Social Infleunce AO2

Question 1

What’s is social influence ?

Answer 1

Way in which people’s thoughts and feelings are affected by other people

Question 2

Conformity?

Answer 2

Tendency to change change what we do think or say in response to influence from others

Question 3

Two explanations of conformity?

Answer 3

Normative social influence
- humans have fear of rejection as are a social species so follow group, happened when individual feels under sue silence from group

Informational social influence
- look at majority group info as we’re unsure on how to behave so are genuinely looked no for right answer, situation is ambiguous and can’t be checked using objective tests

Question 4

Evaluate types of conformity ? And explanations

Answer 4

Hard to distinguish between compliance and internalisation

Research support for normative social influence, NOLAN et al researched whether majority influence lead to reduction in energy consumption (sign on residents doors saying ‘most residents are trying to reduce their energy consumption’===== significant reduction in energy consumption in most households

There are individual differences for NSI and ISI, so doesn’t affect everyone’s behaviour the same as some don’t fear rejection

Question 5

Asch study ?

Answer 5

Up to 9 peoples in groups

• 1 really pps and rest confeds
• 123 male students had to judge line lengths and pps answered last

Findings
- 5% confirmed on every trial, 37% sometimes

Conclusions

• even when answer is clear people still change view to conform
• 33% conformed on critical trials

Question 6

Evaluate aschs study

Answer 6

• lacks ecological validity
• gender bias, can’t generalise findings as only males used in study
  -gender and cultural differences
• temporal validity (child of its time, research took place when US in grip of McCarthyism
  Unethical as no informed consent
• unconvincing confederates (hard for confeds to act convincing when giving wrong answer= demand characteristics
• can’t determine effects of group size when group size max was 9

Question 7

Conformity to social roles, zimbardo research?

Answer 7

Funded by US navy as interested in causes in conflicts between guards and prisons in naval prisoners

• dispositions explanation formerly used e.g prisoners and guards angry because of who they are
• Z said it’s the situation and conformity to social roles

Procedure

• creates prison like environment and gathered pps through advert
• 75 pps given questionnaires on aspects of their life
• 24 most emotionally stable chosen
• men who as most physically and mentally stable chosen
• pps randomly assigned to role of guard or prisoner
• guards not told how to behave
• wore reflective sunglasses

Results

• guards became increasingly tyrannical and abusive
• was meant to last 2 weeks but lasted 5 days as had to be called off
• some guards volunteered extra shifts without pay
• prisoners became institutionalised v quickly and one asked for parole
• guards behaved authoritarian like when cameras not on them

Conclusions
- rejects dispositions hypothesis as behaviour was influenced by role they’d been assigned
- took 6 days to change behaviour of pps and would be faster in real life
-

Question 8

Evaluate zimbardos research ?

Answer 8

Unethical

• study was approved but has to be stopped
• wasn’t protection from harm
• deception with taking prisoners in police cars
• didn’t feel had right to withdraw, prisoner asked for parole

Researcher bias
- Zimbardo played prison super intendent

Volunteer bias
- not representative e.g only financially unstable involved

High control

Ecological validity
- replica prison

Some say demand characteristics were present

Question 9

What is obedience ?

Answer 9

Type of social influence that causes person to act in response to an order given by another person of higher status

Question 10

Result of milgram?

Answer 10

• 65% all is sent to max level despite experts predicting only 1/1000 go to max level
• all went to 300volts
• pps debriefed after to ensure behaviour was normal
• 84% glad they participated

Question 11

Situational factors in obedience ?

Answer 11

Proximity
- obedience levels fell when teacher and learner was in same room

Location

• conducted at Yale uni
• several pps remarked location of study gave pps confidence in integrity of study
• obedience fell when location moved to run-down office

Uniform

• Bushman
• researcher dressed as either policeman, beggar or business executive and asked passers buy to pay for parking meter
• conformity highest in police then beggar then business exec
• people interviews after and said obeyed policewomen as said she appeared to have authority

Question 12

Evaluate Milgrams study ?

Answer 12

Ethical issues

• pps deceived so didn’t gain fully informed consent as pps told different aim of study (how punishment effects learning)
• no protection from harm= stressing some dig nails into their skin but was a debrief

Ecological validity = low
- artificial setting and lack of mundane realism in tasks

Demand characteristics suggested by Orne, = low internal validity as pps have leaner to distrust psychologists

Temporal validity
- suggested high rate of obedience due to American culture at the time = v obedient

Controlled lab studies

Man dell challenges relevance of this research as explanation of real life atrocities
- Police battalion in Poland received order to mass kill Jews but many didn’t accept offer despite the close proximity variable

Question 13

Explanations of obedience ?

