Psychology Summer Tasks
Below are a number of tasks to get you thinking about psychology.
Bring your work with you in September and be ready to discuss
what you have found!
Task 1:
For each study below please make handwritten notes on:
• The aim of the investigation (what the researchers were trying to find out)
• The procedure (what the researchers did and how they went about doing it)
• The main findings of the study
• The main conclusion(s) that the researchers drew from the study
The studies you need to research are:
1. Loftus and Palmer (1974) – the effect of leading questions on eyewitness testimony
2. Friedman and Rosenman’s (1974) study of the link between personality type and stressrelated illness.
3. Watson and Rayner (1920) – the case of Little Albert – demonstration of the acquisition of
a conditioned emotional response (phobia of a rat) – a good one!!
Task 2:
Use Youtube and other sites to find clips of the following and then answer
the questions that follow:
1. Clive Wearing (living without memory). What does this show
about memory?
2. Genie (wild child). What does this show about language
development?
3. Koko (the gorilla). What does this show about animal
communication?
Task 3:
Using the sites below (or another of your choosing)
find out about one piece of current research into an
area of psychology. I will be interested to see what
you find!
A particularly useful site is about.com/psychology – look under the Education section
for Psychology.
There are plenty of other sites too that provide interesting information about psychology
including :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/index.shtml?psychology
In September I will have a look at your work and you will need to be prepared to
discuss your research in class!
Don’t forget to have fun over the summer!