Internal:

Question 1

conrad:

Answer 1

1964
-aim: to see how information is encoding in STM
-procedure:
-showed participants a random series of 6 consonants and asked them to remember them
-there were two conditions: acoustically similar (P,D,T) and acoustically dissimilar words (D,O)
-participants had to write them down in order
-findings: participants made frequent errors of recall, they also found out it hard to recall strings of letters that sounded similar. It was therefore concluded that STM is encoded phonologically

Question 2

Conrad: evaluation

Answer 2

Strength:
-the idea that STM is encoded acoustically is supported by Baddeley 1966
Weaknesses:
-lacks realism: the use of single letters does not compromise a reflection of the memory tasks we encounter in everday life
-other methods of encoding, such as visual (or even taste and smell) are also used

Question 3

baddeley:

Answer 3

1966
-aim: to test whether LTM was encoded acoustically or semantically
-procedure:
-participants were provided with different word lists that either sounded similar or meant similar things
-the 72 participants were recruited through opportunity sampling and were randomly allocated to four groups
-predictions:
-if participants could remember more similar-sounding words, LTM would be encoded acoustically
-on the contrary, if participants remembered more words with similar meanings, LTM would be encoded semantically
-the IV had two levels: 1. Acoustically similar words vs. Acoustically dissimilar words, 2. Semantically similar words vs, semantically dissimilar ones
-the DV was the score on a recall test of 10 words, participants had to recall the words in the order they were presented

Question 4

Baddeley 1966: different phases

Answer 4

-the learning phase was seperated from the testing phase by an interference test in which participants had to hear and write numbers
-in the testing phase, participants took part in a recall test
-for the recall test, participants needed to recall the words and the order in which they appeared
-this procedure was repeated four times, after the fourth trial, participants took a break and completed an unrelated interference task
-to their surprise, they were aked to recall the list of words again after the break

Question 5

Baddeley 1966: findings

Answer 5

-when calculating the results, the performance of the individuals in groups 1 and 2 was compared, as well as the performance of groups 3 and 4, seperately
-further, participants’ peformance on the 5th trial was analysed to test for forgetting
-the results indicated that:
-acoustically similar words were harder to recall than acoustically dissimilar words, remembering the words cap, hat, and sack is more difficult than remembering cow, dad and led
-semantically similar words were harder to recall than semantically dissimilar words, remembering the words big, large, and huge is more difficult than remembering hot, pen, and man
-when assessing STM, this is when comparing trials before the break, the worse performance was for the acoustically similar words
-performance was overall better on the semantic condition than on the acoustic one

Question 6

Baddeley 1966: conclusion

Answer 6

-the main conclusion that Baddeley drew from such results is that LTM is encoded semantically
-this comes from the fact that performance on the 5th condition was better for the semantic condition than for the acoustic one
-further, Baddeley (1966) concluded that STM is encoded acoustically
-this was deduced by the fact that performance on the short-term conditions (trials 1-3) was worse for semantically similar words

Question 7

Repeated measures design: definition and example study

Answer 7

-a type of experimental design where the same subjects are used for each treatment or condition
-example study:
-Loftus conducted a study that used a r.m.d to explore how the information presented after an avent can alter a person’s memory of that event
-participants views a car crash video and then asked misleading questions
-this design was appropiate since it allowed her to control indidivdual differences, measure how memories change over time and increase statistical power by comparing responses from the same participants under different conditions
-demonstrated how post-event information can alter people’s memories of an event

Question 8

Repeated measure design: advantages and disadvantages

Answer 8

advantages:
-increased statistical power -> reduces variability
-fewer participants needed -> more cost-effective
-control of condounding variables -> enhances internal validity by using same participants
-ability to track changes over time -> observes chamges within individuals across conditions
disadvantages:
-order effects (practice, fatigue) -> treatment order can influence results
-carryover effects -> previous treatments can affect responses in subsequent treatments
-participant attrition -> dropout can complicate results due to intertwined data

