Introductory Topics in Psychology (Includes Psychopathology)

TOPIC 1 / Social influence

WORKBOOK ANSWERS

AQA A-level Psychology

Introductory topics in psychology (includes psychopathology)

This Answers book provides guidance on the content and characteristics of effective answers to the questions in the workbook. It does not provide model answers for each question. These answers are intended as a guide to give teachers and students feedback.

Where a question calls for a specific response, a detailed answer is provided. For questions that could elicit a range of answers, a list of the most probable responses is included. Use your discretion when marking unexpected responses by assessing whether the question has been answered.

Topic 1

Social influence

1aInternalisation

bIdentification

cCompliance

dMajority influence

eInformational social influence

fNormative social influence

gMinority influence

hsocial roles

icharacteristicssituation

jdeindividuation

2aFALSE(the emphasis is on social power)

bTRUE

cTRUE

dTRUE

eTRUE

fTRUE

gFALSE (there were 40)

hTRUE

iFALSE (they were not told the true purpose of the study)

jTRUE

kTRUE

lFALSE (Adorno gives a dispositional explanation)

3aAuthoritarian personality, external locus of control

bSelf-confident, internal locus of control, high IQ

cBeing in a large group, being raised in a collectivist culture

dThe person giving the order has no legitimate authority, the person giving the order has low social status, the person giving the order is not physically present, other people refuse to obey.

fThe students would not have obeyed because the boy from year 7 has no legitimate authority, and in a school year 7 students have low social status.

gSami cheered when Liverpool scored a goal because of normative social influence — he wants to be liked by his friends and because they all cheered, he complied and cheered as well.

4aMinority influence eventually changed attitudes to same-sex relationships.

bAn influential minority is consistent; they enter into discussion and avoid being too dogmatic; they take action in support of their principles (e.g. take part in protest marches).

cThe Moscovici study is a laboratory experiment that has low mundane validity and people may not be influenced to change their opinions about social situations as easily as they are about the colour of a slide.

dPossible answers include any two from:

Trust your intuition if and when you feel there is ‘something wrong’.
Don’t just accept the definition of a situation given to you by a person whose interests may conflict with yours.
Consider the ‘worst case’ scenario (what could happen if you obey?) and act on that possibility.
Figure out an ‘escape plan’ and act on this as soon as possible.
Don’t worry about ‘what the other person may think of you’ — if you are mistaken, you can always apologise when it is safe to do so.

Exam-style questions: AS and A-level

5Band D. 1 mark for each correct answer.

6Example answer:

According to Adorno, obedience to authority is caused by authoritarian personality traits which are caused by strict parenting. His theory says that people with an authoritarian personality project onto minority groups their unconscious hostility to their parents. The authoritarianpersonalityrespects authority and prefers strong leadership. Because the authoritarian personality is servile to those of superior status and hostile to those of inferior status, if given an order by someone of high social status and legitimate authority the authoritarian personality is more likely to obey. However, to measure the authoritarian personality a psychometric test, the F scale, is used and as this relies on self-report it is unlikely to be a valid measure of personality. Also, although personality traits may explain individual differences in obedience, research by Milgram demonstrated that situational factors, rather than individual characteristics, influence obedience and that in some social situations the majority of ordinary people will obey immoral orders when given by a legitimate authority.

4 marks awarded. The outline of the authoritarian personality is clear and accurate and the evaluation relevant to obedience is coherent and clear.

7The answer should contain the application of social influence research to changing people’s opinion about women priests. It could include details of:

the process of minority influence, including consistency and commitment
an explanation that social change happens when the minority view supporting women priests challenges a majority view until it becomes accepted as the majority
an explanation that as the majority opinion on women priests is changed normative social influence will occur
obedience to the legitimate authority of changed laws making equal rights for women the social norm will occur

5–6 marks will be awarded if the knowledge of social influence as related to social change is clear and detailed. To be awarded a top-band mark the issue of women priests as raised in the source must be explicitly referred to.

8Example answer:

Asch carried out research to measure normative social influence. In a laboratory experiment that used a repeated measures design, groups of seven or eight male students were shown a stimulus line (S) and then three other lines (A, B and C). There was only one ‘real’ participant in each group, the others were confederates. All the participants were asked to say out loud which line (A, B or C) matched the stimulus line and the real participant always answered last or last but one. The confederates all gave the same wrong answer. In the critical trials, the real participants gave incorrect answers that conformed to the majority view 37% of the time and 75% conformed at least once. When they were asked why some said that they had not wanted to look different. Asch concluded that normative social influence had taken place — the real participants agreed with (complied with) the wrong answers because they wished to be accepted by the rest of the group.

