social influence

Question 1

what are the three types of conformity?

Answer 1

• compliance
• identification
• internalisation

Question 2

what is compliance?

Answer 2

when an individual changes their public behaviour but not their private views in order to gain a groups approval and to fit in.

Question 3

give an example of compliance

Answer 3

a child cleaning their room when they don’t want to but their parents told them to.

Question 4

what is internalisation?

Answer 4

when an individual changes their public behaviour and their private views as they believe the other point of view is the right one

Question 5

give an example of internalisation

Answer 5

going to university and becoming a vegetarian as all your flat mates are and you get persuaded by them (you truly believe you want to be one)

Question 6

what is identification?

Answer 6

when an individual adopts the same attitudes and behaviours (internalisation) but the reason is so that they’re accepted by the group (compliance)

Question 7

give an example of identification

Answer 7

adopting the same music taste as your friendship group, but when you move away, you revert back to your old music

Question 8

what are the 2 explanations for conformity?

Answer 8

• normative social influence (NSI)
• informational social influence (ISI)

Question 9

why do people conform in normative social influence? (NSI)

Answer 9

they fear being isolated and want to be part of a group.

Question 10

what type of conformity does NSI lead to?

Answer 10

compliance

Question 11

give an example of NSI

Answer 11

smoking from peer pressure and to fit in.

Question 12

what is the duration of NSI?

Answer 12

a temporary change whilst the majority is present.

Question 13

why do people conform in informational social influence? (ISI)

Answer 13

the want to be correct - you genuinely believe the majority to be correct.

Question 14

what type of conformity does ISI lead to?

Answer 14

internalisation

Question 15

what’s the duration of the ISI?

Answer 15

permanent behaviour change even if majority isn’t present

Question 16

name the factors that ISI is most likely to occur with

Answer 16

• if the situation is ambiguous (if the right course of action is unclear)
• if the situation is a crisis
• if we believe others to be experts

Question 17

give an example of ISI

Answer 17

being in a busy doctors surgery and noticing smoke coming from a room, but no one else around you raised the alarm, so you assume it wasn’t an emergency.

Question 18

what was the aim of the Asch study?

Answer 18

to measure the strength of the conformity effect using an unambiguous task.

Question 19

describe the procedure of the Asch study

Answer 19

• 123 male American students participated in what they were told was a ‘vision test’
• a naive participant was put in a room with 7 confederates (who’d already agreed on their answers)
• each participant has to say aloud which comparison line matched to the target line. the answer was always obvious and the real participant gave their answer last
• At the start, confederates all have the right answer,then they have the wrong answers.
• there were 18 trials in total, and confederates gave the wrong answer on 12 (critical trials)

Question 20

what were the results of the Asch study?

Answer 20

• on average the real participants conformed to the clearly incorrect majority on 32% of critical trials.
• about 75% of participants conformed at least one time in the critical trials. 25% never confirmed
• there was also a control group with no confederates to make sure the task was unambiguous. in this, less than 1% of participants gave the wrong answer.

Question 21

describe the conclusion of the Asch study

Answer 21

when interviewed after, most real participants said they didn’t believe their own conforming answers, but went along with the group in fear of being ridiculed.

he also found that 3 confederates were critical to getting that compliance, after 3 if levels off.
1 confederate - 3% conformity
2 confederates - 13% conformity
3 confederates - 32% conformity

Question 22

explain the strengths of Asch’s study.

Answer 22

• it’s reliable as it’s a lab study, so the procedures are very standardised and controlled and they used an unambiguous task to make sure they weren’t accidentally testing something else. this means it could easily be replicated today.
• has high internal validity and causation. the control trial made it easy to establish cause and effect.
• can be applied to the past to explain the behaviour of the conformists in nazi Germany.

Question 23

explain the limitations of the Asch study.

Answer 23

• cannot generalise due to population validity. all male American. (Androcentric) this means it’s a limited sample and cannot be applied to the wider population. women, different ethnicities, races might conform differently.
• lacks ecological validity - lab study, artificial setting, task was rather insignificant and participants conformed to avoid humiliation so experiment may only tell us about conformity in special circumstances.

