a-level_psychology_social_psychology_20240615133034 Flashcards
What are Strenths of Asch’s Study?
1) High internal validity - High control in laboratory conditons over extraneous variables. Control done.
2) High replicability
3) Participants were debriefed
What are Limitations of Asch’s Study?
1) Lack ecological validity- can’t apply to real life as it’s in lab
2) Lack of generalisability - you can’t apply the same to cultures in China, as U.S is more individualist
3) Susan Friske - groups weren’t groupy
What are Strengths of NSI and/or ISI?
1) Lucas Et Al gave students maths questions that were easy or diffcult.
2) There was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than easy.
3) People conform in situations if they don’t know answer
What are Limitations of NSI and/or ISI?
1) NSI doesn’t affect everyone the same way
2) People who are less concerned about being liked are less affected by NSI
3) Not everyone cares about being liked - NSI doesn’t explain everybody’s behaviour
What is a Strength of Zimbardo’s research?
1) Zimbardo had some control over variables.
2) Emotinally stable people were chosen and randomly assigned
3) Ruled out individual personality differences
What are the Limitation of Zimbardo’s Research?
1) Major ethical issue as Zimbardo was prison warden and researcher - so observer bias
2) He put ‘prisoners’ to psychological and physical harm
What are Strengths of Milgram’s Study?
1) Sheridan And King repeated experiment where real shocks were given to a puppy. 54% of males gave “fatal shocks” and 100% of females gave shocks too.
2) High replicability
What are Limitations of Milgram’s Study?
1) It lacks ecological validity, because Milgram tested obedience in a lab, which is different to real life.
2) No generalisability
Explain a Strength of Situation Variables into obedience.
1) Bickmann said uniform was a valid explanation into obedience
2) Three confeds - one jacket + tie, one milkman, one security guard
3) People obeyed most to security guard
Explain a Limitation of Situation Variables into obedience.
1) Can be criticized for providing an excuse or an alibi for evil behaviour
2) Mandel suggested it was offensive to survivors of Holocaust to say that Nazis were just following orders and were victims
3) It’s not sensitive
Explain a Strength of Authoritarian Personality into obedience.
1) Milgram and Elms conducted interviews with people involved in original experimengt
2) People who obeyed more were higher on F-scale
3) There’s a link
Explain a Limitation of Authoritarian Personality into obedience.
1) The link between authoritarain personality and harsh parenting is only correlational
2) You can’t cause cause’effect relationship in experiements due to ethical reasons
Explain a Strength for Legitimacy of Authority of Obedience
1) Blass and Schmitt showed a film of Milgram study to students and asked who was to blame
2) They bleamed experimenter as he had responsibility and top of hierarchy
Explain a Strength for Agentic Shift of Obedience
1) Blass and Schmitt
Explain a Limitation for Agentic Shift of Obedience
1) It suggests that behaviour isn’t controlled by individuals and free will can be given up
2) Determinstic as it suggests behaviour is controlled by something else and againt fact that we shoudl have responsibility
Explain a Strength of Social Support explaining obedience.
1) Asch found that social support doesn’t have to be valid to be effective
2) Even if another disseneter gave wrong answer, allows participant to dissent to
3)
What is evidence to support the link between LoC and resisting obedince?
1) Charles Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study
2) 37% of internals didn’t continue over shock level
3) 23% of externals didn’t continure
What may suggest role of LoC in resisting social influence may be exaggerated?
1) Rotter found that LoC may not be most important factor in determining whether someone reisists social influence
2) LoC only helpful for few situations
3) It won’t increases resistance
What is Social Psychology?
The behaviour of a large group of people or interactions with people
What are some examples of Conformity?
- Uniform
- Behaviours
- Belief
What is Conformity?
A change in person’s behaviour due to real/imagined pressure from other people
What is Majority Influence?
Yielding to group pressure
What are the 3 forms of Conformity by Herbert Kelman?
- Compliance
- Identification
- Internalisation
What is the deepest form of conformity?
Internalisation
What is Compliance?
[3]
- When you go along with what others are doing
- To fit in with group
- Temporary behaviour
What is Identification?
