Topic 1: Social psychology — Edexcel A-Level Psychology
Test yourself on Topic 1: Social psychology with PEARSON EDEXCEL A-Level practice questions.
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Topic 1: Social psychology explained
This topic studies behaviour that exists only because other people do, and Pearson examines it through two applications: obedience and prejudice.
Read the full explanation
The explanations are social rather than biological, so agency theory accounts for obedience by a shift in perceived responsibility inside a hierarchy, social impact theory by the strength, immediacy and number of those issuing orders, and prejudice is explained by categorisation into in-group and out-group in social identity theory and by competition for scarce resources in realistic conflict theory. The prescribed classic study is the Robbers Cave field experiment by Sherif and colleagues, where rival groups of boys at a summer camp became hostile through competition and were reconciled only by shared goals neither group could reach alone. Culture runs through the whole topic, because both obedience and prejudice vary between societies.
Individual differences and developmental psychology must be considered when learning about obedience, prejudice, personality and cultural influences on social behaviour.
Pearson builds cross-topic thinking into social psychology by forcing the question of why, in the same situation, one person obeys and another refuses. Individual differences supply the dispositional answers: the authoritarian personality described by Adorno and colleagues and measured on the F scale, which Elms and Milgram found was higher in participants who went to the maximum shock than in those who defied; locus of control, where an internal orientation is linked to resistance; and differences in empathy and moral reasoning. Developmental psychology supplies the origins of those dispositions in harsh and status-anxious parenting, in socialisation into gender roles, and in attitudes learned from parents and peers. Culture adds a third layer, since rates of obedience and of prejudice differ between societies. Together these qualify any purely situational account.
Your focus
- Students must show understanding that social psychology is about aspects of human behaviour that involve the individual’s relationship to other persons, groups and society, including cultural influences on behaviour.
- Individual differences and developmental psychology must be considered when learning about obedience, prejudice, personality and cultural influences on social behaviour.
Topic 1: Social psychology exam tips
Marking Points
- Social explanations work at the level of the situation and the group, which is what distinguishes them from biological, cognitive or learning explanations of the same behaviour.
- The two applications prescribed are obedience and prejudice, each with theories, research studies and a set of factors that includes individual differences and culture.
- Robbers Cave: twenty-two boys at a summer camp were split into two groups, a competitive tournament produced name-calling, flag-burning and raiding, and only superordinate goals such as restoring the water supply reduced the hostility.
- The contemporary study is chosen from Burger replicating Milgram, Reicher and Haslam rethinking the psychology of tyranny, and Cohrs and colleagues on ideological attitudes and prejudice, and it must be known in the same detail as the classic study.
- Culture is examinable throughout, since collectivist and individualist norms alter both deference to authority and the salience of group boundaries.
Examiner Tips
- 💡Social psychology is assessed in Paper 1 Section A, and the classic study returns in Paper 3, so Robbers Cave needs to be known procedurally, not just as a story.
- 💡Revise the key question, the practical investigation and your chosen contemporary study alongside the content, because all of them are examinable.
- 💡Use culture as an evaluation tool: asking whether a finding would replicate in a collectivist society turns description into evaluation.
- 💡When a scenario describes a workplace or a sports rivalry, decide first whether it is an obedience item or a prejudice item before you plan the answer.
- 💡Scenario questions often describe two people behaving differently in identical circumstances, which is the cue to use individual differences rather than agency theory alone.
- 💡Paper 3 Section C examines the individual and situational debate directly, so keep one obedience example and one prejudice example ready for it.
- 💡When evaluating a personality explanation, name the measuring instrument and one weakness of it, because acquiescence bias on the F scale is a dependable evaluation point.
- 💡An assess question wants a judgement, so finish by saying which type of explanation accounts for more of the variation and why.
Common Mistakes
- Reducing social psychology to Milgram. Prejudice carries just as many marks, and Paper 1 Section A can open on either half of the topic.
- Calling Robbers Cave a laboratory experiment. It was a field experiment at a summer camp with boys who did not know they were being studied, which is precisely why its ethics are challenged.
- Saying that culture affects behaviour without naming a mechanism, such as the value placed on deference to authority or on group harmony.
- Presenting social explanations as complete, when the obvious weakness is that they say little about why two people in the same situation behave differently.
- Writing that the authoritarian personality explains obedience without noting that the evidence is correlational, so the personality may be a marker rather than a cause.
- Claiming women are more obedient, or less obedient, with no study attached. The Milgram data show no difference in rate, and the puppy study points the other way.
- Using culture as a label. Saying a country is collectivist explains nothing until you say what collectivism does to the perceived legitimacy of authority.
- Answering only on adult personality and ignoring the developmental half of the requirement, which asks where those characteristics came from.