social Flashcards
what is social psychology
Social Psychology investigates aspects of human behaviour that involve the individual’s relationship to other persons, groups and society, including cultural influences on behaviour.
key assumptions of social psychology
The approach assumes that other people can affect our behaviour, thought processes, and emotions.
- It also suggests that the social situation can affect our behaviour, thought processes and emotions.
- Being in groups in society also affects our behaviour. We respond differently to people depending on the group that they are in, and we tend to favour people who are members of groups to which we belong.
- The roles that we play in society can also affect our behaviour.
- It includes looking at topics such a obedience and prejudice.
social influence
Social Influence: when an individual’s behaviour, attitudes or emotions are affected by someone else. Obedience is a form of social influence. It means obeying direct orders from someone in authority.
obedience
obedience is a form of social influence . it eans obeying direct orders from someone in authority
compliance
Compliance is part of obedience: it means going along with what someone says, while not necessarily agreeing with it.
dissenting
Dissenting is where the orders are rejected: the person does not do what they are told to do.
internalising
Internalising means that you obey with agreement.
conformity
Conformity means that you adopt the behaviours & attitudes to those around you
social influence
Social influence: when an individual’s behaviour, attitudes and emotions are affected by those of another.
confederate
Confederate: someone who helps someone else to do something.
autonomy
Autonomy: acting on one’s own free will.
acency
Agency: when one acts as an agent for others.
moral strain
Moral strain: experiencing anxiety, usually because you are asked to do something that goes against your moral judgement.
2(a) Social Agency Theory, Milgram (1973,1974)
Milgram’s agency theory suggests that people have two states, or ways of acting. These are the
- Autonomous state
- Agentic state
Milgram also suggested that acting in an agentic state is learned in childhood from parents, and in schools, when children are taught to put aside their own wishes so that order can be maintained. The legal system reinforces this in adulthood.
Milgram suggests that people experience moral strain when they feel that their obedient behaviour is wrong and goes against their own moral values.
socialisation
Socialisation: the process of learning the norms of society through socialising agents e.g. teachers and parents.
- Autonomous state
In the autonomous state the person believes that they have power. They freely choose their own behaviour and take control for their own actions. They will be guided by their own moral code.
- Agentic state
In the agentic state, the person allows someone else to direct their behaviour, instead of choosing it themselves. They assume that because someone else is directing them, that other person is responsible for the consequences of their behaviour. They are simply acting as an agent for that person. This may lead them to act against their own moral code. The person gives up their free will in order to serve the needs of society.
evolution explanation for acency theory
Milgram suggests that the agentic state can be explained through evolution. It could be a survival strategy: following leaders obediently rather than acting independently can increase the chances of survival in a threatening situation. If people act autonomously, their tendency in a threatening situation would probably be to run away – whereas following orders to stay and fight as a group (in the agentic state) would increase the chances of the group as a whole surviving. In modern times, the agentic state helps society to function smoothly.
strenghts for acency theory
Evidence For: Milgram’s study provides evidence for the theory because:
It supports the concept of moral strain: the participants showed evidence of distress when they were given an order to harm an innocent person.
It provides evidence for the concept of displacement of responsibility because in the debriefing some of the participants reported that their behaviour was the responsibility of the experimenter, and they had not wanted to shock the learner.
The theory is supported by other research: for example, Hofling et al. (1966) demonstrated that nurses would follow doctors’ orders within a hospital when asked to give a patient twice the daily dose of a drug. The majority of nurses displaced their responsibility, thus providing evidence for Milgram’s theory
Methodology:
Milgram’s studies used standardised procedures in his research, which means that they can be replicated in different circumstances or changing a variable to see what has an impact on obedience levels. By being able to manipulate the independent variable and seeing how it impacts on the dependent variable (levels of obedience) allows us to infer cause and effect. This increases the scientific credibility of the theory. The theory explains the different levels of obedience found in the variations to the original study. As participants were made to take more responsibility (e.g. holding the learner’s hand down), obedience decreased.
Applications:
Agency theory explains real life events, such as the obedience to authority shown by US soldiers during the Vietnam war, when Lieutenant Calley instructed his division to massacre old men, women and children, justifying this by saying that he was just following orders.
