Social Influence 🗣️

Question 1

Outline conformity

Answer 1

• Individual behaviour and/or beliefs are influenced by a larger group of people causing them to yield to a group pressure

• Also known as majority influence

• Conformity helps society to function smoothly and predictably because much of human activity is socially based

Question 2

Define minority influence

Answer 2

Behaviour or beliefs influenced by a smaller group of people

Question 3

State the research that proposed the three types of conformity

Answer 3

Kelman (1958)

Question 4

Identify the three types of conformity

Answer 4

1. Compliance
2. Internalisation
3. Identification

Question 5

Outline compliance as a type of conformity

Answer 5

• Individuals engage in social comparison and adjust their behaviour and opinions to those of the group to be accepted to avoid disapproval
• Eg. Smoking due to peer pressure

• Compliance is a temporary form of conformity based on a desire to be liked. It involves public but not private acceptance of behaviour

Question 6

What’s internalisation

Answer 6

• Individuals engage in a validation process of the groups position and their own beliefs and believe they’re wrong and the group’s right causing acceptance of the groups views

• This is more likely if the groups trustworthy in their views or the individuals previously tended to go along with them

• Internalisation is a permanent form of conformity based on a desire to be right. It involves public and private acceptance of behaviour

Question 7

What’s identification

Answer 7

• An individual accepts influence in order to be associated with a person or group, adopting attitudes or behaviours to feel more apart of a group

• Identification has elements of compliance as they accept views to be adopted into a group but also internalisation as the individual accepts attitudes and behaviours as right and true

• Identification is a stronger but temporary form of conformity based on a desire to be liked and right. It involves public and private acceptance of behaviour

Question 8

Identify the research that proposed the two explanations of conformity

Answer 8

Deutsch and Gerard (1955)

Question 9

Outline Deutsch and Gerard (1955)

Answer 9

• Developed a two-process theory proposing two reasons people conform based on the two human needs of being liked and being right.
• The theory’s been criticised for being oversimplified

Question 10

What are the two explanations of conformity

Answer 10

• Informational Social Influence (ISI)
• Normative Social Influence (NSI)

Question 11

Outline Informational social influence

Answer 11

• When an individual accepts information from others as evidence about reality. Individuals have a need to feel confident their beliefs and perceptions are right, and if fact checking isn’t possible they rely on others’ opinions.

• This is more likely in ambiguous situations or when others are experts

• Informational social influence is a permanent form of internalisation based on a desire to be right. It affects people publically and privately.

• Key research into informational social influence comes from Jenness (1932)

Question 12

Outline the aim of Jenness (1932)

Answer 12

Aimed to see if a group discussion influenced individuals’ judgements of jellybeans in a jar to converge and whether they conformed while motivated by informational influence

Question 13

Outline the sample and method of Jenness (1932)

Answer 13

• Sample: 101 American college students
• Method:
- Participants made individual estimates of the
number of jellybeans in a jar and then discussed
them with one larger or several smaller groups,
discovering their estimates differed widely.
- After discussion, group estimates and a second
private estimate were made

Question 14

Outline the findings of Jenness (1932)

Answer 14

• Opinions were increased in most cases and the 2nd individual estimate tended to converge toward the group estimate

• The average change of opinion was 49% greater in women than men

Question 15

Outline the conclusions of Jenness (1932)

Answer 15

• Judgements of individuals are affected by majority opinions especially in ambiguous or unfamiliar situations

• Discussion’s not effective on changing opinion unless individuals become aware others opinions differ to theirs

Question 16

Outline Normative social influence

Answer 16

• Normative social influence is a temporary form of compliance based on a desire to be liked. It affects people publicly but not privately.

