Paper 1- Social influence Part 1

Question 1

List some examples of who/what impacts upon an individuals behaviour

Answer 1

social media
government 
family(nurture)
Society that they live in 
culture 
role models (celebrities)
Religion/beliefs
friends/peer groups
leaders/teachers
finance
personality 
life experiences

Question 2

What is conformity defined as?

Answer 2

yielding to group pressure

Question 3

When does conformity occur?

Answer 3

individuals behaviour and or beliefs are influenced by a larger group of people

Question 4

What is conformity often known as?

Answer 4

Majority influence

Question 5

When can conformity be a negative force?

Answer 5

When it reduces a persons independence and leads to harmful outcomes

Question 6

What is the usual outcome of conformity? Explain

Answer 6

Positive
Helps society to function without anything bad and predictable
Individuals need to agree in order for groups to form as human activity is socially based

Question 7

Who referenced 3 types of conformity?

Answer 7

Kelman

Question 8

What are the 3 types of conformity?

Answer 8

Identification
Compliance
Internalisation

Question 9

What is compliance?

Answer 9

When individuals adjust their behaviour and opinions to those of a group to be accepted or avoid disapproval

Question 10

What kind of conformity is compliance?

Answer 10

Temporary, weak form; only occurs when present within group

Question 11

When and why does compliance occur?

Answer 11

Due to a desire to fit in and involves public, not private acceptance of groups behaviour and attitudes.
May be out of the fear of rejection

Question 12

What is internalisation?

Answer 12

Individuals actually adjust their behaviour and opinions to those of the group

Question 13

What kind of conformity is internalisation?

Answer 13

Long lasting

occurs public-ally and privately

Question 14

What does internalisation involve?

Answer 14

Individuals being exposed to the belief systems of others and having to decide what they believe in.
Public and private acceptance of groups behaviours and opinions will occur if the beliefs are seen as correct

Question 15

What is identification?

Answer 15

When individuals adjust their behaviour and opinions to those of the group, because membership of group is desirable

Question 16

What kind of conformity is identification?

Answer 16

Strong
private and public acceptance
Temporar as it is not maintained when no longer part of the group

Question 17

Give an example of identification.

Answer 17

In the army you may adopt the behaviour and beliefs of fellow soldiers, but when you leave the army for a civilian life, new behaviours and options are adopted

Question 18

Explain informal social influence as an explanation for conformity

Answer 18

We as humans require the need to feel confident about whether our ideas and beliefs are correct. For informational social influence, this is motivation.
If we are in an unfamiliar situation, we will look to other people as we believe what they are doing is right or they are better than us.

When we conform due to informal social influence, we tend to believe the opinions that we have adopted. This is due to us being uncertain on what we believe, so we look to other people and become converted to their view point

Question 19

Who carried out a study into informational social facilitation? When did they carry this out?

Answer 19

Arthur Jennes in 1920

Question 20

Wha was their aim?

Answer 20

To investigate whether individuals judgement of jellybeans in a jar was influenced by discussion in a group

Question 21

What type of experiment was Arthur Jennese?

Answer 21

Controlled as it was a lab experiment

Question 22

Explain how Arthur Jenness carried out his experiment into informational social facilitation

Answer 22

1- Private and individually pmts estimated no. of jellybeans in jar
2- ppts discussed estimates in a larger/smaller group. saw that people estimated differently
MANIPULATION OCCURS AS RESEARCHERS MADE SURE THAT AT LEAST 1 PERSON IN GROU HAD MAJORLY DIFFERENT ANSWER
3- once discussion was over, group estimates were made
4-Individually and privately, individuals made another estimate

Question 23

What were the findings of the study into informational social influence?

Answer 23

Most pmts second estimate tented to converge, move closer, to group estimate
Among females, the average change in opinion was greater

Question 24

What conclusion can be drawn up about the study?

Answer 24

Judgements of individuals is affected by majority opinions, especially in ambiguous/ unfamiliar situations. In changing opinion, discussion is not effective, unless the individual entering the discussion, becomes aware that the opinion of others are different to theirs

Question 25

Evaluate Jennesses study in 1932

Answer 25

Deception was less severe than other studies on this topic even though the pmts did not know the aim

Lacks ecological validity as it takes place in a lab under artificial, unusual situations. Not an everyday event so it cannot reflect behaviour that would occur in real life situations

Question 26

Name the second explanation of conformity

Answer 26

Normative social influence

Question 27

Explain the second explanation of conformity

Answer 27

When individuals want others to like and respect them and not reject or ridicule them. The motivation underpinning normative social influence which is the need to be accepted by others.
Best way to gain acceptance is agreeing with the group. But, this does not mean that we truly agree with them

Question 28

Who carried out aa study into normative social influence ?

