Paper 1 - Social Influence

Question 1

Define conformity

Answer 1

A change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people

Question 2

Explain what is meant by compliance in the context of conformity

Answer 2

compliance is where the individual changes is or her own behaviour to fit in with the group. They may not necessarily agree with the behaviour/belief but they go along with it publicly

Question 3

Explain what is meant by internalisation in the context of conformity

Answer 3

A person publicly changes their behaviour to fit in with the group, while also agreeing with them privately. This is the deepest level of conformity

Question 4

Explain what is meant by identification in the context of conformity

Answer 4

Identification is the middle level of conformity. Here a person changes their public behaviour (the way they act) and their private beliefs, but only while they are in the presence of the group they are identifying with.

Question 5

What are the three types of Validity ?

Answer 5

Ecological validity - Looks at if the study can be replicated in every day life
Population validity- having a large amount of people with a large amount of diversity
Temporal- When the study happened

Question 6

What are the two different cultures in the population

Answer 6

Indivualistic culture - induvial is seen as the most important person
Collectivist culture - Eastern/ The family and the under group is the most important- more likely to conform

Question 7

Explain and describe Asch’s Study

Answer 7

• They had 123 male under graduate participants in a (1951 mcCatharism period).
• The participants were in groups of 5 with the task to see what line is the closet.
• They were told that they were taking part in a study about visual perception

**Procedure **
* 12/18 times the confederates gave the wrong answer
* The participant always sat 2 to last to make it not obverse and the confederates would give a wrong answer to see if the participants would be pressured to give a wrong answer

Question 8

What were the results of Asch Study ?

Answer 8

75% of the participants conformed at least once
25 % didn’t conform at all

Question 9

Evaluate Asch’s study (A03)

Answer 9

• Lacks temporal validity - the senator of the time was threating communism - participants may have felt to voice there opinion
• Artificial and lacks ecological validity - wouldn’t be replicable in every day life as it was held in a lab- therefore we can not determine if conformity would happen in a natural setting
• -Further- The task is trivial so they are more likely to conform
• Low population validity- The participants only represented a small group of society- only undergraduate male - therefore the study doesn’t account for women doesn’t account for women

Study has Internal validity- as it was held in a lab- this means that the study results can be trusted and applied to other individuals

Question 10

What are the factors which affect conformity

Answer 10

Group Size - Highest conformity rate with a majority of 7- If the group size increased to past 9 conformity reduced- this might be because you might feel less pressure in a big group
Unamity- presence of another non conforming person would affect the naïve - a dissenting confederate reduced conformity- lack of unamity gave confidence
Task difficulty- the more difficult the task becomes the more likely to conform- Informational Social influence

Question 11

Describe Informational social influence

Answer 11

• It is the need to be right in a ambiguous situation as we look to others on how to behave.
• This leads to internalisation as the person changes there public and private views.

Question 12

Describe Normative social influence

Answer 12

• It is the need to be liked and accepted as they find being in the group rewarding
• This leads to compliances as the person changes their public behaviour but not their private behaviour

Question 13

Evaluate Informational Social Infleunce

Answer 13

Lucas et all (2006)- Gave people maths problems and increased the difficult of the maths questions
- They only conformed when the questions got harder the person conformed more
- this shows that they need to be right when a task gets difficult

Artificial conditions unnatural
- lacks ecological validity
- can’t say that people don’t conform for ISI every day

Question 14

Evaluate NSI

Answer 14

A strength of the Explanations ot Confomrity is that their is research support. In one of Asch variations he asked particiapants to write thier answers down. He found that many people conformed rather than give the correct asnwers becasue they were afraid of disapproval. He found the conformity fell by 12.5% when the answers where written down. This shows that at least some conformity is due to a desire not be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them

Question 15

Describe what ISI and NSI explanations disregards

Answer 15

• The explanations do not account for individual differrences
• 25 % didn’t conform - ISI and NSI don’t account

MCGHEE and TEEVAHAN came up with two descirptions of the people who conform or dont conform
* Internal loc- less likely to be affected
* N’afflaitor - need to be attentions seeking

