AQA A-LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY
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EXAM PAPERS
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PAPER 1 (2019)
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Example Answers for AQA A-Level Psychology: Paper 1 (2019)
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AQA A-LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY
EXAMPLE ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS
EXAM PAPERS
______________________________
PAPER 1 (2019)
WWW.TUTOR2U.NET/PSYCHOLOGY
Example Answers for AQA A-Level Psychology: Paper 1 (2019)
www.tutor2u.net/psychology Copyright tutor2u
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SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Question 01
One explanation for the resistance to social influence is locus of control. When individuals have an
internal locus of control, they are less likely to blindly obey authority figures as they are less likely
to make the shift to agentic state because they believe they are responsible for their actions. They
are also less likely to demonstrate normative social influence as they are less influenced by what
others think.
Another explanation for the resistance to social influence is social support. Asch’s research
demonstrated that when there is a dissenter in the group who supported the naïve participant
and disagreed with the majority levels of conformity went down. This is similar to Milgram who
fund that a disobedient ally who refused to continue decreased levels of obedience.
Question 04
In 1987 not as much was known about the harmful effects of smoking and therefore the group
norm was to smoke as it was fashionable. This meant that young people would be influenced by
normative social influence to smoke or risk rejection from the group. However, as a minority of
individuals began to understand the harmful effects and used minority influence processes to
enact social change. This involves using internalisation to convince individuals of their beliefs using
informational influence and people’s desires to be correct. This might involve the formation of
anti-smoking pressure groups which research by Moscovici has shown would need consistency in
their message to be successful as he demonstrated that it was possible for a minority of
confederates to influence a majority of naïve participants to believe slides were a different colour.
This could be done, for example, by keeping to the message of the harmful effects on the body. In
addition, this research showed that demonstrating a commitment to the message by putting
yourself at risk in some way (augmentation principle) also helps to convince the majority to listen
to the message, for example with strikes demonstrations. Finally, a degree of flexibility is useful
such as asking people to cut back, use nicotine patches or not smoke in public places first. This
makes the majority listen and take the message seriously, making them internalise the message.
This acts as a snowball, slowly gathering members until there becomes a tipping point and the
minority becomes the majority and uses the social pressure of normative social influence such as
young people today who are more concerned with health than smoking and frown on peers who
smoke. This then results in social crypto amnesia where people don’t remember that it was ever
acceptable to smoke in public places and that it was fashionable. (304 words)
Question 05
Social influence research has issues with the deception of its participants which leads to a further
issue of a lack of informed consent to take part. For example, in Asch’s study on majority influence
participants were told they were taking part in a test of visual perception and in Milgram’s
research into obedience they were told it was a study into the effects of punishment on learning.
However, these levels of deception are necessary in social influence research as telling the
participants that your will be studying their levels of conformity to a social group, or their levels of
obedience would result in demand characteristics and invalidate the results obtained.
Social Influence research has also been criticised for the lack of protection for its participants. For
example, in both Zimbardo and Milgram’s research the participants learned that they were
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