HideShow resource information

Biological & Child - Understanding Autism

Important as might find a medicinal cure, increase acceptance. Improve relationships. Improve academic skills due to support - able to work.
Symptoms and features. Spectrum, difficult understand others.
Extreme male brain – autistic brains heavier, grow faster, female have bigger corpus callous (- but reductionist). Testosterone. Could lead to creation of medication?
TOM offers a different explanation. But should autism be seen as problem?
Baron Cohen (but self-report) Females better empathisers. males systemisers.
Falter et al., (but small sample) Mental rotation tasks Clinical contribution is better

1 of 12

Learning - Treating crime with TEP

Important because if we can prevent crime then save lives

Describe TEP - operant conditioning principles.

Dickerson (- but no control group) Successful in obtaining required behaviour

Field (- but not all responded) 'special programme'

Milby (-no follow up studies) Successful in psychiatric hospitals alongside drugs

TEP doesn’t address guilt or the victims. May not understand impact.

An alternative is anger management or chemical castration

Is TEP suitable for some people? - biological part of personality?

Clinical contribution is better

2 of 12

Criminal - Treating crime

Important because if we can prevent crime then we can save lives

Describe TEP - operant conditioning principles

Dickerson (- but no control group)

Field (- but not all responded) 'special programme'

TEP doesn’t address guilt or the victims

Describe AM. Prevents future violent crimes and control violent outbursts. Can reduce redivism, relatively cheap, reduce cost of imprisonment

Law 1997 (-self report/social desirability) had better awareness of anger

Clinical contribution is better

3 of 12

Cognitive - Theories of memory to explain Alzheime

Important - we may be able to find a cure/reduce symptom. Prevent losing loved ones/memories being lost.

Alzheimers:degenerative disease.Memory loss,problem-solving + thinking difficulties
MSM Atkinson and Shiffrin. Sensory store, attention, STM, rehearsal, LTM. Rehearsal not effective so LTM is no.

Cue-dependent theory of forgetting take patients back to contexts. Practical?

Godden and Baddeley  context cues could help (- but low task validity)

Interference theory - should not overload patients with too much info (just tell them what they are doing today, not plans for the week)

Dallenbach (- but not generalisable to humans)

Clinical contribution is better

4 of 12

Cognitive - Improving reliability of ETW testimony

Important need to ensure EWT is accurate and people aren’t falsely convicted. Justice for the police and victim. Morally correct

Devlin Report (shouldn't trust 1 EWT) and the Innocence Project (321 falsely convicted)

Describe Loftus and Palmer EWT – misleading questions on verbs (- but lab experiment)

Describe Cue-dependent theory of forgetting. Context + state cues. 

* Godden and Baddeley (- but low task validity)

Yuille and Cutshall (but low control of variables)

Many PP variables can affect EWT

-Clinical contribution is better-

5 of 12

Learning - Understanding the effects of media viol

Important because if we can stop children imitating media violence we could save lives. Parents and professionals wont have to worry about imitating violent acts.

Describe SLT using drunk Phil Mitchell

 Bandura, Ross and Ross suggest the media could be a problem (- but lab experiment, low ecological/task validity)

James Bulger case. Venables watched "Child's play".

Charlton et al., suggests the media isn’t a problem (but a natural exp, low control)

-Clinical contribution is better-

6 of 12

Clinical - Treating mental illness

Important may be able to save lives (less suicides) Lead 'normal' life and be happy with themselves. Family = less stressed and worried. Economy = cheaper for NHS if better. P

Describe drug treatments. Clozapine e.g. reduces negative symptoms.

Meltzer et al., (- but reductionist). Haloperidol + control. H better improvements.

Side effects

Just masks the problem

Describe CBT faulty patterns in the mind, cycle of negative thoughts. Change negative schemas e.g. Johari Window.

Kuyken et al., (+ holistic as compared to drugs) CBT better quality of life

Waiting list, only 8 x 1 hour sessions

-Biological brain scanning contribution is better-

7 of 12

Biological - Brain scanning

Important because it can save lives, pinpoint treatments. Detect diseases such as cancer. Prevents premature death, live longer if discovered earlier. Contribute to society for longer, accurate diagnosis for patients via doctors.
Describe MRI magnetic field, electromagnetic waves pass through body and hydrogen molecules emit own frequency which is picked up. Nuclei of atoms spin producing a black and white image Describe PET – Injection glucose, cells start to uptake oxygen in glucose so radioactive tracer decays - emitting positrons which collides with electrons to produce gamma rays which produce colour images Reliable, scientific, reductionist Raine et al., (but low eco validity) Unethical – needle, claustrophobia Low ecological/task validity -Clinical contribution is better-

8 of 12

Psychodynamic - The use of psychoanalysis to treat

Important because we may be able to save live. Less stress for  family, able to function normally for society. Costs less for NHS as no treatment necessary

Describe psychoanalysis - Freud, Free association, Dream Analysis, Hypnosis

Transference; act out previous experiences. Catharsis; releasing repressed emotions.

Bachrach (- but relied of therapists self-report data, biased?)

Eysenck (- could be biased) no treatment better than psychoanalysis

Leichenring and Leibing (- but small sample) 23/25 effective

Subjective No way of measuring treatment scientifically - Unfalsifiable!!

Not backed by NHS currently- not good enough success rate

-Clinical contribution is better-

9 of 12

Psychoanalysis - understanding the debate over fal

Important because we can prevent corrupt therapists from implanting false memories which lead to prosecutions. Decrease innocent people going to prison.

Beth Rutherford example

Describe repression - moves undesirable memory into unconscious mind to protect from trauma.

Williams (1994) found that 38% out of 129 adult women had no memory of previous sexual abuse

+ Bachrach and Leichenring and Leibing find psychoanalysis to be effective – which suggests false memories are not implanted as part of psychotherapy (in most cases)

 - Loftus and Pickerell show that false memories can be implanted; being lost in a shopping centre but never had been lost in one

 - Loftus, Braun & Ellis show that false memories can be implanted. Bugs Bunny at Disneyland

- Clinical contribution is better-

10 of 12

Social - Blind obedience

Important can understand why WW2 happened and prevent it in the future so individuals have more freedom. 

Describe Agency Theory: Autonomous and agentic state

Milgram (- but androcentric and ethnocentric)

Meeus and Raaijmakers (- but lab experiment, low task/ecological validity)Verbal insults.

Communist societies have to be obedient such as China, no freedom of speech

We do need obedience for social stability and hierarchy. Would be chaos without it.

-Clinical contribution is better-

11 of 12

Social - Prejudice

Important because we may be able to stop conflict between rival groups, possibly save lives. Homosexuality, ageism, racism...

Describe Social Identity theory Tajfel (WW2 as an example) Categorisation, Identification, Comparison.

Superordinate goals/contact hypothesis (with football fans as an example) Man U fans both going to an England game.

Sherif et al., (- but field experiment, low control)

Milgram's variation (when paired up pp’s worked as a group against the experimenter and disobeyed) - but low ecological validity

We may not be able to reduce cultural differences that cause prejudice

- Clinical contribution is better-

12 of 12


No comments have yet been made

Similar Psychology resources:

See all Psychology resources »See all Issues and debates resources »