[3]
- When a person conforms to behaviour of a group because there’s something they value about that group
- Privately you may/may not hold these beliefs
- It’s generally temporary and not maintained when you leave group
What is an example of an effect of Identification on a person?
They look to group for guidance
What is Internalisation?
- When a person genuinely believes and accepts a group norm
- Changes are permanent
- Becomes part of way they think
What was the Aim of Asch’s Study?
[2]
- Wanted to see how social pressure from a majority could influence someone’s behaviour
- Tested conformity using ‘visual perception task’
How many people took part in Asch’ Study? Who were those people?
123 male students
What was the Procedure of Asch’s Study?
[5]
- 123 male students believed they were taking part in visual perception task
- Line judgement task - there was three standard lines and one comparison line
- He put real participiants with 6 other confeds. Real was always last or second last
- Each person had to say their answer out loud. Answer was obvious
- Critical trials
What was Findings of Asch’s Research?
[4]
- 36.8 % conformed
- 25% never conformed
- 75% conformed at least once
- In control only 1% was incorrect
What were conclusions of Asch’s Study?
[2]
- Individual judements are affected by majority influnce
- Participants conformed due to NSI and desire to avoid rejection
What were the three factors that Asch changed in conformity?
- Group Size
- Task Difficulty
- Unanimity
How did Unanimity affect Conformity in Asch’s Study?
[4]
- Would non-conforming confed influence real person
- When people less unanimous; confusion
- The real conformed less often in the presence of a non conforming confed
- Influence of majority; everyone unanimous
How did Group Size affect Conformity in Asch’s Study?
[4]
- Wanted to vary group size to see if larger group = more conformity (Corulinear relationship)
- With 3 confed + real, conformity rose to 31.8%
- After 3, more confed made little difference
- People can be easily influences
How did Task Difficulty affect Conformity in Asch’s Study?
[3]
- Does making task harder increase conformity
- When lines were very similiar; conformity increased
- Natural to look at other people when unsure
Lab experiment
What is a Strength of Asch’s Study?
[3]
- It’s a lab experiment
- Extraneous and confounding variables are strictly controlled, meaning replication is easy
- Successful replication increases reliablity
Supports NSI
What is a Strength of Asch’s Study?
[3]
- Supports NSI
- Participant reported that they were conformed to fit in with group
- NSI - people conform to fit in with group
Low ecological validity
What is a Limitation of Asch’s Study?
[3]
- Lacks ecological validity
- Results cannot be generalised to real life as it was males who took part
- Artificial Stimuli - doesn’t represent real life complexity
What is a Limitation of Asch’s Study?
[4]
- Ethical issues
- Deception - participants were tricked into thinking study was about perception not compliance
- Not informed consent
- Psychological harm after participants realised true aims of study
What do we use to Evaluate studies?
G.R.A.V.E
What does G.R.A.V.E stand for?
- Generalisabilty - how representative
- Reliability - how consistent
- Applicability - useful?
- Validity - how valid
- Ethics - is it ethical
What is Social Influence?
How a person’s opinion, behaviours and emotions are affected by others
Who developed the Two-Process Model? When?
Deutsch and Gerrard (1955)
What is the Two-Process model?
- They’re explanations of why people conform
- Informational Social Influence
- Normative Social Influence
What is Informational Social Influence (ISI)?
[2]
- When people conform as they have need to be right
- They look to others by copying them to have right answers
- Cognitive process
What is Normative Social Influence (NSI)?
- When someone conforms as they want to be liked and fit in
- Emotional Process
What kind of process is NSI?
Emotional process
What kind of process is ISI?
Cognitive process
When does ISI occur?
[3]
- A person is in new situation and wants to do right thing
- Situation is ambigous - you look to do right thing
- Person in group is more of an expert
What type of Conformity does ISI link to? Why?
- Internalisation
- Involves a person publicly and privately accepting behaviours and groups
How does ISI link to Asch’s Conformity?
When task was more difficult, people wanted to be correct so looked to other people
When does NSI occur?
- You seek the apporoval of strangers (interview)
- An individual is in stressful situation
How does NSI link to Asch’s Study?
When participants were interviewed they said they agreed with majority even though they knew the answers were wrong
What is a Real Life Application of NSI and ISI?
