A tech firm organizer divides 30 software developers at a weekend hackathon into two teams based on the color of their name badges: Emerald or Sapphire. The Emerald group are designated as the 'Core Creators' of the cohort; they are given high-specification workstations, premium snacks, and continuous verbal praise. The Sapphire group are designated as the 'Maintenance Crew'. They are given basic older laptops and water, but are set the exact same programming tasks. When a Sapphire developer asks for clarification on a coding task, the organizer points out that no Emerald developers needed assistance, stating to the room: "A lack of technical adaptability and dependency are typical traits of Sapphire-tier developers." In response to this, the Emerald developers laugh and nod in agreement.
As the hackathon progresses, the Sapphire developers become passive, unproductive, and their code quality deteriorates. The Emerald developers exceed their development targets and actively conform to the hierarchy, despite knowing the badge colors were assigned completely at random. During a break, a Sapphire developer accidentally spills coffee on their desk, and an Emerald developer remarks: "That is exactly the clumsy, disorganized behavior we expect from a Sapphire."
Explain how the source is relevant to the social area of psychology. Support your answer with evidence from the source.
135 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Areas, covering Social, Cognitive, Developmental, Biological, and Individual differences. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.