IB Psychology Final Review

Sociocultural
Conformity Informational Conformity: going along with a group based on information; you think the group is right. Normative Conformity: we go along with the group as to not feel alienated. Factors Increasing Conformity Factors Decreasing Conformity Larger group size Lack of Group Unanimity/Agreement Difficulty of task; we look to others when If participants are allowed to answer in uncertain private Status of Majority Group (See Studies Below) Asch Study Aim: to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. 123 male student from Swarthmore College were given a vision test- each one placed in a setting with 4-6 confederates. The participant sat on the end while the confederates all chose the same wrong answer. 75% conformed at least once while 25% never conformed. The general rate of conformity per question was 32%. Adding a confederate that went against the majority reduced conformity up to 80%. Social Proof/Social Learning Social Proof: A way we use to determine what is correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it. Social Learning: Learning a skill because of a social obligation. (Cialdini's Son) Cialdini Introduced to 'social learning' after his son learned to swim out of a social obligation he felt after seeing another boy his age swim. Bystander Inaction Kitty Genovese Case: Attacked and tortured for over 35 minutes, nobody called the police. Convince bystanders your situation is an emergency, point directly at the "rescuer." Otherwise people will fall victim to pluralistic ignorance. Latan and Darley: safety in numbers does not work when one person is in an emergency situation. a person having a seizure in public received help 85% of the time with one bystander and only 31% of the time with 5 bystanders present. The presence of more people affect others actions not a bad moral compass. Social proof also seen in social apathy where when one person observed smoke coming out of building they reported it 75% of the time but when there were three people, two of which were told to not report on purpose. In this situation it was reported only 10% of the time and when all three were innocent it was 38% of the time reported. Bandura Phobias: nursery school aged kids afraid of dogs watched a little boy playing happily with a dog... 67% ready to climb into a playpen with a dog after four days. Film for socially anxious kids had the effect- social proof is the most effective way to reduce phobias. Bobo Doll Experiment: Kids exposed to either an aggressive beating up a bobo doll, or a nonaggressive adult model playing with toys. Results: -Children with aggressive model more aggressive than those without. -Boys more aggressive than girls. -Boys more aggressive if model was male. -Girls showed physical aggression w/ male model, verbal w/ female model.

Zimbardo Stanford Prison Study: 24 individuals were randomly arrested one morning and taken to the psychology basement at Stanford in a mock prison. Some were assigned guard positions and other prisoners. The prison guards stripped, searched and sprayed each prisoner based on the information that they were guards with no rules whose jobs were to maintain order in the prison. Many actions based on things carried out in regular prisons and Nazi camps. The guards organized counts to assert their dominance. The guards forced the prisoners to do pushups based on the information that they had to keep the prisoners in check. The prisoners rebelled because of the guards abusiveness, and the guards used force the next day (like fire extinguishers) to suppress the rebellion. The experiment had to be ended early. Milgram/Authority Hypothesis: people would carry out actions against their values if instructed by an authority figure. Participants: men of varying ages and occupations Procedure: Participants were briefed with a confederate. In a fixed draw, the confederate was assigned the role of learner, and the participant was give the role of teacher. Then, the teacher and learner were escorted to a room where the teacher saw the learner strapped into a chair where he would be shocked every time he answered a question wrong. The teacher (actual participant) was taken to a different room where they were seated and given a list of questions to ask the learner. Each time the learner got an answer wrong, the voltage of the shocks increased. The teacher was forced to initiate the shocks under the impression that the confederate in the other room was actually feeling them. Even though most showed signs of discomfort that indicated they knew it was morally wrong, the experiment proctor insisted the experiment keep going. The participant could also hear noises of discomfort coming from the other room. Results: 65% of participants continued until the final 450-V shock was initiated. Conclusion: Evidence of a strong pressure in our society for compliance with the requests of authority. 2004: Blass replicated Milgram's experiment (only up to a voltage of 150) with almost identical results. Hofstede Cultural Dimensions shown below after studies IBM's 64 countries. Cultural Dimension Definition High Low Power Distance degree of inequality, centralized companies, flatter organizations, and acceptance among strong hierarchies, gaps employers/employees people in compensation equal Individualism strength of community value people's freedom, building skills, work for ties challenges/rewards intrinsic reward Masculinity traditional male/female men = masculine, equal, powerful women roles women = feminine respected Uncertainty Avoidance anxiety in uncertain formal/rules, structure, informal, long-term situations differences avoided strategy, change/risk okay Long-Term Orientation value on long-standing family basis of society, equality, individualism. traditions/values parents/men = power self-actualization sought Theory of Attribution

Cognitive
Cole/Scriber (1974) Aim: To investigate the development of memory within children with and without education and to test free recall memory. Hypothesis: The students school would remember more items that the non-schooled children. Participants: approx. 1000 educated and not educated American/Liberian children. Procedure: Went through a multitude of memory tests, asked to memorize and write down words.

