AS level Psychology AQA

What are the results of Asch's line study?

True participants conformed on 32% of the critical trials where confederates gave the wrong answers. Additionally 75% of the sample conformed to the majority on at least one trial.

What was the procedure in Asch's line study?

- 5-7 participants per group.

-Each group was presented with a standard line and three comparison lines.

-Participants had to say aloud which comparison line matched the standard line in length.

-In each group there was only one true participant the remaining 6 were confederates.

-The confederates were told to give the incorrect answer on 12 out of 18 trails.

What is conformity?

Defined as a change in belief or behaviour in response to real or imagined social pressure. It is also known as majority influence.

What is an example of conformity?

Going on a scary ride

What are the three types of conformity?

Compliance, Internalisation and Identification

What is compliance?

-Refers to instances where a person may agree in public with a group of people but the person actually privately disagrees with the group's viewpoint or behaviour. The individual changes their views, but it is a temporary change.

-E.g. a person may laugh at a joke because their group of friends find it funny but deep down the person does not find the joke funny.

What is Internalisation?

-Publicly changing behaviour to fit in with the group while also agreeing with them privately. An internal (private) and external (public) change of behaviour. This is the deepest level of conformity were beliefs of a group become part of the individual's own belief system.

-E.g. An example of internalisation is if someone lived with a vegetarian at university and then decides to also become one too because they agree with their friends viewpoint.

What is Identification?

-Identification occurs when someone conforms to the demands of a given social role in society. -E.g. a policeman, teacher or politician. This type of conformity extends over several aspects of external behaviour. However, there still be no changed to internal personal opinion.

Why do people conform?

Informational Social Influence (ISI) and Normative Social Influence (NSI)

What is Informational Social Influence (ISI)?

-A form of influence, which is the result of the desire to be correct - looking at others is a way of gaining evidence for this.

-In uncertain situations especially we look to others to find out how to behave which can lead to any of the 3 types of conformity.

What is Normative Social Influence (NSI)?

A form of influence whereby and individual conforms with the expectations of the majority in order to gain approval or avoid disapproval.

What are the discussion points for the explanations of conformity?

-NSI and ISI can overlap in situations

-Different tasks in Asch's line study e.g. 1 true participant, 1 true participant with someone else saying the correct answer, 1 true participant writing the answers down.

In Asch's line study, what did he want to investigate?

Whether people would conform to the majority in situations where an answer was obvious.

What validity does Asch's line study lack and why?

Ecological validity as it was based on peoples' perception of lines, this does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity.

What other issues is involved with this study?

Sampling issues as it was only carried out on men so the sample was gender bias and therefore results cannot be applied to females. Sample therefore lacks population validity.

What ethical issues are there in Asch's line study?

-Deception as participants were told the study was about perception of lines

-They could not give informed consent.

-Participants may have felt embarrassed when the true nature of the study was revealed.

-Potentially put them through some form of psychological harm. However Asch did debrief at the end.

What links does Asch's line study have with other theories?

Some Participants said they conformed to fit in with the group, this claim supports NSI.

What was the procedure in Jenness' Bean Jar Experiment?

Participants were asked to estimate how many beans they thought was in a jar. Each participant had to make an individual estimate, and then do the same as a group.

What results were found in Jenness' Bean Jar Experiment?

In a social group, participants would report estimates of roughly the same value (even though they had previously reported quite different estimates as individuals).

What was this study successful in showing?

Majority influence proving that individuals' behaviour and beliefs can be influenced by a group. Additionally this is an example of ISI as participants are uncertain about the actual number of beans in the jar.

How does a groups size effect conformity?

-An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group.

-E.g. Asch altered the number of confederates in his study to see how this effected conformity. He found that conformity increases with each extra person (i.e. confederate) in the group. However, conformity did not increase much after the group size was about 4/5.

-Because conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four, this is considered the optimal group size.

How does task difficulty effect conformity?

-When we are uncertain, it seems we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task the greater the conformity.

-E.g. Asch altered the (comparison) lines (e.g. A, B, C) making them more similar in length. Because it was harder to judge the correct answer conformity increased.

How does unanimity effect conformity?

-A person is more likely to conform when all members of the groups are in agreement and give the same answer.

-When one other person in the group gave a different answer from the others, and the group answer was not unanimous, conformity dropped.

