AQA PSYCHOLOGY SOCIAL INFLUENCE EXAM QUESTIONS WITH ANSW
QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment - Findings - ✔✔- After a few days, guards
took up their roles with enthusiasm - behaviour became threat to prisoners
psychological and physical health so was stopped after 6 days.
- Within 2 days, rebelled against harsh treatment by guards - ripped their uniforms,
swore at guards
- Guards harassed prisoners - showed social roles by creating opportunities to enforce
rules and punish anything, Became aggressive and brutal
- Prisoners became depressed and anxious - 1 released due to symptoms of
psychological disturbance, 1 went on a hunger strike
✔✔Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment - Conclusion - ✔✔- Shows power of situation
influencing peoples behaviour
- All guard, prisoners and the researchers conformed to their roles.
✔✔Zimbardo's research Strengths - ✔✔- The researchers had some control - selection
of emotionally stable ppts and randomly assigned their roles - tried to rule out
personality differences - increases internal validity and draw valid conclusions from this.
- CD - situation was very real to ppts - quantitative data that was gathered - 90% of
conversations were about prison life - high internal validity.
✔✔Zimbardo's research Limitations - ✔✔- Lack of realism - ppts play acting rather than
conforming to social roles - the performances were based of stereotypes of the roles -
e.g one guard said based performance on character from Cool Hand Luke - lack of
generalisability, demand characteristics
- Role of dispositional factors - exaggerated the power of situation and minimised role of
personality factors - e.g only 1/3 of guards behaved brutally - overstated conclusion -
unreliable, cant be applied correctly.
✔✔What is obedience? - ✔✔Form of social influence where an individual follows direct
orders. Person issuing order usually of higher authority.
✔✔Milgram's Obedience Study - Participants - ✔✔- 40 male American ppts
- recruited through adverts and flyers (volunteers)
- aged between 20-50, all sort of jobs
- offered $4.50 to take part
✔✔Milgram's Obedience Study - Procedure - ✔✔- At Yale University
- In room with experimenter (lab coat) and learner receiving electric shock from another
room
- Ppts are the one asking questions and administering an increasing electric shock
every time learner get questions wrong. (shocks were not real).
, - Started at 15v up to 400v. At 300v, learner pounded on the wall, screamed and gave
no further responses
- If the ppts was concerned about continuing, the experimenter would give prob like
'please continue' or 'it's absolutely essential you continue'
✔✔Milligram's Obedience Study - Findings - ✔✔- No ppts stopped below 300v
- 12.5% (5ppts) stopped at 300v
- 65% went all the way to 400v
-Collected qualitative data - observations of extreme tensions like sweat, biting finger
nails.
- All ppts debriefed and informed their behaviour was normal and sent follow up
questionnaire.
✔✔Strengths of Milgram's study - ✔✔- Supporting evidence - Sheridan and King - Got
ppts to administer shocks to puppies - 54% of men and 100% female delivered a 'fatal'
shock - suggest results were genuine and trustworthy -high internal validity.
- High external validity - representation of ppts and authority figure and in real life -
Holfing demonstrated this with nurses obedience to doctors being very high - high
generalisability.
✔✔Limitations of Milgram's study - ✔✔- Low internal validity - ppts knew it was a set up
so may have displayed demand characteristics - low internal validity - listened to tapes
and found many had doubt about the shocks.
- Low external validity - conducted in a lab experiment - not reflective of real life
obedience situations - can't be applied
- Ethical issues - deception, possible psychological harm, right to withdraw not made
clear due to probs.
✔✔What are situational variables? - ✔✔Several factors researched by Milgram which
influence the levels of obedience - Proximity, Location and Uniform
✔✔Situational Variable - Proximity change - ✔✔- Change in closeness between the
participant and authority figure (experimenter)
- Change in closeness of the participant and victim (learner)
✔✔Situational Variable - Proximity affect - ✔✔- In original the leaner and ppt were in
separate rooms
- In variation they were in the same room
- Obedience to 400v dropped from 65% to 40%
- Couldn't see the pain they were causing.
