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Outline the aim of Bandura’s (1961) study on social learning theory (2)WWWEBIGood attempt to elaborate with specific details of the studyAlways match the number of sentences in your answer to the mark allocation.Writing two sentences for two marksMake sure each sentence is well detailed but only features one theme or idea, i.e. try to avoid long sentences which contain lots of elements strung together with ‘and’, ‘or’ ‘but’, etc.Bandura aimed to discover whether children will imitate the actions and words spoken by an adult who they have witnessed behaving aggressively towards the Bobo doll, not immediately but later, in a similar context. He was interested to see whether this would happen in the absence of any reward for the behaviour thus supporting his social learning theory. He was also interested to see whether the children were more likely to imitate a role model of the same gender as themselves.Explain whether Bandura’s (1961) Bobo doll experiment could be considered scientific. (2)WWWEBIGood use of appropriate vocab, e.g. replicable, standardised procedureIn questions like this try to ensure that all sentences of specific to the study you are being asked about, avoid generic points, e.g. points that could apply to any lab experiment for example.Good knowledge of details of the study, e.g. 20 minutes observation and children’s behaviour noted every 5 seconds The study uses a standardised procedure whereby model’s behaviour was exactly the same for all of the children in the experimental group, as the same sequence of aggressive acts was displayed each time in an otherwise controlled setting. This level of control minimises the effects of situational variables that could affect the children’s level of aggression, thus increasing the internal validity and making the study scientific.Jemma is training to be a clinical psychologist. She is conducting some research with a group of clients, all of whom have a phobia of dogs, i.e. they scored more than 7/10 on a checklist of questions about fear of dogs. She has asked them about whether they can remember ever having a bad experience with a dog. Some said yes and others no. Next, she interviewed with a matched control group of people who scored less than 5/10 on the fear of dogs checklist and found out how many of them could recall a bad experience with a dog in the past. Her results are shown in the table below.Has a phobia of dogsDoes not have a phobia of dogsRecalls a bad experience with a dog1328No recall of a bad experience with a dog735Give a suitable directional hypothesis for this study (2)WWWEBIUsing the scenario to add as much detail as possible to operationalise BOTH the IV and the DVBoth variables need to be fully operationalised according to the scenarioOperationalising IV with reference to the checklistMention both IV and DV and include the word THAN.Participants who score more than 7/10 on the fear of dogs checklist will be more likely to recall a bad experience with a dog than participants who score less than 5/10 on the checklist.Jemma decides to use a chi squared to analyse her data. Outline two reasons why this is the correct test for her to use (2)WWWEBIReference to nominal data and independent measuresReference to details from the scenario to support your answerJemma has nominal data because she is tallying the number of people who do and do not recall having a bad experience with a dog for the two categories of people. Also she has an independent measures design as she has two separate groups of people, those who scored more than 7 on the fear of dogs checklist or less than 5.Using the data in the table above, calculate the observed value of chi2 and write all of your working with care. (4)WWWEBIFollowing formula carefully and laying out all stages neatly for markingNot laying out all stages and missing marks because of itRounding too early in the calculation Working out the expected frequenciesA: 41x20= 820 /83=9.88B: 41x63= 2583/83=31.12 C: 42x20=840 /83=10.12D: 42x63=2646 /83=31.88O-E2/E13-9.88=3.122=9.7344/9.88=0.98528-31.12=-3.122=9.7344/31.12=0.3137-10.12=-3.122=9.7344/10.12=0.96235-31.88=3.122=9.7344/31.88=0.305Calculating X2 0.985+0.313+0.962+0.305= 2.565Using a critical values table, state whether Jemma should reject her null hypothesis (1)WWWEBIWriting a brief answer as only one markLeave the explanation til the next question where you have to write it out in full.No, Jemma should not reject the null hypothesis (i.e. she should accept the null)Explain your answer: (3)WWWEBIMentioning the actual figures for both observed and critical and explaining carefully why that critical value was chosen with reference t degrees of freedom, one tailed test, 0.05 level of significance.Using the wrong critical value, 3.84 is for a two tailed test.Try to relate back to the scenario which is about fear of dogs.This is because her observed value of 2.565 is less than the critical value of 2.71 for a one tailed test, when degrees of freedom are equal to one and at the 5% level of significance (p>0.05). This means that people with a fear of dogs are not more likely to remember a bad experience with a dog in the past than people with no fear of dogs.Explain