Social Influence

Question 1

What is Social Influence?

Answer 1

The process by which an individual’s attitudes, beliefes or behaviours are modified by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others.

Question 2

What does Social Influence include?

Answer 2

-Conformity (majority influence)
-Obedience
-Minority influence

Question 3

What is Conformity (majority influence)?

Answer 3

The tendency to change our behaviour/attitudes in response to the influence of others.

Question 4

What is Obedience?

Answer 4

Where an individual complies with a direct order from a figure wiht perceived authority. (Individual responds in a way that they would not have done without the order).

Question 5

What are the 3 types of Confromity?

Answer 5

-Compliance
-Indetification
-Internalisation

Question 6

What is Compliance?

Answer 6

-Conforms publicly with the views/behaviours of others but privately disgarees.
-Confomrity tends to be temporary.
-Most superficial form of conformity.
E.g. You are a Liverpool football supporter, but all your new friends support Manchester United. When asked directly which team you support, you answer Manchester United.

Question 7

What is identification?

Answer 7

Both public and private acceptance of group’s views as the individual they identifies with the group and feel a sense of group membership.
-May only be temporary - not maintained once left the group.
E.g. Wearing your school unifrom in a certain way, because your group of friends do like tie loosely tied, collar up and top button of shirt undone.

Question 8

What is Internalisation?

Answer 8

-Conversion, true change of private views to match those of the group (public and private acceptance).
-New attitudes/behaviours become part of the individual’s value system, so not dependent on the presence of the group, therefore it is long term/permanent.
-Deepest level of conformity.
E.g. Becoming vegetarian because influence by your friends who are vegetarian, but truly believe that eating meat is wrong and continue to be vegetarian for the rest of your life.

Question 9

What is Normative Social Influence?

Answer 9

-Desire to be liked.
-Desire for the approval of others and to be accepted/avoid rejection.
-Occurs in situations with high social pressure.
-(Often results in compliance only).

Question 10

What is Informational Social Ifluence?

Answer 10

-Desire to be right.
-Look to others to give us information about how to behave/think.
-Particularly occurs in new or ambiguous situations.
-Occurs in situation where there is a high level of uncertainty where there is a high level of task difficulty
-(May result in internalisation and possibily identification as desire to be right would be an individual is unlikely to both publicly and privately agree with the majority opinion/behaviour).

Question 11

What were the Procedures of Sherif’s Study (1935)?

Answer 11

-Sherif investigated the autokinetic effect.
-This is where in a completely dark room a stationary pinpoint of light appears to move.
-The amount it appears to move depends upon the individual (in reality the light is not moving).
-People were asked initially on their own how much of the loght moved and again in groups.

Question 12

What were the Findings of Sherif’s Study (1935)?

Answer 12

-Sherif found that people’s perception of the amount the light moved conformed to a group norm when they were asked together.
-However, this study was critised because the task was ambiguous as there was no right answer.

Question 13

What was the Aim of Asch’s Study (1951)?

Answer 13

To see if individuals would conform to a majority when presented with an unambiguous task (a task with a clear right/wrong answer).

Question 14

What were the Procedures of Asch’s Study (1951)?

Answer 14

-Asch recruited 123 male students for his participants and asked them to participante in visual perception task.
-To test conformity, one naïve (didnt know the aim) genuine participant was placed in a group of 7-9 confederates (accomplices of the experimenter. They were shown a pair of cards, on one card there was a test (standard) line and on the other card there were three lines differing lengths (comparison) lines.
-The participants’ task was to say aloud which of the three comparison lines matched the standard line. The correct answer always being obvious.
-In order to manipulate group pressure the confederates were instructed to give the same wrong answer unanimously.
-The naïve genuine participant was always last or last but one to answer.
-Only one genuine participant could be tested at a time.

Question 15

What were the Findings of Asch’s Study (1951)?

Answer 15

-26% of participants never conformed at all, giving the correct answer on all 12 critical trials.
-74% of participants conformed to the incorrect answer at least once.
-Of those that did conform, on average they conformed to the incorrect majority answer on just over a third (37%) of the critical trials compared to an error rate of just 0.7% in the control condition (with no group). Therefore participants answered correctly 99% of the time when there was no group pressure.
-55% of the participants conformed on every critical trial.

