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A2 Psychology > Social Influence > Flashcards

Social Influence Flashcards

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1
Q

What is conformity?

A

A change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imaged pressure from a person/group.

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2
Q

What was the procedure of Asch experiment?

A

123 American Males, line test (had to pick which line out of 3 matched the one given). P’s tested in groups of 6-8 and was always 2nd to last. All fake except one real- gave incorrect answers.

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3
Q

What were the variations of Asch experiment?

A

Group size, unanimity and task difficulty.

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4
Q

Baseline findings of Asch experiment?

A

The genuine participant agreed with confederates incorrect answer 36.8% of the time.
25% never gave a wrong answer, though.

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5
Q

Explain how group size affected Asch experiment?

A

Varied no. of confederates from 2-16. Conformity increased with group size but only to a point (too many is unbelievable).

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6
Q

Explain how unanimity affected Asch experiment?

A

Introduced confederate who disagreed with others.
Genuine participant conformed less in the condition with a dissenter.

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7
Q

Explain how Task difficulty affected Asch research?

A

Made the lines closer (so the task was more difficult).
Conformity increased.

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8
Q

What are some strengths of Asch research?

A

Controlled experiment.
Support from other studies for task difficulty (Lucas, 2006- hard and easy maths questions)

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9
Q

What are some weaknesses of Asch experiment?

A

Social desirability bias, ethical issues, artificial environment (low mundane realism), demand characteristics.

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10
Q

What are the three TYPES of conformity?

A

Internalisation, Identification and Compliance.

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11
Q

What is identification?

A

Acting in the same way as the group because you want to be a part of it (they have some characteristics you like).

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12
Q

What is internalisation?

A

A deep type of conformity where you take on the majority view because you accept it.

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13
Q

What is compliance?

A

A superficial type of conformity where you accept the view but you don’t internally believe it.

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14
Q

What are the two explanations for conformity?

A

Informational Social Influence, Normative Social Influence

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15
Q

What is Normative Social Influence?

A

The idea that people conform to a group for the need to be accepted and liked (social beings)

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16
Q

What is Informational Social Influence?

A

The idea people conform because they believe that is the right answer and we want to be correct or we think they are correct.

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17
Q

What was the procedure of Zimbardo’s experiment- conformity to social roles?

A

Set up mock prison in Stanford University. 21 male student volunteers. Randomly assigned role of prisoner or guard.

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18
Q

What was the findings of Zimbardo’s experiment- conformity to social roles?

A

Guards treated prisoners poorly, after two days they rebelled.
Some went on hunger strike, had manic episodes. Ended at day 6 instead of 15.

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19
Q

What are some strengths of Zimbardo?

A

Made sure participants involved were vetted for their emotional stability.
Practical applications for prison systems etc.

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20
Q

What are some limitations of Zimbardo?

A

Ethics, demand characteristics, lack of replication, male sample, small sample, lack of realism.

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21
Q

What is Obedience?

A

A form of social influence whereby individuals follow direct orders.
Person issuing order usually authority figure.

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22
Q

What was the procedure of Milgram’s research?

A

40 American men volunteered to take part in study at Yale University.
Participant told involved learning and memory, (fake confederate always learner).
Participant told to shock every time answer wrong.

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23
Q

What was the findings of Milgram’s research?

A

Every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300V.
12.5% stopped at 300V. 65% went to the full 450V.
Showed visible signs of extreme tension etc.

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24
Q

What are some strengths of Milgram’s experiment?

A

Replicated in a french documentary.
Standardised procedures, controlled environments etc.

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25
Q

What are some limitations of Milgram’s experiment?

A

Ethical issues, sample (males), sample size.
Replication (Charles and King) shocks with puppy, found similar results.

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26
Q

What is a situational variable?

A

Features of the immediate physical and social environment which may influence a person’s behaviour.

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27
Q

What situational variables did Milgram investigate?

A

Location, proximity and uniform.

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28
Q

When Milgram investigated location what did he find?

A

When in original experiment in Yale University obedience 65% to 450V
When in run down office block obedience reduced to 47.5%.

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29
Q

When Milgram investigated proximity what did he find?

A

Normal experiment (teacher could not see learner) = 65%
When teacher could see learner= 40%
When teacher actually directing hand onto shock plate = 30%
When researcher gave remote instruction 20.5%

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30
Q

When Milgram investigated uniform what did he find?

A

Normal experiment (researcher lab coat= 65%)
Normal clothes= 20%

31
Q

What are some strengths of the situation variables?

A

Research support - Bickman experiment (field experiment with diff uniforms).
Replications of Milgram (Meeus & Raaihmakers 1986)

32
Q

What are some of the limitations of situational variables?

A

May have been some demand characteristics. Not a holistic view of obedience as may be other explanations e.g dispositional.

33
Q

What are situational explanations of obedience (two)?

A

Agentic State, Legitimacy of Authority.

34
Q

What is the idea of the agentic state?

A

A mental state where we feel no responsibility for our behaviour because we feel we are acting under an authority figure (as their agent).

35
Q

What is the autonomous state?

A

Opposite of being in an agentic state, you feel you are acting in regards to your own principles.W

36
Q

What do you call the shift from autonomous to agentic state?

A

Agentic shift.

37
Q

What are binding factors in regards to the agentic state?

A

Aspects of the environment that let the participants minimise the damaging effects of actions.

38
Q

What is legitimacy of authority?

A

The idea that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. E.G Someone who fits higher than us in social hierarchy.

39
Q

What is the authoritarian personality?

