Social Influence Flashcards
Conformity
Refers to a type of social influence where an individuals attitudes, opinions and/or behaviour are affected by the attitudes, opinions and / or behaviour of the group. Influence is caused by group pressure to follow the group norms.
Discuss research into variables affecting conformity including group size unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by asch
Asch used a labatory experiment to research conformity where confederates deliberately gave the wrong answer to see of the naive participant conformed.
The correct answer was unambiguous. Asch used 123 American male students.
Showed 75% of participants conformed at least once to the incorrect answerin the critical trials, there was a conformity of 32%.
To investigate group size, ash varied the number of confederates used.it was shown that conformity rates were 32% with 3 confederates but did not increase much more with confederates and tended to plateau.
To investigate unanimity, ash made one confederate disagree with the other confederates answers on occasions.in this variation, the conformity rate dropped to 5.5% when the confederate gave the correct answer and 9% when the conforming confederate gave a different wrong answer.
To investigate task difficulty asch makes the lines more similar in length and found conformity rates increased whereas when the correct answer was obvious the levels decreased.
3 types of conformity
Internalisation. -
- Deep type of conformity.
- Change public and private views and isn’t dependent on the presence of the group.
- most permanent type of conformity
- linked to informational social influence.
Identification
- moderate type of conformity
-change your public and private views because you value being part of that group.
- when you leave the group, the views aren’t maintained.
Compliance
- superficial type of conformity
- you change your public but not private opinions
-Views and/or behaviour to fit in.
- only lasts as long as the group is present.
2 explanations of conformity.
Informational social influence - where someone conforms because they don’t know what to do but they want it to be correct, they follow the majority because they assume they know the right thing. Tends to involve internalisation
Normative social influence - someone conforms because they want to be liked and accepted by the group. May publicly agree but privately disagree. Also known as compliance.
3 variables that affect conformity
Group size. Asch varied the number of confederates used.it was shown that conformity rates were 32% with 3 confederates but didn’t increase much with more confederates and tended to plateau.
Unanimity -asch made one confederate disagree with the other confederates on occasions.in this variation the conformity rate dropped to 5.5% when the confederate gave the correct answer and 9% when the non-conforming confederate gave a different wrong answer.
Task difficulty -asch made the lines more similar in length and found conformity rates increased whereas the correct answer was obvious the levels decreased.
Obedience rates.
-Research in run down building. 47.5% location
-experimenter in everyday clothes. 20% uniform
-teacher and learner in same room. 40% proximity
-teacher forced hand onto electric shock plate. 30% proximity
-varied giving instructions to teacher by phone. 20.5% proximity
Situational variables
-Proximity, location, uniform.
Location- refers to where the order is given
Rates dropped to 47.5% when in an old building
Uniform- symbolic of authority
Rates dropped to 20% when in ordinary clothes
Proximity- relates to the distance between the authoritive figure and the person receiving the order.
Rates dropped to 40% when teacher and learner was in the same room
Discuss research into conformity to social roles as investigated by zimbardo.
Role playing exercise to simulate prison life. 24 male uni student volunteers deemed emotionally stable after extensive psychological testing, were selected to either play the role of guards or prisoners. They were randomly assigned to their roles.the study aimed to find out whether prison guard brutality was due to the personalities or the situation they were in. To increase the realism, prisoners were arrested in their homes, strip searched and only referred to as their prison number
The guards conformed to their perceived roles to such an extent that the study was discontinued after 6 days. This was because of the way the guards were acting, the prisoners rebelled within 2 days by ripping their uniform and swearing. One went on a hunger strike. Concluded that people readily conform to social roles and these roles shape attitudes and behavior. The prison chaplain acted more as it he was In a prison than a psychological experiment.
Discuss milgrams research into obedience
- the participant was asked to carry out an unjust order. The participant was deceived into playing the part of a teacher who was asked to carry out an unjust order by the researcher.
