Key Studies

For EVERY topic there are 2 key studies;

● You can be asked specific multiple choice questions or more detailed questions about these.
● You may read a question with a scenario and be asked to use one of these studies to predict what
will happen or justify the results.
● There are evaluation points for each key study that you must be able to use DAJ (Describe, Apply,
Judge) to explain

Developmental Psychology
Study One Piaget and Inhelder (1956) Three mountains task.
 Background

Piaget wanted to study how children look at the world, Piaget wanted to create an experiment to test his theory of
development.

Aim(s)

To study the perspectives of children and investigate relationships between the child’s viewpoint and their
perception of the viewpoint of others.

Procedure

Sample – 100 children were used:

 21 were aged between 4 and 6 years old  30 were aged between 6 and 8 years old  33 were aged between 8 and
9 years old  16 were aged between 9 and 12 years old.

A metre square model was made to represent three mountains. There are four different viewpoints – A, B, C and D –
and a doll is moved around the mountain model to each of the positions.

The child is given 10 pictures of the mountains

taken from various positions around the model.
They also have three pieces of board, shaped
and coloured to match each mountain in the
model of the three mountains, which they can
move and arrange to represent the model.

In trial one, the child is seated in position A and

asked to arrange the boards to represent the
mountains they can see in the model from
position A. Next the doll is placed in position C
and the child is asked to arrange the boards to
represent what the doll can see. The procedure is repeated with the doll being moved to position B and then D.

This procedure is again repeated with the child moving to position B, and the doll being placed in positions A, C and
D. The procedure continues until the child has viewed the model from all four of the positions – A, B, C and D.

In these tests, the child is also asked to reconstruct their boards from one of their previous viewpoints; for example,
when seated in position C they may be asked to recreate what they could see when they were in position A.

Following this test, a second trial is conducted. The child and doll are again moved around the mountains in the
same manner, but the child is asked to select the viewpoint of the doll from ten photographs presented to them at
the same time.

Finally, a third trial is conducted whereby the child selects a picture and decides where to place the doll on the
model in order to be able to see the view that matches the picture.

Results

4 to 6 year olds

Trial one: the children rearrange the boards but the outcome is their own viewpoint of the three mountains.
Children towards 6 years old show an attempt to represent the dolls, but often revert to their own perspective. The
children were usually able to recollect and reproduce their previous viewpoints from memory.

Trial two: the children select the picture that represents their own viewpoint of the three mountains, or appear to
randomly select any image of the model.

Trial three: the doll is mostly placed anywhere on the model, or not moved from where it is already placed.
7 to 12 year olds

The children aged 7 to 9 years attempt to reflect the viewpoint of the doll, but this is not consistent.

Between 9 and 12 years old, the children demonstrate a mastery in the skill of viewing the model from the viewpoint
of the doll.

Conclusions

Children in stage 2 (pre-operational) fail to see the viewpoint of the doll, instead regarding their own point of view as
the only one possible. Piaget and Inhelder suggest that this is due to the egocentrism of children in stage 2.

While the children are able to replicate their previous viewpoints from memory, they appear unable to predict other
viewpoints of the mountains. Piaget and Inhelder suggest that this is due to the reasoning skills of children in stage 2.

Children in stage 3 (concrete operational) begin to show understanding of other people’s viewpoints. At the younger
age, the children were seen to select a picture from their own perspective but to turn this towards the doll so that
the image could be seen by the doll. This indicated the start of an ability to understand that the doll has a different
viewpoint. By the end of this stage, children could alter their boards and select pictures that represented the doll,
demonstrating that egocentrism had subsided.

Evaluation

Strengths Weaknesses
 Lots of depth, giving both qualitative and  Not a realistic scenario in the study.
quantitative data  The scenario may have been too complicated
 Experimental methods means there was lots of for the children to understand.
control
 Developmental Psychology
Gunderson et al. (2013) Parent Praise to 1- to 3-Year-Olds Predicts Children's Motivational
Frameworks 5 Years Later.

Background

Research has shown that the way a parent praises their child impacts on their ideas later on about behaviours and
beliefs. Praise should focus on effort rather than ability, Gunderson wanted to test this in a natural setting.

Aim(s)

Gunderson et al. investigated the use of praise by parents of children aged 14 months to 48 months old. They looked
at the category of praise that parents gave their children and what type of praise was most used. They also looked at
whether person praise or process praise can be a predictor of motivational frameworks five years later.

Procedure

Sample: 53 children from Chicago (29 boys, 24 girls) taken from a larger sample of 63 families who had been taking
part in a study of language development. The sample represented the demographics of Chicago (income, race,
ethnicity).

Participants (children and parents) were visited at home every four months from when the child was 14 months old
as part of the original study. This meant that the data gathered was double-blind as neither the families nor
researcher or transcriber at the time were aware that their interactions would later be studied for praise.

The video recordings from the language study lasted 90 minutes, and Gunderson et al. used the interactions
recorded at 14 months, 26 months and 38 months old. The speech from the video recordings was also transcribed by
the original researchers. Parent praise was measured by coding the transcripts of the interactions. Distinctions were
made between explicit praise (words such as ‘good’, ‘nice’, ‘great’) or implicit praise (by affirming actions ‘you got
it’). These were then categorised in one of three types of praise as shown in Table 1.

Category Examples
Process Praise - Emphasises the effort of the child ‘You must have tried hard’ ‘Good job drawing’
Person Praise - Implies a child has a fixed quality ‘Good girl’ ‘You’re so smart’
Other Praise - Often general positive praise ‘Good’ ‘Wow’

The coding was tested for reliability on 20% of the transcribed scripts, where the coding was also completed
independently by a minimum of two further coders. There was a kappa value of .81 indicating high agreement
between coders, so inter-coder reliability is considered high. When the children reached 7 to 8 years old, they took
part in two verbal questionnaires about their motivational framework, which were completed 3 months apart. Each
of these questionnaires was part of a larger cognitive assessment lasting 2 hours.

The questionnaires each had similar content and consisted of 11 and 13 items respectively. The results were
combined to give an overall score for each child. They aimed to test the domains of intelligence (18 items) and
sociomoral attributes (6 items). These questionnaires were adapted from Heyman and Dweck (1998). Intelligence
domain items included 5 point Likert-scaled questions such as: “Imagine a kid who thinks that a person is a certain
amount of smart, and they stay pretty much the same. How much do you agree with this kid?”

Sociomoral domain items included yes/no questions such as: “Imagine a girl who gets in trouble a lot at school. Some
people think she will keep getting into a lot of trouble even when she is in high school. Do you think this is right?”
Parents of the children also completed an 8-item questionnaire to test how malleable they considered cognitive
ability to be. Items included questions about fixed intelligence, fixed maths ability and other cognitive skills. This was
also administered as part of a larger questionnaire assessing their beliefs about academic development.