Question 24

what are the 3 variables effecting conformity?

Answer 24

• group size
• task difficulty
• disrupted unanimity

Question 25

how and why does task difficulty effect conformity?

Answer 25

• it increases conformity as you’re less likely to trust your own answer (ISI) - you may believe other people are right it unsure yourself

Question 26

how and why does group size effect conformity?

Answer 26

• reduced group size: decreases conformity as your less likely to feel out of place

-increased group size: increases conformity as you feel less validated and more inclined to fit in with the group due to more group pressure (NSI)

Question 27

how and why does disrupted unanimity effects conformity? (real ppt given support from another ppt/ conf.)

Answer 27

decreases conformity as you will feel less likely to be rejected by the group (gonna fee validated) less group pressure
(NSI)

Question 28

describe Lucas’ study on ISI (2006)

Answer 28

• asked students to give answers to mathematical problems that were easy or more difficult.
• there was greater conformity to incorrect answers when they were difficult than when they were easier.
• this was most true for students who rated their maths ability as poor.

Question 29

describe perrin and spencer’s study that’s a limitation of the explanations of conformity

Answer 29

used science and engineering students and found very little conformity because they felt more confident about measuring lines than the original sample.

proves that everyone conforms differently.

asch also found that students were less conformist (28%) than other ppts (37%)

Question 30

what was the aim of zimbardos research?

Answer 30

to see how individuals conform to social roles

Question 31

describe the sample of the Stanford prison experiment

Answer 31

-24 male uni students - volunteers.

• selected from 75 on the basis of their physical and mental stability
• paid $15 a day
• allocated to their roles randomly

Question 32

describe the arrival of the prisoners

Answer 32

• arrested from their homes by real police (lack of informed consent)
• took them to station to get fingerprints
• took them blindfolded to the mock prison
• stripped nude, deloused and given uniforms.

Question 33

describe how the prisoners and guards were dressed and why they were dressed this way

Answer 33

prisoners - ID numbers
guards - mirrored sunglasses

designed to de-individuate them so that they became so immersed in the norms to the point of losing their identity.

Question 34

describe the results of the stanford prison experiment

Answer 34

• prisoners quickly became passive and negative in their attitudes while the guards became more active
• 5 prisoners had to be released due to the extreme reactions to the situations.
• had to end after 6 days due to the extreme pathological behaviour emerging from both groups
• guards showed pathology of power - enjoyed absolute control they had over prisoners. made them do press-ups - made other prisoners sit on their backs. woke them in middle of night and made them clean toilets with bare hands.

Question 35

what did zimbardo conclude?

Answer 35

the prison environment was an important factor in creating the guards sadistic behaviour (no guard before study had shown these sadistic tendencies)

Question 36

describe the strengths of zimbardos study

Answer 36

• everything was filmed and recorded so controlled
• consent was given but not fully informed as didn’t know they would be arrested at home

-confidentiality

• debriefed all ppts and found that there was no significant lasting harm to them which lasted several hours.
• some real life application to prisons so high ecological validity (followed same procedures) - data shows that around 90% of the prisoners convos were about prison life.

Question 37

describe the limitations of zimbardos research

Answer 37

• unethical - distress (guards told not to physically harm but still made them do push ups etc. - due to zimbardo being prison superintendent and ran prison)
  👆
  however the debrief shows that no prisoner had lasting harm.
• population validity
• unreliable as other studies (BBC) have been conducted that have shown diff results
• observer bias zimbardo has since admitted he lost his objectivity as the prison governor and got too involved
• not all ppts showed conformity to their roles - some maintained their identity
• unrealistic - not truly evaluating how people act when de-individuated as knew it was a study and there was no real threat - hence lacks internal validity and suggest people may not simply just accept a social role.
  👆
  however 90% of conversation by prisoners was about prison life, so must be taking it seriously. consequences were so negative that research had to be stopped early (meaning heavily involved in situation)

Question 38

describe the situational vs dispositional hypothesis using zimbardos research

Answer 38

at the time, the popular view was that criminals were bad by nature or disposition and therefore they needed correction, and harsh prisoner were the way to do this.

zimbardo believed the opp - bad situations such as prisons could create bad behaviour and improving prisons would improve prisoners.

