Social Influence Flashcards
1
Q
What is conformity and what are the 3 types?
A
A change in a person’s behaviour/opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from others
- Compliance
- Identification
- Internalisation
2
Q
What is compliance?
A
- The most Superficial type of conformity
- The person conforms publicly but continues to privately disagree
3
Q
What is identification?
A
- Moderate level of conformity
- A person changes their view, both publicly & privately, to fit with those expressed by a group of people they admire
- Temporary change in opinion - when the person is no longer associated with the group, their opinion may revert
4
Q
What is internalisation?
A
- Deepest level of conformity
- When the views of the group are internalised → private & public change of behaviour is permanent
- Genuinely accept the group norms and see them as correct
5
Q
What are Deutsch and Gerald’s two-process theory explanations of conformity?
A
- Informational social influence: when someone conforms because they want to be right and they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task/situation is ambiguous
- Normative social influence: when someone conforms because they want to be liked and accepted by a group → occurs when a person wants to avoid disagreeing with the majority → also known as compliance
6
Q
What are the strengths of research into types and explanations of conformity? (A03)
A
- NSI research support: in Asch’s research, some ppts conformed because as felt self-conscious giving the correct answer & were afraid of disapproval. When ppts could privately write answers down on paper, conformity dropped to 12.5% →no normative group pressure
- ISI research support: In Lucas et al’s research ppts had to solve easy & hard maths problems (given 3 confederate wrong answers) - conformed more often to incorrect answers when maths problems were difficult → harder problems = more ambiguous so relied on answers given, easier problems=knew their own minds - ISI is valid explanation
7
Q
What was Asch’s baseline procedure and aim?
A
- Aim: To measure the extent that people conformed to the opinion of others, even in a situation when the others’ answers were clearly wrong
- 123 American, male participants were tested individually, sitting last/next to last in a group of 6-8 Confederates
- They were shown 2 large cards, one was a ‘standard line’, the other were 3 comparison lines
- Each group member stated which of the 3 lines matched the standard
- There were 18 ‘trials’ with different pairs of cards + 12 of these (critical trials) the confederates all gave the same, clearly wrong answer
8
Q
A
9
Q
What were the findings of Asch’s baseline study/
A
- The naïve participants conformed 36.8% of the time - a high level of conformity even when the situation is unambiguous
- 75% conformed at least once
- 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer (never conformed)
10
Q
What are the 3 variables Asch manipulated and what were the effects?
A
- Group size: added more confederates, increasing size of majority → with 3 confederates, conformity rose to 31.8%, but the addition of more confederates made little difference
- Unanimity: Asch added a dissenting confederate - gave either a correct or incorrect answer→ presence of dissenting confederate reduced conformity by a quarter
- Task difficulty: conformity increased when task difficulty increased
11
Q
What were the conclusions of the 3 variables Asch manipulated?
A
- Group size: people are very sensitive to the views of others as 1 or 2 confederates was enough to sway opinion
- Unanimity: social support can reduce the pressure to conform and allows us to be independent
- Task difficulty: as tasks become more difficult, people tend to look to others for guidance and assume they are right
12
Q
What are the strengths of Asch’s research? (A03)
A
- Research support: from other studies found similar results for task difficulty effect on conformity - Lucas et al asked ppts to solve ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ maths problems - Ppts given answers from 3 other confederates were found to conform more when problems were harder
13
Q
What are the weaknesses of Asch’s research? (A03)
A
- Artificial situation & task: ppts knew they were in a research study - could have caused them to go along with what was expected of them (demand characteristics) + identifying lines was an insignificant task so no real reason not to conform + Fiske: Asch’s groups not very ‘groupy’ – didn’t resemble groups we tend to see in everyday life. -> can’t generalise
- Limited application: ppts were American men -> Neto - women more conformist than men possibly due to being more concerned about social relationships & being accepted + US is an individualist culture -> similar studies conducted in collectivist cultures e.g. China have found higher conformity rates -> tells us little about women and people from other cultures
- Ethical issues: Ppts were deceived (didn’t know the others were confederates) = ethical issue of deception
14
Q
What are social roles?
A
The parts people play as members of social groups, and the expectations that come with this
15
Q
What was the aim of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment?
A
Do prison guards behave brutally because they are naturally sadistic, cruel and/or evil, or are they simply reacting to their situation?
16
Q
What was the procedure of the Stanford Prison Experiment?
A
- A mock prison was built in the basement of Stanford University
- A group of 21 male ‘emotionally stable’ university students volunteered and were randomly allocated to the role of prisoner or guard
- Prisoners were arrested at their homes, taken to the prison and searched, dressed in uniforms and were referred to as a number
- The guards were given uniforms, a baton and mirrored glasses (de-individuation) & instructed to keep their prisoners under control, but to use no physical violence
17
Q
What is de-individuation?
A
A loss of personal identity - more likely to conform to perceived social role
18
Q
What were the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment?
