AQA PSYCHOLOGY EXAM QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS RATED A
ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔evaluation of sages of development - ✔✔- problems with asocial stage as baby has
no coordination and is immobile so judgements on behaviour can not be made when
this young
- problems with multiple attachments as not clear when baby forms second attachment
as different in collectivist cultures
- the stage theory suggests that development of attachment is not flexible
+application as gives a mothers point of view of their child's progress in attachment
✔✔Lorenz's Research - ✔✔Lorenz randomly divided goose eggs. Half of them hatched
in a natural environment with their mother. The others hatched in an incubator and the
first moving thing they saw was Lorenz.
Incubator group followed Lorenz and the control group followed the mother duck. This
was imprinting whereby bird species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the
first moving object they see. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs
to take place this can be as brief as a few hours after hatching. if they did not form an
attachment in this time Lorenz found that the chicks did not attach themselves to a
mother figure
✔✔Evaluation of Lorenz's research - ✔✔- research may not generalise to other animals
let alone humans
- observations can be questioned. E.g. the idea that imprinting has a permanent effect
on mating behaviour. Guiton et al found that some chickens imprinted on yellow
washing up gloves would try and mate with them as well as adults. But with experience
they learnt they preferred to mate with other chickens. This suggests that the impact of
imprinting on mating behaviour is not permanent as Lorenz believed.
✔✔sexual imprinting - ✔✔Lorenz investigate the relationship between imprinting and
adult mate preference. He observed that birds that imprinted on humans will later show
courtship behaviour towards the humans. E.g. in a case study Lorenz described a
peacock that had been reared in a retile house at a zoo. The first thing the peacock saw
when born as a giant tortoise. As an adult the peacock showed courtship behaviour
toward the giant tortoise therefore had undergone sexual imprinting.
✔✔Harlow's Research evaluation - ✔✔-highly unethical
+ real life application for social workers as they understand the effects of neglect and
abuse
+can generalise better to humans that Lorenz's study of goose
✔✔Harlow's research - ✔✔Harlow tested the idea that soft object serves some of the
functions of a mother. In one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire
model mothers. In one condition milk was dispensed from the plain wire mother
whereas in the second condition milk was dispensed from the cloth covered mother.
, it was found that the monkeys cuddled and sought comfort when frightened from the
cloth mother over the wire mother even when the wire mother dispensed milk. This
shows that contact comfort is more important to monkeys than food when it came to
attachment behaviour.
✔✔what is the importance of comfort contact - ✔✔Harlow observed that new-born kept
alone in a bare cage usually died but survived if they had something soft like a cloth
✔✔Maternally deprived monkeys as adults (Harlow) - ✔✔Harlow followed the monkeys
into adult hood to see if the effects of not having a real mother, being maternally
deprived had any permanent effects. The researchers found sever consequences. The
monkeys reared by only the wire mother were the most dysfunctional even those reared
with the cloth mother did not develop normal social behaviour. They were more
aggressive less sociable and bred less often than other monkeys (as they were
unskilled at mating). As mothers the deprived monkeys neglected their children and
sometimes attacked their children even killing them
✔✔the critical period for normal development (Harlow) - ✔✔A mother had to be
introduced to the infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. After this time
attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became
irreversible
✔✔learning theory - ✔✔behaviourist approach that emphasises the role of learning in
the acquisition of behaviour e.g. classical and operant conditioning.
✔✔Dollard and Miller - ✔✔proposed that caregiver-infant attachment can be explained
by the learning theory. Their approach is often referred to as 'the cupboard of love'
approach as it emphasise the importance of the caregiver being the provider of food.
They proposed that children love to learn whoever gives them food.
✔✔classical conditioning - ✔✔involves learning to associate two stimuli together so the
response you give to one will also be given for the other. Food was the UCS, and the
pleasure from the food is the UCR. The caregiver is the neutral stimulus and over time
they will be associated with food and so become a conditioned stimulus. After
conditioning if the caregiver is seen the infant will produce a conditioned response of
pleasure.
✔✔operant conditioning - ✔✔involves learning to repeat a behaviour, or not depending
on the consequences. If it is a pleasant consequence the behaviour is more likely to be
repeated and so the behaviour is reinforced. This explains why babies cry for comfort.
Crying leads to a response form the caregiver e.g. food and comfort, as long as the
caregiver gives the right response (food and 'social suppressor') the crying is reinforced.
At the same time the caregiver receives negative reinforcement because the crying
stops escaping from something unpleasant is reinforcing.