Question 39

what was the aim of Milgram’s study of obedience?

Answer 39

to investigate obedience to an authority figure using a lab based procedure.

Question 40

describe milgrams procedure

Answer 40

• 40 male ppts between ages of 20-50 (range of jobs -unskilled—> skilled) advertisement to volunteer for exp. and received $4.50 for taking part.
• told they would be taking part in a study of how punishment affects learning (deception)
• took place in prestigious Yale uni
• 2 confederates - exp. and learner
• the leaner and real ppts ‘drew lots’ to see who would be the ‘learner’ and who would be the ‘teacher’ - but it was set up that the real ppt would always be the teacher.
• leaner sat in another room and gave incorrect answers and pretended to be in pain when shocked. - up to 450v
• if teacher asked to stop, the experimenter would tell them to continue using diff prompts (“you have no other choice but to continue”)

Question 41

what we’re the findings of milgrams study?

Answer 41

• 65% of ppts went up to 450v - marked ‘danger sever shocks’
• all ppts went to 300v
• signs of extreme tension - one had seizure.

Question 42

what are the conclusions of Milgrams study?

Answer 42

ordinary people are astonishingly obedient to authority - even when asked to act immorally

suggests it’s not ‘evil’ people who commit evil crimes, but ordinary people who are obeying orders.

Question 43

describe the limitations of milgrams study.

Answer 43

• low ecological validity due to artificial environment and low mudane realism - required ppts to give shocks to another person which is not something people do in every day life.
• low population validity due to the unrepresentative androcentric sample which cannot be generalised to the wider population. (sample of 40 all male ppts so results can’t be generalised to a females level of obedience to authority figures.
  👆
  however, the men were from a range of different occupations and educational backgrounds and a range in their age.
• ethnocentric (only Americans - implying that the behaviour of Americans is universal but it may be different for other cultures.
  Milgram wanted to test the ‘Germans are different’ theory when it came to their obedience to authority figures after the incidents in jewish concentration camps, but his sample only consisted of Americans, so he could have tested on Germans with the same procedures as well to see if there really was a difference in their obedience.
• deceived and experienced psychological trauma which is seen in the qualitative data (sweating, trembling, seizures)
  ppts we’re also manipulated into thinking they had no RTW through the use of the 4 prompts.

Question 44

describe the strengths of milgrams study

Answer 44

• standardised procedures - same prompts used for each ppt.
• reliable - repeated a number of times and 70% said they thought the shocks were real
  👆
  surely if fully reliable this would be 100%
• ethics: his debrief was thorough and 84% said they were pleased to have taken part.
• high internal validity - created a situation in which the ppts believed to be true as evidenced by the strong reactions
  ‘Germans are different’ - this exp shows that germans aren’t different as most ppl would obey an authority figure if told to and in certain situations.

Question 45

describe sheridan and kings puppy study - repeated milgrams

Answer 45

• repeated milgrams, but instead of using an actor, they used a puppy instead of humans (actually shocked)
• many openly wept.- horrified
• 20/26 went to max voltage, the purple who stopped were all men
• all 13 women went to the end
• people are very obedient to authority - women more so than men?
  could be cuz men find it easier to stand up to another man and women feel vulnerable.

Question 46

what is the autonomous state?

Answer 46

we show free will and make our own choices and decisions (take responsibility)

Question 47

what’s the agentic state?

Answer 47

we follow instructions from someone we perceive has legitimate authority over us such as a teacher or police officer.

Question 48

what is the agentic shift?

Answer 48

moving from the autonomous state into the agentic state when confronted with an authority figure.

Question 49

what’s moral strain?

Answer 49

when we are asked to do something that we don’t like or is immoral we experience moral strain and feel uncomfortable and stressed.

