Social Influence Flashcards
What is minority influence?
Form of social influence where a minority persuaded the majority to adopt their beliefs, etc.
Examples of minority influence
Gay rights
Women’s rights
Black rights
What are the three main processes in minority influence?
Consistency
Flexibility
Commitment
Consistency
The minority’s views must be consistent in their opposition to the majority. Can be synchronic (between all) or diachronic (overtime)
Commitment
Minority is more powerful if they demonstrate their dedication to a cause. Risk activity demonstrates commitment to cause.
Flexibility
Members of the minority group need to be prepared to amend their views and accept reasonable counter arguments
What are Milgrams variations?
Proximity
Location
Uniform
What had the most effect on obedience?
Uniform
Location
Place where an order is issued, status/prestige associated with location influences obedience
Uniform
People in positions of authority often have a specific outfit that is symbolic of the authority they hold
Proximity
Physical distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving the order to affects obedience
Legitimate authority
Some have positions of authority because they have been entrust with powers by society.
Why do we obey instructions from authority figures?
Obey out of fear of punishment which is learnt in childhood
What is the autonomous state?
We feel free of other influences and so take personal responsibility for our actions
What is the agentic state?
Mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for behaviour because we are acting for an authority figure.
What is the agentic shift?
The switch from autonomous to agent, because we believe someone else to be an authority figure.
What do binding factors do?
Aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore damaging effects of their behaviour.
Resistance to social influence
Refers to the ability of people to withstand the so sick pressure to to obey authority
What are the explanations of resistance to social influence?
Locus of control
Social support
What is locus of control?
Refers to the sense we have about what directs events in our lives
What is social support?
Presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same
How is obedience reduced?
By one other dissenting partner.
Who studied the process of Minority influence?
Moscovici using green slide blue slide study
Minority Limitation - artificial tasks
Research far removed from how usually attempt to change majorities, cases such as jury decision making - outcomes more important. Findings of minority studied, Moscovici, lacking external validity and limited in what can tell us
Minority Strength - research sup for consistency
Evidence that demonstrated imp of consistency. Moscovici et al study showed consistent min opinion had greater effect than inconsistent. Wood carried out meta analysis of 100 similar studies and found consistent minorities more influential. Suggests consistency = major factor
What are the explanations for obedience?
Agentic state
Legitimacy of authority
When do problems arise with legitimacy of authority?
When becomes destructive
What is destructive authority?
Compliance with the direct/indirect orders of a social authority that results in negative outcomes.
How was destructive authority shown in Milgrams study?
When the experimenter used prods to order participants to leave in ways that went against their consciences.
What is the opposite of being in an agentic state?
Autonomous state
What is the shist from autonomy to agency?
Agentic shift
What is social hierarchy?
Ranking of members in social groups based on the power, influence or dominance
Why do individuals remain in the agentic state?
Binding factors
Explanations Limitation- limited explanation
Agentic shift doesn’t explain many of findings. E.g. doesn’t explain findings from Hofling et al study. Predicts that, as nurses handed over responsibility to doctor, so should have shown anxiety levels similar to milgrams participants but they never. So can only account for some explanations, reduces reliability of using.
Explanations Strength - useful account for cultural differences
Studies show countries differ in degree to which people traditionally obedient. Mantell replicated milgrams and found 85% Germans went to top voltage. Shows some countries more likely to accept legitimate authority. Supportive findings from cross cultural research increases validity.
What are the situational variables affecting obedience?
Proximity
Location
Uniform
Proximity in milgrams variation to copy of study
Milgrams adjoining rooms - 65%
Other variation same room 40%
Location in milgrams to other variation
Prestigious uni in original
Run down building - dropped to 47.5%
Uniform I’m milgrams vs other variation
Orgianal - experimenter grey lab coat
Experimenter taken over by member of public - dropped to 20%
Situational Limition - lack of internal validity
Many pps worked out fake. Even more likely that milgrams did due to extra manipulation. Good eh is when experimenter swapped with public. So unlear is results due to operairon of obedience or because of demand characteristics, acting accordingly.
Situational Mixed
+ cross cultural replications ~ Miranda et al found obedience rate of over 90% in Spanish students suggesting milgrams conclusions aren’t limited to American males and valid across cultures.
- BUT Smith and Bond make point most replications have taken place in western societies which are culturally different. Would be premature to conclude findings can be generalised,
What is a dispositional explanations for obedience?
The authoritarian personality
Authoritarian personality
Type of personality that is susceptible to obeying people in authority
What did Adorno believe?
High level of obedience was psychological disorder and tried to locate sources of it in personality
Adorno study - sample
2000 middle class white Americans
What did Adorno study?
Unconscious attitudes towards racial groups. Used several scales to investigate, F-Scale
Personality if high score on F-Sacle?
Identified as string people very conscious of own and others status
What did those with authoritarian personality have a tendency to do?
Be especially obedient to authority
What is the origin of authoritarian personality?
Formed in child hood through harsh parenting and conditional love
Conditional love
Another’s personals love for you is contingent on certain actions or things going on
Dispositional Mixed
+ Research sup ~ milgram and Alan conducted interviews with small sample of pps, obedient and scored high on f-scale, believing there was a link between obedience and personality.
BUT the link is merely a correlation between two measured variables. Makes it impossible to draw conclusion that authoritarian personality caused obedience on bias of this result.
Dispositional Limitiation - limited explanation
E.g. in pre war Germany millions of people all displayed obedient behaviour. This was despite fact their personalities differed in all ways, unlikely all had authoritarian personalities. Limitation of adornos theory bc clear that an alternative explanation is more realistic, e.g. social identity explains obedience.
What is resistance to social influence?
Ability to withstand social pressure to conform to the authority.
What are two explanations for resistance to social influence?
Social support
Locus of control
What is social support?
The presence of people who resist pressures to conform to obey
How can social support help resist conformity?
The pressure to conform can be reduced if there are other people not conforming, such as in Asch’s line task. Also milgrams variation obedience dropped to 10% with disobedient confederate
Who proposed the idea of locus of control?
Rotter in 1966
What are the types of locus of control you can have?
Internal - believe they are responsible
External -things happen due to luck or outside forces
People with internal locus of control
More likely to be able to resist pressures to conform/obey
More self confident and have less need for social approval.
Resistance strength - research support for resistance to conformity
Allen and Levine found conformity decreased when there was one dissenter in Asch’s. Occurred even if wore thick glasses and had vision difficulties. Supports the view that resistance isn’t just motivated by following what someone says but free from pressure.
Resistance limitation - limited role of LOC
The role may be exaggerated. Rotter points out that LOC only comes into play in novel situations and has little influence over behaviour in familiar situations. Means people who have confirmed in specific situations in last more likely to do so again.
