Social Influence Flashcards
What pneumonic would you use to evaluate a study such as Aschs
GRAVE
Generalisation- is it representative of a target population
Reliability- replicability
Application- practical applications, is it relevant in real life situations
Validity- natural?
Ethics- breaching guidelines, risks or violations?
What is conformity
The process of giving into group pressure from the majorities influence
NAME THE TYPES OF COMFORITY and also the explanations
Compliance identification internalisation
NSI- normative social influence which is what people do
ISI- informational social influence which is why people do what they do
Give me the reasons why NSI occurs and what conformity it links to
To gain approval or be liked due to fear of rejection
Links to= compliance
Name the reason why ISI occurs and what conformity it links to
Because they truly believe the other person is right and fully accept their norms and values due to the fact there is no answer to the ambiguous question
Links to= internalisation
What is compliance
Required behaviour or opinions that stops when you’re not in a group due to a fear of rejection
Public but not private
Temporary and weak
What is identification
Views that are maintained when in a group but aren’t when they leave
Permanent views and strong (but only when in group)
Is internalisation views permenant or temporary
Permanent views that are strong
What was Jennesses study 1932
Participants were given a task with no obvious answer and where asked to make an individual estimate- jelly beans in a jar!
They where then asked to make a group estimate, and finally asked to make a second private estimate
These estimates often tended to move towards the group estimate!
What was the aim of Ash’s research
Influenced by sheriffs 1935 conformity experiment, Asch believed there was no clear answer to the ambiguous question so he made sure his did meaning if participants gave a wrong answer it was due to group pressure
How many participants did Ash use in his study
123 male undergraduate students
What was the one participant called in ash’s study an what was the name of the task they completed
Naive participants completing a line judgement task with 7 other confederates
Data results on arch’s study please and thank you x
On average about 1/3 (33%) of participants conformed
3/4 of participants conforming to at least 1 of the 12 incorrect answers
What are some strengths of Ash’s study
Lab study- controlled, standardised, high replicability and validity as Asch himself was able to replicate the study multiple times
Meaning it also had high internal validity due to high control
Also ethical guidelines didn’t exist till 1970 so researchers where unaware of the possible harm participants where at risk of
Weaknesses of ash’s study
Demand characteristics lowered percentage as participants may have recognised the pattern of ion correct answers and deliberately not conformed
Can’t be generalised as its only done on Americans = Not representative
Male= gender bias
American= cultural bias = individualistic
(Can’t explain conformity in collectivist cultures- lacking population validity)
Deception, no informed consent
Mundane realism- task is artificial and can’t be generalised to real life situations.
Aschs evaluationnnnnnnnnn
Low temporal validity
Perrin and Spencer (1981) carried out Asch’s study 25 years late
with engineering students in the UK and only one student
conformed in a total of 396 trials. Perhaps Asch’s results were due to the fact that in the 1950s American society was in the grip of McCarthyism (named after US politician Joseph McCarthy) which is when America was strongly anti-communist. Many were scared to go against this view and so conformed.
However, when Perrin and Spencer repeated the study with youths on probation and probation officers acting as confederates, they found similar conformity rates to Asch’s study, Could this be due to the perceived cost of not conforming
Supports NSI and compliance - seek approval from confederates
Gender and culture bias lacking population validity due to individualistic research.
Three variations of Aschs experiments
Unamity
Group size
Task difficulty
Explain the findings of aschs study when differing group sizes
Aschoff found that as group size increased so did conformity. With 1 confederate in the group conformity was 3%, with 2= 13%, and 3 or more increased to 32%
He found little change in groups of 4-5 concluding 3 was the optimal group size
Unamity in aschs research
Whether confederates would have an affection the naive participants conformity
He introduced a confederate who disagreed with others
This lead to a decrease in conformity by 1/4
How did task difficulty affect aschs study
Asch made the line judgement task more difficult to judge the eggect
Line A,B, and C similar= hard to distinguish
As we are uncertain we look to others for conformation as we believe they are right=
Informational social influence
Conformity increased under these conditions
What are social roles (definition)
Parts that people play as m,embers of different social groups. There give us expectations on how we should behave and how others should behave in their given role
What was the aim of Zimbardo study
To investigate whether people would then conform to the roles of guards and prisoners- playing simulation prison
To test whether similar behaviour in real life environment is due to dispositional (bad apples) or situational (bad baskets)
Explain to me what Zimbardo procedure was ples x
A mock prison was set up in basement of a psychology department in Stanford university (California, USA)
Male students were both psychologically and physically screen = 24 of 74 most stable were selected- then randomly assigned roles!
