Social Influence Flashcards
(110 cards)
1
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Define Conformity
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A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or group of people.
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Types of conformity: Define Internalisation- Kelman
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A deep type of conformity where we take on the majority view because we accept it as correct. It leads to a far-reaching and permanent change in behaviour, even when the group is absent.
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Types of conformity: Define Identification- Kelman
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A moderate type of conformity where we act in the same way with the group because we value it and want to be part of it. But we don’t necessarily agree with everything, the majority believes.
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Types of conformity: Define Compliance- Kelman
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A superficial and temporary type of conformity where we outwardly go along with the majority view but privately disagree with it. The change in our behaviour only lasts as long as the group is monitoring us.
5
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Define Normative Social Influence (NSI)
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An explanation of conformity what says we agree with the opinion of the majority because we want to gain social approval and be liked. This may lead to compliance.
6
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Define Informational Social Influence (ISI)
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An explanation of conformity that says we agree
7
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Explanations for conformity: Deutsch and Gerard developed a two-way process, arguing that there are 2 main reasons people conform. The need to be right (ISI) and the need to be liked (NSI).
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ISI- is about who has the better info-you or the rest of the group. Often, we are uncertain about what behaviours or beliefs are right or wrong. For example, you may not know the answer to a question in class. But if most of your class gives one answer, you accept it because you feel they are likely to be right. We follow the behaviour of the group (the majority) because we want to be right. ISI is a cognitive process because it is to do with what you think. It leads to a permanent change in opinion/behaviour (internalisation).
ISI is most likely to happen in situations that are new to a person (so you don’t know what is right) or where there is some ambiguity \9so it isn’t clear what is right). It also occurs in crisis situations where decisions have to be made quickly, and we assume that the group is more likely to be right.
8
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Explanations for conformity: Deutsch and Gerard developed a two-way process, arguing that there are 2 main reasons people conform. The need to be right (ISI) and the need to be liked (NSI).
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NSI is about norms, i.e. what is ‘normal’. Norms regulate the behaviour of groups and individuals, so it is not surprising that we pay attention to them. People do not like to appear foolish and prefer to gain social approval rather than be rejected. So NSI is an emotional rather than a cognitive process. It leads to a temporary change in opinions/behaviour (compliance).
NSI is likely to occur in situations with strangers where you may feel concerned about rejection. It may also occur with people you know because we are most concerned about the social approval of our friends. It may be more pronounced in stressful situations (than non-stressful situations) where people have a greater need for social support.
9
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Conformity: Types and explanations: Evaluation (Research support for NSI)
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One strength of NSI is that evidence supports is as an explanation of conformity. For example, when Asch (1951) interviewed his participants, some said they conformed because they felt self-conscious giving the correct answer and they were afraid of disapproval. When participants wrote their answers down, conformity fell to 12.5%. This is because giving answers privately meant there was no normative group pressure.
This shows that at least some conformity is due to desire not to be rejected by the group for disagreeing with them.
10
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Conformity: Types and explanations: Evaluation (Research support for ISI)
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Another strength is that there is research evidence to support ISI from the study by Lucas et al. (2006).
Lucas et al. found that participants conformed more often to incorrect answers they were given when the maths problems were difficult. This is because when the problems were easy, the participants ‘knew their own minds’ but when problems were hard, the situation became ambiguous (unclear). The participants did not want to be wrong, so they relied on the answers they were given.
This shows that ISI is a valid explanation of conformity because the results are what ISI would predict.
11
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Conformity: Types and explanations: Evaluation (Counterpoint for support for ISI)
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However, it is often unclear whether is it NSI or ISI at work in research studies (or in real life). For example, Asch (1955) found that conformity is reduced when there i one other dissenting participant. The dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (because they provide social support) or they may reduce the power of ISI (because they provide an alternative source of social information). Both interpretations are possible.
Therefore, it is hard to separate ISI and NSI and both processes probably operate together in most real-world conformity situations.
12
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Conformity: Types and explanations: Evaluation (Individual differences in NSI)
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One limitation is that NSI does not predict conformity in every case. Some people are greatly concerned with being liked by others. Such people are called nAffiliators-they have a strong need for ‘affiliation’ (i.e. they want to relate to other people). McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that students who were nAffiliators were more likely to conform.
This shows that NSI underlies conformity for some people more than it does for others. There are individual differences in conformity that cannot be fully explained by one general theory of situational pressures.
13
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Define Group size
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Asch increased the size of the group by adding more confederates, thus increasing the size of the majority. Conformity increased with the group size, but only up to a point, levelling off when the majority was greater than three.
14
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Define Unanimity
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The extent to which all the members of a group agree. In Asch’s studies, the majority was unanimous when all the confederates selected the same comparison line. This produced the greatest degree of conformity in the naive participants.
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Define Task Difficulty
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Asch’s line - judging task is more difficult when it becomes harder to work out the correct answer. Conformity increased because naive participants assume that the majority is more likely to be right.
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Standard and comparison lines)
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123 American men were tested, each one in a group with other apparent participants. Each participant saw 2 large white cards on each trial. The line X on the left-hand card is the standard line. The lines A, B and C are the three comparison lines. One of the comparison lines is always clearly the same length as X, the other 2 are substantially different (i.e. clearly wrong). On each trial the participants had to say (out loud) which of the comparison lines was the same length as the standard line X.
17
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Physical arrangement of the participants in the study)
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The participants were tested in groups of 6 to 8. Only one was a genuine (naive) participant, always seated either last or next to last in the group. The others were all confederates of Asch. They all gave the same (incorrect) scripted answers each time. The genuine participant did not know the others were ‘fake’ participants.
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Baseline findings)
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On average, the genuine participants agreed with confederates’ incorrect answers 36.8% of the time (i.e. they conformed about a third of the time). There were individual differences, 25% of the participants never gave a wrong answer (i.e. never conformed).