Answer 13

Agent of state and legitimacy of authority

Question 14

Explain agentic state

Answer 14

People can act in two ways
- autonomous state= individual directs own behaviour and is responsible for it

-agentic state= individuals attribute behaviour someone else and pass responsibly to them

Agentic shift
- process of handing responsibility to someone else and people act as representative of person of authority, explains Milgram as after they said ‘I was just doing as I was told’

Question 15

Why do pope adopt agentic state ?

Answer 15

• people want to maintain positive self image

Binding factors
- keeps people in agentic state through fear of being arrogant and rude

Question 16

Legitimacy of authority ?

Answer 16

Suggest we’re more likely to obey people of higher authority

Legitimacy of the body (institutions are more likely to be obeyed as we have faith in integrity of orders)

Legitimacy of orders (more likely to obey authority of in context e.g won’t obey orders that aren’t in area of authorities power)

Legitimacy of authority ( if person seen to be of higher social status = more likely to obey)

Question 17

Jellaba and Hamilton’s 3 factors to explain obedience ?

Answer 17

Legitimacy of the system (extent to which the body is a legit source of authority e,g government)

Legitimacy of authority within a system
- (power individuals how because of position of power)

Legitimacy of demands or orders given
- extent to which order is perceived to be a legitimate area for the authority figure e.g teacher can’t tell u to wash car

Question 18

Miscovici ?

Answer 18

Aim
- wanted to see how a ministry of pps could influence majority to give incorrect answer

Procedure

• over 170 able sighted pps
• 6 pps as a time asked to estimated colour of slides
• all slides were blue of differing brightness
• 2/6 pps were confederates
• 2 conditions consistent and inconsistent
• consistent = said green slides every time
• inconsistent said green slides 2/3 time

Results
- consistent = 8% trials agreed compared to 1% I’m inconsistent condition

Question 19

Describe Moscovici variation ?

Answer 19

M Said majority influence leads to conformity and minority influence leads to conversion

-M tested this in variation of prior test and found private agreement with minority view was greater than when pps agreed outloud

Conclusion
- supports Moscovicis argument that minority and majority influence lead to different processes in conformity

Question 20

Evaluate agentic shift ?

Answer 20

Plain cruel or agentic state
- M said agentic state best explained his findings but conceded other possibilities e.g situation enabled pps to express sadistic nature with support from SPS

• support from Milgram when pps told it wasn’t their responsibility and they carried on

Question 21

Evaluate Moscovici

Answer 21

Lab study= high control and standardised procedure, easy to replicate

Low ecological validity as wouldn’t do that in day to day life

All female pps, sampling bias and gender bias

Cultural bias, all American pps

Unethical
= deception of task aim

Question 22

Support for locus of control ?

Answer 22

Avtgis found people scoring more external on locus of control tend to be more easily persuaded and more conforming compared to those who were internal

Those with external locus of control are more like to be depressed

twenge et al found LOC scored have become more external alongside with society becoming less predictable and able to control

Elms and Milgram deviant and obedient found obedient were more external and deviant were more internal

Question 23

Outline social support and resisting conformity ?

Answer 23

Asch found presence of social

• support enables us to resist pressure of conformity
• variation of his study found an ally descender giving the correct answer caused conformity to drop massively from 33% to 5.5%
• this is because it breaks unanimity creating other possible ways of thinking

Question 24

Gender differences in conformity ?

Answer 24

Been found women are more conformist due to socialisation and upbringing

Question 25

Cultural differences in obedience ?

Answer 25

Meta analysis of 31 conformity studies
- people from individualist cultures are more likely to show resistance to social influence because individualist cultures place more importance on personal goals and achievements

Question 26

Outline resisting obedience ?

Answer 26

Resisting authority hard because obedience of others makes even immoral action seem acceptable

• disobedience can change this perception
• disobedient peers act as role models
• in a variation of Milgrams where 2 confeds disobey the authority figure lead to 10% going to max level

Question 27

What’s the F scale?

Answer 27

Facism scale
Used by Adorno
Measures up the different components that make up the authoritarian personality

Findings
- people who scored high on the F scale mostly had been raised by authoritarian parents

Question 28

Elma and Milgram study ?