• Individuals go along with the majority without accepting their point of view due to the human need to be liked and respected alongside the fear of criticism and rejection

• Key research comes from Asch (1955)

Question 17

Outline the aim of Asch (1955)

Answer 17

• He criticised Jenness’ (1932) research for its ambiguous tasks and uncertain situations
• He aimed to investigate the degree to which individuals would conform to obviously incorrect answers

Question 18

Outline the sample and method of Asch (1955)

Answer 18

• Sample: 123 American male student volunteers
• Method:
- Participants told the aim of the study was around
visual perception and were placed into groups
with 7-9 confederates either around a table or in
a line
- They had to state which comparison line (A/B/C)
was the same as the stimulus line. There was 18
separate trials, 12 of which were critical trails
whereby confederates have identical wrong
answers
- The naïve (real) participant always answered last
or last but one. A control group off 36
participants were tested individually on 20 trials

Question 19

Define confederate

Answer 19

‘Research actors’ or individuals who participate in an experiment that aren’t being observed by the researcher

Question 20

Outline the findings of Asch (1955)

Answer 20

• The control group had an error rate of 0.04% to demonstrate how obvious the answers were

• In the critical trials, there was a 32% conformity rate to wrong answers in the critical trials, with 75% confirming to at least one wrong answer and 5% conforming to all 12

Question 21

State what post-experiment interviews found in Asch (1955)

Answer 21

Identified three reasons for conformity

1. Distortion of action: Majority of participants conformed publicly but not privately to avoid ridicule
2. Distortion of judgement: Conformed to majority view as they had doubts of the accuracy of their judgement
3. Distortion of perception: Conformed as they believed their perception must actually be wrong

Question 22

Outline the conclusions of Asch (1955)

Answer 22

• Judgement is affected by majority influence even when the majority’s obviously wrong, but there are key differences in the amount to which people are affected

• Participants conformed publicly but not privately and so were motivated by NSI suggesting it’s a reliable explanation of conformity

Question 23

Outline situational variables of conformity

Answer 23

• Situational variables of conformity are qualities of an environment that influence levels of conformity which will have an overall impact on the degree to which individuals conform

• Asch (1956) carried out a number of variational studies of his original (1955) study into group size, unanimity and task difficulty to find out which variables affected participant conformity the most significantly.

Question 24

Outline Group Size as a situational variable affecting conformity

Answer 24

• The number of members in a social group

• Research suggests conformity rates increase as the size of the majority increases up to a point where further increase doesn’t lead to increased conformity

• Asch (1956) found conformity was low with one real participant and one confederate, rising to 13% with two confederates and 32% with three.
However, adding additional confederates up to 15 had no effect on conformity rates

Question 25

Outline Unanimity as a situational variable affecting conformity

Answer 25

• The degree to which group members are in agreement with each other

• Conformity rates have been found to decline when majority influence isn’t unanimous, with the key factor being the reduction in majority agreement rather than confidence of an individual in their opinions

• Asch (1956) found if a confederate (rebel) went against the other confederates, conformity dropped from 32% to 5.5% but if the rebel went against both the confederates and the real participant, conformity still dropped to 9%

Question 26

Outline Task Difficulty as a situational variable affecting conformity

Answer 26

• How obvious the correct answer or decision regarding the task is

• Greater conformity rates are seen with higher task difficulty as the answer’s less obvious so individuals look to others for guidance as to what the correct response is. This suggests ISI is a dominant force

• Asch (1956) increased task difficulty by making the comparison lines more similar to each other. He found participants were more likely to conform to wrong answers, demonstrating the effect of task difficulty in conformity.
• It also demonstrates how ISI plays a greater role when the situations more ambiguous so participants are more likely to look to others and assume they’re right

Question 27

Outline conformity to social rules

Answer 27

• Individuals learn how to behave by observing social roles people play and norms they follow and conforming to them
• Learned social roles become internal mental scripts (schemas) allowing individuals to behave appropriately in specific sutuations

• Zimbardo (1973) attempted to understand the brutal and dehumanising behaviour in prisons that was often reported in the media, exploring two explanations;
- Dispositional hypothesis stating the violence and degradation in prisons was due to the nature of the people within them
- Situational hypothesis that stated the interaction of environmental factors supported such behaviour

Question 28

Identify the aim of Zimbardo (1973)

Answer 28

To investigate the extent to which people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role-playing simulation of prison life in a mock prison set up in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University

Question 29

Describe the sample of Zimbardo (1973)

Answer 29

• Sample: 75 male university students that volunteered from a newspaper article asking for volunteers for a study of prison life that paid $15 a day

• 24 of the most physically and mentally stable, mature and free from antisocial/criminal tendencies were used, and were randomly divided into 10 prison guards and 11 prisoners under the authority of Zimbardo himself as prison superintendent

Question 30

Describe the method of Zimbardo (1973)

Answer 30

• Prisoners were arrested in their homes by real police and taken to a police station where they were blindfolded, fingerprinted, strip-searched and deloused

• Prisoner uniform included numbered smocks, nylon caps and a chain around the ankle for dehumanisation while the guards wore a khaki uniform with reflective sunglasses to prevent eye contact. They carried handcuffs, keys and truncheons although physical punishment wasn’t permitted but the guards were told they had complete power over prisoners.

