Psychology paper 1 (complete)

What is a piece of evidence related to context related forgetting? Godden and Baddeley (1975)

Godden and Baddeley (1975) studied deep sea divers to show context dependent forgetting.

• Procedure- the divers had to learn a list of words either underwater or on land and were then asked to recall the words either underwater or on land. This therefore created four conditions:

1) Learn on land- recall on land

2) Learn on land- recall underwater

3) Learn underwater- recall on land

4) Learn underwater- recall underwater

• Findings- in two of these conditions the environmental contexts of learning and recall were the same, in the other two they were different. Accurate recall was 40% lower in when the learning and recall environments were different. The external cues available at learning were different from the ones at recall and this led to retrieval failure.

What is a piece of evidence related to internal state forgetting?

• Procedure- Carter and Cassaday (1998) gave their participants antihistamine drugs. This made the participants drowsy which is an internal physiological state that is different from the ‘normal’ state of being awake and alert. The participants had to earn lists of words and passages of prose and then recall the information. There were four conditions:

1) Learn on drug- recall on drug

2) Learn on drug- recall not on drug

3) Learn not on drug- recall on drug

4) Learn not on drug- recall not on drug

• Findings- in the conditions where there was a mismatch between internal state at learning and recall, performance on the memory test was significantly worse. So, when cues are absent there is more forgetting.

How can we evaluate theories of forgetting (retrieval failure)

• A strength is the impressive range of research that the supports retrieval failure explanation. The studies by Godden and Baddeley and Carter and Cassaday are just two examples because they show that a lack of relevant cues at recall can lead to context dependent and state dependent forgetting in everyday life. Eysenck and Keane (2010) argue that retrieval failure is perhaps the main reason for forgetting from long term memory. This evidence shows that retrieval failure occurs in real world situations as well as in the highly controlled conditions of the lab.

• However, Baddeley (1997)argues that context effects are actually not very strong, especially in everyday life. Contexts have to be very different indeed before the effect is seen. For example, it would be hard to find an environment as different from Land's underwater (Godden and Baddeley). In contrast, learning something in one room and recalling it in another is unlikely to result in much forgetting because these environments are generally not different enough. This means that retrieval failure due to lack of contextual cues may not actually explain much everyday forgetting.

How can we evaluate theories of forgetting? (Interference theory)

• Most studies supporting interference theory are lab based, so researchers can control variables (e.g. the time between learning the material and recalling it). Control over confounding variables also means studies show a clear link between interference and forgetting. But these studies use artificial materials and unrealistic procedures. In everyday life we often learn something and recall it much later (e.g. revising for exams) therefore interference theory may not be a valid explanation for forgetting in real life.

• One limitation is that interference is temporary and can be overcome by using cues(hints or clues to help us to remember something). Tulving and Psotka (1971) gave participants lists of words organised into categories, one list at a time (participants were not told what the categories were). Recall averaged about 70% for the first listbut became progressively worse as participants learned each additional list (proactive interference). But had the words really disappeared from LTM or where they are still available? At the end of the procedure the participants were given a cued recall testthey were told the names of the categories. Recall rose again to about 70%. This shows that interference causes a temporary loss of accessibility to material that is still in long term memory, a finding not predicted by interference theory.

How can we evaluate Post event discussion affecting EWT?

• A strength is that research into misleading information has real-life applications. The research has led to important practical uses for police officers and investigators, important because the consequences of inaccurate EWT can be very serious. Loftus (1975) claimed that leading questions can have such a distorting influence on memory that police officers need to be careful about how they phrase questions when interviewing eyewitnesses. Research into EWT is one area where psychologists can make an important difference to the lives of real people, e.g. by improving how the legal system works an acting as an expert witness and by protecting innocent people from faulty convictions based on unreliable eyewitness testimony.

• However, the practical applications of eyewitness testimony may be affected by issues with research. For instance, Loftus and Palmer’s participants to watch film clips in a lab, a very different experience from witnessing a real event (e.g. Less stressful). Also, Foster (1994) points out what eyewitnesses remember has important consequences in the real world, but participants responses in research do not matter in the same way (so research participants are less motivated to be accurate). This suggests that researchers such as Loftus are too pessimistic about the effects of misleading information- eyewitness testimony may be more dependable than many studies suggest.

What is obedience?

is a form of social influence where people are told what to do and follow instructions

Whats the background of Milgrims obedience experiment?

• 1963

• He had a Jewish background and wanted to understand why the German people went along with events like the holocaust

• At the time, the opinion was that it was based on German traits being ‘cold’ meaning many had no issue commiting these crimes

What was the procedure of Milgrims obedience experiment?

• 40 US males took part found through volunteer sampling

• Roles were allocated ‘randomly’ of being either ‘teacher’ or ‘learner’ (this was rigged)

• The learner was strapped to the chair and the teacher was made to believe they were administering electric shocks

• The learner answers questions from the teacher, if they got the question wrong, they would be given an electrical shock. The voltage would increase each time the learner got a question wrong (destructive order given to teacher)

• Shocks went up from 15v to 450v

• The responses from the learner were all standardised ‘let me out of here’ at 330v there is no response

• If the teacher refused to give out the shocks they would be given verbal prods ‘please continue’ to ‘you have no choice but to continue’

What were the results of Milgrims obedience experiment?

