Social Influence Flashcards
Outline and evaluate research into conformity (AO1)
Asch’s (1956) study into conformity provides research support for normative social influence - conforming to be accepted by a group. Asch gathered 123 male student volunteers to take part in a laboratory experiment for what they believed to be was a test of vision. Participants were shown a comparison line and then 3 other lines labelled A, B or C. They were then asked one by one to say out loud which of the 3 sets of lines they were shown matched the stimulus line. All members of the group except the naïve participant were confederates who gave the same incorrect responses. The real participant always answered last or second to last in their response after observing the other confederates answer.
The findings from Asch’s line study showed that in control trials where no confederates were used, participants gave incorrect responses 0.7% of the time. In critical trials over one third (37%) of real participants conformed to the majority groups incorrect answer. 75% of real participants conformed at least once in the experiments. This means that many of the participants went along with the majority and provided an obviously incorrect answer on a line judgement task. When questioned by Asch in post‐experimental interviews, participants said that they changed their answer to avoid disapproval from the rest of the group which clearly shows that NSI had occurred, as the participants conformed to fit in.
Variations of Asch’s study were conducted to find out the effects of group size, unanimity and task difficulty on conformity.
Asch manipulated the size of the of the group of confederates by using 1, 2, 3,4, 8, 10 & 15 in the group. Asch found that the conformity was 3% when there was one confederate and one real participant, was slightly higher with 2 confederates (13%) and higher again with 3 confederates (33%). More than 3 confederates lead to little change in conformity rates. Asch suggested that a small minority is not sufficient to exert influence but, at the other extreme, there is no need for a majority of more than three.
To test the effects of unanimity, Asch introduced a confederate who DISAGREED with the others (the majority). On some trials, the new confederate gave the correct answer, but sometimes he gave the wrong one.
The presence of a DISSENTING CONFEDERATE led to REDUCED CONFORMITY, whether the dissenter was giving the right or wrong answer.
To test the effects of task difficulty, he made the line judging task more difficult by having the stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length. He found that conformity INCREASED under these more difficult conditions. This suggests that INFORMATIONAL SOCIAL INFLUENCE plays a greater role when the task becomes harder; because the situation is ambiguous, we look to other people for guidance about how to behave and assume that they are right and we are wrong.
Outline and evaluate research into conformity (AO3)
+ Laboratory setting: This enabled Asch to have control over all the variables and be certain that the confederates were the ones influencing the responses. This ensures that a cause and effect relationship can be drawn between the confederates’ responses and the participant’s response.
+Another strength for using a laboratory setting for Asch’s study was it enabled researchers to more easily replicate the study. This helped researchers check the reliability of the results which have been found to be consistent and show the study has validity.
- Laboratory setting: lacks ecological validity. This means the setup and environment were not realistic of real-world situations as all the participants were in an artificial environment and aware of being monitored. This may have resulted in very different behaviour compared to what they may have done in the real world as the study lacked mundane realism.
describe and evaluate different explanations for conformity (AO1)
There are two key explanations of conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence.
Normative social influence (NSI) is when a person conforms to be accepted and to feel like they belong to a group. Here a person conforms because it is socially rewarding, or to avoid social rejection; for example, feeling like they don’t ‘fit in’
An example of normative social influence is starting to smoke because the rest of your friends do even if you don’t really want to - you conform to avoid the embarrassment of being the only one who doesn’t smoke.
Informational Social Influence (ISI) is when a person conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else is ‘right’. ISI is usually associated with internalisation, where a person changes both their public behaviour and their private beliefs, on a long‐term basis. This semi‐permanent change in behaviour and belief is the result of a person adopting a new belief system because they genuinely believe that their new beliefs are ‘right’ or that the majority are ‘experts’. An example of informational social influence is changing your answer in an exam because an intelligent friends who are sat next to you got a different answer - you believe that because they got something different, yours is wrong and you therefore change it to be right.
describe and evaluate different explanations for conformity (AO3)
+ Supporting evidence for ISI: students were asked to answer a series of difficult and easy maths questions. They were shown incorrect responses to the questions. The study found that more students conformed to the incorrect responses for the difficult questions than the easy ones. This shows that we are more likely to conform when a task is more difficult and we are thus unsure about the correct answer - we thus trust that other people are correct and answer in the same way that they have to avoid being wrong.
