Internal Assessment Notes Part 1-Choosing a topic
1. Warm up-Define the following terms.
Independent variable:
Dependent variable:
Research hypothesis:
Null hypothesis:
Confounding variables:
2. Possible topics & studies:
Attribution error
Jones & Harris (1967)-Half of the participants were told to read an essay by an essayist who had a
choice to either support or criticize Castro while others were told that the essayists didn’t have a
choice. The participants in the choice and no choice condition both thought that the essays reflected
the genuine views of the essayists.
Social Identity Theory
Tajfel et al. (1971)- Researchers randomly divided participants into 2 groups of boys randomly but the
boys were led to believe that the groups were defined on the basis of a preference for paintings by
Klee o Kandinsky. When asked to distribute points to ingroup and outgroup members participants
showed a strong tendency to favour members of their ingroup over outgroup.
Illusory correlation
Researchers asked participants to read descriptions about 2 made up groups (Groups A and B).
Group A had twice as many members than Group B and in the descriptions, Group A members
performed 18 positive and 8 negative behaviours while Group B performed 9 positive and 4 negative
behaviours. More undesirable behaviours were attributed to the minority group Group B than the
majority Group A.
Memory theory and model
Craik & Tulving (1975)- Levels of Processing experiment with a memory recognition test after
structural, phonological, and semantic questions.
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)- Serial position curves after immediate (recency effect) or delayed free
recall (primacy effect).
Schemas
Loftus and Palmer (1974)- Schemas and eyewitness testimony about a car crash.
Bransford and Johnson (1972)- Schematic influences affecting memory about a paragraph about
doing laundry.