Language, Thought and Communication - Bexhill Academy

Psychology Exam Questions

Quick Wins, Research based, Application

and Extended Response

Language, Thought and

Communication

Quick Wins

1. Outline Piaget’s view that language depends on thought. [3 marks]

2. Explain what is meant by the phrase ‘thinking depends on language’. [2 marks]

3. Explain two versions of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. [4 marks]

4. Outline how animals communicate their territory to other animals. [2 marks]

5. What is meant by ‘eye contact’? [2 marks]

6. Using an example, explain what is meant by ‘non-verbal communication’. [3 marks]

7. What is meant by the term ‘postural echo’? [2 marks]

8. Use your knowledge of psychology to explain how people use open posture in an everyday

situation. [2 marks]

9. Outline the way status affects personal space. [3 marks]

10. Explain what is meant by the phrase ‘non-verbal communication has evolved’. [2 marks]

Application questions

1. Read the item below and then answer the question that follows.

Toby is learning how to speak. At the age of one and a half he uses the word ‘sharp’

when referring to anything that is dangerous. By the age of two and a half he now only

uses it in relation to objects that are sharp such as knives.

Use your knowledge of Piaget’s theory to explain Toby’s language development. [3 marks]

2. Read the item below and then answer the question that follows.

Donny prefers the company of his dog Max to that of people as he finds it easier to

understand the dog’s behaviour. For example, when Max is happy he wags his tail whereas some

people will smile even when they are talking about how unhappy they are. Explain one

difference between animal and human communication. Refer to Donny’s experience in your

answer. [3 marks]

3. Study the item below and then answer the question that follows.

Identify and briefly describe one feature of body language shown by the people in the picture

which might indicate that they like each other. Refer to the method and results of one

psychological investigation to support your answer. [5 marks]

Research based

1. A researcher studied the distance 50 bees flew from their hive, giving distances to the

nearest 10 metres: 60, 40, 30, 70, 50, 40, 80, 70, 30, 60, 60, 80, 30, 50, 90, 20, 40, 20,

70,10, 90, 50, 40, 50, 70, 50, 40, 40, 60, 20, 30, 70, 20, 80, 40, 50, 60, 50, 80, 50, 70, 60,

30, 50, 40, 60, 30, 40, 40, 60.

a. Construct a frequency table from the above data. Use appropriate headings. [4 marks]

b. Draw a histogram for the data. Include a title and label the axes. [4 marks]

c. The researcher was interested in doing the study on a larger scale but did not have the

resources to do it as there were approximately 4,150,000,000 bees in the UK which

were too many to study. Express the total number of bees in the UK:

(a) To one significant figure. [1 mark]

…………………………………………………………………………………….

(b) In standard form. [1 mark]

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Extended response

1. Describe and evaluate Piaget’s theory of language development. [9 marks]

2. Describe and evaluate Yuki’s study of emoticons. [9 marks]

Mark Scheme

Quick Wins

1. Outline Piaget’s view that language depends on thought. [3 marks]

Children develop language by matching the correct words to their existing knowledge of the

world. The child’s understanding of a concept comes first (the schema), and then they learn

how to express their understanding of it. So, for Piaget, thought and understanding comes

first, and only then can a child use the language for the concept.

2. Explain what is meant by the phrase ‘thinking depends on language’. [2 marks]

The phrase means that language comes first, then thought comes after. Words influence our

thoughts, memories and perceptions, not the other way round. The language you learn

determines what you can think about.

3. Explain two versions of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. [4 marks]

This theory has two versions. The strong form argues that language determines thought, so if

a particular language has no words for a certain thought, object or idea, then people who speak

that language will have no way of thinking about it. The language you learn, determines what

you can think about. The weak version says that language influences the way in which people

think about things, but it does not completely determine what they think about. For example,

it is possible for native English speakers to think about the different types of snow that were

identified in the Inuit language even though they have not experienced the different types.

4. Outline how animals communicate their territory to other animals. [2 marks]

Many animals mark their territory using the signal of scent marking. They do this by spreading

their urine, faeces or other naturally produced scents to discourage other animals from

invading their territory. White rhinos lay their dung in piles to mark their territory.

5. What is meant by ‘eye contact’? [2 marks]

When two people look at each other’s eyes at the same time. Eye contact has a number of

roles in communication: regulating the flow of conversation, signalling attraction and

expressing emotion.

6. Using an example, explain what is meant by ‘non-verbal communication’. [3 marks]

NVC means exchanging information without words. For example, communicating by using eye

contact and facial expressions as well as more general body language. Such aspects of

communication have an important role in relaying meaning to other people, such as hunched

shoulders to show sadness.

7. What is meant by the term ‘postural echo’? [2 marks]

A similarity or mirroring of body positions by people in a social interaction.

