walk over to the community hall together at around 9 and set up. 

Statistics Resources and Mini-Experiments to write up

Here is the 'using the sign test' sheet which was the first statistics homework I set.

Here is the 'choosing a statistical test' flowchart which you need to learn (for your statistics test on Tuesday 16th July).

Here is the 'significant or not significant?' sheet which we had a go at in the lesson today.

Here is the 'four more tests to do' sheet which forms part of your homework for the next Tuesday.

You also need to produce a short write-up for each of the experiments that we have done. Your write up should look like a couple of sides (handwritten) or one side typed and include the following:

• Title and date
• Aim of the investigation
• Null and alternative hypotheses (operationalised)
• Procedure – very brief outline (3-5 lines)
• Results table
• Justification of statistical test
• Level of significance chosen
• Working for test
• Explanation of level of significance reached and conclusion

The questions we have addressed in our recent lessons are:

Is it easier to locate a face in a crowd with eyes looking at you than with eyes looking to the side?

Is there a difference between the verbal reasoning skills of male and female students?

Are your judgements of how hard you have worked and your intelligence related to how well you think you have done in your exams?

Are women more likely than men to mention their own looks in a personal ad?

Here are the results for these, with calculations still to complete.

Statistics - Part 2

Yesterday we spent some time looking at nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio levels of measurement. The key thing here is for you to be able to spot when the data is ordinal or only nominal.

We looked at the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test - this is used to decide if scores in a repeated measures design experiment are significantly different. The data needs to be at least ordinal, because you have to rank the differences from smallest to largest, then add up the ranks of the positive differences and the ranks of the negative differences. If the smaller of these is less than the critical value (from the table) then the result is significant - in other words only a few results went 'the wrong way' and these only by a bit.

For Monday, make sure you have completed the Using the Sign Test sheet.

Also - gather some experimental data on open and closed passes. An open pass is when a person squeezes past someone else with their front to them - a closed pass is when they put their back to the other person. Create a tally chart for male and female passes and record the number of open and closed ones you observe for each.

Also have a go at the Mann-Witney U Test on the three-page sheet (on which you completed the Sign Test and Wilcoxon). The tricky bit here is that you have to rank the actual scores (NOT the differences between the scores - as this is and independent groups design the scores aren't actually in pairs), and you have to do this AS ONE GROUP meaning that you should get up to 20.

Statistics lesson 1 - the sign test

Here is the presentation from today's lesson.

The key idea to take from this is that when we have quantitative data, we can use a statistical test to see how likely the results were to have happened simply by chance. This is the same thing as the chance of the null hypothesis being true given what happened in our experiment.

Scientists choose a 'level of significance' before starting an experiment. This is the probability of the results happening by chance alone below which they will reject the null hypothesis, and conclude that their alternative hypothesis is true. In psychology 5% (or p<0.05) is usually chosen - this means that if there is a less than 5% chance of the results happening by chance alone then the result is considered to be significant - down to whatever the effect being investigated is.

The 5% level gives a balance between the two types of error - false positives (Type I) and false negatives (Type II). Sometimes the 10% level is used - this means there is a greater chance of a false positive (saying you have found something when you haven't) but you are less likely to have a false negative (saying nothing was going on when really it was). When it's important to avoid a false positive a lower level e.g. 1% or 0.1% is used - but this means that a false negative is more likely.

Here is the 'using the sign test' homework sheet - for Thursday, along with the sign test section on the other sheet I gave out.

Final Unit 2 revision...

Tuesday at 12.20pm in R23!

Preparation for Mock - 11.20am on Tuesday 30th April

Here is a slightly edited version of the examiner's report for the paper which you will sit on Tuesday.

It contains lots of useful advice in general about exam technique for AS psychology (and, indeed, other subjects), and lots that is specific to this exam. I am allowing you to work out what the questions are on, in the hope that you will read this document carefully and realise how useful it is!

You can download examiners' comments for all past papers for all subjects from the websites of all the exam boards. It's really useful to read these, especially just before or just after you have a go at a past paper.

I am offering a revision session on Monday after school in R23, with the aim of going through the June 2012 Unit 2 paper. I suggest you do this over the weekend, mark it yourself using the mark scheme, and bring it along to go through it and discuss issues it throws up. Here is the examiner's report for this paper.