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (introduction)
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Asch (1951) devised a procedure to assess to what extent people will conform to the opinion of others, even in a situation where the answer is certain (i.e. unambiguous). It’s called the ‘baseline’ study because it is the one against which all the later studies are compared.
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Variables investigated by Asch- Group size)
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Asch wanted to know whether the size of the group would be more important than the agreement of the group. To test this, he varied the number of confederates from 1 to 15. Asch found a curvilinear relationship between group size and conformity rate. Conformity increased with group size, but only up to a point. With three confederates, conformity to the wrong answer rose to 31.8%. But the presence of more confederates made little difference- the conformity rate soon levelled off.
This suggests that most people are very sensitive to the views of others because just one or two confederates was enough to sway opinion.
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Variables investigated by Asch- Unanimity)
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Asch wondered if the presence of a non-conforming person would affect the naive participant’s conformity. He introduced a confederate who disagreed with the other confederates. In one variation of the study this person gave the correct answer, and, in another variation, he gave a (different) wrong one. The genuine participant conformed less often in the presence of a dissenter. The rate decreased to less than a quarter of the level it was when the majority was unanimous. The presence of a dissenter appeared to free the naive participant to behave more independently. This was true even when the dissenter disagreed with the genuine participant.
This suggests that the influence of the majority depends to a large extent on it being unanimous. And that non-conformity is more likely when cracks are perceived in the majority’s unanimous view.
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Variables investigated by Asch- Task difficulty)
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Asch wanted to know whether making the task harder would affect the degree of conformity. He increased the difficulty of the line- judging task by making the stimulus line and the comparison lines more similar to each other in length. This meant it became harder for the genuine participants to see the differences between the lines.
Asch found that conformity increased. It may be that the situation is more ambiguous when the task becomes harder- it is unclear to the participants what the right answer is. In these circumstances, it is natural to look to other people for guidance and to assume that they are right, and you are wrong (called Informational Social Influence).
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Evaluation: Artificial situation and task)
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One limitation of Asch’s research is that the task and situation were artificial. Participants knew they were in a research study and may simply have gone along with what was expected (demand characteristics). The task of identifying lines was relatively trivial and therefore there was really no reason not to conform. Also, according to Fiske (2014, Asch’s groups were not very groupy’, i.e. they did not really resemble groups that we experience in everyday life. This means the findings do not generalise to real -world situations, especially those where the consequences of conformity might be important.
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Conformity (Asch’s research) : Asch’s baseline procedure (Evaluation: Limited Application)
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Another limitation is that Asch’s participants were American men. Other research suggests that women may be more conformist, possibly because they are concerned about social relationships and being accepted (Neto 1995). Furthermore, the US is an individualist culture (i.e. where people are more concerned about themselves rather than their social groups). Similar conformity studies conducted in collectivist cultures (such as China where the social group is more important than the individual) have found that conformity rates are higher (Bond and Smith 1996).
This means that Asch’s findings tell us little about conformity in women and people from some cultures.
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Conformity (Asch's research) : Asch's baseline procedure (Evaluation: Research support)
One strength of Asch's research is support from other studies for the effects of task difficulty.
For example, Lucas et al. (2006) asked their participants to solve 'easy' and hard' maths problems. Participants were given answers from 3 other students (not actually real). The participants conformed more often (i.e. agreed with the wrong answers) when the problems were harder.
This shows Asch was correct in claiming that task difficulty is one variable that affects conformity.
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Conformity (Asch's research) : Asch's baseline procedure (Evaluation: Counterpoint for Research support)
However, Lucas et al.'s study found that conformity is more complex than Asch suggested. Participants with high confidence in their maths abilities conformed less on hard tasks than those with low confidence.
This shows that an individual- level factor influence conformity by interacting with situational variables (e.g. task difficulty). But Asch did not research the roles of individual factors.
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Conformity (Asch's research) : Asch's baseline procedure (Evaluation: ethical issues)
Asch's research increased the knowledge of why people conform, which may help avoid mindless destructive conformity.
The naive participants were deceived because they though the other people involved in the procedure (the confederates) were also genuine participants like themselves.
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Conformity to social roles: Define social roles
The 'parts' people play as members of various social groups. Everyday examples include parent, child, student, passenger and so on. These are accompanied by expectations we and others have of what is appropriate behaviour in each role, for example caring, obedient, industrious, etc.
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Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo'z research
In the 19670s, Zimbardo and colleagues conducted one of the most memorable studies in psychology. There had been many prison riots in America and Zimbardo wanted to know why prison guards behave brutally.
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Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo’z research (The stanford prison experiment- SPE)
Zimbardzo et al. (1973) set up a mock prison in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University. They selected 21 men (student volunteers) who tested as 'emotionally stable'. The students were randomly assigned to play the role of prison guard or prisoner. Prisoners and guards were encouraged to conform to social roles both through the uniforms they wore and also instructions about their behaviour.
Uniforms- The prisoners were given a loose smock to wear and a cap to cover their hair, and they were identified by number (their names were never used). The guards had their own uniform reflecting the status of their role, with wooden club, handcuffs and mirror shades. These uniforms created a loss of personal identity (called de- individuation), and meant they would be more likely to conform to the perceived social role.
Instructions about behaviour- The prisonerswere further encouraged to identify with their role by several procedures. For example rather than leaving the study early, prisoners could 'apply for parole'. The guards were encouraged to play their role by being reminded that they had complete power over the prisoners.
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Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo’s research (Findings related to social roles)
The guards took up their social roles with enthusiasm, treating the prisoners harshly. Within 2 days, the prisoners rebelled with fire extinguishers.
The guards used 'divide-and-rule' tactics by playing the prisoners off against each other. They harassed the prisoners constantly, to remind them of the powerlessness of their role. For example, the conducted frequent headcounts, sometimes at night, when the prisoners would stand in line and call out their numbers. The gaurds highlighted the differences in social roles by creating opportunities to enforce the rules and administer punishments.
