Psych

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• Social support is one reason why people fail to obey

  Tanya and Natasha have each other, this will create a disobedient role model in each other making them more confident to disobey Mr Boat
• The girls are quite far away from Mr Boat


  They can defy him because they do not feel he is close enough to give them a consequence
• They are outside of school

  Mr Boat is no longer seen as an authority figure and therefore loses his power as without his uniform, he is not a legitimate authority figure
• All these factors put Tanya and Natasya in an autonomous state meaning they will resist the pressure to obey
• Factors that impact whether a minority will be able to influence a majority

  • Consistency (diachronic and synchronic)
  • Commitment (willingness to make sacrifices)
  • Flexibility (willingness to compromise)
• Moscovici's research


  • Confederates consistently said the slides were green, then the majority agreed 8.42% of the time
  • Confederates gave inconsistent answers, the majority only conformed 1.25% of the time
• Deciding whether a slide is green or blue is not a true representation of conformity, nor does it pose any real consequences, so the research lacks ecological validity
• Moscovici used a biased sample of 172 female participants from America, so we cannot generalise the results to other populations
• Real-life evidence of minority influence

  • The Suffragettes were able to create great social change for women's right to vote by being consistent in their message, compromising, and demonstrating commitment
• Majority groups have the strongest influence


  We process information more deeply when it comes from the majority as we believe that we fit in with everyone else and we are less concerned when our views do not match the minority
• Standardisation


  Ensuring that procedures and materials in research are the same for all participants
• Randomisation


  Using 'chance' wherever necessary in the investigation, to reduce the influence of the researcher
• Group A recalled information immediately, which meant that the last few words from the list were still available in the STM. This phenomenon is called the 'recency effect'
• Group B was given a reading task that prevented them from rehearsing the information in the list, which impacted their recall negatively
• Yerkes Dodson's inverted U hypothesis


  There is an optimal level of arousal/anxiety, if there is too little or too much, then recall will be negatively impacted
• Johnston and Scott's findings

  • Participants were able to identify the man in 49% of cases when they heard a low-level argument, but only 33% when they heard a heated argument
• Peters found that anxiety negatively impacted the accuracy of eyewitnesses, when participants were stressed due to the needle they were about to receive, they were less likely to be able to identify the nurse
• Yuille and Cutshall found that anxiety does not have a negative impact on the accuracy of EWT, they re-interviewed witnesses to a real-life shooting and found that their recall was still accurate despite the anxiety they faced
• Pickel found that it may be surprise rather than anxiety that affects EWT, when participants were asked to remember someone who had entered hairdressers, it was the conditions of surprise (holding a handgun and raw chicken) rather than anxiety (holding scissors and wallet) that caused the change in accuracy
• Learning theory of attachment

  Food is the primary reason for attachment, attachment occurs through classical and operant conditioning
• Van Ijzendoorn's meta-analysis found that secure attachment was the most common across all countries, and that insecure-resistant was higher in collectivist cultures than individualistic, and insecure-avoidant was higher in individualistic than collectivist
• Bowlby argued that prolonged separation during the first 30 months of a child's life will lead to deprivation and negatively affect their IQ, social development, and they might become delinquents or develop affectionless psychopathy
• Ryan suffered maternal deprivation

  He spent the first 5 years of life in care, missed the opportunity in the critical period to develop an attachment and a positive internal working model, and is showing below-average IQ and poor relationships with others
• Bowlby's research on 44 juvenile thieves found that those diagnosed with affectionless psychopathy had experienced frequent early separation from their mothers
• Lewis replicated Bowlby's research and did not find the same results, and Bowlby's later research on children isolated from their parents after a TB diagnosis did not find the same long-term difficulties
• Rutter argued that Bowlby had not differentiated between deprivation and privation, and that material deprivation is likely the cause of the delinquent behaviour in the 44 thieves study
• Bowlby's research led to changes in hospital visiting policies, but some claim these changes were detrimental as they suggest that parents who work are causing maternal deprivation
• Jahoda's criteria for good mental health


  Abnormality can be defined by an absence of these criteria, and the more criteria that are absent, the more abnormal a person may be
• Dave does not share his friends' view of him, does not have a positive view of himself, and is missing a number of Jahoda's criteria, so he would be deemed abnormal
• Failure to function as a definition of abnormality


  • Considers the perspective of the individual, allows them to identify that they are not coping and ask for help
  • Some abnormal people may still function in society, and many do not experience distress despite having an abnormality
• Content analysis


  A form of indirect observation that examines forms of media by turning qualitative data into quantitative data through the use of categories
• Content analysis could be used by creating a list of words related to depression and tallying their appearance in diary entries
• Steps for ensuring reliability in content analysis

  1. Clarify and agree on the operationalised list of words

  2. Train the researchers on how to use the categories

  3. Have the researchers go through the diary entries independently and compare their scores, aim for a correlation of more than 0.8
• ABC model of depression

  A - Activating event, B - Irrational belief, C - Consequence (depression and cognitive errors)
• A limitation of the ABC model is that it cannot explain endogenous depression where there is no activating event
• However, the ABC model has been able to develop REBT, a successful therapy for depression, demonstrating its usefulness
• Minority influence


  Factors affecting minority influence are commitment to prove devotion to the cause such as the augmentation principle, flexibility and a consistent message
• Moscovici's experiment


  1. 172 female participants were told they were taking part in a colour perception task

  2. Participants were placed in groups of six and shown 36 slides which were all varying shades of blue

  3. In the consistent condition, two confederates in each group had to consistently say that all the slides were green

  4. In the inconsistent condition, the confederates said that only 24 of the slides were green, and 12 were blue

  5. In the consistent condition, the real participants agreed on 8.2% of the trials

  6. In the inconsistent condition, the real participants only agreed on 1.25% of the trials
• A consistent minority is 6.95% more effective than an inconsistent minority