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Strengths

Nomothetic- because the approach  used large groups of people in order to reach conclusions in Experiments. Strength because it allows results/groups to be compared. For example, Loftus and Palmer reached their conclusion by comparing the three groups results

Useful - has led to many successful therapies such as CBT to treat disorders such as depression (pure cognitive psychology)  Helped in education - Piaget (1970) - suggested that children didnt learn the same as adults and therefore had a major effect on teaching methods as teachers realised they had to include examples when explaining things. (Applied cognitive psychology)

Scientific - One of the assumptions states that psychology is a science and should be studied scientifically. Research carried out can be replicated by others who would fid the same results because research was done in laboratory experiments, therefore all confounding variables were controlled

Weaknesses

Deterministic - because cognitive psychologist believe that behaviours are controlled by internal mental processses and Schemas learns over time. Weakness because people will not feel that they are responsible for their actions because their Schemas influence their behaviour in certain situations

Reductionist- it breaks behaviour down into simple ideas such as Schemas and the computer analogy. Weakness because it reduces the information down into an over-simplified states which may miss out important information. Eg. The computer analogy doesn’t acknowledge the influence of emotions

Nature/nurture- doesn’t really take this into account - fails to consider genes (nature) or social and cultural factors (nurture) therefore it is not providing a full explanation

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Classic Evidence: Evaluation - Ethical Issues

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Classic Evidence: Evaluation - Ethical Issues

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Lack of valid consent

Did not gain valid consent - if participants had been aware, they may have behaved differently

Is such deception acceptable? - researchers can justify it in terms of the importance of research- had a large effect on our understanding of the inaccuracy of eye witness testimony

Participants deception was mild- they were not psychologically or physically harmed

Psychological harm

Watched clips rather than seeing the real accident - may not have responded the same if they had seen a real accident

If they had exposed participants to a real accident, it may have cause psychological harm and a long lasting emotional impact

Study avoided this ethical issue by using film clips

Ethical and Social implications

Exonerated - people that have been found guilty and convicted of a crime but later found innocent

Huff et al (1986) - nearly 60% of 500 cases of wrongful convictions involved eye-witness identification errors - too much reliance on EWT has major ethical implications

Some people are becoming too sceptical of EWT - it is important to pay some attention to it

Greene (1990) - mock juries were asked to decided he verdict of a perpetrator based on EWT - they were aware of mis-identification mistakes which made them less likely to believe the testimony of eyewitness

In UK, safeguards are built into the justice system. - The police and criminal evidence act (PACE) offere a code of proactive that need s to be adhered to with regard to the conduct of identification attempts

Financial implications- retrials and compensation for wrongly convicted people because of poor EWT can be expensive

Social implication - real offender could stil pose a threat to society

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Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

Interviewed participants about childhood events and, at the same time, planted a memory about being lost at a mall which was untrue

20% believed that this event had happened to them during their childhood and some still believed after their debriefing session

This research suggests that leading questions can plant memories that were never there - develops theory that verbal inforamtion can alter memory

Braun et al (2002)

College students were asked to evaluate Disneyland advertisements

In the inforamtion was misleading information about Bugs Bunny (not-disney) and Ariel (not introduced in their childhood) - Neither could be found at disneyland

Participants were assigned to either bugs bunny, Ariel or control group - all had been to Disneyland in childhood

Participants not in control group were more likely to report meeting the characters than this in control group

Proves that misleading information can create false memory

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Classic Evidence - Evaluation : Methodology and Procedures

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Classic Evidence - Evaluation : Methodology and Procedures

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Method - Laboratory Experiment

Demonstrates a casual relationship

By manipulating IV (the verb) we see the effect on DV (estimated speed) and can draw a conclusion

Confounding variables are carefully controlled so changes in DV are solely due to IV rather than other factors.

Validity

The setting - participants are watching a film rather than seeing it in real life therefore it is not representative of real life - it is an artificial setting therefore it lack ecological validity

The participants watched a video of a car crash, not a real car crash - people may not take it seriously or be as emotionally affected as they would be if it was a real accident. Findings may not represent real life as emotions may effect memory.

The participants were aware that they were in a study - participants may pay more attention to smaller details as they know that they will be tested/asked questions

Sampling

The sample consisted of US college students - other groups of people may be more/less likely to accept misleading information for various reasons eg. Age.

May be a consequence of source monitoring - elddderly people struggle to remember the source of the information so become more prone to the effect of misleading information

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2 explanations of the responses:

Biased response - They could be uncertain in their response and the verb could make them biased towards one response

Altered Memory - The verb used may cause a change in the participants memory - Experiment 2

Carmichael et al (1932) - Verbal labels cause a shift in the way information is represented in memory in the direction of being more similar to the label.
Loftus and Palmer suggested that memory is made up of what actually happened and information gained after the event.
Summary
Experiment 1

Finding -average speed given by participants was the same across all 4 films

Conclusion - Humans are bad at estimating speed

Finding - participants thought that the speed was higher when the verb smashed was used rather than the word contacted.