A
- Within two days the prisoners rebelled and ripped off their numbers
- The guards took up their social roles and became a threat to the prisoners’ psychological and physical health
- Harassed prisoners + reminded them of their powerlessness e.g headcounts
- Prisoners rapidly became depressed, anxious & passive
- 3 prisoners were released early for showing signs of psychological disturbance
- Guards became increasingly brutal and agressive
- The study was stopped after 6 days (it was supposed to last 2 weeks)
19
Q
What are the strengths of Zimbardo’s prison experiment? (A03)
A
- Zimbardo had control over some key variables - participant selection process - Emotionally stable individuals were assigned randomly into their roles of guard and prisoner → let them rule out individual personality differences as an explanation of the findings (if they behaved differently in these roles but they were assigned them by chance, we can assume it was the role itself that caused the behaviour) → degree of control over variables increases internal validity
20
Q
What were the weaknesses of Zimbardo’s prison experiment? (A03)
A
- Lacked realism of a true prison: Banuazizi & Movahedi (1975) suggested ppts were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role -they think that ppts performances were based on stereotypes of how prisoners and guards should act (e.g. one of the guards had based his role on a brutal film character) - also explains why the prisoners rioted (this is what had been happening in real life)
- Exaggerates power of social roles (Fromm): only 1/3 guards actually behaved in brutal manner & 1/3 tried to apply the rules fairly - the rest tried to help & support prisoners → most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to a brutal role → Zimbardo may have overstated his findings & minimized the influence of dispositional factors (personality)
- Alternative explanation: Reicher and Haslam criticized Zimbardo’s explanation as it doesn’t account for/explain the behaviour of the non-brutal guards → instead used Social Identity Theory (SIT) to argue that the guards had to actively identify with their assigned roles to act as they did
21
Q
What is obedience?
A
Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure
22
Q
What two things did Milgram want to find out?
A
- If the Germans were different – were they more obedient? (‘The Germans are different hypothesis’).
- How far would ordinary people go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person?
23
Q
How did Milgram collect his sample?
A
- He recruited 40 male ppts through newspaper adverts
- The advert said that the researchers were looking for ppts for a study about memory.
- Ppts were aged between 20-50yrs old
- Offered $4.50 to take part
24
Q
Describe Milgram’s procedure?
A
- Rigged draw: A confederate always ended up as ‘learner’ and the naïve ppt as ‘teacher’.
- There was also an ‘experimenter’ (confederate) dressed in a lab coat
- Ppts were told they could leave the study at any time
- The learner was strapped to a chair in another room and wired to electrodes.
- Teacher was required to give learner an increasingly severe shock (fake) each time the learner made a mistake on a learning task
- The shock level ranged from 15V-450V (labelled ‘danger – sever shock).
- When the teacher got to 300V, the learner pounded on the wall and gave no response to the question
- At 315V, the learner pounded again on the wall and then gave no further response in the experiment
- Prods if teacher felt unsure: 1) ‘Please continue’ or ‘Please go on’, 2) ‘The experiment requires that you continue.’, 3) ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue.’, 4) ‘You have no choice, you must go on
25
Q
What were the prods used if the teacher (ppt) felt unsure about continuing?
A
- Prod 1 – ‘Please continue’ or ‘Please go on’.
- Prod 2 – ‘The experiment requires that you continue.’
- Prod 3 – ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue.’
- Prod 4 – ‘You have no choice, you must go on.’
26
Q
What were the findings of Milgram’s study?
A
- No ppts stopped below 300V
- 12.5% of participants (5 participants) stopped at 300V
- 65% continued to the full 450V
- Qualitative data was also collected, e.g. observations that the ppts showed signs of extreme tension - sweating, trembling + some had ‘full-blown uncontrollable seizures’.
- All ppts were debriefed + assured that their behaviour was entirely normal→ sent a follow-up questionnaire, 84% reported that they felt glad to have participated
27
Q
What are the strengths of Milgram’s shock experiment? (A03)
A
- Good external validity: central feature of this situation was relationship between the authority figure (the experimenter) and the ppt - Milgram argued lab environment accurately reflected wider authority relationships in real life + Hofling et al studied nurses in a hospital ward & found that obedience levels to unjustified demands by doctors were very high (21/22 nurses) - generalisable
- Supporting replication: Le Jeu de la Mort, a French documentary about reality TV, includes a replication of Milgram’s study - ppts believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new game show + were paid to give (fake) electric shocks – when ordered by the presenter – to other ppts (actors), in front of a studio audience→ 80% of ppts delivered max shock to an apparently unconscious man + identical behaviour to that of Milgram’s ppts – anxiety, nail biting
28
Q
What are the weaknesses of Milgram’s shock experiment? (A03)
A
- Alternative explanation (social identity theory) -> according to SIT, the key to obedience lies in group identification i.e. when ppts identified with science of the study, obedience was shown but when ppts identified with the victim, obedience levels fell -> Haslam & Reicher found that every time the 4th prod (“you have no choice, you must go on”) was used, ppts quit the experiment - 1st 3 prods, appeal to the science of the experiment (“the experiment requires that you continue”) which may be why ppts continued
- Ethical issues: Baumrind was critical of the way Milgram deceived his ppts -Milgram led ppts that the ‘rigged draw’ was real + shocks were real – Baumrind argued that this could damage the way ppts view psychologists and their research -> deception of ppts may make them less likely to volunteer for future research