Question 16

Describe Zimbardo’s Research

Answer 16

• 24 male students from a volunteer sample research were paid $15 a day to take part- (money could be incentive to act with the rules.)
• They were psychologically screened prior to the experiment. They did this to remove personality as a extraneous variables.
• There was a random allocation of roles and the mock prisoners were arrested from their homes
• They had uniform and process of deindivualisation i.e. sunglass and prison number
• Zimbardo played superintendent

Question 17

What were the findings of the Zimbardo’s Research

Answer 17

• The guards adapted to their roles quickly, within hours the guards began to harass prisoners- blasting whistles
• Prisoners soon adopted prison- like behaviour- prison talk such as ‘what they were in for’
• In 2 days the prisoners started to rebell and a result some were taken to solitary confinement
• The study ended early due to serve signs of psychological disturbance with 5 prisoners leaving early

Question 18

Whart Conclusion about Zimbardo’s research

Answer 18

In highly ambiguous situation people will conform to societal roles even if they know what they are doing is wrong

Question 19

Evaluate Zimbardo’s Experiment

Answer 19

However, A major strength of the SPF that is high of control. Psychological screening he removed personality as an extraneous variable. There was also random allocation & change into uniform which is the process of deindivualisation for example the prison numbers and the sunglasses

However, the SPE has been criticized as having a lack of realism due to its artificial nature. The participants knew it was experiment and volunteered to take part. The participants were being paid as well as it being in the basement of Stanford university it was in the basement of Stanford. There was also anecdotal evidence such as the prison guards were heard talking about the role they were going to impersonate

That being said, Zimbardo’s conclusions may be incomplete and too simplistic as they largely ignore the role of dispositional influences. He ignored the role of personality factors, this was seen as only a third of the guards behaved in a brutal manner. Therefore meaning that participants were conforming, may be overstated and dispositional and situational factors have to be taken into account

Question 20

Define obedience

Answer 20

A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not shown

Question 21

Outline & Describe Milligram Research

Answer 21

• Stanley Milgram (1963) conducted research to see if German people are more obedient and that they had an obedient personality trait
• They were 40 participants- all men ages from 20 to 50 of all varying jobs
• Participants were given $4.50 just for turning up and the ppts believed that they were participating in a memory and learning experiment
• Participants was always the teacher and the researcher was the confederate (lab coat)
• The researcher gave verbal probes as well as the learner (a confederate) who would scream in a separate room
• It was conducted at Yale- more valid as it is a professional institution
• The shocks went from 15 to 450

Question 22

Outline Milligrams findings

Answer 22

-25% of participants gave a shock of 300
- 65% gave the maximum shock of 450v
- 35% of participants showed disobedience
- Psychiatrists and psychology students predicted only 1% would continue after 240v

Question 23

Evaluate Milligram Research

Answer 23

Ethical issues - BAUMRIND argues that Milgram deceived his participants to believe to believe that the shocks they were delivering were real and that the allocation of the roles of ‘teacher’ and ‘learner; were random. Milgram criticised that it was necessary to lie to the participants initially as this was the only way to ensure natural behaviour. Presumptive consent was gained as he asked similar people their thoughts on the study

Lacks Internal validity and experiential realism - ORNE and HOLLAND argue that the participants in Milgram’s study behaved like they did because they believe the experimental set up. Milgram argued against it as he said that Milgram argued that the participants in the study believed the experimental procedure and the shocks were real because most of them showed obvious signs of Anxiety, Distressed discomfort

The research is high in reliability. The laboratory based experiment has been replicated many times and the high levels of obedience have been shown with other populations, across genders, in different eras and in different situations. In one study by Hofling et al, (1966) 21 out of 22 nurses broke hospital rules by preparing to administer twice the maximum dosage of a drug to a patient after receiving a phone call from an unknown doctor. This shows that the findings of the original research can be trusted and can be generalised to a wide range of situations, and populations, allowing us to make valid conclusions and predictions about obedience behaviour.

