Psychology Paper 2 Flashcards
Conformity
Person’s behaviour changing because of group pressure.
Asch’s study
Aim-
to investigate how people respond to group pressure in an unambiguous situation.
Method-
123 male American students (naive ppts). There were other students involved in the study, known as confederates.
Each naïve ppt were tested with a group between 6 to 8 confederates.
they were asked to sit in a semi-circle, the naïve part was at the end to hear the other ppts answers first.
They were two large cards, one with a standard line, and the other one with three comparison lines.
They were asked to select the matching line.
Results -
The departments agreed with the wrong answer given by the confederates.
25% never gave wrong answer
75% conformed at least once.
32% conformed overall.
Conclusions-
Asch’s effect - people conform, even when the answer is clear.
However, some people went against the group opinion, shows people can resist the pressure to conform.
Evaluate Asch’s study
One weakness is the results may only be relevant to 1950s America.
The 1950s were a particularly conformist time in America. this means people were very scared to behave differently.
This suggested Asch’s effect is not consistent overtime, and may only be apparent in certain conditions
Another weakness is that the task and situation was artificial.
Being asked to judge the length of a line with strangers, doesn’t reflect everyday situations where people could conform.
It might be that people are less willing to confirm when the consequences are bit more important.
The results may not explain more serious real-world situations.
Another weakness is that his research is more reflective of conformity in individualist cultures like America and UK.
Studies conducted in collectivist countries, such as China could use higher conformity rates than individualist countries.
This is because countries like China may focus much on the community.
Suggest that his results cannot be generalized collective cultures.
Conformity: Social and Dispositional factors
Dispositional - something about you
Social- other people
Social and disposition Factors of conformity
Social:
Group size
Anonymity
Task difficulty
Dispositional:
Personality- external locus of control more conformist ( external- don’t have influence over things that happen to them, outside of their control, eg getting good on test bc of luck.)
Expertise-increases confidence and knowledge, greater expertise, less conformist.
Group size
More people meaning, greater pressure to confirm.
Evaluation- people don’t conform until the group size gets to 8/10 people
Anonymity
If group members are anonymous, you would feel less pressure.
it is difficult to voice ideas or opinions that go against the group as this would risk rejection which means that even if people disagree with the group they are unlikely to say so openly
Task difficulty
As difficulty of Task increases, the answers become less certain , so you feel less confident and look for others for the right answer.
Evaluation- people with greater expertise may be less affected by task difficulty
Milgram’s agency theory (Social Factors)
Agency
Agentic state: Person follows orders with no sense of personal responsibility.
Autonomous state: Person makes their own free choices and feels responsible for their own actions.
Authority
The term ‘agentic shift’ is used to describe the change from autonomous to an agentic state.
The shift occurs when a person sees someone else as a figure of authority.
Culture
The social hierarchy societies have a hierarchy with some people having more authority than others.
This hierarchy is agreed on by society.
The culture we live in tells us to respect the social hierarchy.
Proximity
In Milgram’s further studies, if the teacher was physically closer to the learner, they were less obedient (less likely to listen to the teacher)
Greater proximity increases ‘moral strain’ that a person feels, meaning increased sense of responsibility, and less likely to deliver shocks.
Evaluate Milgram’s agency theory
One strength is that there is research support.
Blass and Schmitt showed a film of Milgram’s study to students who blamed the ‘experimenter’ rather than the ‘teacher’ for the harm to the learner.
Therefore the students recognised the legitimate authority of the experimenter as the cause of obedience.
One weakness is that agency theory can’t explain why there isn’t 100% obedience.
In Milgram’s study 35% of the participants didn’t go up to the maximum shock of 450 volts.
This means that social factors cannot fully explain obedience.
Another weakness is that It “excuses” people who blindly follow destructive orders
It is offensive to the holocaust survivors as it suggests that the Nazis just obeyed orders and ignores roles that racism and prejudice played.
Dangerous, as it allows people to think they aren’t always personally responsible.
Milgram only addresses social factors that may affect obedience, but other psychologists (eg Adorno) think dispositional factors such as personality are very important.
Adornos theory (Dispostional factors)
The authoritarian personality
Some people have an exaggerated respect for authority. They are more likely to obey orders and look down on people of inferior status.
Cognitive style
‘Black and white’, rigid style of thinking. They believe in stereotypes and do not like change.
