Hodges and Tizard investigated the long-term effects of early institutional care on later social and family relationships. They followed a group of children who had been placed in residential nurseries in the first months of life, where staff turnover was high and close attachments were discouraged. By the age of four, some of these children had been adopted, some had returned to their birth families, and some remained in institutions. The researchers assessed the children again at ages eight and sixteen, using interviews and questionnaires with the young people, their parents, and their teachers. By adolescence, many of the adopted children had formed close attachments to their adoptive parents, often more successfully than children who had returned to their birth families. However, both previously institutionalised groups were, on average, more likely than a comparison group to have difficulties with peers, to seek adult attention, and to be less selective in their friendships. The researchers concluded that early institutional experience was associated with later social difficulties, although a good later environment could support recovery in some respects.

References: Hodges, J. and Tizard, B., 1989. 'Social and family relationships of ex-institutional adolescents.' Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30(1), pp. 77 to 97. source adapted.

Craik and Tulving investigated whether the way information is processed affects how well it is remembered. In a series of experiments, participants were shown a list of words one at a time. For each word, they answered a question that required processing it at one of several levels: a shallow structural level (for example, whether the word was in capital letters), an intermediate phonemic level (for example, whether it rhymed with another word), or a deep semantic level (for example, whether it fitted into a given sentence). Participants were not told that their memory would be tested. Afterwards, they were given an unexpected test in which they had to recognise the words among distractors. Words that had been processed semantically were recognised far better than words processed phonemically, which in turn were recognised better than words processed structurally. The advantage of deep processing held even when the shallow tasks actually took longer to complete. The researchers concluded that deeper, more meaningful processing causes more durable memory, supporting a levels-of-processing account rather than a simple rehearsal account.

References: Craik, F. I. M. and Tulving, E., 1975. 'Depth of processing and the retention of words in episodic memory.' Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104(3), pp. 268 to 294. source adapted.

Bandura, Ross and Ross investigated whether children would imitate aggression they observed in an adult model. Seventy-two nursery-school children were matched on prior aggressiveness and randomly allocated to conditions. In the key conditions, a child watched an adult either behave aggressively toward an inflatable 'Bobo' doll, performing distinctive physical and verbal acts, or behave non-aggressively, or saw no model at all. Each child was then mildly frustrated by being shown attractive toys they were not allowed to keep, and was then observed alone in a room that contained the Bobo doll and other toys. Children who had seen the aggressive model reproduced many of the model's specific aggressive acts, both physical and verbal, far more than children in the non-aggressive or no-model conditions. Boys showed more physical aggression than girls overall, and imitation was somewhat greater when the model was the same sex as the child. The researchers concluded that aggression could be learned through observation and imitation of a model, without the child being directly rewarded for behaving aggressively.

References: Bandura, A., Ross, D. and Ross, S. A., 1961. 'Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models.' Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63(3), pp. 575 to 582. source adapted.