A-Level Psychology > Social Influence > Flashcards
Social Influence Flashcards
Conformity
change of behaviour due to real or imagined pressure to fit in with the majority
Independent behaviour
Maintaining individuality instead of changing behaviour
Normative Social Influence
Change of behaviour in order to be liked and to fit in with the majority so we are not left out
Informative Social Influence
Change of behaviour in order to be right; looking to others we believe have more information than us
nAffiliation
More likely to conform
Low nAffiliators
Less likely to conform
Individual differences
Features that make people different and unique
Compliance
A temporary type of conformity that involves changing publicly but disagreeing in private
Identification
A temporary type of conformity that involves changing publicly as well as privately as long as they are in the group because they feel like they have identified with the group and feel a sense of membership
Internalisation
A permanent type of conformity that invloces changing privately as well as publicly because they have accepted the views of the group as their own
Variation
Changing one feature of a study
Group size
The size of an independent variable group in a study
Unanimity
The extent that members of a majority agree with one another
Dissenter
A confederate in a group that gives a different answer to the others
Task difficulty
How ambiguous or difficult a task is
Individualistic Culture
A community that prioritises the infividual over the collective group
Collectivistic Culture
A community that prioritises the needs of the community over the individual where people are interdependent rather than independent
Social roles
A position or identity in the society
Deindividuation
A state when you become so immersed in the norms of the group that you lose your sense of identity and social responsibility
Obedience
Change of behaviour in response to order from an authority figure with the power to punish
Destructive task
A task where pain is administered
“Are the Germans different?” HYpotheesis
Germans have a basic character deficit which means they have a readiness to obey people in authority regardless of the task they are being asked to carry out
Rigged draw
Where the results of the draw have been planned out
Prods
A series of orders given to persuade obedience
Location (Milgram)
Venue is moved to a less prestigious office in a nearby town
Proximity 1 (Milgram)
Teacher and learner are in the same room
Proximity 2 (Milgram)
Teacher has to force the learner’s hand onto the plate to receive the shock
Proximity 3 (Milgram)
Experimenter has left the room and instructed the teacher by telephone from another room
Uniform (Milgram)
Experimenter has left the room and due to an urgent phone call was replaced a member of the public who wore ‘everyday clothes’
Situational Factors
This accounts for behaviour in terms of aspects of the environemtn
Dispositional Factors
This accounts for an individual’s behaviour in terms of his/her personality or disposition
Agentic state
People allow others to direct their actions, and they pass the responsibility for the consequences to the person giving the others
Autonomous state
People act according to their own values and they take responsibility for their own actions
Agentic shift
The change from autonomous state to Agentic state
Moral strain
High anxiety or guilt experiences when going against your moral values
Binding factors
Strategies used to reduce the degree of moral strain
Legitimacy of authority
When we feel obligated to to whose in power because they are above us in the hierarchy and we respects their credentials (so we see them as fair, just and deserving) and we assume that they know what they are doing and give up some of our independent behaviour and obey
F-scale
A questionnaire used in the legitimacy of authority study to measure potentiality for fascism
Authoritarian personality
A dispositional explanation for obedience where someone is prejudiced because of specific personality traits which predisposes them to be hostile towards ethnic, racial and other minority groups and ‘outgroups’ and is likely to obey orders from people they perceive as being higher in the hierarchy.
