Social Approach Flashcards
What is social psychology?
The study of how thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.
Name one of the earliest experiments examining conformity.
Jenness (1932)
How was Jenness (1932) conducted?
He used an ambiguous situation that involved a glass bottle filled with 811 white beans. His sample consisted of 101 psychology students, who individually estimated how many beans the glass bottle contained. Participants were then divided into groups of three and asked to provide a group estimate through discussion. Following the discussion, the participants were provided with another opportunity to individually estimate the number of beans, to see if they changed their original answer.
What does ambiguous situation mean?
Seeing as ambiguity is something unclear, an ambiguous situation may mean you’re unsure of how to proceed because the goal is vague, or you are not well informed on the situation.
What were the results of the Jenness study?
Jenness found that nearly all participants changed their original answer once provided with another opportunity to estimate the number of beans in the glass bottle. On average male participants changed their answer by 256 beans and female participants changed their answers by 382 beans.
What did the results of the Jenness study demonstrate?
How powerful conformity is in an ambiguous situation and are likely to be the result of informational social influence. The participants in this experiment changed their answers because they believed the group estimate was more likely to be right, than their own individual estimate.
What is conformity?
When we are part of a group, we may choose to follow other people by agreeing with their opinions or behaving as they do. This is known as conformity. In reality no one tells us how to behave or what opinions to have but conformity is the result of invisible pressure from others. A lot of the time we’re unaware of conforming until later.
State the two-process theory social psychologists Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard (1955) devised to explain why people conform.
The Dual-Process Model: Normative Social Influence and Informational Social Influence.
What is Social influence?
The idea that people conform because they depend on other people.
What is Normative social influence?
It’s about group norms. In any group of people there are behaviours and beliefs that are considered ’normal’ or typical. Norms guide the behaviour of the individuals in the group.
Normative Social Influence (NSI) is an _________ process because it is about how you feel. It may be stronger in _________ situations where people have a greater need for support. Its socially rewarding and avoids __________.
- emotional
- stressful
- punishment
What did Schultz et al (2008) find that hotel guests did once they were exposed to normative message? What did this suggest?
‘75% guests reused their towels each day (rather than acquiring a fresh one)’, reducing their own towel use by 25%. This suggested that people shape their behaviour out of a desire to fit in with their reference group.
What did McGhee and Teevan show about students in need of affiliation?
That they’re more likely to conform seeing as showing the desire to be liked is what leads to conformity.
Give an example of how NSI doesn’t affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way.
People less concerned about being liked are less affected by NSI.
What is a strength of NSI?
Studies like McGhee and Teevan show the desire to be liked is what leads to conformity.
What is a weakness of NSI?
Research shows NSI doesn’t affect all people behaviour in the same way.
What is Informational social influence?
Often, we are unsure about what behaviours/beliefs are right or wrong. But if most students agree on one answer you accept it because you feel it is probably right.
So, we may conform to the views of others because we want to be right. It’s about who has the better information (you or someone else).
This means that Informational Social Influence (ISI) is a ________ process because it is about what you think. ISI is most likely to happen in situations that are ___ to you or situations where it isn’t clear what is right (ambiguous). It also occurs when one person is regarded as being more of an ______.
- cognitive
2.new - expert
What did Lucas et al find? What did this suggest?
When participants were presented with difficult maths problems to solve, they were more likely to conform to the majority answer. This showed that people will conform due to the need for information (ISI).
What did Wittenbrink and Henley (1996) find?
That PP exposed to negative information about African Americans (in which they were told was the majority view) later reported more negative beliefs about a black individual.
Despite students in Lucas et al conforming more to the incorrect answers when they found the task difficult in, which study found very little conformity and that those were less likely to seek information from others?
Perrin and Spencer
What is a strength of ISI?
Lucas et al showed people conform in situations where they feel they don’t know the answer seeing as participants conformed to an incorrect answer when they found the task difficult in a maths problem
What is a weakness of ISI?
