Mark Scheme (Results)

January 2024

Pearson Edexcel International Advanced

Subsidiary Level in Psychology (WPS01)
Paper 01: Social and Cognitive Psychology
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January 2024
Question Paper Log Number P72146A
Publications Code WPS01_01_2401_MS
All the material in this publication is copyright
© Pearson Education Ltd 2024
General Marking Guidance

• All candidates must receive the same

treatment. Examiners must mark the first candidate in
exactly the same way as they mark the last.
• Mark schemes should be applied positively. Candidates
must be rewarded for what they have shown they can do
rather than penalised for omissions.
• Examiners should mark according to the mark scheme
not according to their perception of where the grade
boundaries may lie.
• There is no ceiling on achievement. All marks on the mark
scheme should be used appropriately.
• All the marks on the mark scheme are designed to be
awarded. Examiners should always award full marks if
deserved, i.e. if the answer matches the mark
scheme. Examiners should also be prepared to award
zero marks if the candidate’s response is not worthy of
credit according to the mark scheme.
• Where some judgement is required, mark schemes will
provide the principles by which marks will be awarded
and exemplification may be limited.
• When examiners are in doubt regarding the application
of the mark scheme to a candidate’s response, the team
leader must be consulted.
• Crossed out work should be marked UNLESS the
candidate has replaced it with an alternative response.
 SECTION A

Social Psychology

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO1 (2 marks)
1(a) (2)
Credit up to two marks for an accurate description.

For example:

• Milgram found that 15 out of 20 participants refused to continue

to shock the learner beyond 300 volts (1) and only 20% of the
participants followed the instructions to administer the full 450
volt shock (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO1 (2 marks), AO3 (2 marks)
1(b) (4)
Credit one mark for identification of the strength/weakness (AO1)
Credit one mark for justification/exemplification of the
strength/weakness (AO3)

For example:

Strength
• Milgram used a standardised procedure with every participant
where the experimenter is called out and the ordinary man gives
scripted instructions to increase the shock levels one step each
time (1), so the findings about the impact of the status of the
authority figure can be considered reliable having been replicated
with each of the 20 participants (1).

Weakness
• The task of being told to give electric shocks to ‘learners’ for
incorrect responses to a test by an ordinary person is not realistic
of everyday life (1) so there is a lack of task validity in the way in
levels of obedience to authority without status were tested, as this
is not something that individuals would normally need to do (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Answer Mark
Number
AO1 (1 mark), AO3 (1 mark)
2(a) (2)
Credit one mark for identification of a reason (AO1)
Credit one mark for justification/exemplification of the reason (AO3)

For example:

• An individual with an external locus of control is more likely to

conform as they believe their behaviour is the result of external
influences and controls (1). Spector (1983) found that 157
students were more likely to conform to normative social influence
in order to be accepted if they had high external locus of control
scores (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO1 (2 marks), AO3 (2 marks)
2(b) (4)
Credit one mark for identification of each reason (AO1)
Credit one mark for justification/exemplification of each reason (AO3)

For example:

• In a collectivist culture such as Korea where the cultural norms

are group orientated, levels of conformity may be higher (1).
Bond and Smith (1996) looked at 133 studies from 17 countries
that used Asch’s line-judging task and found that conformity was
greater in more collectivistic than in individualistic countries (1).
• Cultures that require less co-operation for economic success or
survival tend to have less conformist cultural norms than countries
where group-work is needed for these features (1). Berry (1967)
found that The Temne had higher levels of conformity to group
norms as a traditional community when compared to Eskimo and
Scottish cultures (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Answer Mark
Number
AO1 (2 marks), AO2 (2 marks)
3 (4)
Credit up to two marks for an accurate description (AO1)
Credit up to two marks for application to the scenario (AO2)

For example:

• Obedience is following an instruction or order given by an

authority figure who is perceived to be legitimate and have the
necessary status to give the order (1). Archie would believe the
police officer had sufficient legitimately to know about chemical
gas leaks to instruct him to return home (1). A person may blindly
obey an authority figure, giving up their own free-will and acting
as an agent of the person in authority (1), so Archie cancelled his
own plans for walking the dog to return home and remain there
until he had permission to go back outside (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO2 (1 mark)
4(a) (1)
Credit one mark for a correct calculation.