Displacement of anger
Transferring anger to those that are seen as weaker
Conditions of worth
Where love is only given when certain conditions are met
“Scapegoating”
Displacing anger gained due to conditions of worth on those that are considered weaker
Social support
The idea that when a dissenter is present, an individual is more likely to resist social influence as the dissenter acts as a model that independent behaviour is possible which reduces the real or imagined pressure
Locus of control
This is a personality type measured on a continuum of high external to high internal refers to a person’s perception of personal control over their own behaviour and therefore fake
Internal locus of control
An individual with this personality type is more likely to base their actions on their views and opinions so they believe that they are always responsible for the outcomes
External locus of control
An individual with this personality type believes that the outcomes of their actions is not due to their actions because they are more likely to seek information from others
Minority Influence
A form of social influence where a minority, even one person, persuades the majority to change their beliefs, attitudes or behaviours which is likely to lead to internalisation
Consistency
When a minority remains consistent in their view which is likely to attract interest from the majority
Synchronic Consistency
When the minority has the same view at the same time
Diachronic Consistency
When the majority has the same view over a period of time
Commitment
When the minority engages in extreme actions to draw people’s attention to their views, demonstrating the idea their view must be important and correct
Augmentation effect
The minority appears willing to suffer for their cause so it taken more seriously by the majority
Systematic Processing
The deep thinking causes by the augmentation effect
Flexibility
The idea that compromise is perceives as reasonable and people are more likely to engage with those they perceive as reasonable
Showball effect
This is when small actions at the beginning can cause bigger and bigger actions ultimately resulting in a huge change or when a minority converts a small group of people, this group converts other people, and over time the original minority view can become the majority view
Social change
This is when a society adopts a new belief or way of behaving that then becomes widely accepted as the norm on a large scale
Cognitive conflict
The conflict created will require the members of the majority to think more deeply about the issue as their views are being challenged
Social Crypto amnesia
Minority ideas are assimilated into the majority viewpoint without those in the majority remembering where the ideas came from
Social Norms Intervention
Also known as SNI, the pressure to conform because an individual wants to be liked
Misperception
Appealing to other using SNI, i.e by deceiving others into thinking others are doing something
Gradual Commitment
Creating obedience through the process of gradual social changed which will eventually lead to a grand social change
‘Nudges’
Small instructions which lead to a gradual social change
Three types of conformity
Kelman: Compliance, Identification, Internalisation
Two explanations for conformity
Deutsch and Gerard: Normative and Informative Social Influence
Who investigated NSI?
Nolan et al (2008) investigated whether social influence processes led to reduction of energy consumption in a community. To do this, a message like “Others are using less energy, you should do the same” was put in one community which places emphasis on the fact that others were doing something while in another community, there was a message that simply said to reduce energy. He found that energy use was reduced in the community with the normative message.
Who investigated ISI?
Lucas et al found that students conformed more to an incorrect answers when they found the task difficult in a maths problem, showing people conform in situations where they feel they don’t know the answer. This is an example of Informational Social influence as they wanted to correct so they looked to others for answers.
Evaluate the explanations of conformity
There is supporting evidence for Normative Social Influence as an explanation for conformity.
Apart from Nolan et al who found that people often change their behaviour to match that of others, McGhee and Teevan (1967) found that there are students high in need of affliation. This nAffliation personality type makes them more likely to conform.
This shows that the desire to be liked is an explanation for conformity.
This study ignored individual differences, as it is also indicated that Normative Social Influence affects everyone in a different way as everyone has different peronalities. For example, there are other people who are less concerned about being liked called low nAffiliators, a personality type that makes them less likely to conform.
This is an overall strength as there is supporting empirical evidence.
The supporting research for Informational Social Influence ignores individual differences.
Perrin and Spencer (1980) found very little conformity in seeking information from others as only 1 in 306 engineering students conformed in an Asch–type study of conformity due to high levels of confidence.
This shows that Informational Social Influence affects everyone differently and it is less likely to affect people who are less confident.
This is a weakness as the supporting research ignores individual differences.
There is a contradictory idea to both of the explanations of conformity.
Deutsch and Gerard proposed that conformity is either due to Normative Social Influence or Informational Social Influence, but it has been suggested that sometimes both processes are involved.
This challenges the view that it is an independent process.
Explain Asch’s investigations of conformity
Asch aimed to investigate the extent to which pressure from a majority group could influence an individual to conform to an unambiguous task.
He did this by acquiring a sample of 123 American male students who were told that they were taking part in a study of visual perception. Naive participants were placed in groups with either 7-9 confederates, with the naive participant always sitting last but one. The task was then explained; they had to pick a comparison line which was the same as the standard line. On twelve out of eighteen trials, the confederates gave identical wrong answers. There was also a control group of which confederates always gave wrong answers.