one weakness of Jemma’s research study (2)WWWEBIContextualising your answer using detail from the scenarioSay why you think they might have ‘lied’ or given inaccurate information on the self-reportUse all your terminologyUse the scenario to substantiate you rpoint which needs to relate to fear of dogs and recall of bad experiences.One weakness of Jemma’s study is it might lack validity because people might have had a bad experience with a dog but they can’t remember the experience. This is a problem because it means her data might be inaccurate and in fact she might have far more people who have actually had bad experiences but forgotten it due to trauma and therefore her conclusion might be wrong about the impact of experience on phobias.For your practical investigation you will have conducted at least one observation.(a) Describe the findings of your quantitative analysis (3)WWWEBIUsing percentagesNot giving enough sentences to match mark allocation.Quoting observed and critical valuesWe found that 75% of people who were crossing with children waited for the green man before they crossed meaning 25% crossed on red even thought they had children with them. We also found that of the people who crossed on red, 9% of them had children present, meaning that 71% were on their own. When we ran the chi squared we found an observed value of XX (insert your value here) which was larger than the observed value of XX and so we accepted out hypothesis that having children present would make people more safety conscious when crossing the road.b) Explain two ways you could improve your observation in the future. (4)WWWEBIIdentifying the improvement and then saying why it’s an improvementGiving weaknesses instead of improvementsUsing correct terminologyMuddling too many ideas into one sentenceUsing details about your practical to make both sentences specific to your practical and thus not generic to any observation; this is critical.Not matching the number of sentences in your answer to the number of marks availableOne improvement that I could make would be to have conducted a pilot study so that I would be more aware of the full range of behaviours that might be seen at the crossing, e.g. how do we code when someone starts to cross but then goes back. This would improve the results because we could have made an more clearly operationalised behavioural checklist, thus improving the reliability as we would now make consistent decisions about cases where we were not sure whether to tick crossed on red or crossed on green (as the person in fact attempted to do both!). A second improvement would be to sit somewhere a bit less conspicuous so people on the crossing could not see us, making the findings more valid. This would mean that the pedestrians might show more natural behaviour rather than crossing safely (more socially desirable behaviour) as they can be seen by a group of school pupils (us). Evaluate one contemporary study from the Learning Theories topic (8)WWWEBIStarting with some Ao1; best practice is to include aims and findingsSome of you need to make sure you front load your essay with just a little more ao1Chains which are well structured using PETSome of your chains are rather genericBalance of strengths and weaknessesSome essays are rather imbalancedLovely specific strengths and weaknesses which show excellent engagement with the study itselfSome conclusions are genericThoughtful competing arguments where you present an idea but then argue that this may not be the case after all; keep it specific not genericSome people have not evaluated at all!Excellent conclusion which is not generic and shows thoughtful reflection on what this study has contributed to the literature and in terms of its applications.Some people have no conclusion at all.Bastian?et al’s (2012) wanted to know whether playing violent video games, (e.g. Mortal Kombat) reduces a perceived humanity of self and co-players compared with a non-violent games (e.g. Top Spin Tennis). Participants were randomly assigned to the violent or non-violent game. They played in pairs for 15 minutes, either competitively or collaboratively, before completing 7 point rating scales to measure ‘perceptions of humanness’. Mortal Kombat players rated self and co-player humanity significantly lower than TopSpin Tennis player: (self: violent: M=3.74, non-violent: M=4.35, coplayer: violent: M=4.43, non-violent: M=4.93). The study could be said to have poor?generalisability. Although the sample was relatively large (106), they were all undergraduates (mean age 19) with twice as many women as men. This means that?violent gaming may not have the same dehumanising effect on older or younger players and those from less affluent or well-educated backgrounds. The gender imbalance means findings may not be the same with all males and this is important as violent games tend?to be played more by males.Despite this weakness, the study is arguably?reliable?as the standardised procedure makes the study replicable and thus scientific. There were many controlled variables, e.g. all players played for 15 minutes, whilst blocked from being able to see their opponent by a barrier. Also the questionnaires used quantitative data to find out