Social

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

When someone’s behaviour or thinking changes
because of group pressure. The pressure might be
real or imagined.

Question 2

What was Asch’s aim?

Answer 2

To investigate how people respond to group pressure.

Question 3

What was Asch’s Method?

Answer 3

Asch used 123 American male students in his research
who believed they were taking part in a different
experiment.
The participant was sat in a room with 6-8 confederates.
The group were then shown two cards. One had a
‘standard’ line and the other had three ‘comparison’ lines.
On each trial, the men were asked to say whether line A, B or C was the same as the standard line.
The confederates were told to give the wrong answer,
even their answers were clearly wrong (unambiguous).

Question 4

What were Asch’s results?

Answer 4

The participants gave a wrong answer 36.8% of the time.

75% of participants conformed at least once.

Question 5

What was Asch’s conclusion?

Answer 5

People are influenced by group pressure, even when the task involves giving a wrong answer. People can resist conformity though.

Question 6

Evaluate Asch’s study

Answer 6

Asch’s research only used males. This is a weakness because the research doesn’t represent how females would have responded. We can’t generalise the results to females.

Asch’s research only used Americans. This is a weakness because the research doesn’t represent how other nationalities would have responded. We can’t generalise the results to the wider population just because Americans behave in a certain way.

Question 7

What social (environmental) factors make us conform?

Answer 7

GROUP SIZE
The more people there are in a group, the greater
the pressure to conform to their opinion

ANONYMITY
When Asch give his participants anonymity (i.e.
write down your answer instead of saying out
loud), conformity rates decreased because you
don’t feel the pressure to conform from the
group.

TASK DIFFICULTY
As the task difficulty increases, the answer
becomes less obvious and people feel less
confident about their answer so they look to
others for the right answer.

Question 8

What dispositional (personality) factors make us conform?

Answer 8

PERSONALITY
Someone with an external locus of control
believes that they do not influence the things
that happen to them. Someone with an internal
locus of control believes that they do influence
the things that happen to them.

In terms of conformity, people with external
LOCs were more likely to agree with the group
pressure whereas internal LOCs are more likely
to resist the group pressure and stick to their
own answer

EXPERTISE
Your intelligence increases your confidence in
your opinions and knowledge so people with
greater expertise are less likely to conform to
group pressure. One researcher found that if
someone felt good at maths, they would be less
likely to agree with incorrect answers.

Question 9

What is the definition of obedience?

Answer 9

Following orders from an authority figure (i.e.

police, teachers).

Question 10

What was the aim of Milgram’s experiment into obedience?

Answer 10

To see whether a normal person would give another

person a lethal electric shock if told to do so

Question 11

What was the procedure of Milgram’s experiment into obedience?

Answer 11

40 male volunteers (20-50yrs) were told they were
taking part in memory research.
They were paid for their time.
The teacher (the participant) was told by the
experimenter (actor) to give the learner (actor) shocks
every time the learner got the answer wrong.
The fake electric shocks started at 15v and went up to
450v (lethal).

Question 12

What were the results of Milgram’s experiment into obedience?

Answer 12

100% of people went to 300v
65% of people went to 450v
Three participants had seizures (fits) caused by
stress.

Question 13

What were the conclusions of Milgram’s experiment into obedience?

Answer 13

People will listen to an authority figure if they believe
they aren’t responsible for the consequences. People
obeyed because of the location, the pressure and the
situation was new to them.

Question 14

What is the agency theory of obedience?

Answer 14

We obey because we are acting as an
agent for an authority figure.

AUTONOMOUS STATE
Autonomous state is when people behave according to
their own principles and feels responsible for their actions.

AGENTIC STATE
Agentic state is where people act on behalf of someone else and therefore follow their orders. They don’t feel responsible for their actions.

Question 15

Evaluate the Agency theory of obedience

Answer 15

The agency theory explains why atrocities such as
the Holocaust happened. This is a strength because
the theory has real life application, it helps us explain
society.

Hofling found that nurses would administer double
the maximum dose of a drug because of orders from
a doctor on the phone. This is a strength because it
shows how people obey to authority like the theory
states.

Question 16

What is the authoritarian personality?

Answer 16

A person who is easily influenced by authority.
They follow people above them but are hostile
to people below them. They may have
experienced harsh parenting as a child.

Question 17

How do people with an authoritarian personality think?

Answer 17

They think in ‘black and white’ – something is either
good or bad. They don’t see that people can be
different. They believe in rigid stereotypes that all men
are bullies and all women are emotional.

Question 18

What do authoritarian people experience in childhood?

Answer 18

The authoritarian personality is developed when a child
experiences strict parenting and extremely high
standards of achievement. They offer conditional love
(the child only receives love if they behave correctly).
The child internalises these values and expects
everyone to behave like this and develops hostility
towards their parents.

Question 19

What is meant by displacement or scapegoating (for the person with an authoritarian personality) ?

Answer 19

They need to displace their anger onto something else to relieve anxiety and hostility.

