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Psychology Studies/Research summaries, New and Old


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Hey guys!

Hope your studies are all going well, just in the middle of my own psychology revision. Usually,when I'm bored, I look through psychology papers and blogs to see if there could be any new stuff I could add to my essays (predicted 7, really unlikely I'll get it though, oh boy) and thought it would be nice idea for us Psych kids to share any studies/research/theories, new or old with each other.

http://neurosciencestuff.tumblr.com/post/81809491130/oxytocin-the-love-hormone-promotes-group-lying

This is a study about how Oxytocin influences individuals to lie on behalf of their group. I thought it would be a good study to use for the 'Explain the effects of hormones on behaviour' in the BLOA and as part of the 'synthesis' in the SCLOA with regards to conformity/ in-group out-group distinctions.

Here's the basic structure:

Researchers: Shalvi and Dreu (2014)

Aim: To determine how much people lie and what circumstances increase people's honesty

Method: 60 male participants were split up into teams of three. Half of the teams of participants were given an intranasal oxytocin spray whilst the other half received a placebo. Each participant was then asked to predict the outcome of 10 coin tosses, and then to carry out the coin tosses and report whether they had predicted the outcome correctly. For each correct prediction, the participant's team would be given a monetary reward to share amongst themselves.

Findings: The statistical probability of someone predicting 9 out of 10 coin tosses as correct is about 1%, however 53% of the oxytocin group reported their predictions as correct, whereas only 23% of the placebo group reported correct predictions. In another similar study carried out by the researchers, everything was the same with half given oxytocin and the other half given a placebo, however the participants weren't put into teams and the monetary reward would only be given to the individual. They found that even with the oxytocin, there were few to no deceptive reports of correct predictions from each individual.

Conclusion: Oxytocin influenced individuals to lie more readily if the lie would benefit the group rather than themselves. This shows how oxytocin, a hormone, can influence human behaviour as well as provides a biological basis for the 'in-group' mentality.

I'm sure you guys can come up with plenty of evaluations for this, but the main idea is that we share new and old info with each other, what do you think? I hope this takes off and is useful to you all!

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I have one!

My psychology teacher's been giving us some revision papers, and the one we got for BLOA included a 2014 study by Amnese et al that found that they didn't take out as much of HM's hippocampus as was previously thought, but the connection between the hippocampus and the cortex (where there's a lot of acetylcholine receptors) which is called the entorhinal cortex, was completely severed.

Doesn't change a lot in regards to writing an SAQ/essay about it, but might be good to mention it! (Please do let me know if there's some sort of time limit and we're not allowed to write about studies this recent)

I tried to find it online but can't find any info. My teacher wrote the Oxford CC and SG so I'd say she's still fairly reliable ;)

Edited by battlescarves
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Oof, we're not allowed to write about studies this recent? Where does it say that?

No no, that's not what I meant! Sorry! I just meant I'm not sure we're allowed to write about studies this recent... Since we're not allowed to write about anything less than 10 years old for history I thought it might be similar with psychology, but I don't see why it would be :)

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Thank god, I think I nearly had a heart attack D: We're allowed to use the Sharot study about memory and 9/11, and that was done in 2011, so I don't think it's the same in psychology? At the very least, I don't remember reading it anywhere in the syllabus

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