4.3.1 Watson and Rayner, Becker, Bastian and Capafons studies Quiz: Pearson Edexcel Psychology, Unit 4

The 20 questions

1. In Watson and Rayner's (1920) study, what was the conditioned stimulus?

   • A white rat, which was initially neutral and came to produce fear in the infant after being paired with the loud noise
   • A loud noise made by striking a steel bar with a hammer, which had caused fear in the infant from the start of the study
   • The infant's mother, whose presence was used as the reinforcer to calm the child during the sessions of the study
   • A fur coat, which was the unconditioned response to the noise and produced fear in the child at every session

2. What was the unconditioned stimulus in Watson and Rayner's Little Albert study?

   • The white rat, which produced fear in Albert from the first trial onward without any pairing with the loud noise
   • The loud noise, which naturally produced a fear response in Albert without any prior learning
   • The researcher's voice, which was used to comfort Albert and so provided the unconditioned stimulus for relaxation
   • The laboratory room, whose environment made Albert anxious and so provided the unconditioned stimulus for the study

3. Watson and Rayner found that Albert's fear generalised to other objects. Which of these was an example of generalisation?

   • Albert's fear spread to the researcher's office, which was a neutral environment with no animal in it at any time
   • Albert's fear spread to a rabbit and a fur coat, which were similar in appearance to the original white rat
   • Albert's fear was removed by the researchers, who gave him a sweet every time he looked at the white rat
   • Albert's fear disappeared completely after the first session, showing that the response was not learned at all

4. Why is Watson and Rayner's Little Albert study considered unethical by modern standards?

   • Because the study used a laboratory, which has been banned for any research that involves young children in the UK
   • Because the study used a questionnaire, which has been shown to damage the mental health of infants in every case
   • Because the study used a white rat, which is an animal that is not allowed to be used in any psychology research at all
   • Because Albert was an infant who was deliberately conditioned to fear, and the fear was not removed before he left the study

5. What was the main aim of Watson and Rayner's study?

   • To show that the id causes fear in infants, which Freud had suggested in his early work on childhood development
   • To show that fears such as phobias could be acquired through classical conditioning, supporting a learning explanation
   • To show that infants cannot learn anything before the age of five, so learning theories cannot apply to babies at all
   • To show that fears are inherited from parents through genes, so no learning is needed for any fear to develop in a child

6. Becker et al. (2002) studied eating behaviours after television was introduced to Fiji. What did they find?

   • Eating disorder symptoms were found only in boys, while the girls showed no change in their eating attitudes at any point
   • Eating disorder symptoms disappeared completely, because the television programmes taught the girls healthy eating habits
   • Eating disorder symptoms, such as self-induced vomiting and dieting attitudes, increased among the adolescent girls studied
   • Eating disorder symptoms were unaffected, showing that television has no influence on the attitudes of young people at all

7. Which social learning concept is most relevant to explaining Becker et al.'s findings?

   • Primary reinforcement from the food itself, which is the only factor that could explain increases in eating
   • Extinction of a conditioned response to food after the girls were repeatedly exposed to images of food
   • Spontaneous recovery of a fear response after the television was switched off for a period of rest
   • Modelling of thin ideals and eating behaviours observed on television, which adolescents may imitate

8. Bastian et al. (2011) studied violent video games. What did they find about players' attributions of humanity to a victim?

   • Players who had recently played a violent video game attributed more uniquely human emotion to the victim than controls
   • Players who had recently played a violent video game attributed less uniquely human emotion to the victim than controls
   • Players attributed the same level of humanity to the victim whether or not they had played any video game beforehand
   • Players could not recall the victim at all, showing that video games remove any memory of the people in the game

9. What is the term used for the effect Bastian et al. described, where people are seen as less than fully human?

   • Observational learning of the id, in which players unconsciously copy the aggressive drives of the characters in games
   • Stimulus generalisation, in which a response to one game character spreads to all people that players encounter later
   • Systematic desensitisation, in which a graded hierarchy of frightening scenes gradually reduces the fear of human victims
   • Cyber-dehumanisation, in which violent game play reduces the attribution of uniquely human qualities to other people

10. Capafóns et al. (1998) studied systematic desensitisation for fear of flying. What was the key finding?

    • Systematic desensitisation increased fear of flying, because the relaxation procedure caused the participants to panic more
    • Systematic desensitisation reduced fear of flying more than no treatment, which supported its use for specific phobias
    • Systematic desensitisation worked only for participants who had never flown before, showing that it cannot treat fear of flying
    • Systematic desensitisation had no effect on fear of flying, so the treatment was abandoned by the researchers after the study