+ Supporting evidence for NSI: adolescents were either given r not given the message that most people their age didn’t smoke. Those who were given the message were less likely to start smoking than those who weren’t given the message. This shows that people conform in order to fit in with the a group similar to themselves - this is normative social influence.
- There are individual differences in conformity: normative social influence can have less of an impact on certain types of people. A study found that science and engineering students were less likely to agree with others who gave an incorrect answer about the length of lines compared to a control group of non-science and engineering students. This shows that not everyone is affected by NSI the same way - the experimental students did not feel as much pressure to conform and thus felt less pressure to fit in with the group.
Discuss research into normative and informational social influence (AO1)
In situations where people do not know what to do, they turn to the majority for information about how to behave. They want to be right. Normative social influence takes place when people want to conform to the group, particularly when with strangers. People conform to be accepted by social groups - they want to be liked and not rejected.
Asch’s (1956) study into conformity provides research support for normative social influence. Asch gathered 123 male student volunteers to take part in a laboratory experiment for what they believed to be was a test of vision. Participants were shown a comparison line and then 3 other lines labelled A, B or C. They were then asked one by one to say out loud which of the 3 sets of lines they were shown matched the stimulus line. All members of the group except the naïve participant were confederates who gave the same incorrect responses. The real participant always answered last or second to last in their response after observing the other confederates answer.
The findings from Asch’s line study showed that in control trials where no confederates were used, participants gave incorrect responses 0.7% of the time. In critical trials over one third (37%) of real participants conformed to the majority groups incorrect answer. 75% of real participants conformed at least once in the experiments. This means that many of the participants went along with the majority and provided an obviously incorrect answer on a line judgement task. When questioned by Asch in post‐experimental interviews, participants said that they changed their answer to avoid disapproval from the rest of the group which clearly shows that NSI had occurred, as the participants conformed to fit in.
In situations where people do not know what to do, they turn to the majority for information about how to behave. They want to be right. When people conform in order to be right, this is known as informational social influence.
One researcher provided evidence for informational social influence students were asked to answer a series of difficult and easy maths questions. They were shown incorrect responses to the questions. The study found that more students conformed to the incorrect responses for the difficult questions than the easy ones. This shows that we are more likely to conform when a task is more difficult and we are thus unsure about the correct answer - we thus trust that other people are correct and answer in the same way that they have to avoid being wrong.
Discuss research into normative and informational social influence (AO3)
+ Laboratory setting: This enabled Asch to have control over all the variables and be certain that the confederates were the ones influencing the responses. This ensures that a cause and effect relationship can be drawn between the confederates’ responses and the participant’s response.
+Another strength for using a laboratory setting for Asch’s study was it enabled researchers to more easily replicate the study. This helped researchers check the reliability of the results which have been found to be consistent and show the study has validity.
- Laboratory setting: lacks ecological validity. This means the setup and environment were not realistic of real-world situations as all the participants were in an artificial environment and aware of being monitored. This may have resulted in very different behaviour compared to what they may have done in the real world as the study lacked mundane realism.
Describe and evaluate Asch’s research into conformity. (AO1)
Asch’s (1956) study into conformity provides research support for normative social influence - conforming to be accepted by a group. Asch gathered 123 male student volunteers to take part in a laboratory experiment for what they believed to be was a test of vision. Participants were shown a comparison line and then 3 other lines labelled A, B or C. They were then asked one by one to say out loud which of the 3 sets of lines they were shown matched the stimulus line. All members of the group except the naïve participant were confederates who gave the same incorrect responses. The real participant always answered last or second to last in their response after observing the other confederates answer.
The findings from Asch’s line study showed that in control trials where no confederates were used, participants gave incorrect responses 0.7% of the time. In critical trials over one third (37%) of real participants conformed to the majority groups incorrect answer. 75% of real participants conformed at least once in the experiments. This means that many of the participants went along with the majority and provided an obviously incorrect answer on a line judgement task. When questioned by Asch in post‐experimental interviews, participants said that they changed their answer to avoid disapproval from the rest of the group which clearly shows that NSI had occurred, as the participants conformed to fit in.
Variations of Asch’s study were conducted to find out the effects of group size, unanimity and task difficulty on conformity.
