Journey's end

Well, almost there.  Some of you have decided enough is enough, and realising that youn have earned enough credits have decided to cash in early.  But for those who are still determined, here are some hints for assignment 17.

Assignment 17 is about ethics, obedience research and application of social psychology to the real world. 

Part A has two questions:

1 is about ethics.  You are to do an ethics discussion around Zimbardo’s prison experiment and Milgram’s obedience project. Each of these are controversial for different reasons,  and in addition to discussing how the ethical principals of deception, harm, right to withdraw etc. are applied (or not!) you must discuss whether the ends of the research justified the means.  Focus chapter 15 (page 218) contains most of the information you need for this.

2 is about evaluation of Milgram.  In this assignment, you will be looking at one evaluative issue, that of ecological validity.  This basically asks “does Milgram’s research translate to other situations?  We don’t normally go round giving electric shocks to other people, but there are instances in real life when we might do things against our principles or normal instructions when we are told to do so.  To pass this section you must describe at least one piece of research that tests obedience to authority and supports Milgram's results.  Hofling (1966) and Meeus and Raaijmakers (1987) (see pages 208-209 Focus) are two pieces of research that might help.

Part B has three questions, but you can combine these into one piece of writing.  There is no word limit here but I have suggested a cap of 5000 words.  Many people get into the discussion and get carried away…

To do the first part, you should compare the Iraqi prison with Zimbardo’s research.  Is there any suggestion that the behaviour of the guards was because of their personality?  or because of their situation?

The second part is fairly general, and is really focused on majority influence.  Were conformity issues involved here? You could discuss that aspect of the soldiers’ behaviour. 

The third section is about minority influence.  How could the influence of a minority help to reduce abusive behaviour?  Could the research of Moscovici, or perhaps Gamson, be of any help? Moscovici is on page 196, Gamson page 214.  Or are there any other psychological explanations?  Whatever you say, you must support with empirical evidence.

I MUST have the assignments by 2nd June.  I can’t guarantee marking stuff in time for 4th after then.

Nearly there ... Don't Panic!

So now, we're coming towards the end of the course.  The final unit "Conformity and Obedience" which has two assignments, and by now, if you've got thus far, you'll take them in your stride.  But if you can you really should get to the lessons!


Assignment 16 looks very long, but it's not that bad.  The first thing to say is that you can find just about everything you need inn the Focus book.  It's almost as if it was written with this course in mind!  There are three parts to it.  The first is about informational and normative social influence.  We look at two models and map examples of behaviour on to them.  Activity two on page 187 (guessing the page, but it's about the ladies at the golf  club and the Orson Welles play) is a good one to try, and we worked it in class if you weren't there.

These are the models we refer to. (From Gross (2005))


Next, we shall look at the autokinetic effect experiment of Sherif.  This is available on the website page (find it without a link, I'm feeling lazy!)  but also in the Focus book.  Again, try and map the experiment onto the model.


Finally, for this post, look at the Asch line size experiment.  We'll spend a lot of time on this one.  Try and map that on to one of the models - and that's a fair bit of the assignment started!


More to follow ...

Insanity - what is it?

Basically, this is about Assignment 14.  What is madness?  More to the point, how can we define abnormal behaviour?  The assignment asks for you to choose three out of the five, describe/explain and evaluate them.  You know how to do this by now.  You see, the assignment appeared at the beginning of last year's course and the headings in task 2 are designed to help people evaluate.  So you can set the assignment out as a standard piece of writing - describe/evaluate one approach, describe evaluate second approach, describe evaluate third approach, finish off with perhaps a paragraph that brings it all together.

You can actually find all that you need to achieve a pass in the Focus book and the handout for DSM IV.  About 750 - 1000 words if you feel you need a ball-park figure.  Remember that an opinion expressed in a text book is perfectly OK as a reference of supporting or contradicting evidence for an approach.

But you can in fact find much more outside the Focus book.  For example, if you choose to discuss classification methods, then you should include discussion on Rosenhahn (1973) "On being sane in insane places".  

The picture is of Bedlam, a famous picture from Rakes Progress.  It is not a picture of room M41 on a bad day.

On 13th May you have a short exam.  The subject is stress, and anything in your Focus book between pages 91 and 136 is fair game.  Try and de-stress like the girl in the picture. Have a great weekend!

