Social influence

Question 1

Definition of conformity

Answer 1

yielding to group pressure

Or

A change in behaviours or opinions due to real or imaginary pressure from a person or group of people

Question 2

Explain compliance.

Answer 2

Agreeing with the group publicly BUT disagreeing privately to gain approval or avoid disapproval

Question 3

Explain internalisation.

Answer 3

Internalisation is when you publicly agree and privately agree with the group.
Permanent change in opinion or behaviour

Question 4

Explain identification.

Answer 4

Identification is when you make the group beliefs your own BUT only due to a desire to be accepted

A person internalises the view on a SHORT TERM basis because it is likely to them being accepted by the group.

Question 5

Explain normative conformity.

Answer 5

Normative conformity is when you conform because of the desire to be liked.
Want to avoid going against the majority so you conform to fit in

Question 6

Explain informational conformity.

Answer 6

We conform due to the desire to be right.
We copy others when we are unsure out of fear of being wrong.

Question 7

Evaluate one strength of informational social influence as an explanation for conformity.

Answer 7

Strength: supported by research conducted by Lucas et al (2006) who found that there was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult rather than when they were easy, especially for students with poor maths skills. In conclusion, this study indicates that people conform to AMBIGUOUS SITUATIONS where they are unsure of the answer.

Question 8

Strengths of normative social influence as an explanation for conformity.

Answer 8

1: supported by research from Linkenbach and Perkins that indicates that when adolescents were told the majority of their peers didnt smoke, they themselves were less likely to take up smoking. This indicates people conform to norms of the group in order to fit in and be liked.

2: Research from Schulz found that hotel guests reduced towel usage by 25% when they were told that the majority of the guests reuse their towels.

Therefore theory is credible because it has studies backing it up.

Question 9

Evaluate one weakness of informational social influence as an explanation for conformity.

Answer 9

Weakness: The supporting research (Lucas et al 2006) can be criticised for age bias as it was only conducted on students. Perhaps adults may conform more or less therefore we can’t generalise findings to the wider population.

Question 10

What was the sample of Asch’s study?

Answer 10

123 American male participants - undergraduates.

Question 11

What are 5 methodological issues of Asch’s study? (Give a reason why for each one)

Answer 11

gender bias - only conducted on males
culture bias - only American participants were involved
Sample size
Age bias - all participants were undergraduates
lab experiment - IV was directly manipulated

Question 12

What were the 3 variables in Asch’s study?

Answer 12

Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty

Question 13

What is the ethical issue with Asch’s study? (Give a reason)

Answer 13

Deception - participants thought they were taking part in a vision test not a conformity experiment. Due to this, participants may feel embarrassed or uncomfortable

Question 14

What percent of participants in Asch’s experiment conformed at least once, every time and never?

Answer 14

75% - at least once
36.8% - every time
25% - never

Question 15

Explain why Asch’s line study can be classed as gender bias.

Answer 15

One limitation of Asch’s study is that it cant be generalised to the wider population because all the participants were males.
In this way the study cant be applied to the whole population because it doesn’t reflect the conformity rates of women.
An example of this is Eagly and Carli who found that women are more compliant than men and therefore differ in conformity styles. Therefore, Asch’s study is guilty of gender bias and findings can only be accepted with caution.

Question 16

Give another weakness of Asch’s study. (mundane realism)

Answer 16

Asch’s study lacks mundane realism.
This is because judging the length of a line is not a realistic everyday task that people would complete. This means that participants may not have card about conforming in this experiment due to the task being insignificant.
Therefore we cant generalise Asch’s findings to real world situations involving conformity.
However, Kundu and Cummins found that participants still conformed to the majority in tasks relating to moral dilemmas such as attitudes towards infidelity suggesting that perhaps we can generalise Asch’s study to the wider population after all.

Question 17

Background of Stanford experiment

Answer 17

-Funded by US Navy
-Wanted to see why prison guards were so aggressive and if we would conform to a given position

Question 18

IV and DV of the Stanford prison experiment

Answer 18

IV: Whether the participants were a prison guard or a prisoner
DV: Resulting behaviours of the prisoners and guards

Question 19

Sample of the Stanford prison experiment.

Answer 19

• 24 most mentally stable middle class American men
• 3 dropped out so it was technically 21

Question 20

Uniforms for prisoners and uniform for guard in the Stanford prison experiment

Answer 20

Guards- khaki uniform, a baton and had sunglasses
Prisoners - one big dress, no underwear, ankle chains and a cap

Question 21

Aim of the Stanford Prison experiment

Answer 21

-To see how readily people would conform to the roles of the guard and prisoner.

Question 22

Findings of the Stanford prison experiment

Answer 22

-Guards were sadistic and brutal - made prisoners clean toilets with bare hands and hit them with batons

-prisoners ‘told tales’ on eachother in order to act up to the prison guards to be on their good side

Question 23

What was the aim of Milgram’s study?

Answer 23

To see weather ‘Germans are different’ based on WW2 atrocities. Wanted to see if other people would obey too.

