Social Influence Flashcards
Conformity (Asch)
Limitation - artificial situation/task, trivial and no reason not to conform (consequences not important), p’s knew they were in a research study (demand characteristics), Fiske argued the groups were not very ‘groupy’
Limitation - little application, American men, no women and individualist culture
Strength - real life application, can use research to train juries how to have more self-efficacy
Strength - Lucas, more p’s conformed to wrong answers when problems were harder (supports task difficulty as variable affecting conformity)
Counter - conformity is more complex, Asch didn’t study individual factors but only situational ones, ignored personality eg confidence
Conformity (types of conformity and explanations for conformity)
Strength - NSI has research support, Asch, when P’s could write down conformity fell to 12.5%, so they were afraid of disapproval
Strength - ISI has research support, Lucas, P’s conformed more when maths problems were harder (more ambiguous) / Jenness, P’s guessing number of beans in a jar changed estimate to be closer to group estimate 2nd guess
Counter: unclear if it is NSI that operates or ISI, hard to separate, does a unanimous majority increase conformity because we want to fit in or we think they know something we don’t
Limitation: individual differences, some people more concerned about being liked, nAffiliators, NSI more relevant for some people, individual differences not explained by theory of situational pressures
Conformity to social roles (Zimbardo)
Strength: SPE has control over key variables (emotionally stable, randomly allocated)
Limitation: SPE lacked realism of a true prison, play acting, performances reflected stereotypes of how prisoners/guards are supposed to act, guard based role on character film, tells us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons
Counter: P’s behaved as if prison was real, 90% conversations about prison life, one believed it was prison run by psychologists - internal validity
Limitation - exaggerated power of roles, only 1/3 guards behaved brutally, another third applied rules fairly, rest supported prisoners (offered cigarettes, reinstated privileges), minimised dispositional influences
Limitation (other) - ethics, informed consent, right to withdraw - parole
Extra - social identify theory argues only those who identify with role of guard conform, possible to resist situational pressures as long as individual doesn’t identify with it
Obedience (Milgram)
Strength - Hofling, nurses called by ‘Dr Smith’ asked to give drug (high dosage), 21/22 obeyed, shows obedience does occur in real life, ecologically valid environment
Limitation - lacked internal validity, P’s guessed the electric shocks were fake, Perry found that only half believed shocks were real, demand characteristics
Limitation - findings not due to blind obedience, every P that given first 3 prods obeyed but those with 4th disobeyed, (according to social identity theory) first 3 required identification with science but 4th required blind obedience
Extra - lab setting lacks ecological validity, sample only male, individualistic culture, emotional impact on participants + right to withdraw made difficult
Obedience (Situational variables)
Strength: research support, Bickman, confederates dressed in different outfits and issued demands, twice as likely to obey ‘security guard’ than ‘jacket/tie’ (field study more believable)
Strength: cross cultural replication, Dutch participants ordered to say stressful comments to interviewees, found 90% obedience and this fell when proximity decreased
Counter: most replications took place in culturally similar societies eg Spain, Australia
Limitation: low internal validity, uniform condition so contrived that some P’s may have worked it out, demand characteristics
Extra: do Milgram’s conclusions that situational factors determine obedience excuse genocide ‘I was just obeying orders’, deterministic, excludes free will, problematic, deterministic
Obedience (situational explanations)
Agentic State:
Strength: has research support, Milgram’s P’s asked experimenter who is responsible, when experimenter replied that they are, P’s continued, acted more easily as agent when knew they were not responsible
Limitation: agentic shift doesn’t explain disobedience, Rank and Jacobson found that only 2/18 nurses obeyed doctor’s order to give excessive drug dose, doctor was authority figure but nurses did not shift into agentic state (same for some of Milgram’s P’s)
Extra: agentic shift not required for destructive behaviour, battalion 101 no orders but still behaved autonomously and performed massacre
Legitimacy of Authority:
Strength: can explain cultural differences, 16% Australian women obeyed, 85% German participants obeyed, in some cultures authority is seen as more legitimate
Limitation: legitimacy does not explain disobedience, Rank and Jacobson, nurses disobeyed even when they accept the legitimacy of the hierarchy of authority structure, so innate tendencies may be more important
Obedience: (dispositional explanations)
Strength: Elms and Milgram found that 20 fully obedience participants in Milgram’s original study scored significantly higher on the F-Scale than a comparison groups of 20 disobedient participants, thus authoritarians are obedient as suggested
Counter: obedient participants had characteristics that were unusual for authoritarians eg no strict childhood
Limitation: doesn’t explain whole country’s behaviour eg more likely Germans identified with Nazi State - can’t have all had authoritarian personality
Limitation: politically biased, focus on right wing fascism but left wing fascism also insists on complete obedience to political authority
Extra: response bias
Resistance to social influence
Social Support:
Strength: Albrecht: programme to help pregnant adolescents to not smoke, social support ‘older buddy’, less likely to smoke than control
Strength: Gamson: oil company smear campaign, 88% rebelled, supporters can reduce obedience
Locus of Control:
Strength: Holland repeated Milgram’s baseline study. 37% of internal LOC Ps did not give the full shocks, 23% of external LOC Ps did not
Limitation: Twenge, over 40 years, analysed studies, people have become more independent but also more external, counterintuitive, theory not fully accurate
Extra: LOC only applicable to resisting social influence in new situations
Minority influence
Strength: research supports consistency, moscovici, minority had to be consistent to be more effective (7% more effective) - limitation of Moscovici - only women
Strength: Martin, deeper processing with minority, case studies effective eg Emmeline Pankhurst
Counter: in research minority groups are small in number, but other ways to define minority eg power, status, commitment
Strength: Nemeth supports importance of flexibility, mock jury more likely to be persuaded if confederate flexible about ski lift accident victim compensation
Limitation: Moscovici task artificial, not v important, removed from how minorities try to change majority opinion in real world
Social influence and social change
Strength: Nolan support for NSI in social change, message was that other residents are reducing energy usage, significant decreases
Counter: Foxcroft programmes using social norms to reduce alcohol intake, only small effect on drinking quantity and no effect on drinking frequency
Strength: minority influence useful as leads to divergent thinking, stimulates new ideas, opens people’s minds
Limitation: Mackie argues majority influence causes more deeper thinking than minority influence as we believe we think as others do, ‘deeper processing’ thus challenged
