Social influence Flashcards
What is social influence?
The influence that others can cause individuals to change their behaviour
What is conformity?
When the behaviour of an individual or small group is influences by a larger or dominant groups
What are the 3 types of conformity?
Internalisation, compliance and identification
What’s internalisation as a type of conformity?
Means accepting the majority’s views as your own, accepting and internalising then so they are now your own
What’s compliance as a type of conformity?
Means going along with things even if you disagree with them, doing this to appear normal
What’s identification as a type of conformity?
Conforming to what expected of you to fulfil a social role trying to imitate the role model
What did Sherif (1935) research?
Whether people are influenced by others when they are dong an ambiguous test
What did Asch (1951) study?
Designed an experiment to see whether people would conform to a majority incorrect answer in an unambiguous task
What were the 3 situational factors that Asch’s participants influenced by?
Group size, unanimity/social support and task difficulty
How do we know Asch’s participants influenced by the group size?
With only 2 confederates the real participant conformed on only 14% of the critical trials, with 3 confederates conformity rose to 32%
How do we know Asch’s participants influenced by Unanimity/social support?
Ran the experiment again but this time with a supporter meaning one of the confederates chose the right answer it was easier for the participant to resist conforming (fell to 5.5%)
How do we know Asch’s participants influenced by the task difficulty?
When that task was made more difficult more people conformed, people are more likely to conform when they are less confident in their answer
What did Asch find in his debrief?
He found a common factor of confidence in those people that didn’t conform
What are social roles?
Behaviours that society expects from you, set of behaviours and expectations that come with holding these positions
What did Zimbardo et al (1973) investigate?
Conformity to social roles, created a mock prisons to determine how people would conform to assigned roles of prisoner or guard
Who replicated Zimbardo et al’s study?
Orlando (1973)
What did Orlando (1973) do in their study?
Set up a mock psychiatric ward in a hospital for 3 days 29 staff volunteered to be ‘patients’ 22 staff just carried out their normal tasks only took a little while for people to start acting like patients, conforming to their given roles
What were Reicher and Haslam (2006) interested in investigating through Zimbardo’s study?
How the group dynamic changes over time
What did Milgram (1963) study?
Obedience
What is good about Milgram’s study?
High internal validity it was shown that participants did think it was real and showed stressed reactions
What is bad about Milgram’s study?
Low ecological validity, ethical issues (lacks informed consent)
What are the 4 situational factors that Milgram identified to affect abedience?
Presence of allies, proximity of the victim, proximity of the authority and location of the experiment
What’s meant by Presence of allies, in Milgram’s study?
When there were 3 teachers (1 participant and 2 confederates) the real participant was less likely to obey if the others refused to obey, having allies can make it easier to resist orders
What’s meant by Proximity of the victim, in Milgram’s study?
Milgram’s results suggest an important factor was the proximity of the learner. In the condition described above, 65% gave max shock. Dropping to 40% with the learner in the same room and 30% when they had to put the learners hand on the shock plate
What’s meant by Proximity of the authority, in Milgram’s study?
When the authority figure gave prompts by phone from another room, obedience rates dropped to 23%, when closer together orders were harder to resist
What’s meant by location of the experiment, in Milgram’s study?
When the participants were told the study was being run by a private company, and the experiment was moved to a set of run-down officers in a nearby town, the proportion of people giving the max shock fell to 48%.
When his association with a prestigious uni was removed, authority of the experimenter seemed less legitimate, so the pariticipants were more likely to question it.
What is meant by an agentic state?
When people behave on behalf of an external authority, meaning they act as someone’s agent than taking personal responsibility for their actions.
What’s the opposite of agentic state?
Autonomously (not following orders)
What does Milgram’s agency theory state?
That when we feel we’re acting out the wishes of another person we feel less responsible for our action
This agentic state was also encouraged by what?
Experiment’s set-up, participants voluntarily entered a social contact with the experimenter to take part and follow the procedure of this study.
In Milgram’s Agency Theory (1973) that explains obedience whats meant by reluctance to disrupt the experiment?
Participants had already been paid, so may have felt obliged to continue.
In Milgram’s Agency Theory (1973) that explain obedience whats meant by the pressure of the surrondings?
The experiment took place in a presigious university, this made the experimenter seem like a legitimate authority
In Milgram’s Agency Theory (1973) that explain obedience whats meant by the insistence of the authority figure?
If participants hesitated they were told that they had to continue the experiment
What are the evaluation points of agency theory?
Milgram’s participants often claim they wouldn’t have gone as far by themselves, but they were just following orders
Sometimes people resist the pressure to obey authority, because of situation or individual differences. Agency theory doesn’t explain why some people are more likely exhibit independent behaviour than others
What can obedience depend on?
Legitimacy of the authority
What does legitimacy authority come from?
Having defined social roles which people respect as it implies knowledge or come with legal power.
Who developed legitimacy of authority?
Milgram
What happened when Milgram re-ran the study in a University?
Argued that the experimenter authority was higher due to the status of the university vs run-down offices
What was Brickmans study (1974)
Conducted a field experiment where researchers ordered passers-by to do something like pick up litter. Dressed in either a guards uniform, as a milkman or in smart clothes
People were much more likely to obey the person in guard’s uniform seemed to be most legitimacy authority figure
Who developed authoritarian personality?
Adorno
What is the authoritarian personality?
A dispositional explanation of obedience
What did Adorno et al (1950) propose?
That over-strict parenting results in a child being socialised to obey authority unquestioningly as they learn strict obedience to their parents
Strict parenting means the child feels constrained which creates aggression
But child is afraid they’ll be disciplined if they express this aggression towards their parents
What traits did Adorno et al define about over-strict parenting as the authoritarian personality?
