Social Flashcards
What was Milgram’s experiment inspired by?
Inspired by Nazi war, want to test if ordinary people would do similar things. Milgram’s students predicted only 1% would obey.
Obedience study aim
If participants would obey from authority that’s against their morals.
Create baseline data to be compare with later variations.
What’s was the IV and DC?
No IV as it was a structured observation.
DV, obedience score.
Procedure
Lab experiment.
Participants were told it was a memory study.
Milgram’s watched through a 1 way mirror.
Participants felt a 45V at the start.
Fake coin toss.
Goes but by 15V for every wrong answer.
Tape recorded responses.
What was the sample?
40 male participants aged 20-50
Volunteer sampling.
Paid $4 for turning up.
What was the 4 prods?
Please continue.
The experiment requires that you continue.
It’s absolutely essential that you continue.
You have no other choice but to go on.
Findings
Participants were more obedient until 300V.
Between 300-375V, 14 dropped out.
Qualitative data, 14 showed nervous laughter.
Conclusion
Ordinary people would obey in the right situations.
What was variation 7?
Sample of 40 women.
65% obedience.
No gender differences.
What was variation 10?
Run down office block.
Obedience dropped to 19.
Participants showed more doubts.
What was variation 13?
Ordinary authority figure.
Fake participants suggested to go up to 15V every time answer is wrong.
4/20 wen up to 450V.
16 rebel participants watch someone deliver shocks.
All protested.
People more willing to be bystanders than to intervene.
Obedience study generalizability
Large sample but all male from same culture.
Time locked.
Volunteer sampling.
Tested a total of 780.
Variation 8 tested women.
Meeus and Raaijmakers, 92% obedience in Netherlands but used insults.
Reliability
Can be replicated eg his variations and Burger.
Standardized procedure.
Perry argue Milgram’s didn’t follow standardized procedure, not strict with prods.
Application
Enhance obedience.
Explains My Lai massacre.
Tragedies can be prevented.
Validity
Lack ecological validity.
Some argue participants were acting.
Perry, Milgram’s twisted data in variation 8, experimenter not letting withdraw after 4 prods as both gender should experience agentic state in his theory.
Claimed the drop to 47.5% in variation 10 were not sig but a difference of 17.5% is usually sig.
Ethics
Deception, can’t be conducted if knew the aim.
Debrief, checked they were in good state, 40 interviewed by a psychiatrist a year later.
Define autonomous state
We perceive ourselves to be responsible for our own actions.
Define age tic state.
We perceive ourselves to be the agent of someone so they will be responsible for our actions.
Define moral strains
We have 2 contradictory urges, to obey authority or conscience.
Ways people avoid
Denial
Avoidance
Degree of involvement
Helping the learner
Agency theory credibility
His variations support situational factors affect obedience but disposition Al factor like gender don’t.
Burger supported conclusion, proven not rime locked.
Objections
Moral strain only showed by obeyed participants.
Lack ecological validity.
Menus and Raaijmakers replicated with insults.
Differences
Social impact theory claim everyone applies social force to get what they want, similar to agentic state. Both assume people are passive.
Adorno (1950), obedience to evil orders come from a dysfunctional personality, not social situations.
Application
Always danger to blind obedience so society try hold authority to account through democracy, not too much power, prevent tragedies.
Who developed Social impact theory?
Latane (1981), every person is potentially a source or target.
What are the 3 laws of behavior?
Social force
Psychological law
Divisions of impact.
What’s social force?
Pressure make people change behavior.
Generated by persuasion, threat etc.
Strengths-how much power you believe the person influencing you has.
Immediacy-how recent and close the influence is.
Numbers-more people telling you to do something. More social force.
What’s psychological law?
First source of influence has the most influence
What’s divisions of impact?
If force is directed at 1 person then puts extra pressure and more responsibility.
Social impact theory credibility
Sedikides and Jackson, people show more obedience when they were wearing uniform (strength), more people begun to ignore instruction (immediacy) and the larger the proud the more obedience (divisions of impact).
Explained classic studies that seem unrelated.
