Test 5 - 'Social influences and research methods'

Question 1

Power

Answer 1

A person is said to have power over another if there is a reasonable expectations that the second person will behave in the way they desire, even against that person’s own wishes

Question 2

Status

Answer 2

Relative social or professional position; standing.

Question 3

Risk-taking behaviour

Answer 3

Participation in behaviour that involves potential negative consequences balance in some way by perceived positive consequences.

Question 4

Qualitative data

Answer 4

Descriptions of the characteristics of what is being studied.

Question 5

Quantitative data

Answer 5

Measurements (numerical information) about the variables being studied.

Question 6

Stratified sampling

Answer 6

A sampling process by which the effects of a certain variable can be eliminated as a possible confound in an experiment.

Question 7

Random sampling

Answer 7

A sampling procedure in which every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected.

Question 8

Control group

Answer 8

The group of research participants which is not exposed to variations in the independent variable. The results are compared with the experimental group so that the effects of the independent variable can be determined.

Question 9

Experimental group

Answer 9

The group of research participants which are exposed to the independent variable. The results are compared with the control group so that the effect of the independent variable can be determined.

Question 10

Correlations

Answer 10

A statistical measure of how much two variables are related. A correlation does not show cause-and-effect relationship. i.e. positive and negative

Question 11

Mode

Answer 11

The most commonly occurring score in the dataset.

Question 12

Median

Answer 12

The score that occurs exactly halfway between the lowest and the highest score.

Question 13

Mean

Answer 13

The average of all the scores, calculated by adding up all the scores and dividing that total by the number of scores.

Question 14

Peer group

Answer 14

A person’s friends and acquaintances of similar age, interests and social standings.

Question 15

Obedience

Answer 15

Compliance with an order, request or law or submission to another’s authority.

Question 16

Hypothesis

Answer 16

A hypothesis is a clear statement predicting how changes in the independent variable(s) will affect the value of the dependent variable(s). It is an educated guess.

Question 17

Conclusions

Answer 17

is the final decision about what the results mean. It must be stated in terms of the original hypothesis. A conclusion would be that the hypothesis is rejected or supported.

Question 18

Generalisations

Answer 18

is a judgement about the extent to which the research findings can be applied to the population represented by the sample. The ability to generalise from a sample relies on all the following conditions of interest:
• The sample must represent the population of interest.
• The results must reach statistical significance
• The effects of all potentially confounding variables must have been controlled.

Question 19

conformity

Answer 19

Compliance with standards, rules or laws.

Question 20

peer pressure

Answer 20

Influence from members of one’s peer group.

Question 21

Rules that define a group

Answer 21

• A groups consists of two or more people
• Individuals in the group must interact with each other over a period of time.
• Individuals in a group must influence each other
• Members of a group must have a common purpose

Question 22

Types of power

Answer 22

• reward power
• coercive power
• information power
• legitimate power
• expert power
• referent power

Question 23

Democratic leadership

Answer 23

tasks were negotiated with the children

Question 24

Authoritarian leadership

Answer 24

the leader made all the decisions and controlled the behaviour of the boys.

Question 25

Laissez-faire leadership

Answer 25

the leader took no part in the proceedings.

Question 26

Types of leadership styles by Black and Moulan

Answer 26

• Country club leadership (high people/ low productivity)
• Authoritarian leadership (high productivity/ low people)
• Impoverished leadership (low productivity/ low people)
• MIddle-of -the-road leadership (medium production/ medium people)
• Team leadership (high production/ high people)

Question 27

Zimbardos study

Answer 27

• The purpose of Zimbardo’s experiment was to see the psychological effects that occurred in US jails. They wanted to see the interaction between the prisoners and the guards.

Question 28

Zimbardos results

Answer 28

• The experiment discovered that people in jails suffer terrible psychological deficits as they are treated so poorly. It enables the government to review the way in which youth detention was carried out in the US. The guards fell into 3 categories.
• The ‘experiment’ was stopped because there was a violation of the no harm principle and a violation of withdrawal rights.