• 65% continued to the 450v (26 ppts)

• 100% continued to 300v (where 5 ppts stopped)

• People had shown physical distress, sweating, nervous laughter, 3 had seizures

What conclusions were made from Milgrims obedience experiment?

• Clearly, the Germans are not different, ordinary Americans were obedient to authority

• Milgrim argued obedience is based on the situation people find themselves in rather than personality of indivuals

How can we evaluate Milgrims obedience research?

strengths

• Standardised procedure, well controlled lab experiment so has high internal validity

• Has some ecological validity, this would be how the Nazis would’ve ordered people, using intimidation

Limitations

• We can’t generalise the findings, no woman took part so maybe this had an effect on the results

• Ethical issues. Phyiscal and psychological harms, 3 had seizures, they were put under pressure, Milgrim may counter this by saying that afterwards he debriefed ppts, many said after that they recognised the good outcomes

• Ethical issues. Deception, they went into an experiment that wasn’t what they thought it would be, lied to by Milgrim

• Ethical issue. Lack of informed consent

Milgrim argued that these ethical issues were broken to keep the internal validity of the research, if ppts knew it was about obedience they would potentially act differently

What is conformity?

What 3 types of conformity did Kelman identify?

Conformity is defined as yielding to group pressure. Conformity occurs when an indivduals behaviour or belief are influenced by wider groups of people. Conforminity is known as majority influence

Kelman in 1958 identified the three types of conformity

• Compliance

• Identification

• Internalisation

What is compliance?

Occcurs when individuals adjust their behaviour and opinions to those of a group to be accepted and avoid dissapproval. Compliance therefore occurs due to a desire to fit in and involves public, not private acceptance of groups behaviour and attitudes. It is a fairly weak temporary form of conformity, only shown in the pressence of a group. E.g, claiming to support a football team in the presence of others to avoid being judged

What is identification?

Occurs when indivduals adjust their behaviour or opinions for a group as membership is desireable. This is a stronger type of conformity, involving private as well as public acceptance, its genrally temporary

E.g sharing the same opinion as others at work but not when you are home or with friends

What is internalisation?

Also known as true conformity, occurs when an indivdual adjust their behaviour and opinions for a group (genuinly). Involves indivduals being exposed to belief systems of others and deciding what they believe in. If opinions are seen as correct, this will lead to public and private acceptance of beliefs. E.g influenced by religous groups and converting to faith with a new religous way of life

What is ISI?

Informational social influence

Is about a desire to be right, often we are uncertain about what behaviours are right or wrong. You go with other students answers. it occurs in situations you don’t want to be judged for being wrong, and there isn’t a clear answer. We follow others who seem like experts

What is NSI?

Normative social influence

Is about a desire to be liked and not looking foolish. NSI concerns ‘normal’ behaviour for social groups and occurs in unfamilier situations where we don’t know others. we look for norms in groups, it also important for with people we know looking for social approval from friends

How can we evaluate ISI?

Strengths

• it has supporting evidence, Lucas et al 2006, asked students to give answers to easy and difficult maths problems, there was more conformity in incorrect answers when the problems were more difficult. This was most true for students who scored themselves lowly in maths

• People conform in situations when they feel they don’t know the answer we look to others and assume they know better than us.

Limitations

• a problem with ISI is that there are individual differences

• Asch 1955 found students were less conformist 28% than other ppts 37%

• Perrin and Spencer 1980, replicated this with engineering Students as they are confident about precision, less conformity. People who are knowledgeable/more confident are less influenced showing individual differences in ISI

How can we evaluate NSI?

Strengths

• like ISI, NSI has strong research support, Asch 1951 asked ppts to explain why they agreed with the wrong answer. Some said they felt self conscious giving the right answer and were afraid of disapproval

• When Asch asked ppts to write down their answers, conformity rates fell to 12.5% this supports the Ppts own reports that they were conforming because of NSI

Limitations

• despite there being research, evidence to support NSI and ISI it is unclear which one can be used to explain the results of different studies or behaviour in real life

• For example, Asch 1955 found that conforming is reduced when there is one dissenter ppts. The dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (because the provide social support) or they may reduce the power of ISI (because they provide an alternative source of social situation) both interpretations are made possible

• Therefore it is hard to separate ISI and NSI and both processes probably operate together in most real world conformity situations

What was Asch’s 1951 conformity experiment?

Set up a situation to see if people would conform when a clearly wrong answer was given to a simple question by other group members

What was the procedure of Asch’s 1951 conformity experiment?

• Asch recruited 123 American male students, each was tested indivdually with a group of between 6-8 confederates

• On each trial, confederates gave correct answers but then all selected the same wrong answers. Each ppt completed 18 trials. on 12 ‘critical trials’ confederates gave the wrong answer

What were the findings and conclusions from Asch’s conformity experiment?

• The naive ppts gave a wrong answer. 36.8% of the time, i.e the proportion of critical trials when the ppt agreed with the confederates confederates wrong answers. This shows a high level of conformity, this is called the ‘asch effect’ - the extent to which people conform even in unambigous situation.

