social influence Flashcards
1
Q
explanations for conformity
A
normative social influence
- desire to liked (fit in)
- emotional process
- occurs in unfamiliar situations
informational social influence
- desire to be right
- cognitive process
- occurs in ambiguous situations (not clear what’s right)
2
Q
types of conformity
A
compliance
- lowest level of conformity
- only public behaviour changes
- private beliefs stay the same
- short term change
- result of NSI
identification
- middle level of conformity
- public behaviours changes
- private beliefs change only when in presence of group they are identifying w
- short term change
- result of NSI
internalisation
- deepest level of conformity
- public behaviour + private beliefs change
- long term change
- due to ISI
3
Q
conformity
asch
line judgement task
A
method:
- 123 ppts made to believe they were taking part in a vision test
- each ppt was tested individually using a line judgement task, w 6-8 confederates
- had to identify which comparison line was closest in length to the standard
- each ppt completed 18 trials
- on 12 critical trials, confederates gave the wrong answer
results:
- on avg, ppts conformed on 32% of the critical trials
- 74% of ppts conformed at least once
- only 26% of ppts never conformed
- most ppts that conformed knew their answers were incorrect but still went along w the group to fit in, exhibiting NSI
4
Q
variations of asch
A
group size
- w 2 confederates, conformity was 12.8%
- w 3, it rose to 32%
- adding anymore made little difference
unanimity
- asch introduced a dissenting confederate who gave the correct answer
- conformity dropped from 32% to 5%
task difficulty
- asch made the line judgement task harder by making comparison lines more similar in length
- conformity increased when task was more difficult
- ppts more likely to believe the confederates were right
- this displays a shift from NSI to ISI
5
Q
asch
ao3
A
✔ controlled lab experiment
- high degree of control over variables
- more confident drawing conclusions
- minimises extraneous variables
- high internal validity
- and also very replicable + easy method
COUNTER POINT
✘ demand characteristics
- ppts aware they’re being studied
- due to controlled environment, ppts likely to figure out the aim of the investigation
- may answer according to what they believe the researcher wants to hear
- responding to demand characteristics instead of social pressure from the group
- thus finding may not reflect effect of social pressure on conformity
- challenges internal validity
✘ lacks temporal validity
- outdated - took place in 1950s
- was a conformist time in america compared to now
- difficult to generalise to today’s society
- more recent studies have shown significantly less conformity
- findings aren’t consistent over time
✘ artificial task
- line judgement task isn’t applicable to everyday life
- confederates don’t resemble groups in everyday life
- can’t generalise to everyday situations
- task of identifying lines is trivial - no reason not to conform
- thus likely to have different effects in situations where consequences of conformity are actually important
- low ecological validity
6
Q
conformity to social roles
zimbardo
stanford prison experiment
A
method:
- set up a mock prison at stanford university
- to investigate how easily people would conform to social roles of guard + prisoner in a role-playing exercise that simulated prison life
- involved 21 emotionally stable male volunteers - randomly assigned roles of either guard or prisoner
findings:
- ppts quickly identified w their social roles
- within days, prisoners rebelled + guards dehumanised the prisoners
- experiment was set to run for 2 weeks but was terminated after just 6 days
- supports situational explanation of behaviour rather than the dispositional explanation
7
Q
zimbardo
ao3
A
✘ overstated the role of situational influences on conformity to social roles
- only a third of the guards behaved brutally (conformed to social roles)
- other 2 thirds either applied rules fairly or supported the prisoners
- differences in the guards’ behaviour show they could exercise right and wrong choices despite situational pressures to conform to a role
- zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of the situation + understated dispositional influences
✘ major ethical issues
- zimbardo was both lead researcher + prison superintendent
- these 2 roles conflicted w each other
- eg a student who wanted to leave the study spoke to zimbardo who responded as a superintendent, worried about the running of the prison, rather than as a researcher
- this limited his ability to protect his ppts from harm
8
Q
obedience
agentic state
A
- occurs when we act on behalf of another person
- frees us from demands of our consciences
- feels no personal responsibility for their actions
9
Q
autonomous state
A
- opposite of agentic state
- free to behave according to their own principles
- feels responsibility for their actions
10
Q
agentic shift
A
- shift from autonomous state to agentic state
- occurs when a person defers to an authority figure
11
Q
binding factors
A
- aspects of a situation that allow a person to ignore/minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour
- thus reduce the moral strain they feel
- strategies individual uses to shift responsibility to the victim
- eg “he was foolish to volunteer”
12
Q
obedience
legitimacy of authority
A
- suggests we are more likely to obey people who we think have authority over us
- authorities have legitimacy through society’s agreement
- destructive authority = powerful leaders (eg hitler, stalin) using their authority for destructive purposes
13
Q
obedience
milgram
A
method:
- to investigate to what extent people will obey, even when orders go against their moral principles
- 4o male ppts (could leave at any time)
- assigned role of ‘teacher’
- confederate ‘learner’ strapped in chair in next room
- teacher had to give electric shock to learner every time they made a mistake
- experiment continued until ppt refused to continue or 450 volts was reached
- if teacher tried to stop, experimenter would say: “the experiment requires that you continue.”
findings:
- all ppts went to at least 300 volts
- 65% continued until the full 450 volts
- shows inhumane + immoral acts can be committed by ordinary people
- situational factors led people to lose their autonomy + become agents of an authority figure
14
Q
milgram
ao3
A
✔ good ecological validity
- milgram argued that the lab-based relationship between the experimenter + the ppt reflected wider real-life authority relationships
- hofling et al found that levels of obedience in nurses on a hospital ward to unjustified demands by doctors were v high
- 21 out of 22 nurses obeyed
- therefore milgrams findings can be generalised to real life situations
15
Q
milgram’s variations
situational variables
A
- can be used as an explanation for obedience
- these are related to the external circumstances that may affect obedience levels
- milgram himself has investigated 3 of these variables in different variations of his original study