After their rebellion was put down, the prisoners became subdued, depressed and anxious. One was released because he showed symptoms of psychological disturbance. Two more were released on the 4th day. One prisoner went on a hunger strike. The guards tried to force-feed him and then punished him by putting him in 'the hole', a tiny dark closet. The guards identified more and more closely with their role. Their behaviour became increasingly brutal and aggressive, with some of them appearing to enjoy the power they had over the prisoners. Zimbardo ended the study after six days instead of the intended 14.
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Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo’s research (Conclusions related to social roles)
Social roles appeared to have strong influence on individuals' behaviour. The guards became brutal, and the prisoners became submissive. Such roles were very easily taken on by all participants. Even volunteers who came in to perform specific functions (such as the 'prison chaplain') found themselves behaving as if they were in a prison rather than in a psychological study.
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Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo’s research (Evaluation: Control)
One strength of the SPE is that Zimbardo and his colleagues had control over key variables.
The most obvious example of this was the selection of participants. Emotionally- stable individuals were chosen and randomly assigned to the roles of guard and prisoner. This was one way in which the researchers ruled out individual personality differences as an explanation of the findings. If guards and prisoners behaved very differently, but were in those roles only by chance, then their behaviour must have been due to the role itself.
This degree of control over variables increased the internal validity of the study, so we can be much more confident in drawing conclusions about the influence of roles on conformity.
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Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo’s research (Evaluation: Counterpoint to Lack of realism)
However, McDermott argues that the participant did behave as if the prison was real to them. For example, 90% of the prisoners' conversations were about prison life. Amongst themselves, they discussed how it was impossible to leave the SPE before their 'sentences' were over. 'Prisoner 416' later explained how he believed the prison was a real one, but run by psychologists rather than the government.
This suggests that the SPE did replicate the social roles of prisoners and guards in a real prison, giving the study a high degree of internal validity.
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Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo’s research (Evaluation: Lack of realism)
One limitation of the SPE is that it did not have the realism of a true prison.
Researchers argued the participants were merely play-acting rather than genuinely conforming to a role. Participants' performances were based on their stereotypes of how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave. For example, one of the guards claimed he had based his role on a brutal character from the film Cool Hand Luke. This would also explain why the prisoners rioted- they thought that was what real prisoners did.
This suggests that the findings of the SPE tell us little about conformity to social roles in actual prisons.
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Conformity to social roles: Zimbardo’s research (Evaluation: Exaggerates the power of roles)
Another limitation is that Zimbardo may have exaggerated the power of social roles to influence behaviour (Fromm 1973).
For example, only 0ne-third of the guards actually behaved in a brutal manner. Another third tried to apply the rules fairly. The rest actively tried to help and support the prisoners. They sympathised, offered cigarettes and reinstated privileges (Zimbardo 2007). Most guards were able to resist situational pressures to conform to a brutal role.
This suggests that Zimbardo overstated his view that SPE participants were conforming to social roles and minimised the influence of dispositional factors (e.g. personality).
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Obedience: Define Obedience
A form of social influence in which an individual follows a direct order. The person issuing the order is usually a figure of authority, who has the power to punish when obedient behaviour is not forthcoming.
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Obedience: Milgram's research (intro)
Milgram (1963) designed a baseline procedure that could be used to assess obedience levels. This procedure was adapted in later variations by Milgram and the baseline findings were used to make comparisons.
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Obedience: Milgram's research (Baseline Procedure)
Milgram's participants were men (aged 20-50 years) who came from the area around New Haven, Connecticut, USA. They were volunteers recruited through a newspaper advert or mailshot, and were paid $4.50 for participating. The Learner (Called 'Mr Wallace') was strapped into a chair and wired up with electrodes. The Teacher (the real participant) was given a small shock to experience for themselves. This was the only genuine shock in the procedure.
The Learner had to remember pairs of words. Each time he made an error, the Teacher delivered a stronger (fake) 'electric shock' by pressing switched on a 'shock machine'. The switches were labelled from 'slight shock' through 'intense shock' to 'danger-sever shock'. When the Teacher got to 300 volts the Learner pounded on the wall and then gave no response to the next question. At 315 volts he again pounded on the wall but was them silent for the rest of the procedure.
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Obedience: Milgram's research (Baseline findings)
Every participant delivered all the shocks up to 300 volts. 12.5% (5 participants) stopped at 300 volts ('intense shock') and 65% continued to the highest level of 450 volts, i.e. they were fully obedient.
Milgram also collected qualitative data including observations such as: the participants showed signs of extreme tension; many of them were seen to 'sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan and dig their fingernails into their hands'; 3 even had a 'full- blown uncontrollable seizures'.
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Obedience: Milgram's research (other data)
Before the study, Milgram asked 14 psychology students to predict the participants' behaviour. The students estimated that no more than 3% of the participants would continue to 450 volts. This shows that the findings were unexpected- the students underestimated how obedient people actually are.
All participants in the baseline study were debriefed and assured that their behaviour was entirely normal. They were also sent a follow-up questionnaire where 84% said they were glad to have participated.
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Obedience: Milgram's research (Conclusions)
Milgram concluded that German people are not 'different'. The American participants in his study were willing to obey orders even when they might harm another person. He suspected there were certain factors in the situation that encouraged obedience, so decided to conduct further studies to investigate these .
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Obedience: Milgram's research (Evaluation: Research support)
One strength is that Milgram's findings were replicated in a French documentary that was made about reality TV.
This documentary (Beauvois et al. 2012) focused on a game show made especially for the programme. The participants in the 'game' believed they were contestants in a pilot episode for a new show called Le jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death). They were paid to give (fake) electric shocks (ordered by the presenter) to other participants (who were actually actors) in front of a studio audience. 80% of the participants delivered the maximum shock of 460 volts to an apparently unconscious man. Their behaviour was almost identical to that of Milgram's participants- nervous laughter, nail- biting and other signs of anxiety.
This supports Milgram's original findings about obedience to authority, and demonstrates that the findings were not just due to special circumstances.
