Bandura et al.

(1961)
Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models.

Background and aim: Previous studies have shown that children readily imitated
behaviour exhibited by an adult model in the presence of the model and also in the
same setting when the model is absent. The aim was to investigate if children
observing aggressive acts committed by adults in one setting would reproduce those
acts in another setting when the adult role model was absent.

Four hypotheses were tested:

 Children observing aggression modelled by an adult will imitate the behaviour,
even if the model was no longer present.
 Non-aggressive models will result in an aggression-inhibiting behaviour (self-
control).
 Children will imitate the behaviour of the same sex model more than that of a
model of the opposite sex.

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 Boys will show more aggressive behaviour than girls, with highest aggression being
demonstrated by boys exposed to a male model.
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Method: This was a laboratory experiment. Bandura worked with Stanford University
and drew his sample from the university’s nursery school. All the participants were in
the age group of 3 years to 6 years, with the average age being 4 years and 4 months.
It was a mixed gender group of 36 girls and 36 boys.
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The children were divided into three groups. There were equal number of girls and
boys in each group. To the extent possible, members of each group were matched for
their general level of aggression. They were then distributed into further sub-groups
as follows:
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Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3

Aggressive Non-aggressive Control group
model model

Same sex 6 female 6 female No model

model participants participants 12 female participants, 12
6 male 6 male male participants
participants participants

Opposite sex 6 female 6 female

model participants participants
6 male 6 male
participants participants

Each child in condition 1 was exposed for about 10 minutes to a model showing
physical and verbal aggression towards an inflatable Bobo doll. Children in condition
2 were exposed for a similar period to a non-aggressive model who assembled toys.
Children in the control group did not see any model.

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 All the children were then taken
individually to play in a room full of toys.
After a short while the child was told that
the toys were for other children. The
child was then taken to a third room filled
with aggressive and non-aggressive toys,
including a Bobo doll.

The child was allowed to play in this room

for 20 minutes while the researchers
observed her/him from behind a one-
way mirror. Measures were taken of
physical and verbal aggression that
imitated the earlier model. Researchers
also measured the child’s non-imitative
aggressive behaviour.

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Results: Children exposed to aggressive behaviour imitated the same aggression
physically and verbally. This indicated the role of observational learning. Participants
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exposed to the non-aggressive model and those in the control group did not
demonstrate this aggressive behaviour.

The results for testing aggression-inhibiting behaviour were mixed. Children who
observed the non-aggressive male model showed much less non-imitative aggressive
behaviour than the control group. However, boys who observed the opposite sex non-
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aggressive model showed more imitative aggressive behaviour as compared to boys
in the control group.

Violent behaviour by boys in condition 1 was influenced significantly more by an

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aggressive male model than by an aggressive female model. Results for girls were less
extreme. They did, however, appear more influenced by an aggressive female model
than by an aggressive male model. In same sex aggressive conditions, girls were more
likely to imitate verbal aggression while boys showed more physical aggression. In all
the conditions boys were more physically aggressive than girls.

Conclusion: This experiment demonstrated that children can learn behaviour, here
aggressive behaviour, through observation and imitation of an adult model. The
learning can occur even when the model is not physically present. The child may learn
the behaviour even without reinforcement and deliberate teaching. The study also
highlighted how young children may be affected by exposure to violence in real life or
as depicted in the media. Both boys and girls are more likely to learn masculine
behaviour such as physical aggression from a male adult than a female. While verbal
aggression is more likely to be imitated from a same-sex adult.

Evaluation
Sampling Bias: The participants were from a single nursery and were children of
University, therefore is biased and ungeneralisable. However, the age group of the

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sample was appropriate for demonstrating social learning. This is a critical learning
period for cognitive development and the child is sensitive to environmental cues.
A mixed gender sample ensured that questions around gender differences were
addressed. Aggressive behaviour is thought to vary in females and males, so this study
offered data to study this possibility.

Validity: This study has low levels of ecological validity, as this was an artificial
situation, with the children watching unusual adult aggression towards a toy. The
modelled aggression was not standardised across each child. Furthermore, the initial
level of aggressiveness in the child may not have been accurately measured since it
was based only on observations by parents and teachers, and therefore allocation to
groups may not have been matched pairs by level of aggressiveness.

