Social Influence Flashcards
What is conformity?
A type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes, beliefs or behaviour in order to adhere to exsiting social norms form a particular social group
What is a more simple way of explaining conformity?
When an individuals private or public attitude is influence by the majority
What do social norms reflect?
A majority view, the accepted or expected behaviour within a particular group
What are the consequences of not adhereing?
Not adhering to social norms are potentially ridicule or loss of approval
Who did the jelly bean study?
Jenness
What was Jenness aim?
To investigate how group discussion affects the accuracy of people judgement
What did he do in the study?
- Asked ppts to make an estimate individually on how many jelly beans were in the jar
- Then he put the ppts into groups to discuss their estimates
- He then asked the ppts again individually again
What did Jenness find?
That ppts second estimates were changed to converge to their group norm
What is one argument of Jenness study?
that ppts conformed because they genuinely believed other’s estimates
What type of social influence is the study conveying?
Informational social influence
What was the aim of Asch’s line judgement test?
To investigate whether people will conform with a majority, when the majority are wrong
What was the method of Asch’s line study?
He asked ppts in the experiment group to judge line lengths in the presence of confederates who gave the wrong answers
How did Asch check the questions were easy?
He has a control group who just had to give their answers individually = they only had an error rate of 0.4%
What were the findings of Asch’s study?
Ppts did conform and give the wrong answer, 75% conformed at least once, and the overall conformity rate was 36.8%
What was concluded from the line study and what type of influence?
Even though the ppts most likely knew an answer as the task was easy - the control group had a 0.4% error rate, they wanted to conform to be liked - normative social influence
What type of conformity did the ppts display in line study?
Compliance - ppts conformed to fit in with the majority
Why was the ppts behaviour explained by normative social influence?
Ppts conformed even when the situation was unambiguous - to avoid rejection
What are the 3 variables that affect conformity?
Group size, unanimity and task difficulty
What happens to conformity in group size?
- When the size of the majority group is bigger, the size of the influenced is bigger, people are more likely to conform
- When the size of the majority group is smaller, the size of the influenced is smaller, people are less likely to conform
What does unanimity do to conformity?
- As the unanimity in a group increases the conformity increases
- As the unanimity in a group decreases the conformity decreases
What does task difficulty do to conformtiy?
- When a task is more difficult or the solution to something is less obvious, people are more likely to conform
- When a task is easier people are less likely to conform as they are more certain with themselves
How did Asch test unanimity in conformity?
Asch introduces a confederate who disagreed with the majority and gave the correct answer. (dissenter) If a dissenter was present conformity rate dropped from 36.8% to 5.5%
How did Asch test group size in conformity?
Asch changed the number of confederates in his experiment, starting with just one confederate and one participant. He then added one confederate at a time. He found that when there was only one confederate, conformity was low. However, when there were two confederates, conformity increased, and it rose again with three confederates. After that, adding more confederates didn’t increase conformity any further. Asch concluded that a larger majority increases conformity, but the effect of group size has its limits.
How did Asch test task difficulty in conformity?
When Asch made the lines in his experiment more similar in length, participants were more likely to conform, especially when the task was harder. Increasing the difficulty likely made participants feel more uncertain, so they might have assumed the majority knew better. This could have led them to conform because of informational social influence—relying on others for guidance when unsure.
What is the first evaluation of Asch’s study?
Lack ecological validity as it was conducted in a lab study
What is the second evaluation of Asch’s study?
the counter point that when it is conducted in a lab - cause and effect relationship can be established
What is the third evaluation of Asch’s study?
Demand characteristics from the ppts
What is the fourth evaluation of Asch’s study?
Cultural differences, the conformity levels found by Asch may only apply to American men because he didn’t consider cultural differences
What is compliance?
Adjusting opinions/behaviour publicly but not privately in order to be accepted by a group and avoid social rejection.
This is a weak and temporary form of conformity and only persist in the presence of the group.
What is identification?
Adjusting opinions/behaviour to those of a group due to a desire to be a member of the group, to gain group acceptance.
Public and private acceptance but is usually temporary and will not persist in the absence of the group.
Why do people identify?
People want to conform to imitate a role model they admire or to imitate a social role they admire
What is internalisation?
