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
a03 - situational explanations
AGENTIC STATE
**Support : **Research support
- Most of milgrams ppts asked the ‘experimenter’ ‘Who is responsible if Mr Wallace is harmed’
- When experimenter replied saying ‘ im responsible’ the ppts went through procedure without objecting
- Ppts acts more easily as an agent when they believed they were not responsible for their behvaiour
Limitation : Doesn’t explain many research findings
- Rank and Jacob found most nurses obeyed a doctors order to give excessive drug dose
- Doctor was an authority figure but nurses remained autonomous and did not shift into agentic state
- Agentic shift only explains obediance in some situations
LEGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY
**Support : **Can explain cultural differences
- Research shows that countries differ in obediance to authority
- 16% of Australian women obeyed and 85% of german ppts dud
- Authority is more likely seen as legitimate in some cultures reflecting upbringing
**Limitation : **Cannot explain all disobediance
- may disobey even accpet hierachy
- rank and Jacobsons nurses disobediant
- innate tendencies towards disobedience may be more important than legitinamcy
What is Obediance : Dispositional Explanation
The authoritarian personality
- Unquestioning obediance is a psychological disorder - adorno et al
- Extreme respect and submissiveness to authority
- Express contempt for people with inferior social status
- Follow orders and view other groups as societys ill
- Forms in childhood through harsh parenting - discipline, loyalty, standards, sever criticism , characterised by conditional love
- Create resentment and hostility in the child but cannot express as they fear agains parents so displace onto others
Who discovered the Authoritarian personality and findings?
Adorno et al - Authoritarian personality
- The study investigated unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups of more than 2000 middle class white americans
- F scale developed eg Obediance and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn
There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel great love, gratitude and respect for his parents
- Authoritarians who scored high identified with strong people
- Conscoius of own and others status showing deference to those with higher status
- They had fixed distinctive prejudices about other people
What is the 2 factors for resistance to social influence ?
**Social Support **
Resisting conformity
- Dissenter acts as a model and shows majority is no longer unanimous
Resisting obediance
- Pressue to obey can be reduced if another person is seen to obey
- Milgrams research - obediant behaviour greatly decreased in the disobediant peer condition (65% to 10%)
- PPT may not follow disobediant peer but dissenters disobedience frees the ppt to act from their own conscience
- Challenges legitimacy of authority figure
Locus of control
- Internal
- place control with themselves
- External
- happen outside their control
- there is a continuum and scale
- People with internal LOC will resist pressures to conform
(1) if someone takes personal responsibility for their actions they are more likley to base their decisions on their own beliefd
(2) people with high internal loc are more confident, more intelligent so they have less need for social approval
a03 : dispositional
Strength : evidence that authoritarians are obediant
- milgram interviewed 20 fully obedient ppts from milgrams original obediance studies
- scored higher on the f scale compared to 20 disobediant
- obediant people share many characteristics of people with authoritarian personality
Limitation : Authoritarianim cant explain a whole countries behavior
- millions of individuals in Germany displayed obedient and anti semitic behaviour - but cant have same personality
- germans indentified with nazi state rather than whole pop having authoritarian personality
- social identity theory s right (influenced by those of our groups)
Limitation : F scale is political biased
- christie and jahoda suggest the F scale aims to measure tendency towardsextreme right wing ideology
- but right and left wing authoriatrinam insist on complete obediance to political authority
- adornos theory is not a complete obediance to political authority
- adornos theory is not comprehensive dispositional explanation as it doesnt explain obediance to left wing authoritarianism
What is the two factors for resistance to social influence?
