Social influence Flashcards
Conformity
A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person
Ashch’s baseline procedure aim
-To what extent people will confrom to the opinion of others even where the anwer is unambiguous
Variables investigated by Asch
1.Group size
2.Unaminity
3.Task difficulty
Group size in Asch’s variables findings
-Number of confederates from 1 to 15 (group size 2 to 16)
-Found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate
-Conformity increased only up to a point
-With 3 confederates conformity rose to 31.8% and levelled off
-Suggests people are sensitive to views of others because one or two confederates were enough to sway opinion
Unaminity in Asch’s variables findings original
-Added presence of dissenter who either gave a correct answer or a different but still wrong answer
-Partcipant conformed less in presence of a dissenter
-Conformity rate decreased to less than a quarter when majority was unanimous (no dissenter)
-Suggests the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on unaminity
-Non conformity more likely when cracks perceieved
Task difficulty in Asch’s variables findings original
-Made lines comparison more ambigous, more difficult
-Conformity increased with difficulty
-ISI
Asch’s baseline procedure enact
-123 American men tested
- 2 cards of white lines . 1st line and second card only 1 matches
-Tested of groups 6-8
-Participant seated last or next to last
-Confederates all gave the wrong answer
-Genuine participants on average conformed 36.8% of the time
-25% didnt conform
Types of conformity
Internalisation , Identification & Complicance by Kelman
Internalisation
-Genuinely accepts group norms
-Private and public change of opinions and behaviour
-Permanent because of internalised attitudes
-Persists in absence of other group members
Identification
-Conformity because we value aspects of the group
-Want to be a pet if the group
-Publicly change opinions and behaviour to be accepted by the group even if don’t privately agree
Compliance
-Superficial and temporary conformity
-Privately not changing opinions or behaviour
-Particular behaviour or opinion stops as soon as group pressure stops
Explanations for conformity
Informational social influence & Normative social influence
ISI
-Need to be right
-Cognitive process
-Leads to internalisation
-Occurs in new situations or ambiguity or crisis situations (quick decisions)
NSI
-Need to be liked
-Emotional process
-Leads to compliance
-Situations with strangers with concern for rejection and friends for social approval
-Stressful situations with greater need for social support
Zimbardo’s research execute for conformity to social roles
-Mock prison in Stanford university’s basement
- 21 Student volunteer samples who tested as emotionally stable
-Coin flipped to Randomly assign to prisoner or guard
-Prisoners arrested at 2AM from their home
-Finger printed and strip searched
-Deloused
-Encouraged to conform to social roles;
- Prisoners could “apply for parole” and guard reminded that they had complete power over prisoners
-6/14 days
-$15 a day
Zimbaro’s research Uniform
-Deindividualistion
-Guards
Guard uniform, wooden club, handcuffs and mirror shades
-Prisoners
Loose smock, cap to cover hair, number for a name
Zimbardos research findings
-Guards were harsh
-Within 2 days, prisoners rebelled
-Prisoners ripped uniforms and shouted and swore at guards
-Guards retaliated with fire extinguishers
-Guards used “divide and rule’ tactics by making prisoners fight eachother
-Prisoners harassed to remind their powerlessness
-Frequent head counts at night to shout their number
-Prisoners can write letters home
-Made prisoners jumping jacks and push-ups
-After rebellion was put down prisoners showed regret depression and anxiety
-Even prison chaplains conformed to roles as if a real prison
Zimbardo prisoners specifics
-#8612 Mental break down, threatened to harm himself and call a lawyer . Was let go
-#819 Hunger strike, let go
-#416 Hunger strike , but thrown in to “the hole”. Believed it was real prison was ran by psychologists instead of government
Milgram’s baseline study for obedience
-40 American men aged 20-50 volunteered for a memory study through newspaper advert or mail shot
-From New Haven USA
-$4.50
-They drew lots that were fixed to be Teacher of Learner
-Always got Teacher
-Experimenter , confederate wore grey lab coat
-Learner called Mr Wallace strapped to chair wired with electrodes in another room
-Teacher given small real shock to show real shock
-Leaner had to learn pair of words and everytime got wrong, got acelleration of shocks by teacher pressing switches on fake shock machine up to 450 V (15 steps)
-Labelled ‘slight shock’, ‘intense shock’, to ‘danger-severe shock’
-At 300V, learner pounded on the wall and have no response to next question
-At 315v, learner pounded but silent for rest or procedure
-
Prods for Milgram baseline
-Please continue / please go on
-The experient requires that you continue