• There were considerable indivdual differences: 25% of the ppts never gave the wrong answer, so 75% conformed at least once. A few ppts conformed most of the time

• Most ppts said they conformed to avoid rejection (NSI) and continued to privately trust their own opinions (compliance)

What was the context of Asch’s second experiment into conformity?

Asch was further interested in the conditions that might lead to an increase or decrease in conformity. He investigated these by carrying out some variations of his original procedure

What was the procedure of Asch’s 1955 experiment investigating variables affecting conformity?

• Group size; the number of confederates varied between 1 and 15

• Unanimity; Asch introduced a truthful confederate or a confederate who was dissenting but inaccurate

• Task difficulty; Asch made the line judging task harder by making the stimulus line and the comparison line similar in length

What were the findings and conclusions from Asch’s 1955 research into conformity?

• Group size; with two confederates, conforming to the wrong answer was 13.6% with three it rose to 31.8% . Adding to any more confederates made little difference

• unanimity; the pressence of a dissenting confederate reduced conformity, whether the disenter was giving the right or wrong answer. The figure was, on average was 25% wrong answers. Having a dissenter enabled a naive ppt to behave more independantly

• Task difficulty; conforming increased when the task was more difficult. so informational social influence (ISI) plays a greater role when the task becomes harder. The situation is more ambigous, so we are likely to look to others for guidance and assume they are all right

What are the limitations of Asch’s research?

• findings may be a ‘child of the times’ Perrin and Spencer 1986 found just one conforming response in 396 trials. Ppts (UK engineering students) felt more confident measuring lines than Asch’s original sample, so they were less conformist

• Additionally, in the 1950s people were more likely to conform and in subsequent decades people became less likely, the Asch effect was not consistant overtime so is not enduring of human behaviour

• Another limitation is that the situation and task were artificial, ppts knew they were part of a study so they may have just responded to demand characterstics. The line task was trivial so there was no reason not to conform

• Findings don’t generalise to everyday situations where consequence of conforming are important, and where we interact with groups more directly, lacks ecological validity

• It’s important to not generalise findings, all ppt were male, American, and students

What is a positive of Asch’s study? How can we counter this?

• One strength of Asch’s research is that other studies support his claims. For example, Todd Lucas et al 2006 asked their ppts to solve easy maths problems, Ppts were given answers from the other three students (not real) The ppts conformed more often agreeing with the answer when problems were harder, this shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity

• However, Lucas et al’s study found conforming is more complex than Asch suggested. Ppts with higher confidence in maths ability conformed less on harder questions than those with low confidence. Indivdual difference influence conformity by interacting with situational variables like difficulty, Asch’s research did not investigate indivdual differences

What was Hoflings obedience experiment?

Aim - To see whether nurses would obey orders from a doctor that could cause harm in a hospital

Procedure - Nurses were instructed over the phone by a doctor to give a patient 20mg of Astrogen without conferring with colleagues, this was twice the recommended dosage

Findings - 21/22 nurses obeyed the order (despite a control group of nurses who said they would never obey)

Conclusions - Hofling argued that this showed the power of a doctors authority In a real life situation and people act differently to how they think they would

What did Milgrim explore after his experiment?

Milgrim explored situational variables affecting obedience, he found this may be the case and tested Proximity, uniform, and location (PUL)

What did Milgrim find in PUL variables?

• in the proximity variation obedience dropped to 40% where the teacher and learner were in the same room, it dropped to 30% when the teacher had to force down the hand of the learner on the metal plate, it fell to 20.5% when the teacher and learner were ‘remote’ in different rooms

• In the uniform variation obedience dropped to 20% when an ordinary individual came in and gave the verbal prods

• In the location variation obedience only fell to 47.5% when they went from a prestigious Yale building to a more run down building

What conclusions did Milgrim make from his research into situational variables affecting obedience?

situational variables were important in influencing factors on obedience and uniform and proximity were more influential than location

How can we evaluate Milgrims research into situational variables affecting obedience?

Strengths

• Bickman in 1974 also developed Milgrims research into obedience and uniforms influence. He investigated people’s obedience to someone dressed in a suit/tie and as a security guard. The confederate asked passers by for a coin to pay for a parking meter. He found that people obeyed the security guard more someone with a suit and tie

• Milgrims research gave more control over variables. E.g each variables could all be tested separately. They altered one variable at a time, this study was replicated by 1000 psychologists. The control gives more certainty that changes in obedience were caused by the variable manipulated showing cause and effect relationship

• The research has good reliability, Miranda et al found 90% of students in Spain conformed, however, Smith and Bond found that it would be premature to assume this for the whole globe and it may just be for western cultures

Limitations

• His experiment may lack internal validity, Orne and Holland 1968 suggest ppts we’d likely to realise the procedure was fake because of extra manipulation. It’s hard to tell if ppts were acting and being obedient or they genuinely believed the experiment

• Mandell argued in 1998 that Milgrims findings have dangerous implications, they may give the Nazis an alibi for evil behaviour. By explaining that the nazis simply followed orders is offensive to survivors

What was the general idea of Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment?

it was a study desinged to investigate conformity to social roles in 1971

Procedure; how did Zimbardo treat the ‘prisoners’ and the ‘guards’ get treated differently?