Conclusion - the verb can affect the estimated speed, aggressive/severe verbs are associated with higher speeds

Overall - Verb used can lead to participants to give different estimates of speed (leading question). In experiment we don’t know if this was because of biased response or altered memory

Experiment 2

Finding- the average speed given when the verb shmashed was used was higher than when the verb hit was used

Conclusion- The verb used has an effect on estimates of speed

Finding - Participants reported seeing more broken glass when asked the ‘smashed’ question compared to those with the ‘hit’ question

Conclusion - leading question made the participant remember things that didnt happen - altered memory

Finding - The faster the participants thought the car was going, the more broken glass they remembered

Conclusion - Estimates of speed altered the participants memory and made them associate high speeds with broken glass

Overall
Memory is made up of two types of information: what was actually perceived and information received after the event. Memory is reconstructed from both sources of information and may be unreliable.

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Classic Evidence: Findings - Experiment 2

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Classic Evidence: Findings - Experiment 2

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Summary
More people thought that they saw broken glass when the verb ‘smashed’ was used.  Words used in the question affected the participants memory.

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Classic Evidence: Findings - Experiment 1

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Classic Evidence: Findings - Experiment 1

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Summary
People estimated that the cars were travelling at a higher speed when the very used sounded more severe.

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Experiment 1

45 participants - 5 groups of 9

Research method- laboratory experiment

Experimental design - independent groups design

Independant Variable - Verb used in the sentence

Dependant Variable- Estimated Speed

Seven films of traffic accidents were shown ranging from 5 to 30 seconds long. Films shown in a different order for each group

After each film, participants filled in a questionnaire that asked them to give an account of the accident that they had seen. They then had to answer a series of specific questions

Critical question- About how fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed/collided/bumped/contacted each other. - each group had a different verb.

Lasted an hour and a half.

Experiment 2

150 student participants - 3 groups of 50

Research method - laboratory experiment

Experimental design - Independant groups design

Independant variable - verb used in the question

Dependant variable - How many participants ‘remember’ broken glass

Participants were shown a 1 minute film of a car crash (the accident lasting 4 seconds)

Participants were asked to describe accident and then asked a series of questions

Critical question - How fast were the cars going when they ____ each other?

Verb different for each group - Group one = smashed into, Group 2 = hit, Group 3 = no question.

1 week later, participants were asked the questions again but were not shown the clip

Critical question- did you see any broken glass?

There was no broken glass in the film however they researched hypothesised that the group with the verb smashed would say that there was.

Participants were not told about the true aims of the study because if they knew tha they were being tested, they many have payed more attention to detail/make a conscious effort to pay attention.
Participants were given a series of questions rather than just the critical question to diguise the true aims of the study. If there wa just a critical question it would be too obvious that they are only looking for one answer.
They had a control group in Experiment 2 to compare the results

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Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Study was split into 2 experiments

Experiment 1- to see if the speed estimates given by participants after watching a video of a car crash would be influenced by the wording of the question asked

Experiment 2 - to see if the leading questions just changed the reposes given to the questions or whether the participant’s memories had altered.

Carried put in a laboratory using an indepentdent groups design.
Experiment 1 - 45 student participants
Experiment 2 - 150 student participants

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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Evaluation - Ethical Issues

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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Evaluation - Ethical Issues

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Patient Blame

Assumes that the client is responsible for disorder and has the ability to change what they think

Situational factors (eg. Family/life events that can’t be changed) contribute to disorder and this can be overlooked

Blaming person entirely may not be helpful as outside life may need to change in order to make them feel better.

What is rational?

Who judges an irrational thought?- Thooughts that seem irrational to a therapist may not be irrational at all, therefore making the client change them is unfair.

May damage self- esteem - an example of psychological harm

Alloy and Abrahamson (1979) - Suggests deppressive realists see things for what they are and their estimates of the likelihood of disaster are more accurate than normal people who look at things in a more positive light.

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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Evaluation - Effectiveness

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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Evaluation - Effectiveness

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Findings from research

There is a large amount of evidence that proves that CBT is highly effective when treating depression/anxiety related problems.

Cahill et al (2003) looked at the symptoms of 58 patients receiving CBT for depression. After 12-20 weeks of therapy, 71% of patients that completed the therapy showed a reduction in symptoms, whereas only 13% of those who didn’t finish the course of therapy saw improvements.

David and Avelino (2003)- CBT has the highest overalls success rate of all therapies.

Jarrett et al (1999)- as effective as some antidepressants when treating 108 patients with severe depression for 10 weeks.

Therapist Competence

Competencies in CBT include the ability to structure sessions, plan and review homework and apply relaxation skills and engage and foster good therapeutic relations.

Kuyken and Tsivikos (2009)- 15% of the effectiveness may be due to the competence of the therapist.

This may mean that when CBT is effective it may be due to the therapist more thanthe  therapy itself.

Individual differences

CBT may be more suitable for some people compared to others, therefore indiviudal differences need to be taken into account when discussing effectiveness.

