Social Influence

Question 1

What is conformity?

Answer 1

People follow formal rules and regulations
Can be explicit (compliance)
Changing behaviours but not beliefs

Question 2

What are the types of conformity?

Answer 2

Compliance and Obedience

Question 3

What is obedience?

Answer 3

People following instructions from an authority figure

Question 4

What is compliance?

Answer 4

Explicit
A person is doing what is asked of them or what is required by them from regulations

Question 5

What are injunctive norms?

Answer 5

Norms that are perceived as being approved of by other people

Question 6

What was Sherif’s study procedure in 1935?

Answer 6

Participants were asked to sit in a dark room and look at a pinpoint of light. There is an illusion where it seems the light is moving in the dark, this is called the autokinetic effect. The participants were unaware of this illusion and when the light disappeared were asked if the light had moved.

Question 7

What did Sherif’s study find?

Answer 7

Participants asked to perform the same task, they had to call out their responses in groups of 2 or 3. Responses converged as they agreed with each other, creating a group normative estimate. Everyone’s estimates had become similar. This created a joint group frame of reference. A group norm emerged overtime. Participants saw how others in their group responded and adjusted their response. When they were asked to make a judgement on their own again, the group norm persists overtime.

Question 8

How does ambiguity affect conformity?

Answer 8

When people are unsure of their own judgements
Groups give people a framework to judge an appropriate response

Question 9

What is Asch’s study of conformity?

Answer 9

Male participants
True participant seated 6th in a row of 7 people
Perceptual judgement task
One was a true participant, the rest were confederates
Standard line and 3 comparison lines, they were asked to pick a comparison line which matched the length of the standard line. The right and wrong answers were obvious (unambiguous test.) Call out their answers. There was a control group.

Confederates before the ps gave the correct answer. Participant gave the correct response as well. 18 trials altogether. The confederates before the ps gave the wrong response for 12 of them. The participants gave the wrong answer as well to 6 or more trials.

Control condition: 99% accuracy
Experimental condition: participants chose the correct line 68% of the time

Question 10

What a limitation of Milgram’s study?

Answer 10

Are people blindly obedient in a situation where they objectively have free will, or was it because of being deprived of free will as a result of bullying?

Question 11

What are the ethical issues of Milgram’s study?

Answer 11

Psychological distress caused
Distress was long lasting
In the debrief, being told they were subjects to a huge hoax, could cause them future trust issues and low self esteem

Question 12

How did Milgram counteract the ethical issues in his study?

Answer 12

Participants were relieved not distressed or angry in the debriefing
83% said they were glad to have taken part
1% were sorry to have taken part
15% had neutral feelings
Psychiatrist interviews were conducted and there was no ill effects for the participants

Question 13

What did the replications of Milgram’s study find?

Answer 13

• Few cross cultural studies
  Dolinski 2017 find in Poland that 90% of participants went up to 150 volts
  Beauvois 2012 find that in France, participants who believed they were on a gameshow went up to 450 volts

-Gender
Milgram 1974 replicated his own study and found women obeyed as much as men

• Not related to pathological traits
• No difference if instructions were given by a robot or human (90% in both conditions) Grzyb 2023

Question 14

What is social influence?

Answer 14

The effect others have on our thoughts, feelings and behaviours

Question 15

What is acceptance?

Answer 15

Changing behaviour and beliefs

Question 16

What does Sherif’s study suggest about conformity?

Answer 16

Ambiguous stimulus when the individuals were alone, so they used their internal frame of reference.
In the groups, individuals experienced a differential judgement from others, meaning their frame of reference was questioned and a joint frame of reference was established

If a participant is confident in their own response, they won’t be affected by the norms of a group. When there isn’t an unambiguous task, an individual expects no disagreement in judgement because they’re more sure of their answer. This individual can resist social influence.

Question 17

What was the procedure of Milgram’s 1965 study of obedience?

Answer 17

Interested in why people confirmed in atrocities
The learner is a confederate
The teacher was the participant
The teacher had to teach the learner to learn a series of paired words, the learner’s memory was then tested
The learner is strapped in a chair, electrodes attached, when the learner made a mistake, the teacher gave them a shock.
Learner complained of a heart condition, the experimenter explained that although they were painful, they wouldn’t cause permanent tissue damage
15 volts (mild shock) to 450volts
Teacher moves to a higher voltage every time the learner makes a mistake
Learner has pre-determined responses e.g. complaining their heart bothers them, 300volts: learner stopped responding
When a teacher was hesitant, the experimenter would give them 3 prompts, please continue, it is essential for you to continue, you have no choice- you must go on

Question 18

What did Milgram’s study of obedience find?