Question 50

describe the My Lai events

Answer 50

during the vietnam war, American soldiers enters the village of My Lai and were ordered by their lieutenant to shoot everyone. they killed everyone, including small children.

later when on trial, they said they were just obeying orders. the soldiers were no longer autonomous, but agents of the army, and the responsibility of the massacre rested on the US

Question 51

what is meant by a legitimate authority figure?

Answer 51

perceived to have power and control over others.

Question 52

describe holfings nurse study

Answer 52

a confederate doctor rang a ward and asked the nurse to give twice the marked safe dose of an unknown drug to a patient.

21/22 of nurses obeyed the orders against the hospital rules. when a control group of 22 nurses were asked what they would have done, they said they wouldn’t have done it.

concluded that the hierarchy in hospitals was a bigger influence on nurses than following hospital rules.

Question 53

describe the evidence against holfings nurse study.

Answer 53

repeated holfings study using a drug at 3x the recommended dose. when the confederate doctor phoned, the nurses were able to discuss the order with other nurses before carrying it out

this time only 2/18 obeyed.

this increases the realism of the experiment due to the discussion with a colleague and lowered obedience levels

Question 54

describe how the legitimacy of authority explanation explains why there are cultural differences in obedience (give evidence)

Answer 54

when milgrams study was repeated in Australia, only 16% went to 450V, but in Germany 85% of ppts did.

this shows that the explanation of legitimacy of authority is useful to show cultural differences in authority. authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate in some cultures reflect how different socrates are raised to perceive authority in diff ways. this increases validity as it’s cross-cultured.

nature vs nurture: this shows that it is therefore environmental factors such as attitudes to legitimate authority that affect whether someone obeys.
👆
but this ignores that 15% of Germans disobeyed so i dictated dispositional factors.

Question 55

what are the situational variables effecting obedience?

Answer 55

proximity of the learner
proximity of the authority
location
uniform

Question 56

describe the proximity studies

Answer 56

both teacher and learner in same room - obdience fell to 40%

touch-proximity study- teacher required to force learners hand onto shock plate - obedience fell to 30%

experimenter absent study - experimenter left the room and gave the instructions over the telephone - obedience fell to 22.5% and the teachers tended to lie about the level of shock they had given to the learner.

Question 57

describe the repeated study of milgrams that shows location

Answer 57

run down office block condition: obedience fell to 48%

this shows that being in a prestigious setting increases legitimacy of authority

Question 58

describe the repeat of milgrams study that shows how uniform effects legitimacy of authority

Answer 58

non-uniform condition: role of the experimenter was taken over by an ‘ordinary member of the public! (played by confederate) wearing everyday clothes and not a lab coat

obedience fell to 20%

** look at card 93 for research support on uniform.

Question 59

what is the study that shows the dispositional explanation for obedience?

Answer 59

Adornos F scale personality test (authoritarian personality)

Question 60

what was the aim for adornos study?

Answer 60

to investigate the authoritarian personality

Question 61

describe the procedure of adornos f scale study

Answer 61

2000 Americans agreed/ disagreed with statements so that researchers could determine their attitudes towards religious and ethnic monitories, their moral values etc.

example of a question - should homosexuals be punished and if they could imagine marrying a jew.

about 100 were then interviewed in depth, including questions on upbringing. his sample included the most and least prejudiced on the scales

Question 62

describe the results for adornos study

Answer 62

he found correlations between his scales - highest correlation between anti-semitism and ethnocentrism showing that a dislike of foreigners was linked to anti-Jewish and Nazi sympathisers.

these people had developed an ‘us and them’ mentality where they believe in power, toughness and the rule of law and are hostile towards all non-conventional people.

they are more likely to obey authority

Question 63

what was the conclusion for Adorno’s study?