-It is absolutely essential that you continue
-You have no other choice, you must go on
Findings of Milgram’s research baseline
-100% gave shocks up to 300V
-12.5% (5) stopped at 300V (Intense shock)
-65% gave up to 450V , fully obedient
-Milgram gave qualitative data of observations of teacher: Many had Extreme tension, sweat,tremble, stutter, groan and dig fingernails into hands
-3 Had ‘full blown uncontllable seizures’
Other data of Milgram’s research baseline
-Before experiment Milgram asked psychology students to predict
-They predicted no more than 3% would continue to 450V
-Students underestimated obdedience of people
-Participants were debriefed and assured their behaviour was normal
-Followup questionnaire, 84% were glad to have participated
Aim of Milgram baseline
-Wondered if German people wre different as they were more obedient
-Why German population obeyed Hitler’s command to murder 6 million Jews, 5 million Romanis, homosexuals, black germans, poles and others during WW2
Milgram conclusions baseline
German people are not ‘different’
-Americans were willing to obey despite of harm
-Though he suspected other factors encouraged obedience
Nurse disobedience
-Hofling arranged for an unknown doctor to telephone 22 nurses individually to administer an overdose of a Astroten , not on their ward list.
-95% (21/22) obeyed but were stopped
-Rank and Jacobson replicated Hofling’s study with some alters that the original had to that maximised obedience
-Made a known doctor in real life order an overdose of a known drug of Valium
-2/18 obeyed then were stopped
Situational variables of obedience
Proximity, Location, Uniform
Proximity in obedience
-From 65% in different rooms to 40% in same room
-Touch proximity: 30% When teacher had to place learners hand onto electroshock plate if learner refused
-Remote instruction: Experimenter left room and ordered through telephone 20.5% and often pretended to give shocks
-
Proximity explanation
Decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distnce themselves from consequences of their actions
Location in obedience
From Yale university to run down office , 47.5%
Location explanation
-Presigious university gave Milgrams study legitimacy and authority
-More obedient here because percieved experimenter shared same legitimacy and obedience was expected
-However office still had high obedience because of percieved ‘scientific’ nature of study
Uniform in obedience
-From grey lab coat to experimenter taking a call and replaced by member of public in regular clothes
-Dropped to 20%
Uniform explanation
-Uniform encourages obediene because they are widely recognised as symbols of authority
-We accept someone in uniform is entitled ti expect obedience because their authority is legitimate and granted by society
-Someone without uniform has less right to expect obedience
Obedience situational explanations
Agentic state and Legitimacy of authority
Agentic state
-Milgram proposed obedience to destructive authority occurs because of no responsibility of the person
-Act as an agent
-Experience moral stran - high anxiety when they realise they are wrong but feel powerless to disobey
-Autonomous state is acting free and according to own princples to which they feel responsibilty
-Shift from autonomy to agency is Agentic shift
-Milgram suggested this happens when someone percieves someone else as an authority figure
-Authority figure has higher authority due to behing higher up in the social hierarchy
-Binding factors reduce moral strain so they can remain in agentic state e.g shifting responsibilty to victim or denying damage to victims
Legitimacy of authortity
-Societies have hierarchies
-People in certain positions have authority over everyone
-Authority is legitimate as it is agreed by society that they are necessary for scoeity to function smoothly
-Means some people how power to punish others
-We hand over our independence and behaviour to people we trust to excercise their authority properly
-Legitimacy is taught by parents, teachers then adults generally
Destructive authority
-When legitimate authority becomes destructive
-e.g Hitler , Stalin and Pol Pot
-They ordered people to behave in cruel ways
-In Milgram’s study destructive authority was clear when experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways against their consciences
Agentic state and legitimacy of authority examples irl
-Hitler and Nazi vs Jews
-Massacre at My Lai
Vietnam war where 504 civillians were killed by American soilders
-Women gang raped and shot down
-Burnd village to ground and killed animals
-Only one soldier faced charges and was guilty William Calley
-Same defence as Nazi officers; doing his duty by following orders
Dispositional explanation meaning
Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the improtance of the individual’s personality . Contrasted with situational explanations
The Authoritarian personality
-Ardono also wanted to investigate the ant-semitism of the Holocaust