8. Use your knowledge of psychology to explain how people use open posture in an everyday

situation. [2 marks]

Having an open posture means you are standing or sitting without your arms or legs being

crossed. You can use an open posture in an interview to show you are listening and in agreement

with what is being said.

9. Outline the way status affects personal space. [3 marks]

Status might be defined as someone’s rank or position within society or a workplace. For

instance, two geography teachers in a secondary school would have similar status, whereas a

student and the head teacher will have different status. Zahn found that people who have

equal or similar status tend to maintain a closer personal space than those with unequal status.

10. Explain what is meant by the phrase ‘non-verbal communication has evolved’. [2 marks]

Non-verbal communication refers to signals that are used without words. The way that animals

use such signals has changed over time because signals that are not adaptive are not naturally

selected, and therefore disappear. Those that are adaptive (benefit the animals) remain in the

gene pool.

Application Questions

1. At age one and a half, Toby is old enough to be using language. However, his ability to

understand a range of specialised concepts has not developed. Therefore, he uses

‘sharp’ as a rather general word. By age of two and a half, his schema of the world has

developed further and he is able to discriminate more finely between concepts and now

can apply the word ‘sharp’ to more specific concepts such as knives.

2. Animal communication uses single channels whereas human communication uses multiple

channels. Donny prefers his dog Max because he uses just a single channel to show his

emotion as in this case, he wags his tail to show that he is happy. In the above item

Donny finds human communication confusing because the information people give from

one channel (smiling) contradicts information from another channel (what they say).

3. One feature of body language that reveals liking for another person is touch. Fisher et

al. found that a librarian who touched a student’s hand when returning a book to the

student was later rated by the student more positively than if the librarian didn’t touch

a student’s hand. This relates to the above item as the older woman has her arm around

the younger woman and they are both leaning towards each other. Such body contact

would suggest that they like each other.

Research based questions

1. a. A table to show the frequency of bees that flew different distances from the

hive.

Distance from the hive (m) Frequency

10 1

20 4

30 6

40 10

50 9

60 8

70 6

80 4

90 2

100 0

b.

(a) To one significant figure. [1 mark]

4,000,000,000

(b) In standard form. [1 mark]

4.15 × 109

Extended response – there are other points you could make and still receive full marks –

check your revision guide/text book to mark any other points made

1. Describe and evaluate Piaget’s theory of language development. [9 marks]

Piaget’s theory concerns how our thinking changes as we develop and refine our schemas about

the world. Children develop their language by knowing the schema first and then matching the

correct word to their knowledge. For example, a child develops a concept of furry animals and

later learns to describe this as a ‘dog’. Thought and understanding comes first, language

develops after. Children only understand words when they have reached the correct stage of

development and are ready. They can have language without understanding but will not be able

to use it effectively. Children learn to understand language considerably before they produce

it. Children start producing language towards the end of the first year, in the sensorimotor

stage.

A strength is that Piaget’s theory it is supported by the fact that early language is not

random. When children start talking they use two-word phrases like ‘Mummy sock’, which

shows they can see how objects relate to each other. This suggests that children already have

some understanding of the relationship between objects and people in the real world before

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10

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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Frequency

A histogram to show the fequency of bees that flew different distances away from a hive

they start to talk. This means that children only start to use language when they have some

understanding of it.

A weakness is the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis challenges Piaget’s theory. It states that language

comes before thought as people need a word or phrase for an object to think about it. This

suggests that Piaget may have been wrong.

Another weakness is that schemas cannot be scientifically measured. It is very difficult to

know if schemas exist as we cannot measure them

2. Describe and evaluate Yuki’s study of emoticons. [9 marks]

Yuki investigated whether there was a difference in how emoticons are understood by people

in the East (Japan) and the West (America). He carried out a cross-cultural study with an

independent groups design using students from Japan and from America. Six emoticons were

shown with different combinations of eyes and mouths (sad, happy or neutral). Participants

rated them for happiness using a 9-point scale. It was found that the Japanese gave higher

ratings to faces with happy eyes than the Americans, even when the mouth was sad. Americans

gave higher ratings when mouths were happy even when the eyes were sad. This suggests that

cultural groups interpret facial expressions differently, which may be due to cultural norms

and expectations.

A weakness of this study is that emoticons may not represent human faces. Emoticons do not

include those tell-tale lines on people’s faces which give us further information on how to

interpret their eyes and mouth. This means that the results may lack relevance to everyday

life.

Another weakness is the study only investigated two types of emotion. In everyday life, faces

express a whole range of emotions – fear, surprise, disgust, etc. Therefore, the study does

not give us insight into how the full range of emotional expressions are interpreted by people

of different cultures.

A final weakness is that rating scales may not be the best method of measurement. Emotions

are very complex and rating scales reduce emotion to a single score. Therefore Yuki et al. may

have measured the interpretation of emotions in too simple a way.