Hey I'm scared and oh so alone (psychology wise)

Everyone in the forum sems to be on AQA which is a really simple psychology with quite general Units but i on Edexcel and i failed already in january and ireally need some good easy notes for my exam on thursday, is there anyone out there who can help me with my psychological problem... please?
p.s i'm not crazy :confused:

Reply 1

Zarathustra

You might have more luck if you mention which topics you need notes for, and what kind of things you get asked on Edexcel :wink:

ZarathustraX

Reply 2

Rosh22

Ive made some notes dno how useful they will be for you though, im sorry.

Cognitive

Information Processing
- process information cognitively
- thinking, perceiving, using language and memorizing (ways of processing)
- we receive information, interpret it and respond in some way

Computer Analogy
- We process information like computers
- There is an input-process-output.
- E.g. Multi Store Model
- Information comes in via the sensory store, processed in STM and LTM, and recall is the output

Lab Exp
- Controlled Conditions
- IV manipulated, to effect the DV
- Cause and Effect Formed
- Lacks Ecological Validity
- Max Control of extraneous variables

Case Studies of Brain Damaged Patients
- in depth studies
- involve people that have experience brain damage
- study what people can do in terms of processing and what they cannot do.
- Note down the areas of the brain that are damaged, and draw conclusions of what those areas are for.
- E.g. Study of HM.
- Conclusions have validity and in depth data can be gathered with modern techniques of brain scanning.
- The damage often involves more than one area so we cannot really tell which element of damage has what effect.
- Stressful for participants, needs consent.

Multistore Model

Information-sensory registers (ATTENTION) STM (REHEARSAL) LTM

- Information is held in STM for a few seconds, in an acoustic form.
- STM can hold approx 7 items.
- Material that is rehearsed remains in STM long enough to be transferred into LTM.
- Otherwise information is displaced by new information.
- LTM has unlimited capacity and information may last a lifetime.
- Information held in semantic form rather than acoustic.
- LTM is a single store, stored in order that they have been learnt.
- evidence from HM
- Evidence from FK that things in STM can be stored semantically too.
- Evidence from HM and FK to suggest that there are separate stores of LTM, e.g. facts skills and events.

Reconstructive Model of Memory
- Bartlett’s war of the ghosts
- Memory was an imaginative reconstruction of past events.
- Retrieval for stored memories thus involves an active process of reconstruction and we actively piece together things using a range of information.
- From the war of the ghost’s story, he found that once it had been reproduced through 6 people that the story had changed.
- Story was shorter. Details were left out, especially ones that were specific to the native American culture, so the story became like an English story.
- Serial Reproduction, e.g. Chinese whispers.
- He said that we uses units of memory known as schemas.
- We have schemes for every aspects of the world. We activate the relevant schemas when we reconstruct memories.
- War of the ghosts may use ghost schema.