Asch manipulated the size of the of the group of confederates by using 1, 2, 3,4, 8, 10 & 15 in the group. Asch found that the conformity was 3% when there was one confederate and one real participant, was slightly higher with 2 confederates (13%) and higher again with 3 confederates (33%). More than 3 confederates lead to little change in conformity rates. Asch suggested that a small minority is not sufficient to exert influence but, at the other extreme, there is no need for a majority of more than three.
To test the effects of unanimity, Asch introduced a confederate who DISAGREED with the others (the majority). On some trials, the new confederate gave the correct answer, but sometimes he gave the wrong one.
The presence of a DISSENTING CONFEDERATE led to REDUCED CONFORMITY, whether the dissenter was giving the right or wrong answer.
To test the effects of task difficulty, he made the line judging task more difficult by having the stimulus line and comparison lines more similar in length. He found that conformity INCREASED under these more difficult conditions. This suggests that INFORMATIONAL SOCIAL INFLUENCE plays a greater role when the task becomes harder; because the situation is ambiguous, we look to other people for guidance about how to behave and assume that they are right and we are wrong.
Describe and evaluate Asch’s research into conformity. (AO3)
+ Laboratory setting: This enabled Asch to have control over all the variables and be certain that the confederates were the ones influencing the responses. This ensures that a cause and effect relationship can be drawn between the confederates’ responses and the participant’s response.
+Another strength for using a laboratory setting for Asch’s study was it enabled researchers to more easily replicate the study. This helped researchers check the reliability of the results which have been found to be consistent and show the study has validity.
- Laboratory setting: lacks ecological validity. This means the setup and environment were not realistic of real-world situations as all the participants were in an artificial environment and aware of being monitored. This may have resulted in very different behaviour compared to what they may have done in the real world as the study lacked mundane realism.
Describe and evaluate research into types of conformity (AO1)
Compliance is a superficial agreement with the group - going along with the behaviour or views of others in a group publicly but privately keeping your own attitudes.
This is an example of normative social influence, which is the desire to be liked.
Asch completed research into compliance with the 3 three lines study. His sample of 123 American male undergraduates were put into groups of 6-8 ‘participants’ - however, all but 1 were confederates. They did 18 trials where they were asked to say which line was identical to a comparison line. Confederates gave same incorrect answer on 12 out of the 18 trials (critical trials). Asch found that When alone, participants were correct 99% of the time. There was a 37% conformity rate across the 12 and 74% of participants who conformed at least once.
Participants said they conformed to avoid social disapproval and therefore showed compliance.
Identification is conforming to the group because we value it - prepared to change views to be part of it. This has elements of both compliance and internalisation as the individual accepts the attitude and behaviours as right and true (internalisation) but the purpose of adopting them is to be accepted as a member of the group (compliance). Zimbardo studied identification in the Stanford prison experiment. As part of his procedure, he randomly allocated a group of physically and mentally fit volunteers to either the prisoner or guard group. Prisoners were arrested at their homes, stripped, deloused, and were issued with a uniform and a number. Guards were also given a uniform, along with clubs, reflective sunglasses. handcuffs and absolute power over prisoners. After observing the behaviours of both groups, Zimbardo concluded that people quickly conform to social roles, even when the role goes against their moral principles.
Internalisation Conforming to the group because you accept its norms - you agree privately as well as publicly
This is the deepest type of conformity. It is when you actually change your private views to those of the group because you realise that you were wrong, and the majority were correct. This is an example of informational social influence, which is the desire to be right. This is demonstrated in the task difficulty variation of Asch’s line study. He made the task more difficult by making the lines very similar to one another in length. The results found that conformity increased in most circumstances. This is because when we are faced with an ambiguous task, we look to those who we believe have more knowledge conform to their behaviour as they are more likely to be right.
Describe and evaluate research into types of conformity (AO3)
+ Laboratory setting: This enabled Asch to have control over all the variables and be certain that the confederates were the ones influencing the responses. This ensures that a cause and effect relationship can be drawn between the confederates’ responses and the participant’s response.
+ High ecological validity: Zimbardo argued that the prison environment was genuine and seemed like a prison to the prisoners. This suggests that the experience of being a prisoner was real and therefore we can be confident of the conclusion that people readily conform to social roles. Psychiatric ward study findings agree with Zimbardo’s research and so lend support to the conclusion that individuals readily conform to social roles.
