Social influence Flashcards
What is conformity?
A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions in response to pressure from others
What is internalisation?
To genuinely accept a groups’ norms in private, public and permanent change of opinions and behaviours
What is identification?
Conforming with a group publicly however having a different opinion in private
Compliance
Going along with a group in public but not in private so the change is superficial. Behaviours/ opinion stops when public pressure stops. never has any emotional investment
What is informational social influence? (ISI)
A person’s desire to be right so they’ll conform to whoever they find more knowledgable
What type of process is informational social influence
Cognitive
When does informational social influence occur?
In ambigious situations such as when quick decisions needs to be made
What is normative social influence?
Conforming to what is normal behaviour for a social group
Why does normative social influence occur?
When people want to gain social approval
What type of process is normative social influence
Emotional
What is the AO3 in response to informational social influence
- Variation of Asch’s study
- A greater conformity to incorrect answers when maths questions were more difficult
- Mostly true for students with poor mathematic ability
- Shows that people conform in situations where they believe they don’t know the answer
What is the AO3 in response to individual differences in normative social influence?
- Doesn’t affect everyone in the same way
- Some people are less concerned with being liked
- People in high need for affiliation are more likely to conform compared to others who are not
How can informational and normative social influence work together?
- In Asch’s study, conformity was reduced when there is another dissenting participant
- The dissenter may reduce the power of NSI (providing emotional support)
- May also reduce the power of ISI (alternative source of information)
- Not always able to identify is NSI or ISI is working (applies to lab studies or in real life)
- Casts doubt if ISI and NSI act independently in terms of conformity
What is the AO3 on the individual differences in informational social influence?
- Doesn’t affect everyone’s behaviour in the same way
- Asch found that students were less conformist by 28% compared to the other ppts who were 37%
- Similar study was carried out on science and engineering students that found little conformity
What is the AO3 for research to support normative social influence?
- Asch found many of his ppts went along with the clearly wrong answer because other people did
- When asked why, they said they felt self-conscious of saying the correct answer and facing disapproval
- When study was repeated, ppts were made to write their answers and conformity fell to 12.5%
What was Asch’s research procedure?
- showed ppts two large white cards at a time, one had a standard line and the other had three comparison lines
-One of the three lines was the same length as the standard and the other two were substantially - Asked ppt which line matched standard
- Used 123 male American undergraduates
- Naïve ppt always towards the end
- There was a group of 6 to 8 people naive with one naïve ppt however the rest were confederates
- 18 trails - asked which is the correct comparison
- On 12 ‘critical trials’ out of 18, confederates all gave wrong answers
What were Asch’s findings?
-Naïve ppt gave wrong answer 36.8% of time
-25% of ppts didn’t conform on any trials
-75% of ppts conformed at least once
-This is known as the Asch effect (the extent to which a ppt will conform)
-When ppt were later interviewed, they said they conformed to avoid rejection (normative social influence)
What effect did group size have on Asch’s study?
-When there were 3 confederates, conformity to wrong answers rose to 31.8%
-Addition of further confederates made no difference
-Suggests a small minority is not sufficient for influence to be exerted, so there is no need for a majority of more than three.
What effect did unanimity have on Asch’s study?
-Presence of a dissenter meant conformity was reduced by a quarter
-Dissenter enabled naïve ppt to behave more independently
What effect did tast difficulty have on Asch’s study
-When the lines were more similar in length, conformity increased
-Suggests that ISI plays a greater role when task becomes harder
What is Asch’s AO3 on students?
-Replicated on engineering students in the UK
-One one student conformed in the 396 trials
-Engineering students may be more confident in measuring lines so were more conformist
-Possible that the 1950s was a very conformist time in America, society has changed since then
-Therefore, the Asch effect is not consistent across situations or time, so is not a fundamental feature of human behaviour
What is Asch’s AO3 on artificial situation and task?
-Ppts knew they were in a research study so may have not responded to demand characteristics
-The task was relatively trivial so there was no reason not to conform
-Didn’t resemble groups that we’re part of in everyday life
-Therefore the findings do not generalise to everyday situations
What is Asch’s AO3 on the limited application of findings?