Answer 28

Solomon Asch

Question 29

What did Asch start by doing in 1951?

Answer 29

A series of experiments, publishing progress

Question 30

What was Asch’s aim?

Answer 30

Investigate the degree to which individuals would conform to a majority who gave obviously wrong answers

Question 31

What did Asch find?

Answer 31

Control group had error rate of 0.04% showing how obvious correct answers were

Out of 12 critical trails, 32% conformity rate to wrong answers

75% of ppts conformed to at least 1 wrong answer

25% of ppts did not conform

5% of pmts conformed to 12 wrong answers

Question 32

Explain Asch’s experiment

Answer 32

123 male American students volunteered to take part in, visual perception. Placed individuals in groups of 7-9 confederates. Had to compare lines and say which one matched 18 trails

12 trails the confederates gave the same wrong answers and the individual ppt was always second to last or last to answers

Control group was also set up 36 individually tested ppts on 20 trails, to test how accurate individual judgements were

Question 33

What did Asch do after his experiment and what did he find for reasons for conformity?

Answer 33

He carried out interviews with his pmts and found that the were 3 reasons for conformity;

1. DISTORTION OF ACTION- majority of pmts conformed publicly and not privately as they did not want to be seen as different
2. DISTORTION OF PERCEPTION- some pmts beloved what they thought was wrong so conformed with others
3. DISTORTION OF JUDGEMENT- some pmts had doubts concerning the accuracy of the judgements so conformed to the majority view

Question 34

What was the conclusion of Asch’s experiment?

Answer 34

Individuals judgement is affected by majority opinions, even when the majority are obviously wrong.
Big individual differences in the amount to which people are affected by majority influence. As most pmts conformed publicly, but not privately, it suggests that they were motivated by normative social influence, where individuals conform to gain acceptance or avoid rejection by a group

Question 35

What is the advantages of Asch’s study?

Answer 35

His method became a paradigm- accepted way of conducting conformity research

Question 36

What are the disadvantages of Asch’s research ?

Answer 36

UNECONOMICAL + TIME CONSUMING- one ppt is tested at a time
LACK MUNDANE REALISM- would be unusual to be in situation where you would disagree so much with others as to what the correct answer was
UNETHICAL- involves deceit, pmts beloved it was study of visual perception. Also included psychological harm as pmts were under stress through disagreeing with others

Question 37

What are the 2 categories of variables and factors affecting conformity?

Answer 37

Situational variables

Dispositional variables

Question 38

What are the situational variables affecting conformity ?

Answer 38

Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty

Question 39

What are situational variables ?

Answer 39

Qualities of an environment that influence the levels of conformity- which have an influence over the degree to which individuals conform

Question 40

What are the dispositional factors that may affect conformity?

Answer 40

Confidence

Expertise

Question 41

Explain what group size refers to as a situational variable ?

Answer 41

Number of members within a social group

Question 42

Explain what task difficulty refers to as a situational variable

Answer 42

How obvious the correct answer or decision is when regarding a task

Question 43

Explain what unanimity refers to as a situational variable

Answer 43

To what degree the group members are in agreement with each other

Question 44

Explain what researchers found in terms of group size in Asch’s variation of procedure

Answer 44

Conformity rates increase as the size of a majority influence increases, but there comes a point where further increases in the size of the majority doesn’t lead to further increase in conformity

Question 45

Explain what Asch found about group size in the variation of his procedure

Answer 45

1 real ppt and 1 confederate conformity was low
2 confederates it was 13% and with 3 it was 32%
So, adding any more confederates had no further effect on conformity rate

Question 46

What has research suggested about unanimity?

Answer 46

Conformity rates have found to decline when majority influence is not unamaious. The important factor though would seem to be the reduction in the majority’s agreement, rather than an individual being given support for their opinions, as conformity drops if a rebel goes against the majority who don’t support the rebels viewpoint

Question 47

Explain the results of Asch’s research into unanimity

Answer 47

He found that if there was one confederate who went against the other confederates, conformity dropped from around 32% to 5.5% but if the rebel went against both the other confederates and the real ppts, conformity still dropped to 9%

Question 48

What is suggested about task difficulty?

Answer 48

Greater conformity rates are seen when the task difficulty increases, as the right answer becomes less obvious. This means that individuals will look to others more for guidance as to what the correct response is, suggesting that information social influence is the dominant force.

Question 49

What did Asch find in his vacation of experiment for task difficulty?

Answer 49

He increase task difficult by making the comparison lines similar to each other, finding that when he did so, ppts were more likely to conform to wrong answers, this demonstrating the effect of task difficult on conformity.