Question 9

Primary-Recency effect: seperate definitions

Answer 9

-primacy effect: the items at the start of the list are more likely to be transferred to our long-term memory due to repeated rehearsal
-recency effect: the items at the end of the list are still in short-term memory when recall is promptly

Question 10

Primary-Recency effect: information

Answer 10

-> the tendency to remember the first (primary) and last (rencency) items in a list, while forgetting those in the middle
-reasons: cognitive processess -> primacy and recency effect (other defs.) + memory -> primacy linked to long-term memory; recency linked to short-term memory
real life observations:
-shopping lists
-presentations
-job interviews
-exams
-everyday conversations
-application: understanding this effect can help structure information for imporved retention and recall

Question 11

Glanzer and Cunitz: overview

Answer 11

-1966
-investifated the serial position effect, specificially the primacy recency effect in memory recall
-key concepts -> primacy effect + recency effect

Question 12

Glanzer and Cunitz: method

Answer 12

-participants were presented with lists or words and were asked to recall them immediately after presentation
-the study varied the timing of the recall:
-immediate recall (no delay)
-delayed recall (participants counted backwards for 30 seconds before recalling)

Question 13

Glanzer and Cunitz: findings

Answer 13

Immediate recall:
-participants showed both primacy and recency effects; they remembered the first and last items best
delayed recall:
-the recency effect dimisnhed significantly after a delay (due to the displacement of stm)
-the primacy effect remained relatively intact, supporting the idea that early items were stored in long-term memory

Question 14

Glanzer and Cunitz: conclusions

Answer 14

-the results supported the multi-store model of memory, indicating that stm accounts for the recency effect, while ltm accounts for primacy effect
-the study highlighted the distinct processes involved in memory retention and retrieval

Question 15

what is the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 15

-the multi-store model of memory is the most well-known and influential model of memory, proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968
-they saw memory as a flow of information through a system of interacting memory stores
-each store has a different purpose, and each varies in terms of capacity and duration

Question 16

multi-store model of memory:

Answer 16

aprendete el diagram :)

Question 17

MSM: sensory, STM and LTM memory

Answer 17

sensory register
-duration: 1/2 to 1/2 a second
-capcity: alll sensory experience (v.larger capacity)
-encoding: sense specific (e.g. different stores for each sense)
short-term memory:
-duration: 0-18 seconds
-capacity: 7+/-2 items
-encoding: mainly acoustic
long-term memory:
-duration: unlimited
-capacity: unlimited
-encoding: mainly semantic (but can be visual and acoustic)

Question 18

evidence supporting a distinction between STM and LTM: KF

Answer 18

Shallice and Warrington (1970), The Case of KF:
- KF, a 28 year old man who sustained brain injuries after a motorcycle accident
-he had an impaired STM, working alongside a fully functioning LTM
-intact LTM -> he was able to learn new information and recall stored information
-reduced capacity STM -> he was only able to store a couple of bits or chunks of information rather than the normal 5-9 chunks

Question 19

evidence supporting a distinction between STM and LTM: HM

Answer 19

Milner (1966), The Case of HM:
-HM, a young man who suffered from epilepsy
-he underwent brain surgery to alleviate his epilepsy, which involved removing parts of his temporal lobes, including the hippocampus
-this operation left him with severe memory problems -> he could only recall events in his early life and was unable to recall events for about 10 years before the surgery. He could also not learn or retain new information
-however, he repeatedly read the same magazine without realising he had read it before and he was unable to recognise the psychologists who has spent long periods of time with him
-this suggests HM had a normal STM, but his LTM was detective and that it was no longer possible for him to lay down new memories in it, or if he could, he was unable to retrieve them

Question 20

evidence supporting a distinction between STM and LTM: Drechman and Sahakian

Answer 20

1979
-administered a group of participants with a drug that blocks the action of acetylcholine in the brain, then gave them various memory tasks that tested either STM or LTM
-performance was compared with a control group
-found the experimental group performed at normal levels on the STM, but significantly more poorly on the LTM task
-suggesting STM and LTM work as a separate stored, involving different neurotransmitters

Question 21

limitations of the MSM: oversimplified

Answer 21

-human memory is extremely complex and it is highly unlikely that such a simple model could reflect this
-for example, the model doesn’t consider the different types of things we have to remember
-while it greatly emphasises the amount of information we can handle, it disregards the nature of the information
-everyday experience tells us that some things are easier to remember than others and this can simply be because we find it more interesting, relevant, funnier, etc.

