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WAPsychology

Unit 4

13 dot points across 13 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How do early attachments form between infants and caregivers, and why do they matter for development?

Explain attachment theory and attachment styles, with reference to the work of Bowlby, Ainsworth and Harlow
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: attachment theory, Bowlby's monotropy and internal working model, Ainsworth's Strange Situation and attachment styles, and Harlow's monkey studies of contact comfort.
6 min answer →

Why do people change their behaviour to match a group, and what factors increase conformity?

Explain conformity, including normative and informational social influence, and the factors affecting it, with reference to Asch's line study
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: conformity, normative and informational social influence, the factors that increase or decrease conformity, and Asch's line-judgement experiments on group pressure.
6 min answer →

How does culture shape behaviour, and how do individualist and collectivist cultures differ?

Explain cross-cultural psychology, including individualism and collectivism, and the difference between etic and emic approaches to research
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: cross-cultural psychology, individualist versus collectivist cultures, enculturation and acculturation, ethnocentrism, and the etic and emic approaches to research.
6 min answer →

How do culture and group membership shape identity, prejudice and intergroup relations?

Explain the influence of culture on behaviour, social identity, prejudice, discrimination and strategies to reduce intergroup conflict.
A focused answer to the WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4 dot point on culture and community. Covers individualist versus collectivist cultures, Tajfel's social identity theory, prejudice and discrimination, Sherif's Robbers Cave study, and strategies to reduce intergroup conflict.
8 min answer →

How do cognitive, emotional and moral capacities develop across the lifespan?

Explain theories of development including Piaget's cognitive stages, attachment, and Erikson's psychosocial stages, with reference to nature and nurture.
A focused answer to the WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4 dot point on developmental psychology. Covers Piaget's stages of cognitive development, attachment theory (Bowlby and Ainsworth), Erikson's psychosocial stages, and the nature versus nurture debate with named research.
8 min answer →

How does personality develop across the lifespan, and how do nature and nurture interact in development?

Describe Erikson's psychosocial stages of development and explain the nature-nurture interaction, including evidence from twin studies
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: Erikson's eight psychosocial stages and their crises, the nature-nurture debate, gene-environment interaction, and evidence from twin and adoption studies.
6 min answer →

How does being part of a group change individual behaviour through processes like social loafing, deindividuation and group polarisation?

Explain group processes including social loafing, deindividuation, group polarisation and groupthink, and their effects on individual behaviour
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: group processes including social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, group polarisation and groupthink, and how membership of a group alters individual behaviour.
6 min answer →

Why do ordinary people obey authority figures even when ordered to harm others?

Explain obedience to authority and the factors that influence it, with reference to Milgram's experiments and their ethical evaluation
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: obedience to authority, the factors that increase or decrease it, Milgram's shock experiments, the agentic state, and the ethical evaluation of the research.
6 min answer →

How does children's thinking develop through Piaget's stages of cognitive development?

Describe Piaget's stages of cognitive development and key concepts such as schemas, assimilation, accommodation, object permanence and conservation
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, schemas, assimilation and accommodation, object permanence, egocentrism and conservation, and evaluation of his theory.
6 min answer →

What causes prejudice and discrimination between groups, and how can intergroup conflict be reduced?

Explain prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination, social identity theory, and strategies to reduce intergroup conflict, with reference to Tajfel, Sherif and Allport
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination, Tajfel's social identity theory, Sherif's Robbers Cave study, and Allport's contact hypothesis for reducing intergroup conflict.
6 min answer →

What makes people help others, and why do bystanders often fail to help in an emergency?

Explain prosocial behaviour and the bystander effect, including the factors that increase or decrease helping, with reference to Latane and Darley
WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4: prosocial behaviour, altruism, the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance, and Latane and Darley's decision model and research on helping.
6 min answer →

What ethical principles and research practices must guide psychological investigations?

Apply ethical principles and research methods to psychological investigations, including informed consent, confidentiality, debriefing and the role of ethics committees.
A focused answer to the WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4 dot point on research and ethics, assessed across both units. Covers informed consent, withdrawal rights, confidentiality, deception and debriefing, protection from harm, ethics committees, and evaluating classic studies against modern standards.
7 min answer →

How do groups and authority influence conformity, obedience and helping behaviour?

Explain social influence including conformity, obedience, group processes, prosocial and antisocial behaviour, using key studies.
A focused answer to the WACE Year 12 Psychology Unit 4 dot point on social psychology. Covers Asch's conformity, Milgram's obedience, group processes such as deindividuation and groupthink, and prosocial and antisocial behaviour including the bystander effect with named studies.
8 min answer →