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2010 Assessment Resource - Internal
Level 1 Psychology
27257, Demonstrate understanding of key pieces of psychological research
Credits: 4
Teacher guidelines:
The following guidelines are supplied to enable teachers to carry out valid and consistent
assessment using this internal assessment resource.
Context/setting:
In this activity students will be provided with two pieces of research by the teacher. They
will answer structured questions using class notes. The students will have the
opportunity to pre-read the research prior to the assessment activity. It is recommended
that the studies come from different fields or approaches.
References should be appropriate to Level 6 of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC), or
have characteristics that enable students to meet the expected level of understanding.
Assessment of this standard also provides opportunities for students to develop aspects
of the key competencies of the NZC.
Conditions:
The assessment task will be done at school under teacher supervision. It should not be
taken home in either written or electronic form. Students can read texts, collect
information and develop ideas for the assessment.
A summary or edited article can be tailored by the teacher for the students to meet the
needs of the assessment. This is not to be a commentary on the research article.
Resource requirements:
Examples of key pieces of psychological research:
 Watson, J.B., and Rayner, R. (1920) Conditioned Emotional Responses. Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 3: 1-14.
 Piaget, J. (1954) The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.
 Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through
imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63:
575-582.
 Gazzaniga, M. S. (1967). The split brain in man. Scientific American, 217(2): 24-29.
 Loftus (1972) Leading questions in the eyewitness report. Cognitive Psychology,
1975, 7: 550-572.
 Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). On the ethics of intervention in human psychological
research: With special reference to the Stanford Prison Experiment. Cognition, 2:
243-256.
 Rosenhan, D.L. (1973) On being sane in insane places. Science, 179 (4070): 250258.
 Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A.M., and Frith, U. (1985) Does the autistic child have a
‘theory of mind’? Cognition, 21: 37-46.
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2011
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Key pieces of psychological research are those studies which have made a significant
contribution to the development of our understanding of human and non-human animal
behaviour.
Findings are stated results, conclusions and/or recommendations that have contributed
to psychological knowledge.
Additional information:
Teaching and learning guidelines that inform psychology as it is taught in New Zealand
can be found at http://www.tki.org.nz/ncea/.
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2011
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27257, Demonstrate understanding of key pieces of psychological research
Credit: 4
Student Instructions Sheet
During your Psychology programme in class, your teacher will work with you on a variety
of written, oral and visual texts. You will do a wide range of activities in class which will
help you to source additional information and read for meaning e.g. for journal articles.
Your responses should:
 include a description of findings from the provided research
 describe how these findings contribute to our understanding of behaviour.
For merit or excellence your responses may also include:
 an explanation on how the findings have contributed to psychological knowledge
 the significance of the findings in terms of behaviour and psychological knowledge in
a wider context.
Sample Task
You will be given two psychological research articles by your teacher. Your task is to
complete the structured questions below.
Question 1: Zimbardo (1972)
Describe two key findings from the Zimbardo study
Describe Key finding 1
Describe Key finding 2
Describe how these findings contribute to our understanding of behaviour.
Explain how these findings have improved the understanding of behaviour in relation to
psychological knowledge e.g. how these findings could be applied to different situations
or may be used to explain social problems.
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2011
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Question 2: Watson & Rayner (1920)
Describe two key findings from the Watson and Rayner study
Describe Key finding 1
Describe Key finding 2
Describe how these findings contribute to our understanding of behaviour.
Explain how these findings have improved the understanding of behaviour in relation to
psychological knowledge e.g. how these findings could be applied to different situations
or may be used to explain social problems.
Assessment guide
For achieved
For merit
For excellence
The candidate must
demonstrate understanding
of key pieces of
psychological research.
The candidate must
demonstrate detailed
understanding of key
pieces of psychological
research.
The candidate must
demonstrate in depth
understanding of key
pieces of psychological
research.
N.B. The following Evidence Statements are indicative and not exclusive.
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2011
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Watson & Rayner (1920)
Inquiry 1 Evidence Statements: Demonstrate understanding of key pieces of psychological research
Achievement
Understanding:
Describe findings in terms of
understanding behaviour.
Achievement with Merit
Detailed understanding:
Explain findings in terms of
understanding behaviour and how
these findings have added to
psychological knowledge.
Achievement with Excellence
In-depth understanding:
Explain the significance of the findings
in terms of understanding behaviour
and how these findings have added to
psychological knowledge in a wider
context.
Findings
John Watson conducted an experiment
with a small boy named Albert in which
he paired a white rat with a loud,
startling noise. Albert now becomes
startled and cries at the sight of a rat.
