Biological Psychology Mocks

Biological Approach

• Draginski et al. (2004): Neural Pruning

  • Neural pruning is the process where extra, unused, or weak synaptic connections are eliminated to improve efficiency.
  • Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change structure in response to learning or injury.
  • Aim: To investigate if neural structure can change through learning.
  • Procedure: Participants were divided into jugglers and a control group. MRI scans were taken before, during, and after a 3-month juggling period.
  • Findings: Jugglers showed increased grey matter in visual-spatial memory areas. This increase reduced after the juggling stopped.
  • Conclusion: Neuroplasticity allows structural adaptation to new skills, which may not be permanent without consistent practice. This demonstrates a link between environmental stimuli and brain structure.

• Newcomer et al. (1999): Cortisol and Memory

  • Key Concept: Cortisol is a stress hormone affecting memory, specifically declarative memory (explicit memory).
  • Declarative memory includes episodic memory—personal events—and semantic memory—general knowledge.
  • Aim: To investigate how cortisol affects verbal declarative memory.
  • Procedure: Participants were divided into three groups: high cortisol dose, low cortisol dose, and placebo. Verbal memory was tested daily over several days.
  • Findings: High cortisol levels significantly impaired memory performance compared to the placebo and low-dose groups.
  • Conclusion: High cortisol levels negatively impact verbal declarative memory, while low doses have minimal effect.

• Caspi et al. (2003): Gene-Environment Interaction

  • Key concept: Investigated how the 5-HTT gene (involved in stress regulation) interacts with life stress to impact depression.
  • Aim: To investigate whether the 5-HTT gene length modulates the relationship between stressful life events and depression.
  • Procedure: participants were tested for the length of their 5-HTT alleles, completed a life-stress inventory, and depression symptoms were assessed.
  • Findings: People with the short allele and high levels of stress were more likely to develop depression.
  • Conclusion: The 5-HTT gene can moderate vulnerability to depression in the context of stress, highlighting the importance of gene-environment interactions.

Cognitive Approach

• Bransford & Johnson (1972): Schema Theory

  • Key Concept: Schema theory posits that knowledge is organized into mental frameworks (schemas) that help us interpret and process information. Schemas are derived from past experiences.
  • Aim: To investigate how prior knowledge affects comprehension of new information via memory.
  • Procedure: Participants heard a complex passage about laundry, either with or without contextual information.
  • Findings: Participants who received the context before the passage had better recall compared to those who heard it afterward or not at all.
  • Conclusion: Prior knowledge significantly helps comprehension and recall of ambiguous material

• Brown & Kulik (1977): Flashbulb Memories

  • Key Concept: Flashbulb memories are highly detailed, vivid, and enduring memories of highly emotional events.
  • Aim: To investigate the relationship between emotive experiences and memory accuracy.
  • Procedure: Participants were asked to recall their memories of significant events, like famous assassinations. Details regarding the event were collected in terms of location, emotion felt etc.
  • Findings: Memories of shocking events were more memorable compared to neutral or less emotive events.
  • Conclusion: Emotional significance enhances memory and recall accuracy resulting in vivid flashbulb memories.

Sociocultural Approach

• Tajfel (1970): Social Identity Theory

  • Key Concept: Social Identity Theory explores how group membership influences individual self-concept and behavior.
  • Aim: To investigate the minimum conditions necessary to create in-group favoritism and out-group bias.
  • Procedure: Boys were randomly assigned to groups based on arbitrary criteria, and then asked to allocate points to members of their own and the other group.
  • Findings: There was a tendency for in-group favoritism—allocating more points to members of the same group - even when it came at the expense of maximizing overall group rewards.
  • Conclusion: Social categorization alone — group categorization — can trigger discrimination. This demonstrates that people derive some of their sense of self and esteem from group membership.

• Bandura (1961): Social Cognitive Theory

  • Key Concept: Social Cognitive Theory highlights the importance of observation, personal factors, and environmental interactions in learning and behavior, with an emphasis on observational learning -learning by observing others.
  • Aim: In this case, the aim was to determine how children learn aggressive behavior by observation.
  • Procedure: Children are observed to determine how learning outcomes vary for aggressive behaviors being modeled and rewarded or punished.
  • Findings: Children who observed aggressive behaviors and their model (the adult) being rewarded, were more likely to demonstrate aggressive behaviors themselves.
  • Conclusion: Observation plays a crucial role in social learning and behaviors, including aggression.

• Berry (1967): Cultural Conformity

  • Key Concept: Cultural Conformity is the tendency of individuals to adjust their behaviors and beliefs to match societal or cultural norms within their groups.
  • Aim: To examine the influence of cultural dimensions (individualism versus collectivism) on conformity.
  • Procedure: Participants from individualistic and collectivist cultures participated in a conformity task, were given incorrect information for the study to affect their decision; and asked to share their opinion.
  • Findings: Participants from collectivistic cultures demonstrated a higher rate of conformity than participants from individualistic cultures.
  • Conclusion: Cultural factors influence conformity rates, individualistic cultures tend to prioritize individual preferences over collective norms, while collective cultures may emphasize conformity and a shared sense of identity..

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