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social influence Flashcards

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1
Q

What is conformity?

A

A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result from real or imagined pressure from a person or group.

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2
Q

What is yielding to group pressure called?

A

majority influence

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3
Q

Who created the three ways in which people conform?

A

Herbert Kelman

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4
Q

What are the three types of conformity?

A
  1. compliance
  2. identification
  3. internalisation
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5
Q

What is compliance?

A

Do it in order to be accepted. Public but not private acceptance of the group’s behaviour and attitudes.

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6
Q

What is identification?

A

Conforms to behaviours because there is something they value about the group. Change behaviours publicly to be part of the group, privately you may also hold these beliefs, however it is generally temporary.

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7
Q

What is internalisation?

A

A person genuinely believes and accepts a group norm. The change is permanent. Publicly and privately accept views and becomes part of the way they think.

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8
Q

What were the variables within Asch’s study?

A

•group size
•unanimity
•task difficulty

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9
Q

What were the limitations to Asch’s study?

A

•participants were all American males
•America is an individualist society in contrast to China which is collectivist society.

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10
Q

What were the strengths of Asch’s study?

A

•other studies have found the same about task difficulty (Lucas et al) found with increased difficulty maths problems, conformity increased.
•individual level factor can influence conformity

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11
Q

How did Asch vary group size?

A

He varied number of confederates from 1 to 15. There was a curvilinear relationship,the more confederates there were, the more likely the participant was to conform- to a point. With 3 confederates the incorrect answer rose to 31.8%, however more confederates made little difference.

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12
Q

How did Asch investigate unanimity?

A

Asch introduced a non-conforming person and the genuine participant conformed less often when in the presence of a non-conforming person.

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13
Q

How did Asch investigate task difficulty?

A

Ash found when he made the task harder, conformity increased. This is because it is more ambiguous so people look to those around them for guidance.

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14
Q

What does the findings from unanimity suggest?

A

The influence of a majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous. Non conformity is more likely to appear when there are cracks in the views of the majority.

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15
Q

What do the findings from group size suggest?

A

Most people are sensitive to the views of others as it didn’t take many confederates for them to conform.

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16
Q

How many students participated in the study?

A

123 male students

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17
Q

How many trials were there?

A

each participant completed 18 trials and the confederates gave the same incorrect answer on 12 trials, called critical trials.

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18
Q

What were the findings of the study?

A

•real participants confirmed to the incorrect answers on 36.8% of the critical trials.
•75% of the participants confirmed to at least one critical trial and 25% of the participants never conformed.
•Asch used a control group, he found that less than 1% of the participants gave an incorrect answer.

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19
Q

What did the participants reveal when Asch interviewed them after?

A

Most said they knew their answers were incorrect, but went along with the group in order to fit in, or because they thought they would be ridiculed.

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20
Q

What were the conclusions of the study?

A

•Individuals’ judgement are affected by majority influence.
•The participants conformed due to normative social influence and the desire to fit in and avoid rejection.

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21
Q

What does GRAVE stand for?

A

•Generalisability
•Reliability
•Applicability
•Validity
•Ethics

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22
Q

Who invented the two process model?

A

Deutsch and Gerrard (1955)

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23
Q

What were the two main reasons Deutsch and Gerrard said people conform?

A

•the need to be right
•the need to be liked

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24
Q

What is Informational Social Influence (ISI)?

A

About who has the better information

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25
Q

What type of process is ISI?

A

a cognitive process

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26
Q

When does ISI occur?

A

•in an ambiguous situation
•in times of crisis
•if there is believed to be an expert in the group

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27
Q

What type of conformity does ISI link to?

A

internalisation

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28
Q

What is Normative Social Influence (NSI)?

A

Wanting to be deemed acceptable and part of a group

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29
Q

What type of process is NSI?

A

emotional process

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30
Q

When does NSI occur?

A

In a stressful situation and when in need of social support.

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31
Q

What type of conformity does NSI link to?

A

compliance

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32
Q

How does Asch’s study link to ISI?

A

when the task was made more difficult, conformity increased as people were unsure of their own answers.

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33
Q

How does Asch’s study link to NSI?

A

When people were interviewed at the end of the study a number of people said they agreed with the group because they wanted to fit in.

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34
Q

What is conformity to social roles?

A

Social roles are the parts people play as members of various social groups. There is considerable pressure to conform to the expectations of a social role.

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35
Q

What type of conformity is conforming to social roles?

