Social Influence Flashcards
Conformity
A change in a person’s behaviors due to the pressure of an outside source.
Aschs Baseline Procedure
123 American participants were tested. All patients were put in groups.
They were faced with a standard line and 3 comparison lines.
One line was similar to the standard line and the others were different.
The participants were tested in groups of 6 to 8 and only one was a genuine participants with the others being confederates.
Variables investigated by Asch
Group size -
Varied number of confederates from 1 to 15. Conformity increased with group size but only to a point.
Unanimity -
If the presence of a non-conforming person would affect naive participant. Asch introduced a confederate that disagreed with the other confederates. In the presence of a dissenter, conformity decreased.
Task Difficulty -
Increased difficulty of line-judgement making standard and comparison lines more similar. Asch found that conformity increased - situation more ambiguous when task is harder.
Strengths of Aschs Study
Research support - Todd Lucas with maths questions.
Limitations of Aschs Study
Artificial situation - demand characteristics and no reason to or not to conform.
Limited application - all American men (gendered bias)
Internalisation
A person genuinely accepts group norms resulting in a private and public change of opinions of behavior
Identification
Conforming to opinions/behavior because of something in the group that the person values. Identifying with the group.
Compliance
Going a long with people in public but not privately changing beliefs. A superficial change.
Informational Social Influence
The desire to be correct. Follows the information that is most likely to be correct.
Normative Social Influence
In order to be accepted by society or a certain group. Most like to happen with strangers when scared of rejection.
Strengths for explanations of conformity
Research support for both -
Asch interviewed participants and they said that some of them felt self conscious - NSI
Lucas et al found that participants conformed more when the maths problem was difficult -ISI
Limitations for explanations for conformity
Individual differences -
Some people are concerned about being liked by others, NSI strong need for affiliation.
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Zimbardo set up a mock prison in basement of psych department in Stanford University. They selected 21 male participants who were deemed as ‘emotionally stable’. The students were randomly assigned to play role of prison guard or prisoner. They were encouraged to conform to social roles.
Aspects of Zimbardos experiment
Uniform - prisoners were expected to wear a loose smock and a cap to cover hair and they were identified by number
Guards had handcuffs and mirror shades.
The uniforms cased a loss of personal identity causing the participants to be more likely to conform.
Findings of Zimbardo’s experiment
Guards took up roles with enthusiasm. Within two days the prisoners rebelled and ripped their uniforms and shouted at the guards. When rebellions were shut down the prisoners became depressed and anxious. One was released due to symptoms of psychological disturbance.
Strengths of Zimbardo’s study
Control - Zimbardo had control over key variables. An example being the selection of participants being emotionally stable. Degree of control increased internal validity.
Limitations of Zimbardo’s study
Lack of realism - did not have the realism of a true prison. The performances were based on stereotypes which tells us little about conformity in real prisons.
Exaggerates the power of roles - Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour . Only one third of the guards behaved in brutal manner. Minimising the influence of dispositional factors.
Milgrams baseline procedure
40 American men volunteered to take part in Yale University study. Each participant was introduced to confederates . The participant was always the teacher. The teacher could not see the learner but could hear them. The teacher had to give the learner an electric shock every time they made a mistake on a memory test. Each mistake increases the volts by 15.
Milgrams baseline findings
Every participant delivered shocks up until 300 volts, 5 stopped there whilst 65% continued to 450 volts.
Milgram also collected qualitive data, including observations such as participants showing extreme tension and anxiety.
Strengths of Milgrams study
Research support - findings were replicated in a French documentary. It supports Milgrams original findings.
Limitations of Milgrams study
Low internal validity - Milgram stated that 75% of participants said that they believed the shocks were genuine. Suggesting that the participants may have been responding to demand characteristics.
Alternative interpretation of findings - conclusions about blind obedience may not be justified. When ordered to blindly obey an authority figure they refused
Situational variables
Features of immediate physical and social environment which may influence a persons behaviour.
Proximity
Physical closeness or distance of a authority figure to the person they are giving an order to.