Question 29

Milgrams study

Answer 29

• The aim was to discover whether participants would obey an authority figure and carry out actions that caused severe pain to another person.
• Supposedly, electric shocks were administered to the person who was taking the test when they got a question wrong. The strength of the shocks got greater each time they got a question wrong.

Question 30

milgrams eithics associated with the study

Answer 30

• Ethics breached: withdrawal rights, no harm principle, deception, sampling, setting.

Question 31

Normative influence

Answer 31

simply refers to a person’s tendency to go along with the group so that they will fit in and gain the approval of other group members.

Question 32

culture

Answer 32

In Asian cultures, the level of conformity have been found by some studies to be significantly higher than in Western cultures.

Question 33

informational influence

Answer 33

refers to the increased tendency to conform when the participant wants to provide a correct response but is not certain of their ability to do so, believing that others are more capable of making accurate judgements.

Question 34

Group size

Answer 34

Asch varied the number of confederates from one to 15. He found that conformity rates increased to a maximum with three or four confederates and then remained approximately the same.

Question 35

Unanimity

Answer 35

if one the confederates did not conform with the group, but gave the correct answer, conformity rate dropped from the average of four out of 12 to one out of 12.

Question 36

Deindividuation

Answer 36

in which the participant cannot be identified by other group members.

Question 37

social loafing

Answer 37

Is the tendency of an individual to reduce their effort when working in a group, compared with when they are working alone.

Question 38

Thrill-seeking behaviour

Answer 38

These behaviours are often engaged in by adults as well as adolescents and are generally socially acceptable, though challenging.

Question 39

Reckless behaviour

Answer 39

these behaviours are defined as those that area associated with negative social outcomes or heath issues.

Question 40

Rebellious behaviour

Answer 40

these are often ‘experimental rites of passage for young people as they seek independence.’

Question 41

Anti-social risk behaviour

Answer 41

these are behaviours that would be considered inappropriate for people of any age ad ‘they are not usually considered rites of passage’.

Question 42

Meta-analysis

Answer 42

A meta-analysis is research that examines the results of many other studies and combines all the findings. This means that the researchers can have increased confidence in the conclusions because the results support each other.

Question 43

Advantage of meta-analysis

Answer 43

not all researchers have used exactly the same procedures or methods of reporting.

Question 44

Disadvantage of meta-analysis

Answer 44

the researches have increased confidence in the conclusions, effectively increasing the size of the sample used and making statistical procedures more rigorous.

Question 45

Direct pressure

Answer 45

someone- or more than one person - tells you what you should be doing.

Question 46

Indirect pressure

Answer 46

It is common for a group of friends to have particular ways of behaving when they are together.

Question 47

Individual pressure

Answer 47

This is the pressure coming from inside yourself to avoid feeling different from the group.

Question 48

Independent variable

Answer 48

It is deliberately manipulated or varied in some way by the experimenter.

Question 49

Dependent variable

Answer 49

It is the property that is measured in the research.

Question 50

Extraneous variable

Answer 50

It is a variable other than the IV that could potentially alter the value of the DV

Question 51

Repeated measures

Answer 51

A subject selection procedure where each participant is part of both the E-group and C-group. Also known as within participant design.

Question 52

Matched participants

Answer 52

A subject selection procedure which attempts to eliminate confounding variables by ‘matching’, on key characteristics, each individual in the experimental group and an individual in the control group

Question 53

Independent groups

Answer 53

Allocates participants to E-group or C-group at random. Also known as between participant design.

Question 54

Correlational study

Answer 54

They are intended to identify and describe the relationship between two variables. It makes no attempt to manipulate variables. The intent of the study is usually to establish the strength and direction of any correlation that may exist between the two variables.

Question 55

Positive correlation

Answer 55

is one in which the two variables change in the same direction – as one increases, so does the other; or as one decreases, so does the other.

Question 56

Negative correlation

Answer 56

the two variables change in the opposite direction – as one increases the other decreases.

Question 57

Statistically significant

Answer 57

A result is called statistically significant when the likelihood of a finding occurring by chance is less than 5 in 100 (probability less than 5%; p