about perceptions of humanity using likert scales and this means that the data is not open to interpretation by the researcher improving the reliability further suggesting violent gaming really does lead fairly swiftly to dehumanisation.This said, many psychologists advocate that violent video games are not directly linked to violent?acts. A group of over 200 academics signed a letter to show their feelings about the APA report which suggested there was a link. This is important as many psychologists might argue that Bastian’s findings lack?application to real life; just because you self-report feeling less human after playing for 15 minutes, does not mean that your real world behaviours will change and make you more violent.The study has weaknesses regarding validity; the players only played for 15 minutes and in the real word players often spend hours engaged in a game, however one could argue this simply demonstrates how quickly people become dehumanised. Playing for longer may simply lead to even greater effects, but this has not been studied and people might reach a ceiling and become more humanised again the longer they play.Despite the weaknesses the study could be useful to show young people how quickly gaming can affect how your view yourself. Although this study looks at violent games, the flipside of Bastians’s research is that pro-social games might help children with aggressive behaviour or low self -esteem to feel better about themselves and this is an important strength of the study as it could have benefits in the real world.In conclusion, despite some methodological issues with generalisability and validity , the potential applications, particularly with regard to how video games could be used to positive ends is an exciting area for future research.I have tried to cut down my model essay as much as possible and also left in some other evaluation here in yellow that is important for you to read as you could use it in this essay. Its essential that you develop a really succinct way of communicating; editing yours essays as I am doing now helps to recognise the style of sentence structure that is needed to communicate a lot in a few words as possible. Also as we know nothing of the participants previous gaming history the reason they say they feel more dehumanised could be due to demand characteristics in that they know this is the expected outcome and therefore demonstrate this through their self-report meaning that the conclusions lack internal validity.People who regularly play these games may have had a different outcome on the questionnaires as they have a more positive view of the games in the first place.However it should also be noted that in the study they used random allocation to the two groups of violent and non-violent games which should have decreased participant variables which may have hampered the validity however in the real world people are not randomly allocated, people choose to play either violent or non-violent games and therefore it would be interesting to study a group of people who are regular player and see how the games affect their perceptions of humanity.Another validity problem with the study is it not clear what exactly is having the dehumanising effect and this is because in Mortal Kombat you observe violent acts being enacted but you are also in control of violent acts being committed in the game against others and therefore it is hard to disentangle whether observation of violence or being violent in the game is linked to dehumanisation.Christopher loves buying books online. He has a huge collection already butjust can’t stop himself ! Assess the usefulness of biological psychology and learning theories in explaining Christopher’s behaviour (12)NB in the exam chapter I have now changed the command term to evaluate as you can’t have an assess question for 12; it makes very little differences to the marking though WWWEBIThoughtful application of theories to the context.Avoid intros with no real creditable material; you might need to think your ideas through before putting pen to paper rather than simply writing them down if all that you are doing is really just reiterating the question. It could waste precious time. In its self its not a problem, the problem is the time it takes to write a non-creditworthy sentence.Effort made to back ideas up with research evidenceNot enough AO1 materials coming throughEngagement with command term where you weight the pros and cons of your two explanations to judge which you feel is the better one.Forgetting to deliver on the Ao3 requirementThis is an essay I have written for the book, based on materials from the book spreads so you may not know some of the AO1 content not to worry I still thinks it’s very helpful to you. I have put a commentary in th right hand column.Dysfunction of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) could be responsible for Christopher’s behaviour as this region controls rational thinking and self-control and his impulsive purchasing shows he is behaving irrationally – he might not be able to afford the books! OFC dysfunction has also been linked to a serotonin deficiency in this area. Furthermore, when Christopher buys a book it might activate the