If you haven't already, email me your revision card - see post below if you have forgotten your topic!

Social Change

Here is the work from the lesson when I was ill last term, which includes the test questions which I was giving back yesterday - some of you need to do these still, others need to hand me their answers.


The final part of the Social Psychology topic is looking at how psychological research can explain changes in society - social change. This is basically applying lessons from the study of minority influence to real-life changes, where a minority view has gradually become accepted by the majority.

Examples of social change we briefly discussed at the end of today's lesson include:

• The civil rights movement (rights and respect for black people, particularly in America).
• Gay pride and changing attitudes to homosexuality in Western countries.
• The paralymics and changing attitudes to disability.
• Votes for women and women's rights in general.

Exam questions in the past have asked candidates to apply lessons from social psychology to the change in attitudes to recycling and smoking in this country.

The key ideas to use are:

• Minorities have been shown to be effective in converting a majority (that is, getting them to internalise the minority's views) when they are consistent in their message (as shown by Moscovici).
• It can also help for the minority to show some flexibility / logic, as in Nemeth's version of the Moscovici 'calling a blue slide green' study in which the minority said that the brighter slides were green but the dimmer ones were blue - this caused more influence than the consistent minority.
• Clark's '12 Angry Men' study showed that minorities cause change in the attitudes of majorities when they have persuasive arguments and evidence to back these up.
• He also showed that there is a 'snowball' effect - the influence of the minority increases as members of the majority start to 'switch sides'.
• Additionally, when the minority has grown to become the majority, people who haven't yet switched sides may start to comply with the new majority view even if they don't agree (e.g. people stop being openly racist and homophobic even if they are privately, because the majority now considers these views unacceptable) - their behaviour changes due to normative influence rather than informational influence.
• Finally, if the government passes a new law requiring people to adopt the behaviour that was originally the minority's then obedience to authority can be used to explain further change in behaviour, e.g. people recycle and don't smoke in public because the law enforces these.

Here is a presentation on this.

Have a go at these exam questions for next lesson:

June 2010 – Q5

For many years, smoking in public places such as trains, pubs and restaurants was

quite acceptable. People could smoke wherever they wanted and non-smokers had to

put up with smoky atmospheres. However, in 2007, the Government finally introduced

a law banning smoking in public places and those who smoke are limited in where they

can smoke.

Using your knowledge of the psychology of social change, explain how this social

change has occurred. (4 marks)

January 2009 – Q10

What are the implications for social change of research into social influence? (6 marks)

Revision Card Activity

Here is the link to the Word document for the cards.

The idea is that by the end of the week you each make one card on the topic below. This means coming up with between six and eight questions, and then answering them on the 'back' of the card (the right hand box). Try to keep the font size the same as I have. You will need to think carefully about how you word the information to get all the key details down in the limited space - this is partly what makes this a useful revision exercise (in fact feel free to make more of your own cards if you get into it).

Email me your effort by the end of the week.

Evelyn - the pituitary-adrenal system

Rozina - the sympathomedullary pathway

Sarah - the immune system and how it is affected by stress

Ishy - Cohen (1993)

Ellen - Kiecolt-Glaser (1984) - the one with the medical students

Raheel - the SRRS - how it was developed and scores relate to chances of getting ill

Sophia - Rahe et al (1970) - the one with the US Navy personnel

Beth - Kanner et al (1981) - daily hassles study

Mustafa - De Longis et al (1982) - daily hassles study

Jaspar - Workplace Stressors

Oria - Marmot et al (1997) - the 'Whitehall' studies

Maryam - Johansson et al (1978) - the Swedish sawmill study

Rebecca - Type A / Type B / Hardy personality

Phoenix - Friedman and Rosenman (1959) - the Type A/B study

Amal - Stress inoculation training

Nathaniel - Biofeedback

Grace - Benzodiazepines

Dominic - Beta blockers

Unit 2 revision checklists

Your should already have specification checklists for Abnormality and Social Influence - I've just made one for stress and you can view / download all three below.

There are two boxes next to each item on the checklist - the idea is that you check the first box when you have revised it the first time - ensuring that you have notes on it and understand these - and then check the second box when you have covered it the second time. This might involve making a cue card or condensed notes in another form, or using these if you choose to make them on your first revision of the content.

