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a level Psychology AQA Questions and
Correct Answers/ Latest Update /
Already Graded
What is compliance?
Ans: Pubically conforming where privately, your opinion doesnt change.
Temporary conformity which is only maintained in the presence of group
pressure
What is Identification
Ans: Temporarily conforming to appease a group and become part of it
by following role models public + private acceptance but it is not
maintained when you leave the group
What is internalisation
Ans: Permanent conversion of views lasts even if the majority pressure is
not present
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State and explain the two components of the dual-process model of
conformity
Ans: Normative social infuence - Conforming due to the desire to be
liked and avoid rejection. Agreement with the norm/majority is due to the
need for acceptance. Associated with compliance Informational social
influence - Conforming due to the desire to be right in an ambiguous
situation, (when people are unsure of themselves, so they look to others
for guidance) Leads to internalisation
Evaluate the Dual-process model of conformity (2+, 2-)
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Ans: (+) Strength: Experimental support - (showing an influence of NSI) - -
Asch's line experiment shows how judgement is affected by the majority,
even when that majority is obviously wrong - 37% of trials showed
conformity to wrong answers - 75% of ppts conformed at least once and
admitted they were self-conscoius and afraid of dissaproval - when ppts
wrote down answers (making them anonymous) only 12.5% conformed,
showing how conformity was performed pubically and not privately (+)
Strength: Lucas et al maths students - (showing support for ISI) - - Students
given maths problems and have to answer pubically online. - conformity
was higher for harder questions, especaily from those who rated their
maths ability as low. - Demonstrated how people conform in situations
where they dont know the answer and their desire to be right. (-)
Limitation: Individual differences are ignored - - more knowledgeable
people or more confident are less influenced (by ISI and NSI respectively) -
Perrin + Spencer found engineering students conformed less (they may be
more confident) - Limitation as acting differently needs to be taken into
account for a full picture of SI (-) Limitation: ISI and NSI not easily
distinguishable - - both processes are often involved e.g. in Asch dissenter
provides either emotional support (NSI) or an alternate source of info (ISI). -
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casts doubt that ISI and NSI are processes which act independantly - Real
life conformity could have many factors more than just ISI and NSI
outine the Aims and Procedure of Asch's study into conformity
Ans: Aim - to investigate how individuals conform to an obviously wrong
majority procedure - - 123 male US undergrads participate in a lab
experiment - they are decieved and told that it is a line judgment task
about visual perception - confederates state obviously wrong answers on
12/18 trials - real participants answer last
How did asch implement the task difficulty variable and what results
were found?
Ans: Task difficulty - The correct answer line was made less obvious by
making lines more similar in length, causing confidence in judgement to
drop. situation was more ambiguous, so conformity rates increased as ISI
played a bigger role
a level Psychology AQA Questions and
Correct Answers/ Latest Update /
Already Graded
What is compliance?
Ans: Pubically conforming where privately, your opinion doesnt change.
Temporary conformity which is only maintained in the presence of group
pressure
What is Identification
Ans: Temporarily conforming to appease a group and become part of it
by following role models public + private acceptance but it is not
maintained when you leave the group
What is internalisation
Ans: Permanent conversion of views lasts even if the majority pressure is
not present
,2 | Page
State and explain the two components of the dual-process model of
conformity
Ans: Normative social infuence - Conforming due to the desire to be
liked and avoid rejection. Agreement with the norm/majority is due to the
need for acceptance. Associated with compliance Informational social
influence - Conforming due to the desire to be right in an ambiguous
situation, (when people are unsure of themselves, so they look to others
for guidance) Leads to internalisation
Evaluate the Dual-process model of conformity (2+, 2-)
,3 | Page
Ans: (+) Strength: Experimental support - (showing an influence of NSI) - -
Asch's line experiment shows how judgement is affected by the majority,
even when that majority is obviously wrong - 37% of trials showed
conformity to wrong answers - 75% of ppts conformed at least once and
admitted they were self-conscoius and afraid of dissaproval - when ppts
wrote down answers (making them anonymous) only 12.5% conformed,
showing how conformity was performed pubically and not privately (+)
Strength: Lucas et al maths students - (showing support for ISI) - - Students
given maths problems and have to answer pubically online. - conformity
was higher for harder questions, especaily from those who rated their
maths ability as low. - Demonstrated how people conform in situations
where they dont know the answer and their desire to be right. (-)
Limitation: Individual differences are ignored - - more knowledgeable
people or more confident are less influenced (by ISI and NSI respectively) -
Perrin + Spencer found engineering students conformed less (they may be
more confident) - Limitation as acting differently needs to be taken into
account for a full picture of SI (-) Limitation: ISI and NSI not easily
distinguishable - - both processes are often involved e.g. in Asch dissenter
provides either emotional support (NSI) or an alternate source of info (ISI). -
, 4 | Page
casts doubt that ISI and NSI are processes which act independantly - Real
life conformity could have many factors more than just ISI and NSI
outine the Aims and Procedure of Asch's study into conformity
Ans: Aim - to investigate how individuals conform to an obviously wrong
majority procedure - - 123 male US undergrads participate in a lab
experiment - they are decieved and told that it is a line judgment task
about visual perception - confederates state obviously wrong answers on
12/18 trials - real participants answer last
How did asch implement the task difficulty variable and what results
were found?
Ans: Task difficulty - The correct answer line was made less obvious by
making lines more similar in length, causing confidence in judgement to
drop. situation was more ambiguous, so conformity rates increased as ISI
played a bigger role