Results(s)

Use of praise The results of the coding of praise utterances are shown in Table 2. Praise was measured cumulatively
using all three visits. The mean percentage score for each category of praise is shown as a percentage of all
utterances by the parent, and as a percentage of all praise comments made by the parents

Category Mean percentage as a total of all utterances Mean percentage as a total of praise utterances

Process Praise 0.59 18.0

Person Praise 0.45 16.0
Other Praise 1.97 66.0
Overall, praise of any type was, on average, 3% of all utterances by parents. Person praise as a percentage of all
praise was significantly less at 38 months old than it was at 14 months old, whereas process praise showed no
significant change and other praise was significantly higher at 38 months old than 14 months old. Boys received
more process praise than girls, and girls received more person and other praise than boys.

Motivational frameworks data Average sociomoral scores correlated with average intelligence scores. Boys
reported marginally more incremental motivational frameworks than girls and, when broken down, this was
significantly higher for the intelligence domain but not for the sociomoral domain. There were few significant
correlations between parental scores and the praise type or frequency they used with the children. However, a
higher score for malleable cognitive development correlated with higher use of person praise.

Relationships between praise style and motivational frameworks There was a significant correlation between
process praise (as a % of total praise) when children were 14 months to 38 months old and children’s incremental
(malleable) motivational framework scores at 7 to 8 years old. There was no significant correlation between person
praise and children’s entity (fixed ability) motivational framework scores at 7 to 8 years old.

Conclusions

The amount of process praise (effort of the child) that parents gave their children between 14 and 38 months old
was a predictor of children’s incremental (cognitive traits are malleable, effort is important) motivational
frameworks at 7 to 8 years old.

Children whose parents used more process praise were more likely to have beliefs and behaviours associated with
an incremental motivational framework, measured in the sociomoral and intelligence domains.

Gunderson et al. also found a gender difference in the types of praise children received. Boys received significantly
more process praise than girls, even though, overall, boys and girls received the same amount of praise. This could
explain why existing research highlights that girls tend to attribute failures to lack of ability and show decreased
persistence and motivation after failure.

Finally, parents with stronger incremental theories were more likely to give person praise. This could be explained as
parents who believe that intelligence is malleable believe that the way to make their child smarter is to increase the
child’s self-esteem by saying how smart they are using person praise.

Evaluation

Strengths Weaknesses
 Supported Dweck’s findings in a natural  Ethics, participants weren’t told what the study
environment. was really about.
 No researcher bias, as they did not know the  Parents may have changed their normal
focus was parental praise. behaviour because they were being observed
 Human Memory
Bartlett (1932) War of the Ghosts

Background
In his book, remembering Bartlett wrote about an experiment he conducted with folk stories and pictures. There was
a North American folk tale called ‘War of the Ghosts’. Bartlett chose this as the story would be unfamiliar to
Cambridge University staff and students so would support reconstructive theory as participants would be more likely
to draw on their own schemas.
Aim
To investigate whether the memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge. To find out if cultural background
and unfamiliarity with a story would lead to distortion of memory when it was recalled. To test if memory is
reconstructive and whether people store and retrieve information per expectations formed by cultural schemas.
Procedure
Sample: 20 British participants (7 women, 13 men). The participants were not told the aim of the study; they
believed they were being tested on the accuracy of recall. Bartlett used repeated reproduction, which is where
participants hear a story or see a drawing and are asked to reproduce it after a short time and then to do so again
over a period of days, weeks, months or years. The story used was a Native American story called ’The War of the
Ghosts’ which was unfamiliar to participants and contained unknown names and concepts. The story content was
also unfamiliar. The story was selected because it would test how memory may be reconstructed based on cultural
schema. Each participant read the story to themselves twice. The first reproduction happened 15 minutes later.
There was no set interval beyond this and participants recalled the story at further intervals from 20 hours to almost
10 years.
Results
Bartlett found that participants changed the story as they tried to remember it. This happened in the early stages (15
minutes) and throughout the further reproductions. Overall, the participants preserved the order of events and main
themes in the story. The reproduction of style was often changed, with reproduction of the story often being
transformed. Seven of the 20 participants omitted the title and 10 of the participants transformed the title – for
example, ‘War-Ghost Story’. Other transformations included changing ‘canoes’ to ‘boats’ and changing the names of
the characters. Much of the content was rationalised by the participants, who changed material so that it was more
acceptable to them (Bartlett called this ‘effort after meaning
Conclusion
Accuracy in reproduction of the story is an exception rather than a norm of memory. Style, rhythm and precise story
construction is very rarely reproduced. After repeated reconstructions, the form of, and items within, the story
become stereotyped and do not change much after this occurs. However, with infrequent reproduction, omission of
detail, simplification and transformation continues indefinitely. There is a significant amount of interference with the
story from reconstructing it. The details are altered to fit the participant’s own tendencies and interests. In all
recollections of the story, rationalisation reduced material to a form that was more accessible or common to the
participant. This could be because the material was initially connected to something else in memory and treated as a
representation of this. It reflected the character and individuality of the person recalling the story, and names,
places.
Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 Using a story makes it a more naturalistic test of  The story was illogical and not familiar,
recall, it is better than nonsense lists. remembering the story is not an everyday task.
 It is reliable, Bartlett repeated the experiment  It lacked some control, Bartlett did not always
with various stories and found the same results. give people the same time interval before
recalling the story
 Human Memory
Peterson & Peterson (1959) Short-term Retention of Individual Verbal Items

Background
Lloyd and Margaret Peterson conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate the duration of short-term memory.
As we can hold information in the short-term memory by rehearsing it over and over, they could only test the
duration of a short-term memory trace by interfering with this rehearsal process. To prevent participants from
rehearsing, the Petersons got them to count backwards in threes.
Aim
Peterson and Peterson first aimed to see if retention of items was affected by interference during recall intervals. In
the second part of their study, they investigated whether silent or vocal rehearsal would affect recall of items.
EXPERIMENT PART ONE
Procedure
Sample: 24 students from an introductory psychology course at Indiana University, USA were selected. As part of
their course, the students were required to take part in research experiments. Each participant was given a
standardised set of instructions which explained the process of the experiment. This included explaining the ‘black
box’ in front of them and what to do at each of the light signals:
 The green light meant that the trial was ready to begin.
 The red light meant to stop counting and recall the trigram (three-letter consonant).
Participants had two practice trials in order to ensure the instructions had been fully understood.
At the beginning of each trial, the experimenter would spell out a trigram followed by a number from which the
participant had to count backwards in either 3’s or 4’s, e.g. CHJ 506. In half the trials, participants counted backwards
in 3’s (e.g. 506, 503, 500 and so on) and in the other half they counted backwards in 4’s (e.g. 312, 308, 304 and so
on).
Participants counted backwards in time with the ticking of a metronome. This was a task that would minimise
rehearsal behaviour between presentation and recall. Once the red light came on, the participant had to
immediately verbally recall the trigram, e.g. CHJ. The next trial would then begin 15 seconds later, signalled by the
green light. The responses given by the participant during their 15 second interval were recorded.
Each participant was tested eight times at each of the following six recall intervals: 3 seconds, 6 seconds, 9 seconds,
12 seconds, 15 seconds and 18 seconds.
Results
Results indicated that participants took an average of 2.83 seconds to begin their recall of the trigram once their
counting had stopped. There was a significant difference between accurate recall following the first blocks (shorter
interference intervals) than the last blocks (longer interference intervals). With a 3 second interference interval,
participants could recall just over 50% of the trigrams accurately. This dropped to less than 10% from 15 seconds
onwards.
Conclusion
Information decays rapidly from short-term memory, with accurate recall of the trigrams decreasing rapidly over the
duration of 18 seconds, and very little accuracy shown in recall in 15 second and 18 second trials. Therefore, short-
term memory has limited duration.