Cue- Dependency
- cues about the context or situation in which memories were made
- absence of these cues can cause forgetting
- this is context dependant forgetting
- cues can also be about the state the person is in at the time
- This is state dependant.
- Evidence has been shown of cue-dependant forgetting,
- the diver experiment, when the divers learnt lists of words when they were diving. The ones who were asked to recall words when diving recalled more words than the ones on the land.
- Not the only explanation for forgetting. E.g. when we forget because we do not want to remember.
- Studies are artificial and tend to be about learning words. Which is only one sort of remembering
- Reinforces the claim that cue dependant forgetting isn’t a complete explanation.
Repression
- Freud
- We forget facts or events that provoke anxiety or unhappiness
- We do this to protect ourselves from having to experience these negative emotions
- Freud believed that the memories remain active although the individual isn’t aware of them.
- They can trigger symptoms
- The tendency to use repression as a defense against negative emotions is acquired in childhood, a response to poor quality relationships with parents.
- Repression can involve the complete blanking out of highly traumatic memories.
- Numbers of people that suffered sexual childhood abuse and forget about it only to have the memory recur in early adulthood.
- On occasion we may recall events but repress the emotion attached to them.
- Many cases have been documented of people who have forgotten highly traumatic events. Repression is a good exp because we would normally expect these events to be highly memorable.
- Other explanations for forgetting these cases. E.g. cue dependency.
- We know relatively little how common repression is or what factors that determine when it takes place
- We also don’t have a good understanding of hwy some people who undergo highly traumatic experiences have difficulty forgetting them rather than remembering them.
Loftus and Palmer
- Aim: The effect of leading questions on participants answers, to see if the wording of a question can distort the recall.
- Method: Lab Exp, Independent Groups, Car Video, Questions, Contacted and Smashed.
- Results: Smashed 41, Contacted 32mph.
- Conc.: Word gives schemas about what was happening, element of speed. Leading questions affect recall.
- Well controlled, reliable.
- Evidence from other studies, and variations showing the same results.
- Low Eco Val., Not real car crash, no anxiety involved.
- Speed of car not easy to estimate.
Aggleton
- Aim: Find out whether the memory of a visit to a museum characterized by distinctive smells would be improved by the same smells at recall.
- Procedure: 45 volunteers that visited the Jorvik Viking Centre in York 6 and 7 years prior to the study.
- The experience of visiting Jorvik Centre is characterized by a set of distinctive smells specially manufactured by a company.
- These included burnt wood, rubbish acrid and the fish market.
- Participants were put into 3 books, each of which completed a questionnaire about the museum exhibits twice. In one condition the first questionnaire was accompanied by a selection of bottled smells from the museum. In the second condition the smells accompanied the second questionnaire and in the controlled condition no smells were given.
- Results: the group with the museum smells given to them first recalled the most detail. The second group showed a sharp increase in the accuracy of recall in their second questionnaire, accompanied by the smells.
- Conclusion, the distinctive smells of the museum acted as cues, which aided recall of information about the museum.
EWT
- Reconstructive Memory
- Weapon Focus, memory affected by stress.
- Leading questions, schemas, loftus and palmers “the” and “a”.
- Cognitive Interview