Results: US showed regular increase in memory performance while Liberian children showed increase during middle childhood days unless school was attended. Children did not improve with age or practice if they did not attend school. Rogoff/Wadell (1982) Mayan children presented with a free-recall task were significantly less skilled than US counterparts. However, when presented with something meaningful culturally (like a diorama of a Mayan village). they were able to reconstruct the village with results slightly superior to US counterparts. Although the ability to remember is universal, specific forms of remembering are not universal. Allport/Postman (1974) Participants show a picture of a white man threatening a black man on a subway. When asked to recall, people tended to recall the black man threatening the white man. Cohen (1981) Participants shown a video of a couple eating a meal. They were told that the woman was either a waitress or a librarian. When asked to recall, they were more likely to remember aspects like "wear glasses, eating salad, drinking wine" when told she was a librarian and other aspects like no bookshelves, bowling ball, eating cake when told it was a waitress. Demonstrated that schemas have a big influence on attention and memory and how we attend to and remember schema-consistent material better than schema-inconsistent material. Steele Stereotype threat: the threat of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype of the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm that stereotype. Conducted an experiment that placed one black and one white student in a room together to take part of a Graduate Record Examination. Black students told the test measured intellectual ability scored lower than white students while those told it could not measure intellectual ability scored about the same as the white students. Clark Doll (1939) 300 children shown a black and white doll: asked to pick 'favorite' 'bad' 'nice' etc. 44% of the African-American children said the white doll looked like them, and 63% said the white one was the nice one they wanted to play with. Those in segregated schools more likely to pick the white doll; used in Brown v BOE. Spencer (2010) Recreated Clark Doll Study: 133 children from 4 schools in Georgia and 4 in New York. High rate of "white bias" in white children pointing out positive attributes in dolls looking like them. Some black children also showed this bias. Loftus When an event is recalled, it is not entirely accurate. 1. Her first experiment test 150 participants in small groups, showing them a video of a 5-car chain reaction crash after the driver ran a stop sign. One group was asked, "How fast was car A going when it ran the stop sign?" The second group was asked, "How fast was Car A going when it turned right?" Both were then asked if they saw a stop sign. 53% of the first group said they did while 35% of the second group said they did This statistical significance supported Loftus' hypothesis. 2. Loftus' second study tested 40 participants by showing them a 3-minuted excerpt from the film, "Diary of a Student Revolution." The clip showed eight antiwar demonstrators breaking up a class. Half were then asked, "Was the leader of the four demonstrators who entered the classroom a male?" The other half were asked, "Was the leader of the twelve demonstrators who entered the classroom a male?" A week later, the participants were asked, "How many demonstrators did you see entering the classroom?" Those who had the "12" question reported an average of 8.86 while the who had the "4" reported an average of 6.4. This showed the way that the wording the questions could alter memories. 3. The third experiment tested 150 participants by showing them a video of a white sports car. FOr half the participants, they were asked the question, "How fast was the white sports car going when it passed barn while traveling along the country road?" The other were asked, "How fast was the white sports going while traveling along the country road?" A week later, the participants were asked if they saw a barn. There