EXPERIMENT PART TWO

Procedure
Sample: 48 students from the same university programme. In this procedure, half of the participants were instructed
to repeat the stimulus of a three-letter trigram aloud in time with a metronome. This group was the ‘vocal’
condition. They were then stopped by the experimenter and instructed to count backwards from a number.
The other half of the participants were not instructed to repeat the stimulus trigram aloud, but they were given
interval time before being asked to count backwards from a number. This group was the ‘silent’ group.
Both groups were tested on various rehearsal interval periods of immediate recall, 1 second and 3 seconds. This was
completed for three interference conditions of counting backwards for 3 seconds, 9 seconds and 18 seconds.
 Results
Participant recall in the ‘vocal’ group improved with repetition, with longer repetition leading to more accurate
recall. Participant recall in the ‘silent’ group did not improve with longer repetition.

Conclusion
Only in conditions where the repetition was vocal and controlled did accuracy of recall improve.

OVERALL CONCLUSION
The rate of forgetting from short-term memory depends on the amount of rehearsal undertaken.

Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 It had good control as fixed timings were used  Extraneous variables, the trigram may have a
and researchers eliminated any background personal meaning to a person, this is hard to
noise control
 It has practical implications, it teaches how  This is not realistic to how we use our everyday
interference in the form of verbal distraction memory
can affect our ability to retain information
 Psychological Problems
Caspi et al. (2003) Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism
in the 5-HTT Gene

Background
Previous research had suggested that depression was linked to stressful life experiences, but not all those who
underwent stressful life experiences developed depression. The diathesis–stress theories of depression suggested
this was because those who developed depression did so due to a genetic vulnerability.
Anti-depressant drugs differ in their mode of action but there is one type that target serotonin (SSRIs). Therefore,
the researchers investigated the role of a gene involved in serotonin (the 5-HTT gene). People with either one or two
short (s) alleles of a genotype involved in serotonin efficiency (the 5-HTTLPR genotype) have been found to have
lower serotonin efficiency than those with one or two copies of the long (l) allele.

Aim
The main aim was to see why stressful experiences lead to depression in some people but not others.
The researchers wanted to investigate the role of a gene involved with serotonin to see if it contributed to
depression.

Procedure
The study was longitudinal and therefore investigated participants at ages 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21 and virtually
all again at age 26 (96% of the original cohort). The participants were not recruited by the researchers but were
taken from a previous study of 1037 people – this was the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study.
For the current study, 847 Caucasian non-Maori study members were selected from the previous study group of
1037 participants and then divided into three groups:
 Group 1 (n=147, 17%): two copies of the short (s) allele of the 5-HTTLPR genotype
 Group 2 (n=435, 51%): one copy of the short (s) allele, and one copy of the long (l) allele of the 5-HTTLPR
genotype
 Group 3 (n=265, 31%): two copies of the long (l) allele of the 5-HTTLPR genotype.

Measure 1 – stressful life events

For each of the groups, the stressful life events occurring after their 21st but before their 26 th birthdays were
recorded using a life-history calendar. The 14 life events included employment, financial, housing, health and
relationship stressors.

Measure 2 – depression
For each of the groups at age 26, the depressive symptoms for the past year were assessed using the Diagnostic
Interview Schedule. For each of the groups at age 26, an informant (someone who knew them well) was asked via
questionnaire about depressive symptoms for the past year for 96% of the participants.

Results
Measure 1 – stressful life events
For the participants across the groups:
 no stressful life events: 30%
 one stressful life event: 25%
 two stressful life events: 20%
 three stressful life events: 11%
 four or more stressful life events: 15%.
There were no differences across the three groups in terms of the number of stressful life events experienced. This
suggested that the 5-HTTLPR genotype did not influence exposure to stressful life events.
Measure 2 – depression
For the participants across the groups:
 DSM-IV depressive episode experienced in past year: 17%
 past-year suicide attempt: 3%.
Analysis of the data – outcomes
1. Individuals carrying an (s) allele had a significantly stronger interaction between life events and self-reported
depression at age 26.
2. Individuals carrying an (s) allele whose life events occurred after their 21 st birthday experienced increases in
depressive symptoms from 21 to 26 years old.
3. Life events that occurred after their 21st birthday predicted more cases of new depression at 26 years old for
those individuals carrying an (s) allele.
4. Stressful life events predicted major depression among carriers of an (s) allele.
5. Stressful life events predicted informant reports of depression among carriers of an (s) allele (ruling out self-
report bias).
6. Stressful life events predicted suicide ideation among carriers of an (s) allele. Later analyses confirmed that
the 5-HTT gene appeared to moderate the effects of stressful life events (the presence of one or more (l)
alleles reduced their impact).

The researchers then assessed the impact of childhood maltreatment to see if the 5-HTT gene moderates all life
events, and not just those experienced in adulthood. There was a significant interaction – childhood maltreatment
predicted adult depression only among those carrying the (s) allele.

Conclusions
The 5-HTT gene interacts with life events to predict depressive symptoms, an increase in symptoms, diagnosis of
depression, new-onset diagnoses, suicidality and an informant’s report of depressed behaviour. Those carrying an (l)
allele were less likely to develop depression or suicidality.
Furthermore, the (l) allele moderated the effects of probable or significant childhood maltreatment.

Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 Generalisability, there were 847 participants.  Some people are more likely naturally to put
 Practical applications: This is really useful for themselves in stressful situations.
doctors  Questionnaire is self-report date, how accurate
is this?
 Psychological Problems
Young. (2007) Cognitive Behaviour Therapy with Internet Addicts: Treatment Outcomes
and Implications.

Background

Internet addiction is a relatively new form of addiction, Young had seen CBT work for other addictions, and wan6ed
to see whether it would be possible to apply it to internet addiction.

Aim
To see how effective cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) would be for those suffering from internet addiction.

Procedure
Participants were 114 clients recruited from the Center for Online Addiction in Pennsylvania, USA. Of these, 42%
were women, 84% were Caucasian, and they had mean ages of 38 and 46 for males and females respectively, and
61% had a 4-year bachelor’s degree.
All participants had been screened using the Internet Addiction Test with some participants excluded beforehand for
showing high-risk behaviours. After initial screening, participants had sessions with a principle investigator over a
number of weeks involving CBT. A client outcome questionnaire was given to the participants at the 3rd, 8th and 12 th
online sessions and then at a 6-month follow-up. There were 12 questions which used a 5-point Likert scale and
assessed:
 how effective counselling was at helping the clients achieve the targeted treatment
 goals, and the quality of the counselling relationship
 motivation to quit abusing the internet
 ability to control offline activities
 improved relationship functioning
 improved offline sexual functioning (if applicable).

Results
The most common problematic online applications reported by the clients were:
 pornography, chat (sexual), gambling for men (with a minority reporting gaming)
 chat (sexual) for women (with a minority reporting general chat, online auction houses, shopping and
gaming).

