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Social Influence Flashcards

1
Q

What was asch’s baseline procedure?

A

123 men judging line lengths.
Confederates gave wrong answers

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2
Q

What were asch’s findings?

A

Naive participants conformed on 36.8% of trials
25% never conformed.

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3
Q

What were the variations of asch’s study?

A

Group size
Unanimity
Task difficulty

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4
Q

Evaluation of asch’s study

A

Artificial task/situation - participants knew this was a study so just played along.
Limited application - only conducted on American men
Research support - Lucas et al. Found more conformity when maths was harder.
Counterpoint - conformity more complex, confident participants less conforming, individual differences.

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5
Q

What are the types of conformity?

A

Internalisation
Identification
Compliance

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6
Q

What is internalisation

A

Private and public acceptance of group norms

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7
Q

What is identification

A

Change behaviour to be a part of a group we identify with, may change privately too

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8
Q

What is compliance

A

Going along with the group publicly but no private change

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9
Q

What is informational social influence

A

Conform to be right. Assume the group knows better than us

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10
Q

What is normative social influence

A

Conform to be liked or accepted by the group

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11
Q

What are the explanations of conformity

A

Informational social influence
Normative social influence

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12
Q

Evaluation of explanations and types of conformity

A

Research support for NSI - asch, no normative group pressures, conformity 12.5%
Research support for ISI - participants relied on other answers in hard math problems (Lucas et al)
Counterpoint - cannot usually separate ISI and NSI, a dissenter may reduce the power of ISI and NSI
Individual differences in NSI - nAffliliators want to be likes more so conform more

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13
Q

What was zimbardo’ s Stanford prison experiment

A

Mock prison with 21 student volunteerism randomly assigned to prisoner or guard.
Conformity in social roles created through uniform.

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14
Q

What were zimbardo’s findings

A

Guards became increasing brutal, prisoners rebellion out down and prisoners became depressed.

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15
Q

What did zimbardo conclude about social roles

A

Participants strongly conformed to their social roles.

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16
Q

Evaluation of zimbardo’s prison experiment

A

Control - randomly assigned increases internal validity
Lack of realism - participants play-acted their roles according to media-derived stereotypes.
Exaggerated the power of roles - only 1/3 of guards were brutal so conclusions were exaggerated.

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17
Q

What are the three factors needed for minority influence in change?

A

Consistency
Commitment
Flexibility

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18
Q

What is consistency

A

If the minority is consistency then this attracts attention of the majority over time.

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19
Q

What is commitment?

A

Personal sacrifices show commitment, attract attention, reinforce message.

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20
Q

What is flexibility

A

Morning more convincing if they accept some counterarguments

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21
Q

How does minority influence lead to social change

A

The three factor make the majority think more deeply about the issue
This leads to the snowball effect - minority view gathers force and becomes the majority.

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22
Q

Minority influence evaluation

A

Research support for consistency - moscovici’s blue/green slides and wood et als meta analysis
Research support for deeper processing - participants exposed to minority view resisted conflicting view.
Counterpoint - real-world majorities have more power/status than minority, missing from research.
Artificial tasks - task often trivial so tell us little about real-world influence.

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23
Q

Lessons from minority influence research

A

Powerful force for innovation and social change.
Civil rights marches; influence involves drawing attention, constancy, deeper processing, augmentation, snowball effect, social cryptomnesia.

24
Q

Lessons from conformity research

A

Dissent breaks power of majority, normative social influence draws attention to what the majority is doing.

