Social Inflence Flashcards
Can you describe what is meant by ‘internalisation’?
Why?:
- need for knowledge and certainty so look to other people for right answe/correct way to behave - DEEPEST
Change in:
- Behaviour and beliefs
- permanent
Private/public:
Both
Can you describe what is meant by ‘identification’?
Why?:
- where individual feels part of group
Change in:
- Behaviour and beliefs required to be in group
- temporary (change when no longer in group situation
Private/public:
- both
- regardless of private feelings
Can you describe what is meant by ‘compliance’?
Why?:
- need to fit in - reward/avoid disapproval
- SHALLOWEST
Change in:
- Behaviour
- temporary (only in presence of majority influence
Private/public:
Public
Can you describe normative social influence (NSI) as an explanation for conformity?
because of need for acceptance or approval:
- majority group who have the power to reward (being liked) or punish (being rejected).
causes conflict btw opinions of the self and of others
results in COMPLIANCE - private disagreement, public acceptance
Can you describe informational social influence (ISI) as an explanation for conformity?
need for certainty result in individual making comparisons to others as have a need to relieve any psychological discomfort
INTERNALISATION - public and privately accept this info regardless of whether correct
Due to need to fit in but also genetically determined to follow ‘pack’ as we were pack animals.
Can you evaluate NSI and ISI as explanations for conformity?
Asch study to investigate conformity to group norms using clear incorrect majority on unambiguous task
- found 75% of all naive participants conformed at least once in the 12 critical trials.
- interviewed, some said they did not want to seem different. They knew the answers were wrong but wanted to appear to be like everyone else
Confirms normative social influence
Supported by variation - reporting in private
- same participent when reporting in public agreed with the majority incorrect decision whereas, when reporting in private, conformity on critical trials dropped to 0%
- indicating that compliance involves a change in behaviour but not in belief.
- some denied being aware they had given any wrong answers - this supports evidence for ISI.
There may however, be variation with this
- older people may not have conformed to this extent because they have more life experience and therefore more confidence, possibly resulting in the majority incorrect answer being challenged because it was so obviously wrong.
- younger men would also be better educated than people in the normal population, due to this life experience, they may be more familiar with disagreements btw colleagues and so less inclined to conform with the majority incorrect, this could be the same with students.
The experience of cognitive dissonance and the supports for its existence using physiological mesures, suggests an evolutionary basis for conformity. This would originate from the fact that humans are pack animals that live in social and family groups where conformity is a desirable quality that guarantees the survival of the group therefore conformity may not simply only be driven by the necessity to fit in or for the need for knowledge but a deeper genetic influence that helps to ensure the survival of our group.
Can you describe how group size, unanimity (social support) is and task difficulty affect conformity?
Psychological research: group size
- majority of 3 - beyond = no significant increase as participants may suspect that they may not be being entirely honest/ the proportional increase in confederates giving the wrong answer has less effect.
- group size = small effect. Other factors e.g in-group or out-group members may influence - suggest not simple phenomenon that occurs every time majority is present. - more important such as whether participant considers to have set in common w certain members of majority e.g male, goth (emo) that may increase tendency to conform w majority group
- support: weak positive correlation fount btw group size + conformity in public but in private weak negative correlation - public = felt pressure to conform so they could be liked by the group; private = group unaware of individuals answer so no pressure
Psychological research: unanimity
- goup unanimous = 36.8% conformity but one dissenting confederate = 5% - could be because participant confirmed not mis-perceiving stimulus/ reduce need for social approval from other group members
- Asch tested by providing dissenting confederate condition, answer even more extremely wrong/ correct answer - no significant different in conformity rates - suggests cognitive processing extends to not just being right but also its ok to be different - important factor in reducing conformity
- support role of cognitive processing in conformity: compared differences btw effects of no support (no dissenting - control condition) - rate 97%, valid supported (w normal vision) - rate 36%, invalid supporter (wearing thick spectacles) - rate 64% as less useful and provide less social support and therefore less justification for the naive participant to disagree
Psychological support: task difficulty
- ASCH - conformity rates increased when task made more difficult by making difference in lengths of lines less obvious - rather than NSI -> ISI influence as less confident in accuracy of decision - uncertain - therefore look to maj group for confirmation that right.
- support: conditions task difficult vs not difficult; task important vs unimportant - conformity higher when task difficult and important - emphasises complexity of influences - presence of majority in agreement not sufficient enough as task difficulty induces ISI - important to consider outcomes - even in lab experiment participants consider wider implications of their behaviour
Can you describe the procedure and findings of Asch’s conformity research?
investigate conformity to group norms using a clear incorrect majority on an unambiguous task.
- 123 American male undergraduates
- 1 naive participant in each group, sat in the penultimate position of a group
- task to match the comparison line with the line on the stimulus sheet that matched it.
- The confederates instructed to give the wrong answer on the 12critical /18 trials.
Found:
Basic conformity rate on critical trials: 36.8%
25% never conformed
75% conformed at least once
Explanations:
- didn’t want to seem different
- act in way thought experimenter watered (demand c’s)
- must have been seeing things from different angle/misunderstood take
- denied being aware had given any wrong answers
Can you evaluate Asch’s research on conformity?
