Psychology Coursework - Conformity
Alistair Frame Psychology Coursework Introduction Background Research Conformity involves the changing of ones attitudes, opinions, or behaviours to match the attitudes, opinions, or behaviours of other people. This pressure to act like other people, sometimes despite our true feelings and desires, is a common everyday occurrence. This is due to implied and spoken rules of the situation. Many factors can affect a person's level of conformity. These include: * Group cohesiveness - The degree to which we are strongly attached to a group and the amount we would be prepared to do to stay within that group. The 'closer' the group the more conformity occurs * Group size - About three or four people will exert pressure to conform. It is aid that a larger group does not necessarily mean more conformity * In experiments researches have discovered that if the participants were allowed to give their answers away from the group then conformity decreased. If people were allowed to give their answers in private then it is said that they will be less likely to be swayed by other people opinions. * Again in experiments researchers like Asch have discovered that if the task is ambiguous or the problem is made harder then conformity levels are likely to increase. Under conditions where the problem is less obvious then people are likely to go with the majority of the group * It is
Is Psychology a Science?
Is Psychology a Science? Psychology is commonly defined as 'scientific' study of human behaviour and cognitive processes. Broadly speaking the discussion focuses on the different branches of psychology, and if they are indeed scientific. However, it is integral in this to debate to understand exactly the major features of a science, in order to judge if psychology is in fact one. There must be a definable subject matter - this changed from conscious human thought to human and non-human behaviour, then to cognitive processes within psychology's first eighty years as a separate discipline. Also, a theory construction is important. This represents an attempt to explain observed phenomena, such as Watson's attempt to account for human and non-human behaviour in terms of classical conditioning, and Skinner's subsequent attempt to do the same with operant conditioning. Any science must have hypotheses, and indeed test them. This involves making specific predictions about behaviour under certain specified conditions, for example, predicting that by combining the sight of a rat with the sound of an iron bar banging behind his head, a small child will learn to fear the rat, as is the case of Little Albert (1923). Also, empirical methods are used in scientific fields to collect data, relevant to the hypothesis being tested, as is the case in many psychological experiments, such as the
Discuss research relating to bystander behaviour.
Lyndsey Paterson Discuss research relating to bystander behaviour (24 marks) The murder of Kitty Genovese and the bystander behaviour that was apparent that night triggered a great deal of research to explain bystander behaviour. Latane & Darley suspected that the fact that the number of possible helpers was so large might actually have contributed to their lack of intervention. They processes that might explain the reluctance of others to 'get involved' in situations such as the Kitty Genovese incident. The Diffusion of Responsibility explanation suggests that the more witnesses there are to a person needing help, the less anyone witness feels responsible for giving help. Latane & Darley conducted a lab based experiment using male university students seated in individual cubicles connected by an intercom system, believing they had come to take part in a discussion on collage life. Students were lead to believe they were on their own, alone with one other participant who would later appear to have an epileptic seizure, or an increasing number of other participants. Help was less likely and slower to be given when participants believed that other potential helpers were available. The findings from this study support the notion of diffusion of responsibility as, as suggested the more witness there were to the victim needing help, the less the participant felt a sloe
Reductionism In Psychology
Describe and evaluate reductionist explanations in 2 areas of psychology (30) Reductionism is the belief that the subject matter of psychology can be best explained by breaking it down into simple elements. This is sometimes referred to as Occam's razor, which outlines that unnecessary constructs and levels of explanation can be cut away in order to reveal the simple explanation. This idea is further supported by Morgan's Law Of Parsimony. This law states that we have no need to explain behaviour in terms of complex psychological processes, when it can be done in much simpler ideas. The reductionist line of thinking suggests that whatever it is we are trying to explain, we should look for something basic. The reductionist approach allows for psychology to be seen more scientifically but whether this is the best approach for the investigation of human behaviour is debateable. Rose suggested different levels of explanation for most things. Each level has a valid contribution to offer overall, but a particular topic may be best explained at a particular level. The hierarchical levels Rose suggested were molecular being the most reductionist and the behaviour of groups (sociology) being the least reductionist. Reductionism in psychology lies within the other 3 levels in the hierarchy. The main principle is that complex behaviour can be broken down into their constituent parts
The effect of the Level of Processing on the amount of information recalled
Title: The effect of the Level of Processing on the amount of information recalled Abstract: The investigation is based on the work of Craik and Lockhart who devised the Levels of Processing (LOP) model in 1972. According to their theory it has three levels of processing, semantic, phonological and structural. Structural processing is based purely on appearance and arrangement of the word, phonological processing is how it sounds and semantic processing is what it means. In terms of shallowness, structural is the shallowest and semantic is the deepest. They found that participants processing information semantically recalled words better than those processing them structurally. They suggested that words which require deeper processing are recalled better. The aim of the study was to see if people recall words processed by their meaning more frequently than words associated with their appearance. The research method used a laboratory experiment and the experimental design was independent measures. An opportunity sample of thirty-eight participants of year 11 students at Unity College, Northampton, were asked to carry out a simple task of answering a series of closed questions. They were then asked to recall the words under consideration of the questions being asked. The investigation found that participants recalled an average of 6.18 words using semantic processing and
A study into social representations of sexuality