A

A personality type more susceptible to obeying authority type.
Dismissive of inferiors and submissive to those higher.

40
Q

Who created the authoritarian personality?

A

Adorno.

41
Q

When did Adorno believe the authoritarian personality was formed?

A

Childhood- due to harsh parenting.

42
Q

How is the authoritarian personality measured?

A

F-SCALE.

43
Q

What did Adorno’s 1950 research consist of?

A

2000 middle class white American Males and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups.
Used potential for-fascism (F scale).

44
Q

What was the findings of Adorno’s 1950 research?

A

People who scored high on F scale generally showed contempt for the weak and submissive of authority.
Fixed distinct stereotypes.

45
Q

What could be a strength of the theory of authoritarian personality?

A

Milgram supported it by interviewing some of his original participants. 20 who were obedient were higher on F scale than 20 disobedient

46
Q

What could be a limitation of authoritarian personality?

A

Doesn’t explain a full countries population obeying (e.g Nazi Germany).

47
Q

What is resistance to social influence?

A

Refers to the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or obey the authority.

48
Q

What are the two explanations of resistance to social influence?

A

Locus of Control & Social Support.

49
Q

What is social support?

A

The pressure to conform can be resisted if there are other people present who are not conforming.
E.G ASCH.

50
Q

What is the idea of Locus of Control?

A

Internal control vs external control.
Some people are internal (they think thinks happen to them that are under their own control). Some external (they put things happening down to luck/chance).

51
Q

What was the research of Susan Albrecht (2006)

A

Evaluated teen fresh start USA.
8 week programme to help pregnant teens stop smoking.
Partnered with older buddy (social support) and control group no buddy.
Those partnered with older buddy less likely to smoke after 8 weeks.

52
Q

What was the research of William Gamson (1982)

A

Participants were told to produce evidence that would be used to help and oil company run smear campaign.
29/33 rebelled against orders (they were in groups).

53
Q

What was the Vernon Allen (1967)?

A

Showed social support can help individuals to resist the influence of a group. Asch type task, dissenter someone with good eyesight 64% of genuine participants refused to conform.

54
Q

What was the research of Charles Holland (1967)

A

Repeated Milgram’s baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals.
Found 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level whereas only 23% did continue.

55
Q

What did Jean Twenge find?

A

Analysed data from American locus of control studies conducted over a 40 year period. Data showed over this time span, people became more resistant to obedience but also more external.

56
Q

What is minority influence?

A

A form of social influence in which a minority of people persuade others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours.

57
Q

What are the three aspects of minority influence?

A

Consistency, commitment and flexibility

58
Q

What is commitment?

A

The minority must demonstrate commitment to their cause or views. They may engage in extreme activities to draw attention to this.

59
Q

What is consistency?

A

Over time the minority must stay consistent. Synchronic (between the group)
Diachronic (over time).

60
Q

What is flexibility?

A

Being too strict on your views can be seen as dogmatic. So having flexibility shows they are able to accept reason and counterarguments.

61
Q

What is the snowball effect?

A

The idea that due to three aspects of minority influence (consistency, flexibility, commitment) the minority slowly becomes the majority over time

62
Q

What happened in Moscovici’s study?

A

Group of 6 people asked to view a set of 36 coloured blue slides varied in intensity. Had to state if slide was blue or green.
Two confederates in each group said the slides were green.
True participants gave the wrong answer on 8.42% of trials.
2nd group exposed to inconsistent minority e.g said green 24 times and blue 12 times. Agreement of green fell to 1.25%.
3rd control group no confederate got it wrong on 0.25% of time.

63
Q

What did Robin Martin (2003) find?

A

Presented a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured participants agreement. One group heard a minority group agree with initial view and other heard a majority.
Finally exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes measured again.
People less willing to change opinion if they had listened to a minority group as opposed to a majority group.

64
Q

What could be a general limitation of minority influence studies?

A

Studies are just as artificial as Asch line judgement task.
E.G Moscovici, not reflective of real life conformity/obedience.

65
Q

What is social change?

A

Occurs when whole societies rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things. E.G gay rights, environmental issues.

66
Q

What are the 6 stages that make a minority lead to a majority and social change.

A

1- Drawing Attention
2- Consistency
3- Deeper processing
4- Augmentation principle
5- Snowball effects
6- Social cryptoamnesia

67
Q

How does normative social influence link to social change?

A

When the minority slowly starts to become the majority, people go with the new majority in order to be liked and accepted.

68
Q

How might a minority draw attention to themselves?

A

Protests, marches, riots.

69
Q

What is deeper processing?

A

People start to actually question their own beliefs due to the minority drawing attention to themselves.

70
Q

What is the augmentation principle?

A

Individuals risk their lives or harm in order to promote what they believe in.

71
Q

What is social cryptoamesia?

A

People have a memory that change has happened but aren’t aware how it happened.

72
Q

What is the research of Nolan (2008)

A

Aimed to see if could change energy use habits.
Hung messages on front door of houses every week for one month about reducing usage
Control group just had messages asking them to save energy.
Significant energy decreases in 1st group compared to second.

73
Q

What did Foxcroft (2015) find?

A

Reviewed 70 studies where the social norms approach was used to reduce student alcohol use. The researchers found only a small reduction in drinking quantity and no effect on drinking frequency.

74
Q

What did Charlan Nemeth (2009) find?

A

Claims social change is due to type of thinking that minorities inspire. When people consider minority arguments, they engage in divergent thinking.
Broader thinking about issue.

A2 Psychology (10 decks)

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