Social Influence Flashcards
State and describe the three types of conformity
Compliance = shallowest form of conformity
-person changes their public behaviour but not their private beliefs
-short term change
-result of Normative Social Influence (NSI)
Identification = middle level of conformity:
-person changes their public behaviour and private beliefs, but only in the presence of a group
-short term change
-result of Normative Social Influence (NSI)
-private beliefs are changed in the presence of the group but not permanently
Internalisation: = deepest level of conformity
-person changes their public behaviour and their private briefs
-long term change
-often the results of Informational Social Influence (ISI)
-a common example of this is converting to another religion
What is conformity?
a type of social influence that describes how a person changes their attitude or behaviour in response to group pressure
Outline the two explanations for conformity
Normative Social Influence (NSI):
-conforms to be accepted and feel as though they belong to the group
-usually because it is socially rewarding and they can avoid social rejection
-usually associated with compliance and identification
-motivated by the desire to fit in with the majority
Informational Social Influence (ISI):
-conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe someone else is “right”
-usually associated with internalisation, as both public behaviour and private beliefs are changed on a long term basis
-semi-permanent change in belief/behaviour is caused byadopting a new belief system, usually following the beliefs of the majoirty or people considered “experts”
Outline Asch’s (1951) original research examining conformity
Asch’s study (1951):
Aim: to examine the extent to which social pressure to conform from unanimous majority affects conformity in an unambiguous situation
Method:
-123 male undergraduate students, who believed they were taking place in a vision test
-1 real (naive) participant who always sat second to last was in a room of 6-8 confederates, who had agreed their answers in advance
-Asch used a line judgement task, where they would need to match the given line to an option of lines A,B or C (with the correct answer always being obvious)
-Out of the 18 trials, the confederates gave the same incorrect answer for 12 critical trials to see if the participant would conform to the majority view, even if their answer was clearly wrong
Results:
–on average, the real participants conformed to 32% of the critical trials
-74% of participants conformed on at least 1 critical trial, while 26% of participants never conformed
-Asch used a control group where the same experiment was completed without any confederates, where less than 1% of answers given were incorrect
Conclusion:
-When Asch interviewed the participants post-experiment, most said that they knew the answers were incorrect, but wanted to fit in and not be ridiculed
-this confirms that participants complied due to normative social influence and the desire to fit in without changing their private viewpoints
Evaluate Asch’s (1951) research
Lacks population validity:
-biased sample of 123 male American undergraduate students
-psychologists are unable to conclude whether individuals from other countries, or female students would have conformed the same way
-results cannot be generalised to the wider population.
Low levels of ecological validity:
-a line judgement task is artificial and lacks mundane realism because it is not representative of everyday examples of conformity
-unable to generalise the results of Asch to other real-life scenarios
-results are limited in their application to everyday life
Ethically questionable:
-broke several ethical guidelines
-e.g. participants were deceived, as they were told it was a vision test and nott a conformity experiment
-however, if the participants had known the true aim of the experiment, they may have displayed demand characteristics by not conforming to the majority view, which would have decreased internal validity
-furthermore, participants were not protected from psychological harm, and many reported feeling stressed when disagreeing with the majority
-to overcome this, Asch interviewed all his participants post-experiment
Outline variations in Asch’s research which examined how different variables affect conformity, including:
-group size
-unanimity
-task difficulty
Numerous variation of Asch’s line judgement task were carried out to investigate which factors influenced conformity levels
Group size:
-range of 1-15 confederates in these variations
-when there was just 1 confederate, real participants only conformed on 3% of critical trials
-when there were 2 confederates, participants conformed on 12.8% of critical trials
-when there were 3 confederates, participants conformed on 32% of critical trials (same percentage as Asch’s original experiment with 6-8 confederates)
-shows that conformity reaches its highest level with just 3 confederates, once a majority presure is created
Unanimity:
-the extent to which members of the majority agree with each other
-in one variation, a confederate was instructed to give the correct answer throughout, causing conformity levels to drop to 5%
-proves that when participants have support, they are more likely to resist conforming to the majority view
-in another variation, one of the confederates gave a different incorrect answer to the majority, causing conformity levels to drop to 9%
-shows that breaking/disrupting the group’s unanimous position, then conformity is reduced significantly, despie the supporter’s views also being incrrect