Zimbardo tried to deindivdualise the prisoners

• They had to wear stockings over their hair

• wearing white smogs (like dresses) which took away their masculinity

• They were called by a number

The Guards wore outfits which gave them authority and power

• They had mirror reflective sunglasses

• Uniforms were khaki

• They were also given wooden clubs, handcuffs, and keys

What was the procedure of Zimbardos stanford prison experiment?

• Zimbardo and collegues (Haney et al) set up a mock prison in the basementof stanford university

• They wanted to test the brutality of guards was the result of sadistic personalities or the situation they were put into. 

• They recruited 24 students determined by psychological testing, randomly assigned roles, prisoners were ‘arrested’ at their homes by a real life police officer and taken to the university, they were blindfolded, strip-searched, deloused, and given their number

• Prisoners faced strict regulations with 16 rules to follow, this was enforced by the guards working in shifts

What findings/conclusions were found from Zimbardo’s SPE?

• The experiment was meant to go on for 14 days but was stopped at 6, 2 days into the study prisoners rioted agaisnt the guards, this was controlled by the guards setting fire extinguishers on them

• 3 prisones left early due to psychological harm

• Guards highlighted the differences in social roles, by creating oppurtunities for punishement, their behaviour risked the physical and psychological wellbeing of the ‘prisoners’

• One prisoner went on a hunger strike, the guards tried to force feed them, this didn’t work so they were put in the ‘hole’ a small room

Overall, the experiment reflected the power of situations to influence peoples behaviour. all ppts conformed to social roles, the more gueards identified with the roles, the more aggressive they became

How can we evaluate Zimbardos stanford prison experiment?

• One strength is that zimbardo had control over the experiment, emotionally stable ppts were given randomly allocated roles so there was no chance roles were allocated based on personality, control over variables increases the studies internal validity, we can be more confident making conclusions

• A limitation of the experiment is that there is a lack of realism. Banuazizi and Mohamed 1975 suggest that the prisoners were ‘play acting’. Their preformance reflected their beliefs of how prison officers and prisoners act, one guard claimed they inspired their role off the film ‘cool hand luke’, on the other hand, this can be countered zimbardo found 90% of the conversations were about prison life suggesting it felt real to them = increasing internal validity

• Another limitation of the experiment is that SPE lacks research support, Reicher and Haslam (2006 conducted a similar style of experiment but found the prisoners eventually took control

• A further limitation were the ethical issues that came through. As Zimbardo had an artifical role as ‘prison superintendant’, it interferred with his role as 'lead researcher. A student who wanted to withdraw spoke to zimbardo but he was too concerned about the running of the prison. This limited Zimbardos ability to protect ppts from harm

What is minority influence?

Another type of conformity occurs when a single person or small group changes the views of a larger group. Effectively converting others to their position, minority influence is most likely go lead to internalisation. Both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed

What was Moscovici et al’s 1969 study into minority influence?

• minority influence was demonstrated where a group of 6 people were asked to view a set of 36 blue coloured slides that varied in intensity and state whether they were blue or green

• In each group, two confederates consistently said the slides were green on 2/3rds of trials, ppts gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of trials, 32% gave the same answer as the minority on at least one trial

• A second group were exposed to inconsistent minority and agreement fell to 1.25% for a third control group there were no confederates and all ppts had to identify the colour of each slide they got this wrong one 0.25% of the trials

How does consistency play a role in minority influence?

Increases the amount of interest from other people. Consistency might be an agreement between people and a minority group (synchronic consistency when they are all saying the same thing) and/or (diachronic consistency when they have been saying the same thing for a long time). Consistency like this makes others rethink their own views (augmentation principle)

How does commitment play a role in minority influence?

Sometimes minorities engage in extreme activities to have people pay attention to their views. It is important that these activities are extreme because it demonstrates commitment to the cause. Majority groups pay more attention and rethink their beliefs

How does flexibility play a role in minority influence?

Nemeth 1986 argued consistency is not the most important factor because it can be interpreted negatively. Being extreme and repeating the same argument can be seen as inflexible. This is off putting and unlikely to result in any conversation to the minority position. Members of the minority need to be prepared to adopt their view and accept reasonable and valid counter arguments. The key is a balance of consistency and flexibility

How can the process of change from minority influence result in the snowball effect?

Once the minority viewpoint has got the attention of the majority, more and more people begin paying attention which gains momentum to the idea like a snowball growing in size. Social cryptoamnesia - the majority know that social change has occurred but the source has become disassociated and people can’t recall how it has happened

What are the limitations of the role of minority influence?

• Minority influence involves artificial tasks, Moscovicis task was identifying colour of slide, far removed from how minorities try to change opinions in real life. In jury decisione making and political campaigning outcomes are vastly more important; a matter of life and death

• This means findings from studies lack external validity like ecological validity and are limited on how minority influence works in real life situations

• It is questionable as to the extent of the power that minority influence has over human behaviour. In moscovici et als study the figure for agreement was 8%. This suggests minority influence is quite rare and not a usual subject

What are the strengths of Moscovici et al’s study into the role of minority influence?

