paper 2 evaluation

used rats and pigeons in his studies which may not be generalisable to humans (behaviourism limitation)

used DAT to explain how exposure to criminal attitudes from a role model can lead to identification with the model and criminal behaviour (SLT application)

looked at the effect of testosterone on behaviour and suggests that testosterone is a primary cause of aggression (SLT reductionist)

studied diff tribes, found that the Arapesh is one in which aggression is not reinforced and not modelled by adults whereas in other tribes it is (SLT can explain cultural diffs)

assessed 65 pregnant women for cognitive vulnerability and depression before birth, found that women high in cognitive vulnerability were likely to suffer from postnatal depression (cognitive application)

found that emotions had a part to play in EWT (cognitive is reductionist)

used MRI to investigate structure of taxi drivers hippocampus (biological is highly empirically based)

explanation of violent behaviour with the MAOA gene suggests that we lack free will (biological is heavily deterministic)

first to demonstrate potential of psychological treatments of disorders rather than solely biological treatments (psychodynamic led to developments)

believed that ‘anatomy is destiny’ and that girls do not fully develop morally as they experience penis envy whereas boys fully morally develop after their Oedipus complex

believed that counselling would allow people to solve their own problems in constructive ways if therapists provide empathy and unconditional positive regard (humanistic influence)

found that countries in early stages of economic development were characterised by lower level needs eg. food and safety, whereas in advanced countries they were higher up in the hierarchy (humanistic application)

used brain scans to demonstrate how wernicke’s area was active during a listening task and broca’s area was active during a reading task (localisation support)

condicted an mri scan on tan’s brain and found that while there was a lesion in broca’s area, there was other damage that may have also linked to his failure in speech production (localisation contradictory)

suggests that basic motor and sensory functions are localised, but higher mental functions are not and that plasticity allows us to regain cognitive functions after damage (localisation is an incomplete explanation)

in the domestic chicken, lateralisation is associated with an enhanced ability to perform two tasks at once eg. finding food and looking for predators (lateralisation provides benefits)

language becomes more lateralised to the left hemisphere in increasing age up to 25, but then decreases with each decade of life (lateralisation is not the case in everyone)

language may not be completely lateralised to the left hemisphere - patient JW developed the ability to speak out of the right hemisphere (invalidates lateralisation)

many split brain studies are only carried out with a small sample (3 ppts) so results of split brain studies cant be generalisability (lateralisation limitation)

found a significant increase in grey matter in ppts who played video games for 30 mins a day for 2 months (support for plasticity)

found that buddhist monks who regularly meditated had higher activation of gamma waves (which coordinate neural activity) than students who didnt meditate (support for plasticity)

biologically reductionist research as it only examines a single factor in relation to spatial memory - fails to take into account cognitive processes involved in spatial navigation (plasticity is reductionist)

found that stem cells provided to rats after brain trauma showed a clear development of neuron-like cells in the area of injury (supports functional recovery)

found that the sleep/wake cycle lasted just under 25 hours without any exogenous zeitgebers (supports effect of ez’s on circadian rhythms)

dim artificial lighting can change the circadian rhythm between 22-28 hours - suggests that exposure to phone/torch light in studies such as siffre’s may have acted as a confounding variable (methodological issues)

found that women expressed a preference for feminised faces at the least fertile stage of their menstrual cycle and for masculine faces at the most fertile stage (suggests infradian rhythms are linked to sexual behaviour)

the rate of SAD is more common in northern countries where winter nights are longer (supports the role of exogenous zeitgebers in biological rhythms)

monitored sleep stages of 9 ppts with an eeg and found that rem activity was highly correlated with dreaming (supports stages of sleep cycle)

found significant differences between ppts in terms of duration of each sleep stage particularly stages 3 and 4 (suggests individual differences in ultradian rhythms)

bred hamsters so they had abnormal circadian rhythms of 20 hours and SCN neurons from these hamsters were put in the brain of normal hamsters - these hamsters then started to display the abnormal circadian rhythm (supports role of the SCN as an endogenous pacemaker in circadian rhythms)

suggest that the majority of blind people who still have light perception had normally entrained circadian rhythms (supports role of light as an exogenous zeitgeber in circadian rhythms)

studied a blind man whose circadian rhythm was 24.9 hours and wouldn’t change despite exposure to social cues as EZ’s

some of the early discoveries from split brain reseach have been disconfirmed (turk et al)