social influence Flashcards
What is conformity
A change in a persons behaviour or opinion as a result of real or imagined pressure from a group of people
What were the 3 variables that Asch investigated?
- Group size
- He varied the number of confedarates from 1-15 and found that conformity rose when group sized increase but only upto a certain point
- With 3 confedarates conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8
- Most people are very sensitive to views of others because just 1 or 2 confedarates was enough to sway opinion
- Unanimity
- He introduced a confederate who disagreed with other confederates
- In one variation this person gave a correct answer and another he gave a wrong one
- The genuine ppt conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter
- The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive ppt to behave more independently
- Influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous - Task Difficulty
- He increased the difficulty of the line judging task by makng the stimulus line and comparison line more similar in length
- Conformity increased as ambiguity increase
- The ppts look to other people to find the right answer
What was Asch baseline procedure and findings ?
This is where 123 American men were tested and had to say whether which of the comparison line matches the standard X line
There was only one genuine ppts the rest were confedarates
He found that genuine ppts agreed with the confederates incorrect answers 36.8% of the time
25% of ppts never gave a wrong answer
A03 eval - conformity
asch
LIMITATION - Artificial Task and Situation
- ppts knew they were in a research study so they might have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics)
- The task od identifying lines was relatively trivial so they had no reason not to conform
- Findings do not generalise to real life situations especiallly where conformity is important
LIMITATATION - Little application
- all the ppts were american men
- women may be more conformist because they are concerned with being accepted
- the US is also an individualist culture but when similar studies were conducted with collectivist cultures conformity was higher
- his findings tell us little about women and some cultures
STRENGTH - Research Support
- support from other studies for task difficulty
- Todd lucas et al asked their ppt to solve easy and hard maths problems
- ppts were given answers from 3 other students and conformed more often when tasks were harder
- Asch was correct in claiming task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity
COUNTERPOINT
- ppts confidence with maths abilities
- individual factors can affect conformity and the situational variables
What are the types of conformity?
Idenitification - Publically change opinions to be accepted as we value them but privately dont stand for their opinions
Internalisation - Person genuinely accepts group norms therefore being a permanant change as the attitudes are internalised
Compliance - Superficial change that changes when group pressure ceases to go along with others
What is the explanations for conformity?
ISI - Informationsal social influence
– follow the majority becuase we want to be right
– cognitive
– leads to internalisation
– happens in new, ambiguos and crisis situations
NSI - Normative social influence
– what is normal behaviour for a social group
– regulate behaviour of groups or individuals
– emotional
– compliance
– stressful situations
A03 : conformity types and explanations
Strength - Research support for NSI
- asch found many ppts conformed rather than give correct answer because they were afraid of dissaproval
- when ppts wrote down answers conformity fell to 12.5%
- some conformity is due to a desire not to be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them
Strength - Research support for ISI
- lucas et al found ppts conformed more to incorrect answers when maths problems were difficult
- the situation was ambiguos so they relied on answers given
- ISI predicts this
HOWEVER
- It is unclear whethere NSI or ISI operate in studies and real life
- A dissenter may reduce the power of NSI or ISI
- Hard to separate and operate together
LIMITATION - individual differences in NSI
- some people more concerned about being liked by others eg nAffiliators who have a strong need to relate to people
- found that naffiliators are more likely to conform
- psi underlies conformity for some people as individual difference could play a bigger role rather than situational factors
What is the research and findings into conformity into social roles?
ZIMBARDO STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT
PROCEDURE
- Zimbardo set up a mock prison experiment in the basement of stanford university
- Randomly allocated 21 emotionally stable student volunteers to guard or prisoner
- Social roles encourages by 2 routes
* uniform - prisoners strip searched, given uniform and number -> deindividuation
- guards had handcuffs, own uniform
* instructions about behavior - prisoners were told they could not leave
- guards were told they had complete power
FINDINGS
- Guards played role enthusiastically and treated prisoners harshly
- Prisoners rebelled within 2 days - ripped uniform, shouting and swore at guards
- Guards retaliated with extinguishers and harassed prisoners threatening psychological and physical health of prisoners :
* prisoners became subdued, anxious and depressed
* 3 prisoners released early as psychologically disturbed
* 1 prisoner went on hunger strike and was forced into a hole
- STUDY STOPPED AFTER 6 DAYS INSTEAD OF 14
SOCIAL ROLES IMPORTANT
GUARDS BECAME BRUTAL
PRISONERS SUBMISSIVE
a03 - CONFORMITY TO SOCIAL ROLES
STRENGTH - control over key variables
- Emotionally stable ppts randomly recruited and randomly allocated
- behaviour was due to role and not personality
- increased internal validity so can draw confident conclusions about social roles on conformity
LIMITATION - SPE lacked realism of true prison
- ppts were playacting to reflect stereotypes
- one guard based his character from a prisoner in a film
- tells us little about conformity
HOWEVER
- ppts behaved as if the prison was real eg 90% of convos about prison life
- suggests SPE replicated the roles of guards and prisoner just as a real prison
LIMITATION - Zimbardo exaggerated the power of roles
- Power of social roles to influence behaviour may have been exaggerated in the SPE
- 1/3 of guards were brutal, 1/3 applied rules fairly , 1/3 supported prisoners (gave cigarettes, privileges)
- SPE overstates view that the guards were conforming to a brutal role and minimised dispositional influences
What is the research into obedience?