-Believed high level of obedience is a psychological disorder, pathalogical
-Causes lie in the personality rather than situation
-People with AP show extreme respect and submissiveness to authority
-They view society as weaker than it once was so believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country and family
-These characteristics make people with AP more likely to obey orders from authority
-They show contempt for those with inferior social status
-Because of their inflexible out look on the world, no grey areas
-Either right or wrong and they are uncomfortable with uncertainty
-People who are ‘other’ eg foreign are respinsible for the ills of society
-‘Other’ people become a target for authoritatrians who obey orders from authoritarian figures even when destructive e.g Nazi Germany
Origins of authoritarian personality
-Childhood , harsh parenting
-Extremely strict discipline, expectation of absolute loyalty,impossible high standards and severe criticism of percieved failings
-Conditional love
-These create resentment and hostility in a child
-Child cannot express these feelings against their parents due to fear of punishment
-Fears are diplaced onto others who appear to be weaker : Scapegoating
-Psychodynamic explanation that explains why they hate socially inferior people
Authoritarian personality research
-Adorno Studied more than 2000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups
-Researchers made several measurement scales including Potential-For-Facism Scale (F - Scale)
-E.g “Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn “ and “There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel great love, gratitude and respect for his parents”
-People who scored high in the F scale and other measure (authoritarian learnings) identified with “strong” people and were contemptuous of the “weak”
-They were conscious of theirs and others status and showed extreme respect for those of higher status : these traits are the basis of obedience
-Adorno also found that authoritarian people had a certain cognitive style (way of perceiving others) in which there is no “fuzziness” between categories of people
-Black and white thinking
-Had fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups
-Adorno found a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
Resistance to social influence
Social support & Locus of control
Social support for resisting conformity
-Pressure to conform can be resisted if there are people not conforming present
-e.g Asch’a confederate
-Someone else not following the majority is social support
-Enables naive participant to follow their own conscience
-Confederate acts as a ‘’model’ of independent behaviour
-Their dissent gives rise to more dissent because it shows the majority is no longer unanimous
Social support for resisting obedience
-Pressure to obey can be resisted if there’s another who’s disobeying
-In Milgrams variation, obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when genuine participant was joined by a disobedient confederate
-Participant may not follow disobedient persons behaviour but they act as a “model” of dissent for participant to copy and frees him to act from his own conscience
-Disobedient model challenges legitimacy of authority figure making it easier for others to disobey
Locus of control
-Rotter
- High Internal LOC: Things that happen are controlled by themselves e.g bad results blamed on lack of studying
- High External LOC: Things that happen to them are out of their control e.g bad results blamed on textbook
-Loc Continuum a scale, Highs on the ends and lows In between
LOC for resistance to social influence
-High Internal Locs are more able to resist pressures to conform or obey
-As they take personal responsibility for actions and experiences they base their decisions on their own beliefs rather than depending on opinions of others
-High internal Locs also more self confident, more achievement oriented and have higher intelligence
-Traits lead to greater resistance to social influence
-Also traits of leaders who have less need for social approval than followers
Minority influence leds to & study
-Leads to internalisation; both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed by the process
-Moscovici studied this in Blue Slide Green Slide study
3 steps for minority influence
Consistency, Commitment, flexibility
Consistency in minority influence
-Consistency increased amount of interest from other people
-Synchronic consistency (all saying same thing)
-Diachronic consistency (same thing for a long time)
-Consistent minority makes other people start to rethink their own views (maybe they’ve a point if they all think this way : maybe they’ve got a point if they’ve kept saying it)
Commitment in minority influence
-Extreme activities e.g killed by horse
-Risk to show great commitment
-Majority then its attention
-Called the augmentation principle
Flexibility in minority influence
