Edexcel A Level Psychology Paper 3 June 2022 question paper 9PS0/03

Junior to senior Pinocchio study

Approximately 1000 participants were recruited by researchers to visit a Science Centre to investigate lying ability and frequency. The researchers used a cross‑sectional design for their study. The participants had their ability and frequency of lying measured and their results were then grouped into age categories.

To measure lying ability the participants had to respond to 15 simple questions with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response. For example, one question was ‘can pigs fly?’. Participants were told to either tell the truth or lie depending on the colour of the yes / no response options. The researchers expected the most able liars to respond the quickest and with fewer errors when lying and the least able liars to either have a delayed response or give a reflex truthful response when told to lie.

To measure lying frequency, the participants were asked how many times they had lied in the past 24 hours to family members, friends and strangers in a face‑to‑face situation.

The age categories and number of participants used for the study are shown in Table 1.

(Source: adapted from Debey et al. (2015))

Explain one strength and one weakness of using a cross-sectional design for the junior to senior Pinocchio study.

Strength

Weakness

Table 2 shows the average lying ability of the participants in each of the age categories.

Explain two conclusions you can make using the data in Table 2 regarding the lying ability of the participants in the age categories.

Explain one weakness of the junior to senior Pinocchio study in terms of validity.

Explain one strength of the junior to senior Pinocchio study in terms of reliability.

The lying frequency for each age category is shown in Table 3.

Calculate the overall mean lying frequency for the participants using the data in Table 3. You must give your answer to one decimal place.

The researchers used a volunteer sampling technique to gather the participants for the junior to senior Pinocchio study.

Explain one weakness with using a volunteer sampling technique for the junior to senior Pinocchio study.

2 ‘Textisms’ and literacy study

Researchers wanted to explore the relationship between children’s knowledge of text message abbreviations and their standard of literacy.

The researchers gained informed parental consent for 88 British children aged 10–12 years old to be involved in their research study. They asked the participants to compose a series of text messages when provided with a set of scenarios. This gave a measure of the children’s knowledge of text message (SMS) abbreviations called ‘textisms’. An example of a ‘textism’ could be the use of contractions such as ‘txt’, ‘plz’, ‘hmwrk’.

Subsequently the researchers measured the children’s vocabulary scores using a standardised tool called The British Picture Vocabulary Scales II (Dunn, Dunn, Whetton & Burley, 1997).

The researchers found that the ratio of ‘textisms’ used to total words by the children was positively associated with their vocabulary.

(Source: adapted from Plester et al. (2009))

Table 4 shows the vocabulary scores and the ratio of ‘textisms’ to words used by the children in one class.

Calculate the standard deviation for the vocabulary score using the data in Table 4. Show your working and give your answer to two decimal places.

Standard deviation_........

Explain one reason for using the standard deviation rather than the range as a measure of dispersion.

Explain one improvement that could be made to the ‘textisms’ and literacy study.

Reconciliation after romantic conflict study

Researchers investigated male and female beliefs regarding how to reconcile after romantic conflict with their partner.

In the first part of their study they asked 20 males and 18 females to write down five acts or behaviours they believe that people of their own sex perform (or may perform) to attempt to reconcile with their partner after they have experienced romantic conflict.

The most common acts or behaviours that participants proposed are shown in Table 5.

In the second part of their study the researchers asked the participants to rate the perceived effectiveness of the acts or behaviours they had proposed in the first part of the study. They had to rate them from 1 (very ineffective) to 7 (very effective).

The mean ratings for the males and females are shown in Table 6.

(Source: adapted from Wade et al. (2017))

The researchers wanted to see if there was a significant difference in the perceived effectiveness of crying. They conducted a Mann-Whitney U test and found an observed / calculated value of 110 for a 5% level of significance with a two-tailed test.

Explain what this shows in terms of the perceived effectiveness of crying in the reconciliation after romantic conflict study.

Using research evidence, explain how far social learning theory could account for the findings of the reconciliation after romantic conflict study.

Evaluate Watson and Rayner (1920) and Sherif et al. (1954 / 1961) in terms of ethical issues.

Jay and his friends are 17 year-olds and are all learning to drive a car. Some of his friends are studying for their theory test and some are practising for their practical test. Nishka passed both tests on her first attempt whilst Oscar failed his first and second attempts at the theory test.

Jay enjoys watching Formula 1 car racing and his favourite driver won the championship last season. Jay loves Go Karting, and his father encourages and praises him. He recently won a race. Jay took his practical driving test, but he failed his first attempt due to speeding.

Until he can take his test again Jay is being driven to college by Nishka. She keeps forgetting the route to school so has to use a Sat Nav device on her phone to guide them.

Evaluate the extent to which human behaviour, such as the ability to drive, can be explained by biological psychology.

You must make reference to the context in your answer.

Assess the impact of socially-sensitive research in psychology.