social influence Flashcards
Milgram A01
Milgram aimed to find out whether a sample of American men would be obedient to an authority figure to the extent that they would harm another person. To test this aim, Milgram recruited a sample of 40 men ranging in ages from 20- 50 from the New Haven area. He told them it was a study on the effect of punishment on learning. When the men arrived they were allocated the role of “teacher” while a confederate took the role of “learner”. The participants were asked to give an electric shock (fake) to the learner every time they got a question wrong. They were asked to increase the shock by 15 v until they reached the end which was 450v (marked XXX). An experimenter in a lab coat told the participants that they must continue when they asked if they could stop. It was found that 65% of the participants went all the way to 450v and 100% shocked to 300v. The participants were visibly highly stressed, hysterically laughing and a couple of men even had seizures. It was concluded that obedience is situational and under the right conditions we might all be obedient to the point of harming another person. Milgram also concluded that the German soldiers in the holocaust were not unique.
Milgram A03
One key strength of Milgram’s research was its replicability. All elements of the procedure were highly controlled, each participant had the same actor and the same instructions. Milgram’s study has in fact been replicated by a number of researchers including a French game show where 80% of participants give the full shock amount. This supports Milgram’s conclusion about our obedient nature.
Some people have argued that the highly artificial nature of the study may have meant that participants didn’t really believe they were shocking the learner. However, the high stress responses recorded suggest that they did believe that it was real. This means that the study did have internal validity. Milgram even stated that 70% of the participants had said they believed they were real.
Hofling’s findings from nurses in a hospital support Milgram’s findings in a real life setting. It was found that 21/22 nurses obeyed unjustified demands from doctors. Therefore this suggests that we can generalise Milgram’s findings to the real world.
This study can be criticised as being unethical. The participants were deceived in many ways (the fake shocks, the actor, the aim of the study). They were unable to give informed consent and probably felt that they couldn’t withdraw with the experimenter encouraging them to continue. They were also visibly shaken by their experience which suggests that they were psychologically harmed. For this reason we shouldn’t really replicate this study today to verify the findings.
Situational variables affecting obedience
Milgram conducted many variations of his original research where he changed one variable to see the effect.
Proximity: Teacher and learner in the same room = drop of obedience to 40% Teacher presses learner’s hand on shock plate = 20.5%
Location: Experiment was moved to a run-down office = drop of obedience to 47.5%
Uniform: Member of the public as the authority figure (no lab coat) = drop of obedience to 20%
Situational variables affecting obedience A03
The variations may lack internal validity. The extra experimental manipulation meant that the situation felt even more contrived so the participants are more likely to guess the aim. This could explain the extreme drop in obedience.
There is research support from Bickman for the effect of uniform. He had a confederate dressed as either a security guide, milkman or in a jacket and tie. He found the most obedience to the confederate dressed as a security guard supporting the idea that uniform conveys authority and is an important factor.
The variations are further evidence of Milgram’s control over his variables. All other variables were kept constant with as many as 1000 ps. This raises the internal validity and our confidence over the conclusions.
Finally, many have argued that Milgram’s work gives people an excuse for obedience. Suggesting that it is the situation that creates obedience can be offensive to Holocaust survivors because it suggests those that harmed them were not responsible. This can be dangerous as it ignores the role that prejudice played in the Holocaust.
Social psychological factors in obedience A01
Agentic state: This explanation states that we are obedient because we do not feel responsible for our actions due to the presence of an authority figure. We go from autonomous (making our own decisions) to agentic through the agentic shift when we receive orders from an authority figure. We may feel some moral strain but binding factors keep us obedient (strategies we use to minimise the damage in our heads).
Legitimacy of authority: This explanation states that we will obey someone who we perceive has real authority over us. This is justified by their power within society, their position in the social hierarchy. We learn to obey people with authority from an early age with our parents as the first authority figures. Authority is legitimate if they can punish us, or we trust their superior knowledge.
Social psychological factors in obedience A03
This explanation cannot explain why some of Milgram’s Ps did not obey up to 450v. It states that we will all obey an authority figure because we do not feel responsible, but some did not. Therefore it cannot be a complete explanation for obedience, there must be individual differences between people that are important.
This explanation is supported by research findings from Blass. They found that students who watched the Milgram procedure identified the experimenter as the person responsible for the harm to the confederate. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the participants were in an agentic state.
A03 - agent state
This explanation (and the agentic state) are potentially insensitive explanations of obedience. They ignore free will and say that people will obey a legitimate authority figure and do not place any responsibility on the individual. This almost excuses the behaviour of people who have obeyed in brutal ways which has problematic legal implications.
This explanation can help us to understand why obedience levels might be different in different cultures. Mann found obedience levels of 16% in Australia (compared to 65% in the original study). Different societies would have a different understanding of what is legitimate. Therefore, this is useful explanation for understanding cultural differences.