Answer 18

Original study: Obedience decreased as shock level increased, 63% of teachers went above 450 volts

Proximity of experimenter:
obedience stops when experimenter is more distant
yet when there were no instructions given at all, 2.5% still persisted to the end

Proximity of the learner:
When the learner wasn’t seen or heard, obedience is high and 65% finished to the end
Obedience drops, as the learner becomes closer
In a ‘touch’ condition e.g. teacher holding the learner’s hand down onto a shock plate, obedience is reduced

Group pressure:
2 disobedient peers (teachers), reduced obedience
2 obedient peers (teachers), obedience increased

Question 19

What did Begue and Verizian’s study in 2023 find?

Answer 19

People were asked to deliver a noxious substance to a fish
Fish weren’t real, ps didn’t know
Ps were made aware that the fish would die if too much was given, substance would cause fish pain
most people continued to the end and killed the fish
Men with low empathy, high social dominance, high speciesism (see themselves as above animals) were most likely to continue

Question 20

What did the Stanford Prison experiment find?

Answer 20

2 weeks
Participants were assigned to be prisoners or guards
Prisoners were arrested, cuffed and taken to prison
Prisoners wore smocks with numbers, addressed by their numbers
Processed like real prisoners
Guards dressed in khaki and wore sunglasses
Uniforms were used to deindividuate them
Prisoners began rebelling, which sparked authoritarian guard behaviour
Lead to the guards harassing and degrading prisoners
Experiment stopped after 6 days
People who volunteered for the study were more likely to be more aggressive, authoritarian, social dominance and abuse related dispositions. Lower on empathy. As participants weren’t randomly allocated
Guards made rules and would enforce them
Guards were enthusiastic about the roles they were given
Conditions were distressing and oppressive

Question 21

What is the ‘power of the situation’?

Answer 21

Normative pressure
These situations are evil, not the individual
Moral judgement is suspended
Lucifer effect - people become evil, if the circumstances are right
Milgram and Zimbardo constructed their studies so evil could flourish, people in leadership roles were instructed to be evil e.g. experimenters in the Milgram study

Question 22

What is the banality of evil?

Answer 22

Some argue that during the WW’s people weren’t evil, they were just doing their job. Adolf Eichmann was responsible for the Nazi final solution
Eichmann had a strong hatred for Jewish people
it’s not always about the situation, people choose to be in certain positions

Question 23

How does task related factors influence conformity?

Answer 23

Difficult tasks makes participants feel more insecure in their own attitudes, thus the influence of others is stronger

Question 24

How do group related factors influence conformity?

Answer 24

Group Size - Asch
Groups of 3-5 people produce more conformity
Group conformity maxed out at 5 members
More than 5 people makes no difference to conformity

Question 25

How does unanimity influence conformity?

Answer 25

Asch
Difficult to dissent(disobey) if group is unanimous
If one person dissents (gives the right response in the line task), conformity can be reduced (true participant will give the correct response as well)
This is due to social support

Question 26

How does status influence conformity?

Answer 26

Milgram’s study
Blue collar participants were more likely to conform than white colour participants
Experimenter’s wore lab coats, influence increases

Question 27

Why are people influenced?

Answer 27

To avoid rejection
to obtain important information

Question 28

What is normative influence?

Answer 28

Involves compliance
Gain approval
Avoid disapproval
Wanting to be liked
Avoid being disliked
Suppress disagreement
‘Going along with the crowd’

Question 29

What is informational influence?

Answer 29

Involves acceptance
Leads people to acceptance
When a task is ambiguous, others are a more useful source of information
Desire to be correct
Others judgements are rated better than your own judgements
Change attitudes and beliefs

Question 30

How does personality impact conformity?

Answer 30

Weak connections
Low self esteem
High need for social support
Low IQ
High anxiety
All means high conformity

Question 31

How does culture impact conformity?

Answer 31

Conformity is greater in cultures where there are heavy sanctions for non conformity
Individualistic cultures less confirmative than collectivist

Question 32

Why don’t we always conform to social pressures?

Answer 32

Reactance: when influences are blatant people attempt to protect freedoms, people assert their own uniqueness

Unanimity: Asch’s study, variation where one confederates dissented, this means conformity reduces due to social support

Question 33

What did Moscovinci suggest about Minority influence?

Answer 33

Minority influence cannot be accounted for the same principles that explain majority influence
Minority impact lies in their own behavioural style
To be influential, the argument needs to be clear and consistent
Two components: diachronic (each individuals personal beliefs and behaviours are stable across time) and synchronic (individuals in the minority group show the same opinion)

Question 34

Why doesn’t normative influence affect minority influence?

Answer 34

Minorities can be disliked
There is no normative pressure

Question 35

What happens when minorities influence the majorities?

Answer 35

Validation process- people try to understand why the group is consistent in their belief
People think closely about this issue
There may be private influence
Majority pressures may prevent this from being shown publicly
Private acceptance
NO public compliance

Question 36

What is minority influence?

Answer 36

Minority group changes the attitudes of the majority group