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Obedience: Milgram's research (Evaluation: Low internal Validity)
One limitation is that Milgram's procedure may not have been testing what he intended to test.
Milgram reported that 75% of his participants said they believed the shocks were genuine. However, Orne and Holland (1968) argued that participants behaved as they did because they didn't really believe in the set up, so they were 'play- acting'. Perry's (2013) research confirms this. She listened to tapes of Milgram's participants and reported that only about half of them believed the shocks were real. Two- thirds of these participants were disobedient.
This suggests that participants may have been responding to demand characteristics, trying to fulfil the aims of the study.
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Obedience: Milgram's research (Evaluation: Counterpoint for Low internal Validity)
However, researchers conducted a study using a procedure like Milgram's. Participants (all students) gave real shocks to a puppy in response to orders from an experimenter. Despite the real distress of the animal, 54% of the men and 100% of the women gave what they thought was a fatal shock.
This suggests that the effects in Milgram's study were genuine because people behaved obediently even when the shocks were real.
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Obedience: Milgram's research (Evaluation: Ethical issues)
The participants in this study were deceived. For example, the participants thought that the allocation of roles (Teacher and Learner) was random, but in fact it was fixed. They also thought the shocks were real. Milgram dealt with this by debriefing participants.
However, Baumrind (1964) criticised Milgram for deceiving his participants. She objected because she believed that deception in psychological studies can have serious consequences for participants and researchers.
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Obedience-Situational variables: Define Situational variables
Features of the immediate physical and social environment which may influence a person's behaviour (e.g. proximity, location and uniform). The alternative is dispositional variables where behaviour is explained in terms of personality.
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Obedience-Situational variables: Define Proximity
The physical closeness or distance of an authority figure to the person they are giving an order to. Also refers to the Physical closeness of the Teacher to the victim (Learner) in Milgram's studies.
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Obedience-Situational variables: Define Location
The place where an order is issued. The relevant factor that influences obedience is the status or prestige associated with the location.
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Obedience-Situational variables: Define Uniform
People in positions of authority often have a specific outfit that is symbolic of their authority, for example police officers and judges. This indicates that they are entitled to expect our obedience.
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Obedience-Situational variables: Proximity
In Milgram's baseline study, the Teacher could hear the Learner but not see him. In the proximity variation, Teacher and Learner were in the same room. The obedience rate dropped from the original 65% to 40%.
In the touch proximity variation, the Teacher had to force the Learner's hand onto an 'electroshock plate' if he refused to place it there himself after giving a wrong answer. Obedience dropped further to 30%.
In the remote instruction variation, the Experimenter left the room and gave instructions to the Teacher by telephone. Obedience reduced to 20.5%. The participants also frequently pretended to give shocks.
Explanation: Decreased proximity allows people to psychologically distance themselves from the consequences of their actions. For example, when the Teacher and Learner were physically separated (as in the baseline study), the Teacher was less aware of the harm they were causing to another person, so they were more obedient.
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Obedience-Situational variables: Location
Milgram conducted a variation in a run- down office block rather than in the prestigious Yale University setting of the baseline study. In this location, obedience fell to 47.5%.
Explanation: The prestigious university environment gave Milgram's study legitimacy and authority. Participants were more obedient in this location because they perceived that the Experimenter shared this legitimacy and that obedience was expected. However, obedience was still quite high in the office block because the participants perceived the 'scientific' nature of the procedure.
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Obedience-Situational variables: Uniform
In the baseline study, the Experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority (a kind of uniform). In one variation, the Experimenter was called away because of an inconvenient telephone call at the start of the procedure. The role of the Experimenter was taken over by an 'ordinary member of the public' (a confederate) in everyday clothes rather than a lab coat. The obedience rate dropped to 20%, the lowest of these variations.
Explanation: Uniforms 'encourage' obedience because they are widely recognised symbols of authority. We accept that someone in a uniform is entitled to expect obedience because their authority is legitimate (i.e. it is granted by society). Someone without a uniform has less right to expect our obedience.
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Obedience-Situational variables: (Evaluation: Research support)
One strength is that other studies have demonstrated the influence of situational variables on obedience.
In a field experiment in New York, Bickman (1974) had 3 confederates dress in different outfits- Jacket and tie, a milkman's outfit and a security guard's uniform. The confederates individually stood in the street and asked passers- by to perform tasks such as picking up litter or security guard than the one dressed in jacket and tie.
This supports the view that a situational variable, such as uniform, does have a powerful effect on obedience.
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Obedience-Situational variables: (Evaluation: Cross- cultural replications)
Another strength of Milgram's research is that his findings have been replicated in other cultures. For instance, researchers used a more realistic procedure than Milgram's to study obedience in Dutch participants. The participants were ordered to say stressful things in an interview to someone (a confederate) desperate for a job. 90% of the participants obeyed. The researchers also replicated Milgram's findings concerning proximity. When the person giving the orders was not present, obedience decreased dramatically.
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Obedience-Situational variables: (Evaluation: Counterpoint Cross- cultural replications)
However, replications of Milgram's research are not very 'cross- cultural'. Smith and Bond identified just 2 replications between 1968 and 1985 that took place in India and Jordon- both countries culturally quite different from the US. Whereas the other countries involved (e.g. Spain, Australia and Scotland) are culturally quite similar to the US (e.g. they have similar notions about the role of authority).
Therefore, it may not be appropriate to conclude that Milgram's findings (including those about proximity, location and uniform) apply to people in all or most cultures.
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Obedience-Situational variables: (Evaluation: Low internal validity)
One limitation is that participants may have been aware the procedure was faked.
Orne and Holland (1968) made this criticism of Milgram's baseline study. They point out that it is even more likely in his variations because of the extra manipulation of variables. A good example is the variation where the Experimenter is replaced by a 'member of the public'. Even Milgram recognised that this situation was so contrived that some participants may well have worked out the truth.
Therefore, in all of Milgram's studies it is unclear whether the findings are genuinely due to the operation of obedience or because the participants saw through the deception and just 'play-acted' (i.e. responded to demand characteristics).