Originates in childhood
Originates from overly strict parenting and receiving only conditional love from parents when they behave correctly.
Child identifies with parents’ moral values.
The child internalises these values and expects all people to behave the same
Also feels anger towards parents which cannot be directly expressed for fear of reprisals.
Scapegoating
Freud suggested that people who have anger displace this onto others who are socially inferior in a process called scapegoating.
You offload anger to something else relieving anxiety and hostility.
He concluded that people who had a harsh upbringing and critical/strict parenting, were more likely to have an Authoritarian Personality.
Evaluation of Adorno’s theory
A weakness is that it lacks support due to the flawed questionnaire.
The F scale used has a response bias
It challenges validity as it’s based on poor evidence
Another weakness is that data is correlational
can’t claim that authoritarian personality causes greater obedience as it may also be caused by a lower level of education.
suggests that other factors may explain apparent link between obedience and the authoritarian personality.
Adorno’s theory is useful when applied to real-world situations/events and attitudes e.g. war, prejudice, racism
Adorno’s theory is limited i.e. not everyone who is obedient has an authoritarian personality
Adorno used a questionnaire (the F-scale) to measure the authoritarian personality which has some strengths: it is replicable due to the use of standardised questions; it generates quantitative data which is easily analysed and can be converted to percentages and graphical displays. Thus, his theory can be tested for reliability and consistency.
Another weakness is that it’s both social and dispositional.
Germans were obedient but didn’t all have the same upbringing (otherwise we’d expect all Germans to be authoritarian)
This shows that a dispositional factor alone can’t explain high levels of obedience.
Piliavin’s subway study
Aim
To investigate if characteristics of a victim affect help given in an emergency.
Method
A male confederate collapses on a New York City subway train (field experiment), opportunity sampling, either appearing drunk or disabled (with a cane).
103 trials.
One confederate acted as a ‘model’ if no one else helped.
Two observers recorded key information.
Results
Disabled condition: helped at some point on 95% of the trials and 87% of the of the victims were helped in the first 70 seconds after they collapsed
Drunk condition: helped at some point on 50% of the trials and 17% of the of the victims were helped in the first 70 seconds after they collapsed
Conclusion
Characteristics of victim affects help given
Number of onlookers doesn’t affect help in natural setting.
Evaluate Piliavin’s study
One strength of this study is that participants did not know their behaviour was being studied. The subway train passengers did not know they were in a study and behaved naturally.
This means that the results of this study are high in validity.
One weakness of the study is that the participants came mostly from a city.
They may have been more used to these types of emergencies.
This means that their behaviour may not have been generalised to other places, especially collectivist cultures.
Another strength of this study was that qualitative data was also collected.
The two observers on each trial noted down remarks they heard from passengers.
This offered a deeper insight into why people did or did not offer help.
Prosocial behaviour
Acting in a way that promotes the welfare of others and may not benefit the helper.
Bystander behaviour
The presence of others reduces likelihood of giving help to someone.
Deindividuation
Becoming so immersed in the norms of the group that people lose their sense of individuality/identity and self awareness, resulting in feeling less responsibility for their actions.
Prosocial behaviour- Social factors
Presence of others
Cost of helping
Presence of others
The more people present=less likely someone will help
Darley and Latane found that 85% of people reported a seizure when they believed they were alone but only 31% when they believed they were in a group of 4.
Evaluation- when immediate action is required, and the emergency is very serious the presence of others doesn’t always have a negative effect
Cost of helping
Cost of helping: possible danger to yourself, effort, time taken and possible embarrassment
Cost of not helping : feeling guilty, blame of others and leaving someone in need of help
Cognitive conflict between these 2 costs and possible rewards (feeling good, praise and social recognition)
Evaluation- If someone doesn’t judge/interpret a situation to be an emergency where someone needs help they won’t help. research by Shotland and Straw found that 19% of people intervened when a married couple were arguing whereas 85% intervened when the attacker appeared to be a stranger. shows that cost of helping alone can’t explain why someone will or will not help
Dispositional factors
Similarity to victim
Expertise
Similarity to victim
if you identify with the victim, you are more likely to help.
research by Levine et al. found that people were more likely to help a victim if they believed them to support the same football team
Evaluation- in many bystander studies there was no similarity, but the victim still received help, similarity may increase the likelihood of help but if the situation is too ambiguous or if there are high costs help isn’t guaranteed.
