Aqa Psychology A-Level Paper 1

Social Change - A society adopts a new belief of way of behaving which eventually widely becomes the norm. Social Change through Minority Influence – 1. Drawing attention to the issue 2. Cognitive Conflict 3. Consistency of position 4. The augmentation Principle 5. The snowball effect 6. Deeper Processing Cognitive Conflict - A conflict between what majority believe and the beliefs put forward by the minority, to make majority think more deeply. The augmentation principle - The minority suffers to make seem more committed. The snowball effect - Minority influence small effect keeps spreading more widely until a tipping point. Social Change through Conformity - Social change can be based on conformity. Social Norms Intervention - Attempting to change normative behavior because it is dangerous. Social Change Study - Most of us don't drink and drive. Social Change Drink and Drive ad study - 92% of peers believed their peers drunk and drove. A survey found only 20% did. Corrected misconception with most of us don't drink and drive ad and it reduce it to 13% Social Change Evaluation – - Minority influence will be gradual - Being perceived as deviant limits influence - Boomerang effect Boomerang effect - For individuals who already engage in behavior are introduced to social change, they might increase this behavior which in-turn is undesirable. Minority influence - When majority groups change beliefs/ behaviors as a result of exposure to a persuasive minority Dogmatic - strongly opinionated in an unwarranted manner. 3 Minority Influence Behavioral Styles - Consistency, Commitment, Flexibility. Nemeth Procedure - Groups of 4 with one confederate. Has to agree on the amount of compensation they would award a ski accident victim. 2 conditions: Flexible compromise Inflexible compromise Nemeth Results - Inflexible condition the minority had little effect on the majority Flexible conditions, majority were more happy to compromise Moscovici et al procedure - - 4 participants - 2 confederates - Series of blue colors were shown - Confederates repeatedly said the colors were green on every trial - In a control they did this 2 out of 3 times Moscovici et al findings - - the consistent trial gave more green responses than the non-consistent Minority Influence Evaluation - - Research support for flexibility (Nemeth 1987) - Tipping point for commitment Social Support - The perception that an individual has assistance available from other people. Social support and resisting conformity - Social support enables an individual to resist conformity, by breaking unanimity and not feeling alone, they become more confident to resist. Social support and resisting obedience - Social support enables an individual to become more confident and can resist temptation to obey. Who proposed the locus of control? - Rotter Locus of control - Beliefs about whether the outcomes of their actions are dependent on what they do, or on events outside of their control. Internal locus of control - rely less on the opinions of others, independent, what happens to them is a result of their own ability. External locus of control - What’s happens to them is a result of external factors they have no control over like luck or fate, more passive and fatalistic, less independent. Locus of control and resistance to social influence - The more internal you are: Less vulnerable to social influence More likely to become leaders Less likely to be successfully interrogated