Social Influence Flashcards
A01 explanations of obedience
-Milgram proposed the agentic state theory which means we act as a representative of someone in authority, we feel no personal responsibility for our actions individuals pass on the responsibility onto them ‘agentic state’
-opposite it the autonomous state, this is where and individual will direct their own behaviour and take responsibility for their actions
- people move from autonomous state to agentic state when confronted with an authority figure
-this person has power because of their social standing and shift from autonomy to ‘agent’ this is called the agentic shift
-binding allows pple to minimise and ignore the damaging effects of their behaviour do reduce the ‘moral strain’ they are feeling e.g shifting blame to victim
A01- explanations of obedience -legitimacy of authority
-we are more likely to obey those we perceive have authority over us and is justifies by the individuals position of power within social heirarchy
-one of the consequences of legitimacy of is some people are granted the power to punish there’s ie police and prison -
-so we hand over control of our behaviour to people we trust to excerise our authority
-however hirstiy has shown us that powerful leaders like hitler can use legtitmacy of authority for destructive purposes
- ‘destrtive authority’ was shown in milgrams study when the experimenter used prods ro order the pts to behave in ways that went against their conscience
AO3- explanations of obedience- strength research -legitimate Authority
-glass and Schmitt showed students a film of milgrams study and asked them to identify who was responsible for harm to the learning
-found that students blamed the experimenter rather than ps du to legitimate authority , experimenter being at top if he hierarchy and students believe ding the ps were agents of authority
-a strength as students recognised legitimate authority as cause of obedience supporting explanation
A03- explanation of obedience- strength milgrams research -agentic state
- in a variation to his study the researcher was placed in a different room to the ps
-rather than giving orders face to face ps were instructed to administer shocks over the phone
-this resulted in a dramatic fall in obedience from 65% to 21%
-shows that without the presence of an authority figure ps had shifted to an automonus state
-now saw themselves as responsible for their actions resulting in a fall for obedience
-strength as it supports view that obedience increases when in agentic state and decreases in autmonus state
A03- explanation of obedience- weakness - evidence does not support agentic state
-there is research evidence to show obedience is not always due to being in an agentic shit
-Mandel describes one incident where nazis were ordered to shoot civilians in a small town in Poland
-this was despite the fact that they did not have direct orders to do so, they were told that they could be assigned to other duties of they preferred
-this suggests that dispostiotnal factors may also play a role in explanaing obedience
-although milgram believed that the agentic state best explained his findings he did concede that some individuals are just plain cruel and will use a situation to satisfy Their sadistic impulses
- a weakness as the explanation may be. Limited and cannot account for why only some people shift to the agentic state while others do not
A03- explanation of obedience- strength variations -legitimacy of authority
-found ps were more likely to obey researcher (authority figure) when the research took place in the prestegious setting of Yale uni (65% ) compared to everyday setting of run down offices (47.5%)
-strength as is suggest we obey cause we perceive that the authority figure has treated legitimate authority and social power
- also bickman found that when he asked passers y in nw York to lend money to a stranger for a parking meter they would obey 49% of the Rome when we has dressed in street clothes but it increased to 92% when in a security guards uniform.
AO1 discuss authoritarian personality obedience -adorno
-investigated obedient personality
-administered the F-scale to 2000 middle class, white Americans
-scale measure AP in which an individual has to agree/disagree with a series of statements looking at their views on ethnic/religious minorities, politics, economics and morals
-Adorno found that ppl with a high f scale score identify with strong people/people with a higher status showing respect to them and are disrespectful of the weak
-suggesting those with AP are more likely to obey because of their respect for those superior to them
AO1 discuss authoritarian personality obedience - respectful
- authoritarian charactersistics include an individual being extremely respectful and obedien towards people of authority and are dismissive of those inferior to them seeing them as weak
- they have a strong need for a leader to enforce trad laws and have convential attitudes towards sex race and gender so therefore more likely to be racism and sexist
- individuals are about as black and white thinking as they cannot deal with uncertainty and being flexible
AO1 discuss authoritarian personality obedience- formed
- formed in childhood as a result of harsh strict parenting in which high standards are placed upon them and criticised for failing
- conditions of worth are placed upon them meaning as children they did not receive unconditional love from parents but instead provided with love of they met they parents standards
-e.g getting an A - scapegoating occurs as a result of ll the behaviours the parents display to them this results in the individual displacing feelings onto people they perceive as weaker than them
AO3 discuss authoritarian personality obedience limitation —methodology
- one flaw ss f scale has been crtsised as being open to acquiescence bias in which individuals merely agree with all questions
- this question’s reliability of findings and may have been merely someone acquesicing and not answering the level of agreement truthfully
-social desirability bias may have also occurs because the ps wanted to provide socially expectable answers that they believed were socially ‘correct’ and made them fit in with the people
around them
-therefore a weakness as the findings lack validity
AO3 discuss authoritarian personality obedience limits sample— weakness
-another limitation of Adorno’s study is it was a limited sample
-he used all white Americans from middle class backgrounds
-means his sample was unrepresentative of the wider population and therefore the results like external validity as they cannot be generalised to other people all over the world and of different social classes
- therefore it is flawed in its methodology as any supporting evidence is insufficient as it makes it the lack validity in that the results may have come from confounding variables
AO3 discuss authoritarian personality obedience -strength supporting research
-milgram and elms conducted interviews with a small sample of obedient ps who scored highly on the f scale believing that there may be a link between obedience and AP found that those who scored hight on f scale obeyed more
Therefore a strength as it increases the validity if the study in those with AP are more likely to tobey to those they perceive have a high social status
-however his is a correlation as it impossible to draw the conclusion that AP causes obedience we only know that the two factors are linked.
A01- resistance to social influence
-refers to the ability of people to withstand the social pressures to conform to majority or obey authority and this is influenced by both situatuionl and dispositional factors
-the two explanations are social support and locus of control
A01- resistance to social influence- social support
-refers to the presence of People to resist pressures to obey or conform as they act as a model to help people do the same
-pressure to conform is reduced if there are other people who are not conforming
-ash’s research shows that the dissenter does not have to give a right answer just one not the majority picks
- allowing others to follow their own conscience acting as a ‘model’
- Asch does how its. Not longer term as if the dissenter starts to conform with the group again, so will the participant
-in milgrams variation obedience dropped to 10% from 65% when disobedient confeds were introduces acting as a model for others to copy
A01- resistance to social influence- locus of control
-refers to an individuals perception about undying main causes of events in their lives
- those with an internal locus of control (ILOC) hvae a high level of personal control
-take responsibility of their. Own actions, are achievement orientated and resist pressure from others
-those woth an external locus of control (ELOC) Believe life is determined by external factors such as fate and luck, are more infulenced by others and do not take responsibility over decisions
-most are places on a continuum scale between internal and external external, most people aren’t purely internal or external
-those with high internal (LOC) are more likely to resist pressures to conform or obey as they are more self assured and take responsibility so they are more likely to base decisions based on their own beliefs
