Social influence

Question 1

Conformity / Majority influence

Answer 1

A change in a person’s behaviour or opinion as a result of real imagined pressure from a person or group.

Question 2

Identification

Answer 2

Sometimes conforming to behaviours of others because we value to be part of it.

Question 3

Internalisation

Answer 3

A person accepts the group norms and changes their opinion, deep conformity.

Question 4

Compliance

Answer 4

Temporary type of conforming where we outwardly go with the majority view.

Question 5

Informational social influence (ISI)

Answer 5

Explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we believe it is correct.

Question 6

Normative social influence (NSI)

Answer 6

An explanation of conformity that says we agree with the opinion of others because we want to gain social approval.

Question 7

Unanimity

Answer 7

An individual is more likely to agree with members of a group who all agree with each other.

Question 8

Social roles

Answer 8

A pattern or behaviour that an individual is expected to uphold in that situation.

Question 9

Obedience

Answer 9

Social influence to act a certain way responding to an authoritative figure.

Question 10

Situational variables

Answer 10

External variables, the environment

Question 11

Dispositional explanations

Answer 11

Internal variables

Question 12

Proximity

Answer 12

The distance between the authoritative figure and the person being given the orders.

Question 13

Agentic state

Answer 13

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)

Question 14

Legitimacy of authority

Answer 14

An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us.

Question 15

Conformity: Which study should I evaluate?

Answer 15

Asch’s baseline procedure (1951)
Lucas et al’s study (2006)

Question 16

Asch’s baselines procedure

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

In Asch’s baseline procedure what variables did he investigate and other evaluations?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Explanations for conformity, ISI + NSI: Which study should I evaluate?

Answer 18

Asch’s baseline procedure (1951)
Lucas et al’s study (2006)

Question 19

What was Lucas et al study about?

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

How does Lucas et al study support Asch’s study?

Answer 20

• Supports Asch’s study as task difficulty is a big factor.

Question 21

How does Lucas et al study not support Asch’s study?

Answer 21

• 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.

Question 22

Which study should I evaluate for social roles or dispositional and situational variables?

Answer 22

Zimbardo’s 1970s Stanford Prison Experiment.

Question 23

What was Zimbardo’s aim of research?

Answer 23

To know why prison guards behave so brutally, and whether this was because of social roles.

Question 24

What was Zimbardo’s procedure?

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

What were Zimbardo’s findings?

Answer 25

The guards highlighted differences in social roles by getting increasingly more brutal and punishing the prisoners.

Question 26

Evaluation of Zimbardo’s experiment

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

What study should I evaluate for the topic obedience?

Answer 27

Milgram’s (1963) study
Beavois et al (2012)

Question 28

What was Milgrim’s aim?

Answer 28

To assess different people’s level of obedience

Question 29

What was Milgrim’s prodecure?

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

What was Milgrim’s findings?

Answer 30

Every participant delivered the shocks right up to 300 volts, 65% were fully obedient going all the way to 450 volts.

Question 31

Evaluation of Milgrim’s study

Answer 31

problems:
- Low internal validity

Question 32

What situational variables did Milgrim investigate?

Answer 32

Proximity
Location
Uniform

Question 33

What study should I evaluate for the topics: Obedience: Agentic state and Legitimacy of authority.

Answer 33

Milgrim’s study
Steven Rank

Question 34

Steven Ranks study

Answer 34

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.

Question 35

What study should I evaluate for the topic: Obedience: Authoritarian Personality

Answer 35

Milgram and Alan 1966 study

Question 36

What study shall I evaluate for the topics: Resistance to social influence: Social support + Locus of control

Answer 36

Susan Albrecht

Question 37

Social support What was Susan’s study
What was William’s study

Answer 37

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.

Question 38

LOC - studies

Answer 38

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.

Question 39

What is minority influence?

Answer 39

A form of social influence where a persons beliefs are changed or adopted by a small group of people or one person.

Question 40

What variables were invesitgated?

Answer 40

Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility

Question 41

What study should I evaluate for Minority influence?

Answer 41

Moscovi et al study

Question 42

What was Moscovici et al’s study?

Answer 42

blue/green slide, this showed a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion.

Question 43

What is social change

Answer 43

is when societies beliefs, attitudes and behaviours change after things are viewed in a certain way.