Question 16

What were the Findings from the Debriefing Interviews of Asch’s Study (1951)?

Answer 16

-Most participants reported that they knew they were giving the wrong answer but didn’t want to be in a minority of one and stand out from the rest of the group.
-Some participants reported they did no want to upset the experimenter and wanted to convey a favourable impression.
-A few participants reported they had doubted themselves, thinking their perceptions were inaccurate and doubted their eyes, they therefore believed the group to be right and did not believe they had given the wrong answer.

Question 17

What were the Conclusions of Asch’s Study (1951)?

Answer 17

-Even when the correct response is obvious, there may be strong group pressure to conform, especially if the group is unanimous.
-Individuals conform for different reasons.
-Normative, to avoid rejection
-Informational, doubt own judgement, surely they can’t all be wrong.

Question 18

What are the Validity Crticisms of Asch’s Study (1951)?

Answer 18

Internal Validity:
-Demand characteristics
-Possibly investigator effects

External Validity:
-Lack of ecological validity - laboratory/artifical setting-> artificial, trivial, repetitive task -> with strangers -> low mundane realism -> may not be able to generalise findings to situations outside the laboratory.
-Lack of population validity - all males, all students -> can’t necessarily generalise findings to females and non-student populations.
-Lack of temporal validity - 1950s USA (was lots of pressure to be the same as everyone else due to the fear of communism etc) -> would you get the same findings today -> conformist time -> later studies (e.g. Nicholson) failed to show such high levels of conformity.

Question 19

What are the Ethical Crticisms of Asch’s Study (1951)?

Answer 19

-Deception - mislead about the aim of the study (thought it was a visual perception task) ->Mislead about the ‘other participants’ as they were actually confederates.
-Lack of informed consent - due to deception -> however, were debrieded afterwards.
-Failure to protect participants from harm - stress -> embarrassment.

Question 20

What did Asch’s Reasearch into Group Size involve?

Answer 20

-Asch manipulated the size of the group of confederates carrying out the conformity trial by using 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10 and 15 in the group.
-Asch found that conformity increased as the number of confederates rose from 1-3, but after this the group size did not make much difference e.g. 1 confederate meant a conformity rate of 3% but 3 confederates meant a conofmirty rate of 33%.
-In some conditions, a large group of 15 confederates led to lower levels of conofrmity, perhaps because participants may have become increasingly suspicious when faced with a large majority.

Question 21

What did Other Reasearch into Group Size involve?

Answer 21

-Replications have tended to support Asch’s findings
-Bond’s meta analysis (2005) found conformity to be similar with majority sizes of 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 (although conformity was better with a majority of 8).
-Latane and Wolf (1981) have suggested that adding more numbers to the majority can increase confomrity but in decreasing amounts, each additional voice in the majority adding a smaller increase to conformity.
-Other research has suggested that group size has different effects depending on the type of task.
-Campbell and Fairey (1989) suggested that tasks relating to personal preference (e.g. liking a film), group size has a linear effect where more people lead to greater levels of conofrmity. However, when the conformity task task has a correct answer the views of a couple of people are enough to have an effect and increasing the size of the majority beyond this has little further effect on conformity.
-Bond (2005) also found that when participants wre able to give their response privately there was a small negative relationship between conformity and group size.

Question 22

What did Asch’s Reasearch into Unanimity involve?

Answer 22

-Conformity is most likely to occur when the confederates are unanimous in their answers. –Asch(1956) found that when one confederate is instructed to disagree with the majority judgement and give the correct answers on every trial, conformity decreased from 37% of critical trials down to 5.5% (as it made it easier to not conform due to social support).
-Asch concluded that the presence of a dissenter, someone who goes against the group (and therefore the absence of group unanimity) led to a reduction in conformity as the dissenter provides useful information about the correct response and also reduces the need for group social approval.
-However, Asch found that the confederate doesn’t need to share the same judgement as the real participant, finding that this was just as effective as an accurate confederate in reducing conformity. Therefore, just breaking the unanimity of the majority reduces conformity by reducing the need for social approval.
-Asch said that a small non unanimous group is more powerful than just a large group.

Question 23

What did Asch’s Reasearch into Task Difficulty involve?

Answer 23

-Asch found that if the task is difficult such as when the comparison lines are similar in length to the standard line then conformity increases.