Question 22

limitations of the MSM: the role of rehearsal

Answer 22

-there is considerable evidence that simple repetition is one of the least effective ways of passing on information
-there is also a strong evidence that long term memories can be formed without any apparent rehearsal
-Brown and Kulik (1977): they have described this type of remembering “flashbulb memory” which is where the insignificant details surrounding highly emotional and shocking events are imprinted directly into LTM without any rehearsal

Question 23

limitations of the MSM: laboratory studies

Answer 23

-much of the supporting evidence for this model comes from laboratory studies
-given how artificial these studies are, findings may not reflect how memory works in everyday life
-it is possible to interpret the results of such studies in different ways
-it is possible that different experimental techniques can yield different results

Question 24

Independent groups design: explanation + ads and disads

Answer 24

-> is an experimental design whereby different participant are used for each experimental condition, the researcher exposes seperate sets of randomly allocated participants different
experimental
-typically, one of the two groups acts as a control group, this is because it doesn’t really experiment or receive the treatment whereas the other group is being tested in contrast to the first group
Advantages:
-simple and straightforward design
-less time consuming
-wide range of participants = more accurate findings
Disadvantages:
-differences in participants age, gender can alter results
-harder to control variables = less accurate findings
-altered data if a groups foes worse than expected

Question 25

what is the working memory model?

Answer 25

-by the early 1970s it was becoming clear that traditional information processing models, suchas the MSM, could not account for some of the findings from memory research
-it was clear that the STM store was far more complex than existing theories could account for
-Baddeley and Hitch (1974) contested the idea that STM was a single and entirely seperate store
-they referred to the case of KF who, while only having a digit span of two, could transfer new information to his LTM, suggesting that though there had been some disruption to STM, other aspects of his STM must have continued to function-there must be several components of STM

Question 26

the working memory model: actual model

Answer 26

-according to Baddeley and Hitch, working memory is a complex and flexible system comprised of several interacting components
-Central Executive
-Phonological loop- phonological store, articulatory control processes
-Visuo-spatial sketchpad- inner scribe, visual cache
-Episodic buffer

Question 27

the central executive:

Answer 27

-> is the supervisory system of working memory, itr controls and manages attention, planning, task switching, but has limited capacity
-it can process information from any sensory system (e.g. sight, sound) and coordinates the activity of other components in working memory
-it uses ‘slave systems’ like:
-phonologival loop (for verbal information)
-visuo-spatial sketchpad (for visual/spatial information)
-episodic buffer (for integrating information)
-these free up space for complex, allowing us to do more than one thing at a time, such as listening and watching
-the central executive is the most flexible but hardest to study, since it is less well understood compared to its slaves systems

Question 28

phonological loop:

Answer 28

-> often called the “inner voice”, temporarily holds verbal information in a speech-based form, it has two parts:
1. phonological store: passively stores sounds
2. articulatory loop: repeats words in your head (subvocal repetition) to keep them active

Question 29

phonological loop: Baddeley et al. study

Answer 29

Baddeley et al. (1975) Study:
-aim: investigates how word length affects the phonologival loop’s capacity
-method: participants were shown lists of 5 words (either short, single-syllable words or longe, multi-syllabic words) and asked to recall all of them
-findings: short words were recalled better than long words
-conclusion: the phonological loop’s capacity is based on the time taken to say words, not the number of items (about 1.5 seconds) this is known as the word length effect

Question 30

visuo-spatial sketchpad:

Answer 30

-> is reffered to as the “inner eye”, it temporarily holds visual and spatial information, it has two components:
1. visual cache: passively stores visual data
2. inner scribe: actively rehearses spatial information
-Klauer and Zhao (2004) Study
Brain Imaging Findings:
-the left brain is more active during visual tasks
-the right brain is ore active during spatial tasks (Todd and Marois, 2004)

Question 31

visuo-spatial sketchpad: Klauer and Zhao Study

Answer 31

Klauer and Zhao (2004) Study:
-aim: tested whether visual and spatial components are distinct
-method: participants completed eother a visual task (remebering Chinese ideographs) or a spatial task (remembering locations of dots) while also doing interference tasks (visual or spatial)
-findings: spatial tasks were disrupted more by spatial interference than visual, visual tasks were disrupted more by visual interference than spatial

Question 32

episodic buffer:

Answer 32

-> is a general storage system that integrates information from the visuo-spatial sketchpad, phonological loop, central executive and long-term memory
-it was added to the working memeory model by Baddeley in 2000, as the original model couldn’t explain how people remember coherent chunks of information, like prose, better than unrelated words
-combines information across different parts of working memory and from long-term memory
-studies show that people with intact central executive function but amnesia could immediately recall prose but forgot it shortly after. This suggests the e.b. temporarily stored information before it fades
-helps explain why memory for coherent information (e.g., sentences) is better than for random words, it allows information to be structured and processed using both working and long-term memory

Question 33

Baddeley and Hitch study:

Answer 33

-aim: to test whether short-term memory (STM) has more than one component
-procedure: participants were given a six-digit number (e.g., 863492) to repeat out loud while also completing a reasoning task (e.g., judging sentences like “A follows B- AB” as true or false)
-hypothesis: if STM is limited to simple storage, doing two tasks at once should impair perfomance on the reasoning task
-findings: participants performed well on both tasks, although the reasoning task was slightly lower, errors were minimal
-conclusion: STM involves more than one component, as people can perform multiple tasks simultaneously if they use different parts of memory. Baddeley and Hitch saw STM as a “working memory” that actively processes information, rather than just storing it. They also viewed long-term memory (LTM) as a passive store accessed by STM when needed
-this study helped develop the Working Memory Model

Question 34

evaluating the working memory model:

Answer 34

-the WMM has been extremely influential and most cognitive psychologists now use the term working ememory in preference to the term STM
-it is a much more plausible model because it explains STM in terms of temporary storage and active processing
-it also incorporates verbal rehearsal as just one optional process within the articulatory loop, instead of being the sole modality and means of transferring information to LTM
-it attempts to explain how memory functions, rather than simply describing the structure of memory

Question 35

weaknesses of the working memory model:

Answer 35

-the central executive has not been precisley defined: for example, the term “process” is vague, and the central executive may be made up of several sub-components or even be part of a larger component itself in working memory
-this lack of a comprehensive explanation for each component of WMM draws doubts about the accurazy of its depiction of working memory
-Lieberman (1980) critisizes the working memory model as the visuospatial sketchpad (VSS) implies that all spatial information was first visual (they are linked)
-however, Lieberman points out that blind people have ecellent spatial awareness, although they have never had any visual information
-Lieberman argues that the VSS should be seperated into two different components: one visual information and one for spatial

Question 36

strengths of the working memory model:

Answer 36

-Shallice and Warrington’s study of KF provides support for the WMM because their findings show that KF had very poor STM recall for auditory stimuli but increased STM recall for visual stimuli
-this suggests that the components of memory which process auditory and visual stimuli are seperate (thus, STM is not a single, unified system), as described in the WMM through the phonological loop and VSS
-Studies of dual-task perfomance, where each participant must undertake a visual and verbal task simultaneously, shows decreased perfomance for such tasks and so supports. the idea that the central executive has a very limited processing capacity (as predicted by the WMM) and that the slave systems are in competition with each other for these tasks and resources

