Research & Studies
Identify the Study: Latané & Darley (1969)
Bystander Apathy
Which model focuses on how deeply information is processed?
Levels of Processing
What are the three components of an attitude?
Cognitive, affective and behavioural.
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through associations between stimuli.
A person changes their behaviour after watching someone else.
Social Learning Theory
What did Skinner's box allow researchers to investigate?
How consequences affect behaviour through operant conditioning.
What are the three stores in the Multi-store Model?
Sensory, Short term and Long term Memory
What is diffusion of responsibility?
Feeling less personally responsible for helping when others are present.
What is vicarious reinforcement?
Learning from observing another person being rewarded or punished.
Why might group membership affect someone's behaviour?
Social Identity Theory proposes that people derive part of their identity from group membership, influencing attitudes and behaviour toward in-groups and out-groups.
What did Grant el al. (1998) study find?
Memory performance was better when learning and testing contexts matched than when they differed.
Why might thinking about the meaning of a word improve later recall?
Semantic processing creates a deeper and more meaningful memory trace.
Jake believes healthy eating is important but eats fast food every day. He feels uncomfortable about this contradiction.
Cognitive dissonance.
What did the Skinner Box demonstrate?
That behaviour can be shaped by its consequences.
A student experiences frustration, becomes angry and interprets another person's behaviour as hostile. Which model could be used to predict their aggressive behaviour?
General Aggression Model
A participant gives the same incorrect answer as a unanimous group even though they initially knew the correct answer. What does this demonstrate?
Conformity due to group pressure, consistent with Asch's findings.
Compare the role of rehearsal in the Multi-store Model and Levels of Processing Model.
Rehearsal is important for transferring information to LTM in the Multi-store Model, whereas Levels of Processing emphasises the depth and meaning of processing rather than rehearsal alone.
A student sees another student fail an assessment and says, "They're just lazy," without considering that the student may have been dealing with difficult circumstances.
Fundamental attribution error
A dog begins salivating when it hears a particular sound after that sound has repeatedly been paired with food. Which type of conditioning is evident? Explain.
Classical conditioning.
A student is repeatedly excluded from a group. They begin identifying strongly with another group and start viewing the first group negatively. Use Social Identity Theory to explain what is happening.
The student develops identification with the new in-group and may engage in social comparison with the former/out-group, potentially favouring their new group.
A child begins copying aggressive behaviour after watching an adult model. Which study and theory can be connected?
Bobo Doll study → Social Learning Theory.
A student remembers information because they connect it to its meaning and relate it to existing knowledge. Which model best explains this? Explain.
The Levels of Processing Model, because connecting information to meaning involves deeper processing.
A student strongly identifies with their school's music group. They describe their group as talented and another school's music group as inferior. They also interpret ambiguous behaviour from the other group negatively. Identify two social psychological concepts that could explain this behaviour.
Social Identity Theory/in-group favouritism and attributional processes could be relevant.
Explain the difference between how classical conditioning and operant conditioning would explain a student developing test anxiety.
Classical conditioning would explain anxiety as a learned association between stimuli and a naturally occurring emotional response. Operant conditioning would focus on how consequences of behaviour might strengthen or weaken behaviours associated with avoiding tests or anxiety-provoking situations.
A student is exposed to an aggressive role model, begins copying the behaviour, receives attention from peers for being aggressive, and eventually develops a strong identity within an aggressive peer group.
Identify THREE psychological concepts/theories that could be used to explain different parts of this scenario.