A private and public change in opinon/behaviour where a person genuinely accepts the group belief system, it changes the way the person thinks.
The change is permanent and will persist even in the absence of the other group members
What is the reason for compliance conformity?
fear of rejection
What is the reason for identification conformity?
desire to imitate a role model
What is the reason for internalisation conformity?
persuaded that attitude is correct
What are the two explanation for conformity?
Normative social influence and informational social influence
Normative social influence, people conform to be…
liked
Informational social influence, people conform to be…
right
What is normative social influence?
Agreeing with other people in a group to be accepted, even though they don’t necessarily believe the attitudes and behaviours they adopt are correct
What is informational social influence?
When we are unsure about the answer and uncertain, we may look to others for the answers and follow their response
When would informational social influence occur?
ambiguous situations
What type of conformity would normative social influence be in?
compliance
What type of conformity would informational social influence be in?
internalisation
What is my first evaluation paragraph for explanations for conformity?
Normative social influence explains conformity as individuals conform to be liked or accepted by others.
What is my second evaluation paragraph for explanations for conformity?
A limitation of the explanation of conformity is that it is often unclear whether normative social influence (NSI) or informational social influence (ISI) is the primary cause of conformity in studies.
What is my third evaluation paragraph for explanations for conformity?
A limitation of normative social influence (NSI) is that it does not predict conformity in every case, as individual differences play a significant role in how people respond to social pressures.
What are social roles?
The parts people play as member of social groups (such as parent, teacher etc) which are accompanied by expectations of appropriate behaviour in each role
What was the aim of Zimbardo’s study?
To investigate if prison brutality happens because of the personality of guards and prisoners or because they are conforming to social roles
Where did Zimbardo’s study take place?
laboratory experiment by converting a basement of the Stanford University psychology building into a mock prison.
How many people took part in the study?
21 male students
What was the allocating method used by Zimbardo
Participants were randomly divided into the role of either prisoner or guard
How did Zimbardo heighten the realism in the study
Prisoners: were arrested, finger printed and stripped of their own clothes and made to dress like prisoners
Guards: dressed in uniforms, given handcuffs, dark glasses and bats
What was the method Zimbardo used in his study?
Zimbardo observed the behaviour in a controlled of the guards and prisoners, the participants knew they were being observed so he conducted a controlled, overt obseration
What happened during Zimbardo’s study?
The prisoners tried to rebel, by pushing their beds against their cell doors, the guards got bad and crushed the rebellion and forced them away from the door, they broke into the cell and stripped the prisoners of their clothes, from here they became brutal and gave them harsh tasks and consequences
What was concluded in Zimbardo’s study?
The normal men changed completely when their situation and social role was dramtically changed. He concluded that prisoners, guards and researchers all conformed to their roles within the ‘orison’ behaving as if they were in prison rather than a research study. This shows that prison violence is caused by people conforming to social roles of prisoners and guards, because violence is seen when normal people are put in prisons.
What is my first evaluation paragraph for explanations for Zimbardos study of conformity?
A strength of Zimbardo’s study is the high level of control he had over variables, particularly the selection of participants.
What is my second evaluation paragraph for explanations for Zimbardos study of conformity?
A limitation of Zimbardo’s study is that it lacked ecological validity of a true prison environment.
What is my third evaluation paragraph for explanations for Zimbardos study of conformity?
A significant limitation of Zimbardo’s study is the ethical concerns it raised, particularly regarding the lack of fully informed consent and the psychological harm experienced by participants.
What is a situational variable?
Changes in the environment that affect how a person behaves
What are the 4 situational variables affecting obedience?
Proximity of authority figure
Proximity of victim
Location
Uniform
What is a social group?
Groups of 2 or more people, who interact together, share things in common and share a common identity.
What is a social hierarchy?
When the power structure is unequal in a social group ,meaning one person has higher authority that others
What happens in hierarchical societies?
People are afforded authority and the sense that society agrees to their authority
Who can up with the explanation of obedience: legitimacy of authority?
Milgram
Why do we obey people who are higher up in the hierarchy?
Because we see people who are higher up, with respect and see the authority as legitimate
What does legitimacy of authority grant?
It grants some people to punish others: such as the police or the courts