• Daily routine was heavily regulated with 16 rules set and enforced by guards in shifts of 3 at a time to prisoners that were 3 to a cell with regular shifts and mealtimes etc.

• Visiting hours, parole, disciplinary board and prison chaplain were set up and prisoners were referred to as their numbers for deindividuation

• Study was planned for two weeks

Question 31

Describe the findings of Zimbardo (1973)

Answer 31

• Settled quickly into social roles with a rebellion after two days where prisoners ripped their uniforms and shouted and swore at guards who retaliated with fire extinguishers. After this rebellion the guards became more sadistic

• After 36 hours, one prisoner was released due to fits of crying and rage and more were related in 3 successive days with similar symptoms while a 5th prisoner developed a rash when his parole was denied. Finally, one prisoner went on hunger strike and was punished by being put in a tiny dark closet called ‘the hole’

• Study was stopped after 6 days when Zimbardo realised the extent of the harm and in later interviews both guards and prisoners were surprised at their uncharacteristic behaviour

Question 32

Describe the conclusions of Zimbardo (1973)

Answer 32

• Situational hypothesis favoured over the dispositional as participants hadn’t shown these characteristics before the study, showing the power of the situation to influence behaviour

• Individuals readily conform to social roles even when these override an individuals moral beliefs

• Both groups demonstrated social roles gained from media and role models of social power

Question 33

Define and outline obedience

Answer 33

• To comply with the demands of someone seen as an authority figure

• More direct form of social influence than conformity where the individual has less choice in obeying orders, investigated most prominently by Milgram (1963)

• Consequences can be negative (Nazi Germany) but generally positively influences society as rules, laws and an acceptance of authority figures having the right to give orders allow societies to function

Question 34

Identify the two explanations of obedience

Answer 34

• Agentic state
• Legitimacy of authority

Question 35

Outline agentic state

Answer 35

• Individual sees themselves as acting as an agent for an authority figure and therefore doesn’t feel responsibility, becoming deindividuated and obeying orders that may go against their moral code

• Milgram (1974) proposed the agency theory which argues we’re socialised from an early age to learn that obedience to rules is necessary to keep stability within society
• An individual with control over their thoughts and actions is in an autonomous state, when they obey authority they undergo ‘agentic shift’ and enter an agentic state where they’re an agent of an authority figure

• Obedience occurs in hierarchal social systems, to individuals of higher rank, e.g. Adolf Eichmann, responsible for the final solution in WWII argued in his criminal trial he was just following orders.
• Blinding factors are aspects of a situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce the mental strain they feel, Milgram proposed a number of strategies individuals use such as shifting responsibility and denying the damage they’re doing to victims

Question 36

Outline legitimacy of authority

Answer 36

• We’re more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us

• Individuals are socialised to recognise the value of obedience to authority figures relating to master and servant relationships, such as parent-child and teacher-student relationships

• These are seen as beneficial to maintain societal stability and so obedient individuals accept status and power provide a right to give orders and following them is their ‘perceived duty’

Question 37

Describe the aim of Milgram (1963)

Answer 37

• Testing the ‘Germans are different’ hypothesis claiming Germans are highly obedient

• To see if individuals would obey the orders of an authority figure that incurred negative consequences and went against one’s moral code

Question 38

Describe the sample of Milgram (1963)

Answer 38

• 40 American males responding to a newspaper article about a volunteer study of memory and learning at Yale university

• Ranged from 20-50 years old in varying skilled jobs, paid $4.50 for turning up

Question 39

Describe the method of Milgram (1963)