Asch found that on the critical trials, 37% of the responses made by the naive participants were incorrect. (1% in the control group). 75% conformed at least once.
How does Asch’s study support the explanations of conformity
During post-experiment debriefing and interviews, the naive participants revealed that they either conformed because they didn’t want to ‘stand out’ (which he referred to as ‘Distortion of action’ or NSI) or because they didn’t want to be wrong so they doubted their accuracy (which he referred to as ‘Distortion of action’ or ISI).
Explain Asch’s Variations
Group size: He found that conformity tends to increase as the size of the group increases until it reaches the optimum group size of 4-5, after which the conformity remains relatively the same. (1%, 13%, 32%)
Unanimity: He found that when a dissenter (or a non-conformity role model) was added to the group, conformity decreased as much as 80% and he concluded that the dissenters reduced the real or imagined pressure to conform by showing that independent behavior is possible.
Task Difficulty: By making the comparison line more similar to the standard line (that is, more ambiguous), it was harder to judge the correct answer and the conformity increased. It was then concluded that the participants were uncertain and looked to the confederates for confirmation.
Evaluate Asch’s research into conformity
Asch’s findings may be ethnocentric.
Smith and Bond conducted a meta-analysis using Asch’s methods in different countries. They found the highest conformity in Fiji was 58% and the lowest was in Belgium at 14%. On average, they found that the conformity level in individualistic countries was 25.3% (which could have due to the fact that they value independence) while that of the collectivist countries was 37.1% (which could be because they attach importance to the social group rather than the individual).
Thus, findings from individualist cultures cannot be applied to collectivist countries.
This is a weakness as the findings may only apply to the US as the study does not take cultural differences into account so it cannot be generalized.
There are a variety of ethical issues with the study
First, the students were told that they were participating in a study of visual perception, so there was deception involved. Because they were deceived, they were neither able to give an informed consent to participate, nor were they aware of their right to withdraw. Furthermore, there were no measures put in place for the protection of participants
Evaluate Asch’s research into conformity
Asch’s findings may be ethnocentric.
Smith and Bond conducted a meta-analysis using Asch’s methods in different countries. They found the highest conformity in Fiji was 58% and the lowest was in Belgium at 14%. On average, they found that the conformity level in individualistic countries was 25.3% (which could have due to the fact that they value independence) while that of the collectivist countries was 37.1% (which could be because they attach importance to the social group rather than the individual).
Thus, findings from individualist cultures cannot be applied to collectivist countries.
This is a weakness as the findings may only apply to the US as the study does not take cultural differences into account so it cannot be generalized.
There are a variety of ethical issues with the study
First, the students were told that they were participating in a study of visual perception, so there was deception involved. Because they were deceived, they were neither able to give an informed consent to participate, nor were they aware of their right to withdraw. Furthermore, there were no measures put in place for the protection of participants
Why is studying obedience important?
Obedience is a type of social influence which causes a person to change their behaviour in response to an order given by an authority figure with the power to punish if the order is not obeyed.
There have been hideous crimes committed in the name of obedience and an example of this was when six million innocent people were systematically slaughtered on command by the Nazis during Hitler’s regime. The defence of many of the war criminals was that they were only following orders.
How did Milgram investigate obedience?
He investigated the Germans are different hypothesis.
To test this hypothesis, Milgram advertised his Yale University study in the newspaper and acquired a volunteer sample. After a rigged draw, each participant was assigned as a ‘teacher’ to the same ‘learner’ who was one of Milgram’s confederates. The learner was then taken to another room and had electrodes attached to his arm. The destructive task was then explained to the naive participant in a room next door; as the teacher, they had to read out a pair of words and if the learner got them wrong or said nothing at all, they had to give them an electric shock and had to increase the problem every time. Before they started, the teacher was administered a shock of 15 volts to make the experiment as real as possible. At 180 volts, the learner shouted that he could not stand the pain and at 300 volts, he begged to be released, and after 315 there was silence. If the participant asked for advice from the experimenter or showed disinterest in continuing, the experimenter had to give a sequence of standardised prods in a firm tone. If the participant continued to disobey after the fourth prod, the experiment was terminated.
