Social influence Flashcards
whats social influence?
the process by which individuals and groups change each others attitudes and behaviours
what does social influence include?
conformity
obedience
minority influence
what’s conformity?
a change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressures from a person or group.
what are the types of conformity?
identification
internalisation
compliance
Who suggest that there were 3 types of conformity?
Herbert Kelman (1958)
what’s internalisation?
individual accepts the views and behaviours of the group and internalises them so views change publicly and privately
what’s identification?
conforming to a group because we value their views and opinions so views change publicly but not privately
what’s compliance?
individual conforms to the groups views and changes public beliefs but private as behaviours is superficial
what type of conformity is superficial?
compliance
what do normative and informative social influence outline?
why people conform
what did Deutsch and Gerard (1955) develop?
normative and informational social influence
whats normative social influence
The desire to fit in/be liked as we want to fit in with the norms of the group. Often fearful of rejection.
whats informative social influence?
the desire to be right due to being unsure of the situation or just lacking knowledge and thus agreeing with the majority due to them having more proposed knowledge than you.
what does the individual do in normative social influence?
goes along with the group but internally still holds their own thoughts and opinions (compliance)
what does the individual do in informational social influence?
internalise their response so agree publicly and also change personal opinions
Who studied Conformity?
Solomon Asch (1951, 1955)
Asch sample?
123 American male undergraduates
Asch’s procedure
On the card was a “standard line” and on the other card there were three “comparison lines”. One of the three lines was the same length as the standard and the other two were always substantially different.
The participant was asked which of the three lines matched the standard line.
what are naïve and confederate pp?
confederate - appears to be a pp but actually works for the experimenter to manipulate the study
naïve - real pp who are being tested in the study
Asch’s findings
36.8% of the responses made by naïve participants were incorrect
What were the 3 variations he looked into?
- Group size
- Unanimity
- Task difficulty
What did Asch later conduct?
An extended experiment
What did Asch find with group size?
Asch found that with three confederate’s conformity to the wrong answer was 31.8% and when it was two it dropped to 13% and with one confederate, conformity was only 3% of time.
What did Asch find with unanimity?
introducing of confederates that would agree and say to right answer (support). The presence of a dissenter enabled the naïve participant to behave more independently. Found conformity dropped to 5%
What did Asch find with task difficulty?
making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar in length. Found that conformity increased under these
conditions. more likely to look to other people for guidance
Who looked into conformity of social roles?
Zimbardo
What did Zimbardo do?
set up a mock prison in the basement of the psychology department of Stanford university
What was the sample of the study?
Advertised in a newspaper for volenteers (volenteer sample) and got 23 males based on emtional stability
What were participants allocated to?
role of guards or prisoners
What was do to heighten the realism?
the “prisoners” were arrseted at their homes by the local police and were then delivered to the “prison” and given uniforms
who were social roles of the prisoners divided
prisoners daily routines were heavily regulated. There were 16 rules they had to follow
how were social roles of the guards divided
worked in shifts, 8 hours a shift , three at a time. The prisoners names were never used only their numbers
What did the “guards” do to enthuses role?
They harassed the prisoners constantly, to remind them they were being monitored all the time. E.g they conducted frequent headcounts, sometimes in the middle of the night
What happened on the second day?
prisoners rebelled against their harsh treatment by the guards
What did Zimbardo conclude with his study?
concluded that individuals will readily conform to expected roles due to DE individualisation (emmerced in norms) and learned helplessness.
What happened to the study?
Their behaviour became a threat to the prisoner’s psychological and physical health, and the study was stopped after 6 days instead of the intended 14.
Obedience
a form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish disobedience.
When was Milgram’s study conducted?
1963 (Close to Nazi period)
What was the Milgram sample?
recruited 40 males through newspaper adverts and flyers in the post (volunteer). Participants were between 20-50 years whos jobs ranged from unskilled to professional.
What did Milgram want to find?
why the German population had followed the orders of Hitler in slaughtering over 10 million Jews, Gypsies and members of other groups involved in the Holocaust in WW2. He sought to find out if the Germans were different or if they were just scared.
What were the roles of Milgram’s study?
A confederate “Mr Wallace” always ended up being the “learner” as oppose to the participant who would always be the “teacher”. An “experimentor” was also present and dressed in a lab coat, played by an actor. Participants were told they could leave at any time.
what was the procedure of Milgram’s study?
The teacher (participant) would see the learner (confederate) strapped in a chair in another room and wired with electrodes. The teacher was required to give the learner an i.ncreasingly severe electric shock each time the learner made a mistake on a learning task. The shocks were fake
What was the levels of the electric shocker?
shock level started at 15 and rose through 30 levels to 450 volts labelled
What happened when the voltage got higher?
When the teacher got to 300 volts the learner pounded on the wall and gave no response to the next question. After 315 volts shock the learner pounded on the wall again but after that there was no further response from the learner.
What were the 4 standard instructions?
“Please continue” or “Please go on”
“The experiment requires that you continue”
“It’s is absolutely essential that you continue”
“You have no other choice, you must go on”
What happened after the learner didn’t respond?
teacher turned to the experimenter for guidance, the experimenter gave a standard instruction. 1 of 4
What did Milgram find?
No participants stopped below 300 volts. 12.5% stopped at 300 volts, 65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts.
