Social Influence Flashcards
What is obedience?
To follow an order given by a person with recognised authority
Milgram’s aim
to see if a volunteer would obey to giving electric shocks to someone they thought was another participant
Milgram’s procedure
40 male volunteers were selected from a range of backgrounds, they thought the study was about memory and learning.
Ppts were deceived as they thought roles were random, but all of them were teachers.
The ‘learner’ was strapped to an electric chair, the Ppts was sampled shocked with 45V.
Ppt asked questions, if ‘learner’ got it wrong they would be shocked, the voltage increased each time.
The ‘learner’ was behind a cloth so ppt couldn’t see them but could hear them.
Milgram’s 4 prods
- Please continue
- The experiment requires you to continue
- It’s absolutely essential that you continue
- You have no other choice, you must go on
Milgram’s results
65% went to 450v - the maximum shock
Milgram’s conclusion
People will obey in certain situations even if they don’t necessarily want to.
Milgram’s variations
- Experiment took place in a run down office building (dropped to 48%)
- The teacher and leaner were in the same room (dropped to 40%)
- The teacher had to force the learners hand down on the shock plate (dropped to 30%)
- Experimentor gave instructions to the teacher over the phone (dropped to 20%)
- Participants worked in groups to shock the learner, two rebelled (dropped to 10%)
- Someone else administrated the shock (increased to 92.5%)
- Teacher couldn’t see or hear the learner (increased to 100%)
Milgram’s strengths
High scientific validity - lab experiment so variables were controlled, ppts believed roles were random so demand characteristics were reduced
Milgram’s supporting research
Bickman: Milkman, man and security guard asking passers by to pick up litter - people were twice as likely to do it for the security guard (legitimate authority)
Hofling: Unkown doctor phoned 22 nurses to administer an overdose drug not on ward list - 95% obey without question
Beavous et al: (French TV game show) mocked up Milgram’s experiment - 80% went to 450v
Milgram’s ethical issues
Ppts were deceived - can have serious psychological harm
Milgram’s limitations
Research support
Charles Holland: argued the ppts knew it was fake so it lacked scientific validity
Sheridan and King: Ppts gave electric shocks to puppies - 54% males obeyed & 100% females - Milgrams is gender biased and can’t be applied through whole population
Killman and Manh: Milgram’s experiment in Australia - 15% obedience - all of MIlgram’s repeated were in western cultures (cultural bias)
Agentic state
Shifting responsibility onto the person who gave the orders
Legitimate authority
For us to obey someone they must have some sort of social power
Authoritarian personality
Strict parents who attach conditions to love and an emotionally absent father = child grows up very insecure and needing to belong
As an adult they don’t like anyone different from them, they believe in following higher authority and more likely to follow facist leaders - obey without question
Adorno et al
F-Scale questionnaire to show authoritarian personality
Research support for Adorno et al
Milgram and Elms: 20 obedient and 20 disobedient ppts who took part in Milgrams experiment completed F-Scale questionnaire - obedient ppt scored higher on F-Scale and didn’t have a close relationship with father.
Strength: controlled variables
Strength: provided quantitive and qualitative data (high scientific validity)
Limitation: correlation
Criticism of Adorno et al
Political bias - doesn’t account for extreme left wing views
Lacks temporal validity - questions unique to 1950s so no longer relevant
Response bias - ppts answered according to what they thought was socially desirable
Middentrope Meleon: argued those less educated were more obedient (education isn’t authoritarian personality)
Social support
Conformity decreased when individuals rebelled - people more likely to disobey if others do it first
Locus of control - Rotter
Measured on a scale
High internal locus of control: believe things are your own choice and responsibility
High external locus of control: believe things are due to luck or fate
Research support for Locus of control
Oliner and Oliner: compared 406 people who protected jews and 126 who didn’t - rescuers had high internal locus of control
Minority influence
Individual or small group’s attitude/behaviour influence a larger group
Consistency - Moscovici
Lab experiment - 172 female ppts, groups of 6 (2 confederates and 4 naive)
36 blue slides
condition 1: consistent - confederates said all slides were green - 8.2& agreed
condition 2: inconsistent - confederates said 24 were green and 12 were blue - 1.25% agreed
Strength: controlled variables - high internal validity
Limitation: Gender bias - all ppts were female
Flexibility - Nemeth
4 ppts (1 confederate) decided compensation rates for ski lift accident victims
Condition 1 : inflexible - confederate argued for low compensation rate and wouldn’t budge
Condition 2: flexible - confederate argued for low compensation rate then goes slightly higher
Strength: high internal validity (lab experiment)
Strength: high external validity
Limitation: small sample size - doesn’t reflect minority
Moscovici’s conversion theory
Minority can cause social change if they show : consistency/sacrifice/group membership
Consistency: Moscovici blue slide experiment
Sacrifice: Rosa parks being arrested, Suffragettes fought for women’s rights
Group membership: Group of heterosexual men spoken to by a minority about gay rights - more likely to listen to heterosexual minority rather than homosexual minority as they can relate.
Other factors that influence minority
Deeper processing
Snowball effect - initially change is small but increases as more people join
Augmentation principle - if minority are physically harmed for belief then people feel sympathy so they support then
Drawing attention
Social cryptominesia - people forget that change has happened
Limitation for minority influence
Bashir: research on peoples views on environmentalists - some people viewed them as ‘treehuggers’ - negative viewpoint so people didn’t want to be associated with them they were wiling to help the environment.
Strength for minority influence
Nolan: 2 residential areas in SanDiego
Notes on doors - 1= save energy 2= I save energy
In second group energy usage dropped as they felt they were apart as a community