A

Identification- a person changes their public behaviour and private beliefs, but only when they are in a particular social role.

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36
Q

What did Zimbardo research?

A

The Stanford Prison Experiment

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37
Q

What were the aims of Zimbardo’s study?

A

To investigate how readily people would conform to the social roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life.
•Wanted to examine whether the behaviour displayed was due to internal dispositional factors or external dispositional factors.

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38
Q

What was the procedure of Zimbardo’s study?

A

•He converted a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison.
•Advertised for 21 male students to play the roles of prisoners and guards for a fortnight.
•Participants were randomly assigned.
•Prisoners were blindfolded, strip-searched, de-loused, issued a uniform and referred to by their number only.
•Guards were issued a khaki uniform, whistles, handcuffs and dark glasses to make eye contact impossible.
•Guards worked shifts of 8 hours each.
•No physical violence was permitted
•Zimbardo was the prison warden and the researcher.

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39
Q

What were the findings of Zimbardo’s study?

A

•Following a rebellion by the prisoners, the guards and prisoners settled into their new roles.
•Some guards began to harass prisoners. They behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, apparently enjoying it.
•Prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behaviour.
•As the prisoners became more submissive, the guards became more aggressive and assertive.
•Prisoners were dependent on the guards so they tried to find ways to please them.
•Guard behaviour became a threat to the prisoners’ psychological and physical health and the study was stopped after 6 days instead of 14.

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40
Q

What were the conclusions of Zimbardo’s study?

A

•Zimbardo conceded that people quickly conform to social roles, even when the role 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.

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41
Q

What is social influence?

A

the process by which individuals and groups change each others atttitudes and behaviours

42
Q

What is obedience?

A

when an individual follows a direct order from a person who is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour does not occur

43
Q

What is destructive obedience?

A

when an individual obeys an order to do something immoral, which causes the individual carrying out the order distress and regret

44
Q

What was the aim of Milgram’s experiment?

A

•Milgram wanted to know if the Germans were different, and more obedient to authority figures, than people in other countries
•Also wanted to 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

45
Q

What was the procedure of Milgram’s study?

A

•40 male participants from a range of occupations and backgrounds
•all volunteers who responded to an advert in the local paper to take part in an experiment on “punishment and learning”
•In a lab at Yale university
•On arrival met with the experimenter and another participant (Mr Wallace) who were both confederates
•one person was the teacher and the other the learner
•real participant always assigned role of the teacher
•teacher watched the learner being strapped to an electric chair and given a sample electric shock
•learner was not actually strapped to the chair and gave predetermined answers to the test
•teacher read the learner a series of word pairs and test their recall
•learner was positioned in an adjacent room
•teacher instructed to administer a shock ever time the learner made a mistake and increase the voltage after each mistake
•as electric shocks increased, learners screams became more dramatic
•experiment continued until the teacher refused to continue or 450 volts was reached
•if the teacher tried to stop the experiment, the experiment would respond with a series of prods like “the experiment requires that you continue”

46
Q

What were the findings of Milgram’s study?

A

•Milgram found that all of the real participants went to at least 300 volts and 65% continued until the full 450 volts
•The participants showed signs of extreme tension and three even had ‘full blown uncontrollable seizures’
•the findings were very different to the results Milgram had expected to find when he asked 14 students to predict the participants’ behaviour
•the students estimates no more than 3% would continue to 450 volts

47
Q

What were the conclusions of Milgram’s study?

A

•under the right circumstances ordinary people will obey unjust orders
•the Germans are not different to other people from other countries.

48
Q

What are situational variables?

A

features of an environment that impact the degree to which individuals obey

49
Q

What is proximity?

A

the physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving an order to

50
Q

What is location?

A

the place where an order is being placed. The status or prestige of the place can impact on obedience

51
Q

What is uniform?

A

the clothes an authority figure wears that symbolise their position of authority

52
Q

Who supports uniform as a situational variable?

A

Bickman

53
Q

What is a strength of Milgram’s study?

A

When researching each situational variable, Milgram systematically altered one variable at a time. We can therefore be sure that each variable has an impact on obedience, showing that it has not been impacted by extraneous variables.

54
Q

What is a limitation of situational variables as an explanation of obedience?

A

They can be criticised for providing an excuse or an alibi for evil behaviour. Mandel (1998) suggest that it was offensive to Holocaust survivors to suggest that Nazis were simply obeying orders and were victims of these situational variables beyond their control. It is not very sensitive and can be viewed negatively.

