Social Influence Flashcards
What are the 3 types of conformity?
Internalisation, Identification, Compliance
What is ISI?
Information social influence is an explanation for conformity where we look to others for information as we believe their knowledge is superior than to that of ours and don’t want to be incorrect, it’s a cognitive process.
What is NSI?
Normative social influence is an explanation for conformity where we conform because we want to be liked within a group, it’s an emotional process
What variables affect conformity?
Group size, Unanimity, Task Difficulty
How does group size affect conformity as investigated by Asch?
The bigger the majority group, the more people conformed but only up to a certain point. 1 person: 3%, 2 people: 13% Optimum conformity rate is at 3 people with 32% conformity.
How does unanimity affect conformity as investigated by Asch?
Asch found that upon the introduction of just one dissenting participant, conformity can be reduced by as much as 80%, e.g. on the critical trials, upon hearing a correct answer, conformity plummeted to 5%.
How does task difficulty affect conformity as investigated by Asch?
When the lines were made more similar in length, conformity increased due to ISI as the harder a task gets, greater the conformity becomes.
What is unanimity?
Unanimity is where the whole group agrees
What is the agentic state?
When despite doing something we feel is “wrong” we continue to do so as we feel as if the blame is shifted on the authority figure as we see ourselves as working as an agent for them and therefore don’t feel responsible
What is the autonomous state?
When we feel fully responsible for all of our actions.
Define the 3 prominent variables affecting obedience within Milgram’s study.
Proximity, Uniform, Location.
How does proximity affect obedience?
Proximity involves how aware an individual is of what happens because of their actions in obeying authority figures. In Milgram’s study, participants were made aware of their actions as they could see what was occurring as a result of the button pressing
How does uniform affect obedience?
The wearing of a uniform can increase obedience rates and increase legitimacy of authority, this is seen in Bickman’s study where 3 different uniforms were worn (police:38%,milkman:14%,civilian:19%) with conformity rates highest with the police uniform being worn.
How does location affect conformity?
The location in which a study occurs will affect obedience, in locations that add to perceived legitimacy of authority, obedience rates will be higher. This is seen in one of Milgram’s variations where the study was done in a run down office block, obedience dropped from 62.5% to 47.5%.
Describe the dispositional explanation for obedience being the authoritarian personality.
This type of person is characterised as being highly obedient to authority figures however, they will not obey someone of low authority. They score very highly on the F-scale