Prisoners were unexpectedly arrested
Then stripped and finger printed
Prisoners= id number, numbered smods
Guards= sunglasses/ avoid eye contact and handcuffs
Also ZIMBARDO HIMSELF was the role of superintendent
What did Zimbardo find out from his study
Both settled into roles
Prisoners initially rebelled, but dehumanisation became apparent; guards gave prisoners taunts and sardonic tasks such as cleaning toilets with their hands
Guards became enthusiastic and volunteered to stat for extra hours
People asked for parole instead of asking to leave
5pp left study= extreme reactions
A postgraduate student (later Zimbardos wife) reminded zimbardo that this was a psychology study and of his ethical duty to pp as researcher and not as superluitenant
What was the modern experiment modelled off of zimbardos research
BBC prison study
What was the procedure of the BBC prison study
15 male pupils split into 5 groups of 3 and closely matched on personality variables
From each group 1 was the guard and 2 prisoners
Study ran for 8 days
Findings of the BBC prison study
Participants didn’t automatically conform to assigned roles over the course of the study:
Prisoners increasingly identified as a group and collectively challenged the authority of the group, establishing more egalitarian set of social relations. The guards also were reluctant to impose authority on prisoners which led to a shift of power
Strengths of zimbardos research
High real world application- Abu Ghraib conformity shown as military group notorious for the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers= powerful external validity
High internal validity as they used random allocation to assign roles of prisoners and guards
Weaknesses of zimbardos research
Non representative
Gender bias and cultural bias= lacking population validity meaning its cannot be generalised
Lack of standardisation die to the non existent IV and DV meaning lower levels of contra;, results can therefore be affected by extraneous or co founding variables. As well as this guards hard the option to chose their own prison and punishments
Zimbardo was the superintendent of the study- not acknowledging his own ethical duty as researcher- had to be told this by his future wife
Deception, informed consent- psychological + physical harm
What was the aim of MILGRAMS STUDYYYYY x
How far people would go in obeying instructions if it involved harming another person
Describe the procedure of milgrams stydy
Volunteers were recruited for a controlled experiment investigating learning (ethics:deception?)
MIlgram has a total of 40 male participants who he introduced to an experiment and another confederate posing as a volunteer participant
The participants drew lots to decide roles however it was always rigged so the real participant became the teacher and the fake participant became the teacher.
The leaner has to recall paired word lists and if they got one wrong, the teacher had to administer increasing strong shocks from 15-450 volts!
Learner gave purposeful wrong answers receiving fake shocks in silence till 300volts
What did participants in milgrams study start doing at 300 volts
Banging on the walls and screaming, then not responding to the following question
Wheat were the pods experiment has to repeat if teacher wanted to leave the experiment
“You have no other choice, you must go on”
“It is absolutely essential that you continue”
What were the results if milgrams study??????
Psychiatrist students predicted that very few would go over 150 volts with only 1 in 1,000 going to the full 450 volts
However this was not the case with 26 in 40 pp (65%) going for the full 450 volts even though it was labelled XXX
What was Milgrams proximity study show
With the experiment or absent experiment, experiment or gave instructions over a telephone, only 20% continued to max shock, with some even repeatedly admitting the lowest shock level whilst telling the experiment or they were following procedure
Location resultssss milgram
Milgram moved his experiment from the prestigious Yale university to a run down office in Bridgeport, where results only slightly dropped to 48%
What did milgram do to study the situational factor of the power of uniform
Original= grey lab coat
Alteration = member of the public in their own clothes where there was one of the biggest drops to only 20% going to max level, aswell as an external study using a female experimenter dressed in a police style outfit, who told random member of the public to give spare change to a male researcher for an expired ticket- 72% conformed
What about the generalisability, reliability and application of Milgrams study
Gender and culture bias- non representative= decreasing validity
Controlled procedures- set prods for experimenter making experiment easy to repeat and measure consistency
Real world application- Nazis saw Hitler as an authority figure to follow
Validity and ethics of Milgrams study
Validity- lacks ecological validity as it was an artificial task, however milgram argued that much alike the holocaust, people were dropped into unfamiliar situations.
Random allocation- was fake- deception betraying trust and possibly damaging psychology reputation
What are situational variables of obedience
Situational variables affecting obedience include location and uniform, as investigated by milgram
What did milgram find about situational factors
Situational factors might explain behaviour better than his original belief that obedience might be due to personality
What are the three main situation variables
Proximity
Location
Uniform
What is a weakness of the situational variables of obedience
Milgram findings support a situational explanation of obedience. However, this has been critiqued by researchers who argue that it offers an excuse or alibi for evil behaviour.
In some psychologists’ views, it is offensive to survivors of the Holocaust to suggest that the Nazis were simply obeying orders and were victims themselves of situational factors beyond their control.
The situational explanation of obedience therefore ignores the idea that people have personal responsibility for their actions = may cause psychological harms to victims.
What is a strength in evaluating the situational variables of obedience
Milgram systematically altered one variable at a time (e.g. proximity) to see what effect it would have on the level of obedience.
All the other procedures and variables were kept the same as the study was replicated over and over again with over 1000 participants in total.
This means that we can see cause and effect i.e. that the situational variables of uniform, proximity and location cause obedience, supporting the internal validity of the situational explanation of obedience.
What are social-psychological factors of obedience
Explanations concern the influences of others on an individual’s behaviours as opposed to external factors.
Agentic state and legitimacy of authority suggest that obedience lies within social hierarchies
What is the agentic state?