The problems associated with compulsive use of the internet were:

 time (96%)
 relationship (85%)
 sexual (75%)
 work (71%)
 financial (42%)
 physical (29%)
 academic (15%).

The table below shows the mean ratings given by the clients using the 5-point Likert scale (0=not at all; 5=extremely
helpful) for the therapist–client interaction across the sessions and during follow-up.

Therapy available Session 3 Session 8 Session 12 6-month follow-up

Ability to develop a supportive relationship 3.85 4.28 4.58 3.96
Overall quality of the counselling environment 3.56 4.12 4.36 3.90
Overall quality of the counselling relationship 3.35 4.25 4.55 4.10
Clients found the counselling environment comfortable to conduct therapy, and their relationship with the therapist
improved over time.
The table below shows mean ratings given by the clients for the outcome goals using the
5-point Likert scale (0=not at all; 5=extremely helpful).

Outcome Goal Session 3 Session 8 Session 12 6-month follow-up

Motivation 4.22 3.96 4.54 4.36
Time management 3.95 4.06 4.33 4.22
Relationship function 2.95 3.66 4.42 3.99
Sexual function 2.15 2.99 3.26 3.16
Engagement in offline activities 2.67 4.46 4.66 4.87
Abstinence from problematic applications 3.45 4.28 4.55 4.35

Most clients showed continuous improvement by session 3 and effective symptom management by sessions 8 and
12, with overall improved symptom maintenance by the 6-month follow-up.

Conclusions

CBT and related techniques enabled clients to decrease thoughts and behaviours associated with compulsive
internet use. Relapse prevention was achieved by clients over a 6-month follow-up too.
Furthermore, rationalisations that led to compulsive use were reduced and proactive lifestyle changes to adapt to
life without the internet were achieved.

Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 It teaches us online CBT can work, this is useful  They filled in the questionnaire themselves, the
for those embarrassed to seek support face to responses may not have been accurate.
face  The results don’t show the breakdown for the
 The same questions and scales were used, this different types of internet addiction
consistency increases reliability.
 The Brain and Neuropsychology
Damasio et al. (1994) The Return of Phineas Gage: Clues About the Brain from the Skull of
a Famous Patient.

Background
In 1848, a 25-year-old construction worker called Phineas Gage was involved in an accident. He worked for a railroad company in
the USA and was responsible for detonations to level uneven terrain so that they could lay new rail tracks. To carry out this task,
a tamping iron would be used to prepare the ground for the detonation. A tamping iron is a 109 cm-long, 3 cm-thick fine-pointed
iron rod. One day, Phineas Gage was distracted when preparing the ground for detonation and a powerful explosion sent the
tamping iron through his face, skull and brain and then into the sky. Somehow Gage survived the accident, but changes to his
character and behaviour suggested that the accident had had a long-lasting effect on him. After the accident, Phineas Gage had
no impairment of movement or speech and new learning was intact. His memory and intelligence appeared unaffected.
However, he had become disrespectful and impulsive, and less responsible.
Aim
To identify the location of damage in Phineas Gage using modern neuroimaging techniques. The researchers also wanted to see
if the proposed location of damage and Phineas Gage’s reported changes were similar to other case studies, which may give
more information about the function of certain parts of the brain.
Procedure
Initially, the researchers located Phineas Gage’s skull and the tamping iron, which were being kept in a museum in the USA. They
then performed a number of procedures to try to identify the location of damage in the brain and the trajectory that the
tamping iron took as it went through Phineas Gage’s head. This included:
 taking x-rays of the skull
 taking precise measurements of the skull
 deforming a 3D reconstruction of a human skull so that it matched Phineas Gage’s skull
 using a coordinate system (Talairach’s stereotactic space) to map out both skulls
 determining the likely trajectory and therefore entry points of the iron rod (20 points in total)
narrowing down the possible trajectories using reports from the time and more recent research to five possibilities,
which were modelled on a 3D reconstruction of a human brain that closely fit Phineas Gage’s assumed brain
dimensions.
Results
One of the five acceptable trajectories appeared to be the best fit. This suggested that:
 all of the damage occurred in the frontal lobes
 Broca’s area was undamaged (Broca’s area is linked to language ability)
 the motor cortices were undamaged
 the ventromedial region of both frontal lobes were damaged, whilst sparing the dorsolateral region.
The researchers had studied other patients with brain damage in the regions that the iron rod had supposedly damaged in
Phineas Gage. They stated that 12 of these patients had similar impairments in function to Phineas Gage, which they use as
support for their proposed trajectory of the iron rod. The patients and Phineas Gage had similarities in the following areas:
 They had difficulty making rational decisions about personal and social matters and in the processing of emotions.
 Their abilities to tackle abstract problems, perform calculations, and recall and attend to appropriate knowledge
remained intact.
The researchers suggested that it is the dorsolateral region which is involved with the intact abilities, with the ventromedial
region responsible for the abilities that Phineas Gage (and the other patients) had difficulties with.
Conclusion
The researchers concluded one proposed trajectory of the iron rod which was ‘most likely’ when compared to those with normal
brains and those with damaged brains. They hypothesised from this that the ventromedial frontal region was involved in
emotion and the underlying ‘neural machinery’ that participates in decision making (and therefore that if this area was damaged
then emotional regulation and decision-making would be compromised). They also cited research with monkeys to support their
conclusions – monkeys with a high concentration of serotonin (a neurotransmitter) receptors in the ventromedial area were
socially adapted whereas those with low concentration were aggressive and socially uncooperative.
Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 Reliability – Modern scientific methods were used,  Reliability – The original data used was over 150
evidence could be seen, not just inferred years old, it may not be accurate
 Practical applications – We can make predictions  Generalisability – Brain injury is very unique and
about changes of behaviour based on brain injuries, different from person to person, the results don’t
this can support victims and families. apply to everyone

The Brain and Neuropsychology

 Sperry (1968) Hemisphere Deconnection and Unity in Conscious Awareness.

