QCE Psychology Unit 4: Social Psychology — Flashcards & Quiz

Q1: Describe Asch’s conformity experiments and their key findings.

Asch (1951) tested conformity by asking participants to judge line lengths in a group setting where confederates deliberately gave incorrect answers. Key findings: 75% of participants conformed at least once; the overall conformity rate was ~37%. Conformity increased with group size (up to 3–4 confederates), unanimity (one dissenter reduced conformity dramatically) and task difficulty. Participants reported conforming due to normative social influence (desire to fit in) and informational social influence (believing the group might be correct).

Q2: Describe Milgram’s obedience study and its key findings.

Milgram (1963) investigated obedience to authority by instructing participants to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to a "learner" (a confederate). Key findings: 65% of participants administered the maximum 450V shock despite the learner’s screams and apparent distress. Factors increasing obedience: proximity of authority figure, prestige of institution (Yale), perceived legitimacy of authority, absence of dissenting peers. Factors decreasing obedience: physical proximity to the victim, remote authority, presence of disobedient peers. Milgram identified agentic state (surrendering personal responsibility to authority) as a key mechanism.

Q3: What are attitudes and how do they form?

An attitude is a learned evaluation of a person, object, event or idea that influences thoughts, feelings and behaviour. The tricomponent model of attitudes has three components: Affective — emotional response (how you feel). Behavioural — how you act toward the object. Cognitive — beliefs and thoughts about the object. Attitudes form through: direct experience, classical conditioning (pairing a stimulus with positive/negative feelings), operant conditioning (reinforcement for holding certain views), observational learning (modelling attitudes of parents, peers, media) and cognitive evaluation.

Q4: Explain cognitive dissonance theory and its effects on behaviour.

Cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) is the psychological discomfort experienced when holding two contradictory beliefs, or when behaviour contradicts beliefs. To reduce dissonance, people may: change their belief to match their behaviour, change their behaviour to match their belief, add new cognitions to justify the inconsistency, or trivialise the importance of the inconsistency. Dissonance is strongest when the belief is important and the inconsistency is large.

Q5: Explain social loafing and the factors that influence it.

Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to exert less effort when working in a group than when working alone. Causes include: diffusion of responsibility (individual effort is less identifiable), reduced evaluation apprehension (less fear of being judged), perceived dispensability (belief that individual contribution doesn’t matter). Factors reducing social loafing: smaller group size, individual accountability, intrinsically interesting tasks, group cohesion, cultural values emphasising collectivism.

Q6: Explain the bystander effect and Latané and Darley’s model.

The bystander effect: the probability of helping decreases as the number of bystanders increases. Latané and Darley’s (1968) cognitive model of bystander intervention identifies five steps: (1) Notice the event, (2) Interpret it as an emergency, (3) Accept personal responsibility, (4) Know how to help, (5) Decide to act. Failure at any step prevents helping. Key barriers: diffusion of responsibility (others can help), pluralistic ignorance (everyone looks calm so it must not be an emergency) and evaluation apprehension (fear of embarrassment if you are wrong).

Q7: What is attribution theory and how does it explain behaviour?

Attribution theory (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967) explains how people determine the causes of others’ behaviour. Internal (dispositional) attributions: behaviour is caused by personal characteristics (personality, ability, effort). External (situational) attributions: behaviour is caused by environmental factors (luck, task difficulty, social pressure). Kelley’s covariation model uses three types of information: consensus (do others behave similarly?), distinctiveness (does the person behave this way in other situations?) and consistency (does the person behave this way every time?).

Q8: What is the fundamental attribution error?

The fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977) is the tendency to overestimate dispositional (internal) factors and underestimate situational (external) factors when explaining other people’s behaviour. Conversely, the actor–observer bias means we tend to attribute our own behaviour to situational factors but others’ behaviour to dispositional factors. The self-serving bias involves attributing our successes to internal factors (ability, effort) and our failures to external factors (bad luck, task difficulty).

Q1: In Asch’s conformity experiments, the majority of participants never conformed to the incorrect group response.

Answer: FALSE

75% of participants conformed at least once during Asch’s experiments, with an overall conformity rate of approximately 37%. Only 25% of participants never conformed across all trials.

Q2: In Milgram’s original obedience study, 65% of participants administered the maximum 450-volt shock.

Answer: TRUE

In the original baseline condition, 65% of participants obeyed the experimenter’s instructions and administered all shocks up to and including the maximum 450 volts, despite the apparent distress of the learner.

Q3: Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds two consistent beliefs that reinforce each other.

Answer: FALSE

Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds two contradictory (inconsistent) beliefs, or when their behaviour conflicts with their beliefs. This inconsistency creates psychological discomfort that motivates the person to reduce the discrepancy.

Q4: In the Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) study, participants paid $1 showed greater attitude change than those paid $20.

Answer: TRUE

Participants paid only $1 experienced greater cognitive dissonance because they lacked sufficient external justification for lying. To reduce dissonance, they changed their attitude to believe the boring task was actually enjoyable. The $20 group had adequate justification (the payment) and did not need to change their attitude.

Q5: Social loafing increases when individual contributions within a group are identifiable.

Answer: FALSE

Social loafing decreases when individual contributions are identifiable because accountability is increased. Social loafing is more likely when individual efforts are lost in the group’s output (diffusion of responsibility) and when there is low evaluation apprehension.

Conformity and Obedience

Understanding the classic studies by Asch (conformity) and Milgram (obedience), their findings, methodology and ethical implications is core QCAA content. Exam questions frequently require you to explain the factors that increase or decrease conformity and obedience, and to evaluate the ethical considerations of these landmark studies.

Attitudes and Cognitive Dissonance

The tricomponent model of attitudes (ABC) and Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory explain how attitudes form, persist and change. QCAA tests your ability to apply cognitive dissonance to novel scenarios and to explain attitude change using specific theoretical frameworks.

Group Dynamics

Social loafing, groupthink, deindividuation and group polarisation demonstrate how group membership influences individual behaviour. Being able to identify these phenomena in case studies and suggest evidence-based interventions is a key exam skill.

Bystander Behaviour and Attribution

Latané and Darley’s five-step model of bystander intervention and attribution theory (including the fundamental attribution error) are essential content. QCAA expects you to apply these models to real-world scenarios and evaluate their explanatory power.

What does QCE Psychology Unit 4 cover about social psychology?

Unit 4 covers social influence (conformity, obedience, compliance), attitudes and persuasion, group dynamics (social loafing, groupthink, deindividuation), bystander behaviour, attribution theory (internal vs external), and prejudice and discrimination, all aligned to the QCAA syllabus.

Are these flashcards aligned to the QCAA syllabus?

Yes — every flashcard and quiz question is mapped to the QCAA senior Psychology syllabus for the social psychology topic within Unit 4.

What key studies should I know for QCE social psychology?

Essential studies include Asch’s conformity experiments (1951), Milgram’s obedience study (1963), Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (1971), and Latané and Darley’s bystander research (1968). Know the method, findings and ethical evaluation of each.