Perrin and Spencer found individual differences such as little conformity and some less likely to seek information from others.
Normative= want to be _____ (gain social approval)
Informational= want to be ____ (often takes place when there is some ambiguity)
- liked
- right
List 3 factors affecting conformity:
1) Group size- With 2 confederates who conformed to the wrong answer was 13.6% and with 3 it rose to 31.8%
2) Unanimity of the majority- A dissenting confederate reduced conformity by 25%, having a dissenter enabled independence for the ppt
3) Difficulty of the task- Conformity increased with a more difficult task suggesting that ISI plays a greater role in an ambiguous task.
What did Herbert Kelman (1958) argue are the three types of conformity?
Compliance, internalisation, and identification.
What is the definition of dissenting?
Holding or expressing opinions that are at variance with those commonly or officially held.
What is internalisation?
Where you privately as well as publicly change our view to behave and follow other group members. You continue to conform even when other group members are not present, so this is a permanent type of conformity.
What is internalisation most likely to occur because of?
Informational social influence (ISI) – we think the group view is right.
What is compliance?
This is a temporary type of conformity where your agreement with the majority ends as soon as the group is no longer present (and there is no group pressure felt).
What is compliance most likely to occur because of?
Normative social influence (NSI) – we want the group to accept us.
What is identification?
The combination of compliance and internalisation: It is stronger than compliance because we privately change some of our views (as well as publicly). However, it is weaker than internalisation because we conform only as long as we are part of the group. You conform because we identify with other members of the group. Its temporary public and private agreement.
What did Asch conformity study 1951 examine?
The extent to which social pressure from a majority could affect a person to conform.
How was Asch’s study conducted?
He used 50 male students from Swarthmore College in America, who believed they were taking part in a vision test. The participants consisted of seven confederates (actors), who had agreed their answers in advance, and one real one. The experiment consisted of lines labelled A, B and C next to a separate line. The question a sked was ‘Does the length of the line match A, B, or C?’. The real participant always sat second to last. Each person had to say out loud which line (A, B or C) was most like the target line in length. The correct answer was always obvious unlike the Jeness Study. Each participant completed 18 trials and the confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials, called critical trials.
What were the results of Asch (1956) The Line Study?
On average, the real participants conformed to the incorrect answers on 32% of the critical trials. 74% of the participants conformed on at least one critical trial and 26% of the participants never conformed. Asch also used a control group, in which one real participant completed the same experiment without any confederates. He found that less than 1% of the participants gave an incorrect answer.
After interviewing his participants, what did Asch find out as to why they conformed?
Most of the participants said that they knew their answers were incorrect, but they went along with the group in order to fit in, or because they thought they would be ridiculed. This confirms that participants conformed due to NSI and the desire to fit in.
What did Perrin and Spencer when repeating Asch’s experiment in 1980?
That only 1/396 of the participants conformed, where Asch found 36.8% rate of conformity.
Name 2 strengths of Asch’s research.
- Research supports NSI
- Level of control seeing as it was carried out in lab conditions.
Name 2 weaknesses of Asch’s research.
- It is most likely that both NSI and ISI are operating, especially in real-life conformity.
- Limited application of findings as it only used male and American participants.
What is social categorisation?
The way we place individuals into social groups depending on their shared characteristics, often based merely on appearance (e.g. gender, ethnicity, age). Then perceiving people in a category to be similar, for example we think all young people are the same. At the same time, we perceive the people in one category to be very different from the people in another, for example all girls are different from boys.
What is social identity theory?
The idea around the formation of stereotypes and prejudice. These are the groups we place people in according to such features as race, gender, and ethnicity and which allow us to make quick judgements about a person or group.
What is social comparison?
Where we compare ourselves with other groups, raising our self-esteem by being negative towards the other group either through negative stereotypes or by being prejudice towards them.
What is a stereotype?
A fixed view we hold of a person based on the fact we have placed them into a social category (e.g., student, old people etc).