Background
Sperry reports on a number of patients who suffered from severe epilepsy that had led to them experiencing frequent
debilitating seizures. They had undergone surgery for this that involved severing the corpus callosum and therefore separating
the hemispheres. The surgery appeared to be successful, with all patients either experiencing no further seizures or some (two)
suffering less frequently and severely than beforehand. Furthermore, the personality and cognitive-processing capacity was left
relatively unchanged. There were some problems with short-term memory and concentration span but no impairments in
intelligence. The patients are called ‘split-brain’ patients as the two halves of their brains had effectively been split so that they
could not communicate with one another anymore. Sperry reports in the study on the ‘functional outcome’ – or the behavioural,
neurological and psychological effects the surgical disruption caused to the patients.
Aim
To find out the cognitive functions that are linked to each hemisphere in the brain. The experiments aimed to assess the
behavioural, neurological and psychological effects of the split-brain surgery on the patients.
Procedure
Sperry reports on 11 patients who had undergone surgery for severe epilepsy. Nine had surgery recently whereas two had
surgery some time before and had an excellent recovery. Sperry used a piece of apparatus that allowed testing of the right and
left halves of the visual field separately or together (and the right and left hands and legs with the vision excluded).
Task 1 procedure - Sperry asked patients to fix their eye gaze on a particular spot and then projected words or pictures for
1/10th of a second (too fast for eye movements). This way he could be sure that the information only entered either the left or
right hemisphere. The patient then had to feel for a particular object (hidden amongst others) behind a screen to identify what
they had apparently seen with their eyes.
Task 2 procedure - In another test, Sperry asked patients to pick an item from a bag and name the object (without seeing it).
Task 3 procedure - Sperry showed a picture of a wall clock to the patient’s right hemisphere (Sperry called this the ‘minor
hemisphere’) and asked them to pick the object closest to what they had seen with their left hand.
Task 4 procedure - A sum was shown to the right hemisphere and patients were asked to use their left hand to point to what
they thought was the correct answer to the sum.
Task 5 procedure - A picture of a nude was presented to the right hemisphere to see what the reaction would be.
Task 6 procedure - Patients performed block design tests – a type of spatial task (this was described as ‘work in progress’).
Results
Task 1 results - Sperry projected the words ‘KEY’ (left) and ‘CASE’ (right) and asked patients to identify the object they saw on
each side. The patients could say ‘case’ and write it as normal, but reported not seeing anything to the left side. However, if
asked to select the item they saw to the left with their left hand, they could choose the key correctly from either the items
behind the screen or from an array of images. This indicated that the left visual field was being processed by the right
hemisphere and the left hand by the right hemisphere, and vice versa.
Task 2 results - If patients used their right hand they could name the object with ease. If they used their left hand they were
unable to name it, but were able to retrieve it from a grab bag (provided that the left hand was used).
Task 3 results - Patients were able to pick a wristwatch with their left hand. On another test they connected a ‘piece of
silverware’ with a fork. This showed the limited language processing ability in the right hemisphere.
Task 4 results - Patients’ left hands could point to the correct answer. This demonstrated that the right hemisphere was involved
in basic calculations.
Task 5 results - The picture of a nude would produce blushing or giggling, with no report verbally of having seen the image. This
demonstrated that the right hemisphere was involved in emotional processing.
Task 6 results - The right hemisphere was judged to be superior to the left hemisphere in tasks involving drawing spatial
relationships and performing block design tests
Conclusion
The left hemisphere was the primary hemisphere for the processing of language (although Sperry showed limited language
processing in the right too). The right hemisphere was able to read words (which enabled the patients to recognise objects),
make mental associations, process emotional reactions and solve simple arithmetic, and was better than the left hemisphere at
spatial skills.
Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 Reliability – Sperry gathered a lot of detailed  Generalisability – only 11 participants, the results
information. can’t be confidently widely generalised.
 High Control – The procedure such as the split screen  Ecological Validity – The laboratory experiments
meant there was a high control of extraneous aren’t very true to life, it is not often you are asked to
variables. look at something with one eye.

Social Influence
 Piliavin et al. (1969) Good Samaritanism: An Underground Phenomenon?

Background
They conducted a field experiment to investigate bystander behaviour. They were interested in the variables that
affect whether they help someone in need. Their research came about following the murder of Kitty Genovese’s,
they wanted to investigate why people fail to be ‘good Samaritans’
Aim
To investigate the effect that the type of victim would have on the speed and frequency with which someone would
respond to aid them in an emergency. Piliavin et al. also wanted to investigate the effect of the race of the victim.
Additionally, they investigated the effect of role model behaviours in emergency situations and the relationship
between the size of the group and helping a victim.
Procedure
The ‘type’ of victim was portrayed as either drunk or ill (through the use of a cane). Piliavin et al. assumed that
helpers would have less sympathy for a drunk victim and that any sympathy they did have may be overruled by a
fear of the victim becoming aggressive or causing a scene. The ‘race’ of the victim was either ‘black’ or ‘white’.
Sample: A total of 4450 men and women were present over the duration of the scenes being staged. Approximately
55% were ‘white’ and 45% ‘black’. The mean number of bystanders in the train carriage was 43 people and the mean
number deemed to be in the ‘critical area’ (close proximity to victim) was 8.5 people.
The staged scenes took place on a 7 ½ minute continuous train journey between 59th Street and 125th Street
stations in the New York subway between 11.00am and 3.00pm during the period 15th April – 26th June 1968.
There were four groups of confederates consisting of four students, two male and two female, who boarded the
train. The two female confederates recorded data and the two male confederates were the victim and model. The
victims in all conditions were dressed identically. The ‘drunk’ victim carried a bottle of alcohol and smelled of
alcohol; the ‘ill’ victim carried a cane. There was only one black confederate (reducing the number of black trials that
were conducted).
After 70 seconds into the train journey, the victim staggered forward, collapsed and remained on the floor until they
received help. If he received no help by the time the train stopped at the station, the model helped him to his feet
and they left the train. The two female confederates also left the train. The group of four would then make their
way to the other platform, get on the next train heading in the opposite direction and repeat the trial.
Approximately five to eight trials were completed each day.
A total of 103 trials took place. On each day, the victim’s condition (drunk, cane, black, white) remained the same.
The conditions for the model were used in all victim conditions; the model trials are summarised in the table below;

Model Condition Model Behaviour

Critical area: Early Intervened approximately 70 seconds after
collapse
Critical area: Late Intervened approximately 150 seconds after
collapse
Adjacent area: Early Intervened approximately 70 seconds after
collapse
Adjacent area: Late Intervened approximately 150 seconds after
collapse

The two female confederates were seated away from the ‘critical area’ in an adjacent area and they covertly
recorded the data from the trial. One made a record of the race, sex, number of and location of the passengers in
the ‘critical area’. Data was recorded on the race, sex, number and location of bystanders who came to help the
victim. The second confederate recorded the race, sex, number of and location of the passengers in the ‘adjacent
area’ and the time between the model helping and the first bystander helping. They also documented comments
made by passengers around them

Results
The results of the trials showing where help was spontaneously given or given following the model are shown in
below;
White victim Black victim
Trial
Ill (cane) Drunk Ill (cane) Drunk
No model trial – help 100% (54) 100% (11) 100% (8) 73% (8)
spontaneously given % (n)
Number of trials 54 11 8 11
Model trial – help 100% (3) 77% (10) 0% (0) 67% (2)
spontaneously given % (n)
Number of trials 3 13 0 3
Total number of trials 57 24 8 14
Help before 70 seconds for the ill, white victim was recorded in 52/57 trials.
Help before 70 seconds for the ill, black victim was recorded in 7/8 trials.
Help before 70 seconds for the drunk, white victim was recorded in 5/24 trials.
Help before 70 seconds for the drunk, black victim was recorded in 4/14 trials.

