Psychology Recap A level paper 1/2

things that need checking!!

Types of conformity - internalisation

when an individual fully changes their public and private beliefs, and maintains these beliefs by choice and without pressure

types of conformity: identification

individuals publicly change their own beliefs in order to agree with the group, but may maintain their own beliefs in private.

types of conformity: compliance

individuals only change their beliefs superficially, and revert as soon as group pressure is removed.

explanations for conformity - ISI

accepting the majority answer due to the desire to be correct/knowledgeable

explanations for conformity - NSI

accepting the majority answer due to the desire to be want to fit in with the social norms within a group

Normative social influence leads to…

Compliance

Informational social influence leads to…

Internalisation

How does Asch’s research support normative social influence?

participants wanted to fit in with the group, despite not believing that the group had the right answer

What was in Lucas’ (2006) study?

He gave participants easy or hard maths problems, and asked them to solve the problems. They also had “answers” from three other students that were influencing them - and they were found to conform more when the question was more difficult.

How does Lucas’ (2006) study support Asch’s research?

It shows an example of ISI, as the students lacked knowledge, and so fully accepted the ideas of the group.

What type of people conform more easily?

nAffiliators

Who carried out research into nAffiliators?

McGhee and Teevan (1967)

How many men were tested overall in Asch’s research?

123

How many men were in each group in Asch’s research (including the ppt)

6-8

What percentage of participants conformed during Asch’s baseline research?

36.8%

What three variables were altered as part of Asch’s research?

Group size, Unanimity and Task difficulty

What happened to conformity as Asch’s line matching task got more difficult?

it increased due to pressure from ISI

Why is Asch’s research difficult to generalise?

The task lacks mundane realism, and the groups are complete strangers.

______ characteristics may present themselves in Asch’s research, as the aim of the study is ___________

demand, predictable

When was Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment?

1973

How many participants took part in Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment?

21

On which day was Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment ended prematurely?

Day 6

What were the guards given during Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment?

Uniforms, club, handcuffs, sunglasses

What were the prisoners given during Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment?

a loose, simple outfit and a number for identification

Why did Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment lack realism?

Participants were not actual prisoners or guards, and based their behaviour off of stereotypes.

Why did Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment have control over variables?

participants were classed as “emotionally stable” as well as all being young, male, university students. This reduced the impact of individual differences, increasing internal validity.

How does the sensory register code items?

visually and acoustically

What is the acoustic capacity of the sensory register?

½ a second

How does the short term memory code items?

Acoustically

How long do items in the short term memory last until they are rehearsed?

18-30 seconds

How does information go from the short term to the long term memory?

Prolonged rehearsal

What was prolonged rehearsal later updated to?

elaborative rehearsal - where it is stored in the LTM once significant meaning has been assigned

KF was not able to…

recall digits read aloud, but could recall those that he read himself.

MSM - Jacobs (1887)

The digit span study - he read increasing numbers of digits and letters until ppts could not recall them.

MSM - what was the mean digit and letter recall of Jacobs (1887) study?

9.3 digits and 7.3 letters

after his surgery, HM was unable to…

create new long term memories

What are the three types of long term memory?

Semantic, Episodic and Procedural

How does Clive Wearing support the three types of LTM?

After brain damage, he could no longer create new episodic memory, but retained skills such as playing the piano.

What is the alternative belief suggesting that there are only two types of LTM?

Cohen and Squire proposed to combine the episodic and semantic memory types to create declarative memory - questioning the credibility of the original study and limiting understanding.

What is the real world application of the three types of LTM?

more focused care can be applied for those who have suffered brain trauma or are getting older.

What is the main part of the WMM?

The central executive - the “attention” which processes and assigns one strand of information at a time

What is the left part of the WMM

The visuospatial sketchpad - which stores the arrangement of objects through visual data

What is the right part of the WMM

The phonological loop - which stores acoustic data

What is the visuospatial sketchpad made up of?

The inner scribe and the visual cache, storing 3-4 items

What is the phonological loop made up of?

The articulatory control system and the phonological store (making the loop of maintenance rehearsal), storing 2 seconds

What was added later to the WMM?

