Social influence

Question 1

What is Kelman’s explanation for conformity?

Answer 1

• 3 levels: compliance, identification, internalisation
• Normative Social Influence, desire to be liked, wants to appear normal. Superficial and temporary change in behaviour
• Informational Social Influence, desire to be correct, we look to the majority to see what’s right. Permanent

Question 2

What does compliance mean?

Answer 2

• Individual agrees externally but keeps personal opinions. A temporary behaviour change to fit in with the group

Question 3

What does internalisation mean?

Answer 3

Personal opinions genuinely change to match the group. A permanent change due to ISI.

Question 4

What does identification mean?

Answer 4

Behaviour and private vales change only with the group, as membership is valued

Question 5

Ash’s theory of variables affecting conformity.

Answer 5

• Groups of 8 to 10 male college students were asked to complete a line judgement task. However, this was a deception. 1 was a participant and everyone else was a confederate. All the confederates purposefully said wrong answers

Question 6

What was the results of Ash’s theory of variables affecting conformity?

Answer 6

• Overall conformity rates was 32%
• 75% conformed at least once
• One confederate was instructed to give the correct answer, conformity dropped to 5.5%

Question 7

How does group size effect the levels of conformity?

Answer 7

• Group size less than 6 conformity was low
• 6 and above conformity was around 37%

Question 8

How does unanimity effect the levels of conformity?

Answer 8

When one confederate said the right answer conformity went from 37% to 5%

Question 9

How does task difficulty effect the levels of conformity?

Answer 9

When the lines are closer together so the answer is more ambiguous conformity increases

Question 10

Evaluation of Ash’s compliance research?

Answer 10

• Biased sample, all male, same age group. Beta bias
• Lacks temporal validity
• Ethical issues, not protected from psychological stress

Question 11

What did Mori and Arai demonstrate?

Answer 11

Ash’s compliance research did not reflect how conformity might occur in real life. They argued that conformity takes place among acquainted persons rather than strangers

Question 12

What was Sherif’s internalisation research?

Answer 12

Lab experiment with repeated measures. Auto-kinetic effect. Participants were asked to estimate how far the light moved and in what direction. First they were tested alone and asked for their estimate. They were put into a group of 3 people with very different answers.

Question 13

What were the findings of Sherif’s internalisation research?

Answer 13

When participants answered in a group, they moved their estimates go up or down to be closer to other people’s answers. When asked individually after the group participants still provided an answer similar to the group norm

Question 14

Evaluation of internalisation research?

Answer 14

• Ambiguous task, lacks internal validity
• Ethical issues, deception
• Temporal validity, can you generalise to modern day

Question 15

What was Zimbardo’s experiment?

Answer 15

• testing social roles
• 24 male students
• $15 a day
• randomly assigned guard and prisoner
• uniforms

Question 16

Findings of Zimbardo’s experiment?

Answer 16

• Adopted their roles very quickly
• Guards tormented the prisoners, dehumanised them
• Shut down on day 6

Question 17

Conclusion of Zimbardo’s experiment?

Answer 17

• They come to identify with the roles
• the riles that people play can shape their behaviour and attitudes, especially if they come to identify with the role

Question 18

Evaluation of Zimbardo

Answer 18

• Not all the guards behaved in the same way
• All the guards were male, beta bias
• Guards could have been following the instructions rather than adopting role
• Ethical issues

Question 19

What was Milgram’s experiment?

Answer 19

• 40 male aged between 20 and 50
• pp (teacher) asked cf a question
• if its wrong they get a shock
• Keeps increasing the voltage every time

Question 20

Findings of Milgram

Answer 20

• all 40 pp continued to 300v and 65% continued to 450v. The closer the pp was to the cf the more likely they were to refuse

Question 21

Conclusion of Milgram

Answer 21

• Obedience can be evoked in people by situation
• People lower on the social hierarchy are more likely to be obedient to those above

Question 22

Evaluation of Milgram

Answer 22

• Replicable design
• Control of variables
• Classic study
• Real world application
• Ethical issues, psychological stress
• Lacks external validity
• Lacks internal

Question 23

What was Hofling study on obediance?