Answer 39

• Participants were met by a confederate experimenter in a grey lab coat uniform, in order to appear authoritative. He introduced them to Mr Wallace who was a confederate participant in his late 50s

• Participants were told the study concerned the effects of punishment on learning and were randomly assigned ‘learner’ or ‘teacher’ in a rigged decision where Mr Wallace was always the learner and the participant was always the teacher

• Participants were told they could leave at any time and the three entered an adjourning room where a consenting Mr Wallace was strapped into a chair with electrodes attached to his arm. The experimenter explained the punishment was administering electric shocks through a shock generator in the next room, consisting of a row of switches marked numerically with voltage from 15v-450v in intervals of 15 and descriptively from ‘slight shock’ to ‘Danger-severe shock’

• Participants read out paired-associate word tasks, receiving pre-recorded answers and being told to give increasingly severe shocks for each wrong answer

• At 150v, the learner demanded to be released saying his heart problems were bothering him, at 300v he punched the wall without responding, screaming loudly at 315v. After 330v he wasn’t heard from again and when the participant looked at the experimenter for guidance he replied with ‘absence of response should be treated as a wrong answer’

• If unsure as what to do, the teacher was met with four standard ‘prods’:
1. Please continue/ please go on
2. The experiment requires that you continue
3. It’s absolutely essential that you continue
4. You have no other choice you must go on

Question 40

Describe the findings of Milgram (1963)

Answer 40

• 100% of participants continued up to 300v, where 12.5% stopped with 62.5% going up to the maximum shock

• Many participants showed distress e.g. sweating, twitching and giggling nervously; some had uncontrollable seizures while others showed no discomfort at all

Question 41

Describe the conclusions of Milgram (1963)

Answer 41

• Obeying those in authority is normal behaviour in hierarchally organised society, we obey orders that distress us and go against our moral code

• Participants were assured their behaviour and a following questionnaire showed 84% were glad they participated, while 74% learnt something of personal importance

Question 42

Outline the research that supports Milgram (1963) and provides key findings into obedience (AO1 and AO3)

Answer 42

• Hofling et al (1966)

• Aimed to see whether nurses would obey orders from an unknown doctor to the extent of risking harm
• An unknown confederate doctor (Dr Smith) instructed 22 nurses to give his patient Mr Jones 20mg of an unknown drug labelled with a maximum dose of 10mg. He said he was in a hurry and would sign the authorisation form later despite hospital rules stating it must be signed before

• Found 95.4% obeyed without hesitation and concluded the power and authority of doctors was greater influence on the nurses behaviour than hospital rules

• Additionally, found 21/22 in a control group said they wouldn’t have obeyed or exceeded maximum dose suggesting what people say they’ll do and what they’ll actually do are very different

Question 43

Identify the situational and dispositional variables that affect obedience

Answer 43

Situational: (as researched by Milgram,1974)
• Proximity
• Location
• Uniform

Dispositional:
• Authoritarian personality

Question 44

Outline Milgram’s (1974) variational studies

Answer 44

• Milgram carried out a large number of variational studies in order to consider the situational variables (environmental factors) that may affect obedience

• These were categorised as external explanations as they’re to do with environmental factors that can affect obedience levels

Question 45

Outline Milgram’s (1974) proximity variational studies

Answer 45

• The physical distance of an authority figure to a person they’re giving an order to and how aware individuals are in the consequences of their action in obeying authority figures

• In Milgram’s (1963) original study, the teacher and learner were in adjourning rooms so the teacher could hear but not see the learner. Milgram (1974) found when the teacher and learner were in the same room and the teacher could see the distress, obedience declined from 62.5% to 40%

• Milgram carried out two variations of this study;

• Touch variation: the teacher had to force the learners hand onto an apparent shock plate, increasing realisation of action, dropping obedience to 30%
• Remote instruction: experimenter left the room, giving instructions by telephone, decreasing proximity and dropping obedience to 20%

Question 46

Outline Milgram’s (1974) location variational studies

Answer 46

• The location of the environment can be relevant to the amount of perceived legitimacy of authority a person giving orders has, obedience rates are often highest in institutionalised settings where obedience to authority figures is instilled in members

• Milgram (1974) produced a variation in an office block in a run-down part of town finding obedience dropped to 47.5%

