Preparation for Mock - 11.20am on Tuesday 30th April

Here is a slightly edited version of the examiner's report for the paper which you will sit on Tuesday.

It contains lots of useful advice in general about exam technique for AS psychology (and, indeed, other subjects), and lots that is specific to this exam. I am allowing you to work out what the questions are on, in the hope that you will read this document carefully and realise how useful it is!

You can download examiners' comments for all past papers for all subjects from the websites of all the exam boards. It's really useful to read these, especially just before or just after you have a go at a past paper.

I am offering a revision session on Monday after school in R23, with the aim of going through the June 2012 Unit 2 paper. I suggest you do this over the weekend, mark it yourself using the mark scheme, and bring it along to go through it and discuss issues it throws up. Here is the examiner's report for this paper.

If you haven't already, email me your revision card - see post below if you have forgotten your topic!

Social Change

Here is the work from the lesson when I was ill last term, which includes the test questions which I was giving back yesterday - some of you need to do these still, others need to hand me their answers.


The final part of the Social Psychology topic is looking at how psychological research can explain changes in society - social change. This is basically applying lessons from the study of minority influence to real-life changes, where a minority view has gradually become accepted by the majority.

Examples of social change we briefly discussed at the end of today's lesson include:

• The civil rights movement (rights and respect for black people, particularly in America).
• Gay pride and changing attitudes to homosexuality in Western countries.
• The paralymics and changing attitudes to disability.
• Votes for women and women's rights in general.

Exam questions in the past have asked candidates to apply lessons from social psychology to the change in attitudes to recycling and smoking in this country.

The key ideas to use are:

• Minorities have been shown to be effective in converting a majority (that is, getting them to internalise the minority's views) when they are consistent in their message (as shown by Moscovici).
• It can also help for the minority to show some flexibility / logic, as in Nemeth's version of the Moscovici 'calling a blue slide green' study in which the minority said that the brighter slides were green but the dimmer ones were blue - this caused more influence than the consistent minority.
• Clark's '12 Angry Men' study showed that minorities cause change in the attitudes of majorities when they have persuasive arguments and evidence to back these up.
• He also showed that there is a 'snowball' effect - the influence of the minority increases as members of the majority start to 'switch sides'.
• Additionally, when the minority has grown to become the majority, people who haven't yet switched sides may start to comply with the new majority view even if they don't agree (e.g. people stop being openly racist and homophobic even if they are privately, because the majority now considers these views unacceptable) - their behaviour changes due to normative influence rather than informational influence.
• Finally, if the government passes a new law requiring people to adopt the behaviour that was originally the minority's then obedience to authority can be used to explain further change in behaviour, e.g. people recycle and don't smoke in public because the law enforces these.

Here is a presentation on this.

Have a go at these exam questions for next lesson:

June 2010 – Q5

For many years, smoking in public places such as trains, pubs and restaurants was

quite acceptable. People could smoke wherever they wanted and non-smokers had to

put up with smoky atmospheres. However, in 2007, the Government finally introduced

a law banning smoking in public places and those who smoke are limited in where they

can smoke.

Using your knowledge of the psychology of social change, explain how this social

change has occurred. (4 marks)

January 2009 – Q10

What are the implications for social change of research into social influence? (6 marks)

Revision Card Activity

Here is the link to the Word document for the cards.

The idea is that by the end of the week you each make one card on the topic below. This means coming up with between six and eight questions, and then answering them on the 'back' of the card (the right hand box). Try to keep the font size the same as I have. You will need to think carefully about how you word the information to get all the key details down in the limited space - this is partly what makes this a useful revision exercise (in fact feel free to make more of your own cards if you get into it).

Email me your effort by the end of the week.

Evelyn - the pituitary-adrenal system

Rozina - the sympathomedullary pathway

Sarah - the immune system and how it is affected by stress

Ishy - Cohen (1993)

Ellen - Kiecolt-Glaser (1984) - the one with the medical students

Raheel - the SRRS - how it was developed and scores relate to chances of getting ill

Sophia - Rahe et al (1970) - the one with the US Navy personnel

Beth - Kanner et al (1981) - daily hassles study

Mustafa - De Longis et al (1982) - daily hassles study

Jaspar - Workplace Stressors

Oria - Marmot et al (1997) - the 'Whitehall' studies

Maryam - Johansson et al (1978) - the Swedish sawmill study

Rebecca - Type A / Type B / Hardy personality

Phoenix - Friedman and Rosenman (1959) - the Type A/B study

Amal - Stress inoculation training

Nathaniel - Biofeedback

Grace - Benzodiazepines

Dominic - Beta blockers

Unit 2 revision checklists

Your should already have specification checklists for Abnormality and Social Influence - I've just made one for stress and you can view / download all three below.

There are two boxes next to each item on the checklist - the idea is that you check the first box when you have revised it the first time - ensuring that you have notes on it and understand these - and then check the second box when you have covered it the second time. This might involve making a cue card or condensed notes in another form, or using these if you choose to make them on your first revision of the content.

I've put a study on the sheet for workplace stress that we haven't mentioned, and I don't think is in your textbook either - Breslow & Buell (1960) - as the specification mentions workload specifically and their study is a simple finding which I think is worth you having in addition to the Marmot and Johansson studies we looked at in detail.

Abnormality
Stress
Social Influence