• when ppts wrote down their answers privately, it was found that they were more likely to agree with the minority view. This suggests the view expressed by people in public was just the ‘tip of the iceberg’. This suggests minority influence have much more power in the form of minority opinion. As a result of exposure to minority position, people search for information, consider more options and make better decisions, and are more creative. Dissenters liberate people to say what they believe, and they simulate divergent and creative thought even when they are wrong. This view is supported by the work of van dyne and saavedra (1996) who studied the role of dissent in work groups, found groups had improved descion when there was one dissenter clearly illustrating the powerful role that minority influence had

• Nemeth and Brilmayer (1987) studied the role of flexibility in a simulated jury simulation where the group members discussed compensation for an individual caught in an accident. When a confederate provided an alternative point of view and refused to be flexible had no effect on group members. A confederate who was flexible did provide influence over the group. This increases validity of the theory

What is agency theory?

Milgrim proposed that obedience to destructive authority occurs because the person doesn’t take responsibility as they believe they are acting for someone else. I.e they are an ‘agent’

They feel high anxiety ‘moral strain’ when they realise what they were doing is wrong but they felt powerless to disobey

What is the opposite to agency theory?

The opposite is autonomy, this means individuals are aware of the consequences of their actions and voluntarily choose how to behave. Thus, they feel responsible for their own actions.

The shift from autonomy to agency is called agentic shift. Milgrim in 1974 suggests this happens when someone who is deemed as a presence of authority

Why do people remain ‘agents’?

Many of Milgrims ppts spoke as if they wanted to quit but they were unable too. This is linked to binding factors, allowing the individual to ignore the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduced the moral strain. Milgrim suggested people have strategies to ‘shift responsibility’ to the victims or denying damage done to victims

Authority has a large force of power over us, we have a hierarchy to allow society to run smoothly, we learn to obey authority through socialisation, we will obey because we either trust others or they will punish us

What is legitimate authority? How does it link to milgrims experiment?

The ppts saw the experimenter as legitimate authority due to their lab coat, they obeyed them as ppts as they thought they had the power to instruct. Obedience was decreased when uniform was removed

What is authoritarian personality? What was Adorno’s research into this?

• he was a psychologist working in the US in the late 1940s, he worked with European psychologists who escaped persecution in the holocaust.

• He argued that the key understanding of extreme obedience and racial prejudice from early childhood experience, he argued people with an ‘authoritarian personality’ have more tendency to be obedient

• He studied 2000 American students from mostly white middle class backgrounds; he interviewed them about their childhood experiences and political views. He also used projective tests with a neutral stimuli of pictures that can be used to study thoughts about race

• He developed a number of scales to measure aspects of behaviour and attitudes including;

  • ethnocentrism

  • Anti-semitism

  • F scale, measuring facism

How can we evaluate agency theory and legitimacy of authority as explanations of obedience?

Strengths

• Blass and Schmidt 2001 showed students a film of milgrims experiment and asked them who was at fault, students blamed the experimenter. This shows students recognised legitimate authority

• Legitimacy of authority shows cultural differences, countries differ, only 16% of AUS went to top voltage , 85% of GER did. Authority is different in cultures, this increases validity

Limitations

• In Ross and Jacobsen’s study in 1977, they found 16/18 nurses disobeyed orders from a ‘doctor’ administering an excessive dose of drugs this suggests agentic shift only counts for some situations of obedience

• It can’t account for the Nazis behaviour, Mandell 1998, an example of men not following direct orders but still committing violence in a small town in Poland, challenges agentic shift explanation

How can we evaluate the idea of authoritarian personality explaining obedience?

Strengths

• there is support for the link between authoritarian personality and obedience, adornos findings that obedient people may show similar characteristics to those with authoritarian personalities. However this is just a correlation between measured variables. We can’t conclude from this. Another factor could be education levels

Limitations

• the explanation is limited, millions of individuals in Germany displayed obedient and anti-Semitic behaviour. It seems unlikely the majority had an authoritarian personality. An alternative explanation is more realistic of social identity theory. Most Germans identified with the anti-Semitic nazi state and adopted its views

How can social support decrease conformity and obedience?

Conformity

• Pressures to conform are reduced if someone does not conform

• In Asch’s research, when someone didn’t conform with the majority genuine ppts were less likely to conform

Obedience

• Pressure to obey decreases if someone else disobeys

• In milgrims obedience experiment obedience dropped to 10% when a genuine ppts was joined by a confederate disobeyer

• They may not follow disobedient behaviour but the confederate acts as a model for the ppt to copy

What is the locus of control? - How can it link to resistance of social influence?

Rotter 1966, created a measure of a persons control over events in their life. At one end of the scale, those who believe they control their life and feel responsible for their actions, This is called an internal locus of control

On the other hand, those who believe outside factors like fate influence their life, this is called an external locus of control. Most people score within the middle of the scale

• Internal locus of control individuals can resist pressures of conformity and obedience, they can take accountability and base their own behaviour on their own beliefs. Individuals with a high internal locus are more self confident, intelligent, and are less likely to seek social approval

What are the situational and disproportional factors influencing conformity and obedience?

