A-level Psychology Paper 1 Introductory Topics Comprehensive Study Notes

Social Influence: Zimbardo's Prison Study and Obedience

• Classification of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment:

  • Zimbardo’s research is best described professionally as a combination of a controlled observation and participant observation.
  • It is a controlled observation because the environment (the basement of Stanford University) was specifically manipulated and set up to mimic a prison environment, with controlled entry and exit.
  • It is a participant observation because Zimbardo himself took on the role of the Prison Superintendent, involving himself directly in the daily operations of the observed scenario.

• Analysis of Disobedience in Real-World Contexts (Scenario: Natasha and Tanya):

  • In the scenario where Natasha and Tanya fail to obey Mr Boat’s instruction to "Wait there," several factors of obedience research apply:
  • Uniform/Symbol of Authority: In the supermarket, Mr Boat likely was not wearing professional attire that emphasizes his authority (like a suit or lanyard) as he would in school. Research by Bickman ($1974$) suggests that people are significantly less likely to obey individuals not wearing a uniform of authority.
  • Location (Setting): The encounter occurred in a supermarket rather than a school. Milgram’s variations showed that when he moved his study from Yale University to a run-down office in Bridgeport, obedience fell from $65\%$ to $47.5\%$. The lack of a high-status institutional setting reduces the legitimacy of the authority figure.
  • Proximity: Mr Boat was at the "far end of the queue." Milgram demonstrated that as physical distance increases between the authority and the subordinate, obedience decreases. When the experimenter gave orders via telephone, obedience dropped to $20.5\%$.
  • Social Support/Co-presence of Peers: Natasha and Tanya were together. Having a peer present who is also not complying (indicated by their "giggling") provides social support for resistance to social influence, much like in Milgram's variation where two confederate teachers refused to continue.

• Minority Influence Research:

  • Minority influence occurs when a small group or individual changes the attitudes and behaviors of a majority. Key behavioral styles include:
  • Consistency: This involves the minority sticking to their message over time. This can be synchronic consistency (everyone in the minority says the same thing) or diachronic consistency (they have been saying the same thing for a long time). Moscovici ($1969$) demonstrated this with the blue/green slide study; a consistent minority influenced the majority in $8.42\%$ of trials compared to $1.25\%$ for an inconsistent minority.
  • Commitment: Minorities sometimes engage in extreme or risky activities to demonstrate dedication to their cause. This is known as the augmentation principle. The majority then thinks, "If they are willing to suffer for this, there must be something important behind it."
  • Flexibility: Nemeth ($1986$) argued that rigid consistency can be seen as dogmatic and off-putting. The minority must be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable counter-arguments to be successful.
  • The Process of Change (Snowball Effect): As more people move from the majority to the minority, the pace of change picks up until the minority opinion becomes the new majority norm.

Memory: Experimental Variables and the Multi-Store Model

• Standardisation in Memory Research:

  • Definition: Standardisation involves keeping the procedure, environment, and instructions identical for every participant to ensure the findings are reliable and can be replicated.
  • Application: In the word list experiment, a way to use standardisation would be to ensure that the words are read out at the exact same pace (e.g., one word every $2$ seconds) using a pre-recorded audio track for all participants in both Group A and Group B.

• Randomisation in Memory Research:

  • Definition: Randomisation is the process of using chance to assign participants to conditions or to determine the order of materials to eliminate researcher bias and control for participant variables.
  • Application: The researcher could use a computer program or a random number generator to assign each of the participants to either Group A or Group B, ensuring every person has an equal chance of being in either condition.

• Multi-Store Model (MSM) Explanation of Results:

  • Group A Results (Primacy and Recency Effects): Participants recalled words from the beginning (Primacy effect) because those words were rehearsed and transferred to Long-Term Memory (LTM). They recalled words from the end (Recency effect) because those words were still in the Short-Term Memory (STM) buffer, which has a duration of approximately $18$ to $30$ seconds.
  • Group B Results (Primacy Effect Only): These participants recalled words from the beginning because they were in LTM. However, the one-minute book-reading task acted as an interference task. This prevented maintenance rehearsal and caused the words at the end of the list to decay or be displaced from the STM, hence the absence of the recency effect.

• Effects of Anxiety on Eyewitness Testimony (EWT):

  • The Weapon Focus Effect: Research by Loftus ($1979$) suggests that high anxiety caused by a weapon (e.g., a bloody letter opener vs. a pen) draws attention away from the perpetrator's face and toward the weapon, reducing the accuracy of the testimony.
  • Yerkes-Dodson Law: This principle suggests an inverted-U relationship between arousal and performance. Memory is most accurate at moderate levels of anxiety; too little or too much anxiety leads to poor recall.
  • Alternative Research (High Accuracy): Yuille and Cutshall ($1986$) conducted a real-life study of a shooting in Vancouver. They found that witnesses who were the most stressed actually had the most accurate recall five months later, suggesting that real-world high-anxiety situations may result in very vivid and accurate memories.

