Social Influence Flashcards
How do you evaluate studies?
Generalisability
Reliability
Application
Validity
Ethics
How do you evaluate theories?
Supporting evidence
Conflicting evidence
Other explanations
Usefulness
Testable
What is conformity?
A change in a persons behaviour/opinions as a result of imagined/real pressure from a person or group of people.
What are the different types of conformity?
Compliance
Identification
Internalisation
What is compliance?
where you publicly conform with behaviours being shown
Weakest level of conformity. e.g. pretending to like a film in front of your friends.
What is identification?
Where an individual want to be apart of a group conforms with their views/behaviours.
Tends to be temporary. e.g. adopting the same music and fashion taste as your friends.
What is internalisation?
Where you show the behaviours in public and private. e.g. religion
What are the two explanations for conformity?
Normative social influence
Informative social influence
What is NSI?
Where you conform so others like you.
What is ISI?
Where you conform so you are right.
What is a study that supports normative social influence?
Asch
What procedures did Asch use?
123 male US students
All seated 2nd to last
All other participants were confederates.
What was were the findings of Asch?
Average conformity was 33%
25% never conformed
75% conformed at least once
Half conformed on 6 or more critical trials.
What were the conclusions of Asch?
This shows that NSI can affect answers even when knowing they are wrong because the didn’t want to stand out.
What were the limitations of Asch?
Lacks ecological validity-Artificial environment, not an everyday task.
Lacks population validity-No other ethnicity nor gender.
Deception
Informed consent
Right to withdraw
Protection from harm.
What are the strengths of Asch?
Reliable results-Lab experiment
High control over extraneous variables
High internal validity
What were the variations of Asch?
Size of group
Non conforming role model
Difficulty of task
Giving answers in private.
How does size of the group affect conformity?
Decrease-Optimum conformity at 3-4, NSI is reduced when group is smaller.
How does a non conforming role model affect conformity?
Decrease-Less embarrassed as they aren’t the only one doing something alone, conformity dropped to 5.5%.
How does task difficulty affect conformity?
Increase-Participant may get confused. Due to NSI they copy the confederates answers.
How does giving answers in private affect conformity?
Decrease-Participants don’t feel judged by other participants.
What study supports conformity to social roles?
Zimbardo
What was Zimbardo’s procedures?
Mock prison
24 male American participants
Most stable were selected
Randomly allocated role
Prisoners arrested in their class
Given uniform
Study planned to las 2 weeks.
What uniform was given to prisoners and guards?
Prisoners - Smock and nylon socks
Guards - Baton and reflective sunglasses
What are the findings of Zimbardo’s research?
Prisoners were obedient
Guards were abusive
Prisoners had to be released after 6 days due to bad mental health
What were the conclusions of Zimbardo’s study?
Revealed the power of the situation to influence people’s behaviour.
What are the strengths of Zimbardo study?
No bias-Random allocation
How does Abu Gharib support Zimbardo?
Guards were victims of situational factors - lack of training, boredom no accountability to higher authority.
Soldiers brutally tortured Iraqis.
What are the weaknesses of Zimbardo’s study?
Informed consent
Protection from harm
Demand characteristics
What changes were made to the prison system after Zimbardo’s study?
Mandatory training for prison guards
What did Milgram’s study research?
How situational factors affect obedience
What were the aims of Milgram’s research?
Test if ‘All Germans are evil’
Investigate what factors in a situation led people to obey.