release of dopamine which stimulates his brain’s reward centres making him feel elated. This could be addictive meaning that he wants to buy more and more books. A strength of this explanation is that animal experiments support the idea that dopamine is involved with pleasure and is rewarding. For example, scientists have used lesioning to stop mice from releasing dopamine and this stopped them from self-administering cocaine, as there was no reward. This shows that dopamine release could be the reward that maintains Chris’s behaviour. However, this research may not be relevant to humans because mice brains are very different to human brains. Although they share much of same neurochemistry sometimes drugs can have the opposite effects in mice as they do in humans meaning you should be very cautious when extrapolating from mice to humans. Furthermore much of the research linking specific brain regions to certain behaviours is only correlational so just because the OFC appears to be active during rational decision-making it doesn’t mean that damage to this region causes irrational behaviour like impulsive buying. Christopher’s behaviour can also be explained using operant conditioning. For example, book buying may have been stamped in through positive reinforcement, meaning he experiences a reward for buying books such as being complimented on his huge collection by his friends. Or he might experience negative reinforcement, for example, he feels stressed but when he is looking at Amazon he starts to feel more relaxed, so going onto this site is rewarding because it temporarily relieves stress. This explanation is also supported by rodent research, for example Skinner rewarded rats with food to increase lever pushing. He found that a variable ratio reinforcement created the highest rate of lever pressing. This shows that Christopher might buy more books if the website uses unpredictable rewards like occasional vouchers and discounts. However, operant conditioning has its weaknesses when applied to humans as Christopher may find buying books intrinsically rewarding rather than extrinsically, meaning that he just enjoys looking at the website and finding books that interest him. He might just like owning books because it makes him feel in control as he has book on every topic. Overall, I would say that both the biological and learning explanations have their downsides due to the evidence mainly being from animal studies. However, I conclude that the biological explanation is the best as it can be used to explain intrinsic motivation as buying books is rewarding due to the feelings of pleasure generated by the release of dopamine and this causes Christopher to keep adding more books to his collection. 493 words This is a well-structured answer. The student appears to have thought carefully about the question and provided some relevant evaluation of each explanation before reaching a conclusion about which explanation is more compelling. In the first paragraph he has thought about the biological content he has studied and selected appropriate material relating to the OFC and the role of serotonin and dopamine, all of which is contextualised back to the scenario. In paragraph 2 he signals his evaluation with care using ‘PET’ chains of reasoning and injects a competing argument (paragraph 3) about problems of extrapolating research form animals to humans. This is reasonably well developed with the link to the idea that drugs have opposite effects in some cases. He has not linked this back to Christopher. The student continues with a further paragraph of evaluation looking at the correlational nature of some brain research. This is contextualised to book buying, but it is rather cursory and not a well-developed chain. This makes the argument for and against biological explanations a little imbalanced. Operant conditioning is selected for the section on learning theory, which is a sensible choice and is contextualised well, demonstrating a good understanding of positive and negative reinforcement. The student moves on to evaluation relating to animal research and links this to reinforcement schedules showing further AO1 knowledge which again is contextualised to Christopher. To create balance a final competing argument is injected relating to the weaknesses of operant conditioning with reference to about intrinsic rewards and feeling in control. As with the previous evaluation paragraphs this shows a reasonably well-structure chain of reasoning – point, explanation, conclusion. The essay finishes with a conclusion considering the problems of both explanations before judging which s the better explanation. There is a good link between the way biological psychology explains intrinsic motivation, which had been presented as a weakness of operant conditioning. This is a top level answer. There is a good range of accurate and detailed knowledge, though perhaps a bit short for learning theory. There are sustained links to the scenario throughout and the evaluation is generally well-developed and logical with explicit competing arguments. The conclusion follows well from the arguments presented and is balanced. ................
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