Location
The place where the order is issued. Obedience is the status or prestige associated with the location.
Uniform
People in positions of authority often have a specific outfit that is symbolic of their authority. Indicates that they are entitled to expect our obedience.
Evaluation of Milgrams variables
Research support - Field experiment in New York, Bickman had three men in different outfits (a jacket and tie, a milkman’s uniform and a security guards uniform)
Lack of internal validity - many participants worked out that the study was fake.
Cross-cultural replications - Miranda et al found an obedience rate of over 90% in Spanish students.
Agentic state
An agent is someone that acts for or in place of another. The agentic state means that the person has no power to disobey and whatever happens to them is not down to them
Autonomous state
Free to behave according to their own principles ad therefore has a sense of responsibility for their own actions.
Binding factors
Aspects of the situation that allows the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the ‘moral strain’
Evaluation of agentic state
A limited explanation - an agentic shift doesn’t explain many of the research findings and it does not explain why some participants did not obey.
Cultural differences - in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate. This reflects the way that different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures
The authoritarian personality
Adorno et al wanted to investigate the anti-Semitism of the holocaust.
Procedure of Adornos research
Investigated causes of the obedient personality in a study of over 2000 middle-class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups. They developed the F-scale which is still used to measure authoritarian personality.
Findings of Adornos research
Those who scored highly on the F-scale were very conscious of their own and others status, showing excessive respect to those with a higher status.
Authoritarian characteristics
Have a tendency to be especially obedient towards authority and are submissive towards it. They have highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race and gender.
Origin of the authoritarian personality
Formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting.
psychodynamic explanation to the authoritarian personality
fears are displaced onto others who they perceive to be weaker
Adornos research
studied more than 2000 middle class americans and their unconscious attitudes towards racial groups
created the F-scale used to measure authoritarian personality
Adornos findings
Those with authoritarian learnings identified with strong people and were generally contemptuous of the weak. These people have distinct stereotypes of other groups and a certain cognitive style.
Eval of the authoritarian personality
+Research support - Elms and Milgram interviewed small sample of people who has completed the original F-scale study and been fully obedient. The obedient participants scored significantly higher than the disobedient participants.
-Limited explanation - cannot explain obedient behavior in the majority of a countries population, social identity theory?
-Political bias - only measures the tendency towards an extreme right-wing ideology. Researchers argued that left and right wing ideologies have a lot in common.
Social support
Resisting conformity - pressure to conform can be resisted if if there are others present who are not conforming (seen in Aschs research)
Resisting obedience - pressure can be resisted if there is another person present who is seen to disobey.
Locus of control
Rotter proposed LOC as a concept concerned with internal control versus external control.
Internal LOC
They believe that things happen that are largely controlled by themselves
External Loc
They believe that the things that happen to them are completely out of their control.
LOC with resistance to social influence
People with high internal LOC are most likely to be able to resist pressures to conform or obey - taking responsibility
Also, they tend to have higher self-confidence leading to an ability to resist social influence.
Eval on social support
+Real world research support - programe to help young people resist the pressure to smoke, those with a buddy were less likely to smoke.
Eval of LOC
+Research support - supports link between LOC and resistance to obedience. Holland repeated Milgrams study and measured whether people were externals or internals
Minority influence
Situation where a person or a small group of people influence the behaviors or beliefs of others.
Minority influence is most likely to result in internalisation
Moscivici’s study
6 people were asked to view a set of 36 blue-colored slides that varied in intensity and then state whether the slides wee blue or green. In each group there were two confederates who consistently said that the slides were green. The participants save the same wrong answer on over 8% of the trials .
The second group had an inconsistent minority and in this case agreement fell to 1%
3 aspects of minority influence
Consistency
Flexibility
Commitment
Eval of minority influence
+Research support for consistency - Moscivicis research
-Artificial tasks - doesn’t relate to real-life activities
Social change - lessons from minority influence
Drawing attention -
Deeper processing
Social cryptomnesia