I've put a study on the sheet for workplace stress that we haven't mentioned, and I don't think is in your textbook either - Breslow & Buell (1960) - as the specification mentions workload specifically and their study is a simple finding which I think is worth you having in addition to the Marmot and Johansson studies we looked at in detail.

Abnormality
Stress
Social Influence

Unit 2 Mind Maps

http://popplet.com/app/#/24311

I've made mind maps for the Unit 2 topics which I've taught, attempting to clarify what I recommend you focus your revision on. If you're aiming for an A or B grade you will need a bit more detail than is here, e.g. brief details of some additional research which you can find in your textbook which will be useful for evaluation in your longer answers.

Popplet is a fairly new website for mind mapping - it's in beta development meaning that the programming isn't quite finished and they're looking for feedback on how it works, but it's really easy to use and might make this kind of revising painless if you don't enjoy doing it on paper. Give it a try (e.g. by making a detailed mind-map for one topic e.g. 'independent behaviour' or 'stress management').

Unit 2 12-mark questions

Each exam will involve one twelve mark question. Six marks are for knowledge and understanding (AO1) and six for analysis and evaluation (AO2). You should aim to spend about twenty minutes on one of these answers, write about a side and a half of A4 and ensure that you get an even balance between description and discussion of strengths / limitations. In bold below are the actual questions from previous years. In italics are alternatives which could come up.

January 2010

“Abnormality is very difficult to define. It can be hard to decide where normal behaviour

ends and abnormal behaviour begins.”

Discuss two or more definitions of abnormality.

June 2010

Outline and evaluate research into the relationship between the immune system and stress-related illness.

January 2011

‘Freud’s views on the origins of abnormal behaviour and ways of treating it had a great impact on psychology.’

Outline and evaluate the psychodynamic approach to abnormality.

June 2011

“Not everyone conforms or obeys authority; some people resist these pressures and remain independent.”

Outline and evaluate research relating to independent behaviour.

January 2012

‘There are several methods used to manage the negative effects of stress. These methods can be biological or psychological.’

Discuss two or more methods of stress management.

June 2012

Outline and evaluate research into conformity.

Discuss the biological model of abnormality.

Discuss the behavioural model of abnormality.

Discuss the cognitive model of abnormality.

Outline and evaluate the use of physiological / biological therapies.

Outline and evaluate the use of CBT.

Outline and evaluate the use of psychoanalysis.

Outline and evaluate the use of behavioural therapy (e.g. systematic desensitisation).

Discuss what research has shown about the relationship between Life Changes and stress related illness.

Discuss what research has shown about stress in the workplace.

Discuss what research has shown about the effect of personality on stress related illness.

Outline and evaluate physiological methods of stress management.

Outline and evaluate psychological methods of stress management.

Outline and evaluate research into obedience to authority.

Independent Behaviour - situational factors

I am ill today.

You are moving on to the final section of Social Psychology - which begins with the question 'why do people often behave independently of social influences?' - 'independent behaviour' means doing what you consider to be right, ignoring pressures to conform to a majority, or to obey an authority figure.

On Thursday we will look at individual differences - how certain personality types are more or less likely to conform and obey. Today's work is to look back at the Asch and Milgram experiments and describe and explain the changes to the basic designs that led to lower levels of conformity (Asch) and obedience (Milgram).

Don't mix these up - you will receive no marks in an exam for using Milgram to answer a question on conformity. The key difference is that obedience involves an authority figure giving a direct order. In conformity there are no orders - simply people doing their own thing around you.

Look up and learn (for a quick test next lesson) the following percentages:
Asch - average conformity in original experiment.
Asch - conformity when the majority was only two people.
Asch - conformity when an 'ally' (one of the confederates) gave the right answer.
Asch - conformity when the 'naive participant' (the real one) could write his answers down privately.
Milgram - obedience (delivering 450V shock) in the original experiment.
Milgram - obedience when the experiment was moved to a shabby office building.
Milgram - obedience when the 'learner' was in the same room as the 'teacher'.
Milgram - obedience when the 'teacher' had to hold down the 'learner's' hand to give the shock.
Milgram - obedience when the experimenter was phoning in his orders from another room.
Milgram - obedience when two confederates who were 'co-teachers' disobeyed.