Research Method: The study was conducted in a controlled laboratory environment,

enabling the researchers to study specific behaviour in great detail. Procedures were
standardised and extraneous variables were minimised, therefore all positive were

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exposed to same conditions. Furthermore the study is easily replicated. However, lab
studies are also prone to demand characteristics which may have affected the results,
children were reported as saying that they were supposed to hit the Bobo Doll.
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Exam Style Questions
1. Who were the participants in Bandura et al.’s study? (1)
A. Boys and Girls aged between three and six years old
B. Boys and Girls aged between three and five years old
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C. Boys and Girls aged between two and five years old
D. Boys and Girls aged between two and six years old

2. Outline one conclusion from Bandura et al.’s study. (2)

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3. Describe one weakness of the research method used by Bandura et al. (3)

4. Describe the procedures in Bandura et al.’s study (4)

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Exam Style Questions – With Answers
1. Who were the participants in Bandura’s study? (1)
A. Boys and Girls aged between three and six years’ old.

2. Outline one conclusion from Bandura et al.’s study. (2)

Bandura concluded that children can learn aggressive behaviour through the
observation and imitation of an adult role model, this learning can take place even
when the model is not physically present

3. Describe one weakness of the research method used by Bandura et al. (3)
One weakness of the lab experiment used by Bandura, is that it lacks ecological
validity. The procedures involved a child being put into an artificial environment,
where they watched an unknown person being aggressive to a doll. This is not
something which happen in everyday life and aggressive towards a doll cannot be
generalised to aggressive other humans, further the children may have behaved the
way did because of demand characteristics rather than learned aggression.

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4. Describe the procedures in Bandura et al.’s study (4)
Children were divided into separate groups, firstly into same-sex or opposite sex
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model conditions and then further divided into an aggressive condition, a non-
aggressive condition and a control group who did not see a model. The children in
the experimental groups were observed their model. They were all then placed into
a room of toys but were informed they were not for them to play with. Finally, they
were all then allowed to play for 20 minutes with aggressive and non-aggressive
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toys, including a Bobo doll – their behaviour was observed through a one-way
mirror. Procedures were standardised and highly controlled.
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Baron-Cohen (1997)
Another Advanced Test of Theory of Mind: Evidence From Very High Functioning Adults
With Autism or Asperger Syndrome.

Background and aim: Baron Cohen developed his famous Theory of Mind (TOM) in
1990, which proposes that all people with Autism have a severe impairment in their
understanding of mental states and in their appreciation of how mental states affect
behaviour. People with Autism lack TOM. However, not all research findings agree on
this. Because of the large variation in the degree individuals are affected by autism, a
spectrum was developed. Within the spectrum are those with Asperger Syndrome, who
show the same characteristics as autism but are of average or above average
intelligence and seem to have good communication skills. Happé (1994) tested adults
with autism or AS on an ‘advanced’ TOM task and found they had more difficulty with
mental state stories (Happé’s Strange Stories) than controls. Following on from this,
Baron-Cohen used an adult test to assess TOM in high-functioning adults with Autism or
AS.

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Method: The sample for this study was made up of high-functioning adults with Autism
or AS. There were also adults with Tourette Syndrome (TS) and an aged-matched group
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of ‘normal’ adults. All participants were of average intelligence - the experimental design
was matched pairs. The AS/Autism group consisted of 13 males and 3 females and
responded to an advert in the National Autistic Magazine. The control group were 25
males and 25 females from the general population in Cambridge and 8 males and 2
females with TS from a tertiary referral centre in London. Therefore, the type of person
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likely to have TOM deficits was the IV, as this was naturally occurring. This can be
considered a quasi- experiment.

Participants were given 25 black and white

photographs of the eyes of different male and
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female faces and were asked to choose one of

two words which best described what the
person in the photograph was feeling or
thinking. Furthermore, they were given a
Gender Recognition Task where they simply
had to identify whether the eyes were male
or female (not a mind reading task). A Basic
Emotion Recognition Task was also carried
out, which involved judging emotions of
whole faces. This was done to check whether
difficulties on the Eyes Task were due to
difficulties with basic emotional recognition.
Happé’s Strange Stories were used to
validate the results from the Eyes Task, as
participants answered questions on what the
characters in the stories were thinking. The
four tasks were completed in a random order,
either at home, in a clinic or in a lab at Cambridge University.