Latane et al, developed dynamic SIT to pat attention to how minorities and majorities influence each other.
Objections
Pays too much attention on person giving the order.
Treats people as passive.
Differences
Agency theory too simplistic, no evidence of the shift between mental state, there’re other situational factors.
Agency theory explain some better eg situations also put pressure and moral strain.
Applications
Use of formula to calculate impact allow us to predict events.
Shows why some repressive gov try to stop people use social media and gather public meeting.
Define prejudice and discrimination
Prejudice
Attitude to certain group or person due to group membership, usually neg.
Discrimination
People are treated different due to group membership, can be covert or overt.
Who developed Social identity theory?
Tajfel (1970)
What’re the 3 processes where we eva as one of us or them?
Social categorization.
Social identification.
Social comparisons.
What’s social categorization?
Categorize a person to a group.
Doesn’t have to have conflict.
Can lead to ingroup favoritism and outgroup bias.
What’s social identification?
Process following categorization.
Individuals adopt ingroup identity.
Self esteem is bounded with ingroup membership.
What’s social comparison?
Self esteem determined by how we see our group.
Gain knowledge by comparing with other group.
Comparisons is subjective.
Both competing identities and resources, create hostility.
Social identity theory credibility
Breakwell, people who didn’t go to games showed most bias as they want to prove they’re fans.
Levin, football fans more likely help stranger who tripped than if they wear opposing team clothing.
Supported by minimal group study.
Explains why discrimination occur even outgroup have no threat and competition.
Objections
Adolescent boys may be naturally competitive.
Fail to explain individual differences. Postmes et al, individual characteristics create a social identity, not social identity create characteristics.
Western explanation, individualist culture.
Differences
Realistic conflict theory, fighting over limited resources create prejudice, social identity theory, group formation cause prejudice.
All school boys used in both studies.
Application
Explains real life events eg genocide in Rwanda.
Can bring people together by encouraging people to see themselves as ingroup.
Minimal group experiment aim
Minimal circumstances that would make 2 groups become prejudicial towards one another.
What was he sample?
64 British school boys aged 14-15
What was the IV and DV?
IV, group membership of boys.
DV, points awarded.
Procedure
Lab experiment.
Estimate dots on a screen and told they were either over or under estimator.
Assign point to pair of boys.
Boys were referred by a code, only know if they were in or outgroup.
Shown matrices
Findings
Boys allocate point on basis of group membership regardless of the accuracy.
Pick the pair of scores that had greatest difference.
Conclusion
Group formation automatically cause boys to treat outgroup differently.
What was the hypothesis of minimal group experiment?
Boys aged 14-15 will award sig greater number of point to ingroup.
Minimal group study generalizability
Individual differences, more competitive individuals likely to show ingroup favoritism.
Cultural differences.
Unequal groups in society eg status.
Low self esteem should show more bias due to social comparisons but only 13/19 researches support this.
Minimal group study strengths
Replicated by Dobbs and Crano, when ingroup had to give reasons for point allocation, favoritism remained but when they had to justify discrimination to outgroup, favoritism inc.
Supported by studies with ecological validity, Lalonde, failing hockey team call the other team played dirty.
Who developed Realistic conflict theory?
Sherif (1966)
What does Realistic conflict theory claim?
Prejudice caused by competition over scarce resources.
Conflict only occur if they had equal status.
0 sum.
How long conflict last depend on scarcity of resources.
RCT credibility
Sharif’s study (1961), inter group bias develop through competition.
Brewer and Campbell, African tribes rated ingroup more favorable, degree of hostility depend on the closeness of tribes.
Objections
Sample from same background.
Ethnocentric.
Differences
SIT, prejudice is due to group formation.
SIT, prejudice is inevitable. RCT, created by competition and reduce by superordinate goal.
Applications
Explain behavior in Rwanda and prejudice against Jews explained by appealing to economic depression Germany suffered after WW1.
Dollard, no obvious prejudice against German immigrants to US but started appear due to job oppor.
Individual differences and obediences
Authoritarian personality.
Locus of control.
Gender and obedience
Women are more obedient than men.
