AQA A Level Psychology Mock

• 1. Social Influence:

  • Types of conformity:
  • Compliance: changing view publicly but not privately
  • Internalisation: changing views both publicly and privately
  • Identification: conforming because individuals want to be associated with another person or group
  • Explanations for conformity:
  • Normative: conforming to be liked, involves compliance
  • Informational: tendency to rely on group wisdom when deciding, involves internalisation
  • Strengths and weaknesses of normative and informational social influence (NSI and ISI)
• 1. Research by Asch into conformity:

  • Aim: study conformity in an unambiguous context
  • Procedure: vision test with 123 males, comparing lines on two cards with confederates giving incorrect answers
  • Findings: participants conformed 33% of the time, 75% conformed at least once
  • Strengths and weaknesses of Asch's study
• 1. Research by Zimbardo into conformity:

  • Aim: investigate the extent to which people would conform to roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing simulation of prison life
  • Procedure: selection of 21 male students, random allocation of roles, findings on guards and prisoners' behavior
  • Strengths and weaknesses of Zimbardo's study
• 1. Research by Milgram into obedience:

  • Aim: investigate obedience to authority figures in situations where following orders would harm others
  • Procedure: 40 male participants aged 20-30, delivering shocks to a confederate
  • Findings: participants showed extreme tension, most continued to deliver shocks up to 450V
  • Strengths and weaknesses of Milgram's study
• 1. Situational factors affecting obedience:

  • Proximity, uniform, and location as factors influencing obedience
  • Strengths and weaknesses of the situational factors affecting obedience
• 1. Legitimacy of authority and the agentic state:

  • Agentic state: people obey authority when they believe the authority will take responsibility for consequences
  • Legitimacy of authority: tendency to obey if authority is recognized as morally right, including factors like proximity, uniform, and location
  • Strengths and weaknesses of the agentic state and legitimacy of authority
• Accidents: Second officer assumed captain knew what he was doing due to higher authority, leading to a high-risk approach
• Weaknesses of increased reliability:

  • Permanent change seen in Auschwitz doctors
  • Contradiction weakens argument – reduced reliability
• Weaknesses of legitimacy of authority:

  • Alternative explanations like authoritarian personality
  • Authoritarian personality characterized by strict adherence to conventional values and belief in absolute obedience or submission to authority
• Outline of Adorno's authoritarian personality:

  • Type of personality susceptible to obeying people in authority
  • Submissive to higher status, dismissive of inferiors
  • Formed in childhood due to harsh parenting, strict discipline, expectations of loyalty, and criticism of perceived failings
• Adorno's research findings:

  • Investigated causes of obedient personality in 2000 middle class white Americans
  • Created F-Scale to measure components of authoritarian personality
  • Found high F-scale scores, strong contempt for weak, and strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
• Strengths of Adorno's research:

  • Research support from Elms and Milgram
  • Forty participants showed higher levels of authoritarianism in obedient individuals
• Weaknesses of Adorno's research:

  • Self-report susceptible to social desirability bias, retrospective judgment, demand characteristics, and screw-you effect
  • Alternative explanations for obedience like situational factors and education
• Explanations for resistance to social influence:

  • Social support provides moral support and dissenting opinions
  • Locus of control refers to personal control over behavior, with internals more likely to resist social influence
• Strengths of social support:

  • Real-world support from Albrecht's study on pregnant teens
  • Weakness: Conformity may be due to informational rather than normative social influence
• Strengths of locus of control:

  • Research support from Holland's study repeating Milgram's baseline study
  • Weakness: Rotter found locus of control only important in new situations
• Research into minority influence:

  • Consistency, commitment, and flexibility are key factors
  • Strengths: Research support from Moscovici et al, but limitations in generalizability and artificiality
• Social change and resistance to social influence:

  • Draws attention, creates cognitive conflict, and uses the CCF model
  • Strengths: Research support from Nolan et al and importance of minority influence
• Strengths of social change:

  • Research support from Nolan et al and Nemeth
  • Weaknesses: Role of deeper processing and barriers to social change
• Outline of the multi-store model of memory:

  • Sensory register, short term store, long term store, and retrieval process
  • Strengths: Brain scan research and case studies of brain-damaged patients
• Weaknesses of the multi-store model:

  • Reductionist and simplistic, lacking consideration of human complexity
  • Case studies like KF demonstrate deficits in STM for verbal information but not visual, challenging the unitary nature of STM
• Outline of the working memory model:

  • Central executive, phonological loop, and visuospatial sketchpad
  • Strengths: Brain scan research and case studies of brain-damaged patients
• Weaknesses of the working memory model:

  • Reductionist and simplistic, lacking consideration of human complexity
  • Case studies like KF demonstrate deficits in STM for verbal information but not visual, challenging the unitary nature of STM
• Working Memory Model (WMM) components:

  • Phonological store: like inner ear, holds words heard
  • Articulatory process: used for words that are heard/seen, involves silently repeating words like an inner voice (maintenance rehearsal)
  • Visuospatial sketchpad: deals with visual information, including what things look like and the physical relationship between things
  • Episodic buffer: added by Baddeley, has limited capacity, integrates information from central executive, phonological loop, and visuospatial store, maintains sense of time sequencing, sends information to long-term memory
• Strengths of WMM:

  • Physiological evidence from PET scans supports the separation of visual and verbal material processing
  • Case studies like KF's motorcycle accident show specific damage to components like the phonological loop
• Weaknesses of WMM:

  • Central executive (CE) is vague and doesn't explain much, with several components
  • Research on brain-damaged patients may lack validity due to traumatic brain injuries affecting behavior
• Types of long-term memory:

  • Explicit memory subdivided into episodic (knowing that, subjective experiences) and semantic (knowing that, shared knowledge/facts)
  • Implicit memory includes procedural memory (knowing how, skills acquired through repetition and practice)
• Weaknesses of types of long-term memory:

  • Conflicting evidence on brain areas for semantic and episodic memory
  • Lack of generalizability and validity in some research findings
• Interference theory for forgetting:

  • Forgetting occurs when one memory disrupts the recall of another
  • Types include proactive (past learning interferes with current learning) and retroactive (current learning interferes with past learning)
• Strengths of interference theory:

  • Research support from studies like Underwood's meta-analysis
  • Real-world applications in advertising to maximize effectiveness of campaigns
• Weaknesses of interference theory:

  • Artificial tasks may lack generalizability to everyday memory
  • Limited explanation for how memories need to be similar for interference to occur
• Strengths of retrieval failure:

  • Research support from studies like Tulving and Pearlstone showing the importance of cues in memory recall
  • Real-world applications in student revision techniques
• Weaknesses of retrieval failure:

  • Oversimplification and correlation not causation issues
  • Faults in studies like lack of ecological validity and everyday task representation
• Effect of misleading information on eyewitness testimony:

  • Misleading questions can impact the accuracy of eyewitness recall
  • Real-life applications include improvements in the legal system to reduce wrongful convictions
• Effect of anxiety on eyewitness testimony:

  • Stress can negatively affect memory and performance, leading to the weapon focus effect where anxiety reduces identification accuracy
• Strengths of anxiety on eyewitness testimony:

  • No gender biases increase validity and generalizability
  • Weaknesses include conflicting evidence and potential biases in studies
• Attachment is a strong reciprocal emotional bond between an infant and a primary caregiver
• Schaffer and Emerson's 1964 study on attachment:

  • Aim: identify stages of attachment / find a pattern in the development of an attachment between infants and parents
  • Participants: 60 babies from Glasgow
  • Procedure: analysed interactions between infants and carers
  • Findings: babies of parents with 'sensitive responsiveness' were more likely to form an attachment
• Freud's superego represents internalized societal values and standards
• The cognitive interview aims to improve eyewitness testimony accuracy through techniques like open-ended questions, mental reinstatement of context, changing order, and perspective