was no barn, but 17.3% of the participants with the 'barn question' said there was, while the control group only had 2.3% see the imaginary barn. 4. The final experiment further explored the ideas of memory reconstruction discovered in experiment 3. 50 participants watched a 3 min film shot from the inside of a car that ended with the car colliding with a baby carriage pushed by a man. Each group was given a booklet of questions. The 3 groups were divided into a control group, a direct question group, and a false presupposition gourp. Examples of these differences included direct questions such as, "Did you see school bus in the film?" while the false presupposition was asked questions such as, "Did you see children getting on the school bus?" A week later, the new set of questions tested what percentage of each group answered yes to thing that were not actually there: 29.2% for the false-presupposition group, 15.6% for the direct question group, and 8.4% for the control group. Craik & Lockhart Memory Model. Three levels : structural, phonetic, and semantic. Structural things are stored in shallow memory, phonetics are stored in short-term memory, and semantics are stored in deep memory. Long-term memory is achieved when information is processed on all three levels. Attkinson-Schiffrin Memory Model. Memory path : information goes through a cycle. It is an input, then becomes sensory memory. At this point, information is either erased or given attention. When given attention, it becomes part of short-term memory. It is then either erased or rehearsed. If it is rehearsed, it becomes part of longterm memory, and if it is recalled after that, it does not get erased. Baddeley & Hitch Memory Model. The Central Executive controls the attention lent to the environment. The automatic level works on a habit-based system (i.e. I never pay attention to how many people sneeze in class ). The Supervisory Attentional Level controls emergencies and new situations (i.e. Ive never driven in this neighborhood before, so Ill pay better attention ). Once given attention, processed information goes through the phonological loop (phonetic memory) ; episodic buffer (essentially, semantic. Links phonological/visuo-spatial); or visuo-spatial sketchpad (spatial information, cognitive maps). Henry Molaison (HM) Amnesia. He acquired heavy anterograde amnesia and temporally graded retrograde amnesia after a surgery which removed the medial temporal lobe (which are a big component in the formation of semantic and episodic long-term memories.) While he was unable to create new active memories, he did create muscle memories, as shown through various tests (star test, rotary pursuit, tower of hanoi.) Test Description star test HM was instructed to draw a star by looking at its reflection in a mirror. Although the (Milner) activity had to be explained him each time he did it, he quickly improved and developed this new skill. This was groundbreaking and introduced the concept of "motor memorie." rotary pursuit This task involves tracking a spot target on a revolving wheel, trying to keep contact with a wand. On repeated exposure the amount of contact time maintained during a timed trial can be used as a measure of motor learning. HM was able to also develop this skill. tower of A math game with three rods and a number of disks that can slide on to any rod. Here, HM hanoi showed the ability to develop certain problem-solving skills and procedures long term. Bartlett (1932) Schema influence memory. Gave participants a complex and unusual story called "The War of the Ghosts", containing concepts and written in a structure unfamiliar to Western participants. They were asked to recall it six or seven times over various periods of time. He found that the recalled stories were distortec and adapted to the participants own cultural perspective. He called this rationalization. However, it had low ecological validity and was uncontrolled ("I thought it best, for the purposes of these experiments, to try to influence the subjects procedure as little as possible" says Bartlett).

Biological
Rosenzweig The Rosenzweig study used rats. Rats were put in one of three environments: privileged, normal, or isolated. In the privileged environment, rats had company from other rats, toys, and more/better food. In the