Although Milgram predicted that only one percent of the participants would shock to the highest level, all participants shocked up to 300 volts and 65% of participants shocked all the way off to 450%. Hence he concluded that Germans are not evil and the Holocaust could have happened anywhere.
Evaluate obedience
The internal validity of the study is questioned.
Orne and Holland (1968) argued that participants behaved the way that they did because they did not believe the setup—they knew that the shocks weren’t real. Gina Perry (2013), more recent research, supports this idea as she listened to the tape that Milgram’s participants and most of the participants expressed doubt over the veracity of the electric shocks. This means that Milgram might not have been measuring obedience to a destructive task. Instead, he may have measured demand characteristics as the participants behaved that way in order to please the researcher or to receive payment. This is a weakness as the study may have lacked internal validity.
When Sheridan and King (1972) performed a similar experiment with real shocks on puppies. Despite the real shocks, they found similar levels of obedience suggesting that Milgram’s study did have internal validity.Milgram argued that he administered a shock of 15 volts to the naive participant. Also, when asked later, 70% of the participants said that they believed that they were giving real electric shocks.
Overall this is a weakness as there exists some doubt as to whether the ppts believed the shocks were real because if they did then this experiment is not measuring obedience and may lack internal validity as a result.
It is possible to argue that Milgram’s study also lacks external validity
This is because administering increasing electrical shocks does not represent real-life, such as following military orders or school rules.
However, Milgram argued that following orders that cause harm from an authority figure and performing small, meaningless and abstract tasks does indeed reflect real life. For example, the person who prepares the gas for the holocaust. Furthermore, a similar study was conducted in real life by Hofling et al (1966) where nurses were asked to administer double the safe dosage of a fake drug, Astrofen, after receiving an order from a fake doctor over the phone.
This shows that obedience is high in real-life settings as predicted by Milgram.
Milgram’s defence of his experiment and this field study replication to support the external validity of the original experiment.
Milgram’s study supports replication.
A documentary about reality TV called Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death), presented on French TV in 2010 included a replication of Milgram’s study. The participants believed that they were in a pilot episode for a new game show called La Zone Xtreme. They were paid to give (fake) electric shocks—when ordered by the presenter—to other participants who were in fact actors, in front of a studio audience. In a remarkable confirmation of Milgram’s results, 80% of 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 suggests that the original finding is reliable.
This is a strength as it shows that the original study have temporal validity as it has been repeated over 50 years with consistent results.
Explain Milgram’s Variations
In the Location variation, the venue of the experiment was moved to less prestigious offices in a nearby town. This variation has the least difference to the original study with 47.5% obedience rate.
There were three Proximity variations. In the first one, the teacher and the learner were in the same room. In the second one, the teacher had to force the learner’s hand into the plate to receive the shock. Finally, the experimenter left the room and instructed the teacher by telephone from another room. The obedience rates were 40%, 30% and 20.5% respectively.
Finally, in the uniform variation (which was not investigated by Milgram), the experimenter left the room (due to an urgent phone call) and was replaced by a member of the public who wore ‘everyday’ clothes. This variation has the least obedience rate with 20%
Evaluate Milgram’s variations
There is supporting evidence for the uniform variation.
Bickman (1974) replicated this variation in a field experiment in New York by asking three male researchers to give orders to 153 randomly selected pedestrians. The researchers were dressed in one of three ways: in a suit and tie (like an average civilian), a milkman’s uniform or a guards uniform. The orders they gave included pointing to a bag and asking it to be picked up, nodding in the direction of a confederate: “This fellow is parked at the meter, but doesn’t have any change. Give him a dime”, and “Don’t you know you have to stand on the other side of this pole. This sign says “no standing”.” Bickman found that participants were more likely to obey the researcher dressed as a guard (89%) than the milkman (57%) or the civilian (33%).
Therefore, although the uniform variation had the lowest obedience rate, this study shows that the findings are reliable, because it presents the idea that a uniform conveys the authority of the wearer and it is a situational factor likely to produce obedience.