-Asch (1951) found that even the presence of just one confederate that goes against the majority choice can reduce conformity as much as 80%.

How does NSI effect conformity?

-Desire to be liked

-E.g. a person may feel pressurised to smoke because the rest of their friends are

-NSI leads to compliance as the person smokes just for show but deep down they wish not to smoke

-This means any change of behaviour is temporary.

-Linked to Asch's study as people wanted to fit in the group.

How does ISI effect conformity?

-Desire to be right

-ISI leads to internalisation.

-E.g. if someone was to go to a posh restaurant for the first time, they may be confronted with several forks and not know which one to use, so they might look to a near by person to see what fork to use first.

-This is linked to Jenness' Bean Jar Study as

What are the strengths of Asch's line study?

-Lab experiment so has high control of variables.

-Several replications of this study due to the high control of variables

What is Social Roles?

The part people play as members of a social group (e.g. student, teacher, policeman etc). There is considerable pressure to conform to the expectations of a social role. Conforming to a social role is called identification.

What did Zimbardo want to investigate?

How readily people would conform to the social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.

What was the procedure in Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment?

-Study the roles people play in prison situations

-Zimbardo converted a basement of the Stanford University Psychology Building into a mock prison

-He advertised for students to play the roles of prisoners and guards for a fortnight.

-Participants randomly assigned to the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison environment.

-Prisoners were issued a uniform and referred to by their numbers.

-Guards were issued a khaki uniform, together with whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible.

-Guards worked shifts of 8 hours each (other guards remained on call)

-No physical violence was permitted.

-Zimbardo observed the behaviour of the prisoners and guards (as a researcher), and also acted as a prison warden.

What are the findings of Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment?

-Both guards and prisoners settled into their roles very quickly.

-Guards adopted theirs quickly and easily.

-Guards began to harass prisoners within the first few hours of the experiment.

-Brutal behaviour and sadistic manner, apparently enjoying it

-Other guards joined in, so other prisoners were tormented

-Prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behaviour.

-Talked about prison issues a great deal of the time

-They 'told tales' on each other to the guards

-Took the prison roles very seriously, some even began siding with the guards against prisoner who disobeyed the rules

-As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and assertive

-Demanded greater obedience from the prisoners

-Prisoners were dependent on guards for everything so tried to find ways to please the guards, such as telling tales on fellow prisoners.

What could demand characteristics explain in the Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment?

-Could explain the findings of the study

-Most guards later claimed they were acting

-As the guards and prisoners were playing a role their behaviour may not be influenced by similar factors which affects their behaviour in real life

-Shows the studies' findings aren't generalisable to real life e.g. prison settings i.e. study has low ecological validity

What validity does Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment lack?

-Population validity as the sample comprised US male students

-The findings can't be applied to female prisons or those from other countries

-For example, America is an individualist culture (were people are generally less conforming) and the results maybe different in collectivist cultures (such as Asian countries).

What are the strengths of Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment?

-Altered the way US prisons are run

-E.g. juveniles accused of federal crimes are no longer housed before trial with adult prisoners (due to the risk of violence against them)

-Harmful treatment of participant led to the formal recognition of ethical guidelines

-Studies must now gain ethical approval before they are conducted

-An ethics committee review whether the potential benefits of the research are justifiable in the light of possible risk of physical or psychological harm

-They may request researchers make changes to the studies design or procedure, or in extreme cases deny approval of the study altogether.

What are the ethics of Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment?

-Lack of fully informed consent by participants as Zimbardo himself didn't know what would happen in the experiment (it was unpredictable)

-Prisoners didn't consent to being 'arrested' at home.

-Pariticpants playing the role pf prisoners weren't protected from psychological harm, making them humiliated and distressed

-E.g. one prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger

-Emotional distress experienced by the prisoners could not have been predicted from the outset

-Zimbardo did conduct debriefing sessions for several years afterwards and concluded they were no lasting negative effects.

What is Obedience?

A type of social influence where a person follows an order from another person who is usually an authority figure.

In Milgram's shock study, what did Milgram want to find out?

Why Germans were willing to kill Jews during the Holocaust. He thought that it might have been because German's were just evil.

What did Milgram think about Americans?

He thought Americans were different and would not follow orders. To test this 'German's are different' hypothesis he carried out this study

What was the Procedure of the Milgram study?