25
Lessons from obedience research
Disobedient role models (milgram). Gradual commitment leads to change (zimbardo)
26
Social influence and social change evaluation
Research support for NSI - NSI valid explanation of social change Counterpoint - NSI doesn’t always produce change Minority influence explains change - minorities stimulate divergent thinking - broad and creative. Role of deeper processing - majority views that are processed more deeply than minority views challenging central feature of minority influence.
27
What was Milgram baseline procedure
American men gave fake electric shocks to a ‘learner’ in response to instructions and prods from an ‘experimenter’
28
What were Milgram baseline findings
65% gave highest shock of 450 volts 100% gave shocks up to 300 volts. Many showed signs of anxiety like sweating.
29
Milgram baseline study evaluation
Research support - french TV documentary/game ground 80% gave max shock Low internal validity - participant realised shocks were fake=fake acting. Tapes of participants showed only 50% believed they were real. Counterpoint - participants did give real shocks to a puppy. Alternative interpretations of findings - found participants didn’t obey prod.4 participants indemnified with scientific aims - not blind obedience
30
What are the situational variables of obedience in Milgram’s research?
Proximity Location Uniform
31
What did the proximity research find
Obedience 40% with teacher and learner in the same room, 30% for touch proximity
32
What did location research find
Obedience 47.5% in run down office building Universities prestige gave authority.
33
What did the uniform variation find
Obedience 20% when experimenter was a member of the public Uniform was a symbol of legitimate authority
34
Evaluation of situational variables
Research support - bickman showed the power of uniform in a field experiment Cross-cultural replications - Dutch participants ordered to say stressful things to interviewee. Decreased proximity led to decreases obedience. Counterpoint - most studies in countries similar to US so not generalisable Low internal validity- some of milgrams procedures in the variations were especially contrived, not genuine obedience.
35
What are the situational explanations of obedience
Agentic state Legitimacy of authority
36
What is the agentic state
Acting as an agent of another
37
What is the autonomous state
Free to act according to conscious
38
What is switching between agentic and autonomous state called
Agentic shift
39
What do binding factors allow
Allow an individual to ignore the effects of their behaviour, reducing the moral strain.
40
Evaluation of the agentic state
Research support - milgrams resistant participants continued giving shocks when experimenter took responsibility A limited explanation - cannot explain why nurses and some of milgrams participants disobeyed.
41
What is legitimacy of authority?
Created by hierarchy nature of society Some people entitled to expect obedience. Learned in childhood.
42
What is destructive authority
Problems arise when used destructively (hitler)
43
Legitimacy of authority evaluation
Explains cultural differences - in Australia 16% obeyed but 85% in Germany. Related to structure of society Cannot explain all obedience - rank and jacobson’s surses in hierarchical structure but did not obey legitimate authority
44
What is the dispositional explanation of obedience
The authoritarian personality
45
What is the authoritarian personality?
Described as extreme respect for authority and submissiveness to it, contempt for inferiors
46
What are the origins of an authoritarian personality
Harsh parenting creates hostility that cannot be expressed against parents so it displaced onto scapegoats.
47
What was Adorno et al research
Used f-scale to study unconscious attitudes towards other ethnic groups
48
What were Adorno’s findings
AP identify with ‘strong’ people, have fixed cognitive style, and hold stereotypes and prejudices
49
AP evaluation
Research support - Obedient participants had high f-scores Counterpoint - but obedient participants also unlike authoritarians in many ways, complexity Limited explanation - can’t explain obedience across a whole culture Political bias - authoritarianism equated with right-wing ideology, it ignored left-wing authoritarianism.
50
What is resistance to social influence
Explaining when people disobey and resist the pressure to conform Social support Locus of control
51
How do people resit conformity
Contrite is reduced by the presence of dissenters from the group - even wrong answers break unanimity of majority
52
How do people resist obedience
Obedience decreases in the presence of disobedient peer who acts as a model to follow - challenges legitimacy of authority figure
53
Social support evaluation
Real-world research support - having a ‘buddy’ helps resist peer pressure to smoke Research support for dissenting peers - obedience to an Ofer from oil company fell when participants in a group
54
What’s a locus of control
Sense of what directs events in our lives, internal or external sources.
55
What is the LOC continuum
High internal at one end and high external at the other
56
How to LOC resist social influence
Internals can resist social influence, more confident, less need for approval.
57
LOC evaluation
Research support - internals less likely to fully obey in milgram-type procedure Contradictory research - people now more independent but also more external

Psychology (11 decks)

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