A strength of this research is that the experimental method was used, and standardised procedures and controls, such as all participants seeing the same stimulus lines, meant that Asch could show cause and effect and the study could be replicated. Another strength is that quantitative data, as percentages of conformity, were collected and backed up by the qualitative data derived from the post-experiment interviews with the real participants. However, the study broke ethical guidelines as the real participants were deceived and embarrassed. Also, the study has low external validity as it does not represent a realistic social situation and, in most situations, people may be less willing to comply with the opinion of others than they are about trivial line lengths.

5–6 marks awarded.The knowledge of the study is accurate and detailed and the evaluation is effective.

9Example answer:

Milgram studied obedience to authority and when the context in which the order was given was one of high social status, 26 of the 40 participants (65%) followed orders and administered 450 volt electric shocks.Only 9 of the 40 participants (22.5%) stopped at 315 volts.The participants showed signs of extreme tension, they were observed to sweat and tremble and a few laughed nervously. One advantage of the Milgram study is that it explains why usually ‘good’ people may follow immoral orders. Another strength is that Milgram collected both objective quantitative data, the level of electric shock each participant ‘stopped’ at, as well as qualitative data, how the participants behaved and what they said. The recordings of the verbal comments of the participants show how they refused to take responsibility for the outcomes of their obedient behaviour. Also, although the research situation would be unlikely to occur in everyday life the participants clearly believed that the electric shocks were harming Mr Wallace and to this extent the research findings have high ecological validity.

4 marks awarded.The answer gives an accurate description of the findings of the Milgram study and an effectively argued evaluation.

Exam-style questions: A-level

10Plan your answer.For a top-band mark the two explanations for obedience, situational or dispositional, must be clearly and accurately described and explicitly related to the source. Specialist terminology should be used clearly and coherently.

Example suggestions:

To support Amil — you could describe Milgram’s research suggesting a situational explanation for obedience to authority, including the theory of ‘agentic state’ and the ‘slippery slope’ argument. Also mention social conformity, and the idea that if the majority of others are also obeying then conformity to social roles and obedience is more likely. You could also mention that if others are seen to disobey then resistance to authority is more likely.

To support Anne — you could describe Adorno’s theory of the authoritarian personality, and possibly the theory that those having an external locus of control are more likely to obey.

To argue against Amil — you could mention levels of moral reasoning, and point out that not all Milgram’s participants administered 450v electric shocks. You could also suggest that Milgram’s research procedures have low mundane realism.

To argue against Anne — you could point out the weaknesses of the theory of the authoritarian personality and discuss the problems of gaining a valid measure of personality.

OCR AS/A-level Psychology 1: Introductory topics in psychology

TOPIC 2 / Memory

Topic 2

Memory

1aThe capacity for memory in STM is approximately ‘seven plus or minus two’ pieces of information.

bSTM has limited capacity, approximately seven to nine pieces of information, but LTM has unlimited capacity. Information in STM has limited duration, about 30 seconds, but information in LTM may last a lifetime.

cThe primacy effect is when the first items from a list of information are remembered better and the recency effect is when the last items of information from a list are remembered better.

dThe primacy-recency effect supports the multi-store model because the primacy effect happens because the first items of information have been transferred to LTM, and the recency effect happens because the last items of information are still in STM.

eThe capacity of short-term memory is 7 plus or minus 2 items so to remember 20 numbers would exceed the capacity of short-term memory.

fEpisodic memoryis thememoryofautobiographicalevents that are the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at particular times and places. For example, remembering your 16th birthday is an episodic memory.

gProcedural memory

hSemantic memoryallows us to give meaning to words and sentences and to understand language.