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Results: The mean scores from these tests was the DV. On the eyes task, ‘normal’ adults
(20.3) and those with TS (20.4) had significantly higher mean scores than the Autism/AS
group (16.3), whereas ‘normal’ females performed better than ‘normal’ males - 21.8
compared to 18.8. Within the autism/AS group there was also no significant correlation
between IQ and performance. On the Strange Stories task, the Autism/AS group made
significantly more errors than the other two groups (no participants with TS made any
errors). There were no significant differences between the groups on the control tasks.

Conclusions: Results from this study provide evidence that adults with
Autism/AS do indeed have an impaired TOM. It can also be concluded that because
some participants within the autism/AS group had degrees and were all of normal
intelligence, we can assume that TOM deficits are independent of general intelligence.

Evaluation

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Validity: This study used two control groups to compare the AS/Autism with; the groups
were also matched on key characteristics such as age and intelligence. As a result,
extraneous variables were minimised. Therefore, the study has high levels of internal
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validity. A further strength was that participants did the four tasks in different orders,
which reduced order effects (e.g. they may do worse on the fourth task as they are
bored or tired). However, the tasks were very artificial and lacked ecological validity;
for example, they were given photographs of eyes, rather than a live person.

Data: Quantitative data was produced which allowed analysis and comparisons to be
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made between the three groups; for example, mean scores out of 25 on the eyes task
were calculated.

Sampling Bias: The small number of participants in the AS/Autism group (16), of which
only 3 were female, make the results difficult to generalise. Furthermore, as this group
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were all volunteers they have certain types of characteristics and may not be
representative of all individuals with these disorders.

Exam Style Questions

1. What experimental design was used in Baron Cohen’s study? (1)
A. Independent Measures
B. Matched Pairs
C. Repeated Measures
D. Quasi-experiment

2. What can we conclude from Baron Cohen’s study on Autism in Adults (2)

3. Describe the three groups of participants in this study (3)

4. Describe the tests participants completed as part of the procedures in Baron Cohen’s
study (4)

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Exam Style Questions – With Answers
1. What experimental design was used in Baron Cohen’s study? (1)
B. Matched Pairs

2. What can we conclude from Baron Cohen’s study on Autism in Adults (2)
It can be concluded that people with Autism and Asperger Syndrome have an impaired
Theory of Mind. This means that they have difficulties understanding what other
people may be thinking or feeling and how it affects their behaviour, and this is not
due to levels of intelligence.

3. Describe the three groups of participants in this study (3)

There were 16 high functioning adults with Autism (4 participants) or Asperger
Syndrome (12 participants) who volunteered to take part in the study. Their TOM was
compared to 10 people with Tourette Syndrome from London and 50 normal controls
who were members of the general population of Cambridge.

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4. Describe the tests participants completed as part of the procedures in Baron Cohen’s
study (4)
Four tasks were given to participants to complete. In the eyes task they were given 25
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black and white photos of eyes along with two words; they were asked to choose the
word which indicated the mental state of the eyes, such as happy or sad. The eyes
were either those of a male or female and participants had to identify which they
belonged to; this was called the Gender Recognition Task. This was a control test to
make sure that the participants could recognise gender. Similarly, the Basic Emotion
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Recognition Test, which involved judging emotions of whole faces, was used to see if
they could perceive emotions in the whole faces. Fourthly, they were asked questions
on what characters in some ‘strange stories’ were thinking.
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Bocchiaro et al. (2012)
Disobedience and Whistleblowing.

Background and aims: Milgram

found that due to situational
factors, levels of obedience to
authority are extremely high,
regardless it seems of our
disposition. Bocchiaro et al.
however wanted to investigate why
people will disobey and who are the
people that disobey or even blow
the whistle. Why do they choose the
challenging moral path?
Furthermore, do these people
actually have personal characteristics that make them different? Bocchiaro et al. also

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predicted that as Milgram found, there is a large difference between people’s
predictions of their own and others’ levels of obedience/disobedience when compared
with the actual behaviour they portray.
PL
Method: Although this study took place in a laboratory at VU University in Amsterdam,
as was the case with Milgram’s study (at Yale), there was no IV or DV. Therefore, it was
not an experiment and was classed as a ‘scenario study’. 96 female and 53 male
University students made up the sample of 149 participants, with a mean age of 20.8
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years old. The undergraduates were paid either €7 or they received course credits. Prior
to the study, 8 pilot studies took place to check that the procedure was credible and
ethical.

