Paper 1 Psychology Definitions

• Agentic State


  Where an individual carries out the orders of an authority figure, acting as their agent.

  An explanation of obedience by Milgram
• Authoritarian Personality


  Refers to a person who has extreme respect for authority and is more likely to be obedient to those who hold power over them.

  Adorno et al.
• Commitment


  Refers to the way that minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority shows dedication to their position. It usually involves some kind of personal sacrifice.
• Compliance


  When a person changes their public behaviour but doesn't change their private beliefs.
• Social Roles


  The parts that individuals play when they belong to a social group
• Consistency

  Refers to the way in which minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority members share the same belief and retain it over time.
• Dispositional Explanations of Obedience


  Focus on the internal characteristics that lie within the individual that lead them to be more or less likely to follow the orders of an authority figure.
• Flexibility


  Refers to the way in which minority influence is more likely to occur if the minority are willing to compromise as they cannot be viewed as unreasonable
• Group Size

  Asch identified this as a variable that influences conformity. He found that when he increased the size of the majority, conformity levels increased.

  2 confederates = 12.8% of trials conformity occurred

  3 confederates = 32% of trials conformity occurred
• Identification


  When a person changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs, but only while they are with the group, so it is a short term change
• Informational Social Influence


  Where a person conforms to be 'right'
• Internalisation


  When a person changes both their public and private beliefs and it is usually a long term change
• Legitimacy of Authority


  An explanation of obedience offered by Milgram.

  He suggested that we are more likely to obey a person who has a higher position or status in the social hierarchy.
• Location

  Milgram found that the location affected the level of obedience in his research.

  Run down office block = number of participants who went to 450V fell from 65% (Yale Uni) to 47.5% (Office)
• Locus of Control

  The extent to which people believe they have control over their lives (Rotter)
• Internal Locus of Control


  They believe that what happens in their life is largely the result of their own behaviour
• External Locus of Control


  They believe that what happens to them is a result of the external environment or luck
• Minority Influence


  Occurs when an individual or small group influences the attitudes and behaviours of a larger group
• Normative Social Influence


  Where a person conforms in order to be (liked) accepted and belong to a group
• Proximity


  Milgram found this to be a variable that affected his research in two ways: how close the teacher was to the learner and how close the teacher was to the experimenter.

  Teacher and Learner same room = full 450V fell from 65% to 40%

  Experimenter left room = obedience levels fell to 20.5%
• Situational Explanations of Obedience


  Focus on the external factors that affect the likelihood that someone will obey orders
• Social Change


  Refers to the ways in which a society develops over time to replace beliefs, attitudes and behaviour with new norms and expectations
• Social Support


  One way that people resist the pressure to conform/obey is if they have someone who supports their point of view as it builds confidence
• Task difficulty

  Asch identified task difficulty as a variable that affects conformity. He found that when he made the line judgement task more difficult, conformity levels increased
• Unanimity


  Refers to the extent that members of a majority agree with one another, and was identified as a variable, by Asch, that affects conformity.
• Uniform

  A situational variable, identified by Milgram, affecting obedience.

  Experimenter wear own clothes rather than lab coat = obedience fell from 65% to 20%
• Anxiety

  A factor that has been shown to reduce the accuracy of EWT. Loftus proposed the 'weapon focus' effect which suggests that anxiety caused by weapon, focusses attention from the criminal
• Capacity


  Refers to the amount or quantity of information that can be stored in memory
• Central Executive


  The boss of the working memory model. It directs information to the 2 slave systems: phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad.

  Has very limited capacity.
• Coding


  Refers to the way in which information is changed and stored in memory
• Cognitive Interview

  Geiselman developed the CI, in response to criticisms of the regular police interview. It included 4 main principles:

  • Reinstate the Context
  • Report Everything
  • Change Perspective
  • Reverse the Order
• Duration


  Refers to the length of time that information is held for in memory
• Episodic Memory


  Personal memories, which have 3 specific elements:

  • Details of the event
  • The context
  • The emotions experience
• Episodic Buffer


  One of the components of the WMM. It is a temporary store that integrates information from the other stores and maintains a sense of time so that events occur in a continuing sequence.

  Coding = flexible

  Capacity = 4 chunks
• Eyewitness Testimony

  The evidence given in court or a police investigation, by someone who has witnessed a crime or accident
• Forgetting


  The failure to remember something. It can occur due to interference or retrieval failure
• Leading Questions

  Questions that are worded to suggest a particular answer. E.g. saying 'did you see the broken glass?' suggests that there was broken glass so the witness is more likely to say 'yes'
• Long Term Memory

  A permanent store that holds unlimited amounts of information for long periods of time. The 3 different types of LTM are:

  • episodic
  • procedural
  • semantic
• Misleading Information


  Incorrect information given to an eyewitness following an event. It is a key factor that affects the accuracy of EWT.
• Multi Store Model


  Atkinson and Shiffrin.

  Contains 3 components:

  • sensory register
  • short term memory
  • long term memory