Samples
Opportunity Sample
Volunteer (Self-selected) Sample
Random Sample
Describe what previous research had shown regarding bystander behavior from the study by Piliavin (subway Samaritans).
The more bystanders that are present, the less likely it is that a person will offer help to a person in distress.
This is explained through a diffusion of responsibility; that is, a person will diffuse the burden of help to other bystanders. The more bystanders there are, the less responsibility an individual feels to help.
Identify 3 ethical guidelines for research with humans, and 3 for research with animals.
Humans:
minimizing harm
valid/informed consent
right to withdraw
lack of deception
confidentiality
privacy
debriefing
Animals:
minimizing harm
replacement
species
numbers
pain and suffering
housing
reward/deprivation and aversive stimuli
Outline two results from the doodling experiment by Andrade.
Doodling group recalled more names and places than the control group.
Number of shapes shaded among doodling group ranged from 3-110. (mean 36.3)
Outline one conclusion from the study by Dement & Kleitman (sleep and dreams)
1. Dreaming is reported from REM, but not nREM sleep, suggesting that we only dream in the REM stage.
2. Participants can accurately estimate the length of their dream duration.
3. Eye movement patterns relate to dream content.
Name two features of the sample from the study by Andrade (doodling).
40 participants
Mainly females
18-55 years old
members of a participant panel made up of members of the general population
20 participants in each group (doodling and control)
Outline how obedience was measured in the Milgram (obedience) study.
Levels of obedience were measured by the voltage level participants administered on the shock generator before calling an end to the experiment.
Evaluate the ethics of the Hassett study on monkey toy preferences. Refer to 3 of the guidelines for animal research.
Housing - Plenty of room (25m x 25m) for exercise in outdoor facility.
Housing/suffering and distress - Temp controlled indoor facility to ensure comfort and survival
Deprivation - Food and water adequate available
Follows guidelines of animal testing organizations
Species - Monkeys remained socialized and were not recently plucked from the wild - Little strain
Numbers - did not use a minimum number of monkeys (82)
Outline two results from the study by Pozzulo (line ups).
Both children and adults were able to identify cartoon/familiar faces correctly from a target-present lineup nearly every time.
Adults rejected target-absent lineups with cartoon/familiar faces at a significantly higher rate (.94) than children (.74).
Adults are better at identifying an unfamiliar (human face) target correctly than children. (.66 vs .23)
Adults rejected a target-absent lineup of unfamiliar, human faces more frequently than children (.70 vs .45)
Outline one conclusion from the study by Saavedra and Silverman (button phobia).
Emotions and cognitions relating to disgust are important when learning new responses to phobic stimuli
Imagery exposure can have a long term effect on reducing the distress associated with specific phobias as it tackles negative evaluations
Name three features of the sample from the Baron - Cohen Study (eyes test).
Group 1: AS or HFA Group
15 males recruited from adverts in U.K. National Autistic Society mag
Group 2: Normal adults
122 (55M, 67F) from adult classes at Exeter or from public library users at Cambridge
Group 3: Normal adult students
103 (53M, 50F) studying undergraduate degrees at Cambridge (not representative of gen. pop.)
Group 4: IQ matched group
14 from gen. pop. matched for IQ with Group 1 (IQ mean = 116) < eliminates IQ as possible extraneous variable responsible for differences in scores if groups 1 & 4 differ.
Describe the process for allocating participants into groups in the Perry study (personal space).
Participants were given a 28 item self-report questionnaire known as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Scores a half standard deviation below average (< 33) resulted in participants being placed in the low empathy group, and scores a half SD above mean (> 40) were placed in the high empathy group.
Explain whether each ethical guideline was broken in the study by Piliavin (subway Samaritans).
informed consent
protection from psychological harm
informed consent - this guideline was broken as participants were subway passengers and were unaware they were taking part in an experiment, and therefore were uniformed and did not give consent.
protection from psychological harm - this was also broken as some participants who witnessed the victim in distress and did not help may have experienced lasting feelings of guilt, or may have worried about the wellbeing of the victim. Furthermore, the passengers were never debriefed to be relieved of these feelings.
Outline two results from the study by Dement & Kleitman (sleep and dreams).
Dreams were recalled more in REM than nREM.
Subjective estimates of dream duration correlated with time spent in REM sleep.
Eye movement patterns were related to dream content.
Outline one conclusion from the study by Fagen (elephant learning).
It is feasible to train juvenile, free-contact, traditionally trained elephants in Nepal who have no prior experience with SPR training to voluntarily participate in a trunk wash using only SPR techniques.
Outline one strength and one weakness of the sample from the Milgram study on obedience.
