social influence Flashcards
describe conformity
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.
what are social norms
rules or expectations of a particular group or society. these can be explicit or implicit.
what is compliance
publicly conforming but privately maintaining our own views
what is identification
adopting a group’s views both publicly and privately usually only while the group is present
what is internalisation
a true change of private view that is not dependant on the presence of the group
what are the three types of conformity
- compliance
- identification
- internalisation
explain normative social influence
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.
explain informational social influence
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.
what is two strengths of the explanations for conformity
- empirical evidence
- research to support NSI
what is one weakness of the explanations for conformity
- individual differences
what was the procedure for Asch vision test
- 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
what was the findings for Asch vision test
- 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
what was the conclusion of Asch vision test
- when participants were interviewed afterwards most said that they conformed to avoid rejection
weaknesses of Asch’s vision test
- lacks temporal validity
- lacks ecological validity
- gender bias
what was the aim of Zimbardo’s study
to examine whether people would conform to the social roles of a prison guard or prisoners when placed in a mock prison environment.
who took part in Zimbardo’s study
- 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
what was Zimbardo’s study
- 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
issues of Zimbardo’s study
- 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
what did Zimbardo find
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
what was Milgram’s aim of his study
He wanted to assess obedience levels when a authority figure ordered the participant to give an strong shock to the learner (15-450 volts)
what was Milgram’s baseline procedure
- 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
what was the findings of Milgram’s baseline procedure
- 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
what was the conclusion of Milgram’s baseline procedure
- 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
what did Milgram believe about situational variable
he believed that you could alter obedience levels simply by changing what he referred to as situational variables