Question 24

Sample of Milgram’s study and how they were selected

Answer 24

40 male volunteers who were selected because they responded to a newspaper advert.

Question 25

What were the jobs of the Experimenter, teacher and student in Milgram’s study?

Answer 25

Experimenter - told participants to keep going even though they wanted to stop
Teacher - Asked questions and gave shocks
Learner - Answered questions, if wrong then they get shocked

Question 26

What were the findings of Milgram’s study?

Answer 26

-All 40 participants went up to 300 volts
-65% administered max of 450 volts
-35% defied the strong pressure of the experimenter

Question 27

AO3
Outline one strength of Milgram’s study
(High external validity)

Answer 27

Supported by research from Hofling (1966).
Researchers found that 95% of nurses obeyed orders from a doctor over a phone to administer a lethal dose of a medication, knowing it was dangerous to the patient. This suggests that everyday individuals are still susceptible to obeying destructive authority figures.
This is what is consistent with Milgram’s findings. This strengthens our acceptance of Milgram’s findings as similar results have been extracted in other experiments e.g. Hofling et al.

Question 28

AO3
Outline one strength of Milgram’s study
(Real life applications)

Answer 28

One strength of Milgram’s research is that it highlighted how Hitler was able to achieve what he wanted through authority and obedience. illustrates how obedience results in social change. This suggests that Milgram’s findings are representative of real life obedience on a large scale. This strengthens our acceptance of Milgram’s findings.

Question 29

AO3
Outline one weakness of Milgram’s study
(Lack of internal validity)

Answer 29

One weakness of Milgram’s experiment is that it may have been more about trust than obedience because the study was carried out at Yale university. The participants may have thought that nothing would actually happen to the learner because they are in such a prestigious setting. Furthermore, when the study was replicated in a run down office block, obedience fell to 20%. This suggests the original study didnt investigate what it intended to.
Therefore, this weakens our acceptance of the studies findings as there is a lack of internal validity.

Question 30

Outline and explain the findings of Milgram’s investigation into the effect of location on obedience (4 marks)

Answer 30

When Milgram repeated his study in a run down office block, 48% of participants obeyed the experimenter.
When you take away the status and prestige of an environment like Yale then people will obey differently as they dont think it is as legitimate hence obedience levels fall

Question 31

What effect did ‘no uniform’ make on obedience levels in Milgram’s study?

Answer 31

• Only 20% of participants administered max of 450 volts
• When the experimenter has no lab coat it removes authority and legitimacy so more likely to disobey

Question 32

What effect did ‘location’ have on obedience levels in Milgram’s study?

Answer 32

• Obedience fell to 48%
• When you take away the status and prestige of the environment you are more likely to disobey

Question 33

What effect did ‘proximity’ have on obedience levels in Milgram’s study?

Answer 33

• Obedience fell to 20%
  -When you see the consequences of your actions you are more likely to disobey
• This example is when the experimenter left the room and gave orders over the phone

Question 34

Explain the agentic state

Answer 34

-The agentic state occurs when you are following orders from an authority figure so the consequences of your actions are not your responsibility because the responsibility has been deferred to the authority figure as they are giving you orders. However in the autonomous state you are in control of your actions.

Question 35

Explain what is meant by legitimacy of authority

Answer 35

Social hierarchy is accepted in societies
Most of us accept that authority figures have to be allowed to exercise social power as this allows society to function easily. One of the consequences of legitimacy of authority is that some people are granted the power to punish others

Question 36

What are situational variables of obedience

Answer 36

proximity
uniform
location

Question 37

Explain how social support makes resistance to obedience more likely

Answer 37

The presence of others who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others do the same

These people give others the confidence to go along with their own opinions as the ‘model’ has shown it is possible to go against authority is possible.

Question 38

Give 2 pieces of evidence for social support

Answer 38

ASCH-
-Conformity dropped to 5.5%
-Breaks unanimity of the majority
-Presence of an ally gives people confidence to go with their own opinion

MILGRAM -
-Obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant was joined by a disobedient confederate

Question 39

What are the 3 things a minority needs to be to influence the majority?

explain why each one is necessary

Answer 39

Consistency - The minority needs to be persistent with their argument. The majority cant understand why minority have a different view point. This creates conflict which turns into anxiety. To reduce anxiety the minority are examined and the majority try to comprehend the minority’s argument

Flexibility - The minority have no power so they have to make compromises and negotiate with the majority as they are powerless compared to majority.

Commitment - The minority need to go out of their way to influence the majority and show that they are dedicated and stand by their opinions. This can cause majority members to be persuaded by minority argument

Question 40

Why are internals more likely to resist social influence?

Answer 40

Have greater self confidence which in turn leads to them standing by their opinions more and not getting as easily swayed as they dont feel a need for social approval.
Internals are more likely to be leaders rather than followers.

Question 41

Give a strength of authoritarian personality.

