Types of conformity

• Compliance: going along with the group publicly but not privately agreeing; shallow and temporary.
• Identification: changing views to be part of a group you value, held only while membership matters.
• Internalisation: genuinely changing your private beliefs; the deepest and most permanent type.

Explanations for conformity

• Informational Social Influence (ISI): we conform because we want to be right, especially in ambiguous or novel situations. Leads to internalisation.
• Normative Social Influence (NSI): we conform because we want to be liked or avoid rejection. Leads to compliance.
• Asch (1951): with a unanimous majority giving obviously wrong answers on line-length judgements, conformity rate was 36.8 percent on critical trials; conformity dropped sharply when one other 'dissenter' gave the correct answer, and increased with group size up to about three confederates before levelling off.

Conformity to social roles

• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment (1973): volunteers randomly assigned guard or prisoner roles; the study was stopped after 6 days (planned for 14) due to guards' brutality and prisoners' distress, showing situational factors can override personality.
• Common mistake: don't claim the study proves everyone would behave this way — sampling and demand characteristics limit generalisation.

Obedience

• Milgram (1963): 65 percent of participants (a fixed proportion, often misremembered) delivered the full 450 volts when ordered by an authority figure, despite believing they were harming someone.
• Situational variables that reduced obedience: proximity to the victim, distance from the authority figure (dropped to 20.5 percent by telephone), location away from a prestigious university (down to 47.5 percent in a run-down office), and presence of a disobedient peer.
• Agentic state: acting as an agent for another's wishes rather than on personal conscience, removing felt responsibility.
• Legitimacy of authority: obedience is higher when the authority figure is seen as legitimate, socially sanctioned, and in a recognised hierarchy.

Resistance to social influence

• Social support: the presence of others resisting makes it easier to disobey or not conform.
• Locus of control (Rotter): people with a strong internal locus of control (believing outcomes are down to their own actions) resist social influence more than externals.

Memory

• Multi-store model (Atkinson and Shiffrin): sensory register, short-term memory (STM capacity 7±2 items, Miller; duration about 18-30 seconds without rehearsal), and long-term memory (unlimited capacity, duration potentially a lifetime).
• Working memory model (Baddeley and Hitch): central executive plus three slave systems — phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, episodic buffer.
• Types of long-term memory: episodic (personal events), semantic (facts and knowledge), procedural (skills).
• Explanations for forgetting: interference (proactive and retroactive) and retrieval failure due to absence of context-dependent or state-dependent cues (encoding specificity principle).
• Eyewitness testimony: misleading information (leading questions, post-event discussion) and anxiety affect accuracy; the Yerkis-Dodson law suggests moderate anxiety optimises performance while very high anxiety impairs it.
• Cognitive interview: uses report everything, reinstate context, reverse order, and change perspective to improve recall accuracy in witnesses.

Common mistakes

• Confusing NSI with ISI — NSI is about fitting in, ISI is about being correct.
• Forgetting exact figures (36.8 percent, 65 percent) loses easy marks — learn the numbers precisely.
• Treating STM capacity as a fixed number rather than a range (7±2, so 5 to 9 items).

What is attachment?

Attachment is a close, two-way emotional bond between an infant and a caregiver, shown through proximity-seeking, separation distress and secure-base behaviour.

Explanations of attachment

• Learning theory (Dollard & Miller): attachment is learned through classical conditioning (food = pleasure, caregiver becomes associated with pleasure) and operant conditioning (crying is reinforced when it removes discomfort - 'cupboard love'.
• Bowlby's monotropic theory: attachment is innate and adaptive, evolved for survival. Babies form one main attachment ('monotropy') then a hierarchy of others. Social releasers (smiling, crying) prompt caregiving. A critical period exists (around 0-2.5 years) - if no attachment forms in this window, it may never form properly.
• Internal working model: the first attachment creates a mental template for future relationships (continuity hypothesis) - links to Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis.

Types of attachment - Ainsworth's Strange Situation

A controlled observation with 8 stages assessing separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, reunion behaviour and secure-base use. Three types found:

• Type B - Secure (about 60-75% of UK babies): distress on separation, easily comforted, positive reunion.
• Type A - Insecure-avoidant (about 20-25%): little distress, avoids contact on reunion.
• Type C - Insecure-resistant (about 3%): high distress, seeks and rejects comfort on reunion.
• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's meta-analysis found secure attachment was the most common type in every culture studied, and variation within cultures was greater than between cultures.

Attachment and psychopathology (the key A-level link)

• Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis: prolonged early separation from the primary attachment figure during the critical period can cause serious long-term harm, including affectionless psychopathy (lack of guilt/empathy), low IQ and delinquency.
• The 44 Thieves Study (1944): 44 juvenile thieves interviewed; 14 showed affectionless psychopathy and most of these had experienced early separation, supporting the hypothesis.
• Insecure attachment types are linked to later mental health difficulties: insecure-resistant attachment is associated with anxiety disorders, and insecure-avoidant with antisocial/conduct problems.
• Disinhibited attachment (seen in institutionalised children, e.g. Romanian orphan studies - Rutter's ERA study) involves attention-seeking and indiscriminate friendliness towards strangers, linked to poor-quality early institutional care.