MILGRAM BASELINE OBEDIANCE STUDY
- Stanley milgram recruited 40 male ppts
- A confederate (Mr wallace) was the learner (strapped into a chair in a diff room wired with electrodes and had to remember word pairs)
- An ‘experimenter’ wore a lab coat
- The teacher had to give the learner an increasingly severe electric shock each time he made a mistake on a task (15volts to 450)
- Shocks were fake but labelled real
- If teacher wished to stop experimenter gave a verbal prod
What are the findings into obediance?
- 12.5% stopped at 300volts
- 65% continued to 450volts
- Ppts had exterme tension eg uncontrollable seizure
- students estimated no more than 3% of ppts would continue to 450 volts (findings unexpected)
- ppts debriefed at the end and 84% said they were glad they continued
a03 - obedience
STRENGTH - reserach support
- findings replicated in a french documentary that was made on reality tv
- ppts were paid to give fake electric shocks ordered by presenter to give to other ppts (actors) in front of an audience
- 80% of ppts gave the maximum shock of 460 volts to an unconsicuos man
- Behaviour was identical to milgrams ppts eg nail biting
- supports findings about obediance to authoruty and not due to special circumstances
LIMITATION - Low internal validity
-75% of ppts believed shocks were innocent
- holland believed ppts were play acting as tapes of milgrams ppts say only half beliebed they were real
- 2/3 of ppts were disobediant
- responding to demand characteristics
LIMITATION - alternative findings
- milgrams conclusions about blind obediance may not be justified
- Alex Haslam showed milgrams ppts obeyed when experiemnter delievered the first 3 prods
- However those given the 4th prod without exception disobeyed
- Social identity theory suggests ppts only obeyed when they identified with scientific aims of research (‘experiment requires that u continue’) but when they had to obey authorty figure they refused
- SIT more valid
What is obediance : situational variables?
- Proximity
- in the study teacher could hear learner but not see
- in proximity variation the teacher and learner were in SAME room and obediance dropped from 65% to 40%
- in touch proximity variation the teacher FORCED the learners hand onto shock plate and obediance was 40%
- in remote instruction variation the experimenter left the room and gave instructions by telephone, obediance was 20.5 and ppts pretended to give shock
= DECREASED PROXIMITY ALLOWS PEOPLE TO PSYCHOLOGICALLY DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM CONSEQUENCES OF ACTIONS
= When the teacher and learner were physically separated the teacher was less aware of harm done so was obedient - Location
- Study was conducted in a run down office building rather than yale like in the baseline
- Obediance dropped to 47.5
= OBEDIANCE HIGHER IN UNI BECAUSE SETTING IS LEGITIMATE AND HAD AUTHORITY - Uniform
- baseline experimenter wore a grey lab coat
- in one variation his role was taken over by an ordinary member of the public in everyday clothes
-obediance fell to 20%
- uniform strong symbol of authority granted by society
a03 ; situational variables
STRENGTH : Research Support
- Bickmans confederates dressed in different outfits (jacket, milkman, security)and issued demands to people to pick up litter
- Twice as likely to obey securty guard than jacket/tie
- Situational variable such as uniform does have a powerful effect on obediance
STRENGTH : Cross cultural replication of milgramsn researvh
- Dutch ppts who were ordered to say stressful comments to interviewees
- Found 90% obedience and fell when person giving orders was not present
- Milgramsn findings are not limited to males but valid across all cultures
HOWEVER
- note that most replications took place in societies eg spain/australia which are not too different from US
- it might not apply to all cultures
LIMITATION : low internal validity
- variations were even more likely to trigger suspicion because of extra experimental manipulation
- ppts may have worked that they purposely switched experimenter even milgram realised how contrived it was
- unclear whether results are due to obediance or they were influenced by demand characteristics
What are the Situational Explanations for obedience?
Explanation 1 : AGENTIC STATE
- Agentic State : a person becomes an ‘agent’ so they feel no personal responsibility for their actions
- Autonomous state : a person is independent and frees so they behave according to their principles and feel responsible for their actions
- Binding Factors : aspects of a situation that allow the person to minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and reduce moral strain they feel eg shifting the responsibility to victim or denying damage
Explanation 2: LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY
- Obey people further up a social hierachy
- Authorties have legitimacy through societys agreement to allow smooth functioning
- We hand control over to authority figures by giving up our independence to those we trust and accept authority from
- Some leaders may use legitimate powers for destructive purposes so people behave in cruel and dangerous ways
