16 Mark Essay Plans

Question 1

Outline and Evaluate Milgram’s Research on Obedience

Answer 1

AO1:
–> Obedience as a form of social influence
–> Milgram’s shock study
–> Learner shocked if they made a mistake
–> 65% continued to 450 volts
AO3:
(-) Low internal validity, participants didn’t believe shocks were real
(+) High internal validity, Replicated with puppies, 54% of females and 100% of males administered a fatal shock
(-) Ethical issues

Question 2

Discuss 2 explanations of resistance to social influence

Answer 2

AO1:
–> Withstand social pressure
–> Social support can help us resist social influence
–> Locus of Control, internals resist
AO3:
(+) Research support, replicated Asch’s study and found conformity decreased with support
(+) Research support, 37% of internals didn’t go to max shock compared to 23%
(-) Contradictory research, increase in externals over time and an increased of resistance
(-) LOC does not have much effect in familiar situations

Question 3

Discuss the Authoritarian Personality as an explanation for obedience

Answer 3

AO1:
–> Dispositional explanation proposed by Adorno
–> Fascism scale measures if someone has an AP, investiagted 2000 middle class whit americans
–> People with AP found to be submissive to superiors etc.
AO3:
(+) Research Support, F scale on 20 obedient and disobedient participants of Milgram’s study, obedient scored higher
(-) Methodologically flawed, acquiescence bias, worded in the same direction
(-) Politically biased, right wing, doesn’t account for left-wing authoritarianism
(-) Cannot explain obedient behaviour in large masses of people

Question 4

Discuss what Zimbardo’s research has told us about conformity to social roles

Answer 4

AO1:
–> Social roles, behaviours expected of a person in a specific position
–> Stanford prison experiment
–> 24 males, recruited through ad, guards or prisoners
–> Prisoners became depressed, guards were aggressive
AO3:
(+) Explains why prison guards act the way they do, due to situation
(-) Due to the suggested situation, took on a social identity together
(-) Opposing research, Reicher (2006) prisoners are the ones that gained a shared identity
(+) Good control, emotionally stable participants, random allocation, increased internal validity

Question 5

Outline and Evaluate how Minority Influence is able to lead social change

Answer 5

AO1:
–> Describe what minority influence is
–> Consistency, flexibility and commitment
–> Process of change e.g. women suffragettes
AO3:
(+) Research support, more likely to demonstrate attitude-consistent behaviour when changed by minority influence
(-) Artificial tasks, cannot reflect real life
(-) Indirectly effective within social change, effects are delayed, majority is not influenced by the central issues but by only minor related issues
(-) Barriers to social change, put off by stereotypes so they advise minorities not to behave in stereotypical ways

Question 6

Discuss the Multi-store model of memory

Answer 6

AO1:
–> Atkinson and Shiffrin
–> Sensory register, STM, LTM
AO3:
(+) Supporting evidence, prefrontal cortex is active during the formation of STM memories, hippocampus active during LTM
(+) Case study, HM had his hippocampus removed, unable to form new LTM memories but cold form STM memories, stores are separate
(-) Simplistic, different type of LTM
(-) Contradictory research, deeper processing instead of maintenance rehearsal

Question 7

Discuss the Working Model of Memory

Answer 7

AO1:
–> STM was not unitary, dual task effect with similar tasks
–> Central executive, Phonological loop (articulatory process, phonological store), Visuo-spatial sketchpad (visual cache, inner scribe)
–> Episodic bugger, combines information from the other stores and sends it to the LTM
AO3:
(+) Explains the dual task effect
(+) Research support, KF had brain damage, greater impaired loss of auditory than visual information
(-) Simplistic, case study of someone one who could preform reasoning tasks suggesting an intact CE but took long on decision making tasks suggesting a damaged CE

Question 8

Describe and Evaluate types of LTM

Answer 8

AO1:
–> LTM exists in 2 different forms, procedural, declarative (semantic and episodic)
AO3:
(+) Evidence for different types of LTM, memory tasks during PET scan, episodic and semantic from different hemispheres
(+) Case study evidence, unable to form new procedural memories but could recall
(+) Research support, Alzheimer’s patients were unable to form new semantic memories but could form episodic ones