Common mistakes

• Do not confuse deprivation (loss of an already-formed attachment) with privation (never having formed one at all) - privation tends to have more severe effects.
• Bowlby's critical period is now usually described as a 'sensitive period' by researchers, since evidence shows recovery is possible.
• Always name the study (44 Thieves, Strange Situation, ERA study) and give a real number or percentage for AO1/AO3 marks.

Approaches in Psychology

The origins of psychology start with Wundt, who opened the first psychology lab in Leipzig in 1879 and used introspection to study conscious mental processes systematically.

The behaviourist approach focuses only on observable behaviour. Classical conditioning (Pavlov) is learning through association, shown with dogs salivating to a bell paired with food. Operant conditioning (Skinner) is learning through consequences: positive reinforcement adds a pleasant stimulus, negative reinforcement removes an unpleasant one, and punishment decreases behaviour.

Social learning theory (Bandura) adds cognitive factors: learning happens by observing and imitating role models, mediated by attention, retention, motor reproduction and motivation. Bandura's Bobo doll study (1961) supports this.

The cognitive approach studies internal mental processes using inference, and treats the mind like a computer (the computer analogy: input, processing, output). Schemas are packages of ideas built from experience that help us process information quickly but can cause distortion. Cognitive neuroscience maps thought to brain regions using scanning technology like fMRI.

The biological approach explains behaviour through genetics, biological structures and neurochemistry. Twin studies compare concordance rates between monozygotic (identical, share 100% DNA) and dizygotic (non-identical, share 50% DNA) twins to assess genetic influence. The genotype is genetic makeup; the phenotype is how genes are expressed given the environment.

The psychodynamic approach (Freud) proposes the mind has three parts: the id (pleasure principle, present at birth), the ego (reality principle, develops around age 2), and the superego (morality principle, develops around age 5). Defence mechanisms like repression, denial and displacement protect the ego from anxiety.

Biopsychology

The nervous system splits into the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and peripheral nervous system, which splits into somatic (voluntary muscle movement, sensory input) and autonomic (involuntary, splits into sympathetic 'fight or flight' and parasympathetic 'rest and digest').

Neurons communicate via synaptic transmission: an electrical impulse triggers neurotransmitter release across the synapse, which binds to receptors and is either excitatory (increases likelihood of firing, e.g. adrenaline) or inhibitory (decreases likelihood, e.g. serotonin, GABA).

Common mistake: confusing hormones (slow, travel via bloodstream, e.g. adrenaline from the adrenal medulla) with neurotransmitters (fast, travel across synapses). Also, always link biological explanations back to behaviour in exam answers, not just describe the biology.

Experimental methods

• Lab experiments: high control, IV manipulated, DV measured, high internal validity but low ecological validity.
• Field experiments: IV still manipulated but in a natural setting, better ecological validity, less control.
• Natural experiments: IV varies naturally (e.g. an existing condition), researcher cannot manipulate it, useful when manipulation is unethical or impossible, but low control and possible confounds.
• Quasi-experiments: IV is based on an existing difference between people (e.g. age, gender), participants cannot be randomly allocated, so cause and effect claims are weaker.

Experimental design

• Independent groups: different participants in each condition, avoids order effects, but individual differences may confound results, remedied by random allocation.
• Repeated measures: same participants do all conditions, controls for individual differences, but risks order effects, remedied by counterbalancing (e.g. ABBA design).
• Matched pairs: participants paired on key variables then split across conditions, reduces individual differences without order effects, but time-consuming and matching is never perfect.

Sampling

• Random sampling: every member of the target population has an equal chance of selection, e.g. names drawn from a hat.
• Systematic sampling: every nth person selected from a list.
• Stratified sampling: sample reflects proportions of subgroups in the population.
• Opportunity sampling: whoever is available and willing, quick but biased and unrepresentative.
• Volunteer sampling: people self-select, often via adverts, risks a volunteer bias (more motivated or curious people).

Validity, reliability and ethics

• Internal validity: whether the study measured what it claimed to measure.
• External validity: whether findings generalise beyond the study, includes ecological, population and temporal validity.
• Reliability: consistency of a measure, checked using test-retest or inter-observer reliability, correlation coefficient of +0.8 or above is generally seen as acceptable.
• BPS ethical guidelines require informed consent, the right to withdraw, protection from harm, confidentiality and debriefing; deception must be justified and debriefed afterwards.

Data and statistics

• Levels of measurement: nominal (categories), ordinal (ranked, unequal intervals), interval/ratio (equal intervals, true zero).
• Measures of central tendency: mean (uses all data, affected by outliers), median (middle value, resistant to outliers), mode (most frequent, useful for nominal data).
• Significance level in psychology is conventionally p ≤ 0.05, meaning a 5% or less chance the result is due to chance.
• Common mistake: confusing correlation with causation, a correlation only shows a relationship, not that one variable causes the other.
• Common mistake: mixing up type I errors (false positive, rejecting a true null hypothesis) and type II errors (false negative, accepting a false null hypothesis).

