OCR A-Level Psychology: Social area core studies overview

What the social area demands

The social area asks why ordinary people obey authority and whether they help strangers in need. OCR examines it on Component 2 and rewards precise knowledge of the four core studies, the ability to evaluate them, and the skill of placing them in the social area and applying the debates, especially the situational explanation of behaviour.

This guide covers each core study in order, then the exam patterns, with matching dot-point pages for practice.

Responses to authority

Milgram (1963) is the classic: 40 American men gave apparently rising shocks to a confederate under an experimenter's standardised prods; all reached 300 volts and 65 per cent reached 450 volts, supporting a situational explanation of obedience and agency theory. Bocchiaro et al. (2012) is the contemporary: 149 Dutch undergraduates were asked to lure others into a harmful fake study, and most obeyed (76.5 per cent) while few disobeyed or blew the whistle, with a large gap between predicted and actual behaviour.

Responses to people in need

Piliavin et al. (1969) is the classic: a field experiment on the New York subway found high, spontaneous helping (about 95 per cent for the ill victim), mostly male helpers and no diffusion of responsibility, explained by the arousal cost-reward model. Levine et al. (2001) is the contemporary: a cross-cultural field experiment in 23 cities found helping varied widely, was negatively correlated with economic productivity, and was higher in cities valuing simpatia.

Check your knowledge

1. State the percentage of Milgram's participants who reached 450 volts. (1 mark)
2. Explain one way Bocchiaro's study was more ethical than Milgram's. (2 marks)
3. State the arousal cost-reward model in one sentence. (2 marks)
4. Explain the relationship Levine found between helping and economy. (2 marks)