Task Difficulty:
-increased task difficulty by making the difference between line lengths smaller, hence more ambiguous rates of conformity increased, although he did not report a percentage
-possibly due to informational social influence, as individuals looked to one another for guidance in the ambiguous task
Issues and debates for conformity
-explanations of conformity (NSI/ISI) take on nomothetic approach
-attempt to provide general principles for group pressure to conform with the majority
-disregards individual differences
-also suggests that individuals can demonstrate free will and can exercise personal resposibility
-Asch’s sample shows beta bias (differences between men and women have been minimised in relation to conformity)
Outline Zimbardo’s (1973) research investigating conformity to social roles: The Stanford Prison Experiment
Aim:
-to examine whether people would conform to the social roles of a prisoner or a prison guard when placed in a mock prison environment, and whether the behaviour displayed in prisons was due to dispositional factors (the people themselves) or external situational factors (the environment and conditions of the prison)
Method:
-21 male university students who were selected from 75 volunteers based on their physical and mental stability and were each paid $15 per day to participate
-basement of Stanford Uni was transformed into prison
-each participant was randomly assigned the role of a prisoner or prison guard
-to make it as realistic as possible, the ‘prisoners’ were arrested by real local police and fingerprinted, stripped and had chains wrapped around their ankles
-guards were given uniforms, dark reflective sunglasses, handcuffs and a truncheon
Results:
-both prisoners and guards quickly identified with the social roles
-within days, prisoners rebelled but guards grew more abusive despite being initially instructed to run the prison without using physical violence
-guards dehumanised the prisoners, waking them during the night and forcing them to clean toilets with their bare hands, causing the prisoners to become increasingly submissive
-5 prisoners were released early, due to adverse reactions to the physical and mental torment, such as crying and extreme anxiety
-terminated after 6 days, despite being set to run for 2 weeks
Conclusion:
-people quickly conform to their social roles, even if it goes against their moral principles
-situational factors were largely responsible for the behaviour found, as none of the participants had ever demonstrated these behaviours previously
Evaluate Zimbardo’s (1973) research investigating conformity to social roles: The Stanford Prison Experiment
Weakness - Broke many ethical guidelines:
-heavily criticised for the lack of protection from harm
-5 prisoners left early due to physical and mental torment
-many guards reported feelings of anxiety and guilt, as a result of their actions during the Stanford Prison Experiment
Intended strength - Real world applications:
-intended benefit was to improve the US prison system
-there were initially some beneficial reforms in the way that some prisoners were treated, but Zimbardo considers his research to have been a failure in meeting this overall objective, as American prisons have arguably become worse compared to several decades ago when the study was conducted
Weakness - Role of individual differences not accounted for:
-behaviour of the guards varied dramatically, from extremely sadistic behaviour displayed by around 1/3 of guards, to a few guards who offered support and sympathy for the prisoners
-suggests that situational factors are not the only cause of conformity to social roles, but that dispositional factors such as personality also play a role, implying that Zimbardo’s experiment could have been exaggerated
Weakness - Beta Bias:
-only men participated, making it difficult to generalise the results to females and conclude whether they would conform to social roles in a similar way
Outline Milgram’s research (1963) investigating obedience to authority
Aim:
-to investigate whether ordinary people would obey an unjust order from an authority figure and inflict pain on an innocent person
Method:
-40 male American participants were recruited through a newspaper advert and were paid $4.50
-invited to Yale University, where they met the experimenter and another participant (who were both confederates)
-drew lots to see who would be assigned each role within the study, but this was fixed so that the real participant was always the ‘teacher’
-‘learner’ was strapped by the arms into a chair in the room next door, and a shock was demonstrated to the teacher to make it appear real
-participant was instructed by the experimenter to administer an electric shock of increasing strength for every mistake the learner made while recalling a list of word pairs
-shocks started at 15 volts and went up to 450 volts in intervals of 15
-at 300 volts the learner would bang on the wall and complain
-at 315 volts there would be no further responses
-the experimenter would use verbal prods as a form of encouragement to prevent the real participant from resisting to conformity of the role
Results:
-all participants went up to 300 volts and 65% of participants administered the full 450 volts
-participants showed signs of tension and distress, such as sweating and trembling
Conclusion:
-under the right situational circumstances, ordinary people would obey an unjust order from someone perceived to be a legitimate authority figure
Evaluate Milgram’s research investigating obedience to authority
Internal validity is questioned:
