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PSYCHOLOGY A LEVEL EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
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PSYCHOLOGY A LEVEL EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
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PSYCHOLOGY A LEVEL EXAMQUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Define compliance - Answer-Where you go along with the group in order to fit in even
when you don't believe in their view point, likely to be linked to NSI.
E.g. in the post-experiment discussions of Asch's study, most conforming participants
claimed to have went along with the wrong answer to avoid ridicule..
Define identification - Answer-Adopting the views of a group both publicly and privately
because you value membership of that group. This is a stronger form of conformity,
temporary and is not maintained when individuals leave the group. For example, in the
army you may adopt the behaviour and beliefs of fellow soldiers, but on leaving the
army for civilian life, new behaviours and opinions will be adopted.
Define internalisation - Answer-(True Conformity) Behaviour/belief of the majority is
accepted by the indivudal and becomes part of their own belief system. Lasts even
when the majority isn't present. Most likely to be linked to ISI.
Define conformity - Answer-The process of yielding to majority, when an individual is
influence by a majority group's views or behaviour
What are the different explanations for conformity? - Answer-Informative Social
Influence (ISI)
Normative Social Influence (NSI)
Variables affecting conformity (Investigated by Asch): Group size, Task Difficulty &
Unanimity
Describe normative social influence - Answer-When a person conforms to be accepted
and to feel as though they belong to a group. This usually occurs when conformity is
socially rewarding or in order to avoid social rejection.
Provide research support for normative social influence. (& year) - Answer-Asch (1955)
A line judgement test where the matching line was obvious. Over the 12 critical trials
(where the majority gave the clearly incorrect answer) 75% of participants conformed at
least once.
Study shows that as conformity occurred in a non-ambiguous situation, normative
influence was the only explanation for the levels of conformity seen here.
Describe informational social influence - Answer-Explains conformity that occurs out of
a desire to be right. Occurs in ambiguous situations where the correct answer or
solution or way to behave isn't clear.
,Provide research support for informational social influence - Answer-Jenness (1932)
Ambiguous situation where participants had to estimate the number of beans in the jar.
Found that. Individual estimates moved towards the estimates of others showing that
they privately believed the group estimate over their original one. Thus displaying
informational social influence.
Describe the procedure Asch's Original Research into Conformity. (1955) - Answer-123
male students
Participant answered last or 2nd to last to call out which of the three comparison lines
matched the standard line. Was only 1 true participant and other 6 were confederates.
Critical Trials: 12/18 trials where confederates provided the wrong answers.
How many participants took place in Asch's original study? - Answer-123 American
male students
What year did Asch's original study take place? - Answer-1955
What was the task in Asch's original study? - Answer-To say which comparison line, A,B
or C was the same as the stimulus line on 18 different trials
Describe the control group in Asch's original study? - Answer-36 participants who were
tested individually on 20 trials, to test how accurate individual judgements were
What were the critical trials of Asch's original study? - Answer-12 (out of 18 total trials)
were critical, which meant that the confederates gave identically wrong answers and the
real participants always answered last or second to last.
Describe the results of Asch's original study - Answer-1. The control group had an error
rate of less than 1% demonstrates the obviousness of the answer
2. 32% conformity rate in the critical trials
3. 25% of participants never conformed at all
4. 5% of participants conformed every single time
What did the post-experiment discussions find in Asch's original study? - Answer--
Majority of conforming participants did so in order to avoid ridicule
- Some participants believed their perception was incorrect because they were told it
was a visual perception test (and so conformed)
- Some participants doubted themselves so conformed to the majority
,What do the findings of Asch's original study show? - Answer-Even when the majority is
clearly wrong, they still have influence over individuals.
Most participants conformed to avoid ridicule, i.e. normative social influence.
What are situational variables? - Answer-Features of an environment the affect the
degree to which individuals yield to group pressures
What are individual variables? - Answer-Personal characteristics that affect the degree
to which individuals yield to group pressures
Describe how group size affects majority influence - Answer-Refers to the number of
members within a social group
As group size increases, conformity levels increase also.
Asch's variation: Found increases in conformity level until the group size reached 3
members, after this amount, there was hardly any change to the levels of conformity
levels.
Describe how unanimity affects majority influence - Answer-Unanimity: Degree to which
group members are in agreement with each other
When the majority group is not unanimous, conformity levels drop.
Asch's variation: Conformity dropped to 5% when a confederate went against the other
confederates.
Describe how the difficulty of a task may affect majority influence. Which explanation for
conformity do the results of Asch's variation support? - Answer-How obvious the correct
decision/answer is when regarding a task.
Asch's variation: The more similar in length the comparison lines were, the higher
conformity levels were.
Supports Informational Social Influence.
What happens to conformity levels when participants were allowed to write down their
answers? - Answer-Conformity drops to 12.5%, supporting Normative Social Influence
because participants were avoiding ridicule from the majority group,
Describe how gender (an individual variable) may affect conformity - Answer-Gender:
Eagly suggested that due to gender roles, males and females conform for different
reasons, and as a result conform at different levels.
, E.g. Females focus more on quality of relationships and take more responsibility for
creating and maintaining them. As a result they conform more, motivated by NSI due to
a need for acceptance.
On the other hand male gender roles demand that they remain independent & so dont
conform readily with others to maintain this.
Provide research support for gender as an individual variable which affects conformity -
Answer-Jenness (in his bean study) found that females conformed more than men,
suggesting that gender does affect conformity levels.
Provide a research study that refutes Asch's original study - Answer-Perrin & Spencer
(1981) Used the Asch paradigm on British engineering students, finding a conformity
level of 0.25%.
These findings suggest that Asch's study is only relevant to the particular historical time
in which it took place.
State a weakness of Asch's original study - Answer-Lacks ecological validity.
Artificialilty doesnt reflect real life situations and therefore its findings do not
demonstrate conformity in real life.
What are some strength's of Asch's original study? - Answer-Lab experiment - control of
extraneous variables
Research support - Jenness bean study. Supports the participants that conformed due
to self doubt, and as a result were motivated to conform by ISI
Define social roles - Answer-expected patterns of behaviors for specific statuses and
positions
Define dehumanisation - Answer-Removal of an individual's identity
Describe the procedure of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Study (1971). 6 points. - Answer-
Run in a basement at Stanford University
24 U.S male student volunteers
randomly assigned role of prisoner or guard
prisoners unexpectedly arrested at home
deloused, given prison uniform and ID number
given some rights, eg 3 meals, 3 supervised toilet trips a day and 2 visits per week
guards were given uniforms, clubs, whistles and wore reflective sunglasses
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