Social Influence Flashcards
Internalisation
Making the beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour of the group your own (the strongest type of conformity, and often occurs as a result of informational social
influence). An individual’s change of view is permanent e.g. being brought up in a religious household, and becoming religious yourself.
Identification
Temporary/short term change of behaviour and beliefs only in the presence of a group (middle level) e.g. acting more professional and less silly when you arrive at your office to work.
Compliance
This means to follow other people’s ideas/to go along with the group to gain their approval or avoid disapproval. You publically agree but privately disagree (lowest/ weakest level of conformity) An individual’s change of view is temporary and is likely to occur as a result of normative social influence e.g. when friends pressure you into drinking alcohol when you don’t truly want to, and will not drink outside of such social situations.
Informational Social Influence
When someone conforms because they want to be right, so they look to others by copying or obeying them, to have the right answer in a situation; when a person is uncertain or unsure, they would look to others for information. It usually leads to internalisation and occurs in situations where we do not have the knowledge or expertise to make our own decisions e.g. a person following the direction of the crowd in an emergency, even though they don’t actually know where they are going, as they assume that everyone else is going to the right place.
Normative Social Influence
when someone conforms because they want to be liked and be part of a group; when a person’s need to be accepted or have approval from a group drives compliance. It often occurs when a person wants to avoid the embarrassing situation of disagreeing with the majority
Conformity
Conformity is a type of social influence defined as a change in belief or behavior in response to real or imagined social pressure. It is also known as majority influence
Asch’s study
123 male American undergraduates in groups of 6; consisting of 1 true participant and 5 confederates (actors/people in on the experiment)
• To investigate conformity and majority influence
• Participants and confederates were presented with 4 lines; 3 comparison lines and 1 standard line
• They asked to state which of three lines was the same length as a stimulus line
• The real participant always answered last or second to last
• Confederates would give the same incorrect answer for 12 out of 18 trials
• Asch observed how often the participant would give the same incorrect answer as the confederates versus the correct answer
Asch’s study findings
36.8% conformed
25% never conformed
75% conformed at least once
In a control trial, only 1% of responses given by participants were incorrect (which eliminates eyesight/perception as an extraneous variable, thus increasing the validity of the conclusions drawn)
Factors affecting level of conformity
Size of majority/Group size, Unanimity of majority, Task Difficulty
Task Difficulty
Point: An individual is more likely to conform when the task is difficult Evidence: For example, Asch altered the (comparison) lines (e.g. A, B, C) making them more similar in length. Since it was harder to judge the correct answer conformity increased.
Evidence: When the task is difficult, we are more uncertain of our answer so we look to others for confirmation. The more difficult the task the greater the conformity.
Link: This suggests that informational social influence is a major mechanism for conformity when the situation is ambiguous and the individual does not have enough of their own knowledge or information to make an informed decision independently, and so has to look towards others.
Unanimity of majority
Point: An individual is more likely to conform when the group is unanimous i.e. all give the same answer, as opposed to them all giving different answers.
Evidence: When joined by another participant or disaffected confederate who gave the correct answer, conformity fell from 32% to 5.5%. If different answers are given, it falls from 32% to 9%.
Explanation: the more unanimous the group is, the more confidence the participant will have that they are all correct, and therefore the participant’s answer is more likely to be incorrect
Link: Unanimity is vital in establishing a consistent majority view, which is particularly important by providing normative social influence through preventing any conflicting views arising.
Size of majority/Group size
Point: An individual is more likely to conform when in a larger group.
Evidence: There was low conformity with group size of confederates were less than 3 - any more than 3 and the conformity rose by 30%
Explanation: a person is more likely to conform if all members of the group are in agreement and give the same answer, because it will increase their confidence in correctness of the group, and decrease their confidence in their own answer. Conformity does not seem to increase in groups larger than four so this is considered the optimal group size.
Link: This shows that the majority must be at least 3 to exert an influence, but an overwhelming majority is not needed in all instances to bring about conformity.
Asch’s study Evaluations strengths
High internal validity - There was strict control over extraneous variables, such as timing of assessment and the type of task used. The participants did the experiment before without confederates to see if they actually knew the correct answer, thus removing the confounding variable of a lack of knowledge. This suggests that valid and reliable ‘cause and effect’ relationships can be established, as well as valid conclusions.
Lab experiment - Extraneous and confounding variables are strictly controlled, meaning that replication of the experiment is easy. Successful replication increases the reliability of the findings because it reduces the likelihood that the observed findings were a ‘one-off’.
Ethical issues - The researchers breached the BPS ethical guideline of deception and consequently, the ability to give informed consent. However, the participants were debriefed. Ethical issues do not threaten the validity or reliability of findings, but rather suggest that a cost-benefit analysis is required.
