Social Influence Flashcards
Define conformity
A change in a persons behaviour or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people
Types of conformity (3)
Internalisation
Identification
Compliance
Define compliance
Going along with others in public but privately not changing your personal opinion. Compliance is a superficial change, this means that this behaviour/opinion stops when the group aren’t present.
Define identification
We conform to the opinions/behaviours of a group because there’s something about the group that we value. We identify with the group so we want to be a part of it. Publicly change our opinions to achieve this even when the group isn’t there but we don’t privately agree
Define internalisation
Occurs when people genuinely accept group norms. This result in private as well as public change of opinions/behaviours. Change of opinions persists even in the absence of the group
Explanations of conformity (2)
Informational social influence
Normative social influence
Define ISI
You follow the group because you want to be right. It’s a cognitive process (you think it through), most common in new situations
Define NSI
About whats normal or typical of a group. We want to gain social approval from a group (it’s an emotional process). Most likely to occur where there are strangers so you may feel concerned about rejection
Evaluation-Research support for ISI
Lucas et al (2006) 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 rather than when they were easier ones. This was most true for students who rated them mathematical ability as poor.
This shows that people conform in situations where they feel they don’t know the answer, this is a strength as it’s an example of the outcomes predicted by ISI explanations. We look to other people and assume they know better than us and must be right.
Evaluation- Individual differences in NSI
Some research shows NSI doesn’t affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way e.g. people who are less concerned with being liked are less affected by NSI than those that care more about being liked (affiliatiors). McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that students high in need of affiliation were more likely to conform.
This shows that the desire to be liked underlies conformity for some people more than others and therefore there’s individual differences in the way that people conform.
Evaluation- ISI&NSI work together
(Deutch and Gerard’s 2-process approach: behaviour is either NSI or ISI) but often, both processes are involved e.g conformity is reduced when there’s one other dissenting participant in the asch experiment. This dissenter may reduce power of NSI as they provide social support, or reduce power of ISI as there’s an alternative source of information.
It shows that it’s not always possible to be sure whether NSI or ISI is at work (usually the case in lab studies) which casts doubt over the view of ISI and NSI as a 2-process operation independently in conforming behaviour.
Individual differences in ISI
Asch (1955) found that students were less conformist (28%) than other participants (37%). Perrin and Spencer (1980) conducted a study involving science and engineering students and found very little conformity. Individual differences are a limitation because the findings can’t be generalised to everyone.
Research support for NSI
Asch (1951) found that many of his participants went along with the clearly wrong answer just because other people did. When asked they said they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval. When asch repeated the study but asked participants to write down their answers instead, conformity rates fell to 12.5%.
This shows a clear link between conforming and the need for social approval
What is the Aim of Asch’s study
Asch (1951) conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
What is the procedure of Asch’s study
-Asch used a lab experiment to study conformity
-50 male students from Swarthmore college in USA participated in a vision test
-Using a line judgement task, Asch put each participant in a room with 7 confederates
-Confederates agreed in advance upon responses, participant was led to believe that the other 7 participants were also real participants like themselves
-Each person had to say out loud which option was most like the target line (obvious answer)
-participant always gave their answer last
-18 trials in total, confederates gave the wrong answer for 12/18 (critical trials)
-control condition only had real participant (baseline first comparison)
What were the results of Asch’s study
-32% conformed with clearly incorrect answer on majority critical trials
-over the 12 critical trials, 75% conformed at least once, 25% didn’t conform
-in control group, less than 1% gave the incorrect answer
What was the conclusion of Asch’s study
When interviewed, most participants said they didn’t really believe their conforming answers but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought ‘peculiar’. A few said they really did believe the groups answers were correct
What were the 3 variations of Asch’s study
Task difficulty
Group size
Unanimity
Explain the task difficulty variation of Asch’s study (state effect on conformity and why)
The task was made more difficult by using lines that were much closer in length to each other and the comparison line.
This increased conformity due to ISI as the lines are harder to tell apart causing participants to doubt their own answers
Explain the group size variation of Asch’s study (state effect on conformity and why)
The size of the majority was increased (up to 16 confederates against 1 participant).
This increases conformity but different group sizes only have an impact up to a certain point
Explain the unanimity variation of Asch’s study (state effect on conformity and why)
The presence of another non-conforming person
This decreases conformity to 25% because if the whole group are unanimous then conformity would increase but the presence of a dissenter will increase the participants confidence in their answer
Asch evaluation- biased sample
Asch’s study used only males from a university population meaning they came from a better socio economic background as they’re all educated
This is a problem because it means the study can’t be generalised to females or others of very different ages. The study is representative of an individualistic culture so can’t be generalised to other countries.