Make notes on these explanations of independent behaviour:

• Social support (presence of an 'ally') in both conformity and obedience studies.
• Public visibility of behaviour (in conformity studies).
• Moral issues / personal significance (comparing Asch's study with 'real world' conformity where the answer actually matters to the individual).
• The role of buffers (barriers between the individual and the consequences of their actions) in obedience studies.
• The status and immediacy (physical closeness) of the authority figure in obedience studies.

Answer these two exam questions:

Give two explanations for independent behaviour in a conformity study that relate to the situation. (4 marks)

Give two explanations for independent behaviour in an obedience study that relate to the situation. (4 marks)

Update and revision reminder

Apologies for lack of blogging lately. This will be a long post containing all the resources we've used in the last half term.

I last posted about the strange situation. We moved on from that to look at cross-cultural variations in attachment.The powerpoint containing the procedures, findings and conclusions of Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) is here. I think it is also worth learning the findings and conclusions of Takahashi (1990) as this is another good illustration of how attachment types vary across cultures.

We then moved on to look at what happens when an attachment is disrupted or doesn't even form in the first place. We looked at a number of studies by James & Joyce Robertson on the effects of separation. The different children in the studies can be used as examples to illlustrate the factors that will affect whether the effects of separation are mild or severe, or short- or long-lasting. I have a useful paper resource with all the details on - see me if you need a copy. We looked at Bowlby's PDD model, which has been used to describe the stages that children go through when separated from their primary caregiver. The powerpoint is here. You need to be able to briefly describe and then evaluate the model.

We then moved on to day care. I was out on jury service for some of this period and provided a booklet for you to work through at your own pace. A copy of the booklet is here.

Finally we studied the effects of privation and institutionalisation. Make sure you can define these terms. Make sure you can briefly describe the main findings of two privation case studies: Genie and the Czech twins. You also need to be aware of the shortcomings of using case study research. We looked at two natural experiments (Hodges & Tizard and Rutter et al), which, while probably less interesting than the case studies, are a lot more useful in terms of drawing conclusions from. Make sure you know the main findings of each study and be able to evaluate these. The ppt on privation is here and the one on institutionalisation is here.

REVISION

Your job over the Easter holidays is to revise the content of the memory, attachment and research methods topics for the unit 1 exam. In lessons after Easter we will concentrate on exam technique, and how to approach the different question types that you can expect. We will also spend some time making sure we are all OK with all of the RM terminology.

Here is a revision checklist for memory, and here is one for attachment.

More obedience work for Thursday.

I am ill today - here is the work, including the exam practice question that I thought I'd sent to Mrs MacKay yesterday.

Milgram - obedience to authority

Today we introduced Milgram's classic experiment examining obedience to an unjust authority (that is, an authority figure who tells a participant to inflict pain and possibly death on a random person they've just met).

The results, well replicated in a range of settings but still doubted by some, continue to shock. It seems that more than half of us would administer what we believe to be fatal electric shocks to a stranger if we were told that an experiment 'required it'.

Here is the presentation.

This short video has some footage of the actual experiment which gives a flavour of the real thing:

Here is the specification sheet / revision checklist for the whole of Social Influence.

We will have a test on the research we have covered so far on Thursday.

Identification - conformity with a social role

Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) demonstrates the power of a situation with clear social roles (those of prisoner and prison guard) in influencing the behaviour of randomly assigned participants. Her people are conforming to each other, but also to their expectations about the role.

We had a good discussion about whether the fact that they knew they were in an experiment was a problem when it comes to the validity of the study - 'demand characteristics' which allow participants to guess the aims of the study and act accordingly and the fact that people feel less responsible for their actions in an experiment than they do in real life are issues we'll come back to over the next few lessons.

Here is a short presentation with some questions to make sure your notes address.

Here is Zimbardo's full 50 minute documentary about the experiment:

Social Influence - conformity research

Which of these is the real participant?

We have now looked at research into conformity to majority influence (Asch) and to minority influence through the process of internalisation (Moscovici and Clark).

Here is a majority influence presentation.

Here is the presentation from today's lesson which looks at minority influence.

Complete this table for homework:

Here is a nice video summary of conformity research:

The strange situation

The strange situation was devised by Mary Ainsworth in 1970 in order to investigate how attachments might vary between children. It is an example of a controlled observation and is in a novel environment to the child. Four categories of behaviour are measured and observed: (1) separation anxiety, (2) stranger anxiety, (3) the infant's willingness to explore and (4) reunion behaviour. The behaviour of the caregiver is also observed. 