11. Which feature of Capafóns et al.'s study suggests the findings are of practical use?

    • The treatment was applied only to animals, so the findings could not be used in any human clinical setting at all
    • The treatment was applied to a fear of spiders kept in a glass box, so it had no relevance to any real-world phobia
    • The treatment was applied only in a dream, so its effects on real behaviour could not be measured by the researchers
    • The treatment was applied to a real fear, flying, and its effect was measured in terms of reduced fear and avoidance

12. Which of these is a common strength of the four studies in 4.3 (Watson and Rayner, Becker, Bastian, Capafóns)?

    • They each avoid any link to learning theory, so they provide evidence for biological explanations of behaviour only
    • They each link learning theory to a real behaviour or emotion, using a defined and measurable outcome
    • They each rely only on the personal interview of a single participant, so they offer rich but unverifiable case evidence
    • They each use unknown outcomes that cannot be measured, so their findings are impossible to test with any statistics

13. A critic argues that Watson and Rayner's findings from one infant cannot be generalised. Which is the most valid response?

    • A single case study always shows how all infants behave, so the findings can be applied to every child in the world
    • A single case study has limited generalisability, so the findings should be treated with caution until replicated
    • A single case study is valid only if it was carried out with an adult, so the infant data must always be disregarded
    • A single case study is invalid because it included a rat, which means that no conclusion from it can ever be drawn

14. Which of these best describes the ethical lesson from Watson and Rayner's study for modern research?

    • Researchers must protect participants from harm, including ensuring that any distress caused is reversed before the study ends
    • Researchers may cause any distress they like, provided the study is published in a major journal with a high impact factor
    • Researchers need never consider ethics with infants, since infants are not capable of experiencing fear or any other emotion
    • Researchers need only obtain consent from the infant, which is always sufficient for the protection of any child in research

15. Becker et al.'s study used a natural experiment. Which feature of a natural experiment is most relevant to this study?

    • The researchers randomly assigned girls to different television conditions in a laboratory with full control of every factor
    • The researchers manipulated the food available to each girl, which was the only variable changed during the entire study
    • The change in exposure to television happened naturally in the community, rather than being manipulated by the researchers
    • The researchers had no contact with the community, so the television change was measured only by reading old records

16. Which of these is a valid criticism of Bastian et al.'s research on violent video games?

    • It is based on brain scans of the entire population of gamers, so it cannot be generalised to individuals at all
    • It is correlational or laboratory-based, so it may not reflect the long-term effects of gaming in everyday life
    • It is based on a sample of infants, so it cannot be applied to any adult who has ever played a video game before
    • It is based on the id, which cannot be measured, so the study has no evidence to support any of its conclusions

17. Which concept links the four studies in 4.3 to the wider theme of learning theories?

    • The unconscious id, which drives all behaviour and cannot be affected by any experience or environmental factor at all
    • Individual differences in genes, which are fixed at birth and cannot be changed by any learning experience in life
    • Hormonal changes at puberty, which are the only factor that explains changes in eating, fear and aggression in people
    • Learning from environmental experiences, such as conditioning, modelling and exposure, shapes emotions and behaviour

18. A researcher uses Becker et al.'s findings to argue that media causes eating disorders in all adolescents. What is the best evaluation of this claim?

    • The claim is fully supported, since the Becker study showed that every adolescent exposed to any media develops an eating disorder
    • The claim is incorrect, since adolescents are never influenced by the people they observe, whatever the media context
    • The claim goes beyond the evidence, since media exposure is one factor among many, and effects vary between individuals
    • The claim is irrelevant, since media cannot influence any attitude or behaviour in young people in any setting at all

19. How was Little Albert's fear measured in Watson and Rayner's study?

    • By asking Albert to rate his fear on a scale from one to ten after each trial, using a simple picture chart
    • By giving Albert an IQ test before and after each conditioning trial, and comparing his scores across sessions
    • By observing and recording his reactions, such as crying, withdrawal and avoidance, when the stimuli were presented
    • By measuring the number of hours Albert slept between sessions, which was taken as a direct index of his level of fear

20. In Watson and Rayner's study, what was the conditioned response?

    • The loud noise itself, which caused a natural startle response from Albert at the start of the procedure
    • The laboratory setting, which became associated with the rat after the first session of the study had ended
    • Crying at the researcher's face, which was a response to the facial expression of the researcher in every session
    • Fear of the white rat, produced after the rat had been paired with the loud noise over several trials

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