On arrival, each participant was met by a male, Dutch experimenter who was formally
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dressed with a stern demeanour. He then asked participants to give names of other
students; this was followed by the ‘cover story’. Participants were told that there was
an investigation into sensory deprivation on brain function. Recent research in Rome
had completely isolated six participants which had some disastrous effects with most
participants reporting a frightening experience - two had requested to withdraw from
the study but were not allowed to do so because these would lead to data being invalid.
The researchers wanted to replicate the study at VU University and a Research
Committee was deciding whether to approve the study and were collecting feedback
from students who knew details about the experiment, to help inform their decision.

Participants were asked to write a statement to convince other students to participate

in the study. These statements would be sent to these identified students by mail. The
researcher left the room for three minutes to allow participants to reflect on what they
were going to do; they were then moved to a second room where there was a computer
for them to use to write their statement, a mailbox and the Research Committee’s
feedback forms. Participants were asked to be enthusiastic in their statements and had
to use two adjectives which included “exciting”, “incredible”, “great” and “superb”.
Negative effects of sensory deprivation were not to be mentioned. Participants were

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given seven minutes to complete these tasks alone. There was the opportunity for
participants to anonymously challenge the ethics of the research by putting a form in
the mailbox. The researcher then returned, administered two personality inventories,
probed for suspicion, fully debriefed the students and asked them to sign a second
consent form, which this time gave full informed consent. A description of the situation
was also given to a comparison group, who were then asked if they were in this situation
“What would you do?” and “What would the average student at your university do?”

Results: Out the 149 participants, 76.5% obeyed the experimenter, 14.1% disobeyed
and 9.4% became whistle-blowers. Out of the 14 whistle-blowers, 9 of them wrote an
anonymous message, while 5 of them were open whistle-blowers. Bocchiaro reported
no significant differences in results from different groups in relation to personality,
gender or religious affiliation or involvement. The only significant result was that
whistle-blowers were more likely to have a faith (defined as a confident belief in a
transcendent reality).

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Qualitative data from the study showed that participants obeyed because of situational
factors: ‘‘I cooperated because the experimenter asked me to.’’ They had entered the
agentic state and were not responsible for their behaviour. In contrast, those who
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disobeyed reported feelings of responsibility: ‘‘I don’t want to do unethical things, I
would be very disappointed in myself’’.

Out of all the participants in the comparison group, just 3.6% stated they would obey
the orders, 31.9% reported that they would be disobedient and a further 64.5% said that
they would be a whistle-blower. When predicting the behaviour of average students at
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the University, only 18.8% thought other students would obey, while 43.9% suggested
they would disobey, while 37.3% predicted that the typical student would whistle-blow.

Conclusion: Despite the authority figure asking people tend to carry out clearly unjust
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orders, the majority of us will still obey; these findings are similar to what Milgram found
in his study. Disobeying and whistleblowing are psychologically, socially and
economically demanding for people, particularly for whistleblowers (although
whistleblowers have more faith than either obedient or disobedient people) which may
explain why we do not readily behave in this way. Behaving in a moral manner is
challenging for people, even when the reaction appears to observers as the simplest
path to follow. What we think we may do and what we think others may do in such a
scenario are very different to how we actually behave.

Evaluation
Research method: This study was conducted in a lab which was highly controlled,
procedures were standardised and it can be easily replicated. However, the cover story
was very contrived and participants may have worked out the aim which could have
led to demand characteristics. In order to overcome this issue, Bocchiaro et al. did
remove 11 participants from the initial sample, due to their ‘suspiciousness’.

Ethical considerations: Participants were deceived, as they were told that they were
helping researchers recruit participants for an unethical study; these were of course not

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the true aims. However, they did have the right to withdraw at any time without
penalty. They were also assured of the confidentiality of the data and they were also
fully debriefed at the end of the study and full informed consent was then gained.

Sampling bias and Ethnocentrism: Despite the sample being quite large and including
both males and females, the sample of Dutch students is not representative of the
target population and therefore results cannot be generalised. It might be said that
students are more likely to disobey than non-students.

Data: Both qualitative and quantitative data was obtained. Qualitative data was gained
during the debrief and the students explained reasons for their actions, giving us a
greater insight into why people obeyed, disobeyed or blew the whistle. Percentages and
personality scores provided quantitative data and allowed easy comparison and analysis
of results.