This is a strength of the study as there are similar findings in real life which increases the external validity.
There is an apparent effect of culture and gender on obedience levels.
Milgram’s procedure has been replicated by other researchers in many countries and with a variety of participants. Two of the factors investigated have been gender and culture. The countries in which these replications were carried out include: USA, UK, Germany, Jordan, Australia, Spain and Italy. Australia’s replication with a female teacher, learner and male experimenter carried out by Kilham and Mann (1974) had the lowest obedience rate of 16% while Spain’s which was carried out by Miranda et al had the highest with an obedience rate of 90% by students.
This suggests that Milgram’s conclusions about obedience are not limited to American males, but valid across countries and both genders.
However, there are speculations as to whether the findings can be applied to collectivist countries as the countries investigated are western which are usually identified as democratic, capitalist and individualistic.
This is a strength of the variations as it increases the population validity of the study as the findings can be replicated in other cultures.
There are speculations of the validity of the proximity variations.
For example, forcing a learner’s hand would require the learner to act out the pain. This may be unrealistic or inconsistent.
If the experiment becomes unrealistic, then obedience is not being measured as the participant does not believe they are giving more real shocks. If they are inconsistent, each participant gets a different experiment as the more tired the confederate learner, the less believable the acting.
This is a weakness as it is possible that obedience is not being measured but apathy or demand characteristics. Also, the experiment may be different for different participants so it lacks control. This means that some of the variations lack validity.
What are the two situational explanations for obedience?
Agentic Theory and Legitimacy of Authority
Explain Agentic theory
Milgram (1974) proposed the Agentic theory (a situational explanation as it accounts for behavior in terms of aspects of the environment) as the reason why people obey.
During the Nuremberg Trials of the Nazis, many pleaded that they were not guilty as they were only obeying orders. This led Milgram to propose the Agentic theory which states that when people obey orders, they do not feel responsible for their actions, instead they see themselves as ‘agents’ for people they perceive as having legitimate authority. Hence, they act against their moral values but feel unable to stop.
Milgram proposes that people actually have two states of behavior when they are in a social situation which are the autonomous state (acting according to their own values and taking responsibility for the results of those actions) and the Agentic state (allowing others to direct their actions, then passing off the responsibility for the consequences to the person giving the orders). He also argued that there is an Agentic shift which is the change from the autonomous state to the Agentic state.
Furthermore, people will experience moral strain, or high anxiety, as they are obeying an order that goes against their conscience and doing something they believe is immoral. However, people find it difficult to stop in these situations because of binding factors which are aspects of the situation that allow a person to minimize the damaging effect of their behavior.
Explain legitimacy of authority
Legitimacy of authority is another situational explanation which states that we obey people because they are above us in the hierarchy and we perceive them as fair, just and deserving (we respect their credentials) and assume that they know what they are doing so we give up some of our independence and hand over control.
This is because societies are ordered in a hierarchical way in which people below are more likely to obey authority figures as they trust them to protect us from wrongdoers and use their power appropriately.
Numerous studies support this explanation such as Bickmann’s (the civilians obeyed the guard more than a fellow civilian) and Hofling’s study (where the nurses were willing to give a lethal dose because an unknown doctor said so), both of which can be explained by the degree of power held by the authority figure and the amount of trust the naive participant had for them.
Evaluate the situational explanations for obedience
The Agentic State is a limited explanation for obedience.
There are several key findings that challenge the Agentic state as an explanation for obedience. All of Milgram’s participants were in the same Agentic state so all should have obeyed. However, 35% of the participants did not.
This may mean that there are individual differences (a dispositional error) in how people respond to the Agentic state where some may be more able to resist others due to their personality such as being independent or strong-willed.
This is a weakness as it suggests that the Agentic state may be an incomplete explanation (as there is a dispositional argument to a situational explanation) and may fail to consider dispositional factors such as personality.
Legitimacy of authority can explain cultural differences in recorded levels of obedience.
For example, in the cultural variations of Milgram’s study, the rate of obedience in Germany was 85% while it was 16% in Australia.
