Social Indluence Flashcards
,Normative social influence
When people change their behaviour in order to fit in with a group or to be liked
Types of conformity
Internalisation
Identification
Compliance
Informational social influence
Type of conformity
Occurs when and individual accepts information from others as evidence of reality
More likely to occur when the situation is ambiguous
Variables affecting conformity
Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty investigated by asch
Variables affecting conformity
Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty investigated by asch
What is informational influence motivated by
desire to be correct
Why people conform
To be liked
To be right
Informational influence process
1)need for certainty
2)subjective uncertainty -way you feel
3)need for information
4)refer to social group
5)internalisation =private beliefs are likely to change along with public behaviour
Conformity
Process of yielding to the majority influence
Change in a behaviour or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure
Myers’s 1999
When a person does what everyone else is doing because they feel a pressure to go along
Some people internalise the idea and genuine,y believe it’s the right thing to do
Explanation for conformity
Informational social influence
Normative social influence
Internalisation
Deepest form of conformity where you change your behaviour because you think that the majority is correct where you adopt the groups attitude and leads to public and private acceptance of groups behaviour and the group does not have to be present
Eg.religion
Anderson et al 1982
Cultural norms eg women body are influenced by availability of food
Scarce women do not care about being heavy body size
Not influenced by society
Diff in western cultures where food is high complying with social norms of western culture
Identifications three marks
When we identify with a group we value we want to become a part of it
This redu,te in a public change of behaviour
Privately we may not It agree with everything the group
Compliance
Kelman 1958
When you change your behaviour even though you don’t believe or agree with what majority does
Accepted avoid disapproval
Type of conformity
Superficial type of conformity
Doesn’t tend to happen in private
Doesn’t change underlying attitudes
Weakest type not permanent or internal
Normative influence motivated by
Need to fit in with group
Identification
Change behaviour and beliefs min order to fit in and belong with a group
Conforming to a role that u play eg.daughter,job
Certain period o time
Away from group I revert back to old ways
Can be in private so stronger than compliance
What’s does informational influence and normative influence lead to. Deutsch and Gerard
Compliance
Internalisation
What is compliance 3marks
Going along with others in public but probately not vhs bing opnions or behaviour
Deutsch and Gerard 1955
Dual process model of conformity
Evidence for normative influence
Women’s perceptions of their ideal body size is a major issue in western society, where slim And thin mode,e have a normative influence
Deutsch and Gerard 1955
Dual process model of conformity
Evidence for normative influence
Women’s perceptions of their ideal body size is a major issue in western society, where slim And thin mode,e have a normative influence
Evidence ISI (ao3)
Lucas et al (2006)
Found participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problems were difficult
Evidence for NSI Schultz et al 2008
Hotel guests were more likely to reuse their towels of told that other guests reused their towels
n Afillstor
People who have a strong need for affiliation
Alternative explanations of conformity
Dispositions factors
Personality
Links to n affiliatores
Evidence for NSI linkenbach and Perkins 2003
Adolescents exposed to messages suggesting their peers didn’t smoke were likely to start smoking
What did asch do in 1951
Set up a situation in which there was an obvious right answer to a simple task
See whether an individual would conform when the other group members gave a clear wrong answer
When was asch study
1950
What was asch aim
To investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform
Asch procedure
labexperiment
123 male students task of visual perception’
participants’ were seated in groups around a large table
The experimenter showed them 2 cards:
– One card showed the standard line
– The other card showed 3 comparison line
Repeated 18 times
Always a. Easyznd obvious answer
Used confecerated to give the same wrong answer in 12/18 trials (critical trials)
Participant second to last
Replicability
The study van be repeated in order to check if it was reliable
Low ecological validity
The findings can’t be generalised to real-life
situations because…
• …the situation is artificial (lab experiment)
in real-life situations, conformity usually takes place when individuals are in groups with whom they have long-lasting ties e.g. friends, family, colleagues
Asch evaluation
Replicable
Lab experiments
Low ecological validity
Informed consent
McGhee and teevan 1967
Found that students who were nAfilliators were more likely to conform
So nsi more relevant for some people than others
Informed consent
Participants should be given the opportunity to provide their fullyInformed consent
Asch findings
Overall conformity rate was 37%
5% of the participants gave the same wrong answer as the confederates on all 12 critical trials
25% of the participants remained independent and gave the correct answer on all 12 critical trials
How did the participants explain why they conformed
Said they doubted their own eyes
they knew the other group members were wrong but conformed because they did not want to stand out
Demonstrates compliance to majority influence
Size of majority affect
Effect on level of conformity
1 confederate wrong answer 4% conformity rate
3 confederate conforming leads 31.8%
Unanamity of majority
More important dissent -disagree with majority which reduces conformity
If someone said correct answer then participant more likely to say correct 33 to 5%
Factors affecting asch
Child of its time
Problems Determining affect of group size
Independent behaviour rather than conformity
Unconvincing confederates
Cultural differences in conformity
child of it’s time
1956 McCarthyism anti communism
People not going against majority
Less likely to conform
Conformity is more likely if the perceived costs of conforming are high which would have been the case in this era
Problems determining effect of group size
Asch concluded that majority size three sufficient for max influence
No other studied than asch have used 9 or more busybody 2-4
Means we know very little about th effect of larger majority sizes on conformity levels
Problems determining effect of group size
Asch concluded that majority size three sufficient for max influence
No other studied than asch have used 9 or more busybody 2-4
Means we know very little about th effect of larger majority sizes on conformity levels
Independent behaviour rather than cinfomirty
2/3 of the trials the participants stuck to their original judgement despite being faxes with an overwhelming majority expressing a diff view
Unconvincing confederate
Pose serious validity to th study
Cultural differences
Important cultural differences in cinfomirty and we might therefore expect different results doeendtsn on the culture where the study takes place
Arkuanand kitsya 1991 suggest reason for higher Keble of cinfomirty in collective cultures because it’s favoured to form a social flue to bind communities
Results of zimbardo
Pathological prisoners syndrome
The loss of personal identity
Dependency and emasculation
Arbitrary control excersise by guards
One prisoner went on hunger strike as protest
5 prisoners released earlier due to extreme emotional reactions
Zimbardo conclusion
The study rejects the dispositional hypothesis.