Exam Style Questions

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1. Where did Bocchiaro et al.’s study take place?
A. London
B. Paris
C. Amsterdam
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D. Brussels

2. Outline the aim of this study (2)

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3. Describe some ethical considerations in Bocchiaro et al.’s study (3)

4. Describe the results from Bocchiaro et al.’s study? (4)

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Exam Style Questions – With Answers
1. Where did Bocchiaro et al.’s study take place?
C. Amsterdam

2. Outline the aim of this study (2)

Bocchiaro’s aim was to find out why people disobey and whistleblow and what kind
of people they are. They also wanted to see if these people have different
personalities to those who are obedient.

3. Describe some ethical considerations in Bocchiaro et al’s study (3)

Although this study was unethical Bocchiaro did take steps to make the study more
ethical. Participants were given the right to withdraw without any consequences. All
of the participants’ results and personal information remained confidential. A full
debriefing took place at the end of the study, informing participants of the previous
deception and full informed consent was taken at this point.

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4. Describe the results from Bocchiaro et al.’s study? (4)
76.5% obeyed, 14.1% disobeyed and 9.4% became whistle-blowers. 9 out 14
whistleblowers did so anonymously, while the other 5 were open whistle-blowers.
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This was not what the comparison group suggested they would do. Only 3.6% of them
stated they would obey, 31.9% said they would disobey, while 64.5% suggested they
would be a whistle-blower.
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Casey et al. (2011)
Behavioural and Neural Correlates of Delay of Gratification 40 Years Later.

Background and aim: Mischel’s famous

marshmallow test investigated whether
children could delay gratification by
receiving a second marshmallow if they
resisted the temptation to eat it for 15
minutes; only 1/3 were able to resist. Eigsti
(2006) found that performance on a delay-
of-gratification task in childhood predicted
how well they performed a cognitive
control task as adolescents and young
adults. Casey et al aimed to build on these
findings to see whether delay of
gratification in childhood predicts impulse

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control abilities and sensitivity to alluring or
social cues in adulthood. Alluring qualities of targets in an impulse control task were
manipulated to examine behavioural and neural correlates of delay of gratification
using fMRI scans.
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Method: This was a quasi-experiment because the IV was whether the participant was
a high delayer or a low delayer, which was naturally occurring. The DV was the reaction
times and accuracy on the impulse control task and brain imaging results using fMRI.
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Because some participants completed self-control scales when in their 20s and 30s and
that those participating in Experiment 1 did both the “hot” and “cool” go/nogo tasks
means the study had, in parts, a repeated measures design. The study was also a
longitudinal study as some participants had been tested from the age of four years old.
562 four-year-old pupils from Stanford’s Bing Nursery School completed a delay-of-
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gratification task during the late 1960s and early 1970s. 155 of them completed self-
control scales in 1993 and then 135 of them did so again in 2003. The 117 of them who
were above or below average in their original delay-of-gratification performance as well
as in self-reported measures of self-control were invited to participate in this study, of
which 23 males and 36 females agreed. Participants were classified as low (32) or high
(27) delayers which was based on their delay-of-gratification performance and the self-
control measures. Of the 59 participants, 15 high delayers (5 male, 10 female) and 11
low delayers (7 male, 4 female) also took part in the fMRI experiment.

The first experiment tested whether individuals who were less able to delay gratification
as children and young adults (low delayers) would show less impulse control in the
suppression of a response in adulthood in a “hot” and “cool” impulse control task.
Participants completed two versions of the go/no-go task. The “cool” version consisted
of male and female stimuli: one sex was presented as a “go” (target) stimulus to which
participants were instructed to press a button, and the other sex as a “no-go” (non-
target) stimulus for which they should not press the button. Before this, a screen
indicated which stimulus was the target. Participants were asked to respond as quickly
and accurately as possible. Each face appeared for half a second, followed by a 1 second

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interval. 120 go and 40 no-go trials were presented. The “hot” version of the task was
identical, except that fearful (no-go) and happy (go) facial expressions were the stimuli.
The tasks were presented using programmed laptop computers sent to participants’
homes.

In experiment 2, an fMRI examined neural correlates of delay of gratification. It was

thought that low delayers would show low activity in the right prefrontal cortex and
high activity in the ventral striatum compared to high delayers. A “hot” version of the
go/no-go task similar to that used in Experiment 1 was carried out, but there were
differences in time intervals, which ranged from 2 to 14.5 seconds in duration, and in
the number of trials: image data was gathered for 26 no-go and 70 go trials for each
expression. The task was viewed on a projection screen and a neuroscreen five-button
response pad recorded button responses and reaction times.