‘Just following orders’ acting for an agent (authority) and not taking responsibility for your actions and shifting this onto your agent- reduced moral strain
Opposite to autonomous state.
The shift between the two is known as the agentic shift.
It is argued that it helps maintain a positive self-image, e.g. behaviour is due to these factors rather than themselves.
What is a legitimate authority?
For the agentic shift to occur the person must be perceived as being an authority figure.
Agreed social hierarchy, which is learnt from childhood.
Certain symbols attached to a person/s in authority e.g. uniform and setting.
Destructive authority where power is used to get people to act in cruel/dangerous ways.
Who is Adolf Eichmann?
had overseen the Nazi death camps used the defence that he was following orders at his war crimes trial.
What is a strength of social-psychological explanations of obedience
One strength of legitimate authority is that there is research support.
Replications of Milgram’s study have found that some countries are more obedient that others. Kilham and Mann (1974) found obedience in Australian participants to be 16%. However, in German participants this figure is 85%.
This therefore suggests that they recognised that legitimate authority is a cause of obedience, which supports the validity this explanation of obedience.
How can you use Blass and Schmitt’s 2001 study to evaluate the agentic state in social-psychological explanations of obedience to
Blass and Schmitt (2001) showed students a video clip of Milgram’s study and asked who was to blame. Student’s said the experimenter was to blame, as he had legitimate authority (top of the hierarchy) and because he is an expert (a scientist).
—> limitation of the agentic state is that the behaviour of the Nazis cannot explained by the agentic shift.
This therefore suggests that the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience, and so cannot be considered to be fully externally valid.
Social-psychological factors and the legitimate authority is used to explain real-life scenarios, why is this a strength
A strength of both the social-psychological explanations of obedience (agentic state and legitimacy of authority) is that they can both be used to explain real-life scenarios.
Mandel (1998) outlined an incident in which the German Reserve Police Battalion 101 obeyed orders to shoot civilians in a small Polish town. This was despite the fact they did not have direct orders to do so, they could have been given other duties.
This suggests that the explanations are externally valid and may help to prevent such occurrences from happing again.
Social-psychological factors and the legitimate authority is used to explain real-life scenarios, why is this a strength
A strength of both the social-psychological explanations of obedience (agentic state and legitimacy of authority) is that they can both be used to explain real-life scenarios.
Mandel (1998) outlined an incident in which the German Reserve Police Battalion 101 obeyed orders to shoot civilians in a small Polish town. This was despite the fact they did not have direct orders to do so, they could have been given other duties.
This challenges the idea of the agentic state as the men were not ordered to shoot the civilians, they were given a choice and therefore cannot blame authority for their actions, and shouldn’t experience the agentic shift from the autonomous state to the agentic state.Therefore, the explanation can’t be considered to be completely valid as it can’t explain obedience in every situation.
What is the authoritarian personality?
This is a dispositional explanation of obedience i.e. it focuses on the importance of the individual’s personality in explaining their behaviour.
It is a collection of dispositions/traits that develop from strict parenting, such as being conformist, conventional and dogmatic.
What was the procedure of Adorno et al.s 1950s study examining the unconscious views of Caucasian Americans towards other racial groups
2000 middle-class Caucasian Americans
Several scales were developed including the potential for fascism scale (F-scale).
Examples from the f-scale:
‘Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn’
‘Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished’
‘There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel great love, gratitude and respect for his parents’
What were Adorno et al.s findings into the authoritarian personality
Authoritarians (who scored high on the F scale and other measures) identified with strong people and were intolerant of the weak. They also showed excessive respect and deference to those of higher status.
Authoritarian people also had a cognitive style where there were distinct and fixed stereotypes about other groups.
Individuals who scored high in the F-scale tended to be raised by parents with an Authoritarian parenting style
What did Altemeyer do to the concept of the authoritarian personality
Altemeyer (1981) refined the concept of the Authoritarian Personality. He identified a group of three of the original personality variables which he referred to as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA)
What did Altemeyer suggest as the three important personality traits of RWA
Conventionalism – an adherence to conventional norms and values
Authoritarian aggression – aggression towards people that violate these norms
Authoritarian submission – uncritical submission to legitimate authorities
What was the procedure of Elms and Milgrams 1966 follow up study int dispositional explanations
They carried out a follow-up study of Milgram’s experiments two months before.
They selected 20 ‘obedient’ participants who had continued to the final shock level, and 20 ‘defiant’ participants who had refused at some point in the experiment.
Each participant completed the MMPI scale + California F scale to specifically measure their levels of authoritarianism. Participants were also asked a series of open-ended questions, including questions about their relationship with their parents during childhood and their attitude to the ‘experimenter’ (authority figure) and the ‘learner’ during their participation in Milgram’s original study.
What were the findings of Elms and Milgrams 1966 study
they did find higher levels of authoritarianism among those participants classified as obedient, compared with those classified as defiant. They also found significant differences between obedient and defiant participants that were consistent with the Authoritarian Personality.
This was not the case among defiant participants. These findings suggested to Elms and Milgram that the obedient group was higher on the trait of authoritarianism.
