Chapter 10: Social Influence on Behaviour Part 1

Question 1

What is social influence?

Answer 1

How people affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviour of others.

Question 2

What is a group?

Answer 2

Any collection of two or more people who interact with an influence one another and who share a common purpose.

Question 3

What does status refer to?

Answer 3

The importance of an individual’s position in the group, as perceived by members of the group.

Question 4

What does power refer to?

Answer 4

An individual’s or group’s ability to control or influence the thoughts, feelings or behaviour of another person or group.

Question 5

What does reward power refer to?

Answer 5

The ability to give positive or take away negative consequences in response to specific behaviour.

Question 6

What does coercive power refer to?

Answer 6

The ability to give negative consequences or remove positive consequences in response to specific behaviour.

Question 7

What does legitimate power refer to?

Answer 7

An individual’s status or position in a group, institution or society, in general, gives them the authority to use power over others with a lowers status and less authority.

Question 8

What does referent power refer to? Give an example:

Answer 8

When people identify with or want to be liked by a certain person.
Eg. A celebrity they want to be like

Question 9

What is expert power? Give an example:

Answer 9

Having special knowledge or skills that are wanted or needed.
Eg. A teacher being knowledgeable in a certain subject

Question 10

What is is informational power? Give an example:

Answer 10

Having resources or information that are useful and are not available anywhere else.
Eg. Being the only one who knows the code to a safe

Question 11

What is a role?

Answer 11

The behaviour adopted by a person or assigned to them which influences how they act in different situations.

Question 12

When does obedience occur? Give an example:

Answer 12

Occurs when we follow the commands of someone in authority or the rules or laws of our society.
Eg. The Nazis killing Jews to follow Hitler’s orders

Question 13

Give an ethical concern regarding Zimbardo’s Standford Prison experiment:

Answer 13

Participants suffered and were allowed to inflict pain and humiliation on their fellows over an extended length of time.

Question 14

Give 2 ethical concerns regarding Milgram’s experiments on obedience:

Answer 14

• Deception, the participants were made to believe that they were giving electrical shots to the ‘learner’
• Withdrawal rights, the participants were not allowed to withdraw from the experiment

Question 15

What is conformity? Give an example:

Answer 15

The tendency to adjust your thoughts, feelings or behaviour to match those of a certain person or group, or to fit into certain situations (social norms).
Eg. Wearing a blazer to assembly

Question 16

What is group pressure?

Answer 16

Where an individual is more likely to follow or agree with what the group they are in is doing when there is no rebellion.
-Justify their behaviour as just following what everyone else was doing

Question 17

List the 3 factors which affect obedience:

Answer 17

• Social proximity
• Legitimacy of authority figures
• Group pressure

Question 18

List the 5 types of power:

Answer 18

• Reward power
• Coercive power
• Legitimate power
• Referent power
• Expert power

Question 19

What is the fundamental attribution error? Give an example:

Answer 19

The tendency to attribute our own behaviour to situational (external) causes, yet attribute other’s behaviour to internal factors.
Eg. Failing a test and blaming the teacher for making it too hard, but when someone else fails, we assume it was because they didn’t study.

Question 20

What is a hypothesis appropriate for Asch’s experiment?

Answer 20

People will usually conform to the beliefs and behaviours of a group when there is unanimity among them, even when an obviously wrong answer is given, up to a group size of 4.