Of the total number of helpers, the race of the helper and victim is shown in the table below;
Race of helper Ill (cane) Drunk
Same as victim 36 16
Different to victim 26 3
Of the 81 spontaneous (within 70 seconds) helpers, 90% were male – from an average of a 60% male / 40% female
presence in the ‘critical area’. In 21 of the 103 trials, 34 people left the ‘critical area’ (close proximity) of the victim;
this occurred more often when the victim was drunk than when they were ill. A content analysis of comments made
by train passengers highlighted that discomfort was felt if no one had helped within 70 seconds. Other comments
attempted to seek confirmation that not helping was the right decision. There did not appear to be a strong
correlation between the number of bystanders and helping behaviour.
Conclusion
Spontaneous helping occurred within 70 seconds, before a model could assist. Where a model assists a victim early it
elicits further help from bystanders. Helping behaviour is not affected by proximity to the victim (in this study). The
longer the emergency continues, the more likely people are to leave the area and the less impact intervention from
a model will have on others helping. Bystanders are more likely to offer immediate help for an ill victim than a drunk
victim. The ‘costs’ (embarrassment, aggression) are higher for helping a drunk victim.
There is a tendency for same-race helpers to be more frequent, and also more likely to assist the drunk victim,
whereas there is no race effect when helping the ill victim with the cane. Men are more likely to help a male victim
than women; the costs of not helping are lower for women (it’s not a woman’s role).
Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 Ecological Validity – It was a field  No consent – The passengers did not
experiment, the findings can be said to know they were taking part in the study
be true of normal bystander behaviour  Ethical – The study may have caused
in such a situation. distress to those taking part, they have
 No demand characteristics – felt pressure/guilt.
Participants acted naturally as they
didn’t know they were taking part

Social Influence
 Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated
Prison

Background
Haney, Banks and Zimbardo set up a mock prison to investigate the conditions under which people become
aggressive. Prisons in the US were riddled with conflict and they wanted to understand how the conflict between
prisoners and guards arose, they also wanted to understand the high levels of aggression in naval prisons. At the
time, the main blame was on prisoners for being evil people, others disagreed and said the situation where prisoners
and guards were in close contact could cause aggression.

Aim
Haney, Banks and Zimbardo wanted to create a simulated prison to see what behaviour resulted when ‘normal-
average’ people were assigned the roles of ‘guards’ and ‘prisoners’. They specifically wanted to look at any changes
in emotions, mood, interactions, coping skills and attitudes towards oneself and others.

Procedure
Sample: 75 people responded to an advertisement in a newspaper. Of the respondents, 24 male participants were
selected as ‘normal, healthy males’ following assessments and interviews. They were each paid $15 per day of the
study.
22 took part in the study and 2 were kept on standby in case a participant dropped out before the study began.
Participants were told that they would be randomly assigned to the roles of prisoner or guard and they agreed to
play these roles. They were also made aware that they would be under constant surveillance through observations,
video and audio recordings. Participants were advised that they would receive suitable necessities, such as food,
medical care and clothing, and that they would lose basic civil rights, especially freedom if given a prisoner role.
Guards would be able to leave after their ‘shift’ to go home and lead their usual lifestyle. All were advised by phone
to be available on a specified Sunday to start the experiment.
Those assigned to be guards attended an orientation meeting on the day before the experiment. They met the
researcher, who would be the superintendent, and the research assistant, who would be the warden. Their task to
‘maintain the functioning’ of the prison was given but not elaborated upon. They believed that the purpose of the
study was to observe the prisoner behaviour. The warden explained the duties of the guards, such as shift patterns,
shift reports, and the administration of food, free time and work activities. The only direct instruction was that
physical punishments were not to be used on prisoners. The guards then helped finalise the simulated prison, for
example by moving furniture, arranging the beds in the cells and putting up signs. The guards and prisoners were
given uniforms. The guards had military style clothing to suggest power and control and the prisoners had a plain
smock with an ID number, a chain on one ankle and no undergarments to deindividuate and humiliate them. Palo
Alto City Police Department arrested the ‘prisoners’ at their place of residence. They were charged, searched,
handcuffed and taken away in a police car. At the police station, they went through the process of arrest, for
example by being fingerprinted and detained. They were then blindfolded and driven to the simulated prison for
their two week sentence. At the prison, they were stripped, sprayed with a delousing spray and made to stand alone
and naked in the yard before being given their uniform to wear. They were then taken to their cell .The guards read
the rules to the prisoners, who were referred to only by their ID number, and they were instructed to memorise
them.
The rules included: three supervised toilet visits a day, two visits per week, scheduled exercise and movie times,
lining up to be counted three times a day, testing on their knowledge of the rules and their ID number, three
meals per day, work assignments and payment for these ($15).
The prisoners and guards could engage in any form of interaction – for example, friendly or unfriendly, supportive or
unsupportive – that they elected to do. No direction was given to either group about how they should or should not
interact with each other. Self-evaluations using questionnaires and tests were completed by prisoners and guards
over the duration of the study in order to assess the individual’s moods and personality. The experiment was
terminated on day six. This was eight days earlier than scheduled. The prisoners were extremely pleased at this but
the guards were not as happy about the decision to end the study.

Results
Group interactions tended to be hostile, in negative and dehumanising encounters. Guards verbally gave orders that
were impersonal to the prisoner and sometimes aggressive (although not physically aggressive, as this was explicitly
disallowed at the start of the study). Guards were more active in initiating interactions, while the prisoners became
passive to interacting. The rules were modified or ignored by the guards. They also forgot about privileges such as
movies. None of the guards were ever late to work, and some remained on duty voluntarily after their shift had
ended, receiving no pay for their time. In private, the interactions and conversations between prisoners were
dominated by a focus on their current situation, guard harassment, punishments and other aspects of prison life.
They rarely discussed their life outside of prison. The interactions between the guards was also dominated by prison
life, discussing things like ‘problem prisoners’. There were very few occasions where there was interaction between
the two groups. Guard aggression increased and intensified on a daily basis, despite prisoner submission and
emotional breakdown, and was more serious when they were with prisoners away from surveillance. Five prisoners
had to be released early due to extreme emotional reactions; for example, crying, extreme depression, anxiety or
rage. For four of these prisoners, the symptoms began as early as day two and they were released. The fifth
participant required treatment for a psychosomatic rash covering his body before he was released. Other prisoners
requested a lawyer to get them out of the prison. After four days, prisoners attended a ‘parole’ meeting, where
three out of five said they would give up their money (the incentive to take part) if it would get them out of the
prison.
Individual differences were evident. Half the prisoners accepted the oppressive rule of the guards and not all the
guards became hostile. Some guards were fair, others became very cruel and some were quite passive and did not
exercise power over the prisoners. Prisoners perceived the guards to be ‘bigger’ than they were, despite the random
allocation and no real physical differences in average height or weight between the groups.

Conclusion
The guards acquired social status and the ability to exercise complete control from their role in the simulation. The
use of this power became self-serving and intensified over the period of the study. Despite absence from the prison,
the aggressive and hostile nature of their behaviour did not subside. The redefinition of prisoner rights as privileges
after the first day meant prisoners had to earn their rights. Their behaviour highlights the impact of coercive power.
The prisoners rebelled against the oppression at first, attempting to do this within the rules in the beginning and
then, as this broke down, they began to feel depressed, isolated and anxious. Half became emotionally disturbed
and left the study; others became excessively well behaved, such as siding with guards. One prisoner who refused to
eat was treated as a troublemaker rather than having his act of rebellion unite the prisoners against the guards.
Having to wear their uniform with no underclothes forced prisoners to move and sit in ways that were unfamiliar,
often feminine. Their behaviour highlights the impact of a loss of identity leading to compliance, dependency on
those in power who can control even the basic necessities and emasculation from being belittled by those seen to
have masculine power. It seems that when applied to real-world prison life, the role of power should be considered.
The participants as ‘normal’ people aspired to be powerful and disliked being powerless, therefore explaining both
guard behaviour and the hierarchy of status of prisoners found in prison setting

Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 Evidence to suggest they were not acting,  Ethics – Prisoners experienced distress, the
prisoners spoke about prison life rather than study was stopped after 6 days.
personal life, they were becoming immersed in  Demand Characteristics – They knew it was a
the study. study and they were only there for 2 days, they
 The results of the study have informed the way may not have behaved in a normal way.
in which prisons are run and have helped to  It was only male prisoners, the results aren’t
explain the atrocities that occur in prison. generalisable.
 Criminal Psychology
Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) Transmission of Aggression through Imitation of
Aggressive Models.