factors other than similarity affect bystander behaviour
Expertise
People with specialist skills are more likely to help in emergency situations
Cramer et al. found that when a workman fell off a ladder registered nurses (high expertise) were more like to help than non-medical students (low expertise)
Evaluation- red cross trained people were no more likely to give help than untrained people when faced with someone bleeding a lot (both intervened)
decision to help was unaffected by expertise but it definitely affects the quality of help given
Crowd and collective behaviour: social factors
Social loafing
When working in a group, people put in less effort as you can’t identify individual effort
-Latane et al. found that when participants were asked to scream as loudly as they could, when they were in a larger group they individually made less noise than when they were on their own
Evaluation- creative tasks (brainstorming) benefit from a group of people working together. Shows that in some tasks the output from a group is often greater than the sum of individuals in the group
Culture
individualists (US): focused on individual result
collectivists (Chinese): decisions are made with reference to the needs of the group, social loafing is likely to be lower
Earley found that Chinese people put in the same amount of effort in a group task where individual effort can’t be identified as the group task where individual effort could be identified whereas the Americans put in less effort on the group task where individual effort couldn’t be identified
Evaluation- People vary considerably within a country as there is more than one culture and religion so people will hold different values
too simplistic to talk about national cultures and make predictions about behaviour
Dispositional factors
Personality
Morality
Personality
Internal locus of control enables individuals to be less influenced by crowd behaviour as they’re more likely to follow their personal norms than the social norms created by others around
People who have an internal LOC:
Take responsibility for their actions
Do not blame others/circumstances for what happens to them
Are less likely to be swayed by group pressure
People who have an external LOC:
Do not take responsibility for their actions
Are more inclined to blame others/circumstances for what happens to them
Are more likely to go along with the group
Evaluation- Not all research has shown that personality matters
participants were tested to see if they would report researchers for conducting an unethical study (whistleblowing)
Participants who were willing to speak had similar scores on a personality test to those who didn’t speak out.
Morality
“morals” are our ideas of right and wrong
People with a strong sense of right and wrong helps resist pressure from group norms.
In Milgram’s study a professor of religion was able to resist the pressure of “what everyone else was doing” due to his strong sense of moral responsibility.
Evaluation- supported by historical evidence of individuals who stood up to crowd behaviour
in Nazi Germany, Sophia Scholl was found guilty of circulating anti-Nazi literature, she resisted to group pressure and stood up for what she believed in
shows that some people are willing to sacrifice their life for a principle and good of others.
Piaget: Language and thought
We learn through developing schemas.
Thought first, language after
The child’s understanding of the concept comes first and then they learn how to express their understanding of it
Young children can have language without understanding but will not be able to use it effectively (parrot).
Children only understand words when they have reached the correct stage of development and are ready.
-at the sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) babies are learning what their bodies can do, and this includes making vocal sounds.
- at the preoperational stage (2-7 years) children’s language is developing. children are able to voice their internal thoughts but there is limited use of language for communicating with other people.
-at the concrete operational stage (7-11 years) use language for actual, concrete things.
-at the formal operational stage, ( 11+) language can be used to talk about abstract, theoretical ideas.
Piaget believed that, while all children move through these stages, some people do not get to the formal operational stage.
Evaluation of Piagets theory
A strength is that early language is not random.
When children start talking they use two-word phrases like ‘Mummy sock’, which shows they can see how objects relate to each other.
This suggests that children only start to use language when they have some understanding of it.
Very little evidence to support Piaget’s theory.
Not all children progress in the same way and at the same rate: some children’s language development will be affected by, for example, environmental factors such as poverty, nutrition, culture, education
A weakness is the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis challenges Piaget.
It states that language comes before thought as people need a word or phrase for an object in order to think about it.
This suggests that Piaget may have been wrong.
Another weakness is that schema cannot be scientifically measured.
It is very difficult to know if schema exist as we cannot directly measure them.
This shows that Piaget’s theory of language and thought is not based on solid scientific evidence.
Saphir Whorf: Language and thought
Strong version: language determines thought
People from different cultures will think differently based on their cultural experiences
if there are no words for an object or idea then you can’t think about it
language you learn–>determines what you think about
Inuits have many different words for snow, shows that language and culture are linked, Inuits can perceive snow in many ways which is not available to English speakers
Weak version: language influences thought
The language that someone speaks influences their thoughts, ideas, opinions etc
Words help to “carve up” the world, you can still imagine things with no words for them.
