Practice IB Psychology (First Exam 2027) Topic 1.1 Bias with authentic exam-style questions for both SL and HL students. This question bank focuses on the exact syllabus content for 1.1 Bias and mirrors Paper 1, 2, 3 style where relevant.
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In the context of human relationships, evaluate the role of bias in research on conformity and obedience.
In the context of health and well-being, evaluate the role of bias in research on the relationship between culture and disordered eating.
Wason investigated how people test hypotheses, using a task designed to reveal whether they seek to confirm or to disconfirm their ideas. Each participant was told that the experimenter had a rule in mind that generated sequences of three numbers, and that the sequence '2, 4, 6' was one example that fitted the rule. Participants were asked to discover the rule by proposing their own three-number sequences; after each proposal, the experimenter told them only whether it did or did not fit the rule. Participants could announce the rule when they felt confident. The actual rule was simply 'any three numbers in increasing order'. Most participants quickly formed a narrow hypothesis, such as 'numbers going up in twos', and then proposed sequences consistent with that hypothesis, for example 8, 10, 12, receiving repeated confirmation. Few participants tested sequences that could have falsified their hypothesis. As a result, many announced an incorrect, overly specific rule with high confidence, and some needed several wrong announcements before discovering the general rule. Wason concluded that people show a strong tendency to seek confirming rather than disconfirming evidence.
References: Wason, P. C., 1960. 'On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task.' Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12(3), pp. 129 to 140. source adapted.
Discuss the following study with reference to two or more of the following concepts: bias, causality, measurement, and/or responsibility.
One claim in the psychology of learning and cognition is that cognitive biases systematically distort human memory. Discuss this claim with reference to one or more relevant studies.
Steele and Aronson investigated whether awareness of a negative stereotype could affect test performance. Black and White university students in the United States completed a set of difficult verbal questions taken from a standardised test. Participants were randomly allocated to conditions that differed only in how the test was described. In the diagnostic condition, the test was presented as a genuine measure of intellectual ability; in the non-diagnostic condition, it was presented as a laboratory problem-solving task that did not measure ability. When the test was described as diagnostic of ability, Black participants scored lower than White participants. When the same test was described as non-diagnostic, the difference between the two groups was substantially reduced. Prior academic preparation was statistically controlled. The researchers concluded that the situational pressure of a negative stereotype, which they called 'stereotype threat', could depress the test performance of those targeted by it.
References: Steele, C. M. and Aronson, J., 1995. 'Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), pp. 797 to 811. source adapted.
Discuss the following study with reference to two or more of the following concepts: bias, causality, measurement, and/or responsibility.