-Milgram wanted to see if people would obey a legitimate authority figure when given instructions to harm another person.

-He created a set which two participants were assigned either a role as a teacher (always given to true participants) or learner (confederate called Mr. Wallace)

-Teacher and learner put into separate rooms

-Teacher was asked by the experimenter (who wore a lab coat) to administer electric shocks (which were actually harmless) to the learner each time he gave the wrong answer.

-Shocks increased every time the learner gave a wrong answer, from 15 - 450 volts.

-Experimenter (Mr Williams) wore a grey lab coat and he gave a series of orders/prods when the participant refused to administer a shock

-4 prods and if one was not obeyed then the experimenter read out the next prod, and so on:

Prod 1: Please continue.

Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.

Prod 3: Absolutely essential that you continue.

Prod 4: No choice but to continue.

What are the results of the Milgram Shock Study?

-All participants went to 300 volts and 65% were willing to go all the way to 450 volts

-Milgram did more than one experiment - he carried out 18 variations of his study.

-All altered the situation (IV) to see how this affected obedience (DV)

-E.g. the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%.

What is a limitation of the Milgram Shock Study?

-Lacks ecological validity as it was carried under artificial conditions.

-So It'll be harder to generalise to real life settings as people don't receive orders to hurt other people

-The sample was biased.

-Milgram only used males so the study can't be generalised to females

What has Milgrams study provide to Social Psychology?

-It gives an insight into why people under the Nazi reign were killing Jews due to authorities giving them orders

-Also highlights how we dont realise how much obedience effects what we do without a question

What is a strenth of the Milgram Shock Study?

-It used a standardised procedure as it was a lab experiment

-This helps improve the reliability og the study and helps establish a casual relationship.

What does deception show in the ethical issues of Milgrams Shock Study?

-Participants believed that they were shocking a real person, and was unaware that the learner was a confederate.

-Milgram argued that "illusion is used when necessary in order to set the stage for the revelation of certain difficult-to-get-at-truths"

-Milgram also interviewed the participants after the experiment and found the effect of deception. 83.7% said that they were "glad to be in the experiment", and 1.3% said that they wished they had not been involved.

What does the protection of participants in the ethical issues of Milgrams Shock Study?

-Participants were exposed to stressful situations which may have caused them psychological harm. Many participants were visibly distressed

-Signs of tensiuon including trembling, sweating, suttering, laughing nervously, biting lips and digging fingernails in hands.

-3 participants had uncontrollable seizures and many pleaded to stop the experiment. One seizure was so violent the experiment was stopped

-Milgram argued that these effects were only short term. Once participants were debriefed and saw the confederate was ok their stress levels decreased. Milgram also interviewed the participants a year later after the experiment and concluded that most were happy to take part.

-Milgram debreifeds the participants fully after the experiment and followed up after a period of time to ensure that they came to no harm.

What is the Agentic State in an explanation of obedience?

-When a person obeys an authority figure but through consequences shift the responsibility to the authority figure.

-This is supported by Milgram's experiment

How does Milgrams experiment support Agentic State?

-Participants were reminded that they had responsibility for their own actions, almost none of them were prepared to obey. Most participants were refusing to go on and if so they experimenter would've taken responsibility.

-Variation in Milgram's study as participants could instruct a confederate to press the switches. In this condition 92.5% shocked the confederate at the maximum 450 volts. This shows when there is less personal responsibility obedience increases.

What is Legitimacy of Authority in an explanation of obedience?

-People tend to obey others if they recognise their authority as morally right and/or legally based (i.e. legitimate)

-This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.

-With regard to Milgram' study the experimenter is seen as having legitimate authority as he has scientific status.

What are the Situational Factor for the explanation of obedience?

-Milgram's experiment was carried out many times whereby Milgram varied the basic procedure (changed the IV)

-By doing this Milgram could identify which situational factors affected obedience (the DV)

-Obedience was measured by how many participants shocked to the maximum 450 volts (65% in the original study).

What is Authority figure wearing a uniform?

-Milgram's experimenter (Mr. Williams) wore a laboratory coat (a symbol of scientific expertise) which gave him a high status

-But when the experimenter dressed in everyday clothes obedience was very low

-The uniform of the authority figure can give them status.

What is Status of location?

-Milgram's experiment was conducted at Yale, a prestigious university in America

-The high status of the university gave the study credibility and respect in the eyes of the participants, making them more likely to obey.