- Ethical issues: Zimbardo’s study raised serious ethical concerns considering the level of distress the participants experienced. Some reacted by crying, rage and anxiety and even Zimbardo acknowledged the study should have been ended sooner. The ethical concerns are the study could have long-term psychological effects on participants. This is a limitation as lowers people’s trust in psychology and makes them less likely to participate in studies
Asch’s study also raised ethical concerns as deception was used. The real participant was unaware the other people were confederates and misled on the actual aim of the study. This could be argued to be vital to measuring conformity however as, without the deception, their real behaviour may have been impossible to measure.
Discuss research into conformity to social roles (AO1)
Social roles are the ‘parts’ people play as part of various social groups e.g. parent, child, teacher. These are accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour in each role. For example a mother (social role) should be caring and loving (expectation).
Zimbardo conducted the Stanford prison experiment in order to investigate how readily people would conform to the assigned social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.
A mock prison was set up at Stanford University in the basement of the psychology department. Male student volunteers were psychologically and physically screened and 24 of the most stable students with no criminal tendencies were identified and randomly allocated to play either the role of a “prisoner” or “guard”.
The volunteers allocated as “prisoners” were unexpectedly arrested at their home and on entry to the “prison”, they were deloused and given a prison uniform and assigned an ID number. The guards referred to the prisoners only by their assigned ID numbers throughout the experiment.
Guards wore khaki uniforms, reflective sunglasses (preventing eye-contact) and issued handcuffs and a club. Guards were told they had absolute power over prisoners.
Prisoners and guards were encouraged to conform to their social roles both through instructions and the uniforms they wore.
Both guards and prisoners settled into their new roles very quickly. Within hours of beginning the experiment some guards began to harass prisoners and treat them harshly. Within two days the prisoners rebelled; they ripped their uniforms and shouted and swore at guards however they guards responded with increasingly severe behaviour. The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behaviour too e.g. they became subdued, they took prison rules seriously, they increasingly became docile and obedient. As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive.
Zimbardo ended the experiment after six days instead of the 14 originally planned due to the level psychological harm being inflicted on the prisoners.
This study showed social roles appeared to have a strong influence on individuals’ behaviour and power may corrupt those who wield it even if they are good people.
Discuss research into conformity to social roles (AO3)
+ Controlled observation: Prisoners and guards were randomly assigned to their roles, increasing the control Zimbardo had over the internal validity (whether the study actually measured what it intended to) of the study. This means that the observed behaviour was due to the role participants were given rather than individual differences. This gives us confidence in the conclusions that people readily conform to social roles.
- Demand characteristics have been blamed for the behaviour observed in Zimbardo’s study: some may argue that participants were play acting rather than conforming to their assigned social roles. They were simply behaving in response to strong indications provided by the research situation. This means that we cannot be confident of the conclusion that people readily conform to social roles.
+ High ecological validity: Zimbardo argued that the prison environment was genuine and seemed like a prison to the prisoners. This suggests that the experience of being a prisoner was real and therefore we can be confident of the conclusion that people readily conform to social roles. Psychiatric ward study findings agree with Zimbardo’s research and so lend support to the conclusion that individuals readily conform to social roles.
Describe and evaluate Milgram’s research into obedience. (AO1)
Obedience is a result of social influence where somebody acts in response to a direct order from an authority figure. Usually this order comes from someone who has more authority than yourself.
Milgram aimed to see whether ‘German’s are different’ i.e. following the atrocities of Nazi Germany, he wanted to find out whether ordinary Americans would obey an unjust authority.
Milgram placed an advert in the local paper looking for male volunteers. From the volunteers who applied, 40 were eventually selected to be a part of Milgram’s experiment.
They ranged from different backgrounds, occupations and age (20-50 years old).
The volunteers were deceived as they were told they were taking part in a study on memory and learning. They were invited to attend at the prestigious location of Yale Universities psychology laboratory.
Volunteers were invited individually and on arrival were introduced to an experimenter in a white coat and another middle-aged man who they were led to believe was another volunteer named “Mr Wallace”. In truth, Mr Wallace was a confederate.
The volunteer was told Milgram’s experiment was about how punishment affected learning and one person would be the teacher while the other would be the learner. The real volunteer and Mr Wallace drew lots to decide which role they would play however this was rigged with so the real volunteer would always be the teacher and Mr Wallace (the confederate) was always the learner.
They were placed in a room with a shock generator and the real participant who was the designated teacher was instructed to apply shocks of increasing levels to the learner every time a question was answered incorrectly by them.
