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Smart IB Psychology Short Answer Questions

1/11/2015

 
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Helping IB Psychology students nail their three IB Psychology examination short answer response questions
Writing the 8 out of 8 IB Psychology SAQ response is challenging and opinions differ as to how it is best achieved. Though a standard introduction, conclusion or evaluation is not an absolute requirement the response does need to be focused.
Find below my personal list of handy hints that I share with my  IB Psychology students:
  • Make sure you understand the command term and know the difference between explain or discuss or whatever you might be asked to demonstrate your understanding of the  IB Psychology learning outcome
  • Define the keywords in the  IB Psychology SAQ and integrate the definitions into a “In other words…” sentence.
  • Make sure you use the words from the question in your answer at least two or three times. If the  IB Psychology SAQ is about physiology use this word rather than brain or body.
  • Use studies to support your explanations. Give a brief summary of the study and then explain why this is relevant.
  • Take every opportunity to evaluate the study but do not just outline every strength and limitation, only the relevant ones. For example there is no need to discuss ethical considerations with the Davidson meditation study from the BLOA but the small sample size is relevant as it makes generalising his finding that cognition can change brain physiology more limited.
  • Aim for a short introduction and conclusion. These can be just one sentence in length. If you are asked about two hormones or two studies or two neurotransmitters make sure you have two body paragraphs. 

Of course, IB Psychology has taken all of the hard work and guesswork out of writing the perfect IB Psychology examination answers, both SAQs and ERQs. Have a look at our two key IB Psychology resources.
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A perfect IB Psychology SAQ exam anser


Explain how emotion may affect one cognitive process
​A flashbulb memory is a highly detailed, exceptionally vivid 'snapshot' of the moment and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) news was heard. The ‘flashbulb’ terminology indicates the event will be registered like a photograph; i.e., it will be accurate in detail. The defining feature an FBM is not the memory of the event, but memory of its reception context – the circumstances of the news’ reception.

It is assumed that they are highly resistant to forgetting; i.e., the details of the memory will remain intact and accurate because of the emotional arousal at the moment of coding. For example, some individuals can report in exceptional exactly when and how they heard the news of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the USA in 2001, as well as exactly what they were doing at the time and their exact feeling and reactions in response to the news – i.e., an exceptionally detailed and vivid memory almost twenty years after the fact. There is a posited relationship between strong emotion at the time of encoding and the exceptional details of these memories.

Brown and Kulik (1977) – research on FBM

Aim
: To investigate whether shocking events are recalled more vividly and accurately than other events.

Procedure
: 80 US participants were asked questions about 10 events. Nine of the events were mostly assassinations or attempted assassinations of well-known American personalities (e.g., JF Kennedy, Martin Luther King). The tenth was a self-selected event of personal relevance and involving unexpected shock. Examples included the death of a friend or relative or a serious accident.
Participants were asked to recall the circumstances they found themselves in when they first heard the news about the 10 events. They were also asked to indicate how often they had rehearsed (overtly or covertly) information about each event.

Results and conclusion:
  • Participants had vivid memories of where they were, what they did, and what they felt when they first heard about a shocking public event
  • The participants also said they had FBMs of shocking personal events
  • The results indicated that FBM is more likely for unexpected and personally relevant events. This lead the researchers to suggest ‘the photographic nature of FBM’
  • Brown & Kulik suggest that FBM is caused by the physiological emotional arousal (e.g., activity in the amygdala).
Evaluation: The reliance on retrospective data questions the reliability of this study. People tend to interpret an event from their current perspective. Research indicates that although FBM is emotionally vivid it is not necessarily accurate in regard to details. Neisser is particularly critical towards the idea of FBMs, as certain memories are very vivid precisely because they are rehearsed and discussed after the event. Any piece of information that is repeatedly reviewed and rehearsed is going to be remembered in much better detail – which most models of memory predict.