Contents Page Abstract Page 2 Introduction Pages 3-8 Methods Results Discussion References Page 9 Appendix 1 Page 10 Appendix 2 Page 11 Appendix 3 Page 12 Abstract The main aim of this study was to investigate social representations of sexuality through the media of FHM magazine, in terms of body exposure. The hypotheses were that there would be more partially clothed women displayed than partially clothed men, and more fully clothed men displayed than women. This was a content analysis where all people featured in the magazine that were larger than an eighth of an A4 sheet of paper were counted. The men and women were classified separately into two categories: partially clothed or fully clothed. It was found that the greater proportion of those partially clothed were women, and the majority of those fully clothed were men. The results were statistically significant. This study concluded that women are portrayed as sexual objects more than men in FHM magazine. Introduction Social representations are common sense ideas, thoughts, images and knowledge which members of a group share, that help us to interpret and understand our social world. They explain attitudes towards complex concepts such as sexuality, intelligence or education. (However, they differ from culture to culture, for example, the
Outline what is meant by 'culture bias' and describe culture bias in two or more psychological studies
Outline what is meant by 'culture bias' and describe culture bias in two or more psychological studies Culture bias is a term which covers several types of bias in psychology. It can be used to refer to judgements and prejudices about certain cultures, or methodological biases which lead to such biased conclusions. For example, although a method of research may be developed and found to be reliable in one culture, the same may not be true in another. Culture bias in methodology prevents us from being able to identify innate behaviour in cross-cultural research. One type of culture bias is ethnocentrism, which is the tendency to use one's own culture as a basis for judgements about others. Eurocentrism, ethnocentrism from the perspective of Western cultures, is particularly widespread in modern Psychology, as it is commonplace for findings based solely on, for example, American participants to be generalised to people across the globe. The relevance of psychological research carried out in Western countries to the wider world is questionnable. A large amount of this issue is a result of methodology. Because mundane realism and ecological validities have so much effect on the generalisation of findings, in order for findings to be relevant across cultures, the methodology must hold these characteristics no matter which culture it is carried out in. Failure to do so may lead to
Critically evaluate whether Milgrams research on obedience was ethical
Psychology Methods & Ethics Assignment A.C. 1.1, 2.1 Critically evaluate whether Milgram's research on obedience was ethical. In 1961, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted the first of the frequently discussed obedience experiment, sometimes referred to as the "shock" studies. The purpose of the experiment was to discover the willingness of the participants to obey an authority figure, who instructed them to inflict shocks on the 'learners.' The shocks varied from a mild 15 volts up to an eventual, extremely dangerous 450 volts. The studies were inspired by Milgram's interest in the Nazi's behaviour and the Holocaust, in particular how ordinary German citizens assisted Hitler with a massive killing program. The results of Milgram's experiment were that 80% of participants were obedient, with 65% of those being fully obedient and continuing to the end of the experiment (Moxon, et al., 2003). Milgram concluded that obedience to authority is not a German culture but a seemingly universal feature of human behaviour, based on situational factors, not individual characteristics. Ethics can be complicated with no plain rules and there is very rarely a clear right answer, however there are guidelines in place covering the main principles of consent, deception, distress caused, right to withdraw, debriefing and protection of participants to name a few. Also known
Outline the strengths and weaknesses of the social approach .
Outline the strengths and weaknesses of the social approach (12 marks) The first strength of the social approach is it utilises experimental methods. Experimental methods manipulate one variable to see the effect it has on another variable. This allows for cause and effect to be established. The social approach can therefore be seen as being scientific. An example of a social study that uses a field experiment method is the Piliavin et al subway study on bystander behaviour in emergency situations. This study manipulated a number of variables including race of the victim. It then recorded if passengers on the tram helped the victim and how long it took for them to help. Whilst using experimental methods makes the approach scientific, on the other hand this strength can be seen as a small weakness as it is very reductionist. Reductionist methods only try to identify one cause for a behaviour occurring. This is a weakness as the social approach's theories may be based on incomplete evidence as the studies may have missed some causes of behaviour e.g. affect of physiology in obedience. The second strength of the social approach is social studies have important applications to everyday life. Social psychology studies prejudice conformity and obedience; these are real factors that influence how people in everyday social situations. An anecdotal example from life is the affect
Compare and Contrast two theories of Bystander Behaviour
Compare and Contrast two theories of Bystander Behaviour "A man approached the gates of heaven and asked to be admitted. 'Tell me one good thing you have ever done in your life', said St Peter. 'Well', said the man. 'I saw a group of skinheads harassing an elderly lady and so I went over and kicked the leader in the shin'. Impressed, St Peter asked when this act of bravery had occurred. 'About 40 seconds ago,' came the response." (Cardwell, Clark & Meldrum 2001) Bystander apathy (effect) can be defined as a tendency for people to more likely act in an emergency or come to the aid of other when they are alone, or conversely, the lesser likelihood of an observer to help people in trouble if other people are present. (Corsini 1999). There have been many theories surrounding bystander behaviour; two prominent examples are Latané and Darley's (1970) Cognitive model and Piliavin et al.'s (1981) Bystander-calculus model. These theories have been widely discussed and have many similar and contrasting ideas. Latané and Darley's cognitive model of bystander behaviour is considered a classic theory in psychology; it uses a five stage model to show that bystander intervention depends on the outcomes of a series of decisions. These stages progress from whether the bystander notices the incident to determining whether their intervention would put them in danger. The model argues that
