Social influence Flashcards
Conformity: types and explanations AO1 *****
- Compliance -> change public behaviour and private beliefs
- Identification -> change public behaviour and private beliefs but only when the group is present
- Internalisation -> change public behaviour and private beliefs even if the group isn’t present
- ISI -> desire to be right, leads to internalisation
- NSI -> desire to be liked, leads to compliance
Conformity: types and explanations AO3 *****
- Strength for ISI, Lucas et al found more conformity when maths problems were harder and ppts relied on others
- Limitation, hard to separate ISI and NSI, dissenter in Asch’s study could reduce both
- Strength of NSI, Asch study found 37% conformity when saying answers out loud, this was 12.5% when they wrote down their answers to avoid group judgement
Asch line study and variables AO1
- Procedure -> (1955) 123 male undergraduate students judged line lengths, confederates deliberately gave wrong answers
- Findings -> 37% conformity, 25% never conformed
- Group size -> varied group size from 2-16, conformity increased up to 3 then levelled off
- Unanimity -> when there was a dissenter, conformity rates reduced
- Task difficulty -> when the lines were more similar making the task harder, conformity increased (ISI)
Asch line study and variables AO3
- Limitation, demand characteristics, ppts knew it was a study and may have not answered like normal
- Limitation, cultural differences, Bond and Smith (1996) found China have greater conformity levels
- Limitation, American men. Neto (1995) found that women are more conformist due to being more concerned about social relationships
The Stanford prison experiment AO1 *****
- Procedure -> (1973) investigated conformity to social roles, mock prison in basement of Stanford uni, 21 student volunteers, randomly assigned prisoner or guard, $15 a day, different uniforms for deindividualisation
- Findings -> guards became brutal, prisoners rebellions were put down, prisoners became submissive and depressed, study stopped after 6 days when originally meant to last 14 days, ppts strongly conformed to social roles
The Stanford prison experiment AO3 *****
- Strength, real life evidence, Abu Ghraib prison, Americans acted higher like social roles
- Limitation, Fromm (1973) found 1/3 of guards behaved brutally, 1/3 were fair and 1/3 were nice and offering cigarettes, Zimbardo over exaggerted results
- Limitation, researcher bias, Zimbardo was prison warden and may have acted too much into character rather than experimenter
- Limitation, ethical considerations
Milgram baseline study AO1 *****
- Procedure -> (1963). tested obedience. went up 15V each time. 12/18 went to a maximum 450V. Learner (confed) and teacher (ppt) not in same room. 65% obedience and the ppt was given prods if they asked to leave or stop which demonstartes ethical issues. 12.5% stopped at 300V. 65% went all the way to 450V. 14 psychology students predicted ppts behaviour and estimated no more than 3% would go up to 450V
Milgram baseline study AO3 *****
- Limitation. Ethical considerations. High deception. Also, Milgram used prods therefore no right to withdraw. Also, no protection from psychological harm Counterpoint when the ppts were debriefed, 84% said they were glad to take part in the study and Milgram would argue that the ethical considerations were essential to break in order to gain the best results.
- Limitation - demand characteristics. milgram argued 75% said it was real although Orne and Holland claimed ppts thought it was fake. Perry confirmed this.
Situational variables affecting obedience AO1
- uniform, lab coat to normal clothes, obedience went from 65% to 20%
- proximity, different room to the same room, obedience went from 65% to 40%
- location, lab to run down offices, obedience went from 65% to 47.5%
Situational variables affecting obedience AO3
- strength for uniform. Bickman (1974), Milkman, security guard and ordinary clothes in streets of NYC. Obedience was 2x as likely for the security guard
- Limitation of milgrams obedience research with situational variables. Orne and Holland (1968) claimed ppts knew the situation was fake. Ppts may have known it was deception and play acted.
Explanations of obedience AO1
Autonomous state - choose your own actions
Agentic state - agent of someone else. Dont feel responsible for your actions and feel like it is not you to be blamed
Legit of authority. Hierarchal society and those higher up can punish those below
Explanations of obedience AO3
- Strength. Rank and Jacobson. 16/18 nurses didn’t obey to the doctor to give patients over the dosage of medicine. suggest agentic shift can only account for some obedience.
*Strength for legit of authority. real evidence. My lai massacre. 504 civilians killed by US hierarchy
Authoritarian personality AO1 *****
Adorno - strict parenting with conditioning love. ‘I will love you if…’
Authoritarian personality - show submissiveness to authority. Everything is either right or wrong
Authoritarian personality AO3 *****
*Limitation. Only measures right wing ideology. Christie and Jahoda (1954). Chinese Maoism
*Limited explanation. Germany pre war had many obey racist behaviour. they cannot have all had authoritarian personality
*Limitation. Flawed evidence. Greenstein(1969) called F scale comedy of methodological errors as you could just click agree
Resistance to social influence AO1 *****
Rofter (1966). Locus of control. Internal and External.
Social support. importance of others breaking unanimity