Fear was established to the sight of a
white rat alone, by pairing a loud noise
with the sight of a previously un-feared
rat. This fear was subsequently
generalised to other similar stimuli (a
rabbit, dog, fur coat, cotton wool, and a
Santa Claus mask). The fearful
response was still present after one
week, and with less intensity after one
month.
Explain Findings
Associative learning/(classical)
conditioning is established when an
aversive stimulus (UCS) is associated
with a neutral stimulus (CS) to produce
fear (UCR). Once learning/conditioning
is established the CS alone is able to
elicit the CR (=fear). Could also use
technical terms to explain
generalisation; or to illustrate an
application.
Explain Significance of Findings
Behaviour is explained in simpler
(reductionist) terms. Provides a simpler
explanation of phobia development and
transfer cf psychoanalysis. Findings
can be generalised to other emotional
responses such as conditioning leading
to irrational fears or childhood fears
leading to phobias.
Psychological knowledge
Explanation exemplifies how
phobias/fears are acquired and
generalised. Uses observable stimuli
and behaviour/ responses to do this.
Understanding behaviour
Could use technical terms to define
Conditioned emotional responses
unconditioned (unlearned) vs.
(CER) can be learnt: (by the pairing of a conditioned (learned) behaviour and
neutral and eliciting stimulus),
relate it to the treatment of phobias.
generalised (elicited by other similar
previously neutral stimuli), and persist
(the learning remains). Or illustrated by
Wider Context
Lead to deconditioning studies (Mary
Cover Jones’ Little Peter (1924). Or
other; systematic desensitisation,
aversion therapy. Subsequent use as a
case study in research ethics (distress
caused to Little Albert, responsibility of
researchers).
This study leads to conditioning being
used to treat phobias and addictions in
institutions or cognitive behavioural
therapy (or other psychological
treatments).
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2011
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an application. An explanation of
unlearned (unconditioned) and learned
behaviour (conditioned) and identify the
difference between conditioned and
unconditioned behaviour.
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2011
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Haney, Banks & Zimbardo (1973)
Findings
Participants randomly assigned to be
prison guards or prisoners adopted
their roles so completely in this
simulated prison experiment that the
experiment had to be cut short after six
days due to mistreatment of the
subjects.
Understanding behaviour
Zimbardo found that the behaviour of
‘normal’ people can change under the
power of the situation. Description
should include any one of these
statements; prison guards controlled
the lives of others by abusing their
power and the prisoners suffered
negative mental effects within a few
days; any ‘normal’ person is capable of
doing bad things given the right
situation or event; any ‘normal’ person
can become depressed given the
conditions and situation to shape their
behaviour.
Explain Findings
Explanation should include how the
prisoners showed any one of: rebellion,
disbelief and acute depression and the
guards showed any one of: enjoyment
and abuse of their new power, abuse
and dehumanising of the prisoners.
They were able to adopt this behaviour
quickly and without difficulty. Prison
guards controlled the prisoners’ lives
and some prisoners became acutely
depressed.
Psychological knowledge
This experiment demonstrated a
learned modelling of guard or prisoner
roles based on the participants’
previous observation of these roles.
Could also use terms to show the
power of the situation/roles has/have to
shape our behaviour and how we can
change roles in a given situation or
event even if this means extreme
behaviour.
Explain Significance of Findings
The explanation outlines how the
randomly allocated roles of prison
guard and prisoner gave important
insights into the power of social roles in
certain situations. Provides an
explanation of how guards being
abusive and mistreating prisoners will
have a negative impact on the mental
health of prisoners. ‘Normal’ people are
capable of extreme behaviour. ‘Normal’
people can become depressed or feel a
change of identity in certain situations.
Could also explain how this study
demonstrated changes in behaviour
that can happen in a short time as the
study was cut short after six days of the
intended 14 days.
Wider Context
Provides an explanation of how this
study led to changes in the prison
system and had a socio-political impact
on the treatment of prisoners. This
study is also a case study in unethical
research (distress caused to subjects).
It can be generalised to the behaviour
of persons in power roles and
emotional responses of humans to
negative situations such as
dehumanisation, depression, failure or
passivity.
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2011
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Judgement Statements
Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence
Identify and describe one finding from
each study and how this contributed to
psychologists’ understanding of
behaviour.
Achievement, plus:
Explain how the findings from each
study contributed to the development of
psychological knowledge.
Merit, plus:
Explain how the findings have improved
the understanding of behaviour in
relation to psychological knowledge
including how the findings could be
applied to different situations or may be
used to explain social problems.
[Good theory = a successful
explanation of a wide range of
behaviours]
© New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2011