isolated environment, rats were alone and given no toys. After four weeks, autopsies were performed on the rats brains and it was found that the rats in privileged environments had bigger hippocampi. This study showed that the environment and amount of mental stimulation given to an individual can affect the brain essentially, the brain is a muscle. Univ. of London Cab Driver A study was conducted where the brains of 40 London cab drivers did an MRI and their hippocampi were compared with those of non-cab drivers. It was found that the cab drivers hippocampi were thicker in comparison to those who were not cab drivers. This is due to the fact that cab drivers are required to have incredible cognitive maps and carry more knowledge of the London area. Gazzaniga The Gazzaniga studies were made on people whose corpus callosum had been severed as a treatment for epilepsy. Because of contralateral control, the right brain controls the left side of the body, and vice-versa. In another study, a board with a horizontal row of lights were placed in front of the participants. The bulbs would flash across both visual fields but when asked to say what they saw, participants only said they saw the lights from the right visual field. When lights flashed on the left visual field they claimed to have seen nothing. When lights flashed in both visual fields and the participants were asked to point to what they saw, they pointed to the lights in both visual fields. This supports the idea that the center of speech is in the left hemisphere of the brain. Furthermore when objects were placed in a participants hands, they could describe what was in their right hand but not what was in their left hand. But when asked to match the object in their left hand with a group of objects presented to them, they could do it easily. When participants were shown a slideshow with a star on the right side and a heart on the left side, meaning the right eye would see the star and the left eye would see the heart, the patient was able to vocally say that he saw a star, but, when asked to pick out what shape they saw from cards with their right hand, they chose a heart. Also, when the right hemisphere was flashed an object such as a cigarette, they were able to find the object most similar to the cigarette, an ashtray, from behind the screen. The shows that the right hemisphere can think about and analyze objects as well. Finally, when the the word HEART was sent so that the right brain received HE and the left brain received ART, the patients again could verbally say they saw ART. However, when asked to point with their left hand to what they saw, they pointed out HE. This shows that the right hemisphere is still able to comprehend language, even if it does it non-verbally.This shows that the hemispheres can function independently from each other. Kuhl Infants show an interest in human voices over other environmental sounds, and direct their attention to human voice. May lead to understanding of how vocal melody conveys a persons intent. Suggests that right hemisphere processes patterns like voice contour. Furthermore, mothers instinctively exaggerate melodic inflection with babies, reflecting intuitive knowledge that they need to exaggerate language cues that the right hemisphere processes preferentially while deemphasizing the production of the speech sounds themselves (left hemisphere). Deustch 1980s brain researcher who attributed left hemisphere with being more logical and analytical while the right hemisphere was more intuitive. Kingstone Kingstone conducted an experiment where he found that with split-brain participants, the left hemisphere is more efficient with its searching strategies than the right hemisphere. Therefore, Kingstone came up to the conclusion that the left hemisphere can take control over the right hemisphere in order to be more efficient in terms of strategies. Pittman Roger Pitman did a pilot study to see whether the Memory Pill could prevent PTSD symptoms. Rape victims were given 10 days of the drug or dummy pills when they came into the Massachusetts General Hospital emergency room. Three months later in follow up appointments, patients listened to tapes that described their traumatic events as their heart-rates, palm sweating, and forehead muscle tension was measured. The 8 who had taken propanolol had fewer stress symptoms that those who didnt. However the difference in the frequency of the symptoms were so small they might have only occurred by chance. However, this was still the first study that showed that PTSD symptoms could be prevented. Memory Pill

In 1996, LeDoux conducted a study where he mapped out the biological circuitry of emotions. He did this through continually lesioning the brains of rats until they did not have the ability to function in order to determine which areas of the brain were localized for what function. He found that the amygdala triggers a fight or flight response, for when this area was lesioned in the brains of rats, rats could not be conditioned to fear sounds. In addition, the sensory thalamus sends an appraisal of the stimulus and outcome to the amygdala in order to trigger to save time in dangerous situations. When this area of the brain was lesioned, the rats could not quickly evaluate dangerous situations. Thus, this study found that the amygdala is central to the flight or fight response in humans. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd Yurgelun-Todd studied teenagers abilities to interpret the meanings of facial expressions. She conducted an MRI scan on her teenage participants where they were shown pictures of people making different facial expressions. She found that teenagers prefrontal cortexes are not yet fully developed, which means that this form of sensory information cannot be sent on to the limbic system for interpretation. Therefore, teenagers arent able to interpret facial expressions as well as we expect them to be able to as well as the fact that their prefrontal cortexes are also not fully developed. J. Geidd Since 1991, Giedd has been mapping the brains of nearly 1,000 healthy children ranging in age from 3 to 18. He found that the prefrontal cortex undergoes a growth spurt around age nine or ten and then at age twelve, the unnecessary synapses die off. Thus is a process called pruning. Thus, he found that the brains of children prune the unnecessary synapses after the age of twelve and continue to do so until the prefrontal cortex is fully formed.

Abnormal Psychology
Abnormal vs. Normal The terms are no longer used. The terms abnormal and normal have not been used on account of their ambiguity and the general trend towards bias when these terms are used. These terms can lead to presumptions (or even stereotype threat!) of a person. Some significant names that appear in the issues of normal and abnormal are Phllipe Pinel, the man who first publicly theorized that those who suffered from mental illness should not be condemned, rather they should be treated medically and psychiatrically. Some even argue that mental disorders are a myth for they are designations psychologists and psychiatrists use to label those who do not follow societal norms. The DSM-IV-TR is the main book used to diagnose mental illnesses, but receives much criticism for its simplistic, broad requirements for a patient to be diagnosed. Remember that for someone to be considered abnormal, or considered for diagnosis, one must deviate from statistical norms, deviate from social norms, experience a maladaptiveness of behavior, and suffer personal distress. OCD The recursion of repetitive thoughts (obsessions) or behaviors (compulsions), which are generally unwanted or unnecessary. The study of OCD is not necessarily the important aspect of this unit; more, it is the treatment of the disorder that is important. Various methods are used for OCD specifically, however these methods are also used for a myriad of other mental disorders, such as PTSD. Cognitive Brain Therapy (coaching those who have the disorder to think in new ways to solve problems), Exposure and Response Prevention (gradually increasing exposure to obsessions and controlling the reactions to them), and Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (pharmaceutical drugs used to treat high levels of serotonin) are all used in order to treat OCD, and are especially useful in allowing one to live normally in society, even despite still having the mental illness. Think Anger Management. PTSD The range of psychological and physiological that can affect everyone; does not follow the normal pathways of the resistance phase of the General Adaption Syndrome. Treatment of PTSD is mainly focused on cognitive and behavioral therapy because of the nature of the disorder, and the fact that people suffering from PTSD need therapy to deal with the pent up anger and feelings of aggression that they experience. The most commonly known symptom of PTSD is the aggressive, at times violent, outburst of those who experienced a large amount of trauma. The symptoms of PTSD are generally repetitive, and will slowly degrade a patients mental and social well-being. PTSD is a problem especially for soldiers