Question 24

What did Other Reasearch into Task Difficulty involve?

Answer 24

-Lucas et al (2006) gave students easy and hard maths problems and found a greater level of conformity when the problems were hard. This was particulary so if participants doubted their maths abilities. However, if the task is familiar, conformity is less likely as demonstrated in Perrin and Spencer’s study when engineers did not conform as readily on an Asch- type task as the participants di in the original Asch study.
-One difficulty with assessing the effect of task difficulty is that “task difficulty” depends on the skills and abilities of the participants as well as the task itself. For example, a hard maths problem would not be a difficult task for a skilled mathematician.

Question 25

What are the Individual Differences in Conformity?

Answer 25

Conformity has been found to be higher amongst those who:
-Have low self esteem.
-Are especially concerned about social relationships.
-Have a string need for social approval and are attracted towards other group members.

Question 26

What are the Ethical Issues with Asch’s Research?

Answer 26

-Participants were deceived as they were misled about the aim of the study and told that the study was about visual perception when it was actually an investigaton into conformity and also they were led to believe that the other members of the group were real participants when they were confederates of the experimenter.
-As participants were misled regarding the nature and purpose of the investigation, then they were not able to give their informed consent.
-Failure to protect participants from harm as they may have suffered a loss of self esteem and embarrassment as a result of their apparent difficulty with the task.

Question 27

How can the Ethical Issues with Asch’s Research be Defended?

Answer 27

-However, if participants had been fully informed of the real aim and procedures prior to participating then the experiment would lack internal validity because participants may have tried to act in a certain way to help or not help the experimenter.
-Participanst were defriefed fully after the investigation.
-It wasn’t severe effects so may not be seen as too bad in order to research into something new, like conformity -> might not have exceeded the stress and embarrassment that you would experience in day to day life. So could be ok for what was being studied.

Question 28

What are the Validity Issues with Asch’s Study?

Answer 28

-Lack of ecological, as it was an artificial setting and also task and was done with strangers so it had low mundane realism, so it may not be appropriate to generalise the findings so situations outside the laboratory as the correct answer was obvious.
-Lack of population validity, as they were all make students so may not be able to generalise to female and non-student populations.
-Lack of temporal validity, as the experiment took place in 1950s USA, when there was lots of pressure to be the same as everyone else due to the fear of communism, so it may not be possible to get the same findings now. Later studies e.g. Nicholson, failed to find such high levels of conformity.

Question 29

How can the Validity Issues with Asch’s Research be Defended?

Answer 29

-If they found such high levels of conformity even in such an artifical settling with seemingly obvious answers, then it’s likely that in real life with more natural settings and harder tasks, they are also likely to conform. As they created an unusual situation where you are unlikely to conform as they stripped away factors that encourage conformity but they still did. They are more likely to conform in real life.
-The control of the study also allows for replication of the experiment and also means that cause and effect can be established.
-Different in the study with later studies could be down to having used different groups and participants, with their own individual thoughts, so found different things. -> Perrin and Spencer used engineering students which are a specific type of students not just general -> they would be confident in estimating line length and would value accurately, theres also sample bias.
-Their replication with people on probation showed similar results to Asch but then are these participants also an unrepresentative sample.

Question 30

What are the Examples of Normative Social Influence?

Answer 30

-The participant in Asch’s study know what the right answer is because it’s obvious but conformed to fit in and be liked by the group. -> knowingly giving the wrong answer indicidating compliance.

Question 31

What are the Examples of Informational Social Influence?

Answer 31

-Some participants in Asch’s study may have genuinely believed that the wrong answer was right -> they doubted their eyes and judgement.
-The participant in Sherifs study changed their answer when in a group because there was no right no answer so they looked to the group to guide their response.

Question 32

What is the Evaluation of Normative Social Influence?

Answer 32

The concept of normative social influence has been used to give insight into why some children begin bullying other children, even though they are clearly uncomfortable with such behaviour. Garandeau and Cillessen (2006) found that children who had greater need for social acceptance were the most likely to comply to pressure exerted by a bullying group group to victimize another child. By conforming to the actions of the bullying group, these children believed they would be accepted by other group members, and so could maintain their friendhsip regardless of how they felt in private toward bullying.