Aggression to people of perceived lower status, and blind obedience, identifying traits included being conformist and having rigid moral standards
What is the F-scale?
Scale to measure how strongly people express authoritarian traits
Who developed the F-scale?
Adorno et al (1950)
Evaluate Adorno’s authoritarian personality theory (POSITIVE)
Elms and Milgram (1966) found that RPS who scored higher on F-scale had been willing to administer bigger shocks in Milgram’s experiment
Evaluate Adorno’s authoritarian personality theory (NEGATIVE)
Doesn’t mean a strict upbringing or having authoritarian traits causes people to be obedient others such as education has an effect
Milgram found situational factors like proximity and location
Doesn’t explain how whole societies can become obedient not everyone has this personality type
Does having social support make people more or less obedient?
Less- more likely to resist the pressure to conform
How did Milgram study effects of social support and what are the results?
Milgrams participants resisted orders if there were any other participants present who refused to obey.
People find it easier to stand up to authority if they have support from others as they aren’t taking full responsibility for rebelling
Milgrams study on social supports who’s research?
Asch’s research on conformity
What is Locus of control?
Your resistance to social influence may be affected by a personality characteristic called locus of control
What is a dispositional explanation for resistance?
Th idea that people who feel they’re generally in control of what happens in their life are more likely to resist
What did Rotter (1966) develop?
A questionnaire to measure locus of control
If you agree with Rotters first statement (A) what does that mean?
That you have an internal locus of control, characterised by a belief that whats happens in your life results from your own behaviour or action
If you agrew with Rotters first statement (B) what does that mean?
That you have an external locus of control, this is a belief that events are caused by external factors like luck or the actions of others
What did Rotters questionnaire involve?
A: Misfortune is usually brought about by people’s own actions
B: Things that makes us unhappy are largely du to bad luck
What do people with an internal locus of control have thats stronger than external?
A stronger sense of control over their lives than people with an external locus of control may be more likely to conform or obey
What is meant by minority influence?
A form of social influence whereby a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs and behaviours
When a minority is consistent people may actually examine the minority beliefs in detail because they want to understand why
In minority influence what type of conformity is taking place?
Internalisation- members of the majority actually take on the beliefs and views of a consistent minority rather than complying
Who studied minority influence (Consistency)?
Moscovici (1969) compared inconsistent minorities with consistent minorities
Who studied minority influence (flexibility)?
Nemeth et al (1974) repeated Moscovici’s experiment but instructed participants to answer with all the colours they saw in the slide, rather than single colour
What 3 variations did Nemeth’s run?
1) All slides are ‘green’
2) Slides were ‘green’ or ‘green-blue’ at random
3) Brighter slides were ‘green-blue’ and the duller slides were ‘green’ or vice versa
What theory did Moscovici come up with in 1980?
Conversion theory
What does Moscovici’s conversion theory suggest?
That majority and minority influence are different processes
What’s Majority influence?
People compare their behaviour to the majority and change their behaviour to fit in without considering the majority views in detail
So involves compliance doesn’t always cause people to change their private feelings, just behaviour
Moscovici described factors that he thought enabled minority influence to happen explain consistency..
By being consistent the minority group shows that it has a clear view which is committed to, and isn’t willing to compromise
Creating a conflict, when faced with a consistent minority you have to seriously consider whether they might be right (Validation process)
What are the 3 influential factors that social impact theory outlines?
1) Strength- how powerful, knowledge, and consistent the group appear to be
2) Numbers- how many people are in the group
3) Immediacy- how close the source of influence is to you
Although there are quite a lot of studies that support social impact theory what did Mullen show goes against?
Conduct a meta-analysis of studies investigating social impact theory and found a lot of them relied on self-report rather than observable characteristics
Argued that support for SIT could actually be a result of demand characteristics
How can minorities become majorities?
Through the snowball effect
What is necessary for social change to take place?
Minority influence
Explain Van Avermaet’s (1996) snowball effect
If some people in a group start to agree with a minority view then the minority becomes more influential.
This results in more and more people converting to the minority view, eventually the minority becomes the majority
Name 2 examples when things in history changed because of the ideas of a few had taken hold…
Martin Luther King and gay rights movements
in terms of minority and majority influence when what are the 2 types of consistency that a minority can take part in
Diachronic consistency, where members of a minority repeat the same message over and over again
Synchronic consistency: when everyone in the group give the same message
how does commitment to the minority help majority conform
If members of a minority are willing to suffer for their views but still hold them, so consider the views more seriously
what is attribution theory
describes the process people use to assign motives to behaviour both their own and others one feature outlined by Kelley is the argument principle suggesting people preform an action despite the cost and risk underlying motivation the action is considered strong
how does flexibility to the minority help majority conform
need the ability to consider counterarguments and show they are reasonable by slight compromising this encourages the majority members to move closer to the minority position
what is social change
when a view held by a minority challenges the majority view and is eventually accepted by the majority then whole societies adopt new attitudes beliefs or behaviours
whats normative social influence
behaviours or views can become the norm within a minority group those who go against the norm risk rejection and spread to the broader society
what is informational social influence
members of a minority group can provide info to the majority such as the effects of climate change
wider society changes its behaviour because it accepts this new evidence
what is social-crypto ammnesia
describes how society adopts ideas from a minority group however, once the mainstream accepts these ideas they become the norm and sacrifices made by the minority group in initiating these positive social changes are not acknowledged but are forgotten overtime
what are 2 real life examples of social change
black lives matter and ukraine war potests
how does civil right movement show social change
demonstrated consistency and commitment in the fight against racial segregation and for equality they presented consistency unified front through sit-ins and marches even though they were suffering abuse and this commitment lead to many Americans reconsidering their views and eventually leading to social change