This interplay of mutual reinforcement strengthens the attachment.
ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔evaluation of sages of development - ✔✔- problems with asocial stage as baby has
no coordination and is immobile so judgements on behaviour can not be made when
this young
- problems with multiple attachments as not clear when baby forms second attachment
as different in collectivist cultures
- the stage theory suggests that development of attachment is not flexible
+application as gives a mothers point of view of their child's progress in attachment
✔✔Lorenz's Research - ✔✔Lorenz randomly divided goose eggs. Half of them hatched
in a natural environment with their mother. The others hatched in an incubator and the
first moving thing they saw was Lorenz.
Incubator group followed Lorenz and the control group followed the mother duck. This
was imprinting whereby bird species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the
first moving object they see. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs
to take place this can be as brief as a few hours after hatching. if they did not form an
attachment in this time Lorenz found that the chicks did not attach themselves to a
mother figure
✔✔Evaluation of Lorenz's research - ✔✔- research may not generalise to other animals
let alone humans
- observations can be questioned. E.g. the idea that imprinting has a permanent effect
on mating behaviour. Guiton et al found that some chickens imprinted on yellow
washing up gloves would try and mate with them as well as adults. But with experience
they learnt they preferred to mate with other chickens. This suggests that the impact of
imprinting on mating behaviour is not permanent as Lorenz believed.
✔✔sexual imprinting - ✔✔Lorenz investigate the relationship between imprinting and
adult mate preference. He observed that birds that imprinted on humans will later show
courtship behaviour towards the humans. E.g. in a case study Lorenz described a
peacock that had been reared in a retile house at a zoo. The first thing the peacock saw
when born as a giant tortoise. As an adult the peacock showed courtship behaviour
toward the giant tortoise therefore had undergone sexual imprinting.
✔✔Harlow's Research evaluation - ✔✔-highly unethical
+ real life application for social workers as they understand the effects of neglect and
abuse
+can generalise better to humans that Lorenz's study of goose
✔✔Harlow's research - ✔✔Harlow tested the idea that soft object serves some of the
functions of a mother. In one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire
model mothers. In one condition milk was dispensed from the plain wire mother
whereas in the second condition milk was dispensed from the cloth covered mother.
, it was found that the monkeys cuddled and sought comfort when frightened from the
cloth mother over the wire mother even when the wire mother dispensed milk. This
shows that contact comfort is more important to monkeys than food when it came to
attachment behaviour.
✔✔what is the importance of comfort contact - ✔✔Harlow observed that new-born kept
alone in a bare cage usually died but survived if they had something soft like a cloth
✔✔Maternally deprived monkeys as adults (Harlow) - ✔✔Harlow followed the monkeys
into adult hood to see if the effects of not having a real mother, being maternally
deprived had any permanent effects. The researchers found sever consequences. The
monkeys reared by only the wire mother were the most dysfunctional even those reared
with the cloth mother did not develop normal social behaviour. They were more
aggressive less sociable and bred less often than other monkeys (as they were
unskilled at mating). As mothers the deprived monkeys neglected their children and
sometimes attacked their children even killing them
✔✔the critical period for normal development (Harlow) - ✔✔A mother had to be
introduced to the infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. After this time
attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became
irreversible
✔✔learning theory - ✔✔behaviourist approach that emphasises the role of learning in
the acquisition of behaviour e.g. classical and operant conditioning.
✔✔Dollard and Miller - ✔✔proposed that caregiver-infant attachment can be explained
by the learning theory. Their approach is often referred to as 'the cupboard of love'
approach as it emphasise the importance of the caregiver being the provider of food.
They proposed that children love to learn whoever gives them food.
✔✔classical conditioning - ✔✔involves learning to associate two stimuli together so the
response you give to one will also be given for the other. Food was the UCS, and the
pleasure from the food is the UCR. The caregiver is the neutral stimulus and over time
they will be associated with food and so become a conditioned stimulus. After
conditioning if the caregiver is seen the infant will produce a conditioned response of
pleasure.
✔✔operant conditioning - ✔✔involves learning to repeat a behaviour, or not depending
on the consequences. If it is a pleasant consequence the behaviour is more likely to be
repeated and so the behaviour is reinforced. This explains why babies cry for comfort.
Crying leads to a response form the caregiver e.g. food and comfort, as long as the
caregiver gives the right response (food and 'social suppressor') the crying is reinforced.
At the same time the caregiver receives negative reinforcement because the crying
stops escaping from something unpleasant is reinforcing.
This interplay of mutual reinforcement strengthens the attachment.