returning from war. One important thing to remember about PTSD is the magic pill that helps fade the memories that are causing PTSD, something that has caused a lot of controversy in the media and the psychological community. The pills main aspects were that the pril addressed were the formation of a permanent traumatic memory, and by taking the pill after the traumatic experience, increasing the amount of propranolol (a memory block protein) released when the memory is recalled, as well as the amount of adrenaline (instinctual feelings and memories can be triggered by adrenaline) that is released. Ethics is a large part of these issues regarding PTSD and its treatments, and one must remember the Abnormal v. Normal debate mentioned earlier to incorporate this into the discussion, for it is relevant. McGaugh McGaugh studied PTSD within troops returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He found that the use of the medication, Propranolol helped alleviate the severity of PTSD within the veterans by destroying their traumatic memories. He argues that it should be utilized in PTSD treatment for veterans for we can do so much for those with physical wounds, but little for those with mental wounds.

Parts of the Brain and Their Functions

Amygdala: a region of the brain heavily influenced by hormones. It processes fear, triggers aggression, action, and stimulates competition. It also alerts us to danger. The amygdala in mens brains are larger than those in females brains. Here is a picture of where it's at: Left Hemisphere: Is the area of the brain typically associated with Language, Logic, Speech, & Writing. It also can be attributed for its involvement with being detail oriented, factual, its involvement with words and language, its active role in math and science, the fact that it can recognize patterns, know names, can comprehend things, form strategies, and is utmost practical. Right Hemisphere: Is the area of the Brain typically associated with spatial abilities, art, music, and emotion. It also is known for utilizing feeling, being big picture oriented, its use of imagination, its role in philosophy, can understand meaning, appreciates things, fantasizes, takes risks, and knows the functions of things. Heres where its at:

hippocampus: It is the center of learning, emotion, and memory within the brain. It increases in size with an increase in knowledge. Cerebral Cortex: the area made up of association areas and which is responsible for higher order thinking. Hind-Medulla Oblongata: the region of the brain responsible for heart rate, breathing, swallowing, and digestion. Pons-Bridge: regulates facial expressions Cerebellum: The region of the brain which is responsible for bodily coordination and muscle tone. Mid-RAS Brain Stem: This region of the brain is responsible for ones awake and alertness. Parietal lobe: is responsible for sensory information (ie sight, smell, etc) Occipital lobe: the region of the brain responsible for processing visual thinking. Temporal lobe: this is the region of the brain which is responsible for hearing and speech Frontal lobe: the region responsible for higher-order thinking

 Corpus callosum: the connection between the left and right hemispheres Brocas area: the area of the brain responsible for speech thalamus: the region of the brain that serves as the relay center for the brain (except for smell) hypothalamus: the region of the brain that regulates hunger and thirst Hormones Cortisol: a hormone created by the adrenal glands that helps regulate blood pressure and cardiovascular function. It is activated during the flight or fight response and during a time of stress. It can be known as the stress hormone. Adrenaline: a hormone created by the adrenal glands that helps regulate blood pressure and cardiovascular function. It is activated during the flight or fight response and during a time of stress. It can be known as the stress hormone. Adrenaline also plays a large role in emotions. Melatonin: hormone made by pineal gland (middle of brain), pineal gland is switched on when there is no sunlight and melatonin is produced and released into the bloodstream.