-Orne and Holland (1968) propose that so many of the participants went to higher voltages as they did not believe the shocks were real
-if they were not fooled by the experimental set-up, this would reduce the internal validity of the experiment
Lacks population validity:
-40 male Americans from a broadly individualistic society
-difficult to generalise results to other populations/cultures, or to explain the behaviour of females
Lacks ecological validity:
-laboratory study was conducted, which is very different from real-life situations
-in real life, people obey far more harmless instructions, rather than giving electric shocks, hence the findings cannot be generalised to real life
-also cannot conclude that people would obey less severe instructions to the same degree
Broke several ethical guidelines:
-participants were deceived into believing they were taking part in a study on how punishment affects learning, and not on obedience
-also deceived by the roles being fixed pre-experiment
-participants were also not protected from psychological harm, causing them to experience distress and they may have continued to feel guilty post-experiment, knowing they could have harmed another human being
Outline social-psychological factors as explanations for obedience
Agentic state:
-occurs when an individual carries out the orders of an authority figure, acting as their ‘agent’
-little personal responsibility and reduced moral strain
-opposite of the autonomous state (when a person acts independently)
-shift from autonomy to agency is known as the ‘agentic shift’
Evidence of agentic state:
-in Milgram’s original experiment, 65% of participants administered the full 450 volts
-in one variation, an additional confederate administered the shocks on behalf of the teacher
, where the number of participants administering the full 450 volts rose from 65% to 92.5%
-highlights the power of shifting responsibility while being in the agentic state
Legitimacy of authority:
-the extent to which the authority figure appears to have power
Evidence of legitimate authority:
-Milgram’s original research took place at Yale University, where 65% of participants administered the full 450 volts
-in one variation that took place in a rundown building in Connecticut, the obedience rates dropped to 47.5%
-change in location reduced the legitimacy of authority, causing participants to not trust the experimenter as much
What is the agency theory?
theory suggesting that we are socialised from a young age to follow the rules of society, but this can only happen when a person surrenders some of their free will
Outline situational variables as explanations for obedience
Proximity:
-refers to how close you are to someone/something
-in one of Milgram’s variations, the teacher and learner were seated in the same room
-participants who administered the full 450 volts dropped from 65% to 40%, as they could understand the learner’s pain more directly
-Milgram found that when the experimenter left the room and gave instructions ofer telephone, obedience levels fell to 20.5%
Location:
-original research took place in a laboratory at Yale University
-this created a prestigious atmosphere generating respect and obedience
-in one variation, the experiment was conducted in a rundown building in Connecticut
-obedience levels dropped from 65% to 47.5%
Uniform:
-in most of Milgram’s variations, the experimenter wore a white coat, indicating his status as an authority figure
-in one variation, experimenter was called away and replaced by someone in normal everyday clothes, who was in fact a confederate
-this confederate was the one who came up with the idea of increasing the voltage for every mistake
-in this variation, obedience levels dropped from 65% to 20%
Evaluate situational explanations for obedience
Strength - research support for the role of the agentic state:
-Blass and Schmidt (2001) asked students to watch the original footage and suggest who was responsible for the harm caused to the ‘learner’
-they named the experimenter, as he was wearing a white coat, signifying he was at the top of the hierarchy, hence had legitimate authority over the situation and outcomes
Limitation - difference in degrees of legitimacy in some cultures:
-Kilman and Mann (1974) replicated Milgram’s study in Australia, but found that only 16% shocked the learner with full volts, whereas when Mantell (1971) conducted this in Germany, obedience levels were at 85%
-cross-cultural comparison suggests that in different societies, children may be socialised differently to be more or less obedient
-therefore, results cannot be generalised, as obedience levels vary throughout different populations
-hence lacks population validity
Strength - research support for the role of uniform:
-Bickman (1974) conducted an experiment in NYC where confederates stood on the street and asked members of the public to complete small tasks, like picking up litter
-outfit varied from a suit and tie to a milkman to a security guard
-the public were twice as likely to obey the instructions in the security guard condition, which supports Milgram’s idea that uniform can affect legitimate authority, hence the obedience levels
Strength - high reliability:
-Milgram’s methodological approach was to change one variable at a time
-high control over the variables, meaning it was possible to closely monitor the effect of each one on obedience levels
-all procedures followed standardised methods, and variables were kept as consistent as possible
-furthermore, over 1000 participants took part across all studies, providing a weight of evidence not seen in other aspects of social influence research
