Psychology Paper 1 AO3

• STUDIES + EVALUATION: GRENADE


  • gender bias
  • reductionism or holism
  • ethical issues
  • nature vs nurture
  • approach (idiographic or nomothetic)
  • determinism or free will
  • endrocentrism (cultural bias/relativism)
• Milgram's Shock Study


  Lab experiment with all male sample, teacher= real participant, learner= confederate/actor, experimenter present with pp (teacher) to use 'prods' with increased aggressiveness to pressure pp into administering a higher shock, all pp- 300V, 65%- 450V 'deadly'= due to obedience to an authoritative figure
• Variations of Milgram's Shock Study

  • location
  • uniform
  • proximity (factors affecting obedience)= situational factors
• Milgram's Shock Study explains behaviour in historical events e.g. Nazis
• Milgram's Shock Study has increased reliability due to lab experiment
• Milgram's Shock Study lacks ecological validity due to lab= can't be generalised to real life (rwa)
• Milgram's Shock Study has a biased sample as all males= not representative of females (e.g. of beta bias)
• Agentic State


  (Supported by Milgram) people obey more when they believe the authoritative figure will take the responsibility for the consequences of their actions (as they are of a 'higher status')
• As 'assistant' presses the switches for the shocks: 92.5% of pp shocked to 450V- less personal responsibility= inc obedience
• Adornos F-scale


  Measures levels of authoritarian personality= admires obedience to individuals of higher status but hostile to those of an inferior (lower) status
• Adornos F-scale sample= white, middle class males
• Authoritarian personality


  Dispositional explanation of obedience= unique characteristics that influence behaviour (e.g. personality)
• Adornos F-scale research support; individuals who scored highly- identified as 'strong' people who disrespected the 'weak' and they were 'status conscious'= showed excessive respect to those of a higher status, this increases the validity of the F scale
• Adornos F-scale has a biased sample as all white middle class males = not representative of females and other classes in society/cultures
• Adornos F-scale shows correlation not causation= authoritarian p. is correlation to prejudice to other individuals seen as 'lesser'
• Zimbardo's Prison Experiment


  Example of identification= conformity to a social role/authoritative figure in society but no change in personal opinion (similar to compliance), pp either guards or prisoners=randomly assigned roles + given uniforms to show level of authority, both roles adapted to conformity; behaviour changed, had to stop after a few days instead of original 2 weeks due to behaviour from guards getting too aggressive
• Zimbardo's Prison Experiment has demand characteristics; pp acted in their perceived role to get the best results, not all behaviour actually due to conformity
• Zimbardo's Prison Experiment lacks validity= biased sample (all male university students)
• Zimbardo's Prison Experiment had ethical issues- lack of consent to being 'arrested' (fake) from own homes, caused distress
• Zimbardo's Prison Experiment changed the way real prisoners were run e.g. Juveniles not housed with adult prisoners before trials due to risk of violent behaviour (conform to 'older'/ figure of more authority)
• Asch Line Study


  Example of compliance= agrees in public but not in private, developed factors affecting conformity: group size, unanimity, task difficulty, lab experiment, 1 real pp and 7 'pp' (confederates)- real participant was deceived (ethical issue), took turns to say which line matched the target line= obvious differences, confederates all said the wrong answer; 74% pp conformed to the incorrect answers at least once= higher conformity- (32% conformed to all wrong answers), repeated experiment with control group with no confederates= less than 1% gave an incorrect answer
• Asch Line Study links to normative social influence as supports group pressure
• Asch Line Study has ethical issues= deception and no informed consent
• Asch Line Study has sampling issues= male gender bias so lacks population validity
• Asch Line Study lacks ecological validity=not real life task so not representative of conformity in rwa
• 6 Factors of Resistance to Social Influence

  • gender=females more likely to obey to authority than males
  • group number- more disobedient people=more resistance
  • group immediacy= separating from group so resisting
  • autonomous state= change from agents to autonomous causes more resistance as contemplate responsibility of own actions
  • removing legitimate authority-authoritative figure removed= more resistance as come self regulated (responsible for own choices)
  • taking responsibility- more responsible= less obedient (more resistant)
• Asch variation of study; 1 confederate didn't conform lead to decrease in conformity of group (opposite)= independent behaviour
• Locus of control


  How much control a person feels like they have over their own behaviour- lower chance of obedience + conformity, internal + external= high/low likelihood of being responsible for own behaviour or it being due to other factors
• Milgram variation decreases obedience to authority: 2 confederates decreased obedience to 10% due to pp stopping shocks at 150V-210V, gave pp social support + confidence in own decisions= high locus of control
• 3 Factors of Minority Influence

  • consistency
  • commitment
  • flexibility
• Minority influence makes majority rethink their views + influenced by a smaller group
• Moscovici blue/green slides


  Large female sample (placed in groups of 6)- colour perception task shown 36 slides of different shades of blue, 2 of 6 pp were confederates: 1 condition= confederates said all 36 slides were green (consistent), 2 condition= confederates said 24 slides were green and 12 blue (inconsistent), real pp agreed 8.2% in consistent (1) but only 1.25% in inconsistent (2)= consistent minority influence is 6.95% more effective than inconsistent influence
• Moscovici blue/green slides has a bias sample= all females so not representative of males acting in the same way so can't be generalised to both genders (beta bias)
• Moscovici blue/green slides has ethical issues: deception + not full informed consent as told they were participating in a colour perception test
• Moscovici blue/green slides had to have deception to achieve valid results: if aware of true aim may have risked demand characteristics
• Social Change


  Whole society adopts new belief which becomes the new 'norm', caused by the 'Snowball effect', showed consistency to be most important factor in deciding influence of minority but they have to be clear and stick to beliefs to fulfil influence (or creates uncertainty), "MINORITY turns into MAJORITY"
• Baddeley: Coding


  Format/way info is stored, STM: acoustic (similar sounding), LTM: semantic (similar looking), Baddeley found; more mistakes made when recalling semantically similar words 20 mins after learning= (LTM) recall
• Miller: Capacity


  Amount of info stored at one time, STM: 7 +/- 2 pieces of information, LTM: unlimited, Miller found; 'chunking idea'= grouping of everyday info to be automatically recalled (universal knowledge), most common is groups of 7 e.g 7 days in a week
• Bahrick et al: Duration


  Amount of time info is stored, STM: 18-30 secs, LTM: unlimited, Bahrick found; photo recognition decreased from 90% to 70% from 15 to 46 years after graduating- harder to recognise faces after a longer period of time
• Research support for STM + LTM (3 parts; coding capacity, duration)= increases validity