Answer 41

Supported by research from elms and Milgram who found that participants who went up to 450 volts had a negative relationship with their fathers. This is consistent with what authoritarian personality states. Therefore theory has more validity as it has supporting research

Question 42

Give one weakness of authoritarian personality (questionnaire)

Answer 42

• Research was gathered from a questionnaire
  -This is a problem because participants might lie due to social desirability. E.g. if ppts guess the aim and and not admitted to being authoritarian as it may make them look bad
  -Therefore the questionnaire lacked internal validity meaning it wasn’t a true measure of authoritarian traits

Question 43

Give one weakness of authoritarian personality
(involvement of situational factors)

Answer 43

-There is still evidence to suggest that situational factors are more important
-E.g. in Milgram’s study was carried out in a run down office block, conformity fell from 65% to 48%
-This suggests that obedience is affected by situational factors as well as dispositional factors
-Therefore the theory lacks validity as research suggests a more holistic view should be taken when trying to explain obdience

Question 44

Explain the 5 stages required for social change

Answer 44

-Draw attention to the issue which opposes majority opposition

-Role of conflict - means we examine the minority position deeply

-Consistency - When minorities express their arguments consistently, they are more likely to be taken seriously

-Argumentation principle - If there is a risk involved then the view is more likely to be taken seriously

-The snowball effect - A process that starts from an initial state of small significance builds upon itself, becoming large. (old minority is new majority and old majority is now new minority)

Question 45

One weakness of authoritarian personality

Answer 45

One weakness of AP is that it cant be applied to real life scenarios. For example, it is very unlikely that everyone in Nazi Germany had an authoritarian personality but rather they displaced their fears about the future onto an ‘inferior’ group of people. Therefore, the theory lacks validity as it has a limited explanation for some examples of obedience.

Question 46

AO3
Strength of locus of control
(Oliner and Oliner)

Answer 46

There is research evidence supporting the link between locus of control and social responsibility. For example, Oliner and Oliner (1988) interviewed two groups of non Jewish people who had lived through the holocaust. They also interviewed 406 people who protected and rescued Jews from Nazis and 126 people who did not. The rescuers were found to have an internal locus of control and also scored higher on measures of social responsibility. However, this also draws doubt over the direct link between locus of control and resistance to obedience - perhaps measures of social responsibility are more important/influential?

Question 47

AO3
Strength of locus of control
(Supporting research from Milgram)

Answer 47

This idea is also supported by a variation of Milgram’s study, where there were two other participants (who were actually confederates) and disobeyed the experimenter. The presence of the other person caused the level of obedience to reduce to 10%. This shows that the social support provided from the other participants gave them the confidence to reject the position of authority.

Question 48

What did Moscovici find?

Answer 48

Despite giving answers that were clearly wrong, minorities could still influence the judgement of a majority. But minorities had more effect if they were consistent than if they were inconsistent.

Question 49

Moscovici’s aim

Answer 49

To investigate whether a minority could influence a majority in tasks where there was a clear answer

Question 50

Sample + Procedure + Results of Moscovici

Answer 50

-192 females. Split into groups of 6.
-2 confederates who are the majority giving an incorrect answer and 4 real participants who are the majority.
-Shown 36 different shades of blue slides. The 2 confederates said the slides are green when they are clearly blue.
-Found that when the confederates were consistent ppts agreed with them 8.2% of the time, compared to when they were inconsistent ppts agreed 1.25% of the time
-32% agreed at least once

Question 51

(AO3)
Outline one weakness of Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment + Counterbalance
(Unethical)

Answer 51

One criticism of Phillip Zimbardo’s research was that it was considered unethical

For example, prisoners could have been subjected to psychological harm as they were stripped of their clothes, put in solitary confinement and chilled with cold CO2 gas. Moreover, ppts didn’t know what they were consenting to. They weren’t told they would go through and experience traumatic things

This suggests ppts couldn’t give informed consent. This weaken our acceptance of Zimbardo’s research

However, Zimbardo pointed out that he had selected psychologically healthy people and he didn’t know that the study would turn violent. Furthermore, he stopped the experiment before it could have gotten any worse

Question 52

(AO3)
Outline one weakness of Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment + Counterbalance
(Generalisability)

Answer 52

One criticism of Zimbardo’s research is that it has a lack of generalisability

For example, Zimbardo only recruited white middle class men as the sample. Perhaps this is only how white middle class men behave.

This means we cannot apply his findings to other groups of people in other cultures. E.g. Zimbardo’s findings tell us nothing about the conformity of 10 year old Asian girls.

Therefore this weakens our acceptance of the findings because we cannot apply them to other cultures/groups of people. Findings lack population validity.

However, Zimbardo’s findings could be used to explain examples of brutality in the world, suggesting his results are generalisable after all.

Question 53

(AO3)
Outline one weakness of Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment + Counterbalance
(Ecological validity)

Answer 53

One weakness of Zimbardo’s research into conformity of social roles is that it has been criticised for lacking ecological validity.

Perhaps the ppts didn’t believe the study was real so they didn’t act in a genuine way. This means we cannot apply these findings to the real world.

This weakens our acceptance of the finding as they cant be used for justification of real life conformity.

However, the participants did show strong emotional reaction to what was going on and 90% of conversations which took place were about life in prison