It is possible to argue that different cultures hold different levels of respect for authority. In Germany, for example, they historically had a royal kingdom so respect for authority will be high. Australia, on the other hand, was a remote colony where people lived hundreds of miles from the nearest police station or government building so authority was less respected.
This is a strength as only legitimacy of authority can explain these cultural differences in obedience which gives it high explanatory power.
All situational explanations may create an excuse or an alibi for the individuals involved.
For example, by explaining their behavior in terms of situational factors outside of their control it seems to excuse the individual of any responsibilities for the harm caused for their action.
This fails to consider the free will that the individual may have had to disobey the order.
This is a theoretical weakness as ‘free will’ is likely to act least as a component of human behavior. It is also an ethical weakness as it may remove responsibility from rightly guilty parties.
What is the Dispositional explanation for obedience?
The Authoritarian personality
Who researched the Dispositional explanation fro obedience?
Adorno et al
What are the characteristics of the Authoritarian personality?
Characteristics of this personality type include a ‘cognitive style’, where individuals admire strong and dominant leaders and are contemptuous of the weak, strongly supporting the nation state religion, traditional practices (having a nuclear family) and lack of change, a having field thinking patterns where things are either right or wrong so the are uncomfortable with uncertainty.
What did Adorno believe about the Authoritarian personality?
Adorno believed that the Authoritarian Personality formed in childhood from a strict and stern parenting style where love was only given when certain conditions were met, this is called conditions of worth. Adorno also argued that these individuals displaced this anger that they felt onto those they saw as weaker, known as ‘scapegoating’.
Outline the studies into the Authoritarian personality
Adorno et al carried out a study on over 2000 white middle class Americans using tests that were designed to reveal unconscious attitudes towards minority groups. A number of scales were developed including potentiality for fascism (F-scale). He found a positive correlation between the Authoritarian Personality measured on the F-scale and prejudice.
To support this idea, Milgram and Elms (1966) carried out a small scale study on the participants who had obeyed to 450v and they found a positive correlation between Authoritarian personality and obedience
Evaluate the Dispositional explanation for obedience
There is a methodological weakness in use in the F-scale.
In the F-scale, the questions were worded in the same direction. This means that participants may be measured as having an Authoritarian Personality when it would be their natural tendency to find agreement with the new information in the question known as acquiescence bias.
An example is ‘No sane, normal, decent person could ever think of hurting a close friend or relative’. This could have been worded as ‘Every sane, normal, decent person could think of hurting a close friend or relative.’
This is a weakness as the F-scale may lack internal validity and not accurately measure personality type.
Milgram and Elm’s study was correlational.
They compared the F-scale who scored for 100% obedient participants in Milgram’s experiment to those who disobeyed. As such, many intervening variables were not controlled, such as the level of education.
This means that it only measured the relationship between two variables. Therefore, it is impossible to say that the Authoritarian Personality is the only or even the most significant cause of obedience.
Both obedience and the F-scale cannot be measured because personality cannot be manipulated as it does not change so a correlational study is the only way that it can be studied.
This is a flaw as the exact relationship between Authoritarian personality and obedience is not fully established.
Finally, the authoritarian personality provides a limited explanation for obedience. It struggles to explain how a whole population, such as Nazi Germany, seemingly supported Hitler and the Holocaust.
This is because a dispositional explanation explains behavior, in this case obedience, as resulting from inherent personal character or attitudes, known as personality. Thus, it is very unlikely that a whole nation had the same personality type.
As such, it is possible that situational factors and conformity may have been present too.
This is a weakness as it suggests that Authoritarian Personality is an incomplete explanation for obedience observed in real-life examples and some research studies. It also suggests that authoritarian personalities do not have explanatory power.
Resisting social influence
Resisting social influence is the ability of people to withstand the social pressure to conform to the majority or to obey authority. Understanding why people act independently shows how society may change both positively and negatively.
Outline research supporting Resisting social influence and what they show
In Asch’s study of conformity, Asch shows that if there is a dissenter then conformity drops, however, if the model then starts to conform then the participant also conforms so the change is short-lived.
