Here is a summary of evidence to use when discussing Brown and Kulik’s FBM theory: SUPPORTING EVIDENCE Brown and Kulik conducted a study to test their theory using 80 American participants – 40 African American and 40 caucasian. They were asked questions about 10 events, 9 being very famous public events (e.g. assassinations of public figures like JFK and MLK) …
Schema Theory Teaching Resources
The first topic in Social Influence Part II (support pack coming soon) is Schema Theory. This topic comes after learning about SIT and the out-group homogeneity effect as the latter is closely related to schema theory, an both topics deal with stereotypes. Here’s the first pages of the student workbook for the Schema Theory Topic (Download). Here’s the Powerpoint file that has …
Lesson Ideas: Schema Theory
The first step in teaching schema theory is getting students to comprehend the abstract concept of “schemas” in the first place. In my experience, takes a couple of lessons at least. In our ThemEd Facebook group for IB Psychology Teachers (Join Here) I recently asked our members for some help in coming up with ideas. There were so many great …
Schema Theory: A Summary
Updated, July 2020 Schema theory is perhaps the most difficult theory in psychology to comprehend. But once you understand it, you’ll see the effects of schema everywhere. In this post, we’ll break down the theory step-by-step. What is schema theory? Schema theory’s central claim is that our knowledge of the world is organized and categorized, which can influence our cognition …
Flashbulb Memory Theory (Brown and Kulik, 1977)
Flashbulb memories are “memories for the circumstances in which one first learned of a very surprising and consequential (or emotionally arousing) event.” (Brown and Kulik, 1977). For example, remembering where you were when you found out you got accepted into your dream college, that a loved one had passed away or a public news event like the death of a …
Wason Task Studies
Wason Task studies provide some evidence to support the idea of two systems of processing, as described in the dual processing model of decision making. To recap, the dual processing model of decision making posits that we have two systems for processing information: System One: fast, automatic and intuitive System Two: slow, controlled and rational In the Wason Task, participants …
Key Study: Cortisol and Memory (Buchanan and Lovallo, 2001)
This study can be found in Chapter 4 of the Student’s Guide. Background Studies conducted before this experiment in 2001 showed that cortisol can have a detrimental effect on memory. Animal studies, however, had shown the opposite: stress can improve memory. This was the first study (at the time) that investigated the influence of cortisol on emotional memory in humans. …
Working Memory Games
Before diving in to the study of Baddeley and Hitch’s working memory model, it’s important that you first comprehend what “working memory” is. I’ve found that playing some of these games is a fun way to comprehend the concept of working memory and it will make your it easier to understand your teacher’s explanations of things like the central executive, …
If you’re interested: Clive Wearing
There’s never enough time to cover everything in our IB Psychology course, so here are a few resources that might not fit in normal classes, but you might find interesting nonetheless. Clive Wearing is very similar to the famous case of HM (Henry Molaison). However, whereas HM’s hippocampus was damaged due to surgery, Wearing’s was damaged due to an illness. …
What is “inattentional blindess?”
This is the first in a series of short posts that I’ll write that aim to quickly outline key concepts in psychology. Inattentional blindness is the name given to the phenomenon of not being able to see or perceive a visual stimulus, even when it’s right in front of our visual field because our attention is diverted elsewhere. This was famously …