lesson 5 - social influence & conformity

Question 1

what was Milgram’s study

Answer 1

all participants were ‘teachers’ who administered electrical shocks to the ‘learners’ (confederates) if they answered a question incorrectly. shocks begin at a low level and progressively increase to fatal shocks as the experiment continues.
62.5% of participants went up to the full voltage (450v) in the original experiment.
h/e in variations of the study, situational factors (location, proximity, legitimacy of authority) affected if people shocked people at 450v or not.
increased shock by 15v every time a question was answered incorrectly

Question 2

Factors influencing obedience

Answer 2

*Gradual change and commitment starts with mild trivial shots and then escalates.
*Immediacy of the victim (proximity). 65% shocked to the maximum voltage when there was mild interaction with victim – they were far away. As immediacy increases, obedience decreases. Immediacy removes dehumanisation.
*Immediacy to the authority figure, obedience decreased when experimenter was not in the room and gave directions via phone call. Decreased to 20.5%.
*Legitimacy of authority figure – lab coat scientist at yale university. Other condition – industrial setting, 48% obedience in second condition (a reduction).

Question 3

social influence

Answer 3

“Process whereby attitudes and behaviour are influenced by the real or implied presence of other people.” (Hoggs and Vaughan)

Question 4

what are social norms

Answer 4

“Rules and standards that are understood by members of a group and that guide and/or constrain social behaviour without the force of laws. These norms emerge out of interaction with others; they may or may not be stated explicitly, and any sanctions for deviating from them come from social networks, not the legal system.” (Cialdini & Trost, 1998, p.152).

Question 5

why are social norms helpful
light example

Answer 5

social norms help guide us in uncertain situations.
autokinetic effect (point of light appeared to move) - small groups estimated physical movement, they quickly converged to group norm, and remained influenced by the group’s input even when estimating alone
use the judgement of others as a frame reference
converge away from individual to common standard: group norm.

Question 6

why would ps conform in Asch’s line study

Answer 6

-rational process - people construct norms from others’ behaviour to determine appropriate behaviour
-ambiguous situations lead to uncertainty
-frame of reference in the group
-convergence on group norm
-if the situation is ambiguous, is a group free of social influence?

Question 7

housewife study, Lewin 1947

Answer 7

tried to encourage American housewives to change the eating habits of their households to include more foods like beef hearts and kidneys. 3 groups of 13-17 housewives attended a lecture stressing the benefit of changing eating habits for the war effort whereas another 3 groups were encouraged to talk amongst themselves to establish norms about buying food.
norm was far more effective than abstract information at bringing about a change in behaviour. 3% change (information group) vs 32% change (norm group).

Question 8

Asch 1951, 1956

Answer 8

male students participated in what they thought was a visual discrimination task.
had a piece of paper with three lines, and a separate standard line. ps were asked to say if line a, b or c was the same length as the standard line. all answers were asked for in a fixed order. Only one true participant who answered second to last, the rest were confederates. 12/18 trials confederates intentionally gave the wrong answer.

Question 9

Asch line study results

Answer 9

large individual differences
25% did not conform at all
50% conformed to the majority on 6 or more trials
5% conformed on all trials
average = 33% conformity
high conformity rate as they experienced uncertainty and self doubt due to disagreement with the group, fear of disapproval, anxiety, even loneliness, not wanting to stand out
When judgements were declared anonymously, conformity dropped to 12.5%.

Question 10

informational social influence:

Answer 10

• This occurs in ambiguous and uncertain situations
• need to feed confident in our perceptions, beliefs and feeling correct
• true cognitive change - internalisation
• studies where participants are asked to guess the number of beans in a jar finds participants give similar values as guesses in a group situation compared to alone.

Question 11

normative social influence:

Answer 11

• need for social approval and acceptance
• avoid disapproval
• surface level compliance
• research support - Asch’s line study, goes along with group, especially when under surveillance

Question 12

what is minority influence

Answer 12

“Social influence processes whereby numerical or power minorities change the attitudes of the majority.” (Hogg & Vaughan, 2014, p.256)
Effective if consistent, not rigid (flexible), committed.

Question 13

different type of social influence from minorities and majorities

Answer 13

-Majority influence produces public compliance via social comparison.
-Minority influence produces indirect, private change in opinion; conversion effect as a consequence of active consideration of minority point of view. Minority influence involves deeper processing and can lead to a true conversion of belief.

Question 14

ethical issues to consider

Answer 14

*A participant’s right to withdraw from the research.
*The need to get fully informed consent from the participants.
*The use of deception.
*The importance of protecting participants from the risk of psychological and physical harm.
*Debriefing - participants should leave the experiment in the same (psychological/physical) state they entered.
*Confidentiality and anonymity.

Question 15

ethical issues with milgram’s study

Answer 15

breached almost every single ethical issue with the exception of confidentiality/anonymity.
- right to withdraw breached as participants were encouraged to go on even if they hesitated or asked to leave. only allowed to leave after the 5th request. (‘the experiment requires you to continue’, ‘it is absolutely essential that you continue’)
- informed consent, could not agree to the experiment as they were deceived
- deception - lied to about the aim of the experiment, lied to about other participant - confederate
- protection from harm - some participants experienced highly stressful experiences as a result of the experiment, distressing, heart attack