False Memory Syndrome
- Repression
- Cue Dependency
- Reconstructive

Social
Culture and Society
- We act within a social setting
- Actions have social meanings
- They shape our behavior
- They effect our views
- We follow the rules
Social Roles
- effected by how others see us
- effected by our allocated roles
- we interact with each other
- self fulfilling prophecy, fulfilling the expectation of roles
Field Experiments
- Manipulation of IV in natural setting
- Cause and Effect
- Ecological Validity
- Cannot get permission from participants, consent
- Hard to control extraneous variables
- An example would be Hofling’s Study.
Surveys
- Questionnaires or Interviews
- Can have open or closed questions
- Easily distributed
- Quantitative data is easily analyzed
- Low response rate
- Limiting responses
- Can have experimenter bias, with leading questions
- Participants may lie.
Hofling’s Study
- Aim: Whether nurses would obey doctor’s orders, even by breaking a number of important rules, to what extent would they obey authority?
- Method: Field Experiment, Carefully controlled conditions, setting in a hospital, which is natural to nurses
- Procedure: The nurses were first asked by researchers, if they would obey any instruction that was against the rules, they said they wouldn’t.
- These rules included not to administer a drug without a doctors signature. (No Telephone Orders)
- Check the doctor was a real doctor
- Check the dosage
- An unknown doctor would call each of the 22 nurses and told them to give a patient 20MG of astrofen. The dosage of astrofen, which was a placebo, should have been 10MG, as it says on the packaging. The doctor asked the nurses to administer the drugs straightaway and that he would sign the form 10 mins later. Three rules were broken.
- Results: 21/22 of the nurses obeyed the doctor. And broke the rules. 11 nurses noticed there was a problem with the dosage.
- Conclusion: Backed Milgram’s claim that we obey instructions even when we don’t think we will and know we should not. The doctors authority over the nurse was considered to be an important factor, nurses are trained to obey authority figures.
- Field Study, HIGH ECOLOGICAL VALIDTY.
- It measured obedience because they thought it was a real doctor.
- Procedure is clear and replicable.
- Findings reinforce those of Milgrams, however in Milgrams the participants had to harm others, here they had to help.
- Other studies that replicated this one found different results.
- Ethical Issues, e.g. Consent
Agency Theory
- order giver has the power and authority
- Once the power relationship has been established, the agent no longer has free will.
- The agent obeys because they are handed power over their actions to the order giver.
- Once they are in the agentic state, they may do things they normally don’t.
- Evidence from Milgram’s study
- Through evolution, we have seen leaders and followers.
- We learn through socialization, e.g. teacher student
- Evidence from Milgram’s Exp was lacking, it was unrealistic, because he told the participants to deliver shocks very calmly, and so, they may have trusted him.
Social Power
- French and Raven
- 5 types of power.
- Legitimate – by role
- Reward- distribution of rewards.
- Coercive – those than can punish
- Expert – specialist knowledge
- Referent – personality to win people over.
- Milgram’s exp had the first 4
- Power leading to obedience fits in well with agency theory, the agent defers to the power of the leader.
- The idea of us having evolved as social beings with structures fits in with experiences in school and at home.
- Does not explain why we obey or defer to different types of power.
Milgrams Exp.
- Aim: to test the level of obedience that participants would reach when told to do something as serious as to give another person electric shocks. Testing to see anyone could have carried out what was inflicted upon the Jews in the WW2 or if Germans were diff.
- Method: Lab Exp at Yale Uni. One participant at a time. Each participant thought that the confederate was getting answers wrong. The severity of the shocks given by the participant to the confederate was observed.
- Procedure: Fake Coin Toss, Confederate got the role as Learner and participant, teacher.
- Teacher was shock giver.
- Learner kept making mistakes.
- Learner was in room so that participant could not see. The participant faced a generator which had levers that indicated shocks from a small amount to a 450, which was very high and dangerous, there were signs saying Danger, and indicating that a 450 was a very high and dangerous shock to give. The participant was given a slight shock at the start of the study to suggest that the shocks were real.
- The shocks were fake and that the learner was shouting out in a prepared manner. If the participant would show reluctance, Milgram would give verbal prods, such as “you must go on”. He wore a lab coat and acted calmly throughout. The setting was prestigious and formal.
- Results: 100& of participants went up to 300 volts and were prepared to “shock” another person.
- 65% went to highest voltage, 450 volts.
- Many participants showed great distress, even though they continued.
- Conclusions: Volunteers were willing to shock another person up to a very high level just because they got an answer wrong in a pretend memory test. This seemed to be solely because they were told to do so by an authority figure.
- Many variations supported the idea that we do obey orders, even to an unexpected degree.
- Milgrams study was well controlled; cause and effect can be established.
- Tried to be ethical, asked participants with follow up interviews, found no ill effects.
- Unethical procedure, right to withdraw wasn’t given properly, informed consent, study was meant to be about memory, deceived by confederate, deceived by generator, distress was caused, participants were upset.
- Lab exp, low ecological validity, not a real measure of obedience.
Reducing Prejudice
- PURSUIT OF COMMON GOALS
- Sherifs study, robbers cave.
- Team working to common goals.
- Reduced Prej.
- EQUAL STATUS CONTACT
- If individuals from diff groups come into contact, relationships are improved, esp. if these are seen as typical as their group, however if the exp is bad, this can reinforce negative stereotypes and increase prejudice.
- E.g. Deutsch and Collins housing projects, One project involved segregation other integrated, less prej in the integrated, suggests equal status contact reduces prej. Assumed that all those within projects were of equal status.
- REDRAWING BOUNDARIES MIXING IN GROUP AND OUT GROUPS
- When boys in sherifs study worked together, they redrew the boundaries between the two groups and became one group. So redrawing the boundary and incorporating others into the in group can reduce prejudice.
Terrorism
- why people obey and stuff
- charismatic leader
- agency theory