In one of Milgram’s variations of his study of obedience, the participant was one of a team of three testing a learner. The other two were actually confederates, who one after the other, refused to continue shocking the learner and withdrew. Their defiance had a liberating effect on the participant, with only 10% continuing to 450v.
This shows that, in both cases of obedience and conformity, pressure to conform and obey reduces if another person is seen to act independently.
Although the exact behavior may not be copied, the dissenters behavior is seen as a model to show independent behavior.
Who proposed the idea of locus of contro?
Rotter
What does having a high external and internal locus of control?
Having an internal locus of control refers to thinking that the things that happen are largely controlled by themselves. For example, if they do well in an exam, it is because they worked very hard. Because of this, people with an internal locus of control are less likely to conform or obey because they are more likely to base their decisions on their own beliefs, thus they are more likely to resist pressure from others.
However, having an external locus of control means having a tendency to believe that things that happen are out of their control. For example, if they failed the exam, it is because they had bad luck so the exams were hard. Therefore, because they are more likely to look to others for an explanation, they are less likely to resist pressure from others.
Evaluate Resisting social influence
There is research supporting social support as an explanation for resistance to conformity.
Allen and Levine (1971) found that conformity decreased in an Asch-type experiment when there was one dissenter. More importantly, the dissenter wore thick glasses and clearly states that they have problems with their vision.
This shows that the dissenter was not providing correct information as his vision made him an unreliable source of information on this task, but he offered social support so the participants felt able to act freely as someone was willing to realize the unanimity of the majority answer, known as invalid social support.
This is a strength as it serves as empirical evidence from a controlled setting that social support, more than the validity of the information provided, can increase resistance to conformity.
There is empirical support for locus of control as explanation.
Holland (1967) used a Milgram procedure and found 37% of internals disobeyed at some point while 23% of externals disobeyed.
As internals take greater responsibility for their actions, they are not willing to obey an order that causes harm to another as they would take responsibility.
However, there isn’t a significant difference in obedience levels. Furthermore, 23% obeyed when none of them should have.
This is a strength as it increases validity of the link between locus of control and resisting social influence.
There is some contradictory evidence against locus of control as an explanation for resisting social influence.
Twenge et al (2004) found through a meta-analysis that over a 40-year period, the US population is becoming more external yet obedience levels have decreased.
This suggests that the locus of control is not linked to resisting social influence.
However, large scale studies like this struggle to control variables wide scale society, such as poverty, political change or shifting values, so it is difficult to compare two variables in a controlled way.
However, it stands as an empirical challenge to the link between locus of control and resisting social influence.
What are three factors that affect minority influence?
Consistency is the idea that if the minority views remain the same over time that they will attract interest from others. There are two types of consistency, namely synchronicity (several people share at the same time) or diachronic (same view over a period of time), and a minority will either use one or both of them to attract the view of others. Consistency suggests that the minority feels that their view is correct. It will change the majority view and again make them think about the issue.
Commitment is the idea that minorities sometimes engage in extreme actions to draw people’s attention to their views, suggesting that it must be important and correct. It also requires people to think deeply about the view so they engage in it. This is known as the augmentation principle or systematic processing.
Finally, flexibility is particularly important. It is the idea that the minority is open to compromise and negotiation. Although it seems to oppose consistency, compromise is perceived as reasonable and people are more likely to engage with those they perceive as reasonable. However, consistency can potentially have a negative impact and dissuade the majority from engaging with minority views; this may be interpreted as extremism and may put people off. Nemeth investigated the effect of flexibility on minority influence. Using confederates as insurance company representatives, he found that when they were more flexible, participants were more likely to agree to his demands.
Explain the Snowball effect
If the three processes above are done, it is likely that the majority will mostly engage in systematic processing. Over time, increasing numbers of people switch from the majority side to the minority side because they have internalized this new view. This is called the Snowball effect as the minority view slowly becomes the majority view until change has occurred
Evaluate minority influence
There is empirical support from Moscovici.
