Pearson BTEC National Applied Psychology: Revision Guide

AO3 Evaluation Wes filled in a magazine questionnaire. One of the questions was, ‘What is your favourite colour?’. His response was ‘yellow’. Later on, a friend asked Wes if he would like some fruit. ‘I’ll have a banana please,’ he replied. 1. Explain why semantic priming is the most appropriate type of cognitive priming to understand Wes’s reply. (3 marks) On her way out to work, Tam’s flatmate says, ‘Don’t forget to get some cat food on your way home.’ Later on, Tam notices a small hole in the skirting board. ‘I bet a mouse did that,’ he thinks. 2. Describe one type of priming that could be used to understand Tam’s comment. (3 marks) Ricky is at the cinema enjoying the adverts before the main feature. One advert is for popcorn. Halfway through the film, Ricky feels hungry so they go into the foyer and the first thing they notice is the popcorn machine. 3. Explain how repetition priming might affect Ricky’s behaviour in the foyer. (3 marks) 4. Select one of these scenarios. Discuss the extent to which cognitive priming can explain the behaviour in that scenario. (3 marks) Apply it Examples are really useful in two ways. They boost your revision because they help you to understand a concept. They’re also useful in exam answers for developing a point and showing the examiner your knowledge. You might even be asked to identify an example of a concept in a scenario. There are four examples of priming on this spread, including the one about the influence of TV advertising. Think carefully about how the example illustrates the concept. Once you feel you’ve really understood a concept, you can come up with your own examples to reinforce your understanding. REVISION BOOSTER Priming might help explain the effects of TV advertising on eating unhealthy snacks. Key concept 4: Cognitive priming A1: Cognitive approach One strength is that priming can help us prevent cognitive causes of obesity. For example, advertising can affect how many snacks people eat because of cognitive priming (Harris et al., facing page). Understanding the effects of priming means we might prevent this from influencing obesity (or direct the influence towards healthy eating instead). This means that education and legislation (although politically difficult) could help to prevent obesity. Another strength is a possible link between video gaming and aggression. Priming might explain the link, e.g. in one study students read a scenario in which someone is accidentally pushed so they spill their drink (Möller and Krahé). Frequent players of violent video games were more likely to interpret the push as deliberate and more likely to choose physical aggression in response. This shows that playing violent video games may prime some people to think and behave aggressively, supporting the concept of associative priming. One weakness of cognitive priming is that it is very diŽcult to study. This is because priming studies are hard to replicate. Replication means a study is repeated using the same procedure, an important feature of science. If the replication produces the same outcome, then we know that this is not a fluke. But replications of priming studies often produce different outcomes. This suggests that the concept of priming is not scientific which means we cannot be confident that the theories are correct. 19 Copyright: Sample material

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