• Social support - situational

• Locus of control - disproportional

How can we evaluate the ideas of social support impacting conformity and obedience?

• Research evidence to support ideas of the positive impacts of social support, Susan Albrecht et al 2006, evaluated teen fresh start USA. This was an 8 week programme attempting to help pregenant teens resist peer pressures of smoking. Social support was provided by a ‘buddy’, a slightly older mentor, ppts who had a buddy were less likely to conform to social pressures of smoking than the control group who didn’t have a buddy. Thus, social support can help reduce the pressures of social influence 

• Research exploring the role of dissenting peers in obedience. William Gamson et al’s study in 1982. Ppts were told to produce evidence that would help an oil company create a smear campaign. The ppts worked in groups allowing them to discuss, 29/33 ppts in groups disobeyed (88%). Social support can undermine social influence and legitimate authority 

How can we evaluate ideas of locus of control?

• A strength is research evidence, Holland 1967, repeated milgrims baseline experiment and measured if ppts were ‘internal’ or ‘external’. 37% of internals did not obey whilst 23% of externals did not obey, this increases the validity of the idea of locus of control for resisting social influence

• One limitation is that there is evidence to challenge the idea, Jean Twenge et al 2004 studied studies over 40 years from 1960-2000. people from data did become more resistant but also people became more external.

What is social change?

Process of changing beliefs, attitudes and behaviours at societal rather than individual level, thus creating social norms

What is an example of social change in the UK?

• same sex relationships

• In the British social attitudes study in 1987, 74% viewed same sex relationships as always or mostly wrong, in 2017, 17% said this

• Homosexuality was removed from the DSM in 1973, it previously required psychological treatment

• Acts like same sex marriage in 2013

These changes have occurred from minority influence through tactics like protests, media campaigns, etc

What is the role and process of minority influence on social change?

1) drawing attention through protests, campaigns, etc

2) staying consistent in messaging

3) deeper processing, allowing the majority to reflect on their own thought processes and develop cognitive conflict

4) Augmentation principle, minority members out themselves at risk in order to show commitment

5) snowball effect, gradually majority members start accepting minority view

6) social cryptoamnesia, change has occurred but people don’t remember how it happened

Changes achieved by minority groups are accepted but the minority group aren’t given much credit, sometimes minority members still face discrimination

How has social change been found in themes and ideas of social influence?

• Asch found that Dissent is important, it breaks unanimity encouraging others to dissent creating social change

• Environmental and health campaigns found use of NSI (normative social influence) they do this by providing info on what others are doing. E.g reducing littering ‘bin it, others do’

• Zimbardo found that in 2007, obedience can be used to create social change through process of gradual commitment, when a small instruction is obeyed, its more difficult to resist larger instructions

• Overall social change creates obedience due to law framework coming into place

How can we evaluate social influences role in social change?

Strengths

• there is research evidence of NSI, Nolan et al found in San Diego, California, that when people hung messages in their front windows about energy savings every week for one month. The key message was to reduce residents energy savings as everyone else was. As a control, some residents had messages to save energy but with no reference that others were doing so. They found there was decreased energy usage in the 1st group compared to the 2nd group. This is a strength that conformity can lead to social change through NSI.

Limitations

• Bashir et al (2013) argue people continue to resist social change, they found ppts were less likely to behave in an environmentally friendly way as they didn’t want to be associated with ‘environmentalists’ they described activists in a negative way “tree huggers”. ——> however, despite resistance it shows that being able to identify with the group is just as important as agreeing with views in terms of changing behaviour

What is memory?

Memory often takes form as a reconstruction of events based on schemas, memory is an internal process so it is impossible to observe it. Memory therefore is often observed and understood through tests

What is a ‘thing’ and process?

A ‘thing’ is information that has been stored in the brain. A process is a mental activity which stores information and allows it to be shared when needed

What are the two types of remembering?

The two types of remembering are recall and recognition. Recall involves retrieving information by accessing your mental filing system, while recognition involves identifying previously learned information when presented with it. Recognition happens when a stimulus is presented like someones face or name

What are two types of memory experiments?

Recall experiments

• presentation phase, give ppts information like words or objects that we are going to test them on

• Distraction phase, (optional phase) this prevents participants to recall information with distractions

• recall phase, ppts are required to recall information from the presentation stage

Recognition experiments

• presentation phase, ppts will be presented with an image or other information

• distraction phase (optional)

• recognition phase, ppts will be presented with part of an image or information which they can recognise and recall the whole image

What are models of memory?

As memory is an internal mental process, we need to create abstract representations of memories and how they work, we test these models using experiments

What was the key idea of Atkinson and Shiftin’s Multi-store model?

Developed in 1968, the key belief based on the multi-store model is that information stored in the long term memory can be used to make sense of newly added short term memory

How does the Multi-store memory work?

• We take in experiences, events, and objects we encounter by registering sensory information that can be visual, tactile, or olfactory for example. The capacity in which we take in information in our sensory register is very large but we keep this information within a quarter of a second. Also there is no coding when taking this information in.

• By paying attention we transfer this information into our short-term memory which can store information at a limited capacity of 5-9 items within 18-30 seconds, short term memory can be coded as an acoustic inner voice in order to process information.