Question 24

What are the situational variables affecting obedience

Answer 24

• Proximity- In the proximity variation, the teacher and learner were in the same room and the condition obedience dropped to 40%- In a more dramatic version the teacher has to force the learner hand onto the electrified plate and obedience dropped to 30%. This is because the ppts can see the consequences of their actions
• Location - In another variation, Milgram changed the location of the study from yale to a run-down building- obedience feel to 47.5%- because in this location the researcher lab coat doesn’t have authority
• Uniform - The role of the experimenter was taken over by an ordinary member of the public who wore everyday clothes instead of a lab coat uniform- obedience dropped by 20%- this is because uniform affects people idea of a legitimate authority figure

Question 25

Evaluate the situational variables for Obedience

Answer 25

One strength is that other studies ahve demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience. In a field experiment in NYC, Bickman (1974) had three confederates dress in different outfits. The confederates individually stood in the street and asked passers- by to perform tasks such as picking up littler or handing over a coin. People were twice as likely to obey the assistant dressed as a security than the one dressed in jacket and tie. This supports the view that a situational variable, such as a uniform, does have a powerful effect on obedience

However, a weakness of Milgram’s research findings is that by supporting a situational explanation of obedience the perspective has been criticised by Mandel (1988) who argues that it offers an excuse or ‘alibi’ for evil behaviour. In his view, it is offensive to survivors of the Holocaust to suggest that the Nazis were simply obeying orders. Milgram’s explanations also ignores the role of dispositional factors (such as personality), implying that the Nazis were victims of situational factors beyond their control

Question 26

What are the Situational explanations for obedience?

Answer 26

1. Agentic State- Milgram suggested that the Solider/Nazis experienced a shift from the AUTONOMOUS state to an AGENTIC state where they feel no personal responsibility for their action (through binding factors as they allow a person to ignore or minimise the damaging effects of their obedience actions). People obey because they feel that they are an AGENT of another person ( An AGENT Is someone who acts in place of another) - They feel as if the person they are being obedient of is a Legitimate authority figure

This is done through:
* Graduated COMMITMENT - this is where orders/ tasks start small and gradually increase. This contributes to obedience because small order get you hooked to obedience; milligram done this by starting off with small shocks
* Buffers- there are aspect which create a real or perceived psychological or psychical distance between the person following orders- Milgram used a psychical buffer -the wall

2. Legitimacy Authority Figure- -Most societies are structed in a Hierarchical way, meaning some people hold Authority over others. Policeman, teachers etc have Legitimate authority. This means that people are more likely to obey people whom they perceive to be LEGITAMATE AUTHORITY FIGURES and have the power to punish.

Question 27

Evaluate the situational explanations of obedience

Answer 27

There is also research evidence to support the roles of both location and uniform in obedience. Bickman (1974) found that 92% of pedestrians obeyed an order to give a stranger money for a parking metre when the person giving the order was dressed as a security guard, compared to only 49% when he was dressed in ordinary clothes, supporting the view that wearing a uniform leads to increased obedience. Both of these factors can be linked to the concept of legitimate authority. A uniform, or a prestigious location and the status associated with it, both increase the impression of legitimacy of the authority figure and, in turn, increase obedience.

One limitation is that the agentic shift doesn’t explain many research findings about obedience. For example, It does not explain the findings of Rank and Jacobson’s (1977) study. They found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient. The doctor was an obvious authority figure. But almost all the nurses remained autonomous, as did many of Milgram’s participants. This suggests that, at best, the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience

Question 28

Outline the dispositional explanaiton for obdience

Answer 28

Adorno was one of the first psychologists to suggest that obedience could be due to a person having a certain personality, what he called an AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

To measure an authoritarian personality, ADORNO developed the ‘F-SCALE’ questionnaire. He argued people with an authoritarian personality possess a number of distinct traits, an are PRE-DISPOSED towards fascist including- including extreme respect of authority figures, strong favouritism of their own ethnic group. ADORNO found out that people with AP are more likely to be OBIDENT TO FIGURES OF AUTHORITY which could be due to harsh parenting as a child

Clinical interviews found out that people with AP stems from harsh parenting, involving strict discipline, impossibly high standards and severe criticism of failings. They would experience resentment and hostility to their parents. However these feelings cannot be expressed directly towards the parents therefore the feelings are repressed into the child’s unconscious

