1. Social Influence Flashcards
What is conformity?
Type of social influence that describes how a person changes their attitude or behaviour in response to group pressure.
What are the types of conformity?
- compliance
- identification
- internalisation.
What is compliance conformity?
- Shallowest level of conformity.
- changes public behaviour
- not change private beliefs.
- Short-term
- Often result of normative social influence
What is identification conformity?
- Middle level of conformity.
- Changes their public behaviour and their private beliefs
- Temporary
- Normally the result of normative social influence (NSI).
What is internalisation conformity?
- Deepest level of conformity.
- Permanent
- Change private and public
- Often the result of informational social influence (ISI).
State the two reasons why people conform
Normative social influence (NSI)
Informational social influence (ISI).
What is Normative Social Influence?
- Conforms to be accepted and to feel that they belong to the group.
- Socially rewarding, or to avoid social rejection
- Usually associated with compliance and identification.
What is informational social influence?
- Conforms to gain knowledge
- Or believe someone else is ‘right’.
- Usually associated with internalisation,
What type of social influence is associated with informational social influence?
internalisation
What type of social influence is associated with normative social influence?
Compliance
Identification
Evaluate how Asch’s study helps provide evidence for normative social influence
- Asch’s (1951)
- Support normative social influence.
- Participants went along with the obviously wrong answers of the other group members.
- Participants said they changed their answer to avoid disapproval from the rest of the group.
- Shows compliance in order to ‘fit in’.
- Asch (1955) - asked to write answers - conformity rates fell to 12.5% as the fear of rejection became far less.
State Jenness’ conclusions
- Individuals changed their initial estimate due to informational social influence
- Believe the group estimates were more likely to be correct, in comparison to their own.
State the aim of Asch’s study
- Extent to which social pressure to conform from unanimous majority affects conformity in an unambiguous situation.
Explain the method of Asch’s study
- 123 male undergraduate students
- Asch used a line judgement task,
- one real (naïve) participant in a room with six to eight confederates who had agreed their answers in advance.
- Real participant seated second from last.
- Out load which line was closest to target
- 18 trials - confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials, called ‘critical trials’.
- Look for conformity to the majority view, even when obviously incorrect.
What is a difference between Asch’s and Jenness’ experiments?
In Asch’s the correct answer was always obvious
What were the results of Asch’s study?
- Conformed to the incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials.
- 74% conformed on at least one critical trial
- 26% of the participants never conformed.
- Control group - no confederates less than 1% of the participants gave an incorrect answer.
What did Asch conclude in his study?
- When questions said to conform to incorrect in order to fit in
- Fear of ridicule
- Normative social influence - compliance only public change
State the different variations of Asch’s study
Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty
Explain how group size may effect Asch’s study
- Up to 15 confederates 29% conformity
- 1 confederate they conformed on just 3%
- 3 confederates conformed on 32% same as original when 6-8 used
- Participants became suspicious of the experiment and not because the pressure to conform is necessarily less in larger groups.
Explain how Asch varied unanimity in his study
- If one confederate gave correct and conformity dropped to 5%.
- If the confederate gives another incorrect answer conformity dropped to 9%.
Explain how Asch varied task difficulty
- Making a task more difficult increased conformity.
- Informational social influence
- Individuals look to another for guidance when undertaking an ambiguous task, similar to the results found in Jenness’ experiment, in order to be ‘right’.
What is conformity to social roles?
When an individual adopts a particular behaviour and belief, while in a particular social situation.
What type of conformity is associated with conformity to social roles?
- Identification
- Changes public behaviour and private beliefs
- only temporary
What study did Zimbardo do?
The Stanford prison experiment
What was the aim of the stanford prison experiment?
- To examine whether people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoner when placed in a mock prison environment.
- Examine whether the behaviour displayed in prisons was due to internal dispositional factors, the people themselves, or external situational factors, the environment and conditions of the prison.
Explain the stanford prison experiment
- 21 male university students ($15 per day)
- volunteered in response to a newspaper advert.
- Selected from 75 volunteers due to physical/mental stability
- Randomly assigned prisoner or guard.
- Basement of Stanford University Prisoners’
- Arrested by real local police, fingerprinted, stripped, given numbered smocked, chains placed around ankles.
- Guards given uniforms, dark reflective sunglasses, handcuffs and a truncheon.
- Guards instructed to run prison with no physical violence.
- The experiment was set to run for two weeks.