The behaviour of the ‘normal’ students who had been randomly assigned to each condition was influenced by the role they had been assigned to the extent that they seemed to believe in their assigned position
Strengths of zimbardo
Mundane realism-very realistic some people believe it was realistic some didn’t as it was in a basement in a uni and yhrt may have known this
No control
Very scientific. Hr controlled variables and most of his data was qualitative and quantitative and was attained through video ,audio tape and questionnaires
Zimbardo criticism
Validity affected as he was a warden so it may have research bias and the sample was non representative as it was only men American students and therefore cannot generalise to others
Has got ecological validity and representative of prisons
Banuazizi and Mohavedi 1975
Argued that the prisinirs were okay acting rather than informing to a role
Their performances were said to be based of stereotypes of how prisinorsand guards were supposed to behave
Zimbardo argues this by reporting 90% The behaviour of the ‘normal’ students who had been randomly assigned to each condition was influenced by the role they had been assigned to the extent that they seemed to believe in their assigned position
Dispositional vs situational influencEs
• Fromm (1973) accused Zimbardo of exaggerating the power of the situation to influence behaviour which minimised the role of personality (dispositional factors).
• Only a third of the guards acted in a brutal way. The other guards either treated them fairly or even helped the prisoners by offering them privileges and cigarettes.
• This suggests that Zimbardo’s conclusion that all participants were conforming to social roles as an exaggeration
Lack of research support
The BBC Prison Study experiment conducted in 2006 concluded very different findings to the Stanford Prison Experiment.
• It was the prisoners who eventually took control of the mock prison and subjected the guards to harassment.
But
• Social Identity theory would argue that this due to the fact that the guards didn’t form a united social identity but the prisoners did. This means that the prisoners saw themselves as a stronger social group who could control the divided guards
Was zimbardo unethical
Only deception was the arrest
They signed consent forms
Debriefing were held
He stopped early the info gained was worth it
Ethical guidelines
1)does end justify means
2)consent
3)confidentially
4)deception debriefing
5)protection of participants
6)right to withdraw
How conformity to social role effect can explain events in abu ghraib
A military prison in Iraq notorious for torture and abuse by us soldiers
Believed that the guards were victims of situation, factors that made abuse more likely
Eg.lack of training ,unrelenting boredom and no accountability to higher authorities
Opportunity to misuse power
6 main ethical principles
Informed consent
Protection from harm
Right to withdraw
Protection from harm
Confidentiality
Debriefing
Deception
Obedience
Obedience is performing a behaviour ordered from another person. The person who gives the instruction usually has power or authority.
Milhram experiment 1963
He wanted to find out whether the idea that the Germans were different and more obedient as a race (the view of many historians) was correct.
Shows situational theory of obedience
Was mikgrams exp more disoodtiinwl or situational
Milgram believed that the reasons the Germans committed horrendous acts may have been due to the situation they were placed in (situational hypothesis) ,
Dispositional
rather than anything dispositional (innate) about them as a race.
Born with these qualities
Before the epxermine began what did he tell them
• Milgram asked a variety of groups, including psychiatrists and students, how many people they thought would obey completely.
• The maximum number of shocks thatcouldbe delivered to the ‘learner’ was 30, starting at 15 volts.
• Therefore, if someone gave 30 shocks this would equate to 450 volts!
– 150v is enough to seriously injure a human – 250v is enough to kill a human
What psychiatrist predicted vs what actually happened
Predicted that only 2.6% would continue to administer a shock up to 240 volts but actually 65% did so it seems obedience is stronger than conformity