Asch evaluation- artificial task
Line judgements were used
This is a problem because the study lacks ecological validity as the line judgements can’t be applied to real life situations and therefore the findings aren’t necessarily representative of conformity in different everyday situations meaning they’re not accurate
Asch evaluation- Study lacks temporarily validity
The study was conducted in the 1950s just after WW2, after this period, people had more national pride and therefore higher levels of conformity
This is a problem because the findings can’t be applied to modern day situations due to social and cultural changes in society since the 1950s meaning the findings aren’t accurate for todays society
Asch evaluation- alternative research fails to support the findings
Perrin and Spencer use science and engineering students instead and found lower conformity levels
This is a problem because it shows that the findings of Asch’s study can’t be generalised to different groups of people, there’s an issue with consistency of the results from the same experiment.
Asch evaluation- ethical issues
Participants were led to believe that the other 7 confederates were also real participants like themselves
This is a problem because the participants were deceived and couldn’t give informed consent as they didn’t know the aims of the study. Also, participants might have felt embarrassed as they couldn’t understand why their answer was wrong, this is a form of psychological harm.
What is the aim of Zimbardo’s study
To investigate how readily people would conform to new social roles by observing how quickly people would adopt the roles of guard or prisoner in a role-playing exercise that stimulated prison life
What is the procedure of Zimbardo’s study
Well adjusted healthy male volunteers paid $15 a day to take part in a 2-week stimulation study of prison life
Volunteers were given psychometric tests to establish their adjustment
They were randomly allocated to the roles of guards/prisoners
Local police helped by ‘arresting’ 9 prisoners at their homes without warning. They were taken, blindfolded, to the prison, stripped and sprayed with disinfectant, given smocks to wear and their prison number to memorise. From then on they were referred to by number only
There were 3 guards who wore khaki uniforms, dark glasses and carried wooden batons
No physical aggression was permitted
What are the findings of Zimbardo’s study
The guards harassed the prisoners and conformed to their perceived roles with such zeal that the study had to be discontinued after 6 days
Prisoners rebelled against the guards after 2 days, guards quelled the rebellion using fire extinguishers
Some prisoners became depressed and anxious, one prisoner had to be released after only 1 day and 2 more had to be released on the 4th day
Conclusion of Zimbardo’s study
The ‘prison environment’ was important in creating the guards’ brutal behaviour (none had shown sadistic tendencies before the study)
People will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are strongly stereotyped
The roles people play shape their attitudes and behaviours. If It took only 6 days to alter behaviour of participants in study, then the roles we play IRL will have even more far reaching effects
Zimbardo evaluation- lab study +
No extraneous variables and very controlled environment so we can be certain that any effect on the DV is due to manipulating the IV
results are more reliable
Standardised procedure, easy to replicate and similar results will be produced
Zimbardo evaluation- participants were randomly assigned +
Reduces bias
Takes away demand characteristics of participants
Increases internal validity (individual differences are reduced)
Zimbardo evaluation- Banuazizi and Mohavedi (1975) argued participants were playing acting and not actually conforming to social roles
These performances were based on stereotypes of how they thought they were supposed to behave
This is a problem as it means they weren’t actually testing the aims of the study and rather people’s knowledge of the social roles they were conforming to which decreases the validity of the study
However, Zimbardo argues that the study was very true to life and prisoners even spoke just about the prison
Zimbardo evaluation- Fromm (1973) accused Zimbardo of exaggerating the power of the situation to influence behaviour
Fromm focused on more dispositional personality factors and only 1/3 of the guards were brutal so Zimbardo may have overstated his conclusion that everyone conformed to their roles
Zimbardo is studying situational conformity and is completely ignoring dispositional conformity so his findings aren’t representative of conformity as a whole
Zimbardo evaluation- Reicher and Haslam (2006) replicated the study and had very different findings to Zimbardo
Prisoners eventually took control, they used social identity theory (when you go into a social setting you adopt a similar social identity), to explain this and said that guards failed to develope a shared social identity as a cohesive group but the prisoners did so they had more control
This questions the consistency of Zimbardo’s findings
Definition of obedience
A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour isn’t forthcoming
Aim of Milgrams study
To see how much an average person would follow orders, in a life or death situation, given by an authority figure
What is the procedure of Milgrams study
Volunteers were recruited for a lab experiment, 40 males aged 20-50 whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional from the New Haven area. They were paid $4.50 for turning up
At beginning they were introduced to another participant who was a confederate
They drew straws to determine their roles (fixed so confederate was always the learner)
Experimenter dressed in grey lab coat
2 rooms in Yale interaction laboratory, one for learner the other for teacher&experimenter
Learner learns word pairs and is tested by teacher, teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the lvl of shock each time (15-450V)
When teacher refused to administer shock, experimenter was to give a series of prods to ensure they continued