What were the results from the Stanford prison experiment?
- Both groups quickly identified with their social roles.
- Prisoners rebelled but were crushed by the guards, who then grew increasingly abusive towards the prisoners.
- Dehumanised the prisoners, waking during the night and forcing them to clean toilets with their bare hands
- Prisoners became increasingly submissive, identifying further with their subordinate role.
- Five prisoners released early (physical/ mental torment)
- Terminated after just six days, (Christina Maslach convinced conditions were inhumane)
What were the conclusions of the SPE?
- People quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles.
- Situational factors are largely responsible for the behaviour found, as none of the participants had ever demonstrated these behaviours previously.
What is obedience?
A form of social influence that is in direct response to an order from another person.
State the case study for obedience to authority
Milgram (1963)
What was the aim of Milgrams experiment?
- To investigate whether ordinary people would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain and injure an innocent person.
Explain Milgram’s Method for his study
- 40 male American through a newspaper advert. ($4.50)
- Laboratory at Yale University
- Met experimenter and another participant (confederates).
- They ‘drew lots’ - Participant always ‘teacher’
- Administer shock of increasing strength to the ‘learner’, when he made a mistake recalling a list of word pairs.
- Example shock given with learner strapped to chair
- If wrong answer - shocks 15 - 450v up in intervals of 15
- At 300v learner would bang on the wall and complain.
- 315v no further responses heard from the learner.
- Continued until participant refused or max 450 volts, labelled ‘danger severe shock’, was reached.
- If tried to stop experimenter followed script eg: ‘The experiment requires that you continue.’
Explain Milgram’s results for his study
- All to 300 volts
- 65% full 450 volts.
- Participants showed signs of distress and tension; for example, sweating, stuttering and trembling.
What did Milgram conclude after his study?
- Under the right situational circumstances, ordinary people will obey unjust orders from someone perceived to be a legitimate authority figure.
What did the Agentic theory suggest?
We are socialised from a very young age to follow the rules of society.
What is needed for an Agentic state?
A person needs to surrender some of their free will.
What is the term fro someone acting independently?
Autonomous state
What is the autonomous state?
When a person acts independently,
What opposes the Agentic shift?
The autonomous state.
What is the Agentic shift? When does this occur?
- To shift from autonomy to ‘agency’
- This occurs when an individual carries out the orders of an authority figure and acts as their ‘agent’, with little personal responsibility and reduced moral strain for their actions.
What proportion of Milgrams participants administered the full 450 volts?
65%
How was Milgrams results changes when another confederate administered the shocks?
65% -> 92.5% for 450 volts
State one of Milgram’s variations
An additional confederate administered the electric shocks on behalf of the teacher.
How did Legitimacy of Authority change Milgrams study?
- 65% at Yale University
- Second 47.5% in rundown building in Bridgeport, Connecticut
What did a change in location do to Milgram’s study?
- reduced the legitimacy of the authority as participants were less likely to trust the experiment, and the power of the authority figure was diminished.
What do Situational explanations for obedience focus on?
external factors that affect the likelihood that someone will obey orders.
Give examples of situational factors
proximity
location
uniform
How can minority influence act as a barrier to social change?
- Bashir et al.
- Investigating people resist social change even when they believe it to be needed.
- Found some minority groups (environmental activists or feminists) often live up to the stereotypes associated with those groups, which can be off‐putting for outsiders.
- Doesn’t associate for fear of stereotypically labelled.
What research supports the role of normative social influence as a process for social change?
- Nolan et al.
- One month in California
- Hanging messages on the front doors of people’s houses in San Diego encouraging them to reduce energy consumption by indicating that most other residents in the neighbourhood were already doing this.
- Control message about energy but no reference to others
- Found experimental group significantly lowered their energy consumption, showing that conformity can lead to positive social change.
What did Moscovici and Nemeth conclude?
concluded that a consistent, committed and flexible minority is most effective in influencing an individual.
Define - Social change
The ways in which a society (rather than an individual) develops over time to replace beliefs, attitudes and behaviour with new norms and expectations.
State three examples of social change
- Martin Luther King
- Nelson Mandela
- Rosa Parks
- Suffragettes
What are the three essential sections of social change?
Consistent
Committed
Flexible
How did Martin Luther king and Nelson Mandela lead to social change?
- Civil rights movements and were consistent in their views against apartheid for many years, which helped bring about social change.