Question 29

Outline Adorno et al Research into the dispositional explanation for obdience

Answer 29

Procedure
* Adorno et al. (1950) developed a questionnaire called the F-Scale (fascist scale) to test whether someone had an authoritarian personality. He studied more than 2000 middle-class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
* Some examples from the F-Scale are:
Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn
Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished

Findings
* Those who scored high on the F-Scale identified with strong people, had contempt for the weak, admired high-status individuals and exhibited ‘black and white’ views. There were strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice

Question 30

Evaluate the dispositional explanation for obedience

Answer 30

One strength is evidence for Milgram supporting the Authoritarian Personality. Milgram, together with Alan Elms, interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in the original obedience studies and been fully obedient. They all completed the F-scale as part of the interview. These 20 obedient participants scored significantly higher on the overall F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants. The two groups were clearly quite different in terms of authoritarianism. This finding supports Adorno et al’s view that obedient people may well show similar characteristics to people who have an Authoritarian Personality.

One limitation is that authoritarianism cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country’s population. For example, in pre-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient and anti-Semitic behaviour. This was despite the fact that they must have differed in their personalities. It seems extremely unlikely that they could all possess an Authoritarian Personality. An alternative view is that the majority of the German people identified with the antisemitic Nazi state, and scapegoated the ‘outgroup’ of jews, a social identify theory approach. Therefore Adorno’s theory is limited because an alternative explanation is much more realistic

Another limitation is that the F-scale only measures the tendency towards an extreme form of right-wing ideology. Christie and Jahoda (1954) argued that the F-scale is a politically-biased interpretation of Authoritarian Personality. They point out the reality of left-wing authoritarianism in the shape of Russian Bolshevism or Chinese Maoism. In fact, extreme right-wing and left-wing ideologies have a lot in common. This means Adorno’s theory is not a comprehensive dispositional explanation that accounts for obedience to authority across the whole political spectrum

Question 31

Explain why there are explanations of resistance to social influence

Answer 31

35% of participants in Milgram’s study did not fully obey and actually most people in Asch’s study did not conform.
They fall in two categories- Situational explanations and Dispositional explanations

Question 32

Outline the situational explanaitons of Soical support as a resistance to soical support

Answer 32

Resisting conformity - The pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people who are not conforming. We saw this in Asch research, the people who is not conforming does not have to be giving the correct answers, rather simply just opposing the majority group. A dissenting non conformist sows other people that they too don’t have to conform

Resisting obedience - Social support also helps people resist obedience as the pressure to obey is reduced if there is a either person who is sent to disobey. In one of Milgram’s variations, obedience dropped by 65% to 10% if the real participants was joined by disobedient confederate. Some psychologists argue the presence of a disobedient individual removes a person from an agentic state as itmake them question the obedient behaviour

Question 33

What is dispositional explanation for a resistance to social influence

Answer 33

• ROTTER proposed the idea of the locus of control- personality continuum that is concerned with what people believe directs the events of their lives. A person’s locus of control is measured on a continuum
• INTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL- who believe that the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves
• HIGH EXTENRAL LOCUS OF CONTROL- who believe that the things that happen to them are out of their control

Question 34

Evaluate the explanations of resistance to social influence

Answer 34

There is plenty of research evidence that shows that both situational factors can lead to resistance to social influence. ALLEN AND LEVINE (1971) found that conformity decreased when there was a dissenter in an Asch-type conformity producer. This occurred if the dissenter wore thicker glasses and said he had difficulty with his vison. However, the study also showed that soical support does not alwasy help. This is because when the dissenter had obviously poor eyesight (thick glassess) resistance was only 36%.