The study lacks ecological validity because the task was trivial, and did not involve any moral and ethical consideration on the naïve participant’s behalf, therefore the findings do not reflect real-life situations because agreeing with people on the lengths of lines is very different to agreeing to commit a crime.This therefore compromises Asch’s claims for conformity on the critical trials because in real life situations tasks requiring individuals to conform are generally not as mono dimensional as agreeing to the mistaken identification of matching lines.
- older people may not have conformed to this extent because they have more life experience and therefore more confidence, possibly resulting in the majority incorrect answer being challenged because it was so obviously wrong.
- younger men would also be better educated than people in the normal population, due to this life experience, they may be more familiar with disagreements btw colleagues and so less inclined to conform with the majority incorrect, this could be the same with students.
lacks cross-cultural application because it was conducted in the USA which is an individualistic society, so the findings may not reflect the levels of conformity that may occur in collectivistic societies. Smith & Bond (1996) did cross cultural replications of Asch and found higher levels of conformity in countries like Japan and China (collectivistic societies), therefore supporting the fact that cultural influences have an effect on conformity. Smith and Bond’s findings highlight important societal differences that may influence conformity. In this study, they highlighted the influence of individualistic (where the individual strives for their own benefit) and collectivistic (where the individual strives for the benefit of the group) cultures with eastern collectivistic societies, reducing higher levels of conformity. This suggests that societal influences on conformity extend to more than purely political influences
Can you describe what is meant by a social role?
Individual member of group will adopt behaviours and beliefs of group as result of identifying w others
Once no longer in that group/ away from group behaviours and beliefs change
IDENTIFICATION
Can you describe the procedure and findings of Zimbardo’s conformity to social roles research?
Banality of evil: evil situations encourage evil behaviour. Once incorporated becomes norm and no longer causes shock
Procedure:
- respondents to a newspaper asked for male volunteers to participate in psych study of ‘prison life’ - $15 a day
- questionnaire 24 men selected - most physically and mentally stable, most mature, least involved in antisocial behaviours - all college students
- Stanford Uni
- randomly assigned ‘prisoner’ or ‘guard’
- guards given instructions but not told how to behave apart from explicitly told not allowed to use physical punishment or physical aggression
- uniforms given - increase group identity and reduce individuality - prisoner only identity numbers - depersonalise them
Findings:
- behaviour of student affected by role they had been assigned
- even Zimbaro so immersed in role as prison warden - could not objectively assess the distress that was being experienced - his girlfriend who convinced to terminate early - evil situations contribute to be behaviour not just disposition
interviewed participants:
- most said ‘felt real’
- most guards found difficult to believe behaved in the brutal ways did
- prisoners couldn’t believe had responded in submissive cowering, dependent way they had
- when asked bat guards describe usual 3: good, tough but fair, cruel
Can you evaluate Zimbardo’s research on conformity to social roles?
- behaviour demonstrated lack ecological validity because none of participants had ever experienced being in prison, so were ‘play acting’. = One of prison guards admitted to not knowing how to behave, but had based his behaviour on the character of the police officer from a film
- However, when film of the prison simulation shown to a person who had acc been a prisoner, confirmed that the behaviour was indeed accurate representation of prison life.
- population validity seriously compromised:
- All participants had to be readers of particular newspaper, so selection was limited to a particular sector of society
- participants all students = age range from which they were selected was limited
- participants were all white, middle class students
- means difficult to generalise findings to account for behaviour of real prison populations that are much more diverse: educational level, racial diversity and age range. - sample of participants chosen for its physiological and psychological normality, whereas men who go to prison tend not to be physically and psychologically normal but do suffer from a range of physical and mental disorders.
3.
- designed as a role play, the volunteer participants had been given fully informed consent - knew all the details of the study and what was expected of them.
- the right to withdraw was built in to role play by the ability to ‘apply for parole’.
- participants were not allowed any physical contact, nor were they allowed to participate in any sexual activity (in order to increase protection of participants).
- However, confidentiality became. issue when prisoners arrested by the police on morning of the study - may have compromised their reputations in their home neighbourhood.
- As the days passed, prisoners became obviously more distressed, guards became more brutal, ‘parole’ was withdrawn, therefore when prisoners asked to leave, that was withdrawn.
- Considerable psychological harm as result on both prisoners and guards.
- study terminated after 6 days by outsider as Philip Zimbardo, in his role as prison warden had become so immersed in his position, that he failed to see the problems - strong demonstration of the power of the situation to influence our behaviour.
Can you describe what is meant by ‘obedience’?
Behaving in response to a specific instruction to do set i.e does as you are told
Can you describe what is meant by ‘agentic state’ as an explanation for obedience?
When personal responsibility removed as only following orders issued by someone else - removal from autonomous state as only following orders issued by experimenter (authority figure)
Can you describe what is meant by ‘authoritarian personality’ as an explanation for obedience?
Have a tendency to be especially obedient to authority