-Nemeth argued that only consistency can make arguments seem rigid and unbending
-This makes conversion to minority position unlikely
-Members of minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counter arguments
-Must be balance of consistency and flexibility
Process of change in minority influence
-Something you already agree doesn’t provoke deep thinking , but something new does especially if source of view is consistent, committed and flexible
-Majority to minority is conversion
-Deeper processing is important in the process of conversion to a different minority view point
-The more majority to minority increasing rate of conversion is Snowball effect
-Gradually the minority view is the majority and change has occurred
Minority influence study
-Moscovici had a group of 6 people to view a set of 36 blue colour slides that varied in intensity to state whether slides were blue or green
-In each group there were two confederates who said they were green
-True participants gave same answer of green on 8.42% of trials
-Second group were exposed to an inconsistent minority who said green 24 times and blue 12 times
-Agreement to “green” fell to 1.25%
-Where there were no confederates the wrong answer of green was said 0.25% of the time in trials
Social change from minority influence research steps
-African American civil right movements of 1950s and 60s
1) Drawing Attention
-With social proof
-Civil right marches drew attention to the segregation while providing social proof
2) Consistency
-Cviivl rights activists were consistent with millions over several years presenting same non aggressive messages
3) Deeper processing
-Activism meant that many people who has simply accepted the status quo began to think deeply about the unjustness of it
4) Augmentation principle
-Risking lives numerous times
-Freedom riders beaten for boarded buses in the south challenging racial segregation of transport
-Risk indicates strong belief and reinforces their message
5) Snowball effect
-Activists eg Martin Luther King got attention of the US government making more people back the minority position
-Us Civil rights act prohibited discrimination marking change from minority to majority support for civil rights
-6) Social cryptomnesia
-People remember a change occurring but don’t remember how it happened
-People have no memory (cryptomnesia) of events that led to change
Social change from conformity research
-Asch’s research where a confederate gave different answers throughout
-Broke power of the majority encouraging others to do likewise
-dissent has the potential to lead to social change
-Another approach is appealing to NSI as seen with environmental and health campaigns
-By providing information about what other people are doing
-e.g Bin it —others do
-Social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are doing
Social change from obedience research
-In one of Milgrams variations where a confederate refused to give shocks to the learner, the rate of obedience in genuine participants decreased
-Zimbardo suggested how obedience can be used to create social change through Gradual Commitment
-Once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes difficult to resist a bigger one
Asch’s baseline procedure Evaluation
- Artificial situation and task
-American men
-Lucas + counterpoint
-Ethical
NSI Evaluation
-Asch 12.5%
-Nafilliators
ISI Evaluation
-Lucas
-Unclear
Zimbardo Evaluation
-Control
-Lack of realism
-Lack of realism counterpoint 90%
-Exaggerates 1/3
-Alt explanation
-Ethical issues
Obedience Evaluation
-French 80% 460
-Tapes 75% vs 1/2 , 2/3
-Tapes counterpoint puppies 54% 100%
-SIT
-Ethical issues
Obedience situational variables Evaluation
-Bickman field
-Dutch 90% not present
-India & Jordan
-Fake
-Socially sensitive
Agentic state Evaluation
-Who is responsible
-Nurse study 16/18
-WW2 German Reserve Police Battalion 101
Legitimacy of Authority Evaluation
-Cultural differences 16% vs 85%
-Nurses & Milgram
Authoritarian personality Evaluation
-F scale on Milgrams people 20
-Counterpoint : Unusual traits
-SIT
-Political bias
-Flawed
Social support for resisting social influence Evaluation
-Pregnants 14-19 8 week
-Smear Campaign 88%
-Glasses 64% 3% 36%
LOC for resisting social influence Evaluation
-Repeated Milgram study 37% vs 23%
-40 year
-Not most important factor
Minority influence Evaluation
-Consistency by Moscovici 100
-Deeper processing research
-Deeper processing controlled limit
-Artifical
-8%
Social influences for Social change Evaluation
-Support for Normative influences
-Counterpoint drinking 70 quantity not frequency
-Minority influences explain change thinking
-Deeper processing limit
-Tree
Social influence
The process by which individuals and groups change eachothers attitudes and behaviours
-Includes conformity, obedience and minority influence
Social Change
-When whole societies, rather than just individuals adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things e.g Accepting the earth orbits the sun