Question 33

What is the Evaluation of Informational Social Influence?

Answer 33

-Allen’s (1980) suggestion that intelligence is a major determinant conformity is challenged by Asch’s original findings. Asch used students from three colleges, varying in terms of background, intelligence and so on. Although he found that highly intelligent students from a priavte college conformed less than students of moderate intelligence from a metropolitan college, students considered to be of the lowest intelligence conformed mid way between the two.
-However, other evidence suggest taht task difficulty influences conformity levels, as people are found to be more likely to conform on difficult tasks compared to easier ones. These findings would appear to support the informational social influence explanations, as it perhaps reflects participants desire to be right and as the task is difficult they are looking to others for guidance.

Question 34

When does the Diffierent types of Social Influence Occur?

Answer 34

Normative - low uncertainty, low task difficulty and high social pressure.
Informational - high uncertainty, high task difficulty and low social pressure.
Both - high uncertainty, high task difficulty and high social pressure.

Question 35

What are Social Roles?

Answer 35

The behaviour expected of an individual who occupies a given social position or status -> Zimbardo’s (1973) Stanford Prison Study (USA)

Question 36

What is Deindividuation?

Answer 36

The process of losing ones sense of self , often association

Question 37

What is Dehumanisation?

Answer 37

The denial of full humaness to others - enables aggression and mistreatment of others.

Question 38

What was the Aim of Zimbardo’s Study (1973)?

Answer 38

To investigate whether the brutality reported among guards in American Prisons at the time was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards (dispositional hypothesis) or had more to do with th power structure in the prison environment (situational hypothesis).

Question 39

What were the Procedures of Zimbardo’s Study (1973)?

Answer 39

-Male participants were recruited through newspaper advertisements askin for student volunteers for a two week study of prison life.
-Psychological tests were used to select those who appeared the most stable with no violent or anti social tendencies. 25 well adjusted, healthy make students were selected.
-It was a controlled participant observation study (as Zimbardo played the role of prison waren and interacted with the participants). Participants were observed by a hidden camera but they were aware of being observed.
-Participants were randomly alloctaed to the roles of prisoners or guards and were paid $15 a day.
-Local police helped by ‘arresting’ nine prisoners at their homes without warning and were charged with a felony and had to go through the process of being arrested.
-The prisoners were then given smocks to wear and their number to memorise, they were placed 3 in a cell which they were confined in other than for meals, work and toilet privileges.
-The guards wore uniforms, reflector sunglasses and carried wooden batons. They were on duty 24 hours a day working 8 hour shifts and were instructed to keep prisoners controlled but were informed that no physical aggression was permitted.

Question 40

What were the Prisoner Findings of Zimbardo’s Study (1973)?

Answer 40

-Prisoners rebelled against the guards after only two days but the guards fought this using fire extinguishers.
-After the initial rebellion the prisoners became submissive and subdued.
-A number of prisoners had to be released early due to their extreme recations (severe emotional disturbance, rage, disorganised thinking, acute anxiety and depression). E.g. one prisoner had to be released after less than 36 hourd, 3 more prisoners had the same effect and were later released.

Question 41

What were the Guard Findings of Zimbardo’s Study (1973)?

Answer 41

-The use of force, harassment and aggression by guards increased steadily.
-The guards conformed to their perceived roles, harassing the prisoners so much that the study had to be discontinues after just 6 days.
-There were individual difference in the guards’ behaviour. About 1/3 became dictatorial with their power and one guard was particularly brutal, whilst a number of other guards were described as ‘good guards’ who did no degrade or harass the prisoners.

Question 42

What were the Conclusions of Zimbardo’s Study (1973)?

Answer 42

-It was concluded that the behaviour observed was due to the situation rather than the individuals’ personalities (dispositional) with participants conforming to expected forms of behaviour for the roles of prisoner and guard, demonstrating conformtiy by identification.
-Some findings could be explained as a result of deindivduation as some of the features of the Standord Prison Experiment (e.g. uniforms, reflector sunglasses) that would encourage deindiviuation by increasing feelings of anonymity and aggression.

Question 43

What are the Strengths of Zimbardo’s Study?

Answer 43

-Can the behaviour really be explained as being just down to demand characteristics?
-Real world applications.

Question 44

What are the Limitations of Zimbardo’s Study?

