Module 1 - Social Influence Flashcards
What is compliance?
A superficial and temporary form of conformity where we publicly agree but privately disagree. Only lasts as long as the group is watching us.
What is identification?
A moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way as the group because we value it and want to be a part of it. We don’t necessarily agree with everything it stands for.
What are 2 differences between internalisation and compliance?
Public acceptance and private rejection.
Public and private acceptance.
Explain what is meant by normative and informational social influence.
Both explanations for conformity.
NSI - Conforming in order to be liked / to fit in → usually leads to compliance.
ISI - conforming in order to be right - conformity occurs when situation is novel; the correct course of action is unclear; an expert is present → most likely to lead to internalisation.
Lucas et al. (2006) used mathematical problems to provide research support for informational social influence. Describe their study and their findings. How does this support ISI?
Participants had to give answers to easy and difficult maths questions.
Increased conformity for the difficult questions → especially for people who rated their ability as poor.
Shows that people conform when they do not know the answer. We look to others and assume they are right → predicted by ISI.
Research often assumes that either NSI or ISI is responsible for conforming behaviour. However, it has been claimed that both could play a role. Explain this.
Assumption is that behaviour is due to either NSI or ISI - however could be both.
In Asch’s research conformity dropped when another dissenter was introduced → reduction in NSI (social support) or in ISI (more information).
The respective roles of NSi and ISI are difficult to disentangle, which casts doubt on whether NSI and ISI are in fact individual processes.
What support for NSI was provided by Asch’s study (1951)?
Participants went along with a wrong answer because other people did.
When asked they said they feared disapproval by the others.
Supports: participants conformed in order to be accepted and gain social approval.
What has research shown about the role of individual differences in conformity?
Some people feel the need to be liked more than other → going to be more affected by NSI.
nAffillators have a greater need for affiliation - relationships with others.
McGhee & Teevan (1967) nAffiliators conform more.
Conformity does not apply universally.
In relation to Asch’s research, explain what is meant by the terms unanimity and task difficulty.
Unanimity: The extent to which all members of a group agree.
Asch: The majority was unanimous when all confederates chose the same comparison line → produced the greatest levels of conformity.
Task difficulty: Asch’s study becomes more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer.
Asch: Conformity increases with task difficulty, as participants assume the majority is right.
Describe Asch’s study of conformity. Include details of what he did and what he found in your answer.
Showed participant 2 white cards - one had three lines of different length and one had a standard line.
Participants had to match the two lines of the same length.
Each participant was tested with a group of confederates, who after the first few trials started given wrong answer. All confederates gave the same wrong answer.
Overall, the participants gave the wrong answer 36.8% of the time. Every participant conformed at least once, meaning that 75% conformed once.
When asked why they conformed, they said “to avoid rejection”. → NSI
“Asch’s study is a child of it’s time” - Explain what is meant by this.
When Perrin and Spencer repeated Asch’s study in 1980, only one student conformed out of 396. The 1950s (the time when Asch’s study was conducted) was a particularly conformist time in America - it made sense to conform to established norms. This means that people may have conformed because it was the norm to do so → We now live in a less conformist age, meaning the results would be different i.e. the study is a child of it’s time.
Asch’s study has been criticised for being an artificial task and situation. What does this mean and why is this a limitation?
Participants knew they were in a study and may have just gone along with the situation → Demand characteristics.
The task was fairly trivial - not conforming would have had no negative impact - and not resembling any everyday task.
Limitation because the tasks cannot be generalised to everyday situations.
Explain the ethical issues with Asch’s research. Do you believe the benefits of the study outweighed the cost? Explain your answer.
Deception - they thought the other people were part of the study.
Benefits outweigh the costs - gives us information about conformity in society and shows us the destructive possibilities of conformity and how these can be combated.
The ethical issues were fairly unproblematic (mild embarrassment) and was dealt with by a debrief form.
Explain why Asch’s findings have limited application in the real world.
Only men were tested by Asch - research suggests that women may be more conformist because they are more concerned with social relationships.
The men were all from the USA - an individualist culture. In individualist cultures, people are largely concerned with themselves.
In conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures (people are more concerned with social groups), conformity rates were higher → such cultures are more concerned with group needs.
Conformity rates could in fact be much higher than Asch suggested.
His results may only apply to western men, as he did not take gender and cultural differences into account.
Explain what is meant by a social role. Use examples in your answer.