Supports normative social influence - participants reported that they conformed to fit in with the group, so it supports the idea of normative influence, which states that people conform to fit in when privately disagreeing with the majority.
Asch’s study Evaluations weakness
Lacks ecological validity - it was based on peoples’ perception of lines and so the findings cannot be generalised to real life as it does not reflect the complexity of real life conformity i.e. where there are many other confounding variables and majorities exert influence irrespective of being a large group.
Lacks population validity due to sampling issues - For example, the participants were only American male undergraduates, and so the study was subject to gender bias, where it is assumed that findings from male participants can be generalised to females (i.e. beta bias).
Ethical issues:
- there was deception as participants were tricked into thinking the study was about perception rather than compliance so they could not give informed consent.
- There could have been psychological harm as the participants could
have been embarrassed after realising the true aims of the study.
- Such issues simply mean that a cost-benefit analysis is required to
evaluate whether the ethical costs are smaller than the benefits of increased knowledge of the field. They do not affect the validity or reliability of findings!
Lacked validity - The social context of the 1950s may have affected results. For example, Perrin and Spencer criticised the study by stating that the period that the experiment was conducted in influenced the results because it was an anti-Communist period in America when people were more scared to be different i.e. McCarthyism. Thus, the study can be said to lack temporal validity because the findings cannot be generalised across all time periods.
Zimbardo’s study
24 American male undergraduate students
To investigate how readily people would conform to the social roles in a simulated environment, and specifically, to investigate why ‘good people do bad things’.
The basement of the Stanford University psychology building was converted into a simulated prison.
American student volunteers were paid to take part in the study. They were randomly issued one of two roles; guard or prisoner. Both prisoners and guards had to wear uniforms.
Prisoners were only referred to by their assigned number.
Guards were given props like handcuffs and sunglasses (to make eye contact with prisoners impossible and to reinforce the boundaries between the two social roles within the established social hierarchy). No one was allowed to leave the simulated prison.
Guards worked eight hour shifts, while the others remained on call. Prisoners were only allowed in the hallway which acted as their yard, and to the toilet. The guards were allowed to control such behaviour, in order to emphasise their complete power over the prisoners!
No physical violence was permitted, in line with ethical guidelines and to prevent complete overruling.
The behaviour of the participants was observed.
Zimbardo’s study findings
Identification occurred very fast, as both the prisoners and guards adopted their new roles and played their part in a short amount of time, despite the apparent disparity between the two social roles. Guards began to harass and torment prisoners in harsh and aggressive ways – they later reported to have enjoyed doing so and relished in their new-found power and control.
Prisoners would only talk about prison issues (forgetting about their previous real life), and snitch on other prisoners to the guards to please them. This is significant evidence to suggest that the prisoners believed that the prison was real, and were not acting simply due to demand characteristics.
They would even defend the guards when other prisoners broke the rules, reinforcing their social roles as prisoner and guard, despite it not being real.
The guards became more demanding of obedience and assertiveness towards the prisoners while the prisoners become more submissive. This suggests that the respective social roles became increasingly internalised.
Zimbardo’s study Evaluation Strength
Real life applications – This research changed the way US prisons are run e.g. young prisoners are no longer kept with adult prisoners to prevent the bad behaviour perpetuating. Beehive-style prisons, where all cells are under constant surveillance from a central monitoring unit, are also not used in modern times, due to such setups increasing the effects of institutionalisation and over exaggerating the differences in social roles between prisoners and guards.
Debriefing – participants were fully and completely debriefed about the aims and results of the study. This is particularly important when considering that the BPS ethical guidelines of deception and informed consent had been breached. Dealing with ethical issues in this way simply makes the study more ethically acceptable, but does not change the quality (in terms of validity and reliability) of the findings.
The amount of ethical issues with the study led to the formal recognition or ethical guidelines so that future studies were safer and less harmful to participants due to legally bound rules. This demonstrates the practical application of an increased understanding of the mechanisms of conformity and the variables which affect this.
Zimbardo’s study Evaluation Weakness
Lacks ecological validity - The study suffered from demand characteristics. For example, the participants knew that they were participating in a study and therefore may have changed their behaviour, either to please the experimenter (a type of demand characteristic) or in response to being observed (participant reactivity, which acts as a confounding variable). The participants also knew that the study was not real so they claimed that they simply acted according to the expectations associated with their role rather genuinely adopting it. This was seen particularly with qualitative data gathered from an interview with one guard, who said that he based his performance from the stereotypical guard role portrayed in the film Cool Hand Luke, thus further reducing the validity of the findings
Lacks population validity – The sample only consisted of American male students and so the findings cannot be generalised to other genders and cultures. For example, collectivist cultures, such as China or Japan, may be more conformist to their prescribed social roles because such cultures value the needs of the group over the needs of the individual. This suggests that such findings may be culture-bound!