Question 37

more strengths of the working memory model:

Answer 37

-Baddeley et al. (1998) have presented evidence that the phonological loop, for exmaple, plays a key role in the development of reading, and that for children with dyslexia their phonological loop is not working properly
-while the phonological loop seems to be less crucial for fluent adult readers, is still has an important role in helping to comprehend complex text, it also helps in the learning of new vocabulary
-Turner and Engle (1989)
-Neuroscanning evidence, such as that provided by Braver et. al has demonstrated a positive correlation between an increasing cognitive load processed by the central executive (marked by increasing task difficulty) and increasing levels of activation in the prefrontal cortex
-this supports the idea that the central executive hs the role of allocating tasks to slave systems and has a limited processing capacity, as reflected by the increased brain activation levels, thus suggesting that the WMM is accurate in its mechanism of the central executive

Question 38

Turner and Engle:

Answer 38

1989
-Turner and Engle devised a test to measure the capacity of working memory
-they asked participants to hold a list of words in memory while at the same time working out mental arithmetic problems
-the number of words correctly recalled in a subsequent test was called the ‘working memory span’
-this measure of working memory capcity has been shown in a number of studies to be linked to the ability to carry out various cognitive tasks, such as reading comprehension, reasoning, spatial navigation, spelling, and note taking (Engle et al. 1999)

Question 39

The effects of leading questions on the accuracy of EWT:

Answer 39

-memories witnesses create at the time of an event appear to be quite fragile and subject to distortion by things that happen after the event
-consequently, serious errors in EWT can occur
-it’s been found that witnesses who encounter inaccurate information after an event can absorb this into their memory, thus distorting the actual memory of the event -> Loftus (1992) calls this “misinformation acceptance”
-research algo suggests that there is a tendency for the misinformation effect to become stronger as the time between the witnessed event and recall of it becomes greater

Question 40

Loftus and Zanni:

Answer 40

-1975
-participants were shown as brief video of a car accident and then asked a series of questions
-half of the participants were asked -> had they seen “a” broken headlight
-half of the participants were asked -> had they seen “the” broken headlight
-there was no broken headlight in the film
-17% of those asked about “the” broken headlight reported seeing one
-7% asked about “a” broken headlight reported seeing one
-those in the “the” condition -> gave fewer uncertain responses, such as “I don’t know” -> suggests they had greater confidence in memories for events that never occurred

Question 41

Loftus and Zanni (1975):

Answer 41

-using “the” implanted the idea that there was indeed broken glass, leading some participants to change their recall accordingly
-in practical terms -> suggests that the way questions are asked following a crime can lead to innacuracies in witness recall, and brings into question the reliability of EWT
-this misinformation effect through the use of leading questions has been replicated in many studies

Question 42

Loftus and Palmer:

Answer 42

1974
-showed 45 participants a film of a car accident
-following this they were asked to describe events as though they were witnesses
-they were then asked a serie of specific questions about events leading up to the accident
-one critical question concerned the speed of the car on impact
-one group was asked ‘How fast were the cars when they hit each other?’ Other groups of participants were asked the same question, but, in each case, the verb was changed to either ‘smashed’, ‘bumped’, ‘collided’ or ‘contacted’

Question 43

Loftus and Palmer: good things and bad

Answer 43

-because it was a controlled laboratory experiment, the study has been accused of being artificial, i.e. the conditions of testing do not resemble those in real life so therefore the behaviour of participants is not natural behaviour
-a film clip would not have the same emotional impact as witnessing a real-life accident, and because a witness would not be prepared to observe carefully (as they were in the experiment) it could be argued that their recall of a real accident would not be as complete
-there are a number of reasons why memories are affected by leading questions
-one possibility -> due to the constructive nature of LTM, leading questions actually change a witnesse’s perception of the event -> the storage of inaccurate memory
-whether or not accuracy of eyewitness memory is influences, storage or retrieval factors around the event itself can also influence recall

Question 44

Loftus:

