A psychologist compares two investigations.
| Area of psychology | Setting and procedure | Results |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | Sixty adults were tested individually in a laboratory. Thirty learnt 20 unrelated words while a recorded conversation played and 30 learnt the same words in silence. The room, instructions and two-minute learning period were the same for everyone. Participants were told the aim before they began. | The conversation group recalled a mean of 11.6 words. The silence group recalled a mean of 15.2 words. |
| Social influence | At a pedestrian crossing, either one or three confederates remained still for ten seconds after the green person signal appeared. An observer recorded whether each passer-by also waited. All one-confederate trials took place from 08:00 to 09:00 and all three-confederate trials took place from 14:00 to 15:00. The passers-by did not know about the investigation. | With one confederate, 9 of 50 passers-by waited. With three confederates, 28 of 50 passers-by waited. |
A psychologist reaches the following conclusion:
"The social influence investigation provides the more useful evidence because realism should take priority over control."
Explain how far the evidence supports the psychologist's conclusion. Use your knowledge and understanding from across the psychology course, referring to both memory and social influence.
173 exam-style questions on OCR GCSE Psychology 7.3 Analysing Research, covering 7.3.1 Types of Data, 7.3.2 Measures of central tendency, 7.3.3 Other descriptive statistics, 7.3.4 Tables, Charts and Graphs, 7.3.5 Reliability, 7.3.6 Validity and effects on validity, and 7.3.7 Sources of bias. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.