-When Milgram moved his experiment to a set of run down offices rather than the impressive Yale University obedience dropped to 47.5%

-This suggests that status of location effects obedience.

What is proximity of authority figure?

-People are more likely be obey an authority figure who is in close proximity (i.e. nearby)

-In Milgram's study the experimenter was in the same room as the participant (i.e. teacher)

-If the authority figure is distant it is easier to resistant their orders

-When the experimenter instructed and prompted the teacher by telephone from another room, obedience fell to 20.5%

-Many participants cheated and missed out shocks or gave less voltage than ordered to by the experimenter.

What is Authoritarian Personality?

State of mind or attitude characterized by belief in absolute obedience or submission to one's own authority, as well as the administration of that belief through the oppression of one's subordinates. LOOK IN BOOK!!!

What are the Characteristics of an Authoritarian Personality?

LOOK IN BOOK!!!!

What did Adrono think could explain obedience?

He felt that personality (i.e. dispositional) factors could explain obedience rather than situational (i.e. environmental) factors.

What is Independent Behaviour?

Describes behaviour that is not influenced by other people. This happens when a person resists the pressures to conform or obey.

What does Social Support show in Asch's line study?

-In one of Asch's variation he showed that the presence of a dissident (confederate who doesn't conform) led to a decrease in conformity in true participants

-This is thought that the dissident gave the true participant social support and so were more confident in their decision and rejecting the majority position.

What does Social Support show in Milgram's study?

-Decreased obedience to authority.

-In a variation of Milgram' study two other participants (confederates) were also teachers but refused to obey.

-Confederate 1 stopped at 150 volts and confederate 2 stopped at 210 volts.

-The presence of others who are seen to disobey the authority figure reduced the level of obedience to 10%.

What does Locus of Control mean?

-Refers to how much control a person feels they have in their own behaviour.

-A person can either have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control.

What does a person with high internal locus of control have?

-They perceive themselves as having a great deal of personal control over their behaviour and are therefore more likely to take responsibility for the way they behave.

-E.g. I did well on the exams because I revised extremely hard.

What does a person with high external locus of control have?

-Perceive their behaviours as being a result of external influences or luck

-E.g. I did well on the test because it was easy.

What research has been conducted about the locus of control?

-People with an internal locus of control tend to be less conforming and less obedient (i.e. more independent).

-Rotter proposes that people with internal locus of control are better at resisting social pressure to conform or obey, perhaps because they feel responsible for their actions.

What is Minority Influence?

Occurs when a small group influences the opinion of a much larger group.

What did Moscovici stated about consistency?

He said that having a consistent and an unchanging view is more likely to influence a mojority than a minority hvaing an inconsistent and changing view.

What is Diachronic consistency?

Consistency over time - the majority stocks to its guns, doesn't modify its views.

What is Synchronic consistency?

Consistency between its members - all members agree and back each other up.

Why is Consistency important?

-Confronted with a consistent opposition, members of the majority will sit up, take notice, and rethink their position (i.e. the minority focuses attention on itself).

-A consistent minority disrupts established norms and creates uncertainty, doubt and conflict. This can lead to the majority taking the minority view seriously. The majority will therefore be more likely to question their own views.

What was the procedure that Moscovici conducted for consistency?

-Female participants were shown 36 blue slides of different intensity and asked to report the colors

-There were two confederates (the minority) and four participants (the majority).

-In the first part of the experiment the two confederates answered green for each of the 36 slides

-They were totally consistent in their responses

-In the second part of the experiment they answered green 24 times and blue 12 times

-In this case they were inconsistent in their answers

-A control group was also used consisting of participants only - no confederates.

What are the results that Moscovici found for consistency?

-When the confederates were consistent in their answers about 8% of participants said the slides were green

-When the confederates answered inconsistently about 1% of participants said the slides were green.

What is Commitment

When the majority is confronted with someone with self-confidence and dedication to take a popular stand and refuses to back own, they may assume that he or she has a point.

What have researchers questioned about consistency?

Whether consistency alone is sufficient for a minority to influence a majority. They argue that the key is how the majority interprets consistency.

What will the consistent minority need to be seen as to be unlikely to change the views of the majority?

Inflexible, rigid, uncompromising and dogmatic

What will the consistent minority need to be seen as to having a better chance of changing the views of the majority?

