Module 5: Social Influence Flashcards
What are the different types of conformity?
- Compliance: normative social influence - superficially fitting in as to not be rejected
- Internalisation: informational social influence - don’t know how to behave so adopt beliefs/behaviours of group
- Identification: temporarily changing behaviour in a group setting to fit in
What situational factors may affect bystander intervention?
- Diffusion of responsibility
- Less likely to notice while in a group
- Pluralistic ignorance (assuming there is no emergency)
- Cost of helping
What individual factors may affect bystander intervention?
- Competence (which informs confidence)
- Mood (if bad attention is focused inwards, less likely to notice)
- Similarity to person in need
What situational factors may affect conformity?
- Size of majority (own judgement questioned most at 3-4 people, questioned less at <3 or >4)
- Unanimity (majority unanimous?)
- Task difficulty/ambiguity (informational social influence)
- (Found by Solomon Asch 1950s three lines on a card experiments)
What does locus of control mean?
How much control someone believes they have over their own behaviour
What personality factors may affect conformity?
- Internal LoC: influenced internally, less likely to conform
- External LoC: influenced externally, more likely to conform
- Internal LoC still conforms in an unfamiliar situation
What situational factors affected obedience in Milgram’s shock experiments?
- Proximity to victim and/or authority figure
- Legitimacy of context and/or authority figure
- Personal responsibility (less if shared with another)
- Support from others (more likely to disobey if others do first)
What personality factors affected obedience in Milgram’s shock experiments?
- Locus of control
- Authoritarian personality - F-scale (Theodore Adorno et al. (1950), higher on scale = more obedient)
What other factors affected obedience in Milgram’s shock experiments?
- Told shocks were painful but not harmful
- Volunteered and had paid - obligation
- No previous experience (informational social influence)
- Momentum of compliance (plan completion bias)
What may affect the behaviour of crowds?
- Deindividuation
- Obedience
- (Pro-social or anti-social behaviour)
Describe deindividuation
- Members stop acting as individuals and become anonymous
- Magnifies conformity
- Loss of personal identity
- Some argue that identity is not lost, instead a new identity is created bound to group norms
- Stanford Prison Study - Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973)
Describe obedience within crowds
- Crowd may be influenced by an authority figure
- Proximity, legitimacy, power
How can blind obedience be prevented?
- Social support (Holfing et al. (1966) & Rank and Jacobson (1977) nurse studies)
- Familiarity with the situation (nurse studies)
- Distance from situation/authority figure
- Education on preventing blind obedience
What were the aims of Piliavin et al. (1969) Good Samaritan study?
Investigate in which conditions people are more likely to help in a natural environment
What was the procedure of Piliavin et al. (1969) Good Samaritan study?
- Covert observation on a New York subway
- Two observers, two actors (one victim, other a model to help after a set time period)
- Observed: number of people, race, sex, who helped and after how long
- Victim: male, either white or black, either ‘drunk’ or carrying a cane
What were the results of Piliavin et al. (1969) Good Samaritan study?
- Cane victim helped 95% of the time
- Drunk victim helped 50% of the time
- More than one person came to help 60% of the time
- The bigger the group, the more likely someone was to help
- Men helped more than women
- Drunk victim more likely to be helped by someone of the same race
What were the conclusions of Piliavin et al. (1969) Good Samaritan study?
- No diffusion of responsibility (enclosed space, many people watching)
- Cost of helping (cane vs drunk), especially for women
- The longer no one helps, the chance of someone helping goes down (conformity)
What are the strengths of Piliavin et al. (1969) Good Samaritan study?
- Natural environment, ecological validity
- Covert operation, lack of demand characteristics, more valid
What are the weaknesses of Piliavin et al. (1969) Good Samaritan study?
Unethical:
- Covert operation, no consent
- May have caused distress
What was the aim of Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) Simulated Prison study?
Investigate prisoner-guard conflict in a simulated prison environment
What was the procedure of Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) Simulated Prison study?
- 10 prisoners, 11 guards
- Male college students, all psychologically healthy, had volunteered and were paid
- Guards had uniforms and no specific instructions
- Prisoners were arrested, had prison attire, were referred to by an identification number
- Supposed to go on for two weeks
What were the results of Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) Simulated Prison study?
- Guards aggressive and controlling after a few hours
- Prisoners rebelled by barricading cells, guards punished them with solitary confinement
- Conflict and aggression escalated over next few days
- Stopped after 6 days, prisoners showing signs of anxiety/depression
What were the conclusions of Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) Simulated Prison study?
- Prisoners/guards conformed to assigned role
- Deindividuation - lost personal identity, adopted given identity
- All immersed in simulated environment
What are the strengths of Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) Simulated Prison study?
- Immersion in simulation (natural behaviour, ecological validity)
- Can inform the way prisons are run
- Explains the atrocities that occur within prisons
What are the weaknesses of Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) Simulated Prison study?
- Distress caused to participants
- Participants could have just been acting (lowers ecological validity)
- Only male college students, lowers generalisability
Give examples of real world social issues surrounding social influence
- Obedience: WW2 antisemitism - understanding the behaviour of soldiers
- Conformity: 2011 London Riots - informational/normative social influence
- Deindividuation: Police brutality/prison violence - loss of personal identity
- Bystander effect: WW2 antisemitism - why citizens failed to aid Jews & persecuted minorities
Describe how differing cultures may affect social influence
- Individualistic cultures: obedience unaffected (environment, not culture), less likely to conform, more prone to bystander effect
- Collectivistic cultures: obedience unaffected, more likely to conform, less prone to bystander effect (if one is perceived to be belonging to the same group)