People with an authoritarian personality displace their feelings onto those socially inferior to them

Question 20

Evaluate the theory of authoritarian personality and obedience

Answer 20

The authoritarian theory can give people who
follow destructive orders an excuse for their behaviour. This is a weakness because it allows people to think they aren’t responsible for their actions.

Adorno believed that the authoritarian personality is caused by strict parents but other researchers say that it is caused by lack of education. This is a weakness because there are researchers who disagree with
Adorno

Question 21

What is bystander behaviour?

Answer 21

The idea that the presence of others
reduces the likelihood of help being
offered in an emergency.

Question 22

What is prosocial behaviour?

Answer 22

Actions that are beneficial to other
people, helping society such as helping an
old lady cross the street

Question 23

What was the aim of Piliavin’s study into prosocial behaviour?

Answer 23

To see whether the appearance of a victim

impacts whether they receive help or not.

Question 24

What was the method of Piliavin’s study into prosocial behaviour?

Answer 24

The victim (confederate) fell over on a subway
in NYC. The participants were the people on the
subway and they were observed to see whether
the victim was helped or not.

Question 25

What were the results of Piliavin’s study into prosocial behaviour?

Answer 25

When the victim appeared disabled, he was
helped 95% of the time. When he appeared
drunk, he was helped 50% of the time.
People offered help quicker when the victim
was disabled in comparison to drunk.

Question 26

What was the conclusion of Piliavin’s study into prosocial behaviour?

Answer 26

The appearance of a victim influences whether

they receive help or not.

Question 27

Evaluate Piliavin’s study into prosocial behaviour

Answer 27

The study took place in a natural setting (on a
NYC subway). This is a strength because the
participants’ behaviour would have been as
close to real life as possible and there would
be no demand characteristics.

The participants were unaware their behaviour was being observed. This is a weakness because the participants couldn’t give their consent to take part in the research otherwise it would have ruined it so
the researchers broke ethical guidelines

Question 28

What social (environmental) factors lead us to help others?

Answer 28

PRESENCE OF OTHERS
The more people there are, the less likely we are going to help. We believe that someone else is going to
help so we should just ignore the situation.

COST OF HELPING
The cost of helping includes possible danger to yourself (i.e. helping a drunk person) and the effort/time it takes to help someone. On the other hand, not helping might make you feel guilty. All of these influence whether we are likely to help. We also think
about the rewards of helping (such as feeling good about it or money).

Question 29

What dispositional (personality) factors lead us to help others?

Answer 29

SIMILARITY TO VICTIM
We are more likely to help people who share
similar characteristics to us (i.e. same
gender, same race, same religion…)

EXPERTISE
Someone with special knowledge (i.e.
medical) will be more likely to help in an
emergency as they know what to do and feel
more confident in helping.

Question 30

What is the definition of deindividuation/crowd behaviour?

Answer 30

An individual loses their identity and takes on the identity of a group. This makes them more likely to be antisocial as they are at less risk of being identified and ‘everyone else’ is doing it!

Question 31

What was the aim of Zimbardo’s study into crowd behaviour?

Answer 31

To see whether deindividuation impacts

whether someone hurts someone.

Question 32

What was the method of Zimbardo’s study into crowd behaviour?

Answer 32

Zimbardo copied Milgram’s electric shock
study but changed a few parts:
All the participants were female.
Group 1 – participants wore their own clothes
and had large name tags on. Group 2 –
participants wore a large coat and a hood that
hid their face.

Question 33

What were the results of Zimbardo’s study into crowd behaviour?

Answer 33

Participants in group 2 were more likely to
give the learner a shock because they didn’t
feel responsible for their actions.

Question 34

What was the conclusion of Zimbardo’s study into crowd behaviour?

Answer 34

Anonymity and deindividuation increases the

likelihood that people will act antisocially.

Question 35

Evaluate Zimbardo’s study into crowd behaviour

Answer 35

A weakness of Zimbardo’s research is that the
participants were volunteers. This is a weakness
because Zimbardo would have ended up with
extroverts who are willing to take part in
research. We can’t say for certain that other
personality types would react in the same way.

A weakness of Zimbardo’s research is that it
only used female participants. This is a
weakness because we cannot generalise the
findings to males. We cannot say that males
would have reacted in the same way. The study
is gynocentric.

Question 36

What social (environmental) factors make us change in a group?

Answer 36

SOCIAL LOAFING
We behave differently in a group when it comes to a task. If we are doing a group task, we will put less effort in than if we were doing the task by ourselves.

CULTURE
Our culture influences whether we change behaviour or not. Individualistic cultures (UK, Germany) are used to being independent whereas collectivist cultures (China, Japan) are used to working in groups. This means people who live in collectivist cultures are
less likely to change their behaviours in a
group because they are used to it.

Question 37

What dispositional (personality) factors make us change in a group?

Answer 37

PERSONALITY
People with in internal LOC are less likely to change their behaviour within a group as they are independent and have their own
rules

MORALS
People with greater morals will be less likely to change their behaviour in a group because they are concerned about others