Answer 44

1979
-gave participants a set of slides that showed a red purse being stolen from a handbag
-they were later given an account of the theft that included several errors, i.e. “the purse was brown”
-in a subsequent recall test, all but two of the participants resisted the misinformation about the colour of the purse, although they were influences by misinformation about less central elements of the theft
-Loftus concluded that memory for information that is particularly striking at the time of an event is less suspectible to misinformation acceptance than memory for more peripheral details
-another important factors appears to be -> the amount of anxiety caused by witnessing a crime
-it has long been established that states of high emotional arousal can influence memory functions, and a number of lab studies have demonstrated impaired memory in people who have witnessed particularly unpleasant and anxiety-inducing events

Question 45

What are extraneous variables?

Answer 45

-extraneous variables are factors or conditions that are not the focus of a study or experiment but could influence the outcome or results if not properly controlled
-these variables can introduce noise or bias into the experiment, making it harder to determine the true relationship between the independent variable (the one being manipulated) and the dependent variable (the outcome being measured)

Question 46

The importance of controlling extraneous variables:

Answer 46

-if extraneous variables are not controlled, they can become confounding variables, meaning they provide alternative explanations for the results
-proper control of these variables is crucial for the internal validity of an experiment, ensuring that any observed effect is due to the independent variable and not som other factor

Question 47

Possible extraneous variables in research:

Answer 47

-variations in individual memory capacity may influence how participants recall details of the event
-previous knowledge or experiences: some participants may have prior knowledge of the event or may have been involved in similar situations, which could affect their recall
-participant attention during the event: if participants are not paying equal attention to the event being recalled, this could affect recall
-social desirability bias: participants may alter their answers to conform to what they think is “right” answer or to please the researcher
-emotional state of participants: a participant’s mood or stress levels may influence how they recall details

Question 48

More possible extraneous variables:

Answer 48

-ambiguity in the even presented: if the event being shown to participants is ambiguous, this may influence recall
-question wording consistency: variations in how leading questions are phrased beyond the intended manipulation could introduce bias
-time delay between event and recall: the length of time between witnessing the event and being asked the leading questions may affect recall accuracy
-particpant’s age: age can affect memory recall, with younger and older participants possible recalling details differently
-environmental conditions: factors like lighting, sound, or other distractions in the environment may impact how well participants remember details

Question 49

Fisher et. Al:

Answer 49

1987
-over a 4 month period, they studied real interview conducted by experienced detectives in Florida
-found that witnesses were frequently bombarded with a series of brief, direct and close questions aimed to elicit
-the sequencing of these questions often seemed out of sync with the witnesses’ own mental representation of the event
-witnesses were often interrupted and not allowed to talk freely about their experiences
-Fisher felt these interruptions were unhelpful because they broke the concentration of the witnesses and also encouraged shorter, less details answers

Question 50

Geiselman et. Al:

Answer 50

1985
-> developed a technique to improve the accuracy of eyewitness recall during police investigations which they called cognitive interview
-context reinstatement (CR): mentally reinstate the context of the event, recall the scene, the weather, thoughts and feeling at the time
-report everything (RE): report every detail possible even if it seems trivial or irrelevant
-recall from a changed perspective (CP): try to describe the episode as it would have been seen from different points of view
-recall in reverse order (RO): change the order of recall so that the event is reported in different orders, moving backwards and forwards in time

Question 51

The cognitive interview:

Answer 51

-> designed to enhance retrieval of the original memory by providing extra cues that might help jog witnesses’ memory for more central details
-subsequent research led to a version of the technique called the enhanced cognitive interview
-after looking at current police practice through detailed analysis of taped interviews, Fisher et. Al(1987) suggested adding several extra features to a more structured process

Question 52

Support for the cognitive interview:

Answer 52

-Geiselman et. Al (1985): found that the cognitive interview resulted in more information being drawn from witnesses compared to other interview techniques
-Fisher et. Al (1989): also demonstrated the effectiveness of thecognitive interview technique in real police settings in Miami in the US
-they trained detectives to use the enhanced cognitive interview techniques with genuine crime witnesses and found that its use significantly increased the amount of information recalled
-Kebbell et.al (1999): carried out a survey of UK police officers and found that there was widespread use of cognitive interview
-Milne and Bull (2002): tested all cognitive interview procedures either singly or in combination
-they found that all 4 procedures snugly produced more recall from witnesses than standard interview techniques
-however the most effective combination appeared to be the use of CR and RE instructions, which is in line with that practising police officers had suspected

Question 53

Opposition to cognitive interview:

Answer 53

-Kohnken et.al (1999): found that witnesses questioned using the cognitive interview also recalled more incorrect information than those questioned using the standard questioning technique
-this is possibly because the cognitive interview procedure elicits more information overall than other procedures
For Kebbell: however, while officers found it useful, they expressed some concern about the amount of incorrect recall generated and the amount of time it took to complete an enhanced cognitive interview
-in practice, it seemed like officers were using the RE and CR instructions, but rarely the CP and RO

Question 54

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Cognitive interview:

Answer 54

Advantages:
-improved recall accuracy -> increases the amount of accurate info recalled
-reduces false memories
-widely applicable
Disadvantages:
-time intensive -> CI requires a longer time to conduct
-training demands
-inconsistent effectiveness

Question 55

Conformity and Internalisation:

Answer 55

-conformity: the tendency for an individual to align to their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours with those of the people around them
-internalisation: the deepest type of conformity in which people change their beliefs permanently, so the beliefs become part of their way of seeing the world

Question 56

Compliance and Internalisation:

Answer 56

-Kerman (1958) argued that we can distinguish between different types of conformity
-compliance: the individual conforms publically but put privately disagrees with the view that they express
-internalisation: some views are adopted at a deeper, permanent level and they become part of the person’s own way of viewing the world

Question 57

Asch:

Answer 57

1951
-Asch believed conformity was a rational process in which people work out how to behave from other people’s actions
-he wanted to assess what would happen when an individual was confronted with a group who were plainly wrong in their judgement, to see if the individual would change their view to agree with the majority
-Asch recruited 123 male, white students and asked them to take part in a “task of visual perception”
-they were placed in groups of 7 to 9 and seated around a large table
-participants were shown two cards: the target line and then 3 more where 1 matched that one

Question 58

Asch 1951: techniques

Answer 58

-participants were asked to call out in turn which of the 3 comparison lines, A,B, or C matched the standard line in length
-each group carried out of a total of 18 trials
-to manipulate group pressure, the group was made of confederates who has been instructed to give the same wrong answer in 12 out of the 18 trials
-the real participant sat towards the end of the table, so they were exposed to the incorrect answer repeatedly before giving their own view
-ethics: as the trials progressed, participants became increasingly anxious and self-conscious regarding their answers, and some reported feeling of stress

Question 59

Asch 1951: findings

Answer 59

-the overall conformity rate was determined by how many times the participants gave the same wrong answer as the confederates
-overall conformity rate = 37%
-Asch also found individual differences in conformity:
-5% of the participants conformed on every critical trial, these could be seen as the most conformist
-25% remained completed independent, they gave the correct answer in all 12 critical trials and chose to stick to their viewpoint despite considerable group pressure
-most participants who conformed claimed they knew that the rest of the group was worng, but conformed because they didn’t want to stand out
-a small number wondered if their perceptions were inaccurate and doubted their eyes
-conclusion: people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence)

Question 60

Asch’s study: evaluate

Answer 60

Positives:
-internal validity
-easily replicated
Negatives:
-reductionist
-biased sample
-population validity
-generalisability
-ethics: deception and protection from harm
-ecological validity

Question 61

Normative and Informational social influence: overview

Answer 61

-normative social influence: conformity based on the desire to be liked and accepted
-informational social influence: conformity based on the desire to do the right thing

Question 62

Explanations for conformity