✔✔Situational Variable - Location change - ✔✔- The location the order is issued
- In Yale university vs run down building
QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS RATED A+
✔✔Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment - Findings - ✔✔- After a few days, guards
took up their roles with enthusiasm - behaviour became threat to prisoners
psychological and physical health so was stopped after 6 days.
- Within 2 days, rebelled against harsh treatment by guards - ripped their uniforms,
swore at guards
- Guards harassed prisoners - showed social roles by creating opportunities to enforce
rules and punish anything, Became aggressive and brutal
- Prisoners became depressed and anxious - 1 released due to symptoms of
psychological disturbance, 1 went on a hunger strike
✔✔Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment - Conclusion - ✔✔- Shows power of situation
influencing peoples behaviour
- All guard, prisoners and the researchers conformed to their roles.
✔✔Zimbardo's research Strengths - ✔✔- The researchers had some control - selection
of emotionally stable ppts and randomly assigned their roles - tried to rule out
personality differences - increases internal validity and draw valid conclusions from this.
- CD - situation was very real to ppts - quantitative data that was gathered - 90% of
conversations were about prison life - high internal validity.
✔✔Zimbardo's research Limitations - ✔✔- Lack of realism - ppts play acting rather than
conforming to social roles - the performances were based of stereotypes of the roles -
e.g one guard said based performance on character from Cool Hand Luke - lack of
generalisability, demand characteristics
- Role of dispositional factors - exaggerated the power of situation and minimised role of
personality factors - e.g only 1/3 of guards behaved brutally - overstated conclusion -
unreliable, cant be applied correctly.
✔✔What is obedience? - ✔✔Form of social influence where an individual follows direct
orders. Person issuing order usually of higher authority.
✔✔Milgram's Obedience Study - Participants - ✔✔- 40 male American ppts
- recruited through adverts and flyers (volunteers)
- aged between 20-50, all sort of jobs
- offered $4.50 to take part
✔✔Milgram's Obedience Study - Procedure - ✔✔- At Yale University
- In room with experimenter (lab coat) and learner receiving electric shock from another
room
- Ppts are the one asking questions and administering an increasing electric shock
every time learner get questions wrong. (shocks were not real).
, - Started at 15v up to 400v. At 300v, learner pounded on the wall, screamed and gave
no further responses
- If the ppts was concerned about continuing, the experimenter would give prob like
'please continue' or 'it's absolutely essential you continue'
✔✔Milligram's Obedience Study - Findings - ✔✔- No ppts stopped below 300v
- 12.5% (5ppts) stopped at 300v
- 65% went all the way to 400v
-Collected qualitative data - observations of extreme tensions like sweat, biting finger
nails.
- All ppts debriefed and informed their behaviour was normal and sent follow up
questionnaire.
✔✔Strengths of Milgram's study - ✔✔- Supporting evidence - Sheridan and King - Got
ppts to administer shocks to puppies - 54% of men and 100% female delivered a 'fatal'
shock - suggest results were genuine and trustworthy -high internal validity.
- High external validity - representation of ppts and authority figure and in real life -
Holfing demonstrated this with nurses obedience to doctors being very high - high
generalisability.
✔✔Limitations of Milgram's study - ✔✔- Low internal validity - ppts knew it was a set up
so may have displayed demand characteristics - low internal validity - listened to tapes
and found many had doubt about the shocks.
- Low external validity - conducted in a lab experiment - not reflective of real life
obedience situations - can't be applied
- Ethical issues - deception, possible psychological harm, right to withdraw not made
clear due to probs.
✔✔What are situational variables? - ✔✔Several factors researched by Milgram which
influence the levels of obedience - Proximity, Location and Uniform
✔✔Situational Variable - Proximity change - ✔✔- Change in closeness between the
participant and authority figure (experimenter)
- Change in closeness of the participant and victim (learner)
✔✔Situational Variable - Proximity affect - ✔✔- In original the leaner and ppt were in
separate rooms
- In variation they were in the same room
- Obedience to 400v dropped from 65% to 40%
- Couldn't see the pain they were causing.
✔✔Situational Variable - Location change - ✔✔- The location the order is issued
- In Yale university vs run down building