Answer 63

children who grow up in a harsh disciplinarian family may repress their hostility towards their parents and seem to idolise them. Later on, they act in a submissive way towards authority figures.

this repressed hostility towards their parents is displaced onto non-threatening minority groups as prejudice and discrimination

Question 64

evaluate Adornos study

Answer 64

👍- research support to show that the authoritarian personality is a valid explanation for obedience: Adorno. (shows a persons disposition can have an effect on obedience)

however, there’s evidence for the fact that the situation does impact the level of obedience (milgrams run down office)

👎- prone to response bias as all the questions in the f-scale test are positively worded so people might find it harder or ‘wrong’ to disagree. also questions were asking about their views on aggression, fascism, prejudice, which could result in desirability bias - people know that it wouldn’t look good to agree with these discriminatory things so might not state their real opinion.

this means that the score an individual receives may not be truly reflective of their actual personality type, meaning that those who score higher may not actually have an authoritarian personality, creating issues with the validity of the results which show a higher score on the F-scale with a higher likelihood to obey.

👍- research support. Elms and Milgram - 20 obedience ppts who went to 450v and 20 disobedient ppts. completed the F-scale test and found that obedient ppts scored higher.
this suggests that the authoritarian personality is a factor which contributes to obedience.

however Elms and milgram also found that ppts reported very good relationships with their parents, rather than them being strict.
this is a problem because harsh parenting is said to be one of the main causes of authoritarian personally development

Question 65

describe a person with an internal locus of control

Answer 65

more likely to resist social influence and less likely to go through the agentic shift.

can control much of one’s life and succeed in different stressful situations

more achievement orientated

active seekers of info - more likely to be leaders so less likely to rely on the opinion of others.

Question 66

describe someone with an external locus of control

Answer 66

less likely to resist social influence and more likely to go through the agentic shift.

sees their life as being controlled by luck, fate or others, especially others with more power. they are therefore more likely to obey an authority figure.

what happens to them is controlled by external factors.

more passive towards stressful situations.

less effort to stay healthy, lower levels of psychological well-being.

Question 67

describe sherman’s study on locus of control (MvF)

Answer 67

after 2 decades of research, be found that males are more likely to have an internal LoC, and so are more likely to become leaders.

females are more likely to seek links with others rather than behave independently.

Question 68

describe Avtgis’ research that has shown a strong pos correlation between LOC and resistance to social influence.

Answer 68

He did a meta-analysis and found that people with an internal locus were more resistant to persuasion and less likely to conform.

Question 69

describe Rotter’s LOC research.

Answer 69

He conducted a meta-analysts focussing on ppts perception of their ability to control outcomes.

required ppts to choose between 2 statements of external and internal items about their daily situation that they agreed with.

after they totalled their responses to see whether they had an internal or external locus of control.

he found that internal were more resistant to influence from others comparing to external who were more likely to go along with the group to conform. also internal less likely to take up addictive behaviours.

(social desirability and response bias, black and white - some people could sit in the middle and no room for explanation)

Question 70

how does social support effect social influence?

Answer 70

having an ally means that it gives the observer the confidence to resist as well as it reduces the pressure to conform.

if the person wanting to obey has someone else who does it becomes easier for them to do so

Question 71

describe the two peers rebel study and Asch ally variation study and explain what it suggests about social influence.

Answer 71

two peers rebel study
two conf and one real ppt shared the task of teaching the learner. at some point in exp. the two confederate teachers refused to carry on - 10% of ppts went on to shock to 450V

this suggests that when we have social support we’re more likely to rests SI as we feel less pressure and if the real ppt has support for the desire to obey, it becomes easier for them to do so.

Asch
when Asch varied his study and introduced a non-conforming ally who also gave the right answer, conformity decreased by 5%

social support increases resistance to social influence. this is because when there’s an ally present l, it provides the individual with confidence and therefore reduces the pressure to conform to the majority.

Question 72

what’s another statement you can include to show that social support has an impact on social influence.

Answer 72

individuals resisted conformity to binge drinking if 1 or 2 friends also resisted. this has a higher ecological validity, making it more reliable so we can show that social support does have an impact on SI.

** look at card 94 for more strengths of social support

Question 73

what is the conversion theory in minority influence?

Answer 73

when a minority has informational social influence over the majority by providing new info that challenges the majority, it can convert the majority to the new beliefs or ideas.

Question 74

what are the 3 factors that the minority should be?

Answer 74

• consistent
• committed
• flexible

Question 75

why should the minority be consistent?

