P1: Social Influence Flashcards

Question

Ao3: Zimbardos study can explain real world behaviour

Answer 1

Zimbardo believes that the same conformity to social role effect in the Stanford Prison Experiment was evident in Abu Graib. He believed that the guards who committed the abuses were the victims of situational factors that made abuse more likely. These situational factors include lack of training, unrelenting boredom and no accountability to higher authority – these were present both in the SPE and Abu Graib. These situational factors combined with the opportunity to misuse the power associated with the assigned role led to the prisoner abuses in both situations.

Answer 2

1. social support 2. locus of control

Answer 3

-The perception that an individual has assistance available from other people, and that they are part of a supportive network. -Outline Asch's study of conformity - presence of an ally -Outline Milgrams study of obedience - presence of disobedient confederate

Answer 4

Allen and Levine (1969) studied whether the response position of the person providing social support made any difference to a participant resisting the majority. Condition 1: a confederate answered first, giving the right answer, while other confederates all gave the same wrong answer. The real participant always answered 5th (last). Condition 2: the confederate answered 4th – i.e. after the confederates. Support was significantly more effective in position 1 than position 4. The researchers suggest that a correct first answer, in confirming the participants own judgement, produces an initial commitment to the correct response that endures even though other group members disagree

Answer 5

Rosenstrasse protest - 1943 a group of German women protested in the Rosenstrasse in Berlin, where Gestapo (Nazi secret police) were holding 2000 Jewish men. The Gestapo threatened to open fire if they did not disperse, despite the threats the women's courage eventually prevailed and the Jews were set free. The Rosenstrasse protest is an illustration of Milgram's research in real life, presence of disobedient peers gave the participant the confidence and courage to resist the authorities orders

Answer 6

The term locus of control refers to a person’s perception of personal control over their own behaviour. It is measured along a dimension of ‘high external to high internal’. High externals perceive their behaviour as being caused by luck or external influences (more likely to accept the influence of others), whereas high internals perceive themselves to be in control of their behaviour and are more likely to take personal responsibility for it (better able to resist social influence).

Answer 7

A meta-analysis by Twenge et al. (2004) found that young Americans increasingly believed that their fate was determined more by luck and powerful others rather than their own actions. Researchers found that LOC scores had become substantially more external in student and child samples between 1960 and 2002. Twenge interprets this trend towards an increasing externality in terms of the alienation experienced by young people and the tendency to explain misfortunes on outside forces.

Answer 8

Spector (1983) measured LOC and predisposition to normative and informational influence in 157 undergraduate students. He found a significant correlation between LOC and predisposition to normative social influence – with externals more likely to conform to this form of influence than internals. However, no such relationship was found for predisposition to informational social influence, with LOC not appearing to be a significant factor in this type of conformity.

Answer 9

Social change occurs when a society as a whole adopts a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the ‘norm’ -If an individual is exposed to a persuasive argument under certain conditions, they may change their views to match those of the minority. Moscovici (1980) referred to this process as 'conversion’ a necessary prerequisite for social change. 1. Drawing attention to an issue - Minorities can bring about social change by drawing attention to an issue. The suffragettes used educational, political and militant tactics to draw attention to the fact that women were denied the same voting rights as men. 2. Cognitive conflict – the minority creates a conflict between what group members currently believe and what the minority believe. It doesn’t necessarily result in a move towards the minority position, but it does mean that the majority group members think more deeply about the issues being challenged. The suffragettes created a conflict for majority group members between existing status quo (only men allowed to vote) and the position advocated by the suffragettes (votes for women). 3. Consistency of position - Social change is more likely when the minority is consistent in their position, taken more seriously. The suffragettes were consistent in their views regardless of those around them. 4. The augmentation principle - If a minority appears willing to suffer for their views, they are taken more seriously. Because the suffragettes were willing to risk imprisonment or even death from hunger strike, their influence became more powerful (i.e. it was augmented). 5. The snowball effect - Minority influence initially has a small effect but this spreads more widely ' until it eventually leads to large scale social change. Universal suffrage was finally accepted by the majority of people in the UK.

Answer 10

Social changes happen slowly when they happen at all. For example, it has taken decades for attitudes against drink-driving and smoking to shift. Do minorities really have much of an influence? Because there is a strong tendency for human beings to conform to the majority position, groups are more likely to maintain the status quo rather than engage in social change. The influence of a minority, therefore, is frequently more latent (indirect) than direct (i.e. it creates the potential for change rather than actual social change). This could be considered a limitation of using minority influence to explain social change because it shows that its effects are fragile and its role in social influence very limited.

Answer 11

The potential for minorities to influence social change is often limited because they are seen as 'deviant' in the eyes of the majority. Members of the majority may avoid aligning themselves with the minority position because they do not want to be seen as deviant themselves. The message of the minority would then have very little impact because the focus of the majority's attention would be the source of the message (i.e. the deviant minority) rather than the message itself. In trying to bring about social change, minorities face the double challenge of avoiding being portrayed as deviants and also making people directly embrace their position.

Answer 12

Research has consistently demonstrated that behavioural choices are often related to group norms, i.e. they are the subject of normative influence. The social norms approach (Perkins and Berkowitz, 1986) holds that if people perceive something to be the norm, they tend to alter their behaviour to fit that norm. For example, if university students think that heavy drinking is the norm, they'll drink more. If they think responsible drinking is the norm, then they’ll drink less (i.e. they conform). Behaviour, therefore, is based more on what people think others believe and do (the 'perceived norm') than on their real beliefs and actions (the 'actual norm'). Social Norms Interventions start by identifying a widespread misperception elating to a specified risky behaviour within a target population. For example, heavy drinking. Perception correction strategies can then be used in media campaigns, promotional material and through other routes. The aim of these strategies is to communicate to the target population the actual norm concerning that particular behaviour. By advertising these actual norms, researchers hope that recipients will moderate their own behaviour to bring it in line with the behaviour of their peers.

Answer 13

An example: ’Most of Us don't drink and drive’ This social norms intervention was designed to reduce drinking and driving among young adults (aged 21-34) in Montana, USA. This age group had been over-represented in alcohol-related crashes state-wide. An initial survey found that while only 20.4% of Montana young adults reported having driven within one hour of consuming two or more drinks in the previous month, 92% of respondents believed that the majority of their peers had done so. By correcting this misperception with the simple message that ‘MOST Montana Young Adults (4 out of 5) Don’t Drink and Drive', the researchers found that the prevalence of reported driving after drinking was reduced by 13.7%, compared to counties that did not run the campaign..

Answer 14

Not all social norms interventions have led to social change. DeJong et al (2009) tested the effectiveness of social norms marketing campaigns to drive down alcohol use among students across 14 different college sites. Surveys were conducted by post at the beginning of the study and three years after the campaign had finished. Despite receiving normative information that corrected their misperceptions of subjective drinking norms, students in the social norms condition did not show lower perceptions of student drinking levels, nor did they report lower self-reported alcohol consumption as a result of the campaign.

Answer 15

Schultz et al. (2007) suggest an unwelcome problem with social norms interventions. Although they are typically aimed at individuals whose behaviour is less desirable than the norm, the widespread nature of the approach means that those whose behaviour is more desirable than the norm will also receive the message. For those individuals who already engage in the constructive behaviour being advocated (e.g. drink less than the norm, use less energy than the norm and so on), a normative message can be a spur to engaging in more destructive behaviour. Schultz et al found evidence of what they refer to as the boomerang effect in their own research, where a social norms campaign was effective in getting heavy-energy users to use less electricity, but it also caused those who used less than the norm to increase their usage!