Social influence Flashcards
Conformity / Majority influence
A change in a person’s behaviour or opinion as a result of real imagined pressure from a person or group.
Identification
Sometimes conforming to behaviours of others because we value to be part of it.
Internalisation
A person accepts the group norms and changes their opinion, deep conformity.
Compliance
Temporary type of conforming where we outwardly go with the majority view.
Informational social influence (ISI)
Explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe it is correct.
Normative social influence (NSI)
An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of others because we want to gain social approval.
Unanimity
An individual is more likely to agree with members of a group who all agree with each other.
Social roles
A pattern or behaviour that an individual is expected to uphold in that situation.
Obedience
Social influence to act a certain way responding to an authoritative figure.
Situational variables
External variables, the environment
Dispositional explanations
Internal variables
Proximity
The distance between the authoritative figure and the person being given the orders.
Agentic state
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authoritative figure. (An agent)
Legitimacy of authority
An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us.
Conformity: Which study should I evaluate?
Asch’s baseline procedure (1951)
Lucas et al’s study (2006)
Asch’s baselines procedure
Asch wanted to see if the real participant would conform to the majority view, even when the answer was clearly incorrect.
- Asch used a line judgement task, where he placed on real naïve participants in a room with seven confederates.
In Asch’s baseline procedure what variables did he investigate and other evaluations?
Group size - Conformity rates increased as the size of the majority increases.
Unanimity - Having only one confederate decreases conformity.
Task difficulty - People tend to look to others as the answers because less obvious.
- Lacks ecological validity
- individual differences
- good internal validity
- ethical issue of deception
- Highly controlled
Explanations for conformity, ISI + NSI: Which study should I evaluate?
Asch’s baseline procedure (1951)
Lucas et al’s study (2006)
What was Lucas et al study about?
He asked participants to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths questions, participants were given answers from students who were confederates, the participants conformed more when the questions got harder. supports Asch’s study as task difficulty is a big factor.
How does Lucas et al study support Asch’s study?
- Supports Asch’s study as task difficulty is a big factor.
How does Lucas et al study not support Asch’s study?
- The participants who had a high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less this shows that the individual-level factor can influence conformity by interacting with situational variables. e.g task difficulty.
Which study should I evaluate for social roles or dispositional and situational variables?
Zimbardo’s 1970s Stanford Prison Experiment.
What was Zimbardo’s aim of research?
To know why prison guards behave so brutally, and whether this was because of social roles.
What was Zimbardo’s procedure?
Set up a mock prison in the basement of stanford university, 21 male students volunteered to act as either prisoners or prison guards they were all mentally stable. They were both instructed on their behaviour and social roles.
What were Zimbardo’s findings?
The guards highlighted differences in social roles by getting increasingly more brutal and punishing the prisoners.
Evaluation of Zimbardo’s experiment
Problems:
lacks ecological validity:
- as it didn’t represent a real prison.
- The students who acted as guards did not have professional training.
- Students were not representative in terms of ethnicity, educational attainment and status.
- None of the participants had been in a prison before.
Ethical issues:
- right to withdraw was taken away from them at the beginning.
- Lack of control
- Zimbardo became the prison warden role and couldn’t ensure safety for the prisoners being the researcher and that role.
Good:
- high degree of internal validity as one prisoner stated that he felt as if he was in a real prison.
What study should I evaluate for the topic obedience?
Milgram’s (1963) study
Beavois et al (2012)
What was Milgrim’s aim?
To assess different people’s level of obedience
What was Milgrim’s prodecure?
40 American men volunteered to take part in a lab study where they drew lots to see who was the teacher or learner, the experimenter was a confederate. The teacher could not see the learner but hear them they had to give electric shocks to the learner every time they made a mistake on a memory task the shocks increased to 450 volts.
What was Milgrim’s findings?
Every participant delivered the shocks right up to 300 volts, 65% were fully obedient going all the way to 450 volts.
Evaluation of Milgrim’s study
problems:
- Low internal validity
What situational variables did Milgrim investigate?
Proximity
Location
Uniform
What study should I evaluate for the topics: Obedience: Agentic state and Legitimacy of authority.
Milgrim’s study
Steven Rank
Steven Ranks study
Found that 16-18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive amount of drugs to a patient. This shows the agentic state can only occur in some situations.
What study should I evaluate for the topic: Obedience: Authoritarian Personality
Milgram and Alan 1966 study
What study shall I evaluate for the topics: Resistance to social influence: Social support + Locus of control
Susan Albrecht
Social support What was Susan’s study
What was William’s study
Susan’s study was was an 8 week programme where teenagers were being influenced to smoke whilst pregnant from peer pressure, she found those who had a buddy were less likely to smoke. This shows that social support can help young people resist social influence.
Williams study was asking participants to produce evidence that would be used to help an oil company run a smear campaign, they found higher levels of resistance, this was because in groups they were able to discuss. This shows that peer support can lead to disobedience.
LOC - studies
Charles holland - he repeated milligram’s baseline test he found that internals went to a higher shock level than externals. This shows resistance to social influence is partly to do with the LOC.
Jean twen analysed data which showed that over a 40 year time span people who became more resistant to obedience were also more external. Therefore LOC is not a valid explanation.
What is minority influence?
A form of social influence where a persons beliefs are changed or adopted by a small group of people or one person.
What variables were invesitgated?
Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility
What study should I evaluate for Minority influence?
Moscovi et al study
What was Moscovici et al’s study?
blue/green slide, this showed a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion.
What is social change
is when societies beliefs, attitudes and behaviours change after things are viewed in a certain way.
