Social Influence

Question 1

Conformity

Answer 1

A change in a person’s behaviors due to the pressure of an outside source.

Question 2

Aschs Baseline Procedure

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

Variables investigated by Asch

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

Strengths of Aschs Study

Answer 4

Research support - Todd Lucas with maths questions.

Question 5

Limitations of Aschs Study

Answer 5

Artificial situation - demand characteristics and no reason to or not to conform.
Limited application - all American men (gendered bias)

Question 6

Internalisation

Answer 6

A person genuinely accepts group norms resulting in a private and public change of opinions of behavior

Question 7

Identification

Answer 7

Conforming to opinions/behavior because of something in the group that the person values. Identifying with the group.

Question 8

Compliance

Answer 8

Going a long with people in public but not privately changing beliefs. A superficial change.

Question 9

Informational Social Influence

Answer 9

The desire to be correct. Follows the information that is most likely to be correct.

Question 10

Normative Social Influence

Answer 10

In order to be accepted by society or a certain group. Most like to happen with strangers when scared of rejection.

Question 11

Strengths for explanations of conformity

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Limitations for explanations for conformity

Answer 12

Individual differences -
Some people are concerned about being liked by others, NSI strong need for affiliation.

Question 13

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

Aspects of Zimbardos experiment

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Findings of Zimbardo’s experiment

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Strengths of Zimbardo’s study

Answer 16

Control - Zimbardo had control over key variables. An example being the selection of participants being emotionally stable. Degree of control increased internal validity.

Question 17

Limitations of Zimbardo’s study

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Milgrams baseline procedure

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

Milgrams baseline findings

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

Strengths of Milgrams study

Answer 20

Research support - findings were replicated in a French documentary. It supports Milgrams original findings.

Question 21

Limitations of Milgrams study

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Situational variables

Answer 22

Features of immediate physical and social environment which may influence a persons behaviour.

Question 23

Proximity

Answer 23

Physical closeness or distance of a authority figure to the person they are giving an order to.

Question 24

Location

Answer 24

The place where the order is issued. Obedience is the status or prestige associated with the location.

Question 25

Uniform

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

Evaluation of Milgrams variables

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

Agentic state

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Autonomous state

Answer 28

Free to behave according to their own principles ad therefore has a sense of responsibility for their own actions.

Question 29

Binding factors

Answer 29

Aspects of the situation that allows the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the ‘moral strain’

Question 30

Evaluation of agentic state

Answer 30

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

Question 31

The authoritarian personality

Answer 31

Adorno et al wanted to investigate the anti-Semitism of the holocaust.

Question 32

Procedure of Adornos research

Answer 32

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.

Question 33

Findings of Adornos research

Answer 33

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.

Question 34

Authoritarian characteristics

Answer 34

Have a tendency to be especially obedient towards authority and are submissive towards it. They have highly conventional attitudes towards sex, race and gender.

Question 35

Origin of the authoritarian personality

Answer 35

Formed in childhood, as a result of harsh parenting.

Question 36

psychodynamic explanation to the authoritarian personality

Answer 36

fears are displaced onto others who they perceive to be weaker

Question 37

Adornos research

Answer 37

studied more than 2000 middle class americans and their unconscious attitudes towards racial groups
created the F-scale used to measure authoritarian personality

Question 38

Adornos findings

Answer 38

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.

Question 39

Eval of the authoritarian personality

Answer 39

+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.

Question 40

Social support

Answer 40

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.

Question 41

Locus of control

Answer 41

Rotter proposed LOC as a concept concerned with internal control versus external control.

Question 42

Internal LOC

Answer 42

They believe that things happen that are largely controlled by themselves

Question 43

External Loc

Answer 43

They believe that the things that happen to them are completely out of their control.

Question 44

LOC with resistance to social influence

Answer 44

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.

Question 45

Eval on social support

Answer 45

+Real world research support - programe to help young people resist the pressure to smoke, those with a buddy were less likely to smoke.

Question 46

Eval of LOC

Answer 46

+Research support - supports link between LOC and resistance to obedience. Holland repeated Milgrams study and measured whether people were externals or internals

Question 47

Minority influence

Answer 47

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

Question 48

Moscivici’s study

Answer 48

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%

Question 49

3 aspects of minority influence

Answer 49

Consistency
Flexibility
Commitment

Question 50

Eval of minority influence

Answer 50

+Research support for consistency - Moscivicis research
-Artificial tasks - doesn’t relate to real-life activities

Question 51

Social change - lessons from minority influence

Answer 51

Drawing attention -
Deeper processing
Social cryptomnesia