1. Answers June 2017 AS

2. Social Influence
1. D
2. C

3. 3. Briefly outline and evaluate normative social influence as an explanation for conformity. [4 marks]
Normative social influence is when people agree with the opinion of the majority in order to be liked and gain approval and to avoid rejection. This often leads to compliance which is where people will agree publicly with the group but privately they do not change their personal opinions. NSI was supported BY Asch study. He found that when he interviewed participants afterwards, the participants said they conformed to avoid rejection by others. However, there are individual differences in how much people want to be liked by others and therefore not everyone will conform due to this desire to be liked and gain approval. Some people might conform for other reasons such as informational social influence (look to others for guidance in an ambiguous situation)

4. Using your knowledge of locus of control, identify which boy is most likely to resist the social influence of his friends. Explain why. (4)
Daniel is mostly like to resist the social influence of his friends as he has an internal LOC. This means that Daniel believes that people are successful due to hard work and determination. This makes him less likely to rely on the opinion of others in the class, making him more immune to social influence so is unlikely to seek social approval as much as those who have an external LOC
Daniel will see himself as more of a leader than a follower, making him less likely to follow the majority

5. Explain how Tom’s refusal to take part might affect Daniel’s and Matthew’s ability to resist social influence. (2)
Tom may affect Matthew due to Matthew’s external locus of control. Tom’s refusal will increase their ability to resist social influence and therefore they will be less likely to take part in the play. However, Tom may not affect Daniel due to Daniel’s internal locus of control

6. Outline research into the effect of situational variables on obedience and discuss what this tells us about why people obey. (12 marks)
Possible content (A01):
Knowledge of procedure and/or findings of research into the effects of:
Proximity - Milgram - teacher and the learner were in the same room, obedience decreased; touch proximity condition; experimenter leaves the room, obedience decreased
Location - Milgram – run-down office block vs Yale; Hofling hospital location
Uniform - Bickman – more likely to obey a man dressed as a guard. In Milgram’s experiment the experimenter wore a grey lab coat

7. A03
Discussion of reasons why rate of obedience changes (agentic/autonomous state; legitimacy of authority; personality/dispositional factors) Methodological evaluation of research when used to analyse the variables eg demand characteristics, external validity may be more a feature of some variations than others

8. 07
Acoustic
Semantic

9. 08
One researchers could address this is by carrying out research in a more natural environment. Students are often used in memory research so using school classrooms would make the research more realistic. A further way is to ensure the stimulus used represents real life memory activities. Participants could be asked to learn definitions or names and dates or telephone numbers. •

10. 09
As Zina was close to the attacker she would have seen the knife and this could result in weapons focus. This is when the presence of a weapon results in increased anxiety and can reduce the accuracy of eye witness testimony. As Amanda was further away her lower level of anxiety may have made her recall more accurate. Research into weapons focus has found that participants are less accurate when identifying a man when he is holding a knife compared to when he is holding a pen. Therefore, the difference in the anxiety levels of the two girls can account for the different statements.
Please note it is perfectly acceptable to say that the increased anxiety may make Zina’s EWT more accurate and refer to Yuille and Cutshall or Christianson and Hubinette

11. 10
One ethical issue is protection from harm. Zina and Amanda may be upset about recalling the events of the attack and may experience psychological harm. Therefore, it is important that the researcher reminds them of their right to withdraw if they become too distressed and also offer them support from counsellors after the interview.

12. Describe and evaluate interference as an explanation for forgetting
Describe and evaluate interference as an explanation for forgetting. [12 marks]
Interference is where two lots of information become confused in memory. This occurs in the LTM and is more likely to happen when the two pieces of information that are becoming confused are more similar. An example of this would be telephone numbers or learning two languages at the same time. There are two different types of interference. Proactive is where old learning affects the recall of new information and an example of this would be if you changed your telephone number but kept recalling your old number. Retroactive interference is when newer information affects your ability to recall old information, so the new information learnt overwrites the earlier learned information. An example of this would be if you are studying sociology in the morning and then psychology in the afternoon and when you try and recall what you have learned in sociology you recall what you learned in psychology instead. It can be hard to identify whether interference is the true cause of forgetting in everyday life, this is particularly true of retrospective interference as this could be just because of the passage of time (decay). One study that helps distinguish between the two was carried out by Baddeley who studied a real life situation in rugby players. Over a season, some players had played in all the games and some had missed games because of injury. The players were asked to recall the names of the teams they had played against over a season and found that, as a proportion of the number of games played, the group who had missed games had recalled more. This supports interference theory as the passage of time was the same in both groups.