Answer 75

it over all increases the amount of interest from other people as:

• makes others rethink their own views
• gives the impression that minority are convinced they’re right and committed to that viewpoint
• when majority is confronted with someone with self-confidence to take a popular stand, they may assume they have a point.

Question 76

why should the minority show commitment?

Answer 76

engaging in extreme activities to draw attention to your cause

this is important as some risk to minority to demonstrate real commitment

this increases the amount of interest from the majority - augmentation principle.

Question 77

how and why should the minority demonstrate flexibility?

Answer 77

showing you’re willing to compromise a little and consider other POV’s

Nemeth- if minority is seen as being inflexible and uncompromising, the majority aren’t likely to change as they view the majority negatively.

Question 78

what is the snowball effect?

Answer 78

the 3 factors will over time cause people to switch from the majority to minority - converted. the more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion.

Question 79

what is social crypto-amnesia?

Answer 79

loss of memory of the events leading to the change

Question 80

what is synchronic consistency?

Answer 80

people in minority all saying the same thing

Question 81

what is diachronic consistency?

Answer 81

have been saying the same thing for a long time

Question 82

what was the aim of moscovici’s research?

Answer 82

to investigate the effect of a consistent minority on the majority using an unambiguous task

Question 83

describe Moscovici’s procedure

Answer 83

• tested 32 groups of 6 women in each.
• in each group were 4 ppts and 2 confederates. the ppts were told that the study was about colour perception, so they didn’t guess the aim.
• the groups were shows 36 slides that were different shades of blue and were asked the state the colour.
• 3 conditions:
  1. control - no one gave wrong answer
  2. ‘inconsistent’ condition, the two confederates answered green on 24/36
  3. ‘consistent’ condition, 2 confederates answered green on 36/36

Question 84

describe the results of Moscovici’s study

Answer 84

1. control- 0.25% ppts answered green
2. inconsistent - 1.25% ppts conformed to minority answer of green
3. consistent - 8.42% conformed to minority ‘green’

so minority influence can change the majorities behaviour, but only when consistent.

Question 85

evaluate moscovici’s study

Answer 85

👍-highly unlikely to have caused any psychological harm to the ppts
- ppts were deceived if the true nature of the experiment.

👍- usefulness - minority groups can adopt this info to build a stronger campaign and hopefully lead to conversion and the snowball effect. e.g. gay rights campaigners can use the idea of consistency in order to promote their ideas and increase the amount of conversions from the majority to minority who internalise their beliefs

👎- only consistency
Nemeth constructed a mock jury in which there were 3 genuine ppts and one confederate. they had to decide on the amount of compensation to give a ski lift accident victim. when the confederate would not change from a low amount (unreasonable), the majority stuck together at a higher amount. but when the confederate changed his offer a bit higher, so did the majority. (research simplistic and may not reflect the complexities of real life, so can’t conclude that flexibility has the same importance in real life)

👎- low external validity as they weren’t real groups meaning they didn’t have the power and status the real world has.

👎- low internal validity as other dispositional factors could have affected the conformity rate such as personality and individualistic factors and it could also be NSI

👎- biased sample of only females making it gynocentric, and therefore limiting as the results cannot be generalised to males - so cannot be concluded that males would respond to minority influence in the same way. further research also shows that females are more likely to conform so further research is required.

• ethics: deceived ppt as told they were taking part in a colour perception task and therefore didn’t gain informed consent as ppts didn’t know the true aim. This is a problem as they may not have been willing to take part.

however if they did know the true aims, the ppts would show demand characteristics and may have changed their behaviour to suit what they believe they should do in order to ‘please’ the researcher. also no psychological harm so deception isn’t bad.

Question 86

what’s the difference between minority and majority influence?

Answer 86

with majority influence, ppts comply publicly in order to fit in (NSI) but with minority influence, the attitude shift is internalised

martin study - ppts heard a minority group agree with a pov while a second group heard the pov from a majority. he found that people think more deeply into a minority message - this has a lasting effect and is more convincing.

Question 87

what is social change?