Background
Bandura and Ross were influenced by previous studies that children can learn through the observation of another,
they were interested in sex-appropriate behaviour and whether children are more likely to imitate a same-sex role
model

Aim(s)
The study had several aims. The main aim was to see if children will imitate aggressive and non-aggressive role
model behaviour, even if they are not rewarded for it. The study also aimed to see if the children would be more
likely to copy same-sex role models than opposite-sex role models and to see if boys would be more aggressive than
girls, particularly if exposed to the aggressive male role model condition.

Procedure
Sample: There were 72 children (36 were boys and 36 were girls), all aged between 37 and 69 months old and all
from Stanford University nursery school. Two adults (one male and one female) acted as the role models.
The participants were divided into eight sub-groups consisting of six participants in each group and a control group
of 24 participants:
Half of the experimental participants watched an aggressive role model:
 six boys watched male aggressive role model behaviour
 six boys watched female aggressive role model behaviour
 six girls watched male aggressive role model behaviour
 six girls watched female aggressive role model behaviour.
Half of the experimental participants watched a non-aggressive role model:
 six boys watched male non-aggressive role model behaviour
 six boys watched female non-aggressive role model behaviour
 six girls watched male non-aggressive role model behaviour
 six girls watched female non-aggressive role model behaviour.
The control group of 24 watched no role model behaviour.

The participants were all rated for aggression before the study based on their interactions in the nursery school, thus
the groups were also matched to make sure that one did not have more aggressive children in it than another.
In the experimental conditions, the participants were taken into a room individually and the role model was invited
by the researcher to play a game. The participant played with familiar toys (similar to the nursery school toys) in a
separate part of the room to the role model.
The role model in the non-aggressive condition ‘played’ with the other toys and did not play with the Bobo doll. The
role model in the aggressive condition then spent their time ‘playing’ by being aggressive towards a Bobo doll.
In order to enable observers of the participants to identify imitated behaviour, the role model was aggressive in
specific ways that would be suitably novel so they could be identifiable as imitative behaviour; for example, hitting
the Bobo doll with a mallet, pushing it down and sitting on it, punching it in the nose or throwing it in the air. These
were accompanied with verbally aggressive comments such as ‘kick him’.

After 10 minutes, the experimenter entered the room to take the participant to another room to play. Prior to
playing elsewhere, the participant was subjected to mild aggression arousal and then went to the room with more
toys. After the participant became engaged with the new toys, the experimenter moved to the other side of the
room to do inconspicuous tasks such as paperwork and did not interact with the participant.

The participant played in this room for 20 minutes. Their behaviour was observed through a one-way mirror at 5-
second intervals and rated in terms of imitative aggression; for example, hitting the Bobo doll with the mallet.
 Results
Participants in the aggressive groups reproduced more physical and verbal aggressive behaviour than those in the
non-aggressive groups.
Boys imitated more physical aggression than girls. There was no significant difference in the imitation of verbal
aggression between the sexes.
Boys imitated more physical and verbal aggression after being exposed to the male aggressive role model than to the
female aggressive role model.
Participants in the non-aggressive conditions engaged in significantly more nonaggressive play activities or sat
quietly.

Conclusions
Exposure to aggressive adult role models may serve to weaken inhibitory responses in children and increase the
likelihood that they will give aggressive reactions. Children appear to learn by imitation and this seems more likely if
the adult role model is male, regardless of whether the child is male or female.

Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 They could control the environment and use a  The environment was unfamiliar, children may
standardised procedure. not have acted normally.
 The children were matched in groups according  Ethics – Young children were deliberately
to their normal levels or aggression. exposed to violence.
 Criminal Psychology
Charlton et al. (2000) Children’s Playground Behaviour Across Five Years of Broadcast
Television: A Naturalistic Study in a Remote Community.

Background
This study was conducted on an island (St Helena) in the South Atlantic Ocean, they had no access to TV, but there
were plans to introduce this, Charlton wanted to know the effect this would have on the young children.

Aim(s)
Charlton et al. aimed to investigate the impact of television on the social behaviour of young children.

Procedure
Background: St Helena had a recorded population of 5644 (in 1994) and until 1994 the people living there did not
have any broadcast television.
Sample: a random sample of the school population of children aged between 3 and 8 years old was used. The
number of children in the school was approximately 160. Four months prior to the introduction of television in 1994,
the free-play behaviour of children was video-recorded during morning, lunch and afternoon play over a two-week
period. This was repeated several years later in 2000. In total, 256 minutes of video recordings were taken in 1994
and 344 minutes of recordings in 2000.
The video cameras were located in the playgrounds and during the recordings the children and staff continued as
they normally would with their daily routines. The data gathered from the video recordings was coded using eight
selected items for pro-social and anti-social behaviours taken from the PBOS (Playground Behaviours Observation
Scale), which includes 26 commonly seen playground behaviours.
Inter-coder reliability was implemented through independent coders who then compared and discussed their coding
for every 60-second interval of the video recordings. Behaviour was measured using the number of anti-social and
pro-social behaviours from the eight PBOS items that had been coded in sets of 30-minute time frames before and
after the introduction of broadcast television. This gave eight 30-minute frames to compare for pre- and post-
television.

Results(s)
Data was analysed based on the mean number of the eight PBOS anti- and pro-social behaviours identified in each of
the eight 30-minute time frames. The eight PBOS behaviours over the eight 30-minute time frames gave a total of 64
items that could be compared.
 Only 9 of the 64 comparisons were statistically significant.
 2 of these 9 showed a statistically significant decrease in anti-social behaviour in the post-television phase
compared to the pre-television phase.
 5 of these 9 showed a statistically significant decrease in pro-social behaviour in the post-television phase
compared to the pre-television phase.
 2 of these 9 showed a statistically significant increase in pro-social behaviour in the post-television phase
compared to the pre-television phase.

Significant differences were found between girls’ and boys’ levels of anti-social behaviour, with boys committing
nearly four times more anti-social acts. Pro-social behaviour took place approximately twice as much as anti-social
behaviour.