The ppt containing the big table describing the three attachment types is here. You really need to know the difference between type A and type C (type B is secure).

Stress in the Workplace and how personality modifies the effects of stressors

We covered Workplace Stress last week - make sure you can explain how research has shown a variety of aspects of the workplace to be stressful, including social isolation, lack of control, work overload and environmental factors e.g. noise and temperature.

There are two key studies - Marmot et al's 'Whitehall' study (actually two studies) of high- and low-grade civil servantes, and Johannson's Swedish saw-mill study.

Here is the presentation.

Yesterday we introduced how personality modifies the effects of stressors. The key ideas here are Type A / Type B - Friedman and Rosenman's classic study into Coronary Heart Disease, and Kobasa's concept of the 'Hardy' personality. You don't need to revise this for the mock on Thursday.

Here is the presentation.

Yesterday's work

Many apologies for failing to put work here as promised while I was moving house yesterday.

In tomorrow's lesson we will be looking in some more detail at stress in the workplace, and at how personality modifies the effects of stressors. This means how people with different personality 'types' respond with a bigger or smaller stress response to the same thing.

Read and make notes on Type A, Type B and the 'Hardy' personality.

Revise your notes on stress in the workplace and Life Changes / Daily Hassles for a quick test on Thursday.

Theories of attachment

Why do babies become attached to their parents? How does this process happen? Is it only the mother who is important for attachment?

We have now looked at two very important theories of attachment that seek to answer these questions. These are the learning theory and Bowlby's evolutionary theory. You need to make sure you can define the following concepts/terms:

Learning theory:

Classical conditioning

Operant conditioning

How each form of conditioning can lead to attachment

Two research studies that challenge the learning theory

Bowlby's theory:

Adaptive

Social releasers

Elicit

Monotropy

Primary caregiver

Internal working model

Imprinting

Critical period

Temperant hypothesis

Continuity hypothesis

The powerpoint on the learning theory is here and the one on Bowlby's theory is here. The list of questions on Bowlby's evolutionary theory is here.

Psychology book club

Psychology book club meets next on Monday 21st Jan (postponed from Mon 14th). We have been reading 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre - I have a few copies left so see me if you want to join in this week.

Our next book will be 'Opening Skinner's Box' by Lauren Slater, an investigation of the twentieth century through a series of ten fascinating, witty and sometimes shocking accounts of its key psychological experiments. These include classics from the AS and A2 course, Milgram, Zimbardo, Harlow & Rosenhan, and many more. Well worth a read for any A'level psychologist.

1.30pm, Monday 21st Jan, R23, tea & cake provided.

Mrs Watson

Sources of Stress: Life Changes

Today we spent some time reviewing our work on stress as a bodily response and stress and the immune system from last term. The sympathomedullary pathway and the pituitary-adrenal system are tough things to learn if you are not a natural at biology, but you need to be able to describe each one in detail. Make sure this features regularly in your revision over the coming months - you will eventually fix it in your LTM if you keep coming back to it!

Our new topic in stress is Life Changes - positive and negative events which require us to 'socially readjust' and which can lead to stress and illness.

You need to be able to:
Define and recognise Life Changes.
Describe how the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) was created by Holmes and Rahe.
Describe and evaluate Rahe et al's (1970) study of Life Changes and stress in US Navy Personnel.

Completing this is homework for Thursday.

Here is the presentation from the lesson.

Attachment

Attachment is a reciprocal emotional bond between two people that endures over time. We looked at behaviours that characterise attachment in all ages, but you need to know the characteristic behaviours shown in infancy. We looked at three videos showing separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour - make sure you are familiar with all these terms. These are signs of a healthy attachment relationship.
Schaffer & Emerson (1964) thought that babies formed their main attachment at around 7 months of age. Schaffer & Emerson also proposed a stage-based theory of attachment formation. You need to make notes on the different stages for homework:

• Asocial stage
• Indiscriminate attachments
• Specific attachments
• Multiple attachments

I handed out schedules for the attachment topic today. These are vital in keeping on top of the work and show homework tasks for every week as well as the main essay questions that we will be working through. An electronic version is here.

Today's ppt is here with lots of info on the Schaffer & Emerson study that I didn't get time for in class.