Attachment: Theories and Cultural Variations

• Learning Theory of Attachment:

  • Often called the "cupboard love" theory, it suggests attachment is a learned behavior through conditioning.
  • Classical Conditioning: Food is the Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) which produces a feeling of pleasure (Unconditioned Response or UCR). The caregiver starts as a Neutral Stimulus (NS). Because the caregiver provides the food, the baby associates them with pleasure; the caregiver becomes a Conditioned Stimulus (CS) and the child feels pleasure (Conditioned Response or CR) in their presence.
  • Operant Conditioning: This involves drive reduction. Hunger is a primary drive. Feeding the baby reduces this drive and acts as positive reinforcement for the baby. For the caregiver, the baby’s crying stopping acts as negative reinforcement.

• Van Ijzendoorn’s Cultural Variations:

  • Methodology: Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg ($1988$) conducted a meta-analysis of $32$ studies of attachment using the Strange Situation across $8$ different countries (e.g., USA, UK, Germany, Israel, Japan).
  • Findings: They found that Secure attachment was the most common type in all cultures. However, Insecure-Avoidant was most common in West Germany, and Insecure-Resistant was most common in collectivist cultures like Japan and Israel.
  • Conclusion: The global prevalence of secure attachment supports Bowlby's idea that attachment is innate/biological, while the variations suggest that child-rearing practices influence the specific attachment type.

• Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation Applied to Ryan:

  • The Theory: Bowlby argued that continuous care from a mother-figure is essential for normal psychological development. If the bond is broken during the critical period (first $2.5$ years), it leads to permanent emotional and intellectual damage.
  • Application to Ryan: Ryan spent his first $5$ years in care, likely experiencing deprivation. His poor school reports ("below average") reflect intellectual retardation (low IQ), typical of deprived children. His "difficult relationship" and having "few friends" suggests a lack of an Internal Working Model, leading to social struggles. His "antisocial behaviour" and police trouble are symptoms of affectionless psychopathy, which Bowlby identified in his $44$ Thieves study as a consequence of maternal deprivation.

Psychopathology: Abnormality and Depression

• Deviation from Ideal Mental Health:

  • Definition: Proposed by Jahoda ($1958$), this defines abnormality by looking at what is missing from a state of "ideal" mental health. Criteria include high self-esteem, self-actualization, autonomy, and an accurate perception of reality.
  • Application to Dave: Dave fails to meet these criteria. His gym visits ($3$ times a day) and constant thinking about his next workout suggest he lacks environmental mastery and autonomy from his obsession. His worry that his body is "inferior" despite friends' feedback suggests he lacks an accurate perception of reality and a positive attitude toward the self.

• Evaluation of Failure to Function Adequately (FFA):

  • Subjectivity: Whether someone is "failing" is often a subjective judgment. A person may feel they are coping, but others see their behavior as maladaptive.
  • Cultural Relativism: Definitions of "adequate" functioning vary across cultures, making this a culturally biased definition.
  • Strengths: It focuses on the individual's experience and provides a practical checklist for professionals to determine when someone needs help.

• Content Analysis (Research Method):

  • Definition: Content analysis is a research technique used to turn qualitative data (like words or diary entries) into quantitative data (counting occurrences).
  • Procedure: Researchers would first identify coding units or categories relevant to depression (e.g., "self-deprecating comments" or "feelings of hopelessness"). They would then go through the diary extracts and tally every time a phrase fell into those categories.
  • Improving Reliability: To fix different results between researchers, they could use inter-rater reliability. This involves the two researchers agreeing on clear definitions for their categories, independently coding the same extracts, and then calculating a correlation coefficient. They could also conduct a pilot study to refine their coding system.

• Ellis’s ABC Model of Depression (Diary Application):

  • Activating Event (A): The external event that triggers the irrational thought. In the diary, this is "dropping my change at the till."
  • Beliefs (B): The irrational interpretation of the event. The diarist writes, "Everybody knew I was useless," and asks, "Why can I not do anything right?"
  • Consequence (C): The emotional or behavioral outcome of the belief. The diarist feels inferior to peers ("No one else I know does such stupid things") and expresses a generalized sense of failure.
  • Evaluation: A strength of the model is its application to REBT (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy), which helps patients dispute irrational beliefs. A weakness is that it focuses on reactive depression (triggered by events) and may not explain depression that occurs without an obvious cause.