Social Influence Flashcards
What did Asch use to experiment conformity?
Judging the lengths of lines
What was Asch’s Procedure?
Confederates gave incorrect answers to the line judging task to see if participants would conform
What did Asch find?
Participants conformed on 36.8% trials
25% never conformed
In Asch’s experiment what did a dissenter cause?
A dissenter reduced conformity
When the line judging task was harder what happened to conformity levels?
Conformity increased
What did Perrin and Spencer find?
Experimented in 1980 on uk engineering students
they found less conformity in 1980 than 1950 (when asch did his experiment)
One disadvantage of Asch’s experimental task
Artificial task meaning PPS just [played along with the trivial task
Why was there limited application on Asch’s findings?
Only conducted on American men
Who investigated conformity to social roles?
Zimbardo
What was Zimbardo’s procedure?
Mock prison in Stanford university with students randomly assigned as guards or prisoners.
What were zimbardo’s findings? (What happened)
Guards became increasingly brutal
Prisoners became increasingly withdrawn and depressed
What did Zimbardo conclude?
PPS conformed to their roles as guards and prisoners
What were the disposition all influences in SPE?
Only 1/3 guards were brutal so therefore findings exaggerated
Did SPE lack realism?
Yes
PPS were play acting their roles according to media stereotypes
List an advantage of SPE
Good control as roles were randomly assigned
What is internalisation?
Private and public acceptance of group norms
What is identification?
Change behaviour to be part of a group we identify with
What is compliance?
When you go along with group publicly but no private change
What is informational social influence?
Conform to be right
Assume other known better than us
What is normative social influence?
Conform to be liked or accepted by others
What is the research support for ISI?
More conformity to incorrect maths answers when they were difficult as predicted by ISI
What is one evaluation point for NSI?
NAffiliators want to be liked more
Can ISI and NSI work together?
Yes
A dissenter may reduce the power of these
What was Milgrams procedure?
Participants gave fake electric shocks to a learner in obedience to instructions from the experimenter
Milgrams findings
65% highest shock of 450v
100% gave shocks up to 300v
Many showed signs of anxiety
Supporting evidence for Milgram
Game of death found 80% gave Max shock plus similar behaviour to Milgrams experiment
List an advantage of Milgrams experiment
Good external validity: can generalise findings to other situations eg. Hospitals
List a disadvantage of Milgrams experiment
Low internal validity: PPS realised shocks were fake but replication with real shocks gave similar results so?
List the three situational variables in Milgrams experiment
Proximity
Uniform
Location
What effect did proximity have on Milgrams experiment?
Obedience decreased to 40% when teacher could hear learner and to 30% in touch proximity condition
What effect did location have on Milgrams experiment?
Obedience decreased to 47.5% when study moved to run down office block
What effect did uniform have on Milgrams experiment?
Obedience decreased to 20% when members of the public was the experimenter
What did Bickman show? (In link to Milgram)
He showed power of uniform in a field experiment
What does Milgrams procedures lack?
Internal validity
Are there cross cultural findings to support Milgram?
Yes
In USA so not generalisable
What is agentic state?
Acting as an agent of another
(No personal responsibility for our behaviour)
What is an autonomous state?
Free to act according to conscience
Switching between agentic state and autonomous state= agentic shift
What are binding factors?
Allows individuals to ignore the damaging effects of their obedient behaviour
Ignore moral strain
What did blass and Schmitt find?
People blame legitimate authority for the PPS behaviour
Is agentic state a good explanation for Milgram?
No
Cannot explain why some of Milgrams PPS disobeyed
What is the legitimacy of authority?
We are more likely to obey someone who we believe has more power over us.
What is destructive authority?
When problems arise ie. Hitler
One advantage of legitimacy of authority to explain obedience
Explains obedience in different cultural settings as it reflects different social hierarchy’s
What did Adorno et al investigate?
The authoritarian personality
What did Adorno use to investigate the authoritarian personality?
The F scale (F stands for faccist)
What did Adorno find?
People with authoritarian personality identify with the strong and have fixed cognitive style
What are two characteristics of an authoritarian personality?
Extreme respect for authority and obedience for it
What are the origins of an authoritarian personality?
Harsh parenting creates hostility that cannot be expressed against parents so it is displaced
Is the authoritarian personality biased?
Yes
Politically biased it is extremely right winged and ignores the left wing authoritarianism
Research support for Adorno (authoritarian personality)
Some of Milgrams obedient PPS had an authoritarian personality
One disadvantage of the authoritarian personality
There is a correlation but it doesn’t mean causation
What is locus of control?
LOC is a sense of what directs events in our lives (rotter)
What is continuum?
High internal at one end and high external at the other
Which LOC is most likely to resist pressures to conform?
High internal LOC
Research support for LOC
Internals less likely to obey in a Milgram type experiment
What is the Contradictory research about LOC
People have become more external and more disobedient recently
Hard for LOC to explain
What did Allen and Levine find?
Conformity decreases when one person dissents even if they are not creditable
What did Gamson find?
Obedience drops when disobedient role models are present
What is consistency?
If the minority is consistent this attracts the attention of the majority over time
What is commitment?
Augmentation principle- personal sacrifices show commitment and attract attention
What is flexibility?
Minority more convincing if they accept some counter arguments
What is the snowball effect?
Minority views gathers momentum until its becomes majority influence
What did moscovici do?
Investigated minority influence
Blue/green slide
One limitation of moscovici
Artificial task so tells us little about real life
Why do minority views have longer effect?
Because they are deeply processed
List one example of minority influence
Civil rights movement in USA
How can NSI lead to social change?
By drawing attention to what the majority is doing
Is NSI a valid explanation of social change?
Yes
Eg. Reducing energy consumption
List the 6 steps to social change
Drawing attention
Consistency
Deeper processing
Augmentation principle
Snowball effect
Social cryptomnesia