The real participant was given a shock of 45 volts to convince him this was authentic and the confederate (Mr Wallace) was strapped to the chair in the room next door.
The voltages increased from 15 volts all the way up to 450 volts in increments.
In truth, the learner received no electric shocks unknown to the real participant and he was instructed to give mostly incorrect answers. Each time he was “shocked” by the real participant for an incorrect response, varied recorded responses were played.
At 150 volts the learner would begin to protest and refuse to take part further in the study complaining of heart problems. At 315 volts, he would scream loudly and from 330 volts and upwards, he would not respond at all. If the teacher (real participant) objected or displayed resistance to continue, they were given a series of verbal “prods” by the experimenter to continue the experiment.
65% obeyed of participants continued up to the maximum level of 450V. No one stopped before 300V.
Milgram concluded that ordinary people are capable of blind mind less obedience. Milgram went on to repeat the study with women and found the same percentage (65%) went to the maximum shock voltage
Describe and evaluate Milgram’s research into obedience. (AO3)
+ Low internal validity: Orne and Holland (1968) said that the participants guessed that the electric shocks weren’t real. Therefore, Milgram wasn’t testing what he intended to - meaning the study lacked internal validity. Perry (2013) confirms this when she listened to tapes of Milgram’s participants and many expressed doubts about the shocks. However, Sheridan and King (1972) conducted a similar study where real shocks were given to a puppy. 54% of the male students and 100% of the females gave what they thought was a fatal shock. This suggests the behaviour in Milgram’s study was genuine. Milgram reported 70% of his participants thought the shocks were real. This means that his research does show that people will do something morally wrong when told to do so by an authority figure.
+ Good external validity: Looks like it lacks external validity due to the lab setting. However, the most important feature of the situation was the relationship between the authority figure (experimenter) and the participant. Milgram argued the lab environment accurately reflected wider authority relationships in real life. Hofling et al. (1966) supports this, as they studied nurses obedience to doctors on a hospital ward. 21 out of 22 nurses obeyed an unjustified demand. This suggests that the processes of obedience to authority can be generalised to other situations so the findings are valuable.
- Ethical issues: some researchers are critical of Milgram due to the deception used. They deception as a betrayal of trust that could damage the reputation of psychology. Milgram deceived participants about the ‘random’ allocation of roles when it was actually fixed. Participants were also deceived into thinking the electric shocks were real. Deceiving participants means they cannot give fully informed consent and may leave them vulnerable to psychological harm. However, Milgram debriefed his participants after the experiment to reduce the impact of any ethical issues.
Milgram provided situations explanations for obedience. Describe and evaluate two situational variables variables that have been shown by Milgram to affect obedience (AO1)
Situational variables such as proximity, location and uniform can all affect obedience rates according to findings from Milgram’s study.
Proximity between the teacher and learner has been found to affect obedience as well as the proximity between the authority figure and teacher.
Milgram found that when the experimenter left the room and gave orders over a telephone more people were able to resist with only 20% of participants going all the way to 450 volts.
When the teacher and learner were in the same room and the teacher could see the distress the learner was going through due to the consequences of their actions obedience rates declined to 40%.
When the teacher was tasked with forcing the learner’s hand on to a shock plate obedience declined to 30%.
The closer people were to observe the consequences of their actions the lower the obedience rates as more people resisted.
The location and environment have been found to affect the amount of perceived legitimate authority the person giving orders has.
In Milgram’s original study, it was conducted at the prestigious Yale university which added to the perceived legitimacy of the authority figure giving orders. Milgram recreated his obedience study in a run downtown office block in Connecticut and found obedience rates fell to 47.5%.
This suggests that the perceived legitimacy of the authority figure was lowered due to the location and its context.
Uniforms can impact obedience rates with those wearing them being perceived as having legitimate authority and people more likely to obey their orders.
In Milgram’s obedience study the researcher wore a white lab coat which is believed to have added to his perceived authority. Milgram examined the power of uniform in a variation where the experimenter was called away and replaced by another ‘participant’ in ordinary clothes, who was in fact another confederate. In this variation, the man in ordinary clothes came up with the idea of increasing the voltage every time the leaner made a mistake. The percentage of participants who administered the full 450 volts when being instructed by an ordinary man, dropped from 65% to 20%, demonstrating the dramatic power of uniform.