Conclusions
Charlton et al. did not draw conclusions regarding the behaviour changes and individual television viewing as this
was not studied, however, their data does indicate that over the 5.3 years from the introduction of television in 1994
to the observation in 2000, little change in pro- or anti-social behaviour had occurred.
They also concluded that the close-knit community of the island, where there was evidence of being vigilant and
supervising the behaviour of children, may have contributed to children’s good behaviour. Children commented that
everyone watches them and knows them, so they had to behave. Therefore, television did not appear to influence
behaviours such as hitting, fighting, pushing or kicking. They do suggest, however, that boys are more anti-social in
their play than girls but this does not appear to be related to television.
 Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 The same primary school was used before and  Findings may be limited to this community as it
after, they had grown up in similar is so unique.
environments.  The TV programmes weren’t the same ‘variety’
 It was a natural experiment. as normal TV, so may have had less violence
than normal.
 Sleep and Dreaming
Freud (1909) Little Hans: analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy.

Background
As a way to cure people with mental health issues, Freud listened to them while they talked and analysed underlying
thoughts and wishes. Freud felt that our dreams could reveal a lot about ourselves.

Aim(s)
To describe the course of an illness and the subsequent recovery of a five-year-old boy.

Content
Sample: one child studied as a case study from three to five years old.
First reports on the behaviour and actions of Hans began in 1906 and were recorded by his father and explained to
Freud for his analysis (as is the case throughout the study).
During this time, Hans developed a phobia of horses, which was explored through his father’s reports to Freud of
conversations with Hans, phantasies that Hans had, and his dreams.
Hans’ dreams are recorded from 1907 onwards – one year into the case study – where previously recorded data has
focussed on the interactions, questions and behaviour of Hans.

“Today when I was asleep I thought I was at Gmunden with Mariedl.” As Hans’s father was telling his mother the
dream in his presence, she corrected him, saying: “Not with Mariedl, but quite alone with Mariedl.”

Freud interpreted this dream to mean that Hans wanted to go back to the Gmunden resort and spend time with his
female friend Mariedl. It later transpired that there were horses at Gmunden that Hans talked about, mainly
describing his fear of them biting

“I say, last night I thought: some one said; ‘who wants to come to me?’ Then someone said; ‘I do’. Then he had to
make him widdle.” Further questions made it clear that there was no visual content whatever in this dream, and
that it was of the purely auditory type.”

Freud believed this was the first dream Hans had shared that was unrecognisable because of distortion. However,
Freud interpreted this (assisted by Hans’s father) to represent a game of forfeits Hans had been playing. He believed
that the speech heard by Hans derived from speech heard/spoken in the days preceding the dream.

Hans (aged four and three-quarters) woke up one morning in tears. Asked why he was
crying, he said to his mother: “When I was asleep I thought you were gone and I had no
Mummy to coax [caress/cuddle] with.”

This was interpreted as an anxiety dream, where Hans showed a fear of losing his mother, highlighting that his
affection towards his mother had intensified. Shortly after this dream, Hans was with his mother when he saw a
horse and became anxious that the horse would bite him. Freud claimed this was Hans’s anxiety about losing his
mother being displaced onto an object (the horse).

Discussion
The dream representing being made to ‘widdle’ expressed a wish that one of his female friends should help him with
his ‘widdler’. This is interpreted to show Hans’s sexual curiosity developing.
His dream of his mother leaving was interpreted as an expression of his fear of losing his mother, as he was in the
process of resolving the Oedipus complex (where a boy fantasises about his mother and fears his father will find out
and castrate him). Hans expressed this complex through play and phantasy, for example playing ‘daddy’ and telling
his own father that the children’s ‘mummy’ in the game was his own ‘mummy’.
This fear of losing his mother was displaced as his phobia of horses very soon after this dream of being left without
her. The horse also became a representation of his father who Hans was believed to fear because of his own
affections and sexual curiosity towards his mother.
Once Hans had resolved the Oedipus complex and passed through his castration fears, his phobia of horses ended.
 Conclusions
Hans’s anxiety and phobia were a result of ‘castration complex’ and were resolved through phantasies that Hans
considered and the dreams he had which led to the resolution of the Oedipus complex in 1908.
Freud claimed that Hans was not a normal child, that he was prone to neurosis, and therefore stated that his findings
from the analysis might not apply to other children. However, Hans returned in 1922 to meet with Freud and was a
normal, healthy individual.

Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 Freud gathered a lot of rich, in-dept qualitative  It is not generalizable, Little Hans is only one
data. person, and he does not represent everyone.
 It was carried out in a very scientific, reflective  There may be other explanations, Little Hans did
way, Freud made notes on what he thought and see a horse fall when he was little, this may be
reflected on them. where his anxiety comes from
 Sleep and Dreaming
Siffre (1975) Six months alone in a cave.

Background
In 1962 Siffre spent 63 days in a cave to see how his body clock reacted to not having normal cues. He was interested
in space travel and wanted to use his results to help astronauts who experience similar conditions.

Aim(s)
To investigate the effects of living underground in a cave without external cues on the24-hour sleep–wake cycle.

Procedure
Sample: one male participant aged 33 years. Siffre lived in an underground cave in Texas for six months where he
was isolated from the sun and other reminders of the passing of time.
He entered the cave on 14th February and left on 5th September (although the latter four weeks were not spent in
isolation as he was being tested for other physiological and psychological effects of the study).
Electrodes were used to monitor heart, brain and muscle activity during the time he spent in the cave. Each time he
awakened, he telephoned a team above ground to let them know he was awake. To ensure that it was not clear
what time of day it was, the telephone conversations were kept short. There was light from lamps in the cave and
these were switched on and off when Siffre telephoned to say he was awake or feeling sleepy. During the awake
periods, Siffre conducted tests on himself.
These included:
 recording blood pressure
 tasks to measure mental acuity
 tasks to measure memory
Tasks to measure physical dexterity, including:
 a cycle machine to cycle 3 miles
 firing a pellet rifle to test coordination
 threading beads on string.
He shaved daily, keeping and weighing the beard trimmings to test for a male hormonal cycle. Siffre needed to clean
the cave daily to remove a white dust from the decay of the rocks as it was a risk to his health (causing a pulmonary
disease called histoplasmosis).

Result(s)
Several psychological and physiological deteriorations were recorded:
 memory became poor
 confusing thoughts, emotions and panic
 low mood
 poor dexterity.
Siffre’s sleep–wake cycle ranged from 18 to 51¾ hours, although each cycle felt like a ‘day’ to him. A 48-hour sleep–
wake cycle was common in two different extended periods of time. Time spent awake was usually far greater than
time spent asleep during most sleep–wake cycles.
At the end of the sleep component of the study, Siffre believed it to be mid-July, although it was in fact 10th August.

Conclusion
Siffre experienced lasting effects of his time in the cave away from daylight and sleep– wake cycle zeitgebers,
including memory lapses and weakened eyesight. This highlights the importance of cues and bodily rhythms.
There is a tendency for the sleep–wake cycle to become a 48-hour cycle rather than the 24-hour cycle that is normal
in an environment with zeitgebers and external cues.
The study highlighted potential serious concerns for NASA in regard to long-range space travel where the effects of
disruption to the sleep–wake cycle as a result of isolation from external cues could result in grave deterioration of
manual and mental dexterity.
 Evaluation
Strengths Weaknesses
 Lots of detail, both qualitative and quantitative  The lights that came on when he woke up were
 The study was done over a long period very strong, this may have affected his body
clock.
 The findings aren’t generalizable, this situation
was very unique