Domain: Cognitive Psychology

Topic: Self-concept (personality)

Practical Investigation 4
Does a person’s self-esteem improve after receiving a
compliment?
Aim: To see if compliments affect self-esteem.
Method: field experiment using a self-esteem questionnaire and a set of generalised
compliments. One group will be given the questionnaires to fill out without being given a
compliment first, the other group will fill out the same questionnaire after being given a
compliment.
Sample: 20 willing volunteers (10 in each condition)
Design: Independent Measures

.
Materials:
A short self-esteem survey (prepare a self-esteem questionnaire/Likert scale. Look at
other self-esteem questionnaires to help you do this)
A list of believable generalised compliments (e.g.‘Your shoes are really smart’, ‘Your
hair is nice today.’ ‘I really like your necklace, t-shirt, trousers or anything else clearly
visible)

You will also need to create all your own ethical materials – i.e. brief, consent form,
specific instructions sheet and debrief.
Hypothesis: you need to devise a suitable null hypothesis and experimental hypothesis
for this study.
You also need to identify the IV and the DV

Once you have done this and created all the materials you must send them to me.
I only need one copy per group, but please ensure every group member has a
copy. I may ok them via email, or invite your group in for a one-to-one meeting.
Once I have given you the OK you can them go on and carry out the experiment as
per the below procedure

Procedure: Recruit participants through opportunity sampling (you need 20 participants,

10 in each condition of the experiment). This is a field experiment
1) Find a quiet place to conduct the experiment. You are probably best to test each
participant individually.
2) Provide participants with the brief and allow them time to read it
3) Once they have fully read the brief, distribute the consent form.
4) Collect completed consent forms and distribute the specific instructions sheet and
answer sheets
5) Allow an opportunity for participants to ask questions.
6) In the compliment condition, give the participant an appropriate compliment (e.g.
if they have a scarf on, compliment that. So basically give an appropriate
compliment for that participant.) In the no compliment condition you do not give
the participants a compliment.
7) Give the participants the questionnaire and ask them to complete it. Tell them
they can take as much time as required.
 8) Collect the questionnaire form them once they have completed it.
9) Hand out debrief form to participants and allow a second opportunity for
questions.

Results: Calculate a self-esteem score for each participant using the scoring system on
your questionnaire/likert scale. Then work out the average self-esteem score for the
compliment condition and for the no compliment condition.
Compare the average self-esteem scores from the compliment condition with the
average self-esteem score from the no compliment condition. Draw a bar graph
representing the two mean scores.
Calculate median, mode and standard deviation for each condition

You are now ready to do the statistics lab. Contact me a to arrange a time for your
group to do this.
Domain: Psychoanalytic Psychology
Topic: Memory and Repression
Practical Investigation 18
Can memory recall for words be affected by the pleasantness of
the words?

Aim: To investigate whether unpleasant words are repressed more than very pleasant
words.
Method: A lab experiment with independent measures; One group will be asked to recall
pleasant words, one group will be asked to recall unpleasant words.
Sample: 20 willing volunteers (10 in each condition)
Design: Independent Measures

Materials:
A list of 20 very pleasant words (eg chocolate, hug, smile, flower, tea)
A list of 20 very unpleasant words (eg shock, breakage, coma, attack)
Blank or lined paper for recording the results for each participant

You will also need to create all your own ethical materials – i.e. brief, consent form,
specific instructions sheet and debrief.
Hypothesis: you need to devise a suitable null hypothesis and experimental hypothesis
for this study.
You also need to identify the IV and the DV

Once you have done this and created all the materials you must send them to me.
I only need one copy per group, but please ensure every group member has a
copy. I may ok them via email, or invite your group in for a one-to-one meeting.
Once I have given you the OK you can them go on and carry out the experiment as
per the below procedure

Procedure: Recruit participants through opportunity sampling (you need 20 participants,

10 in each condition of the experiment). This is a lab experiment
1) Arrange a time for them come to the lab (ideally, you want to test 10 participants
at the same time)
2) Provide participants with the brief and allow them time to read it
3) Once they have fully read the brief, distribute consent forms
4) Collect completed consent forms and distribute the specific instructions sheet and
answer sheets
5) Allow an opportunity for participants to ask questions.
6) For the first condition, read the list of 20 pleasant words.
7) Ask all the participants to write down as many words as they can remember from
the pleasant word list.
8) For the second condition, read out the list of 20 unpleasant words.
9) Ask all the participants to write down as many words as they can remember from
the unpleasant word list.
10) At the end of the specified time collect the answer sheets in.
11) Hand out debrief forms to participants and allow a second opportunity for
questions.
Results: Calculate a recall score for each participant by simply adding up the number of
words that they recall correctly. Then work out the average recall score for the pleasant
words condition and for unpleasant words condition.
Compare the average number of words recalled from the pleasant words condition with
the average number of words from the unpleasant words condition. Draw a bar graph
representing the two mean scores.
Calculate median, mode and standard deviation for each condition

You are now ready to do the statistics lab. Contact me a to arrange a time for your
group to do this.
Domain: Abnormal Psychology
Topic: Atypical disorders
Do people will want more social distance from
the person showing signs of atypical behaviour?

Aim: to test if people desire more social distance from people with perceived atypical
disorders
Method: survey methods using a social distance scale
Sample: 40 willing volunteers (20 in each condition)
Design: Independent measures
Materials:
Two short synopses – one describing an individual without an atypical disorder and
one describing an individual with an atypical disorder
A social distance scale

The synopsis created for the atypical disorder condition must be based upon the
diagnostic criteria for that disorder (as stated in the DSM) but must not state that it is
describing a person with an atypical disorder

You will also need to create all your own ethical materials – i.e. brief, consent form,
specific instructions sheet and debrief.
Hypothesis: you need to devise a suitable null hypothesis and experimental hypothesis
for this study.
You also need to identify the IV and the DV

Once you have done this and created all the materials you must send them to me.
I only need one copy per group, but please ensure every group member has a
copy. I may ok them via email, or invite your group in for a one-to-one meeting.
Once I have given you the OK you can them go on and carry out the experiment as
per the below procedure

Procedure: Recruit participants through opportunity sampling. You need 20 participants

for each condition – so 20 will be given the synopsis of someone with an atypical
disorder and the other 20 participants will be given the synopsis of someone without an
atypical disorder. This is a survey method using a questionnaire so you can give this to
people that agree to take part in the environment that they are in.
1) Provide participants with the brief and allow them time to read it
2) Once they have fully read the brief, distribute consent forms
3) Collect completed consent forms and distribute the specific instructions sheet
4) Allow an opportunity for participants to ask questions. Once these are answered,
give them the synopsis for the atypical condition and the socials distance scale
5) Allow participants as long as they need to complete the social distance scale
6) At the end of the time collect the social distance scale.
7) Hand out debrief forms to participants and allow a second opportunity for
questions.
8) Repeat this procedure with another group of participants with the non-atypcal
synopsis

Results: Give each participant a participant ID number (1-20). Calculate the social
distance scores for each participant by simply adding up the numbers they have circled
on the social distance scale. Give each participant two scores – one for the atypical
condition, and one for the non-atypical condition. Then create a spreadsheet with
participant 1-20 in the first column, the atypical social distance score in the second
column and the non-atypical social distance score column in the third column.
Draw a bar graph representing the two mean scores.
Calculate median, mode and standard deviation for each condition

You are now ready to do the statistics lab. Contact me a to arrange a time for your
group to do this.