Question 47

Outline Milgram’s (1974) uniform variational studies

Answer 47

• People in positions of authority often have a certain uniform recognisable to others that gives a perception of added legitimacy of authority

• In Milgram’s original (1963) study the confederate researcher wore a lab coat to give him such authority, and was chosen for his tall hight to add to his status

• Milgram (1974) performed a study where the experimenter was called away at the start of the procedure for an inconvenient phone call and his role was taken by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ in everyday clothing dropping obedience to 20%

Question 48

Outline studies into uniform affecting obedience

Answer 48

• Bickman (1974) performed a study in New York, ordering people to pick up rubbish, loan a stranger a coin and move away from a bus stop
• 19% obeyed his assistant in civilian clothes, 14% dressed as a milkman and there was a 38% obedience rate as a security guard

• Bushman (1988) stopped people in the gere eg and asked them to give change to a male researcher for an expired parking meter
• Obedience rates varied based on her uniform; police uniform (72%), business executive (48%) beggar (52%) and people interviewed afterwards claimed they obeyed the woman in uniform due to perceived authority

Question 49

Outline the dispositional explanation into obedience

Answer 49

• Milgram began to explore whether obedient behaviour only emerged under certain conditions or whether it responded to a specific personality pattern

• He believed there was a complex personality basis to obedience and disobedience, including a deep rooted disposition not to harm others in some people because some of his participants were more driven than others in his notorious 1963 study

• Fromm (1941) proposed the authoritarian personality to attempt to explain people holding right-wing conservative views and Adorno et al (1950) proposed prejudice was the result of an individuals personality, piloting the ‘F-scale’

Question 50

Outline the authoritarian personality

Answer 50

• Proposed by Fromm (1941) to attempt to explain people holding right-wing conservative views as a personality characterised by a belief in absolute obedience to authority and domination of minorities

• Adorno et al (1950) proposed prejudice was the result of an individuals personality and piloted the ‘F-scale’ (fascism) questionnaire

• He argued deep-seated personality traits predispose some individuals to being highly sensitive to totalitarian and antidemocratic ideas and therefore were prone to be highly prejudice and had insecurities leading to them being:
1. Hostile to those they deem of inferior status
2. Obedient to those they deem of a higher status, having a need for power and toughness

• Adorno saw this personality type as developing in childhood by hierarchal, authoritarian parenting as they weren’t able to express hostility towards their parents, displacing their aggression onto a safer target

Question 51

Describe the F-scale

Answer 51

• Self report measure (questionnaire) used to determine traits of fascism

• 30 item, six-point scale ranging from ‘agree strongly’ to ‘disagree strongly’ including statements such as:
“obedience and respect for authority are the most important values children should learn”
with agreement indicating an authoritarian personality

• Outlines 9 personality variables, such as conventionalism (a rigid adherence to conventional, middle class values) as well as authoritarian submission and authoritarian aggression

Question 52

Describe resistance to social influence

Answer 52

• Refers to the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey authority
• The ability to understand social pressure’s influenced by both situational (social support) and dispositional (locus of control) factors

Question 53

Outline social support in relation to conformity

Answer 53

• Social support is the presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same. These people act as models to show others that resistance to social influence is possible

• One way to resist conformity is breaking the agreement of the majority
• Asch (1956) conducted a variational study into the effects of unanimity, introducing an ally who also gave the right answer alongside the participant, finding the presence of social support decreased conformity rates from 32% to 5.5%

• Conformity is also reduced by a dissenting peer as dissenters provide an individual with moral support to resist conformity pressure even if they give a wrong answer, also acting as a form of social support

Question 54

Outline social support in relation to obedience

Answer 54

• It’s difficult to stand against authority because obedient behaviour of others makes harmful actions appear acceptable

• Obedience is reduced by the presence of disobedient models, shown to be a powerful form of social support as they reduce unanimity of the group so it’s easier for individuals to act independently

• Dissenters also demonstrate disobedience is possible as well as how to do it and frees the individual to act from their own conscience

Question 55

Outline locus of control (LOC)

Answer 55

• Rotter (1966) identified LOC as a personality dimensions that’s concerned with the extent to which people perceive themselves as being in control of their own lives, measured from ‘high external’ to ‘high internal’ on a continuum