Strengths: Wide variety of education levels/careers makes it more valid
40 participants makes it reliable
Weaknesses: Only men - cannot be generalized to women
Ages 20-50, cannot be generalized to children
All from New Haven, CT, cannot be generalized to other areas/cultures.
Describe the appearance of the victim in each condition of the Piliavin (subway Samaritan) experiment.
Always wore an Eisenhower jacket, old slacks, and no tie.
Drunk: liquor bottle wrapped in paper bag, smelled of alcohol
Ill: carried a cane
Explain whether the study by Fagen (elephant learning) meets the following ethical guidelines:
numbers
replacement
numbers - yes, by using only 5 elephants, the guideline of using the fewest necessary animals was met.
replacement - for this particular study, the goal was to find a better, more humane form of training for elephants, and therefore replacing elephants with human participants would not be viable. This guideline was met.
Aaron and Kylie are discussing the study by Piliavin (subway Samaritans) in terms of the debate about individual and situational explanations.
Aaron believes the study supports the individual explanation but Kylie believes this study supports the situational explanation.
Outline why you think either Aaron or Kylie is correct, using evidence from the study.
Aaron - The study supports the individual explanation because women helped the male victim significantly less than men, but commented to the observer that they weren't "strong enough" to help, suggesting their choice was affected by an individual trait.
The fact there is some evidence of same race helping (especially in drunk cond.) suggests different individuals base their decision whether to help or not on their similarity and ability to sympathize with the person in need.
Kylie - The study supports the situational explanation because victims in the ill (cane) condition were more likely to receive spontaneous help than the victim in the drunk condition. The situation of assisting a person who appears to be drunk may involve greater risk than assisting a person who is disabled/ill, which explains why fewer people helped the drunk victim.
Outline one conclusion from the study by Holzel (mindfulness and brain scans).
MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) programs can cause increases in brain grey matter concentration within eight weeks.
Outline one strength and one weakness of the sample from the Saavedra and Silverman study on button phobia.
Strength: one participant gives researchers opportunity to gather more detailed information
Weakness: Findings cannot be generalized to other people or other types of phobias since this was a longitudinal case study (one participant).
Explain one similarity and one difference between the study by Perry (personal space) and one other core study from the social approach.
Variety of acceptable responses.
Example:
Similarity - Both the Perry study and the Milgram study used deception. In the Perry study, participants were led to believe they would be placed in a room to have a personal conversation with another participant at the end of the experiment, when in reality that conversation did not happen. In the Milgram study, participants were told they were administering shocks to a person in another room, when in fact there were no shocks.
Difference - The Perry study was a lab experiment in which an experimental group and a control gorup were used. The experimental group was administered oxytocin, and the control group was given a placebo. The Milgram experiment did not have a control group. Since there was no independent variable, this study could be considered a controlled observation.
Evaluate the ethics of the Milgram study on obedience. Refer to three guidelines in your evaluation.
lack of deception - not met; participants were made to believe they were teachers in a learning experiment. Also believed they were harming another person when they were not.
informed consent - not met; participants were volunteers (from newspaper ad), and so gave consent by coming to the lab, however, they were not correctly informed on the nature of the experiment
minimizing harm - not met; participants experienced moderate to severe psychological harm during the procedure. Many were observed feeling stressed, and 3 had full-blown seizures
right to withdraw - not met; participants were led to believe by the probes from the authority figure that they could not withdraw "you have no other choice, you must go on."
debriefing - met; they were debriefed and told the true nature of the experiment afterwards, and met the victim to see he was unharmed.
Marina and Yessica are discussing the study by Baron-Cohen in terms of validity.
Marina believes the study has validity, while Yessica believes it does not.
Explain why both friends are correct.
Marina is correct because the study is very standardized with lots of controls;
Having four choices for each item reduces the probability of participants guessing the correct emotion for each face.
A glossary of words is given to participants to ensure a lack of vocabulary doesn't impact the results of the experiment on theory of mind.
AS/HFA participants were also compared to a high-IQ matched group to control for the extraneous variable of IQ.
There was a balance of male and female faces among the 36 items.
The foil words went through a judging process to ensure the wrong answers weren't too similar to the facial expressions.
Yessica is correct because the study lacks ecological validity.
We don't experience other people's emotions in static images, but rather in real time with moving faces and bodies.
Only the eyes were shown in each image. Emotion can also be seen in the mouth and body language, such as hand movements.
Outline one conclusion from the study by Pozzulo (line ups).
Social, as well as cognitive factors are present when children respond to a target-absent lineup, and this social pressure can increase the likelihood of producing a false positive response when compared to adults.