[3]
- Schultz et AL
- He could change behaviour of hotel guests
- Say other people were using less towels
NSI is VAlid
What is a Strength Two-Process Model?
[3]
- NSI is valid - participants knew group was wrong privately, but chose to conform to be accepted
- Participants interviewed after said conformed to avoid rejection
- NSI is valid as we conform to be in social group
NSi doesn’t affect everybody same way
What is a Limitation of Two-Process Model?
[4]
- NSI doesn’t affect everybody same way
- People less concerned with being liked less affected by NSI
- Desire to be liked underlies conformity for many people
- It doesn’t explain everybody’s behaviour
What is a Strength Two-Process Model?
[4]
- Lucas Et Al supports ISI
- Asked students to give answers to maths problems that was easy or difficult
- Greater conformity to inccorect answers when they were difficult than when easy
- Show people conform in situation when answer is unknown
What is a Limitation of Two-Process Model?
[4]
- Two-Process says behaviour is due to NSI and ISI, but most of time both processes are involved
- Conformity is reduced when there’s another dissenting participant in Asch
- Dissenter may reduce power of NSI or ISI
- Don’t know if it’s ISI and NSI
What are Social Roles?
The parts people play as members of various social groups
What are Social Roles accompanied by?
It’s accompanied by expectations we have of what’s appropriate behaviour in each role
What type of conformity is conforming to social roles?
Identification
What were the aims of Zimbardo’s Study?
[2]
- Wanted to see how readily people would conform to role-playing exercise of prisoner and guard
- Wanted to see whether behaviour was due to internal dispositional factors or external situational factors
What are internal dispositional factors?
The people themselves
What are external situational factors?
The environment
Where was Zimbardo’s Study taken place?
Stanford Uni Basement which was converted into prison
How many people took part in participant? Who were they?
21 male students
What happened to prisoners?
[5]
They were:
- Blindfolded
- Strip-searched
- Deloused
- Given prisoner uniforms
- Given numbers
What happened to Guards?
[4]
They were:
- Given khaki uniform
- Whistles
- Handcuffs
- Dark sunglasses - to avoid eye contact
What was Zimbardo’s role in the study?
He was:
- Superintendent
- Prison Warden
What was the Procedure of Zimbardo’s Study?
[6]
- Zimbardo converted basement of Stanford Uni into mock prison
- 21 male students to be randomly assigned as prisoners and guards
- Prisoners were given numbers, uniforms, strip-searched, deloused
- Guards were given khaki uniforms, dark sunglasses
- No violence
- Zimbardo was superintendent and lead reasearcher
What were the findings of Zimbardo’s study?
[4]
- Guards and prisoners quickly settled into new roles, once there was a rebellion from prisoners
- Guards began to harass prisoners. Brutal and sadistic manner.
- Prisoners took on prisoner-like behaviour. Told tales, Tried to please guards.
- Threat to prisoner psychological and physical health, so they had to stop after 6 days not 14
What were the Conclusions of Zimbardo’s research?
[2]
- People readily conform to social roles, even when roles are against moral principles
- Situational factors were largely responsible, no behaviour demonstrated like this before
Abu Ghraib - torture
What is a Strength of Zimbardo’s Study?
[4]
- Real world applications of Zimbardo’s study
- Same confomrity to social roles happened in Abu Ghraib, a military prison
- Iraqi prisoners were tortured by American Soldiers in 2000s.
- Certian situational factors can lead to tyrannical people, so studying about this = can avoid later on in future
Zimbardo was superintendent and lead researcher
What is a Limitation of Zimbardo’s Study?
[3]
- Major ethical issue - Zimbardo was superintendent and lead researcher
- He responded to prisoner who complained of psychological/physical harm as superintendent
- Prisoner had to stay longer than wanted
Control over variables
What is a Strength of Zimbardo’s Study?
[3]
- There were control over variables
- Emotionally stable people chosen as guard and prisoner
- Researcher tried to rule out individual personality differences
Reicher and Haslam - different findings
What is a Limitation of Zimbardo’s Study?
[3]
- Lack of research to suggest participants in study acted ‘naturally’
- Reicher and Haslam replicated and found prisoners took control and acted badly
- Different findings