English speakers can still imagine/think about the different type of snow such as “soft snow on the ground”
Although there aren’t any specific words for it, we can still imagine what it looks like
Which is better?
The weaker version
Info is easily described=better remembered
If the words we have for a concept or idea are limited, our ability to notice or recall that idea will be limited.
Evaluation
A weakness is that differences between cultures may have been exaggerated by Boas.
There are only two words for snow in Inuit culture and actually English has other words for different types of snow.
This shows that the differences aren’t that great and challenges the conclusion that language may determine thought.
There is research to support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – such as studies on the variation in
recognition of colours and the variation in recall of events
Another weakness is that having more words for snow doesn’t mean the words came first.
The Inuit language may have more words for snow because there is always lots of snow.
This suggests that language develops because of the way we perceive our environment, which supports Piaget’s view that thinking influences language.
A strength is that the hypothesis explains the link between language and intelligence.
Bernstein suggested that working-class children will always fall behind in school because their use of the restricted code will have a negative effect on their ability to think.
This shows that language influences a particular type of thinking (intelligence).
Variation in recall of events
Native Americans: The Hopi:
Hopi language doesn’t distinguish between past, present and future. Therefore, this influences the way they think about time.
Evaluation:
A weakness is that only one individual was studied.
Others have argued that the way the Hopi language describes the passing of time is not very different from European language.
This suggests that Whorf’s conclusions lacked a firm basis in fact.
Language affects recall of events
Carmichael et al. gave two groups of participants the same pictures, but each group heard different descriptions.
When they were asked to draw them, the pictures drawn reflected the labels they had heard.
This suggests that language influences memory.
Evaluation:
A weakness is that the materials used were ambiguous.
In everyday life we would be less influenced by labels.
So we may not be able to generalise the results to everyday life.
Variation in recognition of colours:
Native Americans: The Zuni
Brown and Lenneberg found that the Zuni people have only one word for shades of yellow and orange and had difficulty recognising and recalling these colours compared to English speakers.
This suggests that their lack of words for those two colours affected their ability to distinguish between them.
Evaluation:
A weakness with research on different cultures is that there are issues with the interpretation of participants’ responses.
The language barrier could have affected how well the Zuni people communicated their understanding of colour to the researchers.
This causes the research to lack validity.
Language affects recall of colour
Roberson et al. found that the Berinmo people of New Guinea had difficulty recalling and distinguishing between a variety of colours as they only have five words for different colours in their own language.
This is evidence for the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis as it suggested that specific cognitive processes are influenced by language.
Evaluation:
A weakness is that some researchers have found the opposite. The Dani people have only two words for colour but were still as good as English-speaking participants on a colour-matching task (Heider and Olivier).
This suggests that their lack of colour words did not influence their ability to think about colour.
Von Frisch’s bee study
Aim-
To describe the dances performed by honeybees to explain how they communicate information to each other.
Method-
Von Frisch put a food source close to the hive (within about 10–20 metres), as well as one further away (up to 300 metres). He made over 6000 observations of honeybees over 20 years.
Results-
Round dance: Moving in a circle to indicate food is less than 100 metres away.
Waggle dance: Moving in a figure of eight, waggling its abdomen in the ‘middle’ of the eight, with this straight line pointing at the source of pollen.
Speed indicates distance.
60% of bees went to food sources at the distance indicated by the dances.
Conclusion-
Bees use a sophisticated form of animal communication. The signalling system has evolutionary value as it helps their survival.
Evaluation of Bee’s study
A strength is that Von Frisch’s work made an important contribution to science.
People knew that bees danced but had no understanding of the meaning of the movements.
This shows how valuable his research was.
Other researchers have replicated Von Frisch’s study and found the same results. This suggests that the results are trustworthy and that the original study is reliable.
A weakness is that the importance of sound was overlooked.
When bees performed dances in silence, other bees would not then go on and investigate food sources (Esch).
This shows that sound-based signals also play a part in directing other bees – something that Von Frisch did not consider.
Another weakness is that bees do not always respond to the waggle dance.
Bees do not use the information from the waggle dance to fly to nectar if it was placed in a boat in the middle of a lake (Gould).
This shows that Von Frisch’s account was incomplete.
The use of controlled conditions means that the data is likely to be reliable and consistent over time
Functions of animal communication
Survival
Reproduction
Territory
Food
Survival
Survival
Vervet monkeys use sounds to warn of danger (alarm calls). A specific sound warns other monkeys close by.