Answer 87

when a society adopts a new belief or way of thinking that then becomes widely accepted as the norm

Question 88

describe the reasons for social change.

Answer 88

• minorities contribute to social change through by being consistent, flexible and committed. through social crypto-amnesia, and the snow ball effect, gradually the minority turns into the majority.
• influence of obedience - changes to the laws which make a certain behaviour more of a social norm which others then adopt.
• majority influence occurs through normative social influence.
• dictators can bring out social change through power and through the process of obedience. this leads to groups of people changing their behaviour due to fear of punishment.
• consistency contributes to social change when a minority repeatedly gives the same message. this makes the majority reassess their pov and consider the issue more carefully - could lead to internalisation.

-commitment contributes to social change when a minority shows they are willing to give up something for their belief, so majority take their argument more seriously

-flexibility contributes to social change when a minority show they are willing to listen to other viewpoints, the majority see them more positively and might take their argument more seriously.

-

Question 89

explain how social influence leads to social change.

Answer 89

a campaigner or activist needs to be consistent, committed and flexible. to do this, they need to repeatedly take risks to demonstrate commitment, which is the augmentation principle. they also need to make sure they listen to other viewpoints so that they are viewed positively and so the majority take their argument more seriously. the snowball effect will occur as a result of consistency, commitment and flexibility, so the majority will convert. this will also cause social crypto-amnesia meaning they know the social change has occurred but can’t remember all the events. this may lead to the acceptance of (whatever campaign is for) or could also change the laws due to obedience.

Question 90

describe a limitation of the social change explanation.

Answer 90

one limitation is that social change is less likely if the minority group is considered deviant.

often the majority will avoid associating themselves with the minority as they do not want to also be seen as deviant.

for example, terrorists (ISIS) are trying to create state changes in Syria - e.g. through augmentation effect such as suicide bombings.

this is a deviant group, creating harm to others and themselves to create social change. minority influence is slower and drives social change underground. e.g. people are unlikely to admit they agree with a murdering terrorist organisation.

however, these situations are extreme and highly antisocial. there have been many occasions in real life where positive social change had occurred.

Question 91

describe a limitation of the social change explanation.

Answer 91

one limitation of social change is that most social change through minority influence is gradual.

e.g. the suffragette movement took 7 years in which to create change for the women’s right to vote. it would take another 10 years to remove the age restriction of 30 years and our men and women on an equal footing.

therefore, minority influence and social change is harder to create permanence than assumed. there is resistance from the majority as it’s easier to go with the ‘status quo’ than change.

however, internalisation is the deepest level of processing, so once the majority has been converted, they aren’t likely to convert back.

Question 92

explain how the IRA shows how a consistent minority challenges beliefs.

Answer 92

The IRA showed consistency and persistence in their message to have a united Ireland. This caused a cognitive conflict in society. People were forced to consider their own views.

Supporters of the argument for unity would internalise this minority position and be ultimately ready to kill for it. This augmented their position. (ISI)

The snowball effect meant that more people had to take sides, and at the time it seemed normal to have bombings. These individuals conformed to the idea that this was a rightful fight. (NSI)

Question 93

describe Bickman’s uniform study

Answer 93

different male actors - one dressed as security guard, one as a milkman and one in ordinary clothes (pedestrian)

asked public to do actions like pick up little and giving money for a parking metre

results: guard -78% obedience
milkman - 47% obedience
pedestrian - 30% obedience

shows that the public is more likely to obey when instructed by someone in uniform as it infers a sense of legitimate authority and power.

Question 94

give a real life example of social support and evaluate it.

Answer 94

in 1943, a group of German women protested the holding of 2000 jewish men, despite the Gestapo threatening to open fire. the women found courage in the presence of disobedient peers and continued and the Jews were set free.

this is a field study meaning very high ecological validity, however it also means that this study can’t be replicated as it’s such a unique case meaning it cannot be generalised to day to day situations due to its extremity. as well as this, the study only shows how women resisted social influence, meaning it can’t be generalised to men. women are more likely to conform to the opinions of others in order to prevent social disagreement.