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Define Agentic state
A mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our behaviour because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure, i.e. as their agent. This frees us from the demands of our consciences and allows us to obey even a destructive authority figure.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Define Legitimacy of authority
An explanation for obedience which suggests that we are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us. This authority is justified (legitimate) by the individual's position of power within a social hierarchy.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Agentic state (Binding factors)
Milgram observed that many of his participants said they wanted to stop but seemed powerless to do so. He wondered why they remained in an agentic state. The answer is binding factors- aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the 'moral strain' they are feeling. Milgram proposed a number of strategies that the individual uses, such as shifting the responsibility
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Agentic state (Autonomous state)
The opposite of being in an agentic state is being in an autonomous state. 'Autonomy' means to be independent or free. So, a person in an autonomous state is free to behave according to their own principles and feels a sense of responsibility for their own actions.
The shift from autonomy to 'agency' is called the agentic shift. Milgram (1974) suggested that this occurs when a person perceives someone else as an authority figure. The authority figure has greater power because they have a higher position in a social hierarchy. In most social groups, when one person is in charge others defer to the legitimate authority of this person and shift from autonomy to agency.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Agentic state (Binding factors)
Milgram observed that many of his participants said they wanted to stop but seemed powerless to do so. He wondered why they remained in an agentic state. The answer is binding factors- aspects of the situation that allow the person to ignore or minimise the damaging effect of their behaviour and thus reduce the 'moral strain' they are feeling. Milgram proposed a number of strategies that the individual uses, such as shifting the responsibility to the victim or denying the damage they were doing to the victims.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Agentic state (Evaluation: Research support)
One strength is that Milgram's own studies support the role of the agentic state in obedience.
Most of Milgram's participants resisted giving the shocks at some point and often asked the Experimenter questions about the procedure. One of these was 'Who is responsible if Mr Wallace (the Learner) is harmed?' When the Experimenter replied, 'I'm responsible', the participants often went through the procedure quickly with no further objections.
This shows that once participants perceived they were no longer responsible for their own behaviour, they acted more easily as the Experimenter's agent, as Milgram suggested.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Agentic state (Evaluation: A limited explanation)
One limitation is that the agentic shift doesn't explain many research findings about obedience.
For example, it does not explain the findings of Rank and Jacobson's (1977) study. They found that 16 out of 18 hospital nurses disobeyed orders from a doctor to administer an excessive drug dose to a patient. The doctor was an obvious authority figure. But almost all the nurses remained autonomous, as did many of Milgram's participants.
This suggests that, at best, the agentic shift can only account for some situations of obedience.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Legitimacy of Authority info
Most societies are structured in a hierarchal way. This means that people in certain positions hold authority over the rest of us. For example, parents, teachers, police officers, nightclub bouncers all have authority over us at times. The authority they wield is legitimate in the sense that it is agreed by society. Most of us accept that authority figures have to be allowed to exercise social power over others because this allows society to function smoothly.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Legitimacy of Authority (Destructive Authority)
Problems arise when legitimate authority becomes destructive. History has too often shown that charismatic and powerful leaders (such as Hitler and Stalin) can use their legitimate powers for destructive purposes, ordering people to behave in ways that are cruel and dangerous. Destructive authority was obvious in Milgram's study, when the Experimenter used prods to order participants to behave in ways that went against their consciences.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Legitimacy of Authority (Evaluation: Explains cultural differences)
One strength of the legitimacy explanation is that it is a useful account of cultural differences in obedience.
Many studies show that countries differ in the degree to which people are obedient to authority. For example, Kilham and Mann (1974) found that only 16% of Australian women went all the way up to 450 volts in a Milgram- style study. However, Mantell (1971) found a very different figure for German participants- 85%.
This shows that, in some cultures, authority is more likely to be accepted as legitimate and entitled to demand obedience from individuals. This reflects the ways that different societies are structured and how children are raised to perceive authority figures.
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Obedience-Situational explanations: Legitimacy of Authority (Evaluation: Cannot explain all (dis)obedience)
One limitation is that legitimacy cannot explain instances of disobedience in a hierarchy where the legitimacy of authority is clear and accepted.
This includes the nurses in Rank and Jacobson's study. Most of them were disobedient despite working in a rigidly hierarchal authority structure. Also, a significant minority of Milgram's participants disobeyed despite recognising the Experimenter's scientific authority.
This suggests that some people may just be more (or less) obedient than others. It is possible that innate tendencies to obey or disobey have a greater influence on behaviour than the legitimacy of an authority figure.
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Obedience-Dispositional Explanation: Define Dispositional explanation
Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual's personality (i.e. their disposition). Such explanations are often contrasted with situational explanations.
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Obedience-Dispositional Explanation: Define Authoritarian Personality (AP)
A type of personality that Adorno argued was especially susceptible to obeying people in authority. Such individuals are also thought to be submissive to those of higher status and dismissive of inferiors.
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Obedience: Dispositional Explanation (Authoritarian Personality and obedience)
Adorno et al. argued that people with an Authoritarian Personality (AP) first of all show an extreme respect for (and submissiveness to) authority. Second, such people view society as 'weaker' than it once was, so believe we need strong and powerful leaders to enforce traditional values such as love of country and family. Both of these characteristics make people with an Authoritarian Personality more likely to obey orders from a source of authority.
People with Authoritarian Personality also show contempt for those of inferior social status. This is fuelled by their inflexible outlook on the world- for them there are no 'grey areas'. Everything is either right or wrong and they are very uncomfortable with uncertainty. Therefore, people who are 'other' (e.g. belong to a different ethnic group) are responsible for the ills of society. 'Other' people are a convenient target for authoritarians who are likely to obey orders from authority figures even when such orders are destructive (as in Nazi German).