Moscovivi (1969) aimed to investigate this by carrying out an unambiguous task where, in groups of six with two confederates each, he would ask participants to state whether a blue slide was either blue or green (on two-thirds of the trials, confederates stated that it was green). They were then compared to an inconsistent minority group who declared both green and blue and a control group with confederates. Moscovici found that when consistent, the conformity was 8.42% while when inconsistent, the conformity was 1.25%. Hence, he concluded that consistency is necessary for minority influence.
This is a strength as it empirically supports the positive effects of consistency.
There is research supporting consistency as a process of minority influence.
Martin investigated this by conducting a debate with a controversial issue. In the first stage, both conditions discussed the notion of non-voluntary euthanasia (controversial issue). Next, including the only difference in the study, one condition is exposed to a group presented as being a minority while another is presented as being a majority, both groups are in agreement and support is measured. In stage three, a counter argument was given. In stage four, views on the issue were re-measured. During this stage, Martin found that the condition with the majority group was more likely to change their mind because they did not think deeply about their argument. Thus, the minority creates deeper thinking because they are giving a new idea that others may be more interested in. This suggests that minorities create deep thinking.
This is a strength as it supports consistency as a positive factor of minority influence.
Studies supporting minority influence use artificial stimuli
An example of this would be Moscovici study where his participants are asked to identify the color of a slide.
Thus, research is far removed from how minorities attempt to change the behavior of the majority in real life. In jury decision making and political campaigning, the outcomes are vastly more important, sometimes even becoming a matter of life and death.
This is a weakness of research supporting minority influence as the studies lack ecological validity and while the theory as a whole lacks external validity.
Steps involved in social change
The minority begin by drawing attention to the issue, often by campaigning, which creates a conflict that people from the majority want to reduce. This will then lead to cognitive conflict where the members of the majority think more deeply about the issues as their views are being challenged. The minority then remains synchronically and diachronically consistent in their ideas which increases the chances of changing the majority views. The minority then appears to be willing to suffer for their cause so it is taken more seriously by the majority’s views, such as gluing hands to cement, referred to augmentation effect. The majority then feels pressure to change as a minority converts a small group of people to their views, who convert more and so on; this is referred to as the snowball effect.
Finally, minority ideas are assimilated into the majority viewpoint without those in the majority remembering where the ideas came from, referred to as social cryptoamnesia.
Lessons from conformity research influence on social change
Conformity research shows that environmental or health campaigns exploit conformity processing by appealing to Normative Social influence, sometimes known as social norms intervention, in health ads and pandemics and in advertising.
Lessons from obedience on social change
Obedience research shows that sometimes social changes are negative such as Naziism. However, obedience can also be used to create a gradual social change through the process of commitment which Zimbardo called nudges. Once small instructions are obeyed, it becomes difficult to resist bigger ones.
Evaluate social change
There is research supporting normative influences.
Nolan et al investigated whether social influence processes led to reduction of energy consumption in a community—hung up messages every week for a month. These messages highlighted that most residents were trying to reduce energy use in California, USA.
As a control, another area had signs up asking people to use less energy but did not refer to the actions of others. Nolan et al found significant decreases in energy usage in the first group.
This is a strength as empirical evidence supporting that social norms interventions can lead to social change in real-life situations.
There are contradictory ideas about the role of deeper processing in minority and majority influence.
Moscovici’s conversion explanation of minority influence involves different cognitive processes, specifically that minority influence causes individuals to think more deeply about an issue than majority influence.
However, Mackie disagrees and presents evidence that majority influence may create deeper processing if you do not share the same views. Naturally, people strive to understand how the majority can hold a different view to them (misperception) so they will think deeply (systematic processing) on the issue and may have their view changed.
This suggests that the role of deeper thinking may be more complex that proposed.
It could be argued that minority influence is indirectly ineffective.
Social changes happen slowly when they happen at all e.g the decades it took to change attitudes towards drink driving and smoking to shift.
This raised the question of whether minorities really have an influence. Nemeth argues that the effects of minority influence are likely to be indirect and delayed.
This is considered a limitation of using minority influence to explain social change because it shows that its effects are fragile and its role in social influence very limited.