• He designed a LOC scale questionnaire, where individuals must pick an A or B statement, such as ‘many of the unhappy things in people lives are partly due to bad luck’ or ‘people’s misfortunes result from the mistakes they make’ one of which will lean toward an external and one toward an internal LOC

Question 56

Outline characteristics of individuals with a high internal locus of control

Answer 56

• High internal is when individuals believe they can affect the outcomes of situations

1. Active seekers of information that are less likely to rely on others opinions, they’re therefore more likely to resist pressure to conform or obey
2. More self confident, achievement-orientated, have higher intelligence and less need for social approval, they therefore exhibit greater resistance to social influence

Question 57

Outline characteristics of individuals with a high external locus of control

Answer 57

• High external is where individuals believe things turn out a certain way regardless of their action

1. Approach events in a more passive and fatalistic attitude and are more likely to accept the influence of others
2. Take less personal responsibility for their actions and are less likely to display independent behaviour and so show less resistance to social influence

Question 58

Outline minority influence

Answer 58

• Type of social influence that motivates individuals to reject established majority group norms and persuade the majority to move to the position of the minority

• People identify with the majority in order to fit in through compliance conformity without scrutiny of the position

• Minority influence creates a conversion process whereby, provided they adopt a consistent and committed approach, people try to understand why they hold this position. Conversion to the minority position tends to be deeper and longer lasting as individuals internalise the minorities point of view so it changes their public and private beliefs

Question 59

Outline the process of minority influence

Answer 59

• Minority influence is a gradual process by which minority opinions become majority ones, which is referred to as social cryptoamnesia (the snowball effect):
1. Convert the majority viewpoint of a few
2. More and more change their attitude
3. Minority picks up pace
4. Minority gains status, power and acceptability
Minority influence is influence by three factors;
Consistency, Commitment and Flexibility

Question 60

Describe consistency as a part of minority influence

Answer 60

• Upon initial expose to a minority with a differing view, individuals assume the minority’s in error. However, if they maintain synchronic consistency in their view, where people in the minority are all saying the same thing, others come to reassess the situation and consider the issue more carefully.

• Over time consistency in the minorities views will attract interest and make people rethink their own beliefs and behaviour. Diachronic constancy refers to where people in the minority have been saying the same thing for a long time

• This will be persuasive if the minority adopt confidence in their beliefs and appear unbiased

Question 61

Describe commitment as a part of minority influence

Answer 61

• Minorities are difficult to dismiss when they adopt uncompromising and consistent commitment to their position. This is important because it suggests certainty, confidence and courage in the face of a hostile majority

• They may engage in extreme activities to draw attention to their cause, it’s important these are at some risk to the minorities because, to demonstrate commitment to the cause

• Joining a minority had more cost than staying with the majority, so the degree of commitment is higher in minorities which means they’re more persuasive to the majority to convert

Question 62

Describe flexibility as a part of minority influence

Answer 62

• Minorities are powerless compared to majorities so must negotiate their position rather than enforce it

• Consistent majorities who are inflexible, rigid and uncompromising won’t be persuasive as they risk being perceived as narrow-minded but too most flexibility risks being seen as inconsistent, neither of which will be persuasive

• Flexibility’s suggested to be more effective in changing majority opinion than rigid arguments; being flexible demonstrates an ability to be moderate, co-operative and reasonable and therefore persuasive

Question 63

Outline Moscovici et al (1969)

Answer 63

• Claimed if majority influence was all powerful we’d all think and behave the same and that major social movements, such as Christianity start with an individual or small group and without such influences there’d be no societal innovation

• He aimed to investigate the role of a constancy minority on opinions of a majority in unambiguous situations
• Participants were placed in 32 groups of 6 with 4 participants and 2 confederates alongside a control group with no confederates. They were told it was an investigation into perception and each group was shown 36 blue slides with filters varying the intensity of the colour
• There were two conditions; in the consistent condition the confederate answers wrongly the slides were green and 8.2% agreed (32% at least once). In the inconsistent condition confederates verbally said 24 slides were green and 12 were blue and only 1.25% agreed

• Miscovici concluded minorities can include majorities but are more effective when they’re consistent