Less useful for people that are rigid in their beliefs and are resistant to change.

Simons et al (1995) - Less effective for clients whose high levels of stress reflect realistic stressors in the peroson’s life that therapy can’t fix.

Empowerment

Can empower clients to develop strategies and recognise that they have the free will to do this.

The most widely used therapy by NHS clinical psychologists - more popular that drug therapy or psychoanalysis because its less deterministic

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To challenge negative thoughts and replace them with constructive positive thinking that will lead to a healthy behaviour.
People are often unaware that there are problems with the way they think. Therapists try to make these maladaptive thoughts conscious and challenge them to make the cliet realise that there is no basis for these thoughts.

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Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Main Components

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Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Main Components

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Dysfunctional Thought Diary

Clients are asked to keep a diary of thoughts and feelings linked with a negative event, paying attention to any automatic negative thoughts

They rate how much they believe each thought, give a rational response and then rate their belief in that. They then relate their original thought

Cognitive Restructuring

Client and therapist work together to identify and change negative thought patterns - known as ‘therapy during therapy’

Client is taught to challenge dysfunctional automatic thoughts by asking ‘Where is the evidence for X’ and ‘What is the worst that can happen if X was true’

After answering the questions, negative thoughts can be replaced by positive, constructive ones, which allows the client to behave differently.

Pleasant Activity Scheduling

Client plans a pleasant activity that they will engage in each day- soothing that gives a sense of accomplishment or a break from normal routine

Engaging in these activities will increase positive emotions and distract from negative Thinking patters - behavioural activation

Involves client keeping a record of experience

By moving closer to a positive solution and goal, the client is moving away from negative thinking and maladaptive behaviour

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Overall assumption

Our thought influence our emotions and behaviour.

Believes that psychological disorders are caused by faulty or irrational thinking.

CBT helps to change thinking patterns as a way of changing behaviour.

Internal Processes

Therapists help clients to change their perceptions of the world around them as these are causing their illness.

Internal processes’ impact on behaviour underlies the principles of CBT.

Cognitive restructuring- therapists question the evidence for the clients perceptions - often clients will be able to see that their perceptions aren’t based on any evidence so can change.

Schemas

Aaron Beck- depressed people have developed negative Schemas of themselves, the world around them and their futures -cognitive triad.

In CBT- client is helped to change those Schemas.

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Schemas

As these are packets of knowledge we have about others, they may influence how we feel and act towards them.

Dion et al (1972) - people believe that physically attractive people have attractive personalities - The halo effect. If we perceive a person to be physically attractive, we assume they have good qualities and will be more inclined to start a relationship with them

Self- Schemas are how well feel about ourselves and are also important.

Internal Mental Processes

Self-perception, the beliefs that we have about ourselves and perception of others are very important when we form relationships. - The way we perceive others to be will determine whether we want to enter a relationship with them.

Matching hypothesis

How we perceive ourselves in terms of physical attractiveness will influence who we want to engage with.

We are attracted to those we feel match us in terms of physical attractiveness

Example

If you have a strong self concept )perceive yourself to be highly attractive), you will tru and match with attractive others

If our perception of attractiveness is low, we will not try and matc with those we found attractive for fear of rejection.

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Schemata are mental structures that represent an aspect of the world such as an object or event.

They are built up through experience and stored in the long term memory.

Schemata help us to make sense of the world, by providing short cuts to identifying things that we come across.

Schemas can be refined through further interactions with people and the world around us.

They don’t necessarily represent reality as they are built up through social exchanges such as conversations rather than personal interactions.

Schemas can take different forms. For example, event Schemas, known as scripts (eg. Going to a restaurant) and role Schemas which tell us about different roles.

Example - Schema for a burgular
Male, hooded/dark figure
Most people have never seen a burglar but will have a schema like the one above.

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Humans are seen as information processors.
Main on concerns of cognitive psychology - how information received from our senses is process by the brain and how this directs how we behave sand how various cognitive functions work together to help us make sense of the world.
Internal processes

Perception - The process of ‘assembling sensations into usable mental representations of the world’.

Attention - The process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things.

Memory - The retention of what we learn and what we experience.

Language- The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of tthe use of words in a structured and conventional way.

Measuring

Use processes such as introspection (discovered by Wilhelm Wundt)

Wundt opened his first experimental psychology laboratory in Germany in 1879 so that he could investigate thinking in a scientific and systematic way.

His research assistants were given stimulus and had to report what the stimulus made them feel.

Some psychologists questions he validity of introspection as an objective science whereas others stills use it.

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Cognitive psychologists compare the human mind to a computer

It compares how we take information (input), store or change it (process) and then recall it when necessary (output)

In this analogy, hardware=our brain, software=cognitive processes, inputs= senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell), outputs = memory recall

Humans aren’t completely like a computer as computers don’t have emotions

The Multi-store Memory Model

Atkinson and Shriffrin (1968)

Proposed that information enters the brain through the senses, moves to the short term memory store and then to the long term memory store.

Whenever information is retrieved, it becomes output.