• Short term memory goes through a rehersal loop, if we intend to keep this memory in our long term memory

• If this memory becomes long term, information enters with an unlimited capacity and a long duration. it has semantic coding which means memory can be meaningful and important

What is the working memory model?

Otherwise known as the WMM, the model was developed by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974. The model focuses on short term memory and how it is able to split up sensory information. Although it is a different model, they agreed with Atkinson and shiffin’s argument that the short term memory has a quick duration and a low capacity

How does the working memory model function?

• Central executive

• The branches of the phonological loop and the Visuo-spatial sketch pad

• information coming from the sensory register is believed to enter the central executive which is known as the ‘manager’ decides what information to pay attention to and how to process information.

• The Phonological loop (P.L) and the Visuo-spatial sketch pad (V.S.S) are both independent sub-stores that can work simultaneously without effecting each other.

• The P.L processes acoustic information, it is our “inner voice” and splits off into the articulatory control process which is otherwise known as the rehearsal loop. Capacity in this is limited and is based on how much information you can repeat to yourself in 2 seconds

• The V.S.S processes visual information, it has two separate stores, one being spatial and one focusing on colour and shape

How does the working memory model extend to the episodic buffer?

The episodic buffer (E.B) combines the information from the P.L and the V.S.S and creates a temporary memory. If this is successful memory is transferred to the long term memory and is exchanged back and forth in order to make sense of new information

What are the similarities between the multi-store model and the working memory model?

• Memory involves a number of separate stores, the STM and the LTM are separate stores

• Information from the senses flows from one store to the next within each process

• Both have a rehearsal loop, in the working memory model they use the A.C.P which is their inner voice rehearsing information

• STM has limited capacity and duration in both models

What are the differences between the multi-store model and the working memory model?

• MSM views the STM as a unitary store of information however the VSS is split into two stores

• Working memory model has added a manager of our memory that makes decisions about how to process information

What are the three types of long term memory?

• Episodic memory

• Semantic memory

• Procedural memory

Different types of long term memory are stored in different areas of the brain. The rate of decay for different types of memory differs especially between procedural and episodic

What is episodic memory? What are the characteristics of them?

• they are memories for personal events e.g what did I do at Christmas

• One characteristic is that they are time-stamped so we can have a sense of when this event occurred. Episodic memory is often associated with a point in time

• Another characteristic is that they are declarative memories, in order to be able to recall the memory you have to consciously “call it to mind” the only way you can remember this type of memory is if you know you have it stored

• They are personal in nature, you are involved in the event in some way

• An example of an episodic memory is an eye witness testimony

What is semantic memory? What are its characteristics?

• they are memories about facts and knowledge

• They are also declarative, we are consciously aware about these memories

• They are no time stamped, there is no association with when the information was learnt

what are procedural memories? What what are their characteristics?

• they are memories of how to do things for skills e.g tying shoelaces

• They are non-declarative as we don’t have to consciously recall how to tie shoes for instance

• Use of this memory can be automatic and habitual where there is no conscious recollection

• They are not time stamped

• They can be personal although many aren’t

How can the three types of LTM be affected by old age?

Conditions like dementia could have a long term effect on memory

• firstly, episodic memory may be lost

• Then semantic memory

• Finally procedural memory is lost

This is because procedural memory has survival value so they are argue to be stored in a different way throughout the brain rather than in one location

What is retrieval failure? What did Tulving propose?

• this is where forgetting occurs because we cannot access information stored in the long term memory

• A computer analogy would explain that it’s like when we have a document stored in our filing system and we cannot find it

Tulving provided the encoding specificity hypothesis which proposed that each piece of information has a cue that can be used to access the memory. For instance a cue is like a file name to allow us to easily find a document

What is an internal cue?

These are cues where they involve the internal body store e.g our emotional state. With our emotional state for example people who suffer from depression may find it difficult to access happy childhood memories as the mood they are currently in doesn’t match the mood from their childhood. Therefore the emotional cues are not available to access

What is state dependant forgetting?

This is where the state we learn something in is different to the state we need to recall this learnt information. There is an absence of internal cues to help us recall info therefore leading to retrieval failure

What are external cues, what is context dependant forgetting?

External cues are anything in a persons environment that may help them recall information e.g the physical setting of a classroom can help someone recall information

• context dependant forgetting is where external cues present when learning like who you are sitting with or where you sit are absent in a different situation like an exam hall.

• Context dependant forgetting has useful applications as they can improve eye-witness testimonies, we can reinstate context by taking the witness to the scene of the crime.

What is the tip of the tongue phenomenon?

This is a good example of retrieval failure.

• we know we know a piece of information but can’t recall it to mind. A cue usually allows us to call this info to mind

What is interference theory?

Existing information that is already stored in long term memory is confused with new information that arrives. Forgetting occurs because we have either overlaid existing info with new info or existing info is easier to call to mind than new info. Interference typically when new and old information are similar in nature like phone numbers or emails.

What are the two types of interference?

• Proactive interference, existing info already stored in long term memory makes it difficult to recall new info

• Retroactive interference, new info arriving overlaps existing info making old info harder to recall

What was Jacob’s study into short term memory and its capacity and duration?