2aShort-term memory

bThe three components of the working memory model are:

the central executive to process information from all sensory routes
the articulatory–phonological loop to process speech-based information
the visuospatial working area where spatial and visual information is processed

cTo process speech-based information.

dThe working memory model assumes that the articulatory–phonological loop has limited capacity. The interference task involves a participant being asked to perform two tasks that use the articulatory–phonological loop at the same time, such as reading a book while singing a song. If performance on both tasks is affected, this is because the articulatory–phonological loop cannot cope with both tasks at the same time and suggests that the working memory model is accurate.

eThe articulatory–phonological loop and the visuospatial scratchpad both pass information to the central executive which has limited capacity to process sensory information. Talking on the mobile phone means the articulatory–phonological loop passes speech-based information to the central executive and watching the road means that the visuospatial working area also passes information to the central executive so short-term memory may become overloaded with information.

fThe working memory model is more realistic than the multi-store model.

3aC

cRetroactive interference occurs when you forget a previously learned task due to the learning of a new task.After Marie revised her French she revised her Italian vocabulary. French and Italian are similar languages and revising the Italian vocabulary may have disrupted Marie’s memory of the French causing retroactive interference as Marie forgot the French due to the learning of the Italian.

dWhen we store a new memory we also store information about the situation called retrieval cues and when we come to the same situation again, these retrieval cues can trigger the memory of the situation.

eExternal retrievalcues are in the environment,for example the smell of the place where the memory was formed, butinternal retrieval cues are the state inside the person such as the mood you were in when the memory was formed.

fThe students who were tested in the same room where they learned the animal words would have had the same external retrieval cues to help them remember the words, but the students who were tested in a different room would have had no matching retrieval cues to help them remember the animal words.

4aA leading question is a question that suggests a certain kind of answer. For example, ‘Was the cat you saw black or ginger?’ suggests that there actually was a cat.

bIn experiment 1, the participants who were asked the question using the verb ‘smashed’ reported the cars travelling at 9mph faster than the participants asked how fast the cars were travelling when they ‘contacted’ each other.

cThe meaning of the verb smashed implies breakage. Loftus and Palmer suggest that when the students were asked to estimate ‘how fast the cars were travelling when they smashed into each other’ the meaning of the word smashed as breakage was added to the memory, creating a false memory that broken glass was shown on the film.

dDifferences between experiments 1 and 2 include:

Sample size: in experiment 1 there were 5 groups of 9 students, 45 in all, in experiment 2 there were 3 groups of 50 students, 150 in all.
Control group: there was no control group in experiment 1, but in experiment 2 there was a control group who were not asked a question about speed.
Measuring the DV: in experiment 1 the effect of the leading question was measured immediately, in experiment 2 there was a delay and the effect of the leading question was measured a week later.

eThere was low real-world realism.The witnesses were questioned immediately, the film was a two-dimensional event rather than a three-dimensional event and there would have been no shock or surprise as there would have been for a witness to a real car crash. Also the participants were all university students who may have had better memories than most due to continual learning, thus a biased sample. All of these factors lead to low ecological validity.

fFactors that may influence eyewitness memory include:

Duration of event — the longer we watch, the more likely we are to remember details.
Violence distraction — people have a better memory for non-violent events.
The amount of time between an event and recall — the longer the time, the worse the recall.
Anxiety — highly emotional events may be either more memorable or less memorable than everyday events.

gThe cognitive interview is a procedure used by the police to help eyewitnesses recall information more accurately. During the interview the witness is encouraged to relax and recall everything they can remember, no matter how trivial the information appears. During recall the police do not ask questions or interrupt the witness.

Exam-style questions: AS

5Procedural memory

6Semantic memory

7aPossible 2-mark answers include:

One technique used during a cognitive interview is when the witness is encouraged to recall the event from other perspectives, for example imagining what someone in a different place may have seen.
One technique used during a cognitive interview is when the witness is encouraged to report every detail of the event, no matter how seemingly unimportant.
The witness is asked to mentally reconstruct the environmental and personal context of the event, the sights, sounds and feelings etc.
The interviewee is asked to describe the event using a different timeline, for example from end to start.

b2 marks will be awarded for each appropriate suggestion.

Possible strengths:

No order or practice effects, as participants only take part in one condition and do not get bored.
The same film could be used in each condition, if a repeated measures design had been used a different film would be needed for each condition otherwise the participants would see the film twice which would increase their memory scores.

Possible weaknesses:

In independent design more participants are needed.
In independent design, especially in small groups, validity may be reduced by the effect of individual differences, for example some participants may have had better or worse memories than others.

cQuestion injunction = outline and evaluate. This question assesses AO1, AO2 and AO3 skills.