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Obedience: Dispositional Explanation (Origins of the Authoritarian Personality)
Adorno et al. believed the AP type forms in childhood, mostly as a result of harsh parenting. This parenting style typically features extremely strict discipline, an expectation of absolute loyalty, impossibly high standards and severe criticism of perceived failings. Parents give conditional love- that is, their love and affection for their child depends entirely on how he or she behaves.
Adorno et al. argued that these childhood experiences create resentment and hostility in a child. But the child cannot express these feelings directly against their parents because they fear punishment. So, their fears are displaced onto others who they perceive to be weaker, in a process known as scapegoating. This explains the hatred towards people considered to be socially inferior or who belong to other social groups, a central feature of obedience to a higher authority. This is a psychodynamic explanation.
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Obedience: Dispositional Explanation (Adorno et al.'s research)
Adorno et al. (1950) studied more than 2000 middle- class, white Americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic people. The researchers developed several measurement scales, including the potential- for- fascism scale (F- scale). This scale is still used to measure AP.
One example being 'Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues for children to learn'.
Findings: people with authoritarian leanings (i.e. those who scored high on the F- scale and other measures) identified with 'strong' people and were generally contemptuous of the 'weak'. They were very conscious of status (their own and others) and showed extreme respect, defence and servility to those of higher status- these traits are the basis of obedience.
Adorno et al. also found that authoritarian people has a certain cognitive style (way of perceiving others) in which there was no 'fuzziness' between categories of people (i.e. 'black and white' thinking). They had fixed and distinctive stereotypes about other groups. Adorno et al. found a strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice.
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Obedience: Dispositional Explanation (Evaluation: Research support)
One strength is evidence from Milgram supporting the AP.
Milgram, together with Elms (Elms and Milgram), interviewed a small sample of people who had participated in the original obedience studies and been fully obedient. They all completed the F- scale (and other measures) as part of the interview. These all completed the F- scale (and other measures) as part of the interview. These 20 obedient participants scored significantly higher on the overall F- scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants. The two groups were clearly quite different in terms of authoritarianism.
This finding supports Adorno et al. 's view that obedient people may well show similar characteristics to people who have an AP.
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Obedience: Dispositional Explanation (Evaluation: Limited explanation)
One limitation is that Authoritarianism cannot explain obedient behaviour in the majority of a country's population.
For example, in pre-war Germany, millions of individuals displayed obedient and anti- Semitic behaviour. This was despite the fact that they must have differed in their personalities in all sorts of ways. It seems extremely unlikely that they could all possess an AP. An alternative view is that the majority of the German people identified with the anti-Semitic Nazi state, and scapegoated the 'outgroup' of Jews, a social identity theory approach.
Therefore, Adorno's theory is limited because an alternative explanation is much more realistic.
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Obedience: Dispositional Explanation (Evaluation: Counterpoint for Research Support)
However, when the researchers analysed the individual subscales of the F- scale, they found that the obedient participants had a number of characteristics that were unusual for authoritarians. For example, unlike authoritarians, Milgram's obedient participants generally did not glorify their fathers, did not experience unusual levels of punishment in childhood and did not have particularly hostile attitudes towards their mothers.
This means that the link between obedience and authoritarianism is complex. The obedient participants were unlike authoritarians in so many ways that authoritarianism is unlikely to be a useful predictor of obedience.
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Resistance to social influence: Define Social support
The presence of people who resist pressures to conform or obey can help others to do the same. These people act as models to show others that resistance to social influence is possible.
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Resistance to social influence: Define Resistance to social influence
Refers to the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority. This ability to withstand social pressure is influenced by both situational and dispositional factors.
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Resistance to social influence: Define Locus of control (LOC)
Refers to the sense we each have about what directs events in our lives. Internals believe they are mostly responsible for what happens to them (internal locus of control). Externals believe it is mainly a matter of luck or other outside forces (external locus of control).
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Resistance to social influence: Social support (Resisting obedience)
The pressure to obey can be resisted if there is another person who is seen to disobey. In one of Milgram's variations, the rate of obedience dropped from 65% to 10% when the genuine participant was joined by a disobedient confederate. The participant may not follow the disobedient person's behaviour, but the point is the other person's disobedience acts as a 'model' of dissent for the participant to copy and this frees him to act from his own conscience. The disobedience model challenges the legitimacy of the authority figure, making it easier for others to disobey.
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Resistance to social influence: Social support (Evaluation: Real-world research support)
One strength is research evidence for the positive effects of social support.
For example, Albrecht et al. (2006) evaluated Teen Fresh Start USA, an eight- week programme to help pregnant adolescents aged 14- 19 resist peer pressure to smoke. Social Support was provided by a slightly older mentor or 'buddy'. At the end of the programme adolescents who had a 'buddy' were significantly less likely to smoke than a control group of participants who did not have a 'buddy'.
This shows that social support can help young people resist social influence as part of an intervention in the real world.
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Resistance to social influence: Social Support (Resisting conformity)
The pressure to conform can be resisted if there are other people present who are not conforming. In Asch's research, the confederate who is not conforming may not be giving the 'right' answer.
Simply the fact that someone else is not following the majority is social support. It enables the naive participant to be free to follow their own conscience. The confederate acts as a 'model' of independent behaviour. Their dissent rise to more dissent because it shows that the majority is no longer unanimous.
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Resistance to social influence: Social support (Evaluation: Research support for dissenting peers)
Another strength is research evidence to support the role of dissenting peers in resisting obedience. Gamson et al.'s (1982) participants were told to produce evidence that would be used to help an oil company run a smear campaign. The researchers found higher levels of resistance in their study than Milgram did in his. This was probably because the participants were in groups so could discuss what they were told to do. 29 out of 33 groups of participants (88%) rebelled against their orders.
This shows that peer support can lead to disobedience by undermining the legitimacy of an authority figure.
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Resistance to social influence: Locus of control info
Rotter (1966) proposed LOC as a concept concerned with internal control versus external control. Some people have an internal LOC (internals)- they believe that the things that happen to them are largely controlled by themselves. For example, if you do well in an exam it is because you worked hard, if you don't do well, it is because you didn't work hard.