Aim and method

In 1887 he illustrated the limited capacity of STM through the Digit span experiment

• The aim was to investigate the capacity of STM

• The method consists of reading strings of digits and letters to ppts which then they would have to recall in the same order. This typically starter at 3 digits/letters up to a maximum

• The IV of the experiment was the length of the digit/letter span, the DV was the maximum number of digits/letters. This was a repeated measures design in laboratory conditions

What did Jacob’s find in 1887 and what conclusions did he make?

• on average digit span was found to be approximately 9 digits recalled and around 7 letters were recalled

• He concluded capacity for STM was limited as most people could only recall 5-9 items. This can be increased by “chunking” which is grouping times together into units that mean something

What are the strengths and limitations of Jacob’s experiment into STM?

Strengths

• very reliable experiment due to highly controlled conditions, can be used to compare data between different groups.

• Good internal validity, it measures what it sets out to measure which is the capacity of STM

• Findings about “chunking” have had practical applications like helping us remember passwords and phone numbers

Limitations

• the experiments lacks ecological validity so it’s not relevant to everyday life. When we learn phone numbers we will write down the numbers as it is being said not after

What was Peterson and Peterson’s study into the duration of short term memory?

Method

They had 24 undergraduate students take part in this experiment, they were shown consonant trigrams e.g the letters NGT and distracted them by counting down from 3. The length of the distraction task was manipulated from 3 seconds to 30 seconds. Following this the pots were asked to recall the trigrams. The number of correctly recalled trigrams for each distraction condition was recorded

What did Peterson and Peterson find and conclude from their consonant trigram experiment?

They found if the distraction was for 3 seconds an average of 80% of trigrams were recalled. After 18 seconds only 10% were recalled

They concluded that their is a limited duration of Short term memory if rehearsal is prevented

What are the strengths and limitations of Peterson and Peterson’s trigram experiment?

Strengths

• Highly reliable experiment

Limitations

• lacks ecological validity

• Probably measures capacity so not just duration

What was Bahrick et al’s yearbook study into long term memory duration?

Method, findings and conclusion

Method

• They studied 392 high school graduates from Ohio, they were aged between 18 to 74. They were asked to recall names and if they recognised faces from yearbooks.

Findings

• ppts who had graduated within 15 years had a 90% photo recognition and 60% name recall accuracy

• Ppts who had graduated within 48 years had a 70% photo recognition and 30% name recall accuracy

Conclusion

• compared to short term memory, long term memory has a very long duration

What are the strengths and limitations of Bahricks yearbook study?

Strengths

• really good ecological validity, is a natural experiment

Limitations

• Many extraneous variables decreasing reliability. E.g how we they knew their classmates, if they kept contact, if they attended reunions

Baddeley et al’s 1966 word list experiment

What was the aim and method?

What did he find and what conclusions were made?

The aim was to investigate the difference between STM coding and LTM coding

Ppts learnt lists of worlds and then recalled them either immediately (STM) or after 20 minutes (LTM). Words in lists either sounded the same, sounded different, meant the same or something different. It was independent groups and Baddeley recorded the number of errors made when recalling the words.

Baddeley focused on errors which meant remembering a word that wasn’t on the list. This would potentially suggest the type of coding used. In the STM condition, words that sounded similar were confused rather than words that meant the same thing. In the LTM condition, words that meant the same is where the most errors were made.

Baddeley concluded that STM and LTM coding was different. STM was coded acoustically so ppts substituted similar sounding words, LTM was coded semantically so lots substituted words that meant the same

How can we evaluate Baddeley et al’s word list experiment of 1966?

strengths

• highly controlled experiment where the IV is able to influence the DV.

• High internal validity

Limitations

• lacks ecological validity

What was Murdocks 1962 experiment into serial position curve and the primacy and recency effect?

Aim, method, findings

The aim was to find understand the difference between the duration and capacity of STM and LTM and the effect primacy and recency has

The method has 103 ppts who were presented with lists read out to them around one second per word, then ppts would have to recall these words, Murdock measured the % recall of each word in relation to its position on the list

He found the likelihood of the word being recalled depended on its serial position, words presented earlier had the primacy effect where these words were transported to LTM, words in the middle were likely to be forgotten due to displacement caused by new words entering on the last stage, these words experienced a recency effect so they were still in the STM

What was concluded from Murdock’s study? How can we evaluate this?

Shows that the LTM is able to store a certain amount of information during the primacy effect, displacement occurs when information is left out of STM and other info replaces it. Finally STM can be impacted by the recency effect, so info can be stored for a short period

Evaluation

• Strengths, Reliable, high internal validity

• Limitations, lacks ecological validity

What is amnesia? What is anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia?

Amnesia is memory loss caused by head injury, virus, bacterial infection, drugs, and heavy metal poisoning (lead).

Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new memories

Retrograde amnesia is the loss of memories from the past

What happened to Clive wearing (CW)?

He was a concert pianist, composer and musician, he sadly developed amnesia from viral encephalitis which affected his STM but kept his LTM somewhat intact (anterograde amnesia). He could only recognise his wife Deborah and remember the fact he had children. He also kept his procedural memory of playing the piano although he didn’t remember he could play the piano