The parts people play as members of different social groups e.g. teachers, teenagers, students, etc.
This is accompanied by the expectations people have have of how individuals in these roles should be behave.
Outline the procedure, findings and conclusions of the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Mock prison created + PPTs randomly assigned to guards or prisoners. PPTs arrested from home + blindfolded strip searched etc.
Roles clearly divided - prisoners had 16 rules to follow, which were enforced by guards, who were all dressed in uniform with tinted glasses. Guards had total control.
Guards took to their roles quickly - constantly harassing and abusing prisoners (fire extinguishers, head counts, isolation, reminders of who is in charge).
Prisoners rebelled against the guards - rebellion was put down and prisoners became subdued and depressed.
Experiment had to be ended after 6 days instead of the intended 14.
One strength of the Stanford Prison Experiment is the level of control. Outline what is meant by this and why this is a strength.
The most obvious example of this is the PPT selection - psychologically tested and randomly assigned.
This meant that individual differences could be minimised and the behaviour displayed would be down to the role and not down to personality.
Increases the internal validity as is means it is easier to draw conclusions about the cause of the behaviour.
Critics have argued that Zimbardo exaggerated the role of the situation - explain this point.
The role of the situation could have been exaggerated and the role of personality could have been minimised.
Not all guards behaved the same - some were brutal, some were fair and some were kind.
Social roles may not have caused the behaviour, as guards still seem to know the difference between right and wrong. → Dispositional factors are important.
Why has it been argued that the Stanford Prison Experiment lacked realism?
Banuazizi & Mohavedi.
The performances of PPTs during the study was based on stereotypes of how people are supposed to behave. E.g. one guard based his character on ‘Cool Hand Luke’. This means that the results may not have been down to social roles.
However Zimbardo claimed quantitative data gathered during the study indicated that prisoners thought the prison was real - just run by psychologists.
It seems on balance the situation was real to the participants which contradicts claims by Banuazizi and Mohavedi.
Outline ethical issues with Zimbardo’s research.
Ethical issues arose due to Zimbardo being part of the study - when ppts asked to leave the participant he was responding as a prison warden would and not like a researcher.
Protection from harm was the biggest issue - although prisoners were eventually allowed to leave, it was much later than it should have been.
Zimbardo should have remained detached.
Outline the study done by Haslam and Reicher and explain why this challenges Zimbardo’s conclusions about conformity to social roles.
Replicated the SPE - but in Britain.
Findings were different - prisoners formed a collective identity and took over the prison → Attributed to social identity theory → The guards did not manage to do this.
In the SPE, Zimbardo argued that the people conformed to their roles quickly and easily and the behaviour of the PPT stemmed from these roles.
However we can see from the BBC prison study that social roles are not taken on easily or naturally → which was also seen in the SPE where some of the guards were actually helping the prisoners.
Outline Milgram’s research into obedience.
Procedure: ‘Teacher’ gave fake electric shocks to ‘learner’ during a ‘learning task’, ordered to do so by an experimenter. At 315v learner pounded on the wall for the last time. Prods, e.g. ‘You have no other choice, you must go on’.
Findings: No participants stopped before 300v and 65% went all the way to the top of the shock scale, 450v. Many showed signs of stress, most objected but continued anyway. Prior survey said 3% would obey.
Evaluate Milgram’s research in terms of validity.
Low Validity - Orne & Holland. Participants could guess the study. Demand characteristics.
High External validity - Hofling et al. Nurses administering drugs after being told by doctors. Milgram’s findings apply to other situations.
What is the social identity theory and why does it suggest that people obey?
All about group identification. In Milgram’s study the teachers identified with the science and so obeyed the researcher. Obedience dropped because ppts started to identify with the victim.
Why is the social identity theory a limitation to Milgram’s conclusions about obedience?
Milgram claimed ppts obeyed because of the presence of the authority figure. SIT suggests obedience occurred due to identification with the researcher or victim.
Outline the ethical issues with Milgram’s instructions. What knock-on effects could these have had for participants?
Deception: Didn’t know that teacher / learner was rigged; didn’t know the shocks were fake.
It prevents participants from giving their fully informed consent to take part. If participants are deceived about the procedure they can still consent to take part, but that consent is worthless because participants do not know what it is they are consenting to. It may even mean that participants are leaving themselves vulnerable to psychological harm, because they do not know what the procedure involves and what their role in it is.