The episodic buffer - an overflow store that can store 4 chunks, and code both visually and acoustically.

Who completed the dual task studies?

Baddeley and Hitch

What was the finding of the dual task studies?

Participants struggled to complete a true/false more when using the same component for two tasks, but were fine when using different components.

Why did Baddeley criticise his WMM?

Because the central executive was not understood enough - there must be more to it than just attention.

What is proactive interference?

previously stored information interferes with recall of new information - e.g old phone numbers - as “pros are doing something new”

What is retroactive interference?

storing new information disrupts previously stored information - e.g learning a new address - as “retro is trying to get back”

What did Schmitt discover about interference by studying people who had moved house?

He asked 200 people to name the 48 streets near the area they grew up in - and found that they were more likely to remember if they had moved house less.

What type of interference is Schmitt an example of?

Retroactive

Why does interference theory make intuitive sense?

It seems logical that it would be harder to recall old/new information if there is lots of other new/old information that is similar.

What does retrieval failure claim is the reason why people forget?

Lack of cues

What is the Encoding Specificity Principle (Tulving 1983)?

“If a cue is used at the time of learning, it must be present at the time of retrieval”

What is context dependent forgetting?

When the external environment is different between learning and recall - e.g Baddeley testing deep sea divers recall abilities when switching between under the water and on land.

What is state dependent forgetting?

When the internal environment is different between learning and recall - e.g Carter giving ppts light sedatives to put them into a drowsy state

Why does retrieval failure theory make intuitive sense?

Most people can recall a time where they went to do something, forgot on the way, and remembered as soon as they came back to where they started.

Why is ESP bad support for retrieval failure theory?

ESP is an untestable concept, which talks about the ideas of cues - an abstract measurement which are unscientific.

What study did Loftus and Palmer complete to show the weaknesses of EWT?

They asked 45 student ppts to recall the speed of a car crash from a video clip, using different adjectives when asking the question (e.g smashed, bumped etc)

What follow up question did Loftus and Palmer ask when completing their leading questions car crash study?

“Did you see any broken glass”

Why did Loftus and Palmer’s leading question car crash study have high internal validity?

Many variables were accounted for - e.g the video clip of the car was the same every time, so they can show that the independent variable (the verb) was being isolated as the cause of the DV change.

Who tested the effect of anxiety on recall?

Johnson and Scott

What is the weapon focus effect?

Where witnesses focus on the weapon in a crime, rather than the perpetrator

What was in Johnson and Scott’s fake waiting room study (the effect of anxiety on recall)?

The ppt was sat in a waiting room, listening to an argument next door. In one condition someone walked out with a pen and grease on their hands, and in the other someone walked out with a blood covered knife.

What were the findings from Johnson and Scott’s fake waiting room study (the effect of anxiety on recall)?

33% of people recalled in the knife (high anxiety condition), while 49% recalled in the pen (low anxiety condition).

What does the Yerkes-Dodson law explain?

That as anxiety increases, so does recall - but only up to a certain point. (negative parabola shape)

Why did Pickel think weapon focus was less relevant?

He created a study where someone walked into a barbers with either scissors, a handgun, a wallet or a raw chicken. He found that recall was similarly low in the raw chicken condition - suggesting that the lack of recall is simply due to the unusualness of seeing a weapon.

What is a weakness of Johnson and Scott’s fake waiting room study (the effect of anxiety on recall)?

There are ethical issues - misleading and creating anxiety in participants can be disturbing for them.

What is a weakness of the Yerkes-Dodson law?

It is reductionist - it only considers the physiological elements of anxiety, and ignores the individual differences in recall that may be due to the emotional, physical etc parts of anxiety.

What are the four parts of the cognitive interview?

Report everything, Reinstate context, Recall in different order, Change perspective.

What is the cognitive interview a method for?

Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

What is added in the Enhanced cognitive interview?

The interviewer is trained to establish a perfect rapport, including correct amounts of eye contact to reduce anxiety, removing distractions etc

Why is the cognitive interview time consuming?

To establish rapport and relax the witness, a professional must take time - which often is not possible in crimes that need considering quickly.