• 3:2 (1)

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO2 (1 mark)
4(b) (1)
Credit one mark for a correct calculation.

• 4.6 (1)

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Indicative Content Mark
Number
5 AO1 (4 marks), AO3 (4 marks) (8)

AO1

• Asch’s (1951) conformity study was tested in a laboratory in

order to see whether social pressure from a majority group
could influence a person to conform in a line length judgement
task.
• An opportunity sample of 50 male students from Swarthmore
College in America participated in Asch’s (1951) conformity
experiment.
• Asch (1951) found that three quarters of participants conformed
at least once on the critical trials by agreeing with the group
and giving the incorrect answers so following the majority.
• In Sherif’s (1935) autokinetic effect study, he found that over
several trials of the movement of light, the groups converged to
a common estimate of how far the light moved.

AO3

• Judging line length is not a realistic way to measure conformity,

so the lack of task validity may mean the research is not useful
to our understanding of social influence in real life situations.
• Asch’s (1951) experiment is not representative of the
behaviour of women as he did not use female participants so his
results are androcentric and may not help in understanding
whether women would conform in the same way as men.
• Asch replicated his research with variations which supported his
initial findings that a minority would conform to a majority,
therefore furthering our understanding of how social influences
may impact on human behaviour.
• Sherif’s (1935) findings demonstrate that people can change
their initial opinions when faced with ambiguous situations and
move towards a group agreement, helping develop
understanding of how social influences can alter an individual’s
usual behaviour.

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Level Mark Descriptor
AO1 (4 marks), AO3 (4 marks)
Candidates must demonstrate an equal emphasis between knowledge and
understanding vs assessment/conclusion in their answer.
0 No rewardable material.
Level 1 1–2 Demonstrates isolated elements of knowledge and understanding.
Marks (AO1)
Generic assertions may be presented. Limited attempt to address the
question. (AO3)
Level 2 3–4 Demonstrates mostly accurate knowledge and understanding. (AO1)
Marks Candidates will produce statements with some development in the
form of mostly accurate and relevant factual material, leading to a
generic or superficial assessment being presented. (AO3)
Level 3 5–6 Demonstrates accurate knowledge and understanding. (AO1)
Marks Arguments developed using mostly coherent chains of reasoning.
leading to an assessment being presented which considers a range of
factors Candidates will demonstrate understanding of competing
arguments/factors but unlikely to grasp their significance. The
assessment leads to a judgement but this may be imbalanced. (AO3)
Level 4 7–8 Demonstrates accurate and thorough knowledge and understanding.
Marks (AO1)
Displays a well-developed and logical assessment, containing logical
chains of reasoning throughout. Demonstrates an awareness of the
significance of competing arguments/factors leading to a balanced
judgement being presented. (AO3)
 SECTION B

Cognitive Psychology

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO2 (2 marks)
6(a) (2)
Credit up to two marks for an accurate description in relation to the
scenario.

For example:

• Eliza may encourage Darius to read out loud the names of roads
and buildings from the map to articulate their names using
articulatory storage (1) and then subvocalise each city landmark
by repeating the names ten times to rehearse them in his
articulatory loop (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Generic answers score 0 marks.

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO2 (2 marks)
6(b) (2)
Credit up to two marks for an accurate description in relation to the
scenario.

For example:

• Eliza may ask Darius to trace his finger along the roads in the city
so he can use his spatial processing to learn the locations of the
main features of the map (1) and then draw this himself using
different colours for each landmark, so he creates his own visual
image of the map of the city (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Generic answers score 0 marks.

Question Answer Mark
Number
AO2 (3 marks)
7(a) (3)
Credit up to three marks for an accurate description in relation to
the scenario.

For example:

• Melanie would first split her 18 participants into two different

groups with 9 participants in each separate group (1). One group
would take part in the first condition of the IV such as having no
exposure to visual interference as a baseline measure of recall (1)
and the second group would take part in the second condition of
the IV, such as being given visual distractions when trying to learn
the words (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Generic answers score 0 marks.