Dispositional explanation for obedience: The authoritarian personality
Adorno argued that some people have authoritarian personalities, which means: Being obedient to those in authority. Being submissive to people of higher status. Showing contempt to those deemed to be inferior. They believed that this high level of obedience was a psychological disorder routed in the individual’s personality. Adorno Measured 2000 middle-class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups. Developed and used the F-Scale (potential for fascism scale) to measure authoritarian personality. People with authoritarian personalities: Identified with the ‘strong’ and pitied the ‘weak’. Were aware of their own social status (and of those around them). Showed extreme respect and flattery to those of higher status. Patronised those of lower status. Were driven by stereotypes and prejudice This personality type is formed in childhood by overly harsh parents. High standards and severe criticism as well as conditional love leads to hostility towards the parents. They cannot express it towards them so they express it to those seen as a weaker.
Dispositional explanation for obedience: The authoritarian personality A03
Research support- Milgram and Elms (1966) found that ps who were highly obedient (shocked to 450v) also scored highly on the F scale. Suggesting a link between obedience and the authoritarian personality. However, this shows only a correlation between two variables. We cannot conclude that the authoritarian personality is the cause of the obedience levels found by Milgram. There may be a ‘third factor’ such as low educational achievement.
It cannot explain obedient behaviour in a majority (eg Anti-semitism pre-war Germany) – they can’t all have authoritarian personalities. This is a limitation of Adorno’s theory because we need an alternative to fully understand obedience. Perhaps social identity theory can offer a better explanation (identifying with a group and demonising those outside of the group).
The F scale is biased in the fact that it only measures right wing ideology. The F scale does not cover left wing ideology which can be just as obedient to authority. This is a limitation of Adorno’s theory because it cannot explain all obedience.
The F scale is flawed because it suffers from acquiescence bias. Every question is weighted in the same way – (saying ‘strongly agree’ means authoritarian). This is a problem because people who have a tendency to say yes (acquiesce) will look authoritarian when they might not be.
Resistance to social influence
Social support (situational explanation)
We are less likely to conform (or obey) if we have social support. If there is someone else there not conforming or not obeying the pressure is lifted. They act like a role model (situational explanation). In Asch’s research the presence of another non-conforming person led to reduced conformity of about 5.5 per cent. A dissenting group member allowed the pp to act independently.
A03 - Allen and Levine support the role of social support. Independence increased with a dissenter in an Asch style study. Even when the dissenter wore thick glasses and said he couldn’t see properly. This shows that the dissenter simply removes the pressure to conform and is not necessarily seen as providing the right answer.
However, this explanation ignores the role of individual differences. It sees us all acting in the same way in the same situation this ignores how personality types might influence our behaviour. Some of us might feel less pressure to conform in the first place and so do not need the social support to reduce the pressure.
Locus of control (dispositional explanation)
Locus of control means where we think the control lies in our lives. Those with an internal locus of control see themselves as being responsible for what happens to them (they are less likely to conform/ obey) those with an external locus of control locate the control in external forces like fate/ god/ luck. We all fall somewhere along a continuum from high internal to high external.
A03 - Supported by Holland who repeated Milgram’s study and tested Ps for internal/ external LoC. Internals were less obedient. (37% didn’t shock to the end whereas 23% of externals didn’t shock to the end). This suggests that those with an internal locus of control are more likely to resist the pressure to obey.
This explanation ignores the role of situational factors. It should perhaps be seen alongside situational explanations like social support. Perhaps internals are generally less likely to obey but this will be even less likely with a disobedient role model.
Minority influence
A minority changes opinion through internalisation because we are thinking about the issue more deeply. This occurs through
Consistency: Agreement between members of the minority (synchronic) and over time (diachronic)
Commitment: Showing that they really care about their cause. Maybe by doing extreme things. Majority considers their point of view because they clearly care (augmentation principle).
Flexibility: not being rigid. Listening to other points of view and adapting where appropriate.
The minority becomes the majority view through the snowball effect (1 person convinces 2 people, they convince 2 more people each, gradually the minority becomes the majority).
Moscovici wanted to investigate whether a consistent minority will influence members of the majority. He conducted a lab experiment in which 6 people were asked to view a set of 36 blue slides (varying in intensity). He asked the ps “Are the slides blue or green?” There were 2 confederates in each group who consistently said the slides were green on 2/3 of the trials. In a second condition the confederates were inconsistent. In the consistent condition ps gave the wrong answer and said green 8% of the time. In the inconsistent condition ps went along with the minority 1% of the time. He concluded that a consistent minority is more influential.
Minority influence A03
Support for consistency comes from Moscovici’s study. Moscovici found that a consistent minority was more influential than an inconsistent one. Wood confirmed this finding with a meta-analysis including 100 similar studies. This supports the validity of Moscovici’s study.
One limitation of the research in this area is the use of artificial tasks. In Moscovici’s study Ps simply had to judge the colour of a slide which was a very trivial task. Therefore, this may not reflect real life decision making when the outcome is important such as being in a jury or deciding who to vote for.
It could be argued that research in this area is limited in it’s real world applications. In lab experiments it is easy to manipulate the minority/ majority through numbers of ps/ confederates. It is not as simple as this in real life because the majority also usually has more power and status. Therefore, any findings from lab experiments (like Moscovici’s on minority influence should be applied with caution.
