OxfordAQA A Level Psychology: Introductory Topics — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Introductory Topics study guide.

Social influence

Conformity types: compliance (public only), identification (while in the group), internalisation (public and private, lasting).

Two explanations:

• NSI — the need to be liked, giving compliance.
• ISI — the need to be right, giving internalisation.

The distinction predicts durability: NSI changes behaviour only while observed; ISI changes belief, so it persists.

Asch — conformity fell sharply with a dissenting ally and rose with task difficulty. Milgram — 65% obedience, reduced by proximity to the victim, a less prestigious location, the presence of a disobedient peer/ally, and a reduction in the authority figure’s apparent status (in one variation, replacing the lab-coated experimenter with an ordinarily dressed member of the public cut obedience to about a fifth).

Agentic state — acting as an instrument of authority. Legitimacy of authority explains why setting matters.

The dispositional explanation (authoritarian personality) cannot explain whole populations obeying, since that would require an implausibly uniform personality across millions — which is why situational explanations dominate.

Resistance: social support and an internal locus of control.

Zimbardo — the prison study showed ordinary people adopting brutal guard roles from situational role assignment (though archival evidence suggests the guards were also actively coached toward toughness, and an alternative social-identity-based reading is well established, so this is not a “pure” situational effect), and ethical concerns (psychological harm, unclear informed consent) and methodological criticism (demand characteristics, a small unrepresentative sample) further limit what it can be taken to prove. Neither Zimbardo’s study nor minority influence below is itself named in the specification’s social psychology sub-topic, but every bullet in that sub-topic is introduced with “including,” so both remain legitimately teachable as illustrations of it – they are not named, not “off-specification.”

Minority influence works through consistency, commitment and flexibility — a minority that is consistent and appears committed to its position, while still flexible enough to negotiate, is more persuasive than a rigid one.

Memory

Multi-store model: sensory register → attention → STM (5–9 items, 18–30 s) → rehearsal → LTM.

Working memory model explains what the MSM cannot: dual-task performance. Two tasks using different slave systems can be done at once; two using the same one cannot.

Not in 9685: explanations for forgetting (interference, retrieval failure) are not in this specification’s memory content, which is the multi-store model, the working memory model, types of long-term memory, and eyewitness testimony with the cognitive interview.

Eyewitness testimony: leading questions and post-event discussion distort recall. Anxiety is contradictory — weapon focus narrows attention, yet the Yerkes-Dodson inverted U means moderate arousal can improve recall. That tension is the evaluation, not a problem to resolve.

The cognitive interview — report everything, reinstate context, reverse order, change perspective. It increases correct recall without proportionally increasing errors.

Long-term memory subdivides into episodic (personal events), semantic (facts and meanings) and procedural (skills) — a distinction supported by amnesia patients who retain procedural memory, such as learned skills, despite severe episodic impairment.

Worked example

Explain why Asch’s findings may lack temporal validity.

Conducted in 1950s America, a notably conformist period (McCarthyism, strong pressure to fit in). Perrin and Spencer’s 1980 replication with UK engineering students found conformity on only 1 of 396 trials in that condition — suggesting the original findings may reflect that specific historical context rather than a stable feature of human behaviour. But Perrin and Spencer also ran a second condition, using probationers as participants and their probation officers as the confederate majority, in which conformity returned close to Asch’s original levels — so the study does not show that conformity had simply disappeared by the 1980s; it suggests the near-zero result depended on the specific sample. Counterpoint: engineering students were confident judging line lengths, so the sample itself may explain the difference rather than the era. Citing both conditions of the replication, not just the near-zero one, is what lifts the evaluation into the top band.

Psychopathology

Definitions of abnormality: statistical infrequency, deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, deviation from ideal mental health. Each fails alone — social norms vary by culture and era, and statistical infrequency would classify high intelligence as abnormal.

The specification names exactly two disorders in this unit.

Disorder	Defining characteristics	Explanation	Treatment
Phobia	Persistent, excessive fear of a specific object/situation; avoidance; response disproportionate to actual danger	Two-process model — classical conditioning acquires, operant maintains (avoidance)	Systematic desensitisation (relaxation + graduated hierarchy of feared situations), flooding
Depression	Persistent low mood; loss of interest/pleasure in usual activities; disturbed sleep, appetite or energy	Beck’s negative triad, Ellis’s ABC model	CBT, including challenging irrational thoughts

The two-process model explains its own treatment: avoidance is negatively reinforced by the reduction in anxiety, so exposure without avoidance is what breaks the maintaining cycle. Stating that link is worth more than describing the therapy.

OCD is not named in this unit (it names only phobias and depression) — it belongs to the International GCSE (9218) specification instead, where its required therapy is CBT, not any drug treatment. Do not let a “not required here” ruling for OCD at A-level travel into a “not required” ruling at GCSE.

Exam traps

• Confusing NSI with ISI.
• Writing about explanations for forgetting in a memory answer; they are not in this specification’s memory content.
• Describing when the question says evaluate.
• Claiming anxiety always worsens eyewitness accuracy.
• Using one definition of abnormality without its limitation.
• Giving a therapy without linking it to the explanation.
• Saying Milgram studied conformity rather than obedience.
• Treating the working memory model as replacing long-term memory rather than the short-term store.

Self-test

1. Distinguish NSI from ISI, and say which produces lasting change.
2. What does the working memory model explain that the multi-store model cannot?
3. Why is the authoritarian personality an inadequate explanation of obedience?
4. Explain the two-process model and how it justifies exposure therapy.
5. What criticism applies to Zimbardo’s prison study, and what three factors explain minority influence?

Answers: 1. NSI is the need to be liked, producing compliance that lasts only while observed; ISI is the need to be right, producing internalisation that persists. 2. Dual-task performance — two tasks using different slave systems can be carried out simultaneously, which a single unitary short-term store cannot explain. 3. It cannot account for entire populations obeying, which would require an implausibly uniform personality type across millions of people. 4. Classical conditioning creates the phobia and operant conditioning maintains it, because avoidance is negatively reinforced by anxiety reduction; exposure without avoidance therefore breaks the cycle. 5. Zimbardo’s study is criticised for ethical harm, for demand characteristics from a small unrepresentative sample, and for archival evidence that the guards were coached toward toughness rather than adopting brutality purely from situational assignment; minority influence works through consistency, commitment and flexibility.