Social Support
- Resisting conformity
- Dissenter acts as a model and shows majority is no longer unanimous
- Resisting obediance
- Pressue to obey can be reduced if another person is seen to obey
- Milgrams research - obediant behaviour greatly decreased in the disobediant peer condition (65% to 10%)
- PPT may not follow disobediant peer but dissenters disobedience frees the ppt to act from their own conscience
- Challenges legitimacy of authority figure
Locus of control
- Internal
* place control with themselves
- External
* happen outside their control
- there is a continuum and scale
- People with internal LOC will resist pressures to conform
(1) if someone takes personal responsibility for their actions they are more likley to base their decisions on their own beliefd
(2) people with high internal loc are more confident, more intelligent so they have less need for social approval
a03 resistance for social influence - social support
STRENGTH : evidence for role of support in resisting conformity
- In a programme to help pregnant adolescents to resist pressure to smoke social support given by an older buddy
- adolescents less likely to smoke than those who did not have a buddy
- social support can help people resist influence in real world situations
STRENGTH : Evidence for role of dissenting peers
- Gamson et al asked to give evidence for an oil company to use in a smear campaign
- 29 out of 33 groups rebelled against these orders
- Supporters can undermine legitimacy of authority and reduce obedience
a03 - resistance to social influence - Locus of control
STRENGTH : Evidence to support role of LOC in resisting obediance
- Holland repeated the milgram study and measured whether ppts were internal or external
- 37% of internals did not continue to highest shock level and only 23% of externals
- Resistance related to LOC increasing validity of this explanation of obediance
LIMITATION : Not all research support the role of LOC in resistance
- Twenge analysed data from american locus of control studies over 40 years showing people have become more independent and also more external
- If resistance was linked to internal LOC we would expect people to have become more internal
- LOC may not be valid
What is minority influence?
This refers to how one person or small group influences the beliefs and behaviour of other people
What is internalisation in minority influence?
Both public and private beliefs change
What are the three processes leading to minority influence?
Consistency
Commitment
flexibility
How does Consistency link to minority influence and the types?
Means the minority view gains more interest
Synchronic consistency - people in minority are all saying the same thing
Diachronic consistency - theyve been saying the same thing for some time
How does commitment link to minority influence
Deep involvement to gain attention and demonstrate commitment
What is the augmentation principle?
Majority pay even more attention
How does Flexibility link to minority influence
Showing willingness to listen to others and accept counterarguments
What is the process of minority influence?
The snowball effect - over time more people convert so there is a switch from minority to majority hence a faster rate of conversion
What was the procedure for minority influence?
moscovici
Procedure
- 6 people (4 ppts and 2 confederates) viewed 36 blue coloured slides of varying intensities and asked to state whether blue or green
- In one condition both confedrated said green consistently and in another condition the confederates were inconsistnt
What was the findings for minority influence?
Consistent : ppts gave same wrong answer of green on 8.42% of trials
Inconsistent : agreement fell to 1.25%
Control group : wrongly identified 0.25% of time
a03 - minority influence
STRENGTH : Research supporting consistency
- moscovivi found a consistent minority gad greater effect on people than inconsistent
- wood et al conducted a meta analysis of 100 studies and found minorities seen as consistent were most influential
- consistency is a major factor in minority influence
STRENGTH : Research showing deeper processing
- martin et al gave ppts a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured attitdes
- then heard a view from either minority or majority and then the conflicting view
- less willing to change to new view if listened to minority group
- more deeply processed and more enduring
LIMITATION : minority influence research has artifical tasks
- identifying slide is different to real life opinions
- in jury decision making the outcome is far greater and has a worser effecr
- lack external validity
What were the 6 lessons from minority influence research?
Drawing attention
Consistency
Deeper processing
Augmentation principle
Snowball effect
Social cryptomnesia
What were the 2 lessons from conformity research?
Dissenters make social change more likely
NSI allows conformity
What were lessons from obediance research
Disobediant models make change more likely
Gradual commitment leads to drift
AO3 : Social influence and social change
STRENGTH : support for NI in social change
- nolan et al hung messages on front door houses and the key message was to get residents to reduce energy usage
- significant decreases in energy use compared to control group who saw meessages to save with no refernce to others behaviours
- conformity can lead to social change
STRENGTH : minority infleunce explains social change
- minority arguments cause people to engage in divergent thinking
- better decisions and more creative
- stimulate new ideas
LIMITATION : deeper processing applies to majority influence
- mackie disagrees with the view that minority influence causes individuals in majority to think deeply about an issue
- majority creates deeper processing because we believe others think as we do so more pressure
- minority infleunce challenged casting validity