55
Q

What did the obedience rate drop to after the location changed from Yale University to a run-down office block?

A

went from 65% to 47.5%

56
Q

How does location impact on rates of obedience?

A

the prestigious university environment gave Milgram’s study legitimacy and authority.

57
Q

What studies support the reliability of Milgram’s study?

A

Le jeu de la mort and Sheridan and King (1972)

58
Q

Right to withdraw in Milgram’s study

A

Some participants may have found it difficult to exercise their right to withdraw as they were being ordered by the experimenter to continue giving electric shocks. However, some did withdraw showing that all could have done the same.

59
Q

Informed consent within Milgram’s study

A

participants did not know what the procedure would involve so the participants could not have given their fully informed consent. Deception should only occur when the consequences aren’t serious- in this case they were.

60
Q

Deception in Milgram’s study

A

participants were deceived- deception was clearly necessary for the procedure to be realistic. But if the consequences are too severe then conducting the study is unjustified.

61
Q

Failure to protect from harm in Milgram’s study.

A

most participants experienced some degree of anxiety, and some a great deal. So the procedure was at least potentially psychologically harmful. Milgram pointed to the lack of long-term harm, the debriefing and follow-up questionnaire

62
Q

what is the autonomous state?

A

an individual feels responsible for their own actions and therefore the individual behaves according to their own principles

63
Q

what is the agentic state?

A

a mental state where an individual feels no personal responsibility over their behaviour as they believe themselves to be acting for an authority figure

64
Q

what happens in the agentic state?

A

an individual gives up their free will by handing over responsibility to the authority figure. this frees them up from the demands of their conscience

65
Q

What are binding factors?

A

Milgram argues there are aspects of a situation that allow an agent to ignore or minimise the damaging effects of their behaviour and thus reduce their moral strain

66
Q

What is the dispositional explanation?

A

it argues that certain personality characteristics are associated with higher levels of obedience

67
Q

Who investigated the authoritarian personality?

A

adorno et al (1950) investigated the causes of obedient personality in a study of more than 2000 middle class white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.

68
Q

What scale did Adorno use?

A

the F-scale

69
Q

What were the findings of Adorno’s study?

A

people who scored high on the F-scale identified with ‘strong’ people and were generally disrespectful to the ‘weak’.

70
Q

What are characteristics of authoritarian people?

A

•tendency to be especially obedient to authority
•extreme respect for authority and a submissiveness to it
•hatred for people they perceive as having inferior social status
•traditional attitudes to race, sex and gender
•view society as going downhill and therefore think we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values
•outlook is inflexible

71
Q

What are the authoritarian personality origins?

A

harsh parenting:
• extremely strict discipline
•expectation of complete loyalty
•impossibly high standards
•severe criticism of perceived failures
•conditional love

72
Q

What is a strength for the dispositional explanation?

A

Milgram and Elms conducted interviews with some of the individuals involved in Milgram’s ordinal study. Those participants who were highly obedient, were significantly more authoritarian on the F-scale.

73
Q

What are limitations of the dispositional explanation?

A

•Milgram and Elm’s research is only correlational
•individual personality explanations of obedience cannot easily explain the behaviour of a country’s majority
•the link between authoritarian personalities and harsh parenting is only correlational

74
Q

what are the two explanations of resistance to social influence?

A

• situational factors= social support
•dispositional factors= locus of control

75
Q

what is social support?

A

•Having an ally can build confidence and allow individuals to remain independent.
• It breaks the unanimity of the group
• Individuals who have support for their point of view no longer fear being ridiculed, allowing them to avoid NSI.
•Social support allows individuals to act accordingly to their own conscience

76
Q

Asch’s research relating to social support

A

In one of the variations a confederate was instructed to give the correct answers throughout. In this variation the rate of conformity dropped to 5%. This demonstrates if the real participant has support for their belief they are more likely to resist the pressure to conform.

77
Q

Milgram’s research relating to social support

A

I’m one variation, the real participant was paired with two additional confederates, who also played the roles of teachers. The two additional confederates refused to go on and withdrew from the experiment early. The percentage of real participants who proceeded to the full 450 volts, dropped from 65% to 10%.

78
Q

What is locus of control?

A

the degree of control an individual feels they have over their own life and is measured on a continuum from internal to external.

79
Q

What do internals believe?

A

things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves

80
Q

What do externals believe?

A

things happen outside their control

81
Q

Are externals or internals more likely to resist social influence?

A

internals, because they take personal responsibility for their actions

82
Q

what is a strength of locus of control?