A Very Fine Specimen

When I put the mindmaps up (see last post) it seems there was a bit cut off.  So, I've put the tree on the wall, photographed it again, and left in the background (wall).  What you see below is the whole tree.  And everyone agreed that it was indeed a very fine specimen.  Here it is:

Hint for Assignment 13:  The minimum needed to achieve a pass is to write about one way in which Piaget, Vygotsky and Information Processing research have each been applied to education.  The pink book has it all just about.  You can find extra in Gross, pages 592, 595 and 599.  Other text books will have even more, you would just have to find it.  And that is how to get the merits and distinctions, of course.  For this assignment, "more gets you more!"

Assignment 13 - so try your luck!

Well, first of all, follow this link to the mindmaps you all made.    It's a 6.5Mb pdf file and might take a minute or two to download, depending on your connection, and if you absolutely cannot access it then let me know and I'll see what I can do.

So, how to do Assignment 13.  Basically it's a written assignment, probably about 1000 words or so by the time you've finished.  All thye mindmaps/flipcharts call them what you will, have enough information on them to help you ploan.  The major resource will of course be the pink book, from where most of the mindmaps were developed.  And they're all very good.  But there's also some stuff in Gross and I expect some of you will go even further afield.

Don't forget that if you are stuck, then ask.

And if you do it Sunday afternoon, here's a piece of music (a favourite of mine, so you know what I like!)

Holidays? Whatever gave you that idea?

Assignment 12 seems to be causing a lot of grief.  And I tried to make it easy for you!   Well, here are some hints.  Anyone who has seen this before, yes, I know you emailed me and this was the reply.  But quite a few others have the same problem as well.

If you are having problems with the first part of assignment 12, I think you will be better off with sensorimotor stage and pre-operational stage.  I have generally advised this because most of the obvious changes and research are focused on these two.  Also, the main difference between pre-  and concrete operational stages is that, in my words, pre-operational children can’t and concrete operational children can.  Think of the difference between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. (These are stages of development in English primary schools distinguished by the assessed achievement of standard attainment tests, or “SATS”).  The assignment asks for a piece of research from each of the two stages you choose, not the whole stage!

Sensorimotor research includes research into the development of object permanence.  Piaget (1937) demonstrated that children in this stage do not develop object permanence until several months of age.  Most of the evaluative research (e.g. Baillargeon and Devos (1991)) shows that object permanence develops earlier than Piaget reckoned.

Pre-operational research is usually about egocentrism (three mountains task, which was challenged by policeman-doll experiments) or conservation tasks, which are challenged by “naughty teddy”.    You can find all you need in the pink booklet, or from Gross.

So, have some sustenance before you go any further...

Mindmaps:

Some of you have been asking for software to do mindmapping.  I was rather hoping that you might hand-draw them.  But FreeMind  (click on the link and download)  is not only free but better than mine!  I use Mindjet mindmanager  software, which I had to buy several years ago.

This link http://www.jeffstanden.net/Piagetmap.pdf  is to a mindmap on my website.  Trouble is, they are software produced and not very detailed or attractive.  If you don’t know about mindmaps, then I’m sorry.  I did ask if you knew!  I thought you had covered them in study skills.  These YouTube links might help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLWV0XN7K1g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8_H42Z9wxA&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UCXalYcoko&feature=related

Basically the assignment is to make mindmap notes of the evaluation of Piaget, Vygotsky  and Information Processing approaches to cognitive development.  It’s a short (-ish!) way of covering a lot of material – far better than a 2500 word essay!  Use bullet points or single phrases to explain each evaluative concept on a mind map.

If there are any more doubts, I’ll do a mindmap session on the day we get back (19th).  In fact, I think I’ll do that anyway.

Meanwhile, something to drool over:

His name is Jonathan Ansell, and he's a singer.  Here he is with Lesley Garrett.  You drool over him.  I'll settle for the girl in the red dress!

Presentations over, now you're mine again!

OK. I'm not here for a couple of days, so I've put a worksheet up on the Developmental page. Mainly, you need to be catching up assignments, but if you've done them, or you want a rest after the rigours of presentation week, then try the worksheet.

And I'll see you all on Monday!

And yet another picture...

It's called "Party Girl".  You should.  Party.