Social Influence

Question 1

Describe Asch’s study(1955)

Answer 1

Aim: to investigate conformity in groups

Method:123 American male students placed in a room with between 6 and 8 confederates and asked to verbalise their answer to a simple task of comparing lengths of lines. There were 6 normal trials where the confederates gave the correct answer and 12 critical trials where the confederates gave the wrong answer

Results: On the 12 critical trials, 36.8% gave the wrong answer. In total, 25% of the participants never confirmed so 75% confirmed at least once

Conclusions:People are influenced by group pressure even when a task has a clear-cut answer

Question 2

What are the evaluations of Asch’s study?

Answer 2

• A weakness is applications as the results may only be relevant to 1950s America
• A weakness is applications as the results may only be relevant to individualistic cultures like America and the Uk
• A weakness is the validity as the task and the situation were rather artificial

Question 3

What are the social and dispositional factors that explain conformity?

Answer 3

Social: group size, anonymity and task difficulty

Dispositional: personality and expertise

Question 4

Describe Milgram’s study(1963)

Answer 4

Aim: to investigate how much obedience affects peoples design making

Method: 40 male’s, 20-50, were always the teacher in an experiment with two confederates as the learner and experimenter. Participants were told they could leave at any time. The learner was strapped into a chat in another room and asked questions by the teacher. If answered wrong then a fake electric shock would be signalled with a start of 15 volts and rose through 30 levels to 450 volts.

Results: everyone exceeded 300 volts abs 65% continued to the 450 volts

Conclusion: obedience has little to do with disposition and is relative to the situation

Question 5

What are the evaluations of Milgrams study?

Answer 5

• A weakness is validity as the participants may of felt the task wasn’t real
• A strength is applications as there is other supporting research
• A weakness is ethics as participants experienced extreme stress

Question 6

Describe Piliavins study(1969)

Answer 6

Aim: to investigate if characteristics of a victim affects help given in an emergency

Method: a male confederate collapses on a New York subway in 103 trials and he was either a drunk man or a disabled man. Observers watched and noted remarks.

Results: the disabled victim was helped on 95% of trials whereas the drunk was helped 50% with the findings being xo tumours in crowded and empty carriages

Conclusion: characteristics of victims affects help given and the number of people present doesn’t have a correlation with help given in a natural setting

Question 7

What are the evaluations of Piliavins study?

Answer 7

• A strength is validity as there was high realism in the study and were completely unaware of their involvement
• A weakness is applications as the study was performed in an urban sample so emergencies were potentially frequent
• A strength is qualitative data as observers noted remarks from passengers

Question 8

Describe Zimbardos study(1969)

Answer 8

Aim: to study the affects of loss of individual identity

Method: four female undergraduates told to deliver fake electric shocks. The individuated groups wore normal clothes and the deindividuated group wore large coats with hoods

Results: Deindiviuated group were more likely to shock the person and held the button for twice as long, on average

Conclusion: this shows being anonymous increases aggression(agentic state)

Question 9

What are the evaluations for Zimbardos study?

Answer 9

• A weakness is validity as deindividuation doesn’t always result in anti-social behaviour
• A strength is applications as research on deindividuation can help to control crowds
• A weakness is validity as deindividuation explanations suggest antisocial behaviour may be due to crowd instead of collective behaviour

Question 10

What are the social and dispositional factors that affect obedience?

Answer 10

Social: agency, authority, culture and proximity

Dispositional: authoritarian personality, cognitive style, origins in childhood and scapegoating

Question 11

What are the social and dispositional factors that affect pro social behaviour?

Answer 11

Social: presence of others and cost of helping

Dispositional: similarity to victim and expertise

Question 12

What are the social and dispositional factors that affect crowd and collective behaviour?

Answer 12

Social: deindividuation, social loafing and culture

Dispositional: personality and morality

Question 13

Describe Reichers case study(1980)

Answer 13

Aim: to investigate crowd behaviour to see if it was ruly or unruly

Method: study newspaper and tv reports and interviewed 20 people with 6 of them being in depth about Bristol St.Paul’s riots

Results: riots triggered by police raiding cafe which community felt was unjust. The crowd threw bricks and burnt police cars but calmed when police left

Conclusion: shows damage was rule driven and targeted at police which reflected the social attitude of the area

Question 14

Define agentic state and autonomous state

Answer 14

Agentic state: where you act on behalf of someone else and feel no responsibility for actions

Autonomous state: where you behave in response to personal principles and feel responsible for actions

Question 15

Define deindividuation

Answer 15

a psychological state where an individual looses their personal identity and takes on the group identity of the people around them

Question 16

Define pro-social behaviour and anti-social behaviour

Answer 16

Pro-social: behaviour which is beneficial to other people and may not benefit the helper

Anti-social: behaviour which is harmful to other people

Question 17

Define displacement

Answer 17

a form of ego defence where an individual unconsciously redirects a threading emotion from the person who has caused it onto a third party

Question 18

Define bystander behaviour

Answer 18

the observation that the presence of others(bystanders) reduces the likelihood that help will be offered in an emergency situation

Question 19

Define social loafing

Answer 19

Individuals make a reduced individual effort when part of a group