What are issues and debates?

This topic sits across ALL of A-Level Psychology. You must be able to apply these themes to any study or approach, not just recite definitions.

Gender and culture bias

• Alpha bias: theories exaggerate differences between groups (eg some evolutionary explanations of sex differences).
• Beta bias: theories ignore or minimise differences (eg early research using only male samples but generalising to everyone).
• Androcentrism: male behaviour treated as the norm, female behaviour judged as deviation.
• Cultural bias: judging other cultures by the standards of your own is called ethnocentrism.
• Imposing your own cultural norms when studying another culture is called an imposed etic.
• Universality means findings apply to everyone regardless of time or culture; emic approaches study a culture from within.

Free will and determinism

• Hard determinism: all behaviour is caused, free will is an illusion.
• Soft determinism: behaviour is caused but people still have some conscious mental control (Skinner rejected free will entirely; humanistic psychology strongly supports free will).
• Biological determinism = genes/hormones/brain structure cause behaviour. Environmental determinism = behaviour is a product of conditioning (Skinner). Psychic determinism = unconscious conflicts (Freud).

The nature-nurture debate

• Nature = heredity (genes). Nurture = environment/experience.
• Interactionist approach is the modern consensus: nature and nurture interact, eg diathesis-stress model (a genetic vulnerability + an environmental trigger).
• Common mistake: writing this as a strict either/or debate loses marks — always show interaction.

Holism and reductionism

• Reductionism breaks behaviour into simplest components: biological reductionism (genes/neurochemicals) and environmental reductionism (stimulus-response links, eg behaviourism).
• Levels of explanation: socio-cultural > psychological > physical > environmental (biological) — the same behaviour can be explained at different levels.
• Holism studies the whole system/experience (eg humanistic psychology), arguing reductionism oversimplifies.

Idiographic vs nomothetic approaches

• Idiographic: focuses on the unique individual, in-depth qualitative methods (case studies, eg Freud).
• Nomothetic: aims to establish general laws of behaviour using large samples and quantitative methods (eg biological approach).

Ethical implications of research

• Distinct from ethical issues (which affect participants directly) — ethical IMPLICATIONS concern the wider impact of research on society, how findings are used, and public perception of groups, even after the study is over.

Common mistakes

• Confusing ethical issues with ethical implications.
• Treating nature-nurture as binary instead of interactionist.
• Forgetting to apply a named study as evidence for each debate in essays.

Relationships: attraction and maintenance

Evolutionary explanations say humans are built to seek partners who maximise reproductive success. Men favour cues of fertility (youth, physical attractiveness); women favour cues of resource provision. Anisogamy (differing size and number of sex cells) creates different mating strategies: male-preference for quantity, female-preference for quality.

Filter theory (Kerckhoff and Davis) proposes we narrow the field of eligible partners through three filters in sequence: social demography (proximity, class, religion), similarity in attitudes (important in early stages), and complementarity of needs (important in later, more established relationships).

Social exchange theory frames relationships as a cost-benefit exchange, judged against a comparison level (CL, what we expect) and a comparison level for alternatives (CLalt, what else is on offer). Equity theory adds that satisfaction depends on the ratio of costs and benefits being fair, not just profitable, between partners.

Common mistake

Do not confuse social exchange theory (individual profit) with equity theory (fairness between partners) — examiners reward the distinction.

Schizophrenia

Diagnosis uses two classification systems: DSM-5 (American) and ICD-11 (international, used more in the UK). Positive symptoms (an excess of normal function) include hallucinations and delusions; negative symptoms (a loss of normal function) include avolition and speech poverty.

Reliability issues include low inter-rater reliability between clinicians. Validity issues include co-morbidity (many patients also diagnosed with depression or anxiety), symptom overlap with other disorders (for example bipolar disorder), gender bias, and cultural bias (higher diagnosis rates for Black British and African-American patients).

Biological explanations point to the dopamine hypothesis (excess dopamine activity, especially in the mesolimbic pathway) and genetic factors (concordance rates: identical/MZ twins around 40 percent higher than fraternal/DZ twins). Drug treatment uses typical antipsychotics (dopamine antagonists, e.g. chlorpromazine) and atypical antipsychotics (e.g. clozapine, risperidone) which act on dopamine and serotonin with fewer side effects.

Aggression

The limbic system, especially the amygdala, is central to emotional response and aggression. Testosterone is linked to increased aggression via its action on brain areas that regulate threat response; serotonin is linked to reduced aggression (low serotonin removes an inhibitory 'brake' on the amygdala).

Social learning theory (Bandura) explains aggression as learned through observation and imitation of role models, reinforced by vicarious reinforcement (seeing someone else rewarded for aggression). The frustration-aggression hypothesis states frustration (blocking a goal) always produces an aggressive drive, later refined to say frustration only leads to aggression when it produces anger.

Common mistake

Always name a named study or theorist (e.g. Bandura's Bobo doll study, Kerckhoff and Davis) to hit AO1 marks — vague descriptions lose credit.