13. Describe and evaluate interference as an explanation for forgetting
Describe and evaluate interference as an explanation for forgetting. [12 marks]
This a real life study so has good ecological validity and therefore improves the validity of interference as an explanation of forgetting in the LTM.
A further study was more controlled and this was carried out by Underwood in a laboratory experiment. The researchers gave participants either one list or word pairs (e.g. tree-cat, book tractor) or two lists of word pairs using the same first word. The participants were then asked to recall the first list. Underwood found that the group who were given two word lists were less accurate and showed signs of interference from the second list and the group only given one word pair list were more accurate.
This provides clear evidence for the role of retroactive interference but as it is a lab study, using artificial stimuli it can be argued that it lacks ecological validity and so may not reflect how forgetting occurs in real life.
It can be argued that interference does not actually cause permanent forgetting and is only temporary, the information is stored in the brain but has been temporarily disrupted. Therefore, it is not a true explanation of forgetting.
Finally this explanation of forgetting can provide important practical applications for people in everyday life. When we are trying to learn similar pieces of information it might be useful to do this on different days so we can clearly distinguish between them. This may be particularly useful for students.

14. High or extreme stranger anxiety High or extreme separation anxiety
Identify two infant behaviours that are characteristic of the insecure-resistant attachment type. (2)
High or extreme stranger anxiety
High or extreme separation anxiety
Resist comfort from the caregiver on reunion
Explore less
More clingy.

15. Boys = between 26% and 37% inclusive.
Using the information in Figure 1, estimate the percentage of boys and girls that are securely attached. (2)
Boys = between 26% and 37% inclusive.
Girls = between 63% and 74% inclusive.
Maximum 1 mark if the two figures do not add up to 100.

16. 2 marks for the correct answer: 90 If the answer is incorrect, can award 1 mark for the correct workings: 150 x 0.6

17. The researcher collected quantitative data using the ‘Strange Situation’. He then decided to collect qualitative data by conducting interviews with some of the parents of the infants. Describe two differences between these types of data (4)
Quantitative data involves numbers (number of boys and girls), whereas qualitative data involves words, e.g. quotes from the interview
Quantitative data can be measured objectively, whereas qualitative data is based on the subjective interpretation of language
Quantitative data is immediately quantifiable, whereas qualitative data has to be transformed and is only quantifiable if the data is put into categories and the frequency is counted

18. Outline Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. (3)
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation states that if an individual does not have a warm, loving and continuous relationship with their caregiver before the critical period (age 2 ½ but risk up to the age of 5 years) then the child risks issues of prolonged separation (deprivation). These can include effects on development such as intellectual (low IQ), emotional and social difficulties e.g. affectionless psychopathy. Furthermore, if if there are prolonged separations then there may be issues into adulthood. The effects on a child's Internal working model could lead to future problems such as the inability to be a good parent themselves

19. Explain one criticism of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation
Explain one criticism of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. [3 marks]
Schaffer & Emerson (1964) noted that specific attachments started at about 8 months and, very shortly thereafter, the infants became attached to other people. By 18 months very few (13%) were attached to only one person; some had five or more attachments.
Critics such as Rutter have also accused Bowlby of not distinguishing between deprivation and privation – the complete lack of an attachment bond, rather than its loss.  Rutter stresses that the quality of the attachment bond is the most important factor, rather than just deprivation in the critical period. Bowlby used the term maternal deprivation to refer to the separation or loss of the mother as well as the failure to develop an attachment.  Are the effects of maternal deprivation as dire as Bowlby suggested?

20. Outline and evaluate the learning theory of attachment [8 marks]
Possible content:
• Idea of ‘cupboard love’ - children learn to become attached to their caregiver because they give them food
• Secondary drive/drive reduction in relation to feeding and attachment
• Learning can be due to associations (classical conditioning) – outline of how this process works in attachment
• Learning can be due to patterns of reinforcement (operant conditioning) – outline of how this process works in attachment
• Dolland and Miller (1950) - Infants learn to associate the caregiver with the feeling of pleasure when they are fed (classical conditioning) and infants are reinforced in the behaviours that will produce these desirable responses from others (e.g. being fed when they cry - operant conditioning).
Possible evaluation points:
• Evidence that underpins theory
• Evidence to refute theory: e.g. Schaffer and Emerson – more than half of the infants were not attached to the person primarily involved in their physical care; Harlow – rhesus monkeys attach for