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO1 (1 mark), AO3 (1 mark)
7(b) (2)
Credit one mark for identification of a weakness (AO1)
Credit one mark for justification/exemplification of the weakness (AO3)

For example:

• A laboratory experiment takes place in a context that is artificial

to the participants and does not reflect real-life situations and
experiences (1), therefore there is low ecological validity as the
findings from experiments may not be applicable to human
behaviour in the real world (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Answer Mark
Number
AO2 (4 marks)
8(ai) (4)

Credit one mark for correct completion of difference

Credit one mark for correct completion of ranked difference
Credit one mark for a correct calculation of sum of both ranks
Credit one mark for a correct answer for T= 4

For example:

Participant Condition Condition Difference Ranked

A B Difference

A 2 5 -3 6

B 3 5 -2 4

C 4 3 1 2

D 6 7 -1 2

E 4 4 0

F 5 8 -3 6

G 2 5 -3 6

H 3 2 1 2

Sum of positive ranks = 4

Sum of negative ranks = 24
Look for other reasonable marking points.
Question Answer Mark
Number
AO3 (1 mark)
8(aii) (1)
Credit one mark for an accurate determination of significance.

For example:

• The calculated value of 4 was higher than the critical value of 3 for
a one-tailed test at p<0.05 where N=7 so the results are not
significant (1)

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Question Answer Mark

Number
AO2 (2 marks), AO3 (2 marks)
8(b) (4)
Credit up to two marks for identification of improvement in relation
to the scenario. (AO2)
Credit up to two marks for justification/exemplification of each
improvement (AO3)

For example:

• Leonardo could have used two different sets of 12 digit number

sequences using one in each condition instead of using the same
numbers (1) which would prevent the order effect of the
participants from rehearsing the numbers presented making the
results about recall more valid (1).
• Leonardo could use more than 8 participants to reduce the impact
of anomalies on his results about chunking in memory recall (1)
this prevents his data being skewed by individual differences in
participants, making his results about improvements in recall
more reliable (1).

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Generic answers score 0 marks.

Question Indicative Content Mark
Number
9 AO1 (4 marks), AO2 (4 marks) (8)

AO1

• The sensory register receives information from the environment

using all five senses and process this in a modality specific
format.
• Information is transferred from the sensory register to the
short-term memory store when it has been given attention.
• The short-term store has a capacity of 5-9 items and can last
for up to 30 seconds before information is lost.
• The long-term store encodes information semantically for an
unlimited time once transferred from the short-term store using
rehearsal.

AO2

• As the music was very loud and lots of people were shouting,
the sensory register may not have been able to process all of
the information leaving gaps in what could be transferred to the
short-term store.
• Isla may not have paid attention to the song playing when the
man was knocked over as she was distracted, so the song is not
transferred to her short-term memory store.
• Kiwi did not remember the light show due to overload of
information at that time when the band members jumped into
the audience, so her STM capacity was taken up with locating
the band when she ran to them.
• Isla and Kiwi sang along to some songs which they both
remembered as they were using a process of rehearsal of the
lyrics to transfer the information about the song to their long-
term memory store.

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Level Mark Descriptor
AO1 (4 marks), AO2 (4 marks)
Candidates must demonstrate an equal emphasis between knowledge and
understanding vs application in their answer.
0 No rewardable material
Level 1 1–2 Demonstrates isolated elements of knowledge and understanding. (AO1)
Marks Provides little or no reference to relevant evidence from the context
(scientific ideas, processes, techniques and procedures). (AO2)
Level 2 3–4 Demonstrates mostly accurate knowledge and understanding. (AO1)
Marks Discussion is partially developed, but is imbalanced or superficial
occasionally supported through the application of relevant evidence from
the context (scientific ideas, processes, techniques and procedures). (AO2)
Level 3 5–6 Demonstrates accurate knowledge and understanding. (AO1)
Marks Arguments developed using mostly coherent chains of reasoning.
Candidates will demonstrate a grasp of competing arguments but
discussion may be imbalanced or contain superficial material supported by
applying relevant evidence from the context (scientific ideas, processes,
techniques and procedures. (AO2)
Level 4 7–8 Demonstrates accurate and thorough knowledge and understanding. (AO1)
Marks Displays a well-developed and logical balanced discussion, containing
logical chains of reasoning. Demonstrates a thorough awareness of
competing arguments supported throughout by sustained application of
relevant evidence from the context (scientific ideas, processes, techniques
or procedures). (AO2)
 SECTION C

Question Indicative Content Mark

Number
10 AO1 (6 marks), AO3 (6 marks) (12)

Darling et al. (2007)