​However, findings from this study are clearly consistent with Brown & Kulik’s theory. Additional support comes from a study by Conway et al. (1994) who studied FBMs of both UK and non-UK citizens of the unexpected resignation of a famous (or infamous) British Prime Minister – Margaret Thatcher. Data was collected at several points including a few days after the resignation and after 11 months. They found that 85% of UK citizens and considerably fewer non-UK citizens had an FBM at 11 months.
Author: Derek Burton – Passionate about IB Psychology

Bomb proof IB Psychology classroom experiments

1/10/2015

 
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Classroom experiments so easy and fool-proof, they're child's play!
We all know that classroom Psychology experiments are win-win for everyone, as long as they work (i.e., produce the desired results). Students love being involved in demonstrations of their minds in action. Teachers love the way that experiments produce deep learning that is necessary to achieve the IB Psychology 7 come examinations. This IB Psychology classroom experiment is a very effective way to teach a concept that isn't necessarily the most intuitive to grasp - Craik and Lockhart's (1972) Levels of Processing model of memory. Best of all, it always works - money back guarantee! Use this classroom experiment to teach the Cognitive Level; of Analysis (CLOA) IB Psychology learning outcome: Evaluate two models or theories of one cognitive process [memory]. 

Craik and Lockhart's (1972) Level of Processing


​There is nothing to this core IB Psychology CLOA experiment really.. Do the experiment in the first half of your IB Psychology class and before you introduce the learning outcome. Download the instruction sheet below and make enough copies for your class - half the class will receive the first student instruction sheet and the other half, the second student instruction sheet.

​You read the script and have students record their answers. Next, you read the questions and have students answer on a separate piece of paper. Finally, you read the answers and have students mark their neighbour's responses. Record the results in a spreadsheet and use the data projector to display the results. Allow 30 minutes, including discussion time of the results.

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Author: Derek Burton – Passionate about IB Psychology

Blind to the obvious

30/7/2014

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Why we can't see what is straight in front of us
Insights into an illusionists world, why you didn't notice your wife's new hairstyle and the IB Psychology ERQ - Models of Memory
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Change blindness

I tried explaining this to my wife yesterday … unfortunately it didn’t get me out of trouble. I dedicate this blog post to her and my IB Psychology student (you know who you are) who asked me if the ‘door experiment’ was a fake.

Yesterday I returned home, greeted my wife with a peck on the cheek and began chatting, after a while I realised something was wrong and becoming increasingly more wrong. I’m very perceptive like that. It turns out that she had been out to the hair salon that day and I hadn’t noticed. Perhaps not so perceptive after all. Of course, once she had pointed it out to me, it was immediately obvious. And armed with my Psychology I had an immediate explanation … ‘Gorillas in Our Midst’, a classic experiment by Simons and Chabris (1999).

Most people with a passing interest in human behaviour would probably be aware of the experiment. Participants are informed that they will be shown a video of a group of people passing a basketball back and forth between themselves, and that the only thing they are required to do is count the exact number of passes that are made. They are also informed that it wasn’t going to be made easy for them. The individuals in the video would be moving around. There would be two groups passing basketballs, both of them moving around, and participants were to count only the number of passes made by the group wearing white t-shirts.

As with much experimentation in Psychology, there was a bit of ‘trickery’ involved. Simons and Chabris weren’t at all interested in the correct number of passes but in whether something that should be blindingly obvious could be made entirely ‘invisible’ with what illusionist term ‘misdirection’. What participants weren’t told was that in the course of the video someone in a gorilla costume would appear, walk between the basketballers, stop, beat its chest and then exit stage left. How many participants would notice the gorilla? Approximately 50 per cent (which is a figure that has been replicated). Half the participants gave the experimenters a completely blank look … “Gorilla? What gorilla?” and many would accuse the experimenters of using two different videos when they were asked to look again. You can’t miss the gorilla when you know the gorilla is going to appear.

We have embedded a version of the video shown to participants here. It is well worth showing even if your IB Psychology students are familiar with the study because, not giving too much away, other things are going on which highlight ‘inattentional blindness’. The TED talk by Simons is also very informative.

