evaluation : social influence Flashcards
smash this PP3
What is a strength of social change ?
Strength : Research support for normative influences
- Nolan et al (2008) aimed to see if they could change people’s energy use habits. The researchers hung messages on the front doors of peoples houses in San Diego, California every week for a month.
- The key message was that most residents were trying to reduce their energy use. As a control, some residents had a different message asking them to save energy but with no reference to other peoples behaviour.
- It was shown that there were significant decreases in energy usage in the first group compared to the second.
This shows that conformity (majority influence) can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence meaning it’s a valid explanation.
What is the counterpoint to this strength? ( social change nsi)
counterpoint : research support
- Foxcroft et al (2015) reviewed social norms as part of the ‘gold standard’ cochrane collaboration.
- This review included 70 studies where the soical norms approach was used to reduce student alchol use.
- The researcher found only a small reduction in drinking quanitity and no effect in drinking frequency
Therefore it seems that using normative influence does not always produce long term social change
What is a strength of minority influence in terms of social change?
It allows Psychologists to explain how social change occurs
- Nemeth(2009) claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire. When people consider minority arguments, they engage in divergent thinking. This type of thinking is broad rather than narrow, in which the thinker actively searchers for information and weighs up more options.
- Nemeth argues this leads to better descisons and more creative solutions to social issues
This shows why dissenting minorities are valuble- they stimulate new ideas and open minds in a way that majorities cannot
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What is a limitation of deeper processing in terms of social change?
Limitation : Deeper processing may not play a role in how minorities bring about social change
- Mackie(1987) disagrees with the idea that some people are converted because they think about the minorities views. She has presented evidence to show that it is the majority influence that may create deeper processing if you do not share their view.
- This is because we like to believe that other people share our views and think in the same way as us. When we find out that a majority believe something different, then we are forced to think long and hard about their arguements and reasoning.
This means that the central element of minority influence has beem challenged, casting doubt on its validity as an explanation for social change
What is a limitation of Moscovicic research?
Lacks External Validity
- Identifying the colour of slides is very removed from our minorities try to influence the majorities in the real world
No consequences
- Minorities are often at the heart of important choices/changes where the outcomes are much more important
What is a strength Mosocovici research?
Research support for consistency
- Moscovici et al’s blue slide green slide study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion
- Wood et al (1994) carried out a meta analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential
This suggests that presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a majority
What is a strength for deeper processing?
A change in the majority’s position does involve deeper processing of the minorities ideas
- Martin et al (2003) presented participants with a message supporting a particular veiwpoint and measured their agreement. One group then heard a minority group agree with the initial view while another group heard a majority agree with it. Participants were finall exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again.
- It was found that people were less willing to chnage their options if they had listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority group.
This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and has more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence works
What is the counterpoint to studies such as Martin et al’s?
Limitation : Research studies such as Martin et al’s make a clear distinction between the majority and minority
- Doing this in a controlled way is a strength of minority influence research but in real-world social influence situations are much more complicated
- For exmaple majorities usually have more power and status than minorities. Minorties are very commited to their cause- they often have to face very hostile opposition.
- These features are usually absent from the minority influence research- the minority is simply the smallest group
Therefore Martin et al’s findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in the real world
What is a strength of social support?
Strentgh : real world application
- Albrecht et al (2006) evaluted an 8-week programme designed to help pregnant tees to resist peer pressure to smoke and found that when social support was provided by a slighly older buddy the preganant teens were signficanlty less likely to smoke.
- Furthermore this has important implications in society as stopping teesn from smoking whilst pregnant means that a child born with health problems is also reduced.
This ensures that money is not being used on something that could have been prevented and will not have to expand their resources as well as being able to focus more of theit attention on peoole that have diseases and sicknesses that are beyond their control.
What is a strength regarding social support?
Strength : Research support
- Gamson et all - asked participants to work in groups to gather evidence to run a smear campaign for an oil company.
Found higher levels of resistance in this study than Milgram- probably because they were in groups. 88% rebelled showing that peer support linked to greater resistannce
What is a strength of Locus of control?
Holland ( 1987) repeated Milgram’s study and measured whether particpants were internals or externals
- 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level whereas only 27% of externals did not continue
What is a limiation of the Locus of control?
Limitation: Locus of control may only be present in novel situations
- When people are in situations in which they have conformed or obeyed in the past, they are likely to repeat this behavuiour the next time the situation comes around. This means that LoC may only be in effect when the situation is unclear, making LoC a limited explanation.
- This suggest that although it can explain individual instance in resistance in reserarch, there may be an influence of other factors alongside a person’s LOC
What is a strength of the expalanation of an authoritarian personality?
Strength: Research support as an explanation for obedience
- Milgram and Elms (1966) conductd post-experimental interviews with 20 particpants who were fully obedient in Milgrams original study, to see if there was a link between high levels of obedience and an authoritarian personality
- It was found that the obedient particpants socred higher on F scale in comparison to the 20 disobedient participants that were also interviewed. It was concluded that the obedient partcipants in Milgrams original research displayed more charcteristics of the auhtouritarian personality
This finding supports Adorno et al’s view that obedient people may well show similar characteristics to people who have an authoritarian personality
What is the counterpoint to this stregnth of the F-scale?
Counterpoint: Individual differences
- However when researchers analysed the individual susbscales on the F-scale, they found that the obedient particpants had a number of charcteristics which were unusual for authoritarians
- For example, unlike authouritarians, Milgrams partcipants didn’t glorify their fathers, did not experience unsual levels of punishement in childhood.
- This means that the link between obedience and authouritariansm is complex
The obedient particpants were unlike authourtarians in so many ways that authoritariansm is unlikely to be a predictor of obedience
What is the limiation for the explanation of the authouritarian personality?
Limitation: Limited explanation
- It cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a countries population
- For example. in pre-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient, racist and anti-semitic behaviour. This was despite the fact they must have differed personalities in all sorts of ways. It seems extremely unlikely that they could all posess an authouritarian personality
- An Alternative view is that the majority of the Gemans people identifies with the anti-semitic Nazi state, and scapegoated the “outgroup” of jews- an approach more in line with social identity theory.
Therefore Adorno et al’s theory is limited because an alternative explanation is much more realistic
What is a limiation of the auhthoritarian persoanlity?
Limiation: F-scale represents political bias
- Christie and Jahoda (1954) highlight a weakenss in the F-scale for only measuring extreme right-wing ideologies, thus ignoring the role that authoritariansim has also played in left-wing poltics such as Chinese Maosim and Russian Bolshevism, for example.
This identifies a bias in what is believed to be the at the core of the authoritarian personality and theorfore poses a limitation of Adorno’s theory, since the F-scale cannot account for obedience across the diverse political range
What is the limitation of the F-scale?
Limiation : Methodological Issues
- The Fscale may suffer from response bias or social desirabilty bias, where particpants provide answers which are socially accpetable.
This therefore reduces the internal validty of the questionaire research method used in determinning the degree of authoritariansm