-Androcentric research by only testing on men, women may be more conformist because they’re concerned about social relationships and being accepted than men.
-Individualist cultures (American) had lower conformity than collectivist cultures (china)
-Therefoe Asch’s research may only apply to American men since he didn’t take gender and cultural differences into account
What is Asch’s AO3 on findings only apply to certain situations
-Ppts had to answer out loud, and were with a group of strangers so they may have wanted to impress them
-Meaning conformity was higher than usual
-However, it had been found conform is higher when majority of the group are friends rather than strangers
What is Asch’s AO3 on ethical implications?
-Naïve ppts were deceived because they thought confederates were genuine ppts
-However, the ethical cost should be weighed with the benefits gained from this study
What was Zimbardo’s research procedure?
-Set up a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University
-Advertised for students who were ‘emotionally stable’ after psychological testing
-Students randomly assigned roles of guards or prison; to heighten realism, prisoners were arrested at their homes
-Prisoners blindfolded, strip searched and issued a uniform number
-Prisoners had heavily regulated daily routines
-Had to follow 16 rules enforced by guards who worked in shifts
-Guards wore uniform, wooden club, handcuffs, keys and mirror shades
-Guards had complete power over prisoners
What were Zimbardo’s findings?
-Guards behaviour became a threat to prisoner’s psychological and physical health
-Study stopped after 6 days instead of the the intended 14
-Prisoners ripped uniforms, shouted and swore at guards
-Guards employed ‘divide and rule’ tactics by playing the prisoners against each other
-After rebellion, prisoners became depressed and anxious
-1 prisoner was released on the 1st day because they showed symptoms of psychological disturbance
-2 more were released on the 4th day
-1 prisoner went on hunger strike, so guards attempted to force feed hum and punished him by putting him in ‘the hole’
-Guard’s behaviour became more primal and aggressive as they enjoyed having power
What was the conclusion of Zimbardo’s study?
-Revealed power of the situation to influence people’s behaviour
-Guards, prisoners and researchers all conformed to roles within prison
-Even volunteers, found themselves behaving as if they were in a prison rather than a psychological study
What is Zimbardo’s AO3 on control?
-Zimbardo and his colleagues had control over the variables
-Chose emotionally stable ppts and randomly assigned their social roles
-Tried to rule out individual personality differences through the assigned social rules
-If ppts behaved differently but only had these roles by chance then behaviour may have been due to pressures of the situation
-This increases internal validity of the study
What is Zimbardo’s AO3 on lack of realism?
-Ppts were only acting and not genuinely conforming to roles, performance was based on how prisoners and guards are supposed to behave
-One guard said he based his role on a brutal character from a film
-However, the situation was very real to prisoners, qualitative data gathered showed that 90% of prisoners conversations were about prison life
-Therefore high degree of internal validity
What is Zimbardo’s AO3 on the role of disposational (personality) influences
-Exaggerated the power of the situation to influence behaviour, minimising the role of personality/disposational factors
-e.g. 1/3 of guards behaved in a brutal manner, another 1/3 were keen on applying the rules fairly, and the other 1/3 tried to help and support prisoners
-Therefore Zimbardo’s conclusion may be exaggerated
-Differences in guard’s behaviour indicate they were able to exercise right and wrong choices, despite situational pressures to conform to a role
What is Zimbardo’s AO3 on lack of research support?
-Study replicated in 2006 and found very different findings to the original ones
-It was the prisoners who eventually took charge of the mock prison, subjecting the guards to harassment and disobedience
-Researchers explained this using social identity theory, arguing that guards failed to develop a shared social identity as a cohesive group, but prisoners did
What is Zimbardo’s AO3 on ethical issues?
-A major ethical issue due to ZImbardo’s dual roles in the study
-E.g. on one occasion a student who wanted to leave the prison spoke to Zimbardo in his role as superintendent
-Zimbardo responded as a superintendent worried about the running of his prison rather than as a researcher with responsibilities towards his ppts