There is a strength of research evidence to support the link between LOC and reistance to obedience. HOLLAND (1967)- repeated Milgram’s bassline study, but additionally measured the locus of control of the participants. he found that 37% of people with a high INTERNAL LOC did not obey and continue it the highest shock whereas only 23% of externals did not obey. This shows that resistance is at least partly related to LOC, which increases the validlity of LOC as an explanation of disobedience

Locus of control is measured using questionnaire, these may not be completed accurately as pole may feel pressured to give certain response (demand characteristics: social desirability) therefore the questionnaire may not accurately reflect a persons actual loc which reduces the validity of the dispositional explanations

Question 35

Define minority influence

Answer 35

When a minority of people influences others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes, behaviours

This is distinct from conformity where the majority is influencing and thus conformity is sometimes called the majority influence. In both cases the people being influenced may be just one person, a small group or a large group of people. Minority influence is most likely to lead to internalisation - both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed by the process

Question 36

Outline minority influence

Answer 36

Moscovici (1969) found there were three main processes of minority influence. These are:

Consistency
* The minority has to be consistent in their views as this increases the amount of interest from others and gets people to start to rethink their own opinions. This is due to types of consistency:
Synchronic consistency: They’re all saying the same thing
Diachronic consistency: They’ve been saying the same thing for a long period of time

Commitment
* The minority has to show full commitment to their views and show this through their actions, which can be extreme in some cases taking part in extreme actions or having extreme views makes the majority think that the minority group must truly believe what they are doing. This then may cause them to rethink their own opinions. This is called the argumentation principle

Flexibility
* The minority has to be able to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter opinions, the minority have to be able to have a balance between both consistency and flexibility. They cannot be dogmatic in their views. The three factors, consistency, commitment and flexibility, make people think about the minority cause

Question 37

Evaluate minority influence

Answer 37

A strength of this is that there is research support for consistency. Moscovici’s ‘blue slide, green slide’ study showed that a consistent minority group had a greater effect on changing the views of others. Wood (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were being consistent were most influential. This suggests that being consistent is the minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a majority.

Another strength is evidence showing that a change in a majority’s position does involve deeper processing. Martin et al. (2003) presented a message and measured the participants’ agreement. One group of participants heard a minority group agree with the initial view, while another group heard a majority agree with the view. People were less willing to change if they had listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority. This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect.

However, research studies make clear distinctions between the majority and minority. Doing this in a controlled way is a strength. But real life situations are more complicated. In the real world, majorities have more power and a higher status than minorities. Minorities are very committed to their cause, this is because they face a very hostile opposition. Therefore, Martin et al’s findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real world situations.

Question 38

Define social change

Answer 38

When whole societies, rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things.

Question 39

Outline the process of social change

Answer 39

1. Minority influence challenges dominant ideologies- e.g. Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage
2. MINORITY behaves CONSISTENTLY to draw attention- e.g. Fawcett argued consistently for women’s rights in parliament and led some peaceful protests
3. Other people take notice and conform cease they agree - e.g. People (including Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison) noticed Fawcett’s protests. Suffragette group formed
4. Augmentation principle- e.g. Extreme acts to draw attention to plight – Pankhurst disrupted meetings, attacked politicians, hunger strikes, went to prison… Davison…
5. Snowball effect- e.g. People noticed, momentum grew - more people joined the suffragettes
6. Social Cryptoamneisa- People recognise the suffragettes but forget Fawcett and the NUWS
7. Social change - Representation of peoples act 1918 – Women given right to vote

Question 40

Evaluate Social Change

Answer 40

There is research support for the role of majority influence in social change. Nolan et al (2008) hung messages on the front doors of houses in San Diego, California that either told them that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage, or asked them to reduce their energy usage, but made no reference to other residents. Nolan found significant decreases in energy usage in the first group only. This implies that residents were more willing to change their habits if they believed a majority of others had done so too, and thus demonstrated how majority influence can play a part in bringing about social change.

The theory of the snowball effect helps us to understand how minority and majority influence work together to bring about social change. According to Moscovici, minority and majority influences are thought to work through different processes. Minority influence involves individuals being persuaded away from the majority, and therefore is more likely to result in internalisation, whereas majority influence is more associated with normative social influence and compliance, in other words, changing your behaviour and attitudes to fit in. This means that in the early stages of social change we can expect to see true conversion as members of the majority are genuinely persuaded away from their former view or behaviour. However, once a tipping point is reached, the minority then becomes the majority and we can expect others to follow to avoid social disapproval. This can explain why the process is slow to begin with, but gathers momentum as more people shift towards the minority position.