Some people have an external LOC (externals)- they tend to believe the things that happen are outside their control. So, if they did well in an exam it was because they used an excellent textbook. If they failed, they might blame it on the textbook or they had bad luck because the questions were bad.
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Resistance to social influence: Locus of control (The LOC continuum)
People are not just either internal or external. LOC is a scale, and individuals vary in their position on it. So, high internal LOC is at one end of the continuum and high external at the other. Low internal and low external lie in-between.
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Resistance to social influence: Locus of control (resistance to social influence)
People with a high internal LOC are more able to resist pressures to conform or obey. If a person takes personal responsibility for their actions and experiences (as internals do), they tend to base their decisions on their own beliefs rather than depending on the opinions of others.
Another explanation is that people with a high internal LOC tend to be more self-confident, more achievement -oriented and have higher intelligence. These traits lead to greater resistance to social influence. These are also characteristics of leaders, who have much less need for social approval than followers.
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Resistance to social influence: Locus of control (Evaluation: Research support)
One strength is research evidence to support the link between LOC and resistance to obedience.
Holland (1967) repeated Milgram's baseline study and measured whether participants were internals or externals. He found that 37% of internals did not continue to the highest shock level (i.e. they showed some residence), whereas only 23% of externals did not continue. In other words, internals showed greater resistance to authority in a Milgram-type situation.
This shows that resistance is at least partly related to LOC, which increases the validity of LOC as an explanation of disobedience.
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Resistance to social influence: Locus of control (Evaluation: Contradictory research)
One limitation is evidence that challenges the link between LOC and resistance.
For example, Twenge et al. (2004) analysed data from America locus of control studies conducted over a 40-year period (from 1960 to 2002). This is a surprising outcome. If resistance is linked to an internal locus of control is not a valid explanation of how people resist social influence.
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Minority Influence: Define Minority influence
A form of social influence in which a minority of people (sometimes just one person) persuades others to adopt their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours. Leads to internalisation or conversion, in which private attitudes are changed as well as public behaviours.
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Minority Influence: Define Consistency
Minority Influence is most effective if the minority keeps the same beliefs, both over time and between all the individuals that form the minority. Consistency is effective because it draws attention to the minority view.
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Minority Influence: Define Commitment
Minority influence is more powerful if the minority demonstrates dedication to their position, for example, by making personal sacrifices. This is effective because it shows the minority is not acting out of self-interest.
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Minority Influence: Define Flexibility
Relentless consistency could be counter-productive if it is seen by the majority as unbending and unreasonable. Therefore, minority influence is more effective if the minority show flexibility by accepting the possibility of compromise.
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Minority Influence: 1. Consistency
The minority must be consistent in their views. Over time, this consistency increases the amount of interest from other people. Consistency can take the form of agreement between people in the minority group (synchronic consistency- they're all saying the same thing), and/or consistency over time (diachronic consistency- they're been saying the same thing for some time now). A consistent minority makes other people start to rethink their own views.
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Minority Influence: 2. Commitment
The minority must demonstrate commitment to their cause or views. Sometimes minorities engage in quite extreme activities to draw attention to their views. It is important that these extreme activities present some risk to the minority because this shows greater commitment. Majority group members then pay even more attention. This is called the augmentation principle.
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Minority Influence: 3. Flexibility
Nemeth (1986) argued that consistency is not the only important factor in minority influence because it can be off-putting. Someone who is extremely consistent, who simply repeats the same old arguments and behaviours again and again may be seen as rigid, unbending and dogmatic. This approach on its own is unlikely to gain many converts to the minority position. Instead, members of the minority need to be prepared to adapt their point of view and accept reasonable and valid counterarguments. The key is to strike balance between consistency and flexibility.
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Minority Influence: Explaining the process of change
All of the 3 factors outlined make people think about the minority's view or cause.
Hearing something you already agree with doesn't usually make you stop and think. But if you hear something new, then you might think more deeply, especially if the source of this other view is consistent, committed and flexible.
It is this deeper processing which is important in the process of conversion to a different, minority viewpoint. Over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority position to the minority position. They have become 'converted'.
The more this happens, the faster the rate of conversion. This is called the snowball effect. Gradually the minority view has become the majority view and change has occurred.
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Minority Influence: (Evaluation: Research support for consistency)
One strength is research evidence demonstrating the importance of consistency.
Moscovici et al.'s blue/green study showed that a consistent minority opinion had a greater effect on changing the views of other people than an inconsistent opinion. Wood et al (1994) carried out a meta-analysis of almost 100 similar studies and found that minorities who were seen as being consistent were most influential.
This suggests that presenting a consistent view is a minimum requirement for a minority trying to influence a minority.
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Minority Influence: (Evaluation: Research support for deeper processing)
Another strength is evidence showing that a change in the majority's position does involve deeper processing of the minority's ideas.
Martin et al (2003) presented a message supporting a particular viewpoint and measured participants' agreement. One group of participants then heard a minority group agree with the initial view while another group heard a majority group agree with it. Participants were finally exposed to a conflicting view and attitudes were measured again.
People were less willing to change their opinions if they had listened to a minority group than if they had listened to a majority group.
This suggests that the minority message had been more deeply processed and had a more enduring effect, supporting the central argument about how minority influence works.
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Minority Influence: (Evaluation: Counterpoint for Research support for deeper processing)
Research studies such as Martin et al'.s make clear distinctions between the majority and the minority. Doing this is a controlled way is a strength of minority influence research. But real-world social influence situations are much more complicated. For example, majorities usually have a lot more power and status than minorities. Minorities are very committed to their causes- they have to be because they often face very hostile opposition. These features are usually absent from minority influence research- the minority is simply the smallest group.
Therefore Martin et al.'s findings are very limited in what they can tell us about minority influence in real-world situations.
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Minority Influence: (Evaluation: Artificial tasks)
One limitation of minority research is that the tasks involved are often just as artificial as Asch's line judgement task.