Flexible and compromising, they are likely to be seen as less extreme, as more moderate, cooperative and reasonable.

What have researchers suggested about flexibility?

It is not just the appearance of flexibility and compromise which is important but actual flexibility and compromise.

What was the procedure conducted by Nemeth about flexibility?

-Based on a mock jury in which groups of three participants and one confederate had to decide on the amount of compensation to be given to the victim of a ski-lift accident

-The consistent minority (the confederate) argued for a very low amount and refused to change his position, he had no effect on the majority

-However, when he compromised and moved some way towards the majority position, the majority compromised and changed their view.

What did Nemeth find out about consistency and flexibility?

-This experiment questions the importance of consistency

-The minority position changed, it was not consistent, and it was this change that apparently resulted in minority influence.

What is Social Change?

-Occurs when a whole society adopts a new belief or behaviour which then becomes widely accepted as the 'norm'

-Social influence processes involved in social change include minority influence, internal locus of control and disobedience to authority.

What is Socila Change usually a result of?

-Minority influence which is when a small group of people (the minority) manage to persuade the majority to adopt their point of view.

What does Social Change link to?

-Independent behaviour, because the minority resists pressures to conform and/or obey

-Usually the minority have an internal locus of control.

What did Moscovici found out about consistency?

-Consistency is the most important factor in deciding whether the minority are influential or not

-This means that the minority must be clear on what they are asking for and not change their minds, or disagree amongst themselves

-This creates uncertainty amongst the majority.

What happens when the minoirty persuades people round their way of thinking?

-Snowball effect begins to happen

-This means that more and more people adopt the minority opinion, until gradually the minority becomes the majority

-People who have not changed their opinion are the minority, and they will often conform to the majority view as a result of group pressures.

When the majority opinion becomes the law, what effect does this have on the minoirty opinion?

-Minoirty opinion becomes the dominant position in society, and people do often not even remember where the opinion originated from

-This is a process known as crypto amnesia.

What components make up the Central Nervous system

The brain and spinal cord

What is the function of the brain?

The brain is the centre of awareness. It is divided into two hemispheres. The cerebral cortex is more developed in humans than in all other animals.

divisions of the nervous system

brain labelled

What is the function of the spinal cord?

The spinal cord is an extension of the brain. It transports messages to and from the brain (two-way communication) to the peripheral nervous system. It is also responsible for reflexes.

What is the function of the peripheral nervous system?

Consists of sensory and motor neurons and all of the nerves connecting them to each other and the CNS.

The peripheral nervous system has two divisions, what are they?

Autonomic nervous system and Somatic Nervous system

What is the role of the autonomic nervous system?

- An involuntary control system that control organ functions
- Regulates functions that are NOT under conscious control such as heartbeat, digestion, blood pressure, breathing.
- It inputs from internal receptors and outputs to external organs, blood vessels and glands.
- Example: sweating-receptors detect your body getting too warm, impulses sent to skin, skin responds by releasing sweat- response is automatic, you have no control

What is the role of the somatic nervous systems?

- Voluntary body movement and sensing external stimuli
- It inputs from sense organs (5 senses) and outputs to muscles, skin and joints by receiving a signal to respond to the changes detected.

Example: catching a ball-your eyes detect the ball moving towards you, brain assesses info, then instructs the muscles of your arm to reach out and catch the ball.

Which division of the Peripheral Nervous System contains the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions?

Autonomic

Which part of the central nervous system is in control of reflexes?

Spinal cord

Summation

Summation occurs when excitatory impulses add together to reach the threshold to fire a neuron; however, if inhibitory impulses received are higher than the excitatory, they cancel excitation and inhibit an action potential from occurring.

Cerebrum

The largest section of the brain which is divided into four sections. The frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobe.

What joins each hemisphere of the brain?

The corpus callosum

What is the role of the cerebellum?

Controls motor skills, movement, balance and coordination

The dienecephalon is divided into which two important brain structures?

The thalamus and the hypothalamus

What is the function of the thalamus?

Acts as a relay station for nerve impulses coming from the senses and sends them to the appropriate part of the brain

The hypothalamus

Regulates body temperature, hunger and thirst. Links the endocrine and nervous system together. Controls the release of hormones from the pituitary gland

Brain stem (medulla oblongata)

Regulates autonomic functions including breathing and heartbeat.