Developmental Approach

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Developmental Approach

Assumption:

a

Implication:

Similarities

Differences

Strengths

Weaknesses

Behaviours

Samuel-Bryant

Background: Piaget developed the stages of a child's cognitive development, that children couldn't conserve until aged 8 in the concrete operational stage rather than the pre-operational stage (animalism) . His methodology was criticized for lacking in child friendly approaches as when being asked twice the child thought they had got the question wrong the first time.

Aim: To investigate the reason under 8's made conservation errors was due to Piaget's methodology.

Lab experiment in classrooms and staffrooms, IV- the age of the child, condition of question, material used; DV- number of errors made

Questioning style: standard (asked q. shown transformation asked again), one judgment (shown transformation, asked q.), fixed array (not shown transformation, asked once)- to see if child could conserve without seeing transformation so they have to reverse transformation mentally.

Sample- opportunity sample- 252 children from schools near Crediton, Devon; aged 5yrs 3ms and 8yrs 3ms. Used repeated measures for material as each child did all the different mediums of materials (as did all conditions of IV); used independent measures for age and question condition.

Procedure:

Migram

Background: Obedience- obey the orders from someone you believe to be a legitimate authority. Milgram was Jewish and he felt guilty about Jews being persecuted in WW2 in Nazi Germany so he wanted to understand how this could have happened.

Aim: To investigate the factors that lead to obedience to a legitimate authority figure.

Method: Controlled observation: has a standardised procedure, environment is set up, observer is looking for certain behaviours in pps.

Location: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Sample: Volunteer sample from local newspaper and mail rounds 40 male Americans aged 20-50 in different occupations from the New Haven area.

:)

:( All males so findings about obedience cannot be generalised to females.

Procedure:

They were met by a man in a white lab coat called Mr Williams who introduced himself as the experimenter

Sample were given $4.50 and told they could keep this even if they quit

They were introduced to Mr Wallace (47 year old accountant) who was a confederate

They were told the study was on the effects of punishment on learning

One of them would be the "teacher" and one would be the "learner", Mr Wallace was always the learner but the pps believed it wasn't rigged

Experimenter explained the punishment would be in the form of electric shocks, they go into an adjoining room where the experimenter and pp. strapped Mr Wallace into the chair with his arms attached to electrodes

Mr Wallace was asked if he had any medical problems and he said he had a heart problem and then given a slight shock of 45v to make pp. believe they were real.

The teacher was supposed to administer electric shocks from a generator that ranged from 'slight shock' to 'danger-severe shock' ranging from 15v to 450v going up in steps of 15v. (NO SHOCKS WERE ADMINISTERED)

The teacher was instructed to deliver a shock each time Mr Wallace made a mistake on a paired-associate word task. With each successive wrong answer the teacher had administer the next highest shock

The learner gave amily wrong answers and was given shocks in silence until 300v when Mr Wallace kicked against the wall and then fell silent, he cried out in pain, complained that his heart was bothering him and then gave no responses

If teacher asked to stop, experimenter had standardised procedure to repeat: Please continue, the experiment requires you to continue, it is absolutely essential that you continue, you have no choice, you must go on. If pp refused after 4 experiment was stopped.

Results:

100% of people went up to 300v

At 300v 5/40 people refused to continue

65% of people went all the way to 450v

Conclusions

Obedience to authority is not a feature of German culture but a seemingly universal feature of human behaviour

People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognize their authority as morally right and / or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.

The prestigious university added legitimacy to the set up/experimenter

Study seemed a worthy cause

Pps believed learner had also volunteered so roles were allocated by chance

Pps obliged to continue as agreed to take part and were being paid

Evaluation

Ethical issues: Informed consent; protection from mental and physical harm; deception; presumptive consent; right to withdraw; observed without permission

Validity: :) Internal (how well you conducted study) :( ecological validity, population validity :s historical validity

Changes:

Carry out in a different culture

More ethical

Freud

Background:

Developmental Approach

Samuel-Bryant

Freud

Milgram