Answer 44

-Conformity to roles is not automatic.
-Demand characteristics and participant reactivity (internal validity issues).
-Lack of ecological validity (external validity issue).
-Population validity.

Question 45

What is the Evaluation Point of Can the behaviour really be explained as being just down to Demand Characteristics in Zimbardo’s Study?

Answer 45

Others have argued that the distress experienced by the prisoners and the harassment demonstrated by the guards went far beyond play acting, questioning the idea that their behaviour was merely not necessarily generalise to explain the behaviour of prisoners and guards in real prisoners.

Question 46

What is the Evaluation Point of The Real World Applications in Zimbardo’s Study?

Answer 46

Zimbardo has used the findings from the stanford prison study to explain the behaviour of US soliders at Abu Ghraib, a military prison in Iraq known for the tirture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners in 2003-2004. Zimbardo argues that the guards who committed the abuses were the victimsof situational factors that made abuse more likely.

Question 47

What is the Evaluation Point of Conformity to roles is not automatic in Zimbardo’s Study?

Answer 47

Zimbardo assumed that the guards’ drift itno sadistic behaviour was na automatic consequence of them conforming to their role. However, there were individual differences between the guards, for examole some guards became dictatorial whilst others didn’t. These individual differences are inconsistent with an entirely situational explanation for the guards’ behaviour and suggest that conformity to roles is not automatic, with participants choosing how to respond to the situation rather than blindly conforming to their social role.

Question 48

What is the Evaluation Point of Demand Characteristics and Participant Reactivity in Zimbardo’s Study?

Answer 48

Demand characteristics refer to those aspects of a study that lead participants to guess what the experimenters expect of them or how they want them to behave. This can then result in participant effects/reactivity, where participants change their behaviour as a result of these perceived expectations e.g. attempt to meet perceived experimenter expectations in order to be a good participant.
The mock prisoner was very different from a real prison. The particioants knew they had not committed a crime and were free to leave. This lead to some researchers to suggest that the artificial setting resulted in participants demonstarting participant reactivity, with the prisoners and guards play acting.
Banuazizi and Movahedi presented the details of the studies to students who hadn’t heard of the study and the majority of of them correctly guessed the purpose of the study, indicating the presence of deman characteristics.

Question 49

What is the Evaluation Point of the Lack of Ecological Validity in Zimbardo’s Study?

Answer 49

The study was carried out in a mock prison with make student volunteers who had not committed a crime and therefire were free to leave. It could therefore be argued that the findings may not necessarily generalise to explain the behaviour of prisoners and guards in real prisons.
+However, an outside observer who had a long history of imprisonment considered the mock prison and the behaviour of participants to reflect those of a real prison. The study also has been applied to behaviour in reali life examples like Abu Ghraib, so many have high ecological validity.

Question 50

What is the Evaluation Point of the Lack of Population Validity in Zimbardo’s Study?

Answer 50

He used all males so it may not be generalisable to females therefore having a gender bias and it was only using students so may not be generalisable to non students

Question 51

What are the Ethical Issues with Zimbardo’s Study (1973)?

Answer 51

-Failure to protect participants from harm as many people had breakdowns and had to leave, participants were free to leave but the fact it got to the level were breakdowns were regularly occuring makes it unethical. -> they should’ve had systems in pace e.g. sineibe iverseeing what was happening to check that it wasn’t going too far. Participants did experience harm and there was a possibility of harm beyond the study as they may have viewed themselves differently after (mainly the guards).
-Lack of informed consent as the prisoners were not aware that they would be arrested.
-Since Zimbardo was the prison warden some say he wasn’t detached enough to protect participants as he may have also experienced effects of the environment.

Question 52

How can the Ethical Issues with Zimbardo’s Study (1973) be defended?

Answer 52

-There was no deception involved as participants weren’t lied to and had given informed consent and knew things would happen that they hadn’t been told would happen because the researchers couldn’t fully predict it.
-Are the ethical criticisms more about the fidnings than the procedure? -> if the participants had responded differently would there be ethical criticisms (its more based of how they reacted).
-Zimbardo didnt know the participants would react in th way they would.
Protection from harm:
-Selected only those who were mentally stable.
-Ended the study early.
-Debriefing anf follow up for a few years.