Answer 23

• Fake doctor would ask the nurse to give patients a 20mg dosage when it says maximum 10mg on the bottle.
  Breaking multiple hospital rules while doing this

Question 24

Findings of the Hofling study?

Answer 24

21 out of 22 nurses obeyed

Question 25

What was Rank and Jacobsen?

Answer 25

Criticised the realism of Hofling study as there were a number of threats to the ecological validity - use of an unknown drug - The order coming from an unknown 'Dr Smith' - The nurses were alone which is unusual Replicated without these factors, this time only 2 out of 18 obeyed

Question 26

What is the legitimacy of authority?

Answer 26

We obey authority figures because we respect their position and power.

Question 27

What is the agentic state theory?

Answer 27

The theory is when you act for someone else as an agent and don't feel responsible for your actions

Question 28

What was Milgrams agency theory?

Answer 28

Stated that when we feel er're acting out the wishes of another person we feel less responsible for our actions

Question 29

Evaluation of the Agentic State Theory?

Answer 29

- Milgram's pp knew it was wrong but ut the blame on the experimenter - there is no evidence for it and it cannot be measured - They theory is vague and cannot explain how the shift takes place

Question 30

How does proximity effect the levels of obedience?

Answer 30

- proximity - when Milgram repeated it with the teacher and the learner in the same room obedience fell to 40%

Question 31

How does Uniform effect the levels of obedience?

Answer 31

Uniform - Bickman conducted a feild experiment three cf, guard, civilian and milkman and asked them to pick up a bag. Conformity was 89% guards and 33% milkmans

Question 32

How does location effect obedience?

Answer 32

When Milgram moved his experiment from Yale to a rundown office in Connecticut, obedience levels dropped to 48% of pp

Question 33

Evaluation of situational factors

Answer 33

- controlling variables like this makes it easily replicable - His study has been replicated in other cultures and has found similar results - However most replications have been carried out in Western societies

Question 34

What is dispositional factor?

Answer 34

If a certain personality type increases obedience

Question 36

What are some personality traits that indicate an authoritarian personality?

Answer 36

- preoccupied with power - submissive to authority figures - inflexible in beliefs

Question 37

Evaluation of authoritarian personality

Answer 37

- Political bias - f scale is very right wing ideology, however, in reality left wing also emphasises obedience - The interviews may have been biased as they knew the test results and what was needed to confirm it - All male, generalised

Question 38

What is locus of control?

Answer 38

a person's perception of the personal control they have over their behaviour

Question 39

What are internals?

Answer 39

great deal of control and are more likely to take responsibility of their actions

Question 40

What are externals?

Answer 40

Believe that events occur due to luck or fate, so usually blame external factors

Question 41

What is Oliner and Oliner study?

Answer 41

Study on people who had defied orders and rescued Jews from the Holocaust. They compared 406 people who had protected and rescued the Jews from the Nazis and 126 who had not. Found the rescuers had a higher internal locus of control scores

Question 42

Evaluation of resistance to social influence?

Answer 42

- Locus of control can explain only a limited range of situations in which people might resist social influence - this means it is not as major of a factor

Question 43

What was Moscovici aim of his research?

Answer 43

- to support the view that a minority are most likely to influence a majority if they are consistent in their views because consistency creates conflict in the majority

Question 44

What were the findings of Moscovici research?

Answer 44

- in the first condition the pp agreed with the minority 8.5% of trials and 32% conformed with the minority at least once - second condition, agreement with minority was reduced to 1.25% when the cf were inconsistent

Question 45

What was the conclusion of the Moscovici research?

Answer 45

- minority has the power to influence a majority and create social change. They are more influential when they are consistent

Question 46

What are the three factors affecting minority influence?

Answer 46

- consistency - flexibility - commitment

Question 47

What is the social impact theory?

Answer 47

three key factors of social change; - strength of message - status and knowledge - immediacy

Question 48

What is the snowball effect?

Answer 48

-As some individuals adopt a minority view they start to influence a greater number of people