IB Psychology students can relate this experiment to the IB Psychology learning outcome: Evaluate two models or theories of one cognitive process (the cognitive process being memory). One of the more common models to examine is the multistore model of memory (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). As can be seen in the diagram below and according to this model memory consists of the three types of memory stores:
  • Sensory stores
  • Short-term stores (STS)
  • Long-term stores (LTS)
The gorilla enters everyone’s’ visual field. The gorilla is picked up by the eyes and sent to the visual cortex for further processing (one of the modality-specific sensory stores). This all happens in milliseconds and is automatic and unconscious. We see the gorilla but we don’t see it at this stage. If we then attend to the gorilla sensory information, “Oh look, a gorilla!”(“tricky psychologists”) then the cognitive process of perception kicks in. To perceive something is to become conscious or aware of it. If we are misdirected (the gorilla) or preoccupied with something else (my wife’s hair style) we will be completely blind to what we ‘see’. Thus, perception and attention are one and the same.

However, as my wife pointed out, this does indeed beg the question, "Why isn't your attention focused on me?"
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Inattentional Blindness

Gorillas in our Midst - PDF download
Show to your IB Psychology class before you do anything else!

Daniel Simon's TED Talk


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also called 'change blindness'

Author: Derek Burton – Passionate about IB Psychology


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Short. Sharp. Sweet.

5/3/2014

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Psychological science tells us what we already know.
From the treasure trove of Psychological studies, we here at IB Psychology delve into our basket of goodies to bring you a lot of stuff you no doubt already know:
  • We judge naked people as having less self-control.
  • Pain is felt intensely when it's intentionally inflicted.
  • Relationships are more exciting when they're secret.
  • Trying too hard at something can make us rubbish at it.
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Tell me something I don't already know

Pervy
This may make you think differently about those photos you've been posting to Facebook. 

Seeing someone without their clothes my not cause us to objectify them, but we certainly start to think differently about them. Participants were shown pictures of the same target individuals who were either shown wearing clothes, topless or, ahem, wearing just a smile.

Unsurprisingly, naked individuals were perceived as having less control over themselves and also as having more access to 'experience'. When pictured clothed, the same individuals were rated as being more 'capable' and 'competent'. 

Ecological validity? Probably pretty good. If I was walking through my university and just happened perchance (no way was I hiding up the tree!) to see a drunken, naked frat run. That is exactly what I would be thinking - not very competent but much more open to experience.
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Shirt on: More competent and capable.
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Shirt off: Having less control.

Secret spice
We all love a secret. Secrets can be endlessly obsessed over. Those with whom we share secrets seem more exciting and we feel that we have a much closer bond. Secretly playing footsie under a table at an experimenter's behest makes us rate our experimental partner as being much more attractive, than when this footsie was carried out openly.
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The best IB Psychology IA experiment to replicate, ever?

Performance anxiety
Have you ever been involved in close golf game with a friend where maybe a $20 is on the line? It's the 18th hole, scores are tied and you've both reached the green on the same number of shots. This putt is important. You line up your shot thinking hard about angles and how much power to put into your shot. The $20 is there in your thoughts. The shot you now play is going to be the worst you've made all day. You choke. 

A few conditions in this experiment. Participants were explicitly told not to over hit the golf ball. In some instances while putting they were instructed to remember a six-figure number. And all putts took place in a darkened room where the putter either glowed in dark or didn't. A glow in the dark putter enabled participants to see it in their hands and actively self monitor their shots. 

Being told not to overshoot the hole led to way more holes being overshot. Keeping a six figure number in your head makes it worse. Being able to monitor your shot made it worse again. The moral of the story. Relax and enjoy your golf.
Relax and enjoy your golf to reduce your 20 handicap

This will hurt me more than it hurts you
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Psychological and physical pain are intertwined. Some of that psychological pain can have a social component. When we believe others are intentionally harming us. It hurts more.

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