Social influence Flashcards
Social influence
The process by which our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by other people
Conformity
The process whereby people change their beliefs, attitudes, actions, or perceptions to more closely match those held by groups to which they belong or want to belong or by groups whose approval they desire
Informational social influence (ISI)
The want to be right about things. This can turn into us copying other people’s behaviors because you think they know more than you. E.g. when you don’t know which end of the line to queue at you would look to see where the people in front of you are queuing.
Normative Social influence (NSI)
The want to be liked and accepted by others. We may change our normal behaviour to fit into a particular group of people.
Social factors affecting conformity
Task difficulty, group size, anonymity
Task difficulty
The more difficult a task the more likely we are to conform (ISI)
Group size
The more people or the larger the group size the more likely we are to conform. (ISI)
Anonymity
The more anonymous we are the less likely we are to conform (NSI)
Dispositions factors affecting conformity
Personality and expertise
Personality
The less positive a self esteem and IQ a person has will increase the amount they are likely to conform
Expertise
The more expertise we have the less likely we are to confrom
Locus of control
The sense we each have about what directs events in our lives
Aim of Asch’s study
To investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority, could affect a person to conform
Participants of Asch’s study
123 American Male students
Procedure of Asch’s study
There was 1 naive participant in each group. The rest of the people in the group were confederates.The confederates were told to give incorrect answer in 12/18 trials, namely critical trials The question was which line (A, B, or C) matched with line X. The naive participant was always last or close to answer, providing him with pressure to conform.
Findings of Asch’s study
76% of people conformed at least once
37% of people conformed during all 12 critical trials
24% of people didn’t conform at all
Conclusion of Asch’s study
People conform to fit into a group, even when they know they’re right. However, various factors affect conformity and some people are able to resist it.
Weaknesses of Asch’s Study
Weakness -> generalisability -> all men and all students, not applicable to general society
Weakness -> low ecological value -> artificial and lab experiment, not applicable
Weakness -> validity -> tells more about the culture of 1950s america, more conservative, no one could have their own thoughts
Internal Locus of Control
When people believe they are mostly responsible for what happens to them
External Locus of control
believe it is mainly a matter of luck or outside forces
Obedience
a type of social influence where someone acts in response to a direct order from a figure with percieved authority.
agent
a person who acts on behalf of others
milgrams agency theory
an individual will obey a figure of authority when they believe that the authority will take responsibility of the consequences of their actions
- Milgrams ppts believed the experimenter would take the responsibility and so did as they were told
automous state
when you behave according to your own principles and feel responsible for your own actions
agentic state
a mental state where we feel no responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting to an authority figure
agentic shift
change happens after an authority figure has been identified and an individual feels as they need to follow their commands
how does proximity affect obedience?
the closer one is to an authority figure the more likely we are to obey them
Fascism
a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government.
Liberism
political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politic
people high on the f-scale
- have exaggerated respect for authority
- more likely to obey
- look down on inferior social status
Style of thinking from authoritarian
A rigid cognitive style - black in white thinking. For
example: they prefer to believe in rigid stereotypes that all men are bullies and all women are emotional.
authoritarian
favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom.
Disadvantages of the f-scale
based on flawed questionaire
data correlation -> cant establish cause and effect. maybe other factors
millions of germans were obidiant cant all have ap
demand characteresitst
How does an authoritarian personality develop?
When a child experiences overly strict parenting - their parents exert strong discipline over their children and are very critical of their child’s behaviour. The child would internalise these values and expect all people to behave like it.
Scapegoating
People with authoritarian personalities need to displace their anger on someone else, someone inferior, in order to relieve their anxiety and hostility.
Prosocial
beneficial to other people and may not necessarily benefit the helper
Bystander behaviour
when individuals are compelled not to act in an emergency situation if other people are present
bystander intervention
when a bystander does help the person in need
bystander apathy
when a person doesn’t help the person in need
diffusion of responsibility in terms of the bystander effect
the more bystanders that witness an incident, the less likely one of them will help
pluralistic ignorance
When in situations, we often look at others and reacts based on what other people are doing. So, if no one is helping, we assume the event is not an emergency.
Social factors affecting the bystander effect
the prescence of others
the cost of helping
dispositional factors affecting the prosocial behaviour
similarity to the victim
expertise
social factors affecting collective behaviour
social loafing
deindividuation
culture
social loafing
putting less effort into doing something when you are with others doing the same thing
deindividuation
when an individual loses their personal identity and takes on the group identity of the people around them
collective behaviour
behaviour that emerges when a group of people join togehter. The group may behave in a way that is different from the way individuals might have behaved on their own. The group creates its own identity.
Milgrams study aim
find out if ordinary American citizens would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain on another person because they were instructed to
Milgrams study procedure
40 male American Volunteers aged 20-50 paid $4.50 for participating at Yale University
Via a rigged draw, the subjects were chosen to play the role of learner or teacher. ppt was always teacher.
The learner was strapped into a chair and had electrodes attached to him, to prove the equipment was working, ppt received an initial 45 volt shock
Play word game and every mistake the learner made he would receive a shock increasing 15v each time
To standardize the learner unknown to the ppt played a recording of the screams
After 300 volts there was silence from the learner
To encourage the ppt (teacher) 4 standardized prods were used.
After the experiment finished, the teacher was fully debriefed about the true nature of the study & reintroduced to the learner, who had come to no harm
milgram study results
100% went to 300V, 65% went to max 450V
milgram study conclusion
people will obey a perceived authority figure to carry out harmful actions against other people
Weaknesses of milgrams study
Generalisability, participants were all American males. So we can only generalise with caution to other cultures and genders about how they might behave when asked to carry out a sadistic act by an authority figure.
- puppy follow-up study
Ethics
- Deception was used-rigged draw therefore Milgram didn’t gain fully informed consent
- Right to withdraw was made difficult
- Psychological harm some ppts experienced seizures as they believed they were harming the learner
- Milgram carried out a debrief to ensure that ppts suffered no long lasting effects, he even changed the debrief by
allowing the teacher to see the learner again
Advantages of milgrams study
Reliability Because Milgram used standardised procedures like a rigged draw and recorded screams it means that other researcher can check to see if they achieve the same results making the research replicable
Validity, because Milgram used deception it is argued that the ppts thought they were giving real shocks, this therefore lowers the chance of demand characteristics making his results of whether people are obedient more valid.
Applicable-Milgram’s results were eye opening for the world attempting to explain why people in say WW2 carried out such horrific acts like the final solution
Extraneous variables of milgrams study
Yale University - a prestigious school in which people are more likely to obey figures with percieved authority