Ethical issues:
Lack of fully informed consent due to the deception required to (theoretically) avoid demand characteristics and participant reactivity. However Zimbardo himself did not know what was going to happen, so could not inform the participants, meaning that there is possible justification for a breach of ethical guidelines.
Psychological harm – Participants were not protected from stress, anxiety, emotional distress and embarrassment e.g. one prisoner had to be released due to excess distress and uncontrollable screaming and crying. One prisoner was released on the first day due to showing signs of psychological disturbance, with a further two being released on the next day. This study would be deemed unacceptable according to modern ethical standards.
Agentic State
This is when a person believes that someone else will take responsibility for their own actions. When a person shifts from an autonomous state (the state in which a person believes they will take responsibility for their own actions) to the agentic state, it is called an Agentic Shift. Therefore, agency theory is the idea that people are more likely to obey when they are in the agentic state as they do not believe they will suffer the consequences of those actions. This is because they believe that they are acting on behalf of their agent.
Legitimacy of authority
This describes how credible the figure of authority is. People are more likely to obey them if they are seen as credible in terms of being morally good/right, and legitimate (i.e. legally based or law abiding). This is why students are more likely to listen to their parents or teachers than other unknown adults. In Milgram’s study, the people saw the experimenter as legitimate as they knew he was a scientist and therefore is likely to be knowledgeable and responsible - this is called expert authority. This authority was legitimate (justified) because the researcher held the highest position within the social hierarchy of the experimental scenario.
Situational factors
These include the appearance of the authority figure, the location/ surroundings and proximity (and the role of buffers).
* A person is more likely to obey someone wearing a uniform as it gives them a higher status and a greater sense of legitimacy. It was found that obedience was much higher when the experimenter wore a lab coat as opposed to normal clothes. However, demand characteristics were particularly evident in this condition, with even Milgram admitting that many participants could see through this deception.
- A person is more likely to obey someone in a location linked to higher status and legitimacy. Milgram’s study was conducted at a prestigious American university (Yale), and so obedience was greater than in a variation of the study conducted in a rundown office. This is because the prestigious nature of specific locations demand obedience from participants as well as potentially increasing the trust that they place in the researchers.
- A person is more likely to obey when they are less able to see the negative consequences of their actions and are in closer proximity to the authority figure. This is because it increases the pressure to obey and decreases the pressure to resist. In Milgram’s study, obedience was higher when the experimenter was in the same room (62.5%) as the participant as opposed to being in a different room and speaking over the phone i.e. the remote instruction condition (20.5% obedience levels).
Milgram (1963)
Randomly selected participants - 40 male volunteers.
To observe whether people would obey a figure of authority when told to harm another person i.e. evaluating the influence of a destructive authority figure.
A participant given the role of ‘teacher’ and a confederate given the role of ‘learner’. This was decided through a random allocation. Participant had to ask the confederate a series of questions. Whenever the confederate got the answer wrong, the participant had to give him an electric shock, even when no answer was given. The electric shocks incremented by 15 volts at a time, ranging from 300V to 450V, where 330V was marked as ‘lethal’.
Participants thought the shocks were real when in fact there were no real shocks administered, and the confederate was acting. The shocks were falsely demonstrated to be real prior to the start of the study.
Participants were assessed on how many volts they were willing to shock the confederate with.
The experimenter’s role was to give a series of orders / prods when the participant refused to administer a shock, which increased in terms of demandingness for every time the participant refused to administer a shock. The same 4 prods were used each time when participants refused to administer the shocks. The first 3 demanded obedience to science, whereas the final prod demanded obedience specifically to the confederate.
Milgram (1963) findings
All participants went up to 300V and 65% went up to 450V. No participants stopped below 300V, whilst only 12.5% stopped at 300V, showing that the vast majority of participants were prepared to give lethal electric shocks to a confederate.
Factors affecting obedience
Proximity
Participants obeyed more when the experimenter was in the same room i.e. 62.5%. This was reduced to 40% when the experimenter and participant were in separate rooms, and reduced to a further 30% in the touch proximity condition i.e. where the experimenter forcibly placed the participant’s hand on the electric plate.
Location
Participants obeyed more when the study was conducted at a prestigious university i.e. Stanford. This is because the prestige of such a location demands obedience and also may increase the trust that the participant places in the integrity of the researchers and their experiments.
Uniform
Participants obeyed more when the experimenter wore a lab coat. A person is more likely to obey someone wearing a uniform as it gives them a higher status and a greater sense of legitimacy. It was found that obedience was much higher when the experimenter wore a lab coat as opposed to normal clothes. However, demand characteristics were particularly evident in this condition, with even Milgram admitting that many participants could see through this deception.