Answer 28

Was debate as to ether regulars from Ms previous study were result of dispositions or situational factors

Procedure

• 20 obedience from the study and 20 disobedient from the study
• each pps completed MMPI scale and F scale to measure levels of authoritarianism
• asked pps open ended questions about childhood

Findings

• little difference between obedient and defiant pps of MMPI scales
• higher levels of authoritarianism in those obedient

Question 29

Evaluate Elms and Milgram

Answer 29

Support for authoritarianism
- man studies say obedience and authoritarianism are linked

Social context is more important
- Milgram proved variations in situational factors and social context were primary difference in people’s level of obedience

Difference between obedient and disobedient
- obedient more often grew up in harsh environment with punitive father

Others reported having a good relationship with their parents

Question 30

Social support in resisting obedience- support

Answer 30

• WW2 German women protesting where Nazi police held 2000 Jews who were married to non-Jessie partners
• demanded release of husbands as sons against release of opening fire
• women led courgae eventually prevailed and Jews were set free
• social support more effective when is from first responder in the group

Support doesn’t have to be valid to be effective

Question 31

3 behavioural styles to bring about conversion by minority ?

Answer 31

Consistency
Commitment- suggests courage I’m far of hostile majority
Flexibility- minorities are typically powerless compared to majority rather than enforce it try to reason

Question 32

Evaluate the 3 behaviour styles in minority influence ?

Answer 32

-Mackie suggest we don’t process minority message as much as majority like, (opposite to Moscovici) because we want to understand why so many people think differently to us

Research support for flexibility

Suffragettes showed all theee behaviour styles and succeeded

Question 33

Evaluate minority influence?

Answer 33

Only indirectly affective
- as majority is only influenced on matters related to specific issues e.g recycling and not central issue- global warming
effects of minority influence are delayed as effects may not be seen in society for long time
Suggesting minority influence has limited effect in short term and creates potential for social change than actual social change

• social change groups may be avoided as are seen as radical so minority influence doesn’t lead to social change, Deviance noticed rather than their views

Research shows individuals rates these groups in negative ways e,g tree hugger

Question 34

Conditions necessary for social change by minority ?

Answer 34

1 drawing attention to issue-
if views are different this creates a conflict

2 role of conflict -
We examine minorities arguments closely and think more deeply about them

3 consistency (taken more seriously)

4 argumentation principle
If there are risks involved with expressing argument against majority then willingness to suffer means majority takes their views more seriously as wonder why they would risk suffering for the cause e.g suffragettes

5 snowball effect
- once a few members of majority move to minority, the influence of the majority gathers momentum as more pay attention to their view

6 social crypto amnesia, Perez argued minority influence groups influence through this process; minority ideas are merged into majority ones and majority don’t remember where these ideas came from

Question 35

Wha did Nameth say about minority influence ?

Answer 35

When minority becomes majority people feel pressure to conform to majority opinion, government. Then introduces law which everyone must obey

Question 36

Ecidence for conditions necessary for social change by minority ?

Answer 36

Suffragettes
- attention (militant tactics-broke windows and mini bombs)

Consistency
- consistent for 15 years

Argumentation principle
- risked starvation and imprisonment for their cause (Terroists also do this)

Question 37

Social change through majority influence ?

Answer 37

• research has consistently demonstrated behaviour choices are often related to group norms

Social Norms interventions
- if people perceive their behaviour as abnormal, they change their behaviour to fit the norm e.g most of us don’t drink and drive campaign resulted in drunk driving decrease of 14%

However social Norma’s interventions can spur on negative behaviour as this whose behaviour is more desirable than the norm may be influenced to become more destructive due to widespread nature of the approach (Schultz et al proved this)

Question 38

Dispositional explanation of authority ?

Answer 38

Authoritarian personality
Adorno et al

Locus of control

Question 39

What is legitimacy of authority ?

Answer 39

Authority figure determines obedience

• legitimacy of the body
• legitimacy of order (obedience only occurs if order seems legitimate areas for authority forbids
• authority figure ( of person perceived to have higher social status then obedience more likely)

Question 40

Dispositional explanation of authority ?

Answer 40

Authoritarian personality
Adorno et al

Locus of control

Question 41

What is legitimacy of authority ?

Answer 41

Authority figure determines obedience

• legitimacy of the body
• legitimacy of order (obedience only occurs if order seems legitimate areas for authority forbids
• authority figure ( of person perceived to have higher social status then obedience more likely)

Question 42

Evidence for ISI

Answer 42

Bean study

• pps in groups make individual estimate of how many beans in a jar
• then make group decision
• then personal estimate

Results
- second estimate always closer to group estimate

Question 43

Reasons for resisting social influence ?

Answer 43

Locus of control

Social support