Paper 1 Key Studies

Question 1

Asch’s Study (method)

Answer 1

Line study, each group has one participant and 7 confederates, the participant was placed one of the last in line. The confederates would all give the same incorrect answer to see if the participant would conform.
Different situational factors:

Group size (only 2 confederates might make participants more confident)
Social support (one person agreeing will lower conformity)
Task difficulty (switches to ISI if participant is not sure)

Question 2

Asch’s study (results)

Answer 2

75% of participants confirmed at least once as they didn’t want to look different, participants conformed to the majority 37% of the time. NSI (wanting to fit in)

Question 3

Asch’s study (evaluation)

Answer 3

Lack of extraneous variables (lab)
Lack of ecological validity (not natural)
Some ethical concern (deception may cause embarrassment)

Question 4

Sherif’s study (method)

Answer 4

Auto kinetic effect- visual illusion where a stationary spot of light in a dark room appears to move. Participants were told the experimenter would move the light and had to guess how far it moved. Participants estimated alone before being put into groups of 3 and made their estimation with the others present, before being retested individually.

Question 5

Sherif’s study (results)

Answer 5

Participants developed own estimates when alone, but when put into a group the estimates tended to converge and become more alike. When retested again, the estimates were more like the group’s estimates than their original guesses. Affected by ISI, wanted to be right and used othered info to help them.

Question 6

Sherif’s study (evaluation)

Answer 6

Lab experiment (lack of extraneous variables)m should be possible to establish cause and effect.
Repeated measures design- variables kept constant
Created artificial situation (lack of ecological validity)
Deception could lead to embarrassment

Question 7

Zimbado’s experiment (method)

Answer 7

Male students recruited to act as either guards or prisoners in mock prison. Randomly assigned roles and their behaviour was observed. The prisoners were ‘arrested’ in normal time as they went about their day and taken to ‘prison’, where they were given uniform and numbers. The guards wore uniforms and mirrored sunglasses.

Question 8

Zimbardo’s experiment (results)

Answer 8

Guards tried to assert their authority and prisoners resisted by sticking together. The prisoners then became more passive and obedient while the guards invented nastier punishments. The experiment was abandoned early due to prisoners distress. Guards and prisoners adopted their social roles very quickly, this is claimed to show how social role can influence behaviour (abuse of power)

Question 9

Zimbardo’s experiment (evaluation)

Answer 9

Unethical- distress, unexpected arrest.
Observer bias- Zimbardo’s became too personally involved (tried to convince prisoners to stay)
Controlled observation
Results can’t be generalised to real life

Question 10

Milgrim’s study (method)

Answer 10

Shock study. Experiment to test factors thought to affect obedience. 40 men participated at Yale University. Each participant had a confederate and were assigned the role of ‘teacher’ while the confederate was the ‘learner’. The participant watched the confederate get strapped to an electric chair and got placed in front of switches ranging from 15-450 volts. The participant taught the learner word pairs and when he answered incorrectly the participant had to increase the shock given each time. After 300 V the learner pounded on the wall and made no more response.

Question 11

Milgrim’s study (results)

Answer 11

65% administered 450 volts and none sopped before 300. Most showed obvious signs of stress however.

Situational factors affecting obedience:

Presence of allies
Proximity of the victim
Proximity of authority
Location of experiment
Uniform

Question 12

Milgrim’s study (conclusion)

Answer 12

Ordinary people will obey orders to hurt someone else, even if it means acting against their conscience.

Question 13

Peterson and Peterson (method)

Answer 13

Duration of STM - Participants were shown nonsense trigrams and asked to recall them after either 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 secs. During the pause they were asked to count back in 3s from a given number.

Question 14

Peterson and Peterson (results)

Answer 14

After 3 seconds, 80% were recalled correctly
After 18 seconds, only around 10% were recalled correctly.
Where rehearsal is prevented, very little can stay in STM for longer than 18 seconds.

Question 15

Loftus and Palmer experiment 1

Answer 15

Eyewitness Testimony. Participants shown a video of a multiple car crash, they were asked questions e.g how fast was the car going when it hit/bumped/collided etc. Participants given the word smashed estimated the highest speed and those given the word contacted gave the lowest estimate.

Question 16

Loftus and Palmer experiment 2

Answer 16

The participants were split into 3 groups, 1 was given ‘smashed’, 1 was given ‘hit’ and 1 wasn’t given any indication. A week later they were asked if they saw broken glass. Although there was none, participants were more likely to say they had in the ‘smashed’ category. Leading questions can affect the accuracy of people’s memories of an event.