AO1: Social Influence Flashcards

1
Q

Conformity

A

A change in behaviour or positions due to influence from a majority position

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2
Q

Compliance

A
  • A person changes their behaviours/publicly but doesn’t do so in private
  • A weak and temporary form of conformity
  • Only lasts as long as we feel we are being monitored by a group
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3
Q

Internalization

A
  • Most powerful type of conformity
  • Beliefs and actions change both privately and publicly
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4
Q

Identification

A
  • A person changes their behaviour/opinions to fit in with a group or maintain a positive relationship with that group
  • Midway between internalization and compliance
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5
Q

Normative Social Influence (NSI)

A
  • The idea that a person conforms as they desire to be liked
  • Results in compliance
  • Produces a weak, temporary conformity
  • Most likely to occur when a person feels like they are being monitored by a group
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6
Q

Informational Social Influence (ISI)

A
  • The idea that a person conforms as they desire to be right
  • Results in internalization
  • Produces a strong, long-lasting conformity
  • Happens in new/ambiguous situations or crisis situations where decisions need to be made quickly
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7
Q

Asch’s Line Judgement Task: Procedure

A
  • Participants looked at a line and compare it to a group of 3 other lines
  • They had to decide which of the 3 lines were closest in length to the original line
  • In the control condition, participants did the task by themself
  • In the experiment condition they completed the task with 7 other ‘participants’ (confederates) who purposefully said the wrong answer
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8
Q

Asch’s Line Judgement Task: Findings

A
  • In the control condition, conformity was less than 1%
  • In the experiment condition this rose to 36.8%
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9
Q

Asch’s Line Judgement Task: Group Size

A
  • Group size of the confederates was varied between 1-15 confederates
  • Conformity rose to 31.8% with 3 confederates
  • After this, the number of confederates had little impact on the results
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10
Q

Asch’s Line Judgement Task: Unanimity

A
  • Asch had some confederates give the right answer and disagree with the majority of the other confederates
  • Conformity dropped to 25%
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11
Q

Asch’s Line Judgement Task: Task Difficulty

A
  • Asch made it less clear which of the 3 lines was closest in length to the original line (more ambiguous answer)
  • Conformity increased
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12
Q

Zimbardo’s Aim

A
  • Investigate whether people conform to social roles due to their disposition or their situation
  • Tasked by the US military to find the cause of violence in prisons
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13
Q

Zimbardo’s Sampling Technique and Sample

A
  • Volunteer sampling
  • Selected participants deemed ‘emotionally stable’ after extensive psychological testing
  • Sample: 24 American Male Undergraduate Students
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14
Q

Zimbardo’s Conditions (and how he made them more realistic)

A
  • Randomly allocated participants to the social role of a guard or a prisoner
  • Built a realistic prison in the basement of Stanford University with prison cells
  • Had prisoners actually arrested, strip searched and given uniforms and prison numbers
  • Guards were given uniforms, clubs, handcuffs and keys
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15
Q

Zimbardo’s Findings

A
  • Only ⅓ of the guards conformed and were brutal to prisoners (force fed prisoner on hunger strike, harassing prisoners)
  • Prisoners conformed at first (swore at guards, tore their uniform)
  • After guards put down the rebellion, prisoners subdued
  • Many prisoners has to leave the experiment due to psychological distress and one of them went on hunger strike
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16
Q

Zimbardo’s Conclusions

A
  • The participants conformed to their social roles meaning that the situation is what influenced their behaviour, not their disposition
  • Conformed to social roles even though they were randomly allocated to conditions
17
Q

Obedience

A

A person complies with an instruction/order delivered by an authority figure

18
Q

Destructive Obedience

A

A person complies with an instruction/order delivered by an authority figure that will ultimately cause harm

19
Q

Milgram’s Obedience Investigation: Procedure

A
  • Participants are instructed by an experimenter to take on a ‘teacher’ role and administer an electric shock to another ‘participant’ who is the ‘learner’
  • The shocks start at 15 volts and increase to a maximum of 450 volts
  • The ‘learner’ is actually a confederate
  • The shocks are fake
  • The experimenter would deliver a series of prompts to encourage the ‘teacher’ to keep shocking the learner
20
Q

Milgram’s Obedience Investigation: Findings

A
  • 100% of participants issued up to 300 volts (12.5% stopped atp)
  • 65% of participants were obedient and issued the full 450 volts
21
Q

Milgram’s Obedience Investigation: Conclusion

A

Destructive Obedience is well within the behavioural repertoire of most people

22
Q

Situational Variables Impacting Obedience: Proximity 1

A
  • Baseline: experimenter and teacher were in the same room
  • Manipulation: Experimenter instructed the teacher over the phone
  • Obedience dropped to 20.5%
23
Q

Situational Variables Impacting Obedience: Proximity 2

A
  • Baseline: Teacher and learner were in different rooms
  • Manipulation: Teacher and learner in the same room
  • Obedience dropped to 40%
24
Q

Situational Variables Impacting Obedience: Location

A
  • Baseline: Experiment was carried out in the labs at Yale University
  • Manipulation: Experiment was carried out in a run-down building
  • Obedience dropped to 47.5%
25
Situational Variables Impacting Obedience: Uniform
- Baseline: Experimenter wore a grey lab coat - Manipulation: Another 'participant' took over the experimenter role and wore casual clothes - Obedience fell to 20%
26
Situational Variables Impacting Obedience: Conclusion
Aspects of the social situation have a powerful impact on the extent to which a person obeys or disobeys a destructive order
27
Agentic State
- People perceive themselves as an instrument that carries out other people's instructions/orders - They follow instructions (obedience)
28
Autonomous State
- People see themselves as free to act according to their own principles - They have free will over their actions and decisions
29
Agentic Shift
The shift from the autonomous state to the agentic state
30
Binding Factors
- Social pressures that act as subtle barriers to disobedience - Cause people to stay in the agentic state
31
Examples of Binding Factors
- Not taking responsibility for actions (the person who gave the order does) - The guilt of not completing something all the way through - Making a commitment to being obedient which creates pressure to actually do it
32
How does someone enter the Agentic State (according to Milgram?)
- They have to view the person giving the instruction as a figure of legitimate authority - This means they are seen as having higher status based on the situation and the setting they are in
33
Legitimate Authority Figure
A person who is perceived to be in a position of social control within a particular setting/situation
34
Why is Legitimacy of Authority seen as a Sociocultural Explanation of Obedience?
- The legitimacy of an authority figure is based on the shared assumptions within a society - E.g. Police have authority in dangerous situations and teachers have authority in schools