social influence

Question 1

describe conformity

Answer 1

a change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of a real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.

Question 2

what are social norms

Answer 2

rules or expectations of a particular group or society. these can be explicit or implicit.

Question 3

what is compliance

Answer 3

publicly conforming but privately maintaining our own views

Question 4

what is identification

Answer 4

adopting a group’s views both publicly and privately usually only while the group is present

Question 5

what is internalisation

Answer 5

a true change of private view that is not dependant on the presence of the group

Question 6

what are the three types of conformity

Answer 6

• compliance
• identification
• internalisation

Question 7

explain normative social influence

Answer 7

all about norms and what is typical behaviour. NSI is a emotional rather then a cognitive process and is a temporary change in opinions. this happens when people are scared of rejection and people want social expectance.

Question 8

explain informational social influence

Answer 8

change what you think for example if you don’t know the answer in class then you copy what everyone else says the answer is. most likely to happen when there is a new person and we assume the rest of the group is right.

Question 9

what is two strengths of the explanations for conformity

Answer 9

• empirical evidence
• research to support NSI

Question 10

what is one weakness of the explanations for conformity

Answer 10

• individual differences

Question 11

what was the procedure for Asch vision test

Answer 11

• 123 male Americans undergraduates
• tested in groups of 6-8 and they all gave the same answers in a certain order with the naïve participant second to last
• 3 lines were shown to participants
• all but one were confederates
• gave obvious incorrect answers

Question 12

what was the findings for Asch vision test

Answer 12

• 36.8% of responses in the 12 critical trials were incorrect which shows that they conformed to the incorrect answers
• 25% of participants never conformed on any of the trials
• which means that 75% of naïve participants conformed at least once

Question 13

what was the conclusion of Asch vision test

Answer 13

• when participants were interviewed afterwards most said that they conformed to avoid rejection

Question 14

weaknesses of Asch’s vision test

Answer 14

• lacks temporal validity
• lacks ecological validity
• gender bias

Question 15

what was the aim of Zimbardo’s study

Answer 15

to examine whether people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoners when placed in a mock prison environment.

Question 16

who took part in Zimbardo’s study

Answer 16

• 21 male university students
• selected those who seemed emotionally stable after testing
• students were randomly assigned the role of either the guard or the prisoner

Question 17

what was Zimbardo’s study

Answer 17

• set up a fake prison at Stanford Uni
• prisoners were arrested in their homes and then strip-searched, de-loused and given a uniform
• prisoners had 16 rules to follow which was enforced by the guards
  -guards had wooden club, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades and they had complete control over the prisoners

Question 18

issues of Zimbardo’s study

Answer 18

• ethical issues- didn’t know they would be take from there home, were strip-searched, some of the guards were hostile and dehumanising, Zimbardo overlooked the abusive behaviour

Question 19

what did Zimbardo find

Answer 19

he found that the social pressures of the prison situation influenced the guards to behave in a certain way. An ‘evil situation’ create evil behaviour

Question 20

what was Milgram’s aim of his study

Answer 20

He wanted to assess obedience levels when a authority figure ordered the participant to give an strong shock to the learner (15-450 volts)

Question 21

what was Milgram’s baseline procedure

Answer 21

• 40 American man volunteered to be part of the study
• they would arrive at the lab and be introduced to another participant which was a confederate
• ## the experimenter was dressed in a grey lab coat

Question 22

what was the findings of Milgram’s baseline procedure

Answer 22

• every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300 volts
• 5 participants stopped at 300 and the rest continued to 450 volts
• Milgram collected qualitative data including observations
• many participants showed signs of extreme tension such as sweating, stuttering, biting their lips and shaking
• the findings for this study was unexpected

Question 23

what was the conclusion of Milgram’s baseline procedure

Answer 23

• Milgram concluded that the German people during the war were not that different as the Americans in his study carried on if they were told to even if they were hurting someone else
• he suspected that there were other factors that would effect or encourage obedience

Question 24

what did Milgram believe about situational variable

Answer 24

he believed that you could alter obedience levels simply by changing what he referred to as situational variables

Question 25

proximity in situational variables for obedience

Answer 25

• when in the same room obedience drops from the baseline at 65% to 40%
• when in touch proximity the obedience rate dropped to a further 30%
• when given a remote instruction condition obedience dropped to 20.5% and participants tended to give lower shocks then told or pretended to give shocks

Question 26

location in situational variables for obedience

Answer 26

• conducted a study in a run down building rather then Yale university and obedience fell to 14.5% as they felt that the experimenter had less authority

Question 27

uniform in situational variables for obedience

Answer 27

• in the original study the experimenter wore a lab coat however once changed for someone in normal clothes the obedience rate dropped to 20%

Question 28

strengths of Milgram’s theory of situation variables

Answer 28

• empirical support
• cross cultural replications

Question 29

weaknesses of Milgram’s theory of situation variables

Answer 29

• low internal validity

Question 30

what is the agentic state

Answer 30

Milgram suggested that obedience to destructive authority occurs because the person does not take responsibility as they are acting for someone else.

Question 31

what is the autonomous state

Answer 31

• a person in this state is free to behave according to their own actions
• the shift from autonomous to agency is called the agentic shift

Question 32

strengths of social-psychological factors

Answer 32

• supportive research
• use for comparison of other cultures

Question 33

weakness of social-psychological factors

Answer 33

• limited explanation

Question 34

what is an authoritarian personality

Answer 34

someones who shows an extreme respect and submissiveness to authority and view the rest of society to be weak

Question 35

what did Adorno believe about the authoritarian personality

Answer 35

that it forms in childhood mostly as a result of harsh parenting especially when parents give conditional love. he believed that this created hostile and resentment in children but they were unable to present this so they displace it onto others who are perceived as weaker

Question 36

Adorno’s research- procedure

Answer 36

he studied more then 2000 middle-class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes to other ethnic group. to do this they created the f-scale