Studies from different cultures support agency theory. For example, Meeus and Raajmaker found that Dutch participants would harass a job applicant because they were told to do so as part of a research study.
The theory can be applied to real life, e.g. Hofling et al. (1966), showed how Nurses obeyed Doctors orders.
weaknesses for acency theory
Evidence against: The theory lacks direct evidence. Agency is an internal mental process, and therefore cannot be directly observed. Similarly, Milgram’s theory about the evolutionary development of agency theory can’t be directly tested. For this reason, we could argue that it is low in validity.
The theory is more of a description than an explanation: it shows us that people tend to obey authority figures but doesn’t provide evidence to show us exactly why that is so
However, the methods Milgram used in his studies lacked mundane realism. This means that the tasks the participants were asked to do – shocking someone because they couldn’t learn a word pair were not something people would be expected to do in everyday life. This might mean that the theory lacks ecological validity and doesn’t generalise to life outside the laboratory
The theory does not explain individual differences – why some people obey and some do not. It ignores factors such as personality type.
Alternative Theory:
Agency theory does not explain motivational issues behind obedience. An alternative theory which may be more useful than agency theory is the theory proposed by French and Raven (1990). French and Raven identified five bases of power which are said to motivate and influence behaviour. These include legitimate power, reward power, referent power, expert power, and coercive power. These factors seem to explain Milgram’s findings better than agency theory.
Social Impact Theory can also offer alternative theories to obedience. We will be looking at this theory in the next couple of pages.
social impact theory
Bibb Latane (1981) suggested an alternative explanation for why people are obedient. Social Impact Theory looks at how likely we are to be influenced by others. The theory suggests that the presence of others causes changes (behavioural, cognitive and/or emotional) in a person. Latane refers to the person being impacted on as the target, and the person doing the influencing as the source.
This theory states that the likelihood that a person will respond to social influence will increase with:
a) Strength: the strength of a source can be determined by status, authority or age. For example, Perrin and Spencer found that probation officers had very high levels of influence of those under probation. This would be explained because they have high levels of authority over those under probation.
b) Immediacy: the distance (in space and time) between the source and the target at the time of the influence attempt.
c) Number: How many sources and targets there are in the group
i = f(SIN)
i = the magnitude of impact,
f = a function,
S = the strength of the sources (e.g. their powers, or persuasion),
I = the immediacy of the sources,
N = the number of sources.
multiplication of impact
Obedience will be greatest to authority figures who are perceived to be legitimate, who are close to the individual, and who are great in number. However, increasing these factors doesn’t continue to increase the likeliness of obedience. For example, although increasing the number of sources from 2 to 3 has a large effect, this tails off beyond about 4 or 5. For example increasing the number or sources from 66 to 67 would have little or no effect. So strength, immediacy and number can have a multiplicative effect on social impact (eg obedience), up to a point. This is referred to as multiplication of impact, where social influence becomes stronger.
division of impact
However, other factors can cause a division of impact, where social influence becomes weaker. For example, an authority figure would have a diminished ability to influence somebody if that someone had an ally, or a group of allies. Evidence for this comes from one of Milgram’s variation studies, where two peers rebel against the instructions of the authority figure telling them to deliver the electric shocks. In this scenario, the presence of the peers lowered the obedience of the participants to 10%. This demonstrates the divisional effect of one source on many targets.
Evidence for: The theory is supported by research: studies by Asch, Milgram and Latane provide evidence for the impact of strength, immediacy and number on observable human responses in social situations.
One of Milgram’s variation studies, two peers rebelled against the instructions of an authority figure asking them to administer electric shocks to a learner. The presence of a dissenting peer lowered obedience to 10%. This demonstrates the divisional effect of one source on many targets.
Milgram’s variation number 7 shows that proximity is an important factor in obedience, which also supports the Social Impact Theory
Sedikides & Jackson (1990) found that people tended to obey a uniformed zoo keeper when he told them to not lean on railings compared to a casually dressed zookeeper. This experiment was carried out in a birdhouse in the zoo.