A

Charles Holland (1967) repeated Milgram’s baseline study and found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level whereas only 23% of externals did not continue.

83
Q

what is a limitation of locus of control?

A

Rotter (1982) found that LoC’s role depends on the situation. It only significantly effects someone’s behaviour in new situations.

84
Q

what is minority influence?

A

situations where one person or a small group influence the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours of others

85
Q

Who studied minority influence?

A

Moscovici

86
Q

What are the three factors that contribute to minority influence?

A

•Consistency
•Commitment
•Flexibility

87
Q

what is another limitation of locus of control?

A

there is contradictory evidence for the role of LoC and resistance to social influence. Twenge et al (2004) analysed data from American LoC studies over 40 years (1960-2002). They knew that the American public had become more independent over this time. But they had also become more resistant to obedience but also more external. Although this challenges the link between internal LoC and increasing resistance behaviour, it is possible that other factors could have influenced the results. It is possible that the change could be due to other factors however suggests LoC is not a valid explanation of how people resist social influence.

88
Q

what type of conformity is minority influence most likely to lead to?

A

internalisation

89
Q

What was Moscovici’s experiment?

A

studied the process of minority influence in his ‘blue slide green slide’ study. Six people were asked to view a set of 36 differing blue coloured slides and state whether they were blue or green. In each group, there were 2 confederates who consistently said that the slides were green on two thirds of the trial. The participants gave the same wrong answer on 8.42% of the trials. A second group was exposed to an inconsistent minority and agreement fell to 1.25%. For a third control group there were no confederates. They got the colour wrong on 0.25% of the trials. This study drew attention to the main processes of minority influence.

90
Q

what is consistency?

A

minority influence is most effective if the minority keeps the same beliefs, both over time and between all individuals that form the minority. It’s effective because it draws attention to the minority view.

91
Q

what is commitment?

A

minority influence is more powerful if the minority demonstrates dedication to their position, for example by making personal sacrifices. It’s effective because it shows the minority is not acting out of self-interest.

92
Q

what is flexibility?

A

relentless consistency could be counter productive if it is seen by the majority as unbending and unreasonable. Therefore minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting the possibility of compromise.

93
Q

what is social change?

A

the process by which society changes its beliefs, attitudes and behaviours to create new social norms. It is a continual process which happens at a gradual pace.
•minority influence is the main driving force
•conformity and obedience can cause change too
•majority influence is what maintains the change

94
Q

how are minorities involved in social change?

A

•draw attention to an issue
•express the consistency of their position over time
•causes deeper processing of the issue
•leads to the augmentation principle
•results in the snowball effect
•leads to social cryptomnesia which is where people have a memory that social change occurred but do not remember how it happened

95
Q

how does conformity create social change?

A

dissent has the potential to lead to social change. by breaking the power of the majority, dissenters encourage others to dissent.
Environmental and health campaigns exploit conformity by appealing to NSI.

96
Q

how does obedience create social change?

A

Milgram’s research showers how disobedient role models meant that the real participants also disobeyed.
Can also lead to social change through the process of gradual commitment. Once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes more difficult to resist a bigger one.

97
Q

how does conformity maintain social change?

A

people may conform to the new norms via compliance

98
Q

how does obedience maintain social change?

A

a new social norm may have laws and rules put in place to ensure that people obey the new attitudes and behaviours.

99
Q

what is a strength of social change?

A

There is research support for normative influences in social change. Nolan et al (2008) hung messages on front doors for a month that suggested that residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. A control group had messages that asked them to save energy but made no reference to other peoples behaviours. There were significant decreases in energy usage in the first group showing that conformity can lead to social change through NSI.

100
Q

what are limitations to social change?

A

•Moscovicis conversion explanation of minority influence argues that minority and majority influence involve different cognitive processes m. Minority influence is thought to cause individuals to think more deeply about an issue than majority influence. Mackie disagrees and presents evidence that majority influence may create deeper processing if you do not share the same view. This is because we like to believe other people share our views and think in the same way we do.
•Explanantions of how social influence leads to social change draw heavily upon the studies of Moscovici, Asch and Milgram. All of these studies have been criticised for lacking validity, both internal and external, due to the artificial nature of the tasks involved.
•Social changes happen slowly when they happen at all. For example, it has taken decades for attitudes against drunk driving and smoking to shift. This suggests that the effects of minority influence including consistency, commitment and flexibility, may be weaker than first thought

psychology (6 decks)

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