What did Koenhken find in his meta analysis about the cognitive interview?

That accurate recall improved compared to typical interrogation techniques - but there were also more inaccurate details that were created through deeper questioning.

What is Reciprocity?

When infants experience a set of two-way active interactions with their primary caregiver, consisting of smiling, laughing, facial expressions etc.

What is interactional synchrony?

When infants mirror the actions of their primary caregiver, starting from as young as 2 weeks old.

What are the three behaviours that show infant attachment?

Proximity, Separation distress and Secure Base Behaviour

How did Meltzoff and Moore test interactional synchrony?

They got an adult model to make easy facial expressions in front of a child - and found that the child tried to imitate them, even after the adult had stopped performing the action.

What is Schaffer’s first stage of attachment?

Asocial

What is Schaffer’s second stage of attachment?

Indiscriminate Attachment

What is Schaffer’s third stage of attachment?

Discriminate Attachment

What is Schaffer’s fourth stage of attachment?

Multiple Attachment

What is the Asocial stage of Schaffer’s stages of attachment?

0 to 6 weeks - infants barely tell the difference between people and toys, but generally produce a positive reaction for social interactions and faces.

What is the Indiscriminate attachment stage of Schaffer’s stages of attachment?

6 weeks to 8 months - infants can discriminate between and prefer people, but have not focused on a particular person and so show no separation/stranger anxiety.

What is the discriminate attachment stage of Schaffer’s stages of attachment?

7 to 8 months - infants show preference and separation anxiety for a primary attachment figure, and begin to display wariness of strangers.

What is the multiple attachment stage of Schaffer’s stages of attachment?

9 months onwards - Infants begin to attach to multiple people, and form strong emotional bonds to multiple caregivers.

Why is it unreliable to study very young infants in producing Schaffer’s stages of attachment?

They have such limited control over their movements, that it is very difficult to make judgements about their behaviour based on physical experiences.

What type of study did Schaffer and Emerson do to measure infant attachment?

A longitudinal study, following 60 babies and their mothers, interviewing them monthly.

How did Schaffer and Emerson test attachment during their longitudinal study?

They tested separation anxiety by asking the mother to leave the baby alone in various situations, and tested stranger anxiety by approaching the child while visiting.

What did Schaffer and Emerson find during their longitudinal study on attachment?

Most infants had multiple attachments by 18 months, and showed separation and stranger anxiety at around 8 months.

Why can Schaffer and Emerson’s longitudinal study on attachment not be generalised to other cultures?

Because their sample was a set of middle class families from Glasgow - meaning that as observed behaviours in the study may not be relevant to other cultures, the study lacks generalisability.

What are the three suggested roles of the father in attachment?

1.To act as a primary caregiver when the mother is not present, 2. To act as a playmate for the child, and 3. To provide support for the primary caregiver (typically mother).

What did Hardy find when researching the role of the father in attachment?

He found that fathers are less able than mothers to detect low levels of infant distress - suggesting they are less able to be primary caregivers.

What is some evaluation that can be used to state the importance of the role of the father?

Children who grow up without fathers have been seen to do less well at school, and have a higher likelihood of aggression. However, as a counterpoint, studies testing this often focus on single mothers from poorer backgrounds - which mean poverty-related factors are actually having an effect.

How did Lorenz study animal attachment?

He took a clutch of goslings, and hatched half them with their mother, and half of them with him. He found that even after being mixed with their siblings, the goslings who had imprinted on him still separated and kept following him.

How did Harlow study animal attachment?

He took eight monkeys, and left them with a wire/food and cloth covered surrogate mother doll. He found that the monkeys would spend more time with the cloth mother, and would explore their environment more if it was present. Furthermore, any monkeys raised with surrogate mothers never displayed functional adult behaviours, and continued to be timid and unpredictable.

What is a strength of Harlow’s research into animal attachment?

It has strong practical application - the research lead to a greater focus on infant attachment, and so links strongly to changes in the quality of social care provided.

What are the three parts of learning theory as an explanation for infant attachment?

Classical conditioning, Operant conditioning and drive reduction.