Social Influence Flashcards
What are the 3 assumptions that social psychology is based on??
- Other people & the environment influence our behaviour and thought process
- All human behaviour occurs in a social context
- Our relationship with others influences our behaviour & thought process
What is social influence??👯
When one person causes a change in the behaviour of another person!
What’s conformity?? 👯👯👯
A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group
Summarise the Jenness (1932) study!🫘
Jar of beans study:
- Glass jar filled with 811 beans, ppts told to guess how many there are.
- First they gave individual answers
- then they came together as a group to get a group answer
- Average: Male ppts changed their answer by 256 beans & female by 382
Nearly all ppts changed their answer in belief that the group answer was more likely to be right.
What are the 3 types of conformity??🤔
- Internalisation
- identification
- Compliance
Define identification!
Publicly changing our opinion/behaviour even if we don’t fully agree because there’s something about that group that we value.
Define compliance!
Most minor form of compliance. Going along in public but not private. Conformity disappears when group pressure disappears.
Who came up with the Two-process Theory and in what year??📅
Deutsch & Gerard in 1955!
What does the Two-process Theory state are the 2 reasons that people conform??
- To be liked
- To be right
What is the conformity called when someone wants to be right??😇
informative Social Influence (ISI)
A COGNITIVE process where we follow behaviour of a group because we want to be right
What are the 4 situations where ISI is most likely to happen??
- Situation is new to you
- There are people who are more expert than you
- Element of ambiguity
- Decisions need to be made quickly
What is the conformity called when someone wants to be liked??👍
Normative Social Influence (NSI)
An EMOTIONAL process where we want to do what is ‘normal’ for a group. people want to fit in rather than be rejected.
What are the 4 situations where NSI is most likely to happen??
-You’re with strangers
- You fear rejection
- You seek the social approval of people you know
- You’re in a stressful situation and need group support
What are the 3 evaluation points of the Two-Process Theory??
- NSI & ISI work together
- Supported by research
- Individual Differences
Discuss the AO3 points of the Two-Process Theory: NSI & ISI work together👯
- Theory suggests situations are only NSI or ISI but in most cases they work together
- Asch’s experiment found that there’s less conformity when there’s another dissenting ppt
- Reduces NSI: Dissenter provides social support
- Reduces ISI: Alternative source of information
Discuss the AO3 points of the Two-Process Theory: Supported by research📋
- ISI is supported with evidence collected in other studies
- People will conform in situation where they feel they don’t know the answer
Lucas et al (2006): asked students to give answers to math problems varying in difficulty.
More conformity of wrong answers for tougher question
Discuss the AO3 points of the Two-Process Theory: Individual Differences🧑🦳🧑🦱
- NSI doesn’t affect everyone in the same way.
- Care less about being liked = less affected by NSI
- Care about being liked = greater need for affiliation
McGhee & Teevan (1967) found that students with a higher need for affiliation are more likely to conform.
Who did Asch’s Line Experiment and in what year??🖇️
Solomon Asch in 1951
Summarise Asch’s Line Experiment!
- One naive ppt in a group of confederates
- Ppts given 4 lines. 3 of which were on the right and 1 on the left.
- Ppts told to guess which of the 3 was the same length as the one of the left.
- Line lengths were very clearly different
- Confederates told to deliberately answer wrong
- Due to group pressure, naïve ppt would occasionally answer wrong due to conformity
What’s the main statistic that came from Asch’s Line Experiment??🔢
75% of ppts answered wrong atleast once
Discuss the generalisability and reliability of Asch’s Line Experiment!
Not generalisable (all ppts white American males in high school)
Nelo (1995) -> Women are more conformist as they’re more concerned about social relationships & perceptions than men
High reliability (Controlled environment so can be replicated)
Describe the Application and Validity of Asch’s Line Experiment!
Low application (task wasn’t representative of real-life situations & group wasn’t representative of who we’d be around irl)
Internal validity (Controlled conditions)
Discuss the Ethics of Asch’s Line Experiment!
Deception (given wrong aim that it was a vision test)
Privacy & Confidentiality
Protection & Harm (subject to embarrassment)
What type of bias is Asch’s Line Experiment subject to??📄
Culture bias -> done with a collectivist culture (they do everything together so are more likely to conform)
Who and what year was the Stanford Prison Experiment??
Zimbardo in 1971!
What did Zimbardo want to investigate with the Stanford Prison Experiment??
If prison guards behave brutally because they have sadist personalities or is it the situation that creates this behaviour??
What are social roles??
The parts that people play as members of a social group & the expectations that come with it
Summarise 3 key ideas of the Stanford Prison Experiment
- Volunteer sampling
- Random allocation
- Lasted 6 days (but was meant to be 2 weeks)
- Both guards and prisoners settled into their roles very quickly
What happened to Prisoner #819 in the Stanford Prison Experiment??
Began showing signs of distress. Zimbardo took him to another room where he could hear the other prisoners chanting about how bad he was as a prisoner. He wanted to go back to prove them wrong but Zimbardo had to tell him that he was not prisoner #819, he was [real name] and he snapped out of his trance and agreed to leave.
What happened on day 5 of the Stanford Prison Experiment??
Visitations from family. Many family members asked Zimbardo about the safety of the prisoner but he just responded by questioning the prisoner’s toughness.
Most families left with the aim of getting a lawyer.
What were the 2 reasons that the Stanford Prison Experiment was ended prematurely??
- Guards escalated the abuse at night when they thought researchers weren’t watching
- Christina Maslach severely questioned the morality after visiting
Is the Stanford prison experiment generalisable and reliable??
Not generalisable -> Not similar to normal prison environment, only done by white, young men
High reliability -> Controlled environment so can be easily replicated
Discuss the applicability and ethics of the Stanford Prison Experiment
High application -> Can be used to explain the behaviours at Abu Ghraib
Unethical -> Psychological harm (against protection & harm), prisoners not told they would be ‘arrested’ (deception & informed consent)
What was the validity of the Stanford Prison experiment??
Low external validity -> not similar to the regular prison environment
high internal validity -> Controlled environment, each volunteer given personality test to ensure they were emotionally stable enough to take part, random assignment