This includes Moscovici et al.'s task of identifying the colour of a slide. Research is therefore far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behaviour of majorities in real life. In cases such as injury decision-making and political campaigning, the outcomes are vastly more important, sometimes even literally a matter of life or death.
This means findings of minority influence studies are lacking in external validity and are limited in what they can tell us about how minority influence works in real-world social situations.
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Minority Influence: The blue-green slides
Moscovici et al. (1969) demonstrated minority influence in a study where a group of 6 people was asked to view a set of 36 blue-coloured slides that varied in intensity and then state whether the slides were blue and green. In each group there were 2 confederates who consistently said the slides were green. The true participants gave the same wrong answer (green) on 8.42% of the trials, i.e. agreed with the confederates.
A second group of participants was exposed to an inconsistent minority (the confederates said 'green' 24 times and 'blue' 12 times). In this case, agreement with the answer 'green' fell to 1.25%. For a third control group there were no confederates, and all participants had to do was identify the colour of each slide. They got this wrong on just 0.25% of the trials.
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Social influence and social change: Define Social Influence
The process by which individuals and groups change each other's attitudes and behaviours. Includes conformity, obedience and minority influence.
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Social influence and social change: Define Social Change
This occurs when whole societies, rather than just individuals, adopt new attitudes, beliefs and ways of doing things. Examples include accepting that the Earth orbits the Sun, women's suffrage, gay rights and environmental issues.
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Social influence and social change: Social change (Lessons from minority influence research)
How minority social influence creates social change by looking at a real-world example of the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
(1) Drawing attention through social proof- In the 1950s, black and white segregation applied to all parts of America. There were black neighbourhoods and, in the southern states of America, places such as certain schools and restaurants were exclusive to whites. The civil rights marches of this period drew attention to this situation, providing social proof of the problem.
(2) Consistency- Civil rights activists represented a minority of the American population, but their position remained consistent. Millions of people took part in many marches over several years, always presenting the same non-aggressive messages.
(3) Deeper processing of the issue- the activism meant that many people who had simply accepted the status quo began to think deeply about the unjustness of it.
(4) The augmentation principle- Individuals risked their lives numerous times, for example the 'freedom riders' were mixed ethnic groups who boarded buses in the south, challenging racial segregation of transport. Many freedom riders were beaten. This personal risk indicates a strong belief and reinforces (or augments) their message.
(5) The snowball effect- Activists (e.g. Martin Luther King) gradually got the attention of the US government. More and more people backed the minority position. In 1964 the US Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination, marking a change from minority to majority support for civil rights.
(6) Social cryptomnesia- (people have a memory that change has occurred but don't remember how it happened)- Social change clearly did come about so the south is quite a different place now. But some people have no memory (cryptomnesia) of the events that led to that change.
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Social influence and social change: Social change (Lessons from conformity research)
Asch highlighted the importance of dissent in one of his variations in which one confederate gave correct answers throughout the procedure. This broke the power of the majority, encouraging others to do likewise. Such dissent has the potential to ultimately lead to social change.
A different approach is one used by environmental and health campaigns which exploit conformity processes by appealing to normative social influence. They do this by providing information about what other people are doing. Examples include reducing litter by printing normative messages on litter bins and preventing young people from taking up smoking (telling them that most other young people do not smoke). In other words, social change is encouraged by drawing attention to what the majority are actually doing.
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Social influence and social change: Social change (Lessons from obedience research)
Milgram's research clearly demonstrates the importance of disobedient role models. In the Variation where a confederate Teacher refuses to give shocks to the Learner, the rate of obedience in the genuine participants plummeted.
Zimbardo (2007) suggested how obedience can be used to create social change through the process of gradual commitment. Once a small instruction is obeyed, it becomes much more difficult to resist a bigger one. People essentially 'drift' into a new kind of behaviour.
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Social influence and social change: Social change (Evaluation: Research support for normative influences)
One strength is that research has shown that social influence processes based on psychological research do work.
Nolan et al. (2008) aimed to see if they could change people's energy-use habits. The researchers hung messages on the front doors of houses in San Diego, California every week for one month. The key message was that most residents were trying to reduce their energy usage. As a control, some residents had a different message that just asked them to save energy but made no reference to other people's behaviour. There were significant decreases in energy usage in the first group compared to the second.
This shows that conformity (majority influence) can lead to social change through the operation of normative social influence, i.e. it is a valid explanation.
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Social influence and social change: Social change (Evaluation: Counterpoint for Research support for normative influences)
However, some studies show that people's behaviour is not always changed through exposing them to social norms. Foxcroft et al. (2015) reviewed social norms interventions as part of the 'gold standard' Cochrane Collaboration. This review included 70 studies where the social norms approach was used to reduce student alcohol use. The researchers found only a small reduction in drinking quantity and no effect on drinking frequency.
Therefore, it seems that using normative influence does not always produce long-term social change.
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Social influence and social change: Social change (Evaluation: Minority influence explains change)
Another strength is that psychologists can explain how minority influence brings about social change.
Nemeth (2009) claims social change is due to the type of thinking that minorities inspire. When people consider minority arguments, they engage in divergent thinking. This type of thinking is broad rather than narrow, in which the thinker actively searches for information and weighs up more options. Nemeth argues this leads to better decisions and more creative solutions to social issues.
This shows why dissenting minorities are valuable- they stimulate new ideas and open minds in a way that majorities cannot.
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Social influence and social change: Social change (Evaluation: Role of deeper processing)
One limitation is that deeper processing may not play a role in how minorities bring about social change.
Some people are supposedly converted because they think more deeply about the minority's views. Mackie (1987) disagrees and presents evidence that it is majority influence that may create deeper processing if you do not share their views. This is because we like to believe that other people share our views and think in the same ways as us. When we find that a majority believes something different, then we are forced to think long and hard about their arguments and reasoning.
This means that a central element of minority influence has been challenged, casting doubt on its validity as an explanation of social change.
