Section B

What are the principles of the social area?

• Human behaviour is affected by the presence of individuals and groups

• Human behaviour is affected by the immediate social environment even when someone is alone

What are some applications of the social area?

• Make whistleblowing anonymous and easier- whistleblowing is more likely to happen if it can be done anonymously

• Police officers wear correct uniform, weapons visible- exerts authority and demands obedience

• Charity workers- make victims look more sympathetic for example holding a can can be associated with disability

• Teach simpatia values to children

What are some strengths of the social area?

• Provides a situational explanation of behaviour

  • Provides an understanding of how different social situations strongly influence behaviour and extreme behaviour

  • Milgram- experimenter with a white lab coat at Yale University

• Studies behaviour in a scientific way

  • Increases internal validity helping to show cause and effect

  • Pilliavin- characteristics of victim affects helping behaviour

What are some weaknesses of the social area?

• Unethical

  • Research may lose credibility and therefore be less generalisable because less people want to participate

  • Milgram- deception, misinformed consent, lack of PFH- 3 p’s had seizures

• Ethnocentric

  • Research often carried out in one culture so findings cannot be generalised to other cultures

  • Bocchiaro- 149 students from VU university in Amsterdam, Netherlands