Cognitive Developmental
Cognitive Abilities
- develop over time, as a child grows up
- different ages have different cognitive abilities
- not small adults
- they see the world in a different way
Development in Stages
- cognitive development occurs in stages
- all children go through the same stages, but not at exactly the same age
- theorists differ to what the stages are, but it is agreed that there is stepwise progression
- when the cognitive abilities have change, it is said that they have moved to the next stage
Observation
- Participant, Non Participant, Covert and Overt.
- Noting down everything is difficult.
- Observer sometimes makes recording
- Lots of data, even qualitative data can be recorded.
- A hypothesis is not formulated; aim is main focus, so that many aspects can be recorded.
- Hypothesis can be generated and tested from the in depth data.
- One observer may be biased and subjective so multiple observers can be used.
- Observer might miss important actions or events when focusing on something else.

Reply 3

Rosh22

Longitudinal Studies
- any type of study taking place over time, e.g. exp or case study
- follow one person or small group over a period of time
- e.g. Curtiss’ study of Genie.
- Individual differences are controlled since the same people are studied
- Conclusions are stronger because factors like background and ability are the same
- Drop out
- Researchers can move area or drop out
- Participants may learn what is required of the study through demand characteristics and the aim may became clear to them, this would introduce bias.
Piaget
- Cognitive abilities develop in means of schemas according to experience.
- A schema is a mental model of what happens in certain situations.
- Assimilation is when information is changed to fit a schema
- Accommodation is changing a schema as new information proves that the existing schema is no longer sufficient.
- Equilibration is the balance achieved when the individuals schemas all suit the information available, this does not last long as there is always new experiences.
- 4 Stages. Sensorimotor, PreOP, ConcreteOP, FormalOP
- Sensorimotor 0-2, physical sensation. Learn by trial. Object permanence at 8 months. Curious. Egocentric.
- PreOP 2-6, child cannot do mental operations, start at age of 7. Egocentric, cannot conserve volume or number.
- ConcreteOP 7-11, operations, however only visually. Mental operations start to take place. Child needs real objects when applying logic. No longer egocentric. Can conserve volume and number
- FormalOP, 11+, older child can do mental operations using abstract thinking and does not have to manipulate objects.
- Idea of children becoming more capable of advanced logic as they get older is uncontroversial, shown in Piaget’s stages.
- Data is from his own children, so it is biased, even though his experiments were replicated widely.
- Argued that development is not stage likes but continuous and that children learn and develop as they grow.
- Numerous studies have shown that most teenagers do not reach the formal operational stage. This suggests that Piaget was wrong to suggest that the formal reasoning was the end point of cognitive development.
Vygotsky

Reply 4

Sp123

Nice stuff Rosh... good revision for me there (I'm doing AQA B, and some of that may come up)

Cheers

Reply 5

WarrenG

Hey cheers for that mate, i was just being a bit melodrammatic in order to emote some kindof response from everyone, cheers the notes look.... erm....... concise!! :smile:

Reply 6

WarrenG

OK i kindof need help with all of the Units in the edxcel papers. I take back what i said about AQA, its just i was tired and upset and you womenly things............

Reply 7

Rosh22

No problem guys, glad i could help, im working on the individual differences paper now.

Reply 8

LubyLoo

WarrenG

I did Edexcel AS Psychology last year and from what I heard from people on AQA it was a lot easier. All we had to do was remember studies and evaluate. Well there was a bit more to it than that, but you get the idea. I thought AQA was long essays? Hmmm maybe I'm wrong.

Reply 9

Saffie

Smiley_Me

true AQA is 2 six mark questions and 1 eighteen mark question for each module, there are 6 modules and three units. two modules to each unit.

a minute per mark. 18 mark questions you have to have 6 detailed facts and 12 evaluative points. nobody gets full marks really. the grade boundary is only just over half right for an A. I think it's better than the likes of OCR anyway as you don't need to know specific studys in detail, you can know lots of random stuff and be able to evaluate or blagit. though yuo do still need to know studies....