Rabbits use visual signals. They lift their tail high, pin ears back and leap forward to communicate danger to other rabbits.
These signals increase the survival of members of the signaller’s species.
Reproduction
Animals use mating displays.
Peacocks stretch their feathers like an umbrella to attract females.
Mating displays communicate genetic fitness through brightly coloured and plentiful feathers.
Territory
To mark, maintain, protect/defend, or increase territory. To establish dominance over a
rival/social group/area
Food
Animals use signals to show location of food.
Ants leave a pheromone trail to communicate the location of a food source.
Human communication that are not present in animal communication
Plan ahead and discuss future events
Creativity
Single versus multiple channels
Plan ahead and discuss future events
Humans can use their language to plan ahead and discuss future events (displacement). In contrast, animal communication tends to focus on things that are physically present in the environment, such as food sources or predators.
Therefore, displacement is not a part of animal communication in the same way as it is part of human communication.
Creativity
Animal communication involves a closed system as the gestures, sounds and movements only refer to very specific events. Human language is an open system as words can be combined together in an infinite number of ways. To be creative and to try out new sounds, new blends of words, different accents, and different forms (e.g. poetry, song, email, texting)
Single versus multiple channels
Human language can be expressed using a whole range of different channels such as spoken, written or sign language and all of the different types of social media. This is not a feature of animal communication which tends to use single channels such as pheromones.
Eye contact- when 2 people look at each other at the same time.
Regulating flow of conversation
Kendon found that speakers looked away when they were about to speak and gave prolonged eye contact when about to finish. Shows eye contact encourages turn-taking in conversation.
Signalling attraction
Conway et al. found that people who use eye contact are judged as more attractive even with a negative facial expression.
Expressing emotion
Adams and Kleck found that participants judged emotions of joy and anger as more intense when shown a picture of someone gazing straight at them as opposed to gazing away. They judged emotions of fear and sadness as more intense when the gaze in the picture was averted.
Thus eye contact can be used to express a range of emotions in different ways
Evaluation of eye contact
A strength is that studies can explain an important feature of autism. People with autism have difficulty communicating with others because they often do not use eye contact. Knowing the importance of eye contact means that people with autism could be taught these skills.
A weakness is the use of rating scales to make judgements. Studies in this area rely on people rating their views of ‘attractiveness’ and ‘intensity of emotion’, and these are open to bias and interpretation. This suggests that studies of eye contact may produce biased evidence.
There are some good applications for the use of eye contact in the real world, eye contact is an important part of interpersonal communication
Another weakness is that studies of eye contact involve quite artificial tasks. In Kendon’s study, participants were asked to get to know someone as part of the experiment. This means the results may lack validity as they do not reflect what would happen in everyday life
Body language
Open and closed posture
Closed posture = crossing your arms and/or legs, communicates rejection or disagreement.
Open posture = arms and legs not crossed, communicates approval and acceptance.
McGinley et al. found that participants were more likely to change their opinions in line with a female confederate’s if she had adopted an open posture when discussing her views, as opposed to a closed posture.
Postural echo
Copying each other’s body position.
Tanner and Chartrand found that participants had more positive feelings towards a new drink if the researcher had used postural echo during the interview, than if there was no postural echo.
Touch
‘Touching’ in a social interaction includes high fives, slapping, putting hand on a shoulder.
Fisher et al. found that students handed books by a librarian who touched them on the hand were more positive about the librarian than those who were not touched.
Evaluation of body language
A strength is that the research can be applied to real-world situations.
People who are trying to create a good relationship with others should use an open posture, postural echo and touch.
This shows that the research can be useful in everyday life.
A weakness is that the studies are not always well controlled.
For example, in the library study (Fisher et al.) there may have been other reasons why the participants liked or disliked the librarian aside from the presence or absence of touch.
This is a problem for the validity of the results.
Being able to ‘read’ another person’s body language is a very useful skill for life: it can help someone to detect when another person is lying to them, is in love with them or is trying to manipulate them
Another weakness is that research in this area raises ethical issues.
For example, field experiments on postural echo and touch involved a lack of informed consent and it is unclear whether participants were debriefed afterwards.
It involves a person’s private space being intruded upon plus some people may dislike being touched as it may trigger a specific trauma
This could affect the trust people have in psychologists.