AO1

• The sample consisted of 44 females and 28 males from a

non-student volunteer participation panel at the University of
Aberdeen.
• Darling et al. (2007) randomly allocated their 72 participants
into one of six possible combinations of memory and
interference task.
• Each participant took part in three sets of 24 trials for the
combination group to which they had been allocated for the
experiment.
• Darling’s study only measured one category of visual
information from a black screen with white squares and a P
positioned on it.
• Each trial was controlled and standardised, so all participants
experienced the same presentation of the location and font of
the ‘P’ in the visual display.
• The findings imply that appearance information is accessed
differently from location information and so ‘visuo-spatial’
memory might reflect separate components of the cognitive
system.
AO3
• The volunteer sample may not represent a range of
individuals as not everyone would have time to volunteer in
research studies so the findings may not reflect the memory
skills of a wider population.
• Random allocation is an objective way of allocating
participants to their memory tasks therefore avoiding any
experimenter bias increasing reliability.
• By undertaking 24 trials in each condition there is internal
reliability as the task was tested and re-tested within the
study, increasing the reliability of the findings about memory.
• By only measuring one type of visual memory the study can
be considered reductionist as it oversimplifies human visual
processing to judgements on a letter and font.
• Controlling the trials give the findings about visuo-spatial
processing internal validity as Darling et al. (2007) can be
more certain that the task was the only impact on memory
accuracy.
• Visual and spatial memory in humans deals with lots of visual
stimuli therefore the finding may not be valid to everyday
visual or spatial processing.

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Sacchi et al. (2007)

AO1
• Sacchi’s task involved using doctored photographs of two
famous events, the Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing and
the peaceful protest near the Coliseum, in Rome.
• The sample consisted of 187 undergraduates, of which 31 were
male and 156 were female with an age range of 19 to 39 years.
• Participants viewed one of four possible combinations of the
photographs for the Beijing event and the Rome event which
were counterbalanced and randomised when presented.
• The photographs and three sets of multiple-choice questions
were presented in a printed questionnaire that participants
completed in classroom settings.
• Participants who viewed doctored photographs rated the event
significantly more violent than those who saw the original
photograph, suggesting memories of events can be inaccurate
when misleading information is given.
• During a debriefing, the participants were shown both versions
of each photograph, and the purpose of the study was
explained.

AO3
• The photographs were of real events that happened in society
therefore increasing task validity as people are often presented
with visual images of events in the media.
• The sample is unrepresentative of males so findings about
memory reconstruction lack population validity and not be
generalisable to the memory of males.
• Random allocation is an objective way of allocating the
photograph combinations to participants therefore avoiding
experimenter bias and increasing reliability.
• The ratings of the photographs may have been biased as self-
report questionnaires are prone to social desirability so
participants may give socially appropriate attitude scores
reducing internal validity.
• There is a lack of external validity to the findings about memory
as people have access to multiple sources of information about
events that have happened, so multiple sources of information
are more likely to be used than just one photograph.
• The debriefing process gives the study good ethical
considerations under the BPS Code of Ethics and Conduct
(2009) as Sacchi et al. (2007) demonstrated responsibility
towards their participants.

Look for other reasonable marking points.

Level Mark Descriptor
AO1 (6 marks), AO3 (6 marks)
Candidates must demonstrate an equal emphasis between knowledge and
understanding vs evaluation/conclusion in their answer.
0 No rewardable material.

Level 1 1-3 Demonstrates isolated elements of knowledge and understanding. (AO1)

A conclusion may be presented, but will be generic and the supporting
Marks
evidence will be limited. Limited attempt to address the question. (AO3)

Level 2 4-6 Demonstrates mostly accurate knowledge and understanding. (AO1)

Candidates will produce statements with some development in the form
Marks
of mostly accurate and relevant factual material, leading to a superficial
conclusion being made. (AO3)

Level 3 7-9 Demonstrates accurate knowledge and understanding. (AO1)

Arguments developed using mostly coherent chains of reasoning leading
Marks
to a conclusion being presented. Candidates will demonstrate a grasp of
competing arguments but evaluation may be imbalanced. (AO3)

Level 4 10-12 Demonstrates accurate and thorough knowledge and understanding.

Marks (AO1)
Displays a well-developed and logical evaluation, containing logical
chains of reasoning throughout. Demonstrates an awareness of
competing arguments, presenting a balanced conclusion. (AO3)
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