OCR AL Psychology (New): Research methods H167/1 & H567/1 - 15 May & 07 Jun 2017

Could anyone take a look at this criminal psych answer? I have no idea whether or not my answer is valid but I cannot come up with any other points for such a specific question

*Daryl is a detective who believes he could improve the success of interviews with suspects. He suggested asking witnesses to sleep at the police station and playing them sounds known to have been audible at the time of the incident, such as dogs barking, traffic noise or music. The witness would then be woken up and re-interviewed. Discuss how a psychologist could investigate whether Daryl’s new interview technique could improve the collection of evidence [10]

The psychologists could test whether Daryl’s interview technique could improve collection of evidence through a controlled experiment. Witnesses of a crime would be split into 2 groups and one would sleep at the police station with sounds of the crime scene playing throughout the night, whilst the other would not. The two groups would then be interviewed and asked to use in-depth reporting to describe the events of the crime. Memon and Highman’s research had shown that this method of Cognitive Reinstatement; where the interviewee would have been surrounded by sounds of the same environment that the crime was committed in; would lead to more information being gathered than any other method of interview technique. If the group who had gone through the technique at the police station had presented more information to the interviewer than the group who had not been through the process, then it would be evident that Daryl’s new technique could improve collection of evidence.

However, if the experiment is being carried on in a police station the psychologist should be aware that possible extraneous variables could be the cause for more or less information being recalled e.g. the participants may feel more forced or obliged to remember things in order to make the interviewee (most likely a detective) happy.

The psychologist could also consider using other methods of collecting evidence and compare it to the Cognitive Reinstatement method. Witnesses of a crime could be split into 4 groups and either take part in Cognitive Reinstatement technique (where they would sleep in the station and hear sounds audible at the time of the incident), Narrative Re-ordering techniques, reporting from a different perspective or in-depth reporting. The psychologists could then collect qualitative data and compare the amount of words spoken in each interview technique. If the Cognitive Reinstatement technique produces the most evidence, then Daryl’s technique can be supported. This allows for a valid comparison between methods however it ignores how different interviewer’s training and character may influence how much information is gathered in each situation – especially if the participants feel rushed at any point.

The psychologist could try Daryl’s method as a form of hypnosis before interviewing. The sounds would be heard by one hypnotised group and one normal group whilst sleeping which would allow the witnesses to cognise what they are hearing. Those under hypnosis would be more likely to internalise the sounds and remember the events more easily during interviewing. However Sanders and Simmons study showed how those hypnotised in their study were in more of a suggestible state, and ended up recalling less information less accurately and were more likely to be misled which might mean that Daryl’s technique would lead to less valid information being collected as a whole.

Here is another exam question for criminal

Explain the type of error committed in Rosenhan's study 1 of pseudo patients (5)
Rosenhan's study 1 involved 8 mentally sane participants reporting at outpatient wards in 12 hospitals. They all faked symptoms by saying they were hearing a same sex voice saying "empty", "hollow", " thud", and on the basis of those symptoms a psychiatrist diagnosed all of them as mentally I'll, needing hospitalisation. In this case the psychiatrists made a type 2 error which means they incorrectly diagnosed "sane" pseudo patients as "insane". This means that the diagnosis of mental illness is subjective and a high amount of error (all pseudo patients were misdiagnosed) occurs in psychiatric diagnoses. This occurred because the DSM is a subjective checklist of symptoms and also because psychiatrists did not want to take the risk of leaving a mentally ill patient out.

This is a really good and detailed answer. I didn't even know that they could/would ask questions like this for the Mental Health section! Was this taken from a past paper or anything?

Hi, I've been listening to these podcasts in the background when I get ready in the morning, so it's revision without really putting in the effort. They may help.

https://audioboom.com/playlists/1302408-ocr-psychology

By the way guys, have you revised for the part b questions on criminal/child etc. psychology section? This refers to methodological issues and debates such as validity in courtroom studies for example or discussing nature/nurture debate. In other words, do you have notes for how each key research links to these issues/debates

Weirdly enough that is the only part of the syllabus I refused to make notes on xD It was just too long so I just revise it from the OCR Psychology textbook when I finish the topic (the textbook with the pink butterfly on the front) or just make up my answers.
If you check this though: http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/250336-criminal-psychology-delivery-guide.pdf at the end of each key study it tells you exactly what debates can be argued with them - it doesn't go into detail though.

I'm only on the 2nd study for Child Psychology - you look way ahead if you already have your notes done.

To be honest the teachers have rushed through both Criminal and Child Psych so we have basically finished the entire A2/AS syllabus. But the reason they did that was because they forgot to teach us a whole portion of research methods for last years exam and so are trying to cram it in now! :/

Lmao how can you forget to teach something. What did you miss out?

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I'm only on the 2nd study for Child Psychology - you look way ahead if you already have your notes done.

How are you finding Child Psychology so far?

Its ok so far wbu?

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We finished it last lesson, so I'm just needing to go over the main studies. - The main studies were fairly straight forward actually!

We finished the course today!! wooo! what are we predicting for grade boundaries for each paper this year!?