Moral reasoning
Why are women more obedient than men?
All female participants delivered shocks to a live puppy but only 54% male obey.
Women showed massive distress and male were more defiant.
Kilham and Mann replicated Milgram, 28% obedient rate, 40% fully obedient, 16% female so male more obedient.
What’s moral reasoning in terms of gender and obedience?
Male guided by ethics of justice, female by ethic of care..
Expect male to be more obedient due to feelings of obligation to authority.
Female less obedient due to desire to support.
Male show high obedience due to scientific goal in Milgram’s study.
Culture and obedience
Individualism and collectivism
Power distance index (PDI)
What PDI in terms of culture and obedience?
How accepting people are of hierarchal order and inequality in society.
High PDI culture, inferiors expect to be told what to do.
Situational factors of obedience
Legitimacy
How much power we perceive authority have.
Proximity/immediacy
Distance of authority.
Roles models
Observation and imitation.
Factors affecting obedience strengths
Cultural norms affect obedience.
Brass reviewed LOC evidence, found internal more likely drop earlier.
Individual differences explain why not all obey.
Allow teachers devise strategies for over and disobedient students.
Factors affecting obedience limitations
Kilham and Mann, Australians and low obedience rate and female were do icy lower, female may be sided with the female learner.
Difficult to pin down what sort of personality make people obey.
Adorno may be political bias.
Factors affecting prejudice:personality
Authoritarian personality.
Allport’s authoritarian personality.
Right wing authoritarianism.
Social dominance orientation.
Authoritarian personality and prejudice
High obedient, likely to show prejudice, expect absolute loyalty and high achievement, so conditional love.
Children feel hostility to parents but due to fear of punishment, they displace on inferior (outgroup).
Allport’s authoritarian personality and prejudice
Unconditional love lead to confident people so empathetic personality and more accepting.
Prefer find solutions as opposed to generating further questions.
Right wing authoritarianism and prejudice
High in RWA tend to hold prejudicial attitude to various groups eg LGBT.
Consequences of social learning, think world is dangerous.
Seek security by preserving social order, hostile to anyone who seem abnormal.
Social dominance orientation and prejudice
Prefer hierarchy rather than equal distribution of power.
Caused by socialization, views transmitted by role model.
SDO is pos correlated with permanent characteristics eg tough minded, neg correlate with empathy.
Men likely to develop due to exposure.
Culture and prejudice
Norm of tolerance
Norm of fairness
What’s norm of tolerance in term of prejudice
All cultures are ethnocentric to an extent, some are more prejudice.
In some culture, norm is accepting diversity through prejudice, micro aggre.
Ingroup behave differently to outgroup and justify this as a support.
In some, prejudice is encouraged.
What’s norm of fairness in terms of prejudice
Some culture more concerned with fairness.
Whetherall, replicated Tajfel in a New Zealand school, Polynesian children fairer than white.
Reflect individualist and collectivist culture.
Situational factors and prejudice
Social norms.
Competition and resource stress.
What’s social norms in terms of prejudice?
Unwritten rule of what’s socially acceptable.
People follow norms created by ingroup, violation lead to rejection.
Group identity and socialization create prejudice as they internalize group norms.
Minard, black and white miners, underground work together, overground hold neg views.
What’s competition and resource stress in terms of prejudice?
RCT.
Resource stress is the issue occur when they believe commodities are limited.
Prejudice arise if direct competition.
Heightened in 0 sum so provision for outgroup will come at a cost of ingroup, show lack worthiness.
Factors affecting prejudice credibility
Distressing stress model of prejudice, certain personality traits create diathermy and predispose to discrimination under certain situations.
Some are natural followers or inclined to be prejudiced and suspicious of strangers is a common thing.
Pettigrew, more conform, more prejudice.
RWA and SDO pos correlate with prejudice, RWA neg correlate with openness and SDO neg correlate agreeableness.
Factors affecting prejudice objectivity
RAW and SDO inconsistent over time, interact with social factors so prejudice hard to predict.
Mean level of prejudice differed personality variables but personality variables also influence prejudice.
Differences
Adorno prefer dispositional explanations, Milgram prefer situational factors.