Results: Experiment 1- There were no differences in reaction times, or in terms of

accuracy on go trials. However, low delayers made more mistakes on the no-go trials,

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by recording more false alarms than high delayers. Performance was similar on the cool
task, but the low delayers’ performance on the hot task got worse. Therefore, those
who had more difficulty delaying gratification at four years of age, showed more
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difficulty as adults in suppressing responses to happy faces than the high delayers.

Experiment 2 –Performance and accuracy on different tasks was similar to experiment

1. The fMRI showed candidate regions of the brain differentially engaged as a function
of cognitive control tasks. The right inferior frontal gyrus was involved in accurately
withholding a response. Low delayers had less activity in the inferior frontal gyrus for
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correct no-go trials. The ventral striatum (associated with rewards) showed increased
activity to happy no-go trials for low delayers compared to high delayers. This shows
that the prefrontal cortex differentiated between no-go and go trials to a greater extent
in high delayers, while the ventral striatum showed exaggerated activity in low delayers.
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Conclusions: Sensitivity to environmental hot cues plays a significant role in an

individual’s ability to suppress actions toward alluring cues. Resistance to temptation is
a relatively stable individual difference that predicts biases in frontostriatal circuitries
that integrate motivational and control processes. Being able to resist temptation is
context dependent. The more tempting the choice, the more predictable are individual
differences in peoples’ ability to regulate their behaviour. Behavioural correlates of
delay ability are a function not only of cognitive control but also of the compelling nature
of the stimuli that must be suppressed. Children who have difficulty delaying
gratification and who continue to show reduced self-control have more difficulty
suppressing responses to positive social cues in adulthood.

Evaluation
Research method: A quasi-experiment allows researchers to study natural behaviour
that cannot be manipulated. However, problems with this are that extraneous variables
cannot be controlled; for example, there could have been other traits that made
participants respond to the go, no-go task as they did. Furthermore, the longitudinal
nature of the study allows us to see how behaviour develops over time and whether

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childhood responses are still true in adulthood. However, as seen in this study there was
attrition of participants, which may lead to the remaining sample being biased.

Ethical considerations: Informed consent was gained initially from parents and then
from themselves as adults in this particular study. No deception occurred and
participants clearly had the right to withdraw, as a number didn’t participate in
experiment 2.

Ethnocentrism: Although the sample was Americans, the study was investigating human
anatomy and physiology and therefore this species-specific behaviour can be applied to
all humans. However, there is Western bias as it focuses on individual gratification; in
collectivist cultures the needs of the group are more important and this may therefore
affect results in such a task.

Exam Style Questions

1. What was the ‘go’ stimulus in the ‘hot’ task in Casey et al.’s study (1)

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A. Fearful Face
B. Female Face
C. Happy Face
D. Male Face
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2. Describe one similarity between Sperry’s study and Casey et al.’s study. (2)

3. Describe how Casey et al.’s study relates to the key theme “regions of the brain”. (3)
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4. Describe the results in Casey et al.’s study (4)
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Exam Style Questions – With Answers
1. What was the stimulus in the ‘hot’ task in Casey et al.’s study (1)
C. Happy Face

2. Describe one similarity between Sperry’s study and Casey et al.’s study. (2)
Both studies would be difficult to replicate as Sperry used a rare and difficult to obtain
sample in split brain patients, while Casey’s study was longitudinal in nature, being
conducted over a 40 year period and therefore would be too consuming to repeat
easily.

3. Describe how Casey et al.’s study relates to the key theme “regions of the brain”. (3)
Casey’s aim was to examine behavioural and neural correlates of delay of gratification
using fMRI scans, which relates to the key theme because they were interested in
which parts of the brain control delay of gratification. Two regions of the brain, the
ventral striatum and the inferior frontal gyrus, were found to be involved in self-
control. The use of fMRIs when investigating regions of the brain is shown in this study.

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4. Describe the results in Casey et al.’s study (4)
Results from the first experiment showed no differences in accuracy or reaction times
PL
on the go trials. Low delayers made more mistakes on the no-go trials. On the cool
task, performance was similar but the low delayers’ performed worse on the hot task.
This showed that those who had problems with delayed gratification at 4 continued
to do so as adults. fMRI scans from Experiment 2 showed that low delayers had less
activity in the inferior frontal gyrus for correct no-go trials and increased activity on
M
happy no-go trials for low delayers in the ventral striatum.
SA

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