- the order was to give out electric shocks in 15 volt increments to a learner (accomplice).
- it continued until the teacher refused to shock or 450 volts was reached. Debriefing was done afterwards
- conducted at Yale university and involved 40 male participants aged between 20 and 50. The shocks were not real
- 100% of participants went up to 300 volts and 65% went to 450 volts
- 12.5% stopped at 300 volts labelled ‘ intense shock ‘.
- milgram concluded that the ‘Germans are different ‘ hypothesis is clearly wrong as it showed ordinary Americans would obey authoritative orders and they will open orders against moral code.
Explanations of obedience
- Several explanations including situational factors.
- two explanations are agents state and legitimacy of authority.
- agentic state theory explains obedience in that people shift from an autonomous state where they feel they are responsible for their actions to an agentic state where they feel they are not responsible for their actions as they are the agents of others.
- agentic shift occurs due to a person perceiving someone else to be an authority figure due to their position
- binding factors are aspects of the situation that allow the individual to minimise the effect of their behaviour and explain why people stay in agentic state even when they don’t want to.
Legitimacy of authority. Is another explanation for obedience.it is where the person giving the order is seen to have the right to do so, for example a request from a policeman or a teacher. We learn from parents that some people have the authority to punish us and so are willing to give up some of our independence.
As most societies are structured in a hierarchal way it means that the power that the likes of parents, teachers etc is agreed by society.
Legitimate authority can also be destructive authority such as when charismatic leaders abuse their power such as Hitler or as in milgrams study when the experimenter used prods to go against the participants conscience.
Dispositional explanation of obedience.
- Disposition explanation suggests that it is the individuals personality characteristics which best explain obedience rather than situation variables.
- A person with the authoritarian personality whilst being particularly obedient and submissive to those people of perceived higher status is also dismissive of inferiors.
- such individuals typically hold views which are rigid, conformist, conventional or dogmatic. Adorno argues people with an authoritarian personality have an inflexible outlook and see no ‘grey areas ‘ and everything is either right or wrong.
- A psychodynamic explanation of attachment is used by Adorno to explain how the authoritarian personality develops. According to this explanation, the personality originates in childhood through a strict or rigid upbringing and conditional love.
- this leads to hostility which is displaced onto others who are viewed as inferior.
- those who ave perceived to be weaker are scapegoated as the child cannot express their feelings directly towards their parents due to fear of reprisals.
Strengths and weakness of variables affecting conformity
- Child of its time.
When Perrin and Spencer repeated this experiment they didn’t find such high levels of conformity. - AsCh’s task was artificial.
Criticised for not being a valid measure of real life conformity.
+ lab experiment, good because extraneous variables are controlled.
Partly due to this, Asch’s method for studying conformity have become accepted way of studying conformity by psychologists known as a paradigm.
Strengths and weakness of explanations for conformity.
-Criticised because they don’t explain why people conform even when the group doesn’t exist.
Study of teenage boys,tajfel found boys consistently allocated rewards to their own group at the expense of others when they could gain more by allocating equal amounts.
+ can be supported. Ash repeated his experiment and asked participants to write down their answers.in doing so conformity rates fell to 12.5% which would further his NSI explanation.
Strengths and weakness for conformity into social roles by zimbardo
+ evaluated positively in terms of control.
Participants tested to be emotionally stable after extensive psychological testing and randomly assigned to prison guard or prisoner sole.
- criticised in terms of ethical issues.
Caused humiliation and distress to the participants.
Strengths and weakness of milgrams research into obedience
-Unethical because some were psychologically harmed. Some participants were seen to sweat, tremble and shake with the stress and some had seizures.
- baumrind believed that milgrams procedure couldn’t be justified as it had potential of causing long term harm. According to baumrind ore to the insufficient respect shown to the participants and inadequacy of the steps taken to protect them.
+it can also be defended.84% felt glad that they are participated