Application
Provide ideas on how to combat prejudice, target 0 sum.
Allport and Altemyer, prejudice learned through exposure to prejudicial views so greater regulation.
Who conducted Robbers cave study?
Sherif et al (1961)
Robbers cave study aim
If conflict can be created by competition and reduced by superordinate goal.
If group membership will affect judgement.
If strangers will form cohesive groups with n+v and set a shared value.
Procedure
Matched groups.
Participants were not informed, parents were charged small fee and asked not to visit.
Qualitative and quantitative date use observation.
Standardized tasks, tape recorded lang.
What are the 3 stages of procedure?
Stage 1
Group formation, 2 groups lived separately for a week while doing tasks to help group bounding, created n+v.
Stage 2
Groups introduced followed by various contests, create sense of competition, also did things create frustration.
Stage 3
Introduced superordinate goals.
What’re the findings for each stage?
Stage 1
Named their groups, established leaders at end of week 1, once told about other group, rattlers became derogatory, eagles became competitive, want to challenge each other so stage 2 naturally occurs.
Stage 2
Neg attitude, inc ingroup solidarity, consistent friendship with group membership, outgroup friends by rattlers 6.4%, eagles 7.5%.
Stage 3
Outgroup friends 36% by rattlers, 23% by eagles, sharp dec in neg attitude.
Conclusion
Pre existing attitude can’t explain favoritism and outgroup hostility.
Solving problems together lead to formation of status hierarchies and leadership choices.
Frustration lead to inc ingroup favoritism and outgroup hostility so overestimate ingroup and underestimate outgroup ability.
Inc social contact is not enough to reduce prejudice, series superordinate goals needed.
What was the sample?
22 aged 11 boys, M/C American
Robbers cave study generalizability
Sample from same background.
Small sample but Sherif screened out people from trouble background.
Reliability
Collected quantitative and qualitative data.
Multiple observers.
Sherif run this study 3x but only find the result once, other researchers also failed to find the results.
2 boys from eagle dropped out, hard to replicate.
Sherif developed certain procedures on the way, hard to replicate.
Application
Discrimination in society can be reduced if oppor is shared fairly.
Superordinate goal reduce prejudice.
Validity
Used several research methods used.
Matched groups.
Ecologically valid but unrealistic features eg camp counselors not interfere until they were ready to fight.
Perry, observer had bigger influence than they thought eg rattlers saw counselor shot snakes, inspired them on names.
Ethics
Boys didn’t know, parents asked not to visit.
Harm to participants eg bullying.
Serves common good, prevent conflict better.
Contemporary study:Burger (2009) aim
If Milgram’s finding is time locked.
If obedience is affected by gender and personality traits.
Procedure
Lab experiment.
Independent group design.
Volunteer sampling.
Employed 6 ethical guards.
Stopped at 150V.
Screened out participants taken more than 2 psych courses or familiar with Milgram.
Told 3x right to withdraw and still get the money.
15V test shock to participants.
Self report questionnaire.
Findings
75% in Burger, 82% in Milgram.
72% women, 66% men.
No sig difference in empathetic concern between defiant (19.25) and obedient (19.2).
Defiant participants (106.9) had a sig higher desire of personal control than obedient (98.2)
Conclusion
Milgram’s results not time locked.
Lack empathy doesn’t explain high obedience but desire for personal control determine likelihood of defiance.
What was the sample?
29 male and 41 female aged 20-81 from different educational background and ethnicity.
Burger obedience study generalizability
Large sample
volunteer sample have self selection issues
excluded people in final sample
Reliability
Replicated Milgram.
Filmed the whole thing.
Application
same to Milgram.
Elms lack application as they stopped before real tension.
Validity
None had knowledge of Milgram, no demand characteristics.
Right to withdraw ensure it was social pressure made them to continue.
Lack ecological validity.
Didn’t fully replicate and made huge consumption.
Ethics
Participants likely to be stressed out